Sybarite and «sissy» V.P. Botkin

The paper explores the intellectual heritage and biography of Vasiliy Botkin as a representative of early Russian liberalism. The author identifies the features of initial Russian liberal concept through studying how the liberals perceived the role of sociocultural views in social construction. The phenomenon of early Russian liberalism includes not only an apology of the classical liberal values, such as freedom, individualism, property, but also the elements of the conservative axiology - monarchism, elitism, etatism, which is connected with the process of adaptation of the well-known European ideas in adverse political conditions of autocratic Russia.