The truth is a living power: the Aksakov brothers and Kokhanovskaya (N. Sokhanskaya) in 1860

In this article, the author considers a forgoten episode in the last year of the life of Konstantin Aksakov: his epistolary dialog with N. Sokhanskaya (pen name Kokhanovskaya), which consists of eight leters (four writen by each party). The leters of Aksakav have not been published since 1897, and only one of the leters writen by Kokhanovskaya has been published. It is possible that the publisher (A. Aleksandrov) at the time decided that the tone of these leters was too flippant with respect to the memory of the “leaders of Slavophilism”. The dialog begins with the discussion of certain leters sent by Kokhanovskaya for publication in Russkaya Beseda (Aksakov doubted their authenticity and antiquity, though, later, Khomyakov would accept them as genuine). Then the corresponds move on to discussing the spiritual roots of Slavophilism. Kokhanovskaya reproaches Aksakov and the circle of Slavophiles for being too tightly knit a circle and for slavishly following the authorities established by this very circle. She disagrees with Aksakov's position of avoiding directly addressing contemporaries - wither through newspapers or journals - and calls on him to see the guarantee of truth not in protecting the “purity of the circle”, but in a common service to Him, who is “everywhere present and fills all things”.