Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008
The idea that Russia was the first underdeveloped country has begun to gain currency among political scientists. It implies that social processes in Russia may be profitably compared with more recent developments in the Third World. In this article I would like to test this hypothesis with respect to an important ideological controversy which took place in Russia during the nineteenth century by examining it alongside discussions among French-speaking West Africans in the period after World War II. More particularly, I would like to compare what might be called the neo-traditional themes and anti-western patriotism of the Slavophiles with the intellectual position taken by the early spokesmen of négritude.
Page 378 note 1 Peter Chaadaev cited by Koyré, Alexandre, La Philosophie et le problème nationale en Russie au début du XIXe siècle (Paris, 1929), pp. 20–1.Google Scholar All translations from French and Russian are by the author of this article.
Page 379 note 1 Iurii Samarin, cited and translated by Zernov, Nicolas, Three Russian Prophets (London, 1944), p. 53.Google Scholar
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Page 379 note 3 Khomiakov, Aleksei S., Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, edited by Khomiakov, Dimitri (Moscow, 1900), Vol. I, pp. 281–3.Google Scholar The best general account of intellectual currents in this period is by Malia, Martin, Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian Socialism (Cambridge, Mass. 1961), especially chs. 12–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page 380 note 1 Khomiakov, op. cit. Vol. I, pp. 264–5 and 303–5. The differences between Westerners and Slavophiles have been emphasised in this article. For internal disagreements among the Slavophiles, see Gleason, Abbot, European and Moscovite: Ivan Kireevsky and the Origins of Slavophilism (Cambridge, Mass., 1973).Google Scholar
Page 380 note 2 Khomiakov, op. cit. Vol. I, p. 283.
Page 381 note 1 Ibid. Vol. I, pp. 204–12, and Vol. III, pp. 466–7.
Page 381 note 2 Ibid. Vol. III, p. 70.
Page 381 note 3 Ibid. Vol. I, pp. 23 and 29.
Page 381 note 4 Ibid. Vol. III, pp. 105–16.
Page 382 note 1 Senghor, Léopold Sédar, ‘Ce que l'homme noir apporte’, in Liberté I: négritude et humanisme (Paris, 1964), p. 24.Google Scholar
Page 382 note 2 Ibid. p. 203.
Page 382 note 3 Ibid. p. 259.
Page 383 note 1 Senghor, Léopold Sédar, On African Socialism (New York, 1964), p. 93,Google Scholar and ‘Négritude and African Socialism’, in St Anthony's Papers. No. 15 (London, 1963), pp. 139–47.Google Scholar
Page 383 note 2 Senghor, Léopold Sédar, Poémes (Paris, 1964), p. 23.Google Scholar
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Page 384 note 1 For details, see Riasanovsky, Nicholas, Russia and the West in the Teaching of the Slavophiles (Cambridge, Mass., 1952).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page 384 note 2 Hymans, Jacques, Léopold Sédar Senghor: an intellectual biography (Edinburgh, 1971), chs. 6–14.Google Scholar
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Page 385 note 2 Mannheim, Karl, ‘Conservative Thought’, in Kecskemeti, Paul (ed.), Karl Mannheim: essays on sociology and social psychology (London, 1953), pp. 74–164.Google Scholar
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Page 389 note 2 Khomiakov, op. cit. Vol. I, pp. 204–5; and Senghor, , Liberté I, pp. 257 and 423.Google Scholar
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Page 393 note 1 Senghor, Lépold Sédar, ‘La Communauté économique comme cadre du développement’, in Béme Congrès de l'Union progressiste sénégalaise. Texte intégral de tous les rapports (Dakar, 1972), pp. 7–13.Google Scholar