ABSTRACT
The development of Russian national consciousness, in a full fledged way, dates back to the 18th century. In opposition to the European outer directed social and cultural reforms of Peter the Great, oriented 'westwards', Russian peculiarities were then defended by historians and writers. This inward spiritual freedom was extolled especially by the so called 'slavophils'. It is emergent culture and consciousness which then provides a cultural, spiritual or philosophical, local-global positive dynamic, set against the negative forces of warfare, despotism or totalitarianism, as we have seen in the Soviet case. The Slavophiles believed in a special type of eastern culture springing out of the spiritual soil of Orthodoxy. The character of the Russian people, so well known to its forebears, so abundantly depicted by its writers and observed by thoughtful foreigners – this character was continuously oppressed, darkened and mangled, he says, during the entire Soviet period.
