Russian society in the middle of the XIX century re-joined the dispute "Russia and the West." This problem, inherited by the culture of the 1840-1850s from the past, required each generation of the intelligentsia to comprehend the contradiction between European knowledge and Russian Orthodox culture, between organic love for the people and insufficient knowledge of their practical needs and concerns. The consciousness of the crack, the split that divided the Russians into ordinary people and educated classes, tormented the Slavophiles.