White émigré
Slonim, who was also an Italian-trained literary scholar, became "Volya Rossii"s literary theorist and columnist. From that vantage point, he gave encouraged the liberal-progressive and modernist side of the White émigré intellectuals. Slonim argued, against conservatives such as Zinaida Gippius, that the exiles needed to appreciate changes occurring in the Soviet Union and became one of the first popularizers of Soviet writers in the West. He was also one of the main backers (and an intimate friend) of poet Marina Tsvetaeva.