The Political Doctrine of Feodor Samarin

The article is devoted to the political views of F.D. Samarin, his conception of the political system in Russia before 1905, constitutional reforms of 1905–1906 and Stolypin’s reforms. The author demonstrates how Samarin tried to adopt the Slavophile doctrine to the situation of the beginning of the 20th century. At that he had to carry on polemics both with the opponents of the Slavophilism and its supporters. On the one hand, this fact stresses Slavophilism diversity and its inner heterogeneity. On the other hand, it shows the nature of the Slavophile doctrine itself that resembled more the historiographic approach to researching the past than a well-structured political conception. Giving meaningful political content to Slavophile ideas depended fully on every single representative of the Slavophile intellectual heritage.