Konstantin Sergeyevich Aksakov

Konstantin Sergeyevich Aksakov (born March 29 [April 10, New Style], 1817, Novo-Aksakovo, Russia—died Dec. 7 [Dec. 19], 1860, Zacynthus, Greece) was a Russian writer and one of the founders and principal theorists of the Slavophile movement.

The son of the novelist Sergey Timofeyevich Aksakov, he entered Moscow University, where he was influenced by the work of the German philosopher G.W. Hegel. From the mid-1830s Aksakov focused, along with Yury F. Samarin and Aleksey S. Khomyakov, on the development of early Slavophile ideas. Aksakov praised the traditional spirituality of Russia, believing that the conventional wisdom and Christian virtues of the peasants should serve as a guide to Russia’s privileged classes. He decried the European values that had been imposed by Peter the Great. Aksakov was a frequent contributor of essays and literary criticism to periodicals such as Molva.

His brother Ivan Sergeyevich Aksakov (1823–86), who also was an early Slavophile, became a controversial journalist, newspaper publisher, and proponent of Pan-Slavism in the later 19th century.