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On the basis of concepts defined by L. Dumont in his comparative anthropology, this work gives a general idea of the hierarchy of values peculiar to the social whole, with a special emphasis on its relation to the Universal. The Slavophile thought under Nicholas I (1825-1855) represents an essential heuristic key to the influence of modem ideology on a pre-eminently holistic culture. The quest for the "Russian identity" urges the Slavophiles, under the influence of the Romantics, to re-define (re-invent?) the outlines of the national tradition. The "Slavophile movement" establishes — rather than finds the answers — a field of idea-value problem, that will remain at the foundation of the Russian self-perception (conflict with Westernizers), whose continuation can be observed up to the 1917 Revolution. The definition of narodnosť (the spirit of the nation), justifying the historic mission of Russia, suggests a tension between the particular and the Universal, that is resolved by an appeal to a specific mode of community (sobornosť, the Church as the communion of the Saints, recognizing the mir as a social body) and of the individual (defined by celnosť, "integrity" restored by faith objecting rationalism), thus exemplifying the superiority of the Orthodoxy as the Christian Truth preserved in its original purity. But the claim on the power of sacred mediation (against the "Occidental" treason of the Petersburg Empire) establishes a mystic collective entity (the Russian people) at the foundation of a culture at once «Orthodox» and «universal», integrating the two senses of the word pravda: a given Truth imbodied in Justice that is actually realised at the social level.