Down the street from my house there’s a big sign in front of some woods that says “THE SLAVOPHILE SOCIETY” on the bottom of the sign there are a bunch of people holding hands and then it says “established 1972” Sounds like some scary cult to me. Is the ATF going to come and burn up my neighborhood?
A “slavophile” is an admirer or advocate of the Slavic peoples and their culture. Are you by any chance in Bangor, Maine? Because if so, here is an article on a Slavophile Society in Bangor (which apparently has fallen on hard times); they even have a sign with people holding hands.
“Slavophile” literally means someone who loves Slavs and/or Slavic culture.
A “Slavophile Society” is PROBABLY completely harmless. It COULD simply consist of intellectuals who love Russian literature (Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin) and music (Mussorgsky, Shostakovich, Prokofiev). Or it may be a social/cultural club consisting of Polish-Americans, Russian-Americans, Croatian-Americans, et al., who enjoy getting together to share old Slavic traditions.
Now, at various points in history, “Slavophile” has had sinister connotations, especially in Russia. In many cases, Slavophiles took on a mystical bent, and came to believe that God had chosen Russia to unite all Slavs as one nation, and that this new Slavic nation would dominate the world.