Abstract
The purpose of the article is to study the creative heritage of A. Pushkin and P. Chaadaev as catalysts of historiosophical reflections on the fate of Russia, which later took shape in the circles of Westernizers and Slavophiles. By comparing the positions of Pushkin and Chaadaev, the author finds out the reasons and consequences of the emergence and strengthening of the Uvarov ideological construction "Orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality", which is still the main identifying principle of Russian thought. Study of theses of Pushkin and Chaadaev in relation to Russia; its attitude to Europe; the opposition of Eastern Orthodoxy to Catholicism gives reason to consider the general goal of the Russian autocracy through the dialogue of Russian thinkers.