Russian political/philosophical movement of the 1840s and 1850s, which formulated a particularly Russian variant of European national-romanticism, Slavophilism.
According to this ideology, Russia constituted a more highly developed civilisation than the West, chiefly by virtue of the sobornost (Russian: "heartfelt solidarity, cohesiveness") provided by the Russian Orthodox Church and by the harmonious devotion of the individual to the community, which was made particularly evident in the communal village structure.
The reforms of Peter the Great had, in the opinion of the Slavophiles, inflicted upon Russia a foolish Western rationalism, from which the nation had to liberate itself, before it could regain a national identity. Thus purified, Russia would lead the West out of its Godless rationalism, need and oppression.