The research is devoted to a so-called epoch of the Slavic renaissance which covered first the Austrian empire’s Slavic areas in the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries. The Slavic studies scholar and diplomat Alexander Fyodorovich Gilferding (1831–1872) belonged to the younger generation of the Slavophiles showing in Russia the greatest interest to the national movements in Slavic lands. A number of articles in which the question on the Slavic people status in the Austrian empire was touched upon was written by him. The views on the Slavic question of the well-known historian and ethnographer A. F. Gilferding are reconstructed on the basis of his essays. The historical context of formation of these views is revealed and their interrelation with a religious and philosophical component of the Slavophile doctrine is analyzed. It is proved that Gilferding relied, on the one hand, on ideas of the Slavophile, and on the other hand on ideas of the Pan-Slavism. In the articles he emphasized that the Pan-Slavism consists not only in rapprochement of the Slavic peoples, but also in development of the national Slavic principles in each Slavic land, which are best of all remained in Russia. Gilferding’s views were well accepted by Russian Slavic studies scholars, however they did not find support among the Austrian Slavs.