Humanities & Social Sciences 1 (2015 8) 64-76 ~ ~ ~ УДК 316.7 Philosophizing in Russia: Dynamics in the Socio-Cultural Context Vladimir I. Krasikov* Russian Legal Academy Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation build. 1, 2 Azovskaya Str., Moscow, 117638, Russia Received 16.10.2014, received in revised form 22.11.2014, accepted 24.12.2014 This paper analyzes the main stages and vicissitudes of the evolution of different forms of Russian philosophizing throughout last two centuries in the changing socio-cultural context. <...> The author enlists characteristics of the environment and factors forming community of intellectuals, the fi rst philosophical “crystallized” circles in the early 19th century. <...> Specifi city of philosophizing is considered in terms of three different intellectual niches in Russian society of that time, namely university, spiritual and academic and so-called free (journalistic-publishing community). <...> The main attention is devoted to the analysis of the dynamics of the latter: formation of major dispositions in the fi eld of intellectual focus – Slavophiles and Westernizers, radicalism of 1850-60s; the years of Foundation – writings by Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Solovyov; clashes of the early 20th century; origin Soviet philosophy and its emasculation and the revival of philosophical tradition in 1950-70s; the collapse of ideology and reception in the end of the 20th century. <...> Introduction Philosophy in Russia is a belated guest which only two centuries ago began to feel like the mistress in the Russian house. <...> Russia had already numbered nearly a thousand years of statehood, when philosophers appeared there, philosophers due to their professional activities and ways of presenting their results to the public. <...> Indeed, the case with the philosophy in the Russian situation was not the best: it would appear as a sustainable academic education very late and would be subjected to systematic prohibition, direct repression to its representatives both in the 19th and 20th centuries; it would be cultivated by not professional philosophers and writers, critics and public fi gures; and would experience the strong * Corresponding author E-mail address: KrasVladIv@gmail.com # 64 # Vladimir I. Krasikov. <...> Philosophizing in Russia: Dynamics in the Socio-Cultural Context pressure of non-philosophical forms of religion and politics. <...> Environment and factors forming intellectual communities and the fi rst philosophical “crystallized” circles (“period of circles”): 1810-30s. <...> The the spiritual context these changes is <...>