Slavophile

[ slah-vuh-fahyl, -fil, slav-uh- ]

noun

1. a person who greatly admires the Slavs and Slavic ways.
2. one of a group of mid-19th century Russian intellectuals who favored traditional cultural practices over Western innovations, especially in political and religious life.

adjective

1. admiring or favoring the Slavs and Slavic interests, aims, customs, etc.

Slavophile

/ ˈslɑːvəʊfɪˌlɪzəm; ˈslɑːvəʊfɪl; -ˌfaɪl; sləˈvɒfɪˌlɪzəm /

noun

1. a person who admires the Slavs or their cultures
2. sometimes not capital (in 19th-century Russia) a person who believed in the superiority and advocated the supremacy of the Slavs

adjective

1. admiring the Slavs and Slavonic culture, etc
2. sometimes not capital (in 19th-century Russia) of, characteristic of, or relating to the Slavophiles

Derived Forms

• Slavophilism, noun

Other Words From

• Sla·voph·i·lism [sl, uh, -, vof, -, uh, -liz-, uh, m, slah, -v, uh, -fil-iz-, uh, m, slav, -, uh, -], noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of Slavophile¹

1875–80; Slavo- + -phile; compare Russian slavyanofíl

Example Sentences

Later intellectuals “twisted earlier Slavophile ideas about Russia’s role as the protector of Christian principles against the materialism of the West to argue that the latter was an existential threat to it,” Figes writes.

From New York Times

Yet later in the book, Turgenev informs the Slavophile Dostoyevsky: “You should know that I … consider myself a German, not a Russian, and I’m proud of it!”

From New York Times

The term was coined in 1876 by a Slavophile Russian diplomat to describe what he viewed as the overly critical views of Russia by his fellow Russians.

From New York Times

Turgenev’s distaste for drunken disarray and slovenliness so exasperated some of his compatriots, particularly those prone to the habits he deplored, that Fyodor Dostoyevsky, a contemporary and dedicated Slavophile, urged him to get a telescope so that he could see Russia more clearly and more sympathetically.

From New York Times

That’s when a Slavophile poet and diplomat, Fyodor Tyutchev, coined the term Russophobia — which he said had infected some prominent Russians and acquired a “pathological character” — in an 1867 letter, written in French, which he knew better than Russian, to his daughter.

From New York Times