Abstract
The paper deals with perspectives on Russia by Yuriy Krizhanich (1617/1618 - 1683), which stem from two crucial principles - slavism (the awareness of national-cultural unity of the Slavic nations) and unionism (the effort to overcome the Great Schism and to restore the lost union of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches). The emphasis is placed on Krizhanich's reaction to the spiritual world of the Muscovite Russia and particularly on the basic principles of his proposal of reforms of the Muscovite tzardom.
The Croatian Catholic priest formulates an original model of its modernization, which is grounded in the distinctive Russian ethnic and political traditions, and conceptualizes Russia as an open country with its own mission with regards to the other Slavs.