Westerners (Russia)

The term Westerner ( Russian Западник , zapadnik ) is a paraphrase for a political and journalistic direction in Russia in the 19th century, which arose in the 1840s as a result of the conflict with the Slavophiles . Comparable to the urban population in Hungary, the representatives of Westerners advocated a close connection between Russia and Western European culture. These included the adoption of Western European philosophy (e.g. Hegel ), technology (e.g. industrialization ) and forms of government ( liberalism and the renunciation of serfdom and autocracy ). Some of them appeared as literary critics in the magazines Otetschestwennyie sapiski and Sovremennik .

Some representatives of the Westerners were Nikolai Ogaryov , Timofei Granovsky , Vasily Botkin , Pavel Annenkov , Ivan Turgenev , Ivan Panayev , Pyotr Tchaadayev , Vissarion Belinsky and Alexander Herzen .

source

• Karl-Heinz Kasper: Westerners . In: Herbert Greiner-Mai (ed.): Small dictionary of world literature . VEB Bibliographisches Institut Leipzig 1983. p. 301.