Abstract

Russian Populism is a polymorphous political-ideological stream, which cannot be ascribed entirely to the univocal dimension of late 19th century revolutionary 'narodnicestvo'. As a matter of fact, Populism is a landmark of 'the Russian idea', and has played a crucial philosophical-religious role in the formulation of the Slavophil 'retrospective utopia'. Considered form a trans-historical and metapolitical perspective, the legacy of 'traditional' Populism, is one of the 'sources' of both Soviet ideocracy and post-Soviet metamorphoses and pseudomorphoses of 'populizm' (among which also 'Putinism' can be listed).