Reconciling the element of freedom with the element of power and law: “protective liberalism” of K. Kavelin - B. Chicherin

The article is devoted to the genesis of the Russian “liberalism”. It is shown that Russian liberalism of the 19th century, represented in its classical form by the works of Kavelin and Chicherin, whose essence consists “in reconciling the element of freedom with the element of power and law”. Is difficult to compare it with the classical bourgeois liberalism of the West. Kavelin-Chicherin liberalism is better defined as “nationally oriented”, “conservative”, “protective”. This means that Kavelin, Chicherin and their supporters were opponents not only of feudal vestiges, but also of capitalist “ulcers”. They advocated political reforms without “shaking the whole society” and carried out in the existing legal area. This is their fundamental difference from the liberal ideologists of modern “color revolutions”.