A view from Slovakia on the study of Russian philosophical narodism (P. L. Lavrov: the discourse of a study and the discourse of a street)

Abstract

The paper analyzes Slovakian and Czech studies of the sociological a philosophical views of such Russian narodniks as P.L. Lavrov from a historic point of view and in their rela\xadtion to some contemporary interpretations. The first part of the paper provides an over\xadview of Czech and Slovakian works on narodism in Russia. In the second part of the pa\xadper, the author discusses P.L. Lavrov as an outstanding representative of narodism, whose ideas have not received sufficient attention in the Czech and Slovakian scholarship. The author shows that the study and the street as two places in which Lavrov’s thought devel\xadoped were two points in the social space within which the former represented theory and the latter represented practice. Lavrov’s discourse of the study is built on objectivity and scientific values, whereas his discourse of the street is characterized by radicalism and in\xadtolerance to different opinions. This duality in Lavrov’s perspective reflects the duality of his character: on the one hand, he was a scientist and a researcher and, on the other, he was a radical revolutionary.