This chapter focuses on the complex historical relationship between the Westernizer-Slavophile dispute and the genesis of Russian philosophy. Aleksandr Herzen depicted the two camps of Westernizers and Slavophiles as grown inseparably together, but two-headed like the Roman God Janus. Although their debates eventually touched all the principal domains of their respective worldviews, a few key subjects were always at the center of their polemics: the theme of Russia, of its history and nationality; and the theme of personhood, especially personhood in relation to society. The approach taken in this chapter is to treat Slavophilism less in relation to modern western philosophy and more in relation to Eastern Orthodox religious thinking about the nature of human community and about the relationship between God and human nature. Slavophile tendencies predominated in the philosophical process, in the sphere of creative thought, whereas Westernizers’ ideas were influential in social processes and shaping popular consciousness.