Active journalistic discussions that unfolded in the post-reform Russian Empire touched on a wide range of issues of state building. Among the latter were the problems of reviving the navy, which at that time was not only a state and social institution, but also an important ideological symbol of Peter the Great’s reforms. Modern researchers usually consider the military-technical aspects of discussions related to the fleet, which were reflected mainly on the pages of special naval journals. If the ideological aspects of these disputes are touched upon, it is only in a simplified form, as a confrontation between progressives and reactionaries, without taking into account the heterogeneity of the ideological camps of that time. Formed during the social upsurge of the 1860s, the “Russian direction” as a whole was a form of national-bourgeois reformism, which sought to transform the Russian Empire from an estate state to a national one. It included both patriotic liberals, Slavophiles, and those conservatives who advocated the priority of national interests over class ones. Representatives of military circles also played a significant role in it. It was in this environment that the idea of creating a Voluntary Fleet was voiced, whose actions during the Russian-Turkish War of 1877–1878 and served as the basis for discussions about the cruising war, in which almost all major publications of that period took part. By the end of the 1880s, due to the development of naval affairs and the success of domestic industry, the discussion about auxiliary cruisers faded into the background.