The article is concerned with the literary history behind the anonymous brochure entitled La Russie Envahie par les Allemands, which appeared at the Leipzig Book Fair in 1844 and quickly became a sensation in Russia and Europe alike. Its author, a former member of the Arzamas Society Filipp Vigel (Weigel), had fallen under the spell of the Slavophiles. The brochure served as the first manifesto and the first attempt at a historical-philosophical justification of the anti-German sentiment espoused by the majority of the Russian elite during the reign of Nicholas I. The book’s publication is examined in the context of the rivalry between the Ministry of the Interior (where Vigel held an office from 1829 to 1840) and the Third Department, believed to be a stronghold of the German party, and the rising Pan-Slavism in Europe, whose principal champions were in correspondence with Vigel. In addition, the article considers the connection between the brochure’s fragment describing Pushkin’s death and the anonymous anti-German letters received by V. Zhukovsky and Count A. Orlov upon the poet’s tragic demise.