Two centuries of the Russian classics Two centuries of the Russian classics 2686-7494 IWL RAS https://doi.org/10.22455/2686-7494-2025-7-4-90-135 Research Article Articles The Controversy Between the Slavophiles and Westernizers About Personality and the Choice of Direction for Russian Literature Viktor  M.  Guminsky red@rusklassika.ru 25 12 2025 7 4 90 135 personality Westerners Slavophiles peasant community A. S. Pushkin N. V. Gogol K. S. Aksakov drama art Copyright © 2026, IWL RAS 2026 For the first time in literary studies, this article raises the question of the influence of Professor S. P. Shevyrev’s lectures on Old Russian literature on the development of literary and social processes in Russia in the mid-19th century. The concept of the author’s personality in the early stages of Old Russian chronicling proved relevant to contemporaries. Shevyrev’s observation prompted Gogol to rethink “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends,” where he attempted to use his own example to call readers to spiritual renewal. Shevyrev’s thought largely became defining for the Slavophile movement. This article explores the opposing approaches to the question of personality through a problematic and analytical review of the journal debate between Westernizers and Slavophiles. For Westerners, the formation of a self-valuable individual determined the socio-cultural progress of Western European countries, unlike Russia, where the “principles of personality” were absent, at least until Peter the Great. Slavophiles believed that the central principle in the development of the Russian concept of personality was the Christian principle of conciliarity, realized in the life of the peasant community and the Orthodox Church: each individual voluntarily sacrifices their own interests for the sake of a common goal. Averintsev, S. 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