Abstract: The study is dedicated to analysis of activity of the Russian diplomats in the Balkans in the beginning of the 19th century with regard to the so-called ‘Phanariote’s plot’. The Russian diplomatic correspondence and position of the Russian representatives C.C. Rodofinikin and F.I. Nedoba with respect to this issue is characterized. The researchers place special emphasis on the issues of ethnic antagonisms that were one of the prerequisites of origination of the legend about the ‘Phanariote’s plot’. The study reasonably proves that the Latent opposition between the Slavic and Greek identities was represented in the diplomatic practices of the beginning of the 19th century and was expressed in establishment of complicated relations between the Russian diplomatic agents that were Greeks by origin and the leaders of the Slavic nations of the Balkan Peninsula during the first decades of the 19th century. The investigation of the task set required the use of the general scientific research methods: analysis, synthesis, logical method, descriptive method and the use of the specific historical methods among which the comparative historical method that allowed analyzing the diplomatic correspondence within the context of the history of development of the Russian epistolary heritage and depending on the common historical processes. The materials of the study may be used by the study of the Balkan region history, the history of the Foreign policy of the Russian State as well as in the contemporary public dispute concerning the ethnic antagonisms in the international relations.