What concepts characterize the plight of the Russian people. national character

Recent events such as the overthrow of the government in Ukraine, the secession of Crimea and its decision to join the Russian Federation, the ensuing military campaign against civilians in eastern Ukraine, Western sanctions against Russia, and in Lately and the attack on the ruble - that's all this caused a certain phase shift in Russian society, which is misunderstood in the West, if at all. This misunderstanding puts Europe at a huge disadvantage in terms of being able to negotiate an end to the crisis.

And if before these events they were inclined to perceive Russia as “another European country”, now they remembered that Russia is a different civilization with other civilizational roots (rather Byzantine than Roman), which once or twice a century became the object of an organized Western attempt to destroy it, because it was attacked by Sweden, Poland, France, Germany, or alliances of these countries. This in a special way influenced the Russian character, which, if misunderstood, can lead the whole of Europe and even the whole world to disaster.

If you think that Byzantium had little effect on Russia cultural influence, then you are mistaken: her influence was actually decisive. It began with the advent of Christianity - first through the Crimea (the birthplace of Christianity in Russia), and then through the Russian capital Kiev (the same Kiev that is today the capital of Ukraine) - and allowed Russia to “leapfrog” a whole millennium of cultural development. This influence has also defined the opaque and clumsy bureaucracy of the Russian state apparatus, which unnerves - along with many other things - the West, which loves transparency so much, especially in others. Russians often like to call Moscow the Third Rome, after the real Rome and Constantinople, and this is not so unreasonable. But this does not mean that Russian civilization is something derivative. Yes, she managed to absorb all the classical heritage, which was viewed primarily through the "eastern prism", but the vast northern expanses turned this heritage into something radically different.

This topic is generally very complex, so I will focus on four factors that I consider fundamental to understanding the transformations that we are witnessing today.

1. Reaction to attack

Western states were born under conditions of limited resources and relentless popular pressure, which largely determines how these states react when they become the target of attack. For quite a long time, when the central government was weak, conflicts were resolved in a bloody way, and even the most insignificant injection from a former friend immediately turned him into a rival who was fought with swords. The reason was that under these conditions, the protection of the territory was the key to survival.

On the contrary, Russia extends over an almost boundless territory in which resources are dispersed. In addition, Russia skillfully used the generosity of the trade route that led from the Varangians to the Greeks, and was so active that Arab geographers were confident in the existence of a strait that connects the Black and Baltic Seas. Under these conditions, it was important to avoid conflicts, and people who grabbed weapons at every side glance would have a hard time living in such an environment.

Therefore, a very different strategy for resolving conflicts was formed, which has survived to this day. If a Russian is offended or harmed in any way, a fight is unlikely to break out (although this is exactly what happens during demonstrative skirmishes in public or in the expected settling of scores through violence). More often than not, the Russian will just send you to hell and want nothing to do with you. If the situation is complicated by physical proximity, then the Russian will think about moving - in any direction, but the main thing is to stay away from you. In ordinary conversation, all this is formulated by the one-syllable statement "Pshel", a form of the verb "send". With an almost infinite amount of free land to settle in, this strategy works remarkably well. Russians live settled lives, but when they need to move, they behave like nomads, among whom the main way to resolve conflicts is voluntary movement.

This reaction to offense is a kind of constant aspect of Russian culture, in connection with which the West, which does not understand this, can hardly achieve the results it desires. For people from the West, an insult can be redeemed with an apology, something like “I am sorry!”. But for a Russian, to a certain extent, this is nothing, especially in the case when the one who was sent to hell brought an apology. A verbal apology that is not accompanied by anything tangible is one of the rules good manners, which for Russians is a kind of luxury. A few decades ago, the usual apology sounded like "I'm sorry." Today Russia is much more polite, but basic cultural patterns saved.

And while a purely verbal apology is priceless, a tangible redress is not. "Fix things up" could mean parting with rare possessions, proposing a new and serious commitment, or announcing a major change in direction. The main thing is to do everything, and not only in words, because at a certain stage words can only aggravate the situation, and the call to “go to hell” can be supplemented by the less pleasant phrase “let me show you the way.”

2. Tactics against invaders

Russia has a long history of invasions from all sides, but above all from the West, thanks to which Russian culture came to a certain type of thinking, which is difficult to understand from the outside. First of all, you need to realize that when the Russians repel invasions (and the fact that the CIA, along with the US State Department, run Ukraine through Ukrainian Nazis, is also considered an invasion), they are not fighting for territory, at least not directly. They are rather fighting for Russia as a concept. And the concept is that Russia has been attacked many times, but no one has ever conquered it. In the Russian mind, conquering Russia means killing almost all Russians, and as they like to say, "You won't kill us all." The population can be restored over time (at the end of World War II, 22 million were killed), but once the concept is lost, Russia will be lost forever. It may seem nonsense to people in the West when Russians talk about Russia as a “land of princes, poets and saints,” but that is precisely the way of thinking. Russia has no history, it is history itself.

And since the Russians are fighting more for a concept than for a specific piece of Russian territory, they are always ready to retreat first. When Napoleon invaded Russia, he saw the land being burned by the retreating Russians. Finally, he reached Moscow, but she, too, died in the flames. He stopped there for a while, but in the end he realized that he could not do more (did he really have to go to Siberia?), So at last he left his retreating, starving and frozen army, leaving it to the mercy of fate. As he retreated, another aspect of the Russian cultural heritage: every peasant in every village burned during the Russian retreat participated in the Russian resistance, which created many problems for the French army.

The German invasion during World War II also moved very quickly at first: a large territory was occupied, and the Russians continued to retreat, the population, entire factories and other institutions were evacuated to Siberia, families moved inland. But then the German procession stopped, turned around and eventually turned into a complete rout. The standard model was repeated when the Russian army broke the will of the invaders, and most of the local residents who were in the occupation refused to cooperate, organized themselves into partisan detachments and inflicted the maximum possible damage on the retreating aggressors.

Another Russian method in the fight against the invader is the hope for the Russian climate, which will do its job. In the village, people usually get rid of all unnecessary living creatures in the house, simply stopping heating: in a few days at minus 40, all cockroaches, fleas, lice, nits, as well as mice and rats, will rest. This also works with occupiers. Russia is the northernmost country in the world. And although Canada is further north, most of its population lives along the southern border, and not one Big City not located beyond the Arctic Circle. And in Russia there are two such cities at once. Life in Russia in some respects resembles life in space or on the high seas: you cannot live without mutual assistance. The Russian winter simply will not let you survive without cooperation with local residents, so that in order to destroy the aggressor, it is enough to simply refuse to cooperate. And if you are sure that the occupier can force cooperation by shooting a few locals to scare the rest, see point 1.

3. Tactics in relations with foreign powers

Russia owns almost the entire northern part of the Eurasian continent, and this is almost a sixth of the land. On the scale of the planet Earth, this is enough. This is not an exception or a historical accident: throughout their history, the Russians have sought to ensure their collective security by developing as much territory as possible. If you're wondering what made them do it, go back to Tactics Against Invaders.

And if you think that foreign powers have repeatedly tried to attack and conquer Russia in order to gain access to huge natural resources, then you are mistaken: access was always there - it was enough to ask. Usually Russians do not refuse to sell their natural wealth - even to potential enemies. That's just the enemies, as a rule, wanted to "stick" to Russian sources for free. For them, the existence of Russia is a nuisance that they tried to get rid of with the help of violence.

But they only achieved that after their failure, the price for themselves increased. It's a simple principle: foreigners want Russian resources, and to protect them, Russia needs a strong, centralized state with a large and strong army, so foreigners must pay and support thereby Russian state and the army. As a result, most of the finances of the Russian state are taken from export tariffs, primarily oil and gas exports, and not from taxation of the Russian population. After all, the Russian populace paid dearly by fighting the constant invaders, so why tax it even more? This means that the Russian state is a customs state that uses duties and tariffs to obtain funds from enemies that could destroy it, and also uses these funds for its own defense. In view of the fact that there is no replacement for Russian resources, the principle works: the more hostile the world behaves towards Russia, the more money he will pay for Russia's national defense.

But this policy is used in relations with foreign powers, not foreign peoples. For centuries, Russia "absorbed" a lot of immigrants, say from Germany, during the Thirty Years' War, and France, after the revolution there. Later people moved from Vietnam, Korea, China and Central Asia. Last year, Russia took in more migrants than any other country except the United States. In addition, Russia has received almost a million people from war-torn Ukraine without too much difficulty. Russians are more of an migrant population than many others, and Russia is a bigger melting pot than the US.
4. Thank you, but we have our own

Another interesting cultural trait is that Russians always see the need to be the best in everything - from ballet and figure skating, hockey and football to space travel and microchip manufacturing. You may think that Champagne is a protected French brand, but recently on New Year's Eve I became convinced that Soviet Champagne is still selling out at the speed of light, and not only in Russia, but also in Russian stores in the US, because, you know, French things can be good, but they don't taste Russian enough. For almost everything you can think of, there is a Russian version, which Russians consider the best, and sometimes say outright that it is their invention (for example, Popov invented the radio, not Marconi). Of course, there are exceptions (say, tropical fruits) that are acceptable provided they come from a "brotherly people" such as Cuba. This model worked already in Soviet times, and it seems that to a certain extent it has survived to the present day.
During the ensuing "stagnation" of the era of Brezhnev, Andropov and Gorbachev, when Russian ingenuity was indeed on the wane along with everything else, technologically (but not culturally) Russia lost ground in relation to the West. After the collapse Soviet Union Russians wanted Western imports, which was completely understandable, since Russia itself at that time produced practically nothing. In the 90s, the time came for Western managers who flooded Russia with cheap imports, setting themselves long term goal- destroy local industry and Russian production, turn Russia into a simple exporter of raw materials, which will be defenseless against the embargo, and which can be easily forced to lose sovereignty. Everything would have ended in a military invasion, against which Russia would have been defenseless.

This process went pretty far before it got a few snags. First, Russian production and non-hydrocarbon exports recovered and increased several times in one decade. The growth also affected the export of grain, weapons and high-tech products. Secondly, Russia has found quite a few friendlier and more profitable trade partners in the world, however, this in no way detracts from the importance of its trade with the West, more precisely with the EU. Thirdly, the Russian defense industry was able to maintain its standards and independence from imports. (The same can hardly be said about defense companies in the West that depend on Russian titanium exports).

And today, a “perfect storm” has broken out for Western managers: the ruble has partially depreciated due to low oil prices, which is crowding out imports and helping local producers. Sanctions have undermined Russia's confidence in the West's credibility as a supplier, and the conflict in Crimea is bolstering Russians' confidence in their own abilities. Russian government seized the opportunity to support companies that can immediately replace imports from the West with other products. The Russian Central Bank was instructed to finance them under credit rate, which makes import substitution even more attractive.

Some compare the current period with the last time the price of oil fell to $10 per barrel, which to some extent hastened the collapse of the USSR. But this analogy is wrong. Then the USSR economically stagnated and depended on Western grain supplies, without which it could not feed the people. The disintegration was led by the helpless and controlled Gorbachev - a peacemaker, a capitulator and a world-class phrase-monger, whose wife loved to go shopping in London. Russian people despised him. Today, Russia is once again becoming one of the world's largest grain exporters, led by an exemplary President Putin, who enjoys the support of more than 80% of the population. Comparing the USSR before the collapse with today's Russia, commentators and analysts only demonstrate their ignorance.

This passage is written literally by itself. This is a recipe for disaster, so I will write everything down, as in the recipe, point by point.

1. Take the people who respond to attacks by sending you to hell, turning away from you and wanting nothing to do with you - instead of fighting with you. Realize that this is a people whose natural resources are necessary for you to have light and heat in your homes so that you can produce transport aircraft, military fighters and much more. Remember that a quarter of the light bulbs in the US are powered by Russian nuclear fuel, and shutting off Europe from Russian gas would be a disaster.

2. Enter economic and financial sanctions against Russia. Watch with horror as your exporters lose profits and the Russian backlash blocks agricultural exports. Remember that this is a country that has survived a long chain of attacks and traditionally relies on unfriendly countries to finance Russian defense directed just against these enemies. Or Russia turns to such methods as the already mentioned winter. “No gas for NATO countries” sounds like a great slogan. Hope and pray that Moscow doesn't like it.

3. Organize an attack on their national currency, which will lose some of its value, and do the same with oil prices. Imagine how Russian officials chuckle when they go to the Central Bank when the low ruble rate means filling the state budget despite the low price of oil. Watch with horror as your exporters go bankrupt because they can no longer take a place in the Russian market. Remember that Russia does not have a public debt worth discussing, that it is being run with an insignificant budget deficit, that it has large gold and foreign exchange reserves. Think about your banks, which "lent" hundreds of billions of dollars to Russian companies - to those companies that, by imposing sanctions, you cut off access to your banking system. Hope and pray that Russia does not freeze the payment of debts for west bank when new sanctions are introduced, because your banks will be blown up.

4. Watch with horror as Russia rewrites gas export agreements that now involve everyone but you. And when they start working, will there be enough gas left for you? But it seems that this is no longer Russia's concern, because you offended her, because the Russians, such and such, sent you to hell (and do not forget to take Galich there). Now they will trade with countries that are more friendly to them.

5. Watch with horror as Russia actively looks for ways to exit trade relations with you, looks for suppliers in other parts of the world, and organizes production to replace imports.

And then a surprise appears, by the way, underestimated by everyone, euphemistically speaking. Russia recently proposed a deal to the EU. If the European Union refuses to sign the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the US, it may join the Customs Union with Russia. Why freeze yourself when Washington can freeze? This would be redress for the EU's past aggressive behavior, which Russia would have accepted. And this is a very generous offer. And if the EU accepts it, it will prove a lot: that the EU poses no military and economic threat to Russia, that European countries are very nice and small, produce delicious cheeses and sausages, that the current crop of politicians is worthless, dependent on Washington, and that a large pressure to find out where the interests of their peoples really lie... So will the EU accept such an offer, or will it accept Galich as a new member and "freeze"?

Scientists have been arguing for decades about what a Russian person looks like. They study genetic types, external features, papillary patterns, and even hematological features of blood groups. Some conclude that the ancestors of the Russians are Slavs, others argue that the Finns are closest to the Russians in terms of genotype and phenotype. So where is the truth and what anthropological portrait does a Russian person have?

The first descriptions of the appearance of Russian people

Since ancient times, people have been interested in the origin human race, attempts to explore this area have been made repeatedly. Ancient records of travelers and scientists have been preserved, who outlined their observations in detail. There are records in the archives about Russian people, their external and behavioral features. The statements of foreigners are especially interesting. In 992, Ibn Fadlan, a traveler from Arab countries, described the perfect body and attractive appearance of the Russians. In his opinion, Russians are "... fair-haired, red-faced and white-bodied."

Characteristic features of Russians

In the 19th century, the famous scientist Anatoly Bogdanov created a theory about characteristic features ah Russian man. He said that everyone quite clearly imagines the appearance of a Russian. In support of his words, the scientist cited stable verbal expressions from the everyday life of people - “pure Russian beauty”, “spitting image of a hare”, “typical Russian face”.
The master of Russian anthropology, Vasily Deryabin, proved that Russians are typical Europeans in their characteristics. By pigmentation, they are average Europeans - Russians often have light eyes and hair.

Generalized anthropological portrait of a Russian person

Characteristic types of appearance of Russian people

Despite a number of morphological features characteristic of a Russian person, scientists proposed a narrower classification and identified several groups among Russians, each of which has distinctive external features.
The first one is the Nords. This type belongs to the Caucasoid type, common in Northern Europe, in northwestern Russia, it includes part of the Estonians and Latvians. The appearance of the Nordids is characterized by blue or green eyes, an oblong skull, and pink skin.

N. A. Berdyaev and N. O. Lossky.
Both thinkers, being religiously oriented, in the first place put the religiosity of the Russian person, which they considered to be inherent in him and from which all the private moral properties of the Russian soul naturally followed, primarily the permanent - constant and uninterrupted - search for absolute good.

The outstanding Russian philosopher Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdyaev (1874–1948) noted its inconsistency (duality, antinomy) and pronounced apoliticality, non-statehood of the Russian people. It is the first of these signs that makes it difficult to understand the peculiarities of the Russian soul, and precisely in understanding this inconsistency lies the solution to the riddle of the Russian soul.
Berdyaev unequivocally says: “To approach the solution of the mystery hidden in the soul of Russia, one can immediately recognize the antinomy of Russia, its terrible inconsistency.” Controversy - and this is the main thing - leads to the fact that Russia lives "inorganic life", it lacks integrity and unity.
In the same connection, Berdyaev notes: “Imperialism in the Western and bourgeois sense of the word is alien to the Russian people, but he meekly gave his strength to the creation of imperialism, in which his heart was not interested. The secret of Russian history and the Russian soul is hidden here. No philosophy of history, Slavophile or Western, has yet figured out why the most stateless people created such a vast and powerful statehood, why the most anarchist people are so submissive to the bureaucracy, why the free-spirited people seem to not want to free life? This secret is associated with a special ratio of the feminine and masculine principles in the Russian folk character. The same antinomy runs through all of Russian existence.

About the second main feature of the Russian character Berdyaev says: “Russia is the most stateless, the most anarchic country in the world. And the Russian people are the most apolitical people, who have never been able to organize their land ... "
. And at the same time, according to Berdyaev: “Russia is the most state-owned and most bureaucratic country in the world; everything in Russia becomes a tool of politics. The Russian people created the most powerful state in the world, greatest empire. From Ivan Kalita, Russia consistently and stubbornly gathered and reached proportions that stagger the imagination of all the peoples of the world. there is no contradiction in essence, because in the first case, we mean the mechanics of governance (and in this respect, everything is correct: we never aspired to qualitative government of the country, calling for this business of various kinds of foreigners, in the initial period of the formation of the Russian state - the Varangians, in Petrine and post-Petrine era - all sorts of "Germans"), and in the second - the real practice of creating a state, which was characterized by successful expansion in different directions of the world, primarily to the east.

The most important property of the character of the Russian people is tolerance for foreigners., which Berdyaev notes with the following words: “Russia is the most non-chauvinistic country in the world. Nationalism in our country always gives the impression of something non-Russian, superficial, some kind of non-Russian. The Germans, the British, the French are chauvinists and nationalists in the mass, they full of national self-confidence and complacency.
Russians are almost ashamed of being Russians; alien to them national pride and often even - alas! - alien national dignity.
The Russian people are not at all characterized by aggressive nationalism, inclinations of forcible Russification.
The Russian does not advance, does not exhibit, does not despise others.
In the Russian element there truly is some kind of national disinterestedness, self-sacrifice, unknown to Western peoples.
The Russian intelligentsia has always treated nationalism with disgust and abhorred it as evil spirits... What is national in Russia is precisely its super-nationalism, its freedom from nationalism; Russia is unique in this and is unlike any other country in the world. Russia is called upon to be the liberator of the peoples. This mission is embedded in its special spirit."

The Russian people do not lend themselves well to political organization.
This is due to the fact that “Russia is a country of unlimited freedom of spirit, a country of wandering and searching for God's truth. Russia is the most non-bourgeois country in the world; it does not have that strong philistinism that so repels and repels Russians in the West.
And at the same time: “Russia is almost impossible to budge, she has become so heavy, so inert, so lazy, so immersed in matter, so humbly put up with his life.
All our estates, our soil layers: the nobility, the merchants, the peasantry, the clergy, the bureaucracy, all do not want and do not like ascent; everyone prefers to stay in the lowlands, on the plain, to be "like everyone else"
. This kind of property of a Russian person leads to the fact that in our country there are still no well-developed political institutions that would create an effectively functioning civil society. However, individual elements of civil society, albeit with great difficulty, very slowly, but began to emerge in Russia in the last years of tsarist rule, that is, in the era of constitutional monarchy, but all this was completely ruined by the Bolshevik coup, as a result of which the reins of government in the country the political elite took over, while the bulk of the population remained purely indifferent in terms of the manifestation of social initiative (which is reflected in the well-known rule of the Soviet person, namely: “keep your head down”).

Berdyaev notes as a negative feature of the Russian character his excessive conceit, in connection with which he says that Russia is “a country that considers itself the only one called upon and rejects all of Europe as rot and a fiend of the devil, doomed to death. The reverse side of Russian humility is an extraordinary Russian conceit. The most humble is the greatest, the most powerful, the only one called. "Russian" is just, good, true, divine. Russia - "holy Rus'". Russia is sinful, but even in its sin it remains a holy country - a country of saints who live by the ideals of holiness ... Russia considers itself not only the most Christian, but also the only Christian country in the world ... Church nationalism is a characteristic Russian phenomenon. Our Old Believers are thoroughly saturated with them.” However, this opinion of an outstanding philosopher should be approached with caution, the name in mind that in this case there is a fine line between really excessive self-conceit, which is not good, and a possible underestimation of one's national role in shaping the world system of moral relations, which fully corresponds to the spiritual potential of the Orthodox Russian people.

Berdyaev says that "Russia - fantastic country spiritual intoxication, the country of whips, self-burners, Dukhobors, the country of Kondraty Selivanov (the founder of the skopsky sect that existed in the second half of the 18th century in the Oryol province - V.N.) and Grigory Rasputin, the country of impostors and Pugachevism. The Russian soul does not sit still, it is not a philistine soul, not a local soul. In Russia, in the soul of the people there is some kind of endless search, the search for the invisible city of Kitezh, the invisible home. Before the Russian soul, distances open up, and there is no outlined horizon in front of its spiritual eyes. The Russian soul is burning in a fiery search for truth, absolute, divine truth and salvation for the whole world and universal resurrection to new life. She is eternally sad about the grief and suffering of the people and the whole world, and her torment knows no satisfaction. This soul is absorbed in solving final, damned questions about the meaning of life. There is rebelliousness, rebelliousness in the Russian soul, insatiability and dissatisfaction with anything temporary, relative and conditional. We must go further and further, towards the end, towards the limit, towards the exit from this “world”, from this land, from everything local, petty-bourgeois, attached ... The heroically inclined intelligentsia went to death in the name of materialistic ideas. This strange contradiction will be understood if we see that under the materialistic guise she aspired to the absolute. The Slavic revolt is a fiery, fiery element unknown to other races” [ibid., pp. 9–10]. The properties of the Russian character noted by the brilliant philosopher, it seems, could not but lead to the idea of ​​Russian cosmism, and the Russians, born in free-thinking France, the same "crazy" - hard to understand - idea of ​​solidarism, was also quite naturally picked up by the Russians.

Nikolai Onufrievich Lossky (1870–1965) developed the most deeply considered topic in his book “The Character of the Russian People”, first published in Frankfurt am Main by the NTS Posev Publishing House in 1957, republished in Moscow by the Klyuch Publishing House in 1990 and then as an article with the same title - in the journal "Problems of Philosophy" in 1996 (No. 4), from where it is quoted. This philosopher emphasizes that the Russian idea is a Christian idea, and therefore the character of a Russian person as a Christian is formed under the influence of Orthodox morality, focused on the search for and bringing goodness, love and truth, “in the foreground in it is love for the suffering, pity, attention to the individual personality…” [cf. cited source, p. 41]. In this regard, N. O. Lossky notes the exceptional role of religious ascetics - the monastic "elders", to whom people went for teaching, consolation and blessing, in the search for answers to many life questions, both the simplest - material, everyday-family, and the sublime - moral and spiritual, including the meaning of one's existence, the Kingdom of Heaven, the meaning of church holidays and other wisdom.

Among the especially valuable properties of a Russian person, the philosopher notes a sensitive perception of other people's mental states, from which follows a lively communication of even unfamiliar people with each other. On this occasion, he writes: “The Russian people have highly developed individual personal and family communication. In Russia there is no excessive replacement of individual relations by social ones, there is no personal and family isolationism. Therefore, even a foreigner, once in Russia, feels: “I am not alone here” (of course, I am talking about normal Russia, and not about life under the Bolshevik regime). Perhaps it is precisely these properties that are the main source of recognition of the charm of the Russian people, so often expressed by foreigners, well those who know Russia"[ibid., p. 42].

The phenomenon of the openness of the Russian soul is closely connected with the noted property, which, in turn, determines the sincerity of the Russian person. On this occasion, Lossky writes: ““Life according to one’s heart” creates the openness of the soul of a Russian person and the ease of communication with people, the simplicity of communication, without conventions, without outward instilled politeness, but with those virtues of politeness that flow from a sensitive natural delicacy” [ibid. ]. As can be seen from the cited, everyday - so to speak, everyday - hypocrisy, the presence of a mask of politeness is completely alien to the Russian person (as in the same Americans, who always have "mouth to ear", but often - "a stone in their bosom", or , if not a stone, then elementary coldness, complete indifference). In a Russian person, everything is written on the face. This is where the gloominess of the Soviet - and even post-Soviet - people noted by almost everyone - both domestic observers and foreigners - comes from: why Soviet people, and today the majority of Russians, was and is to rejoice?

Among the primary basic properties of the Russian people, according to Lossky, is a mighty willpower, the derivative of which is passion as a combination of a strong feeling and tension of will, aimed at a loved or hated value. Naturally, the higher the value, the stronger feelings and energetic activity it causes in people with a strong will. From this one can understand the passion of the Russian people, manifested in political life, and even greater passion in religious life. Maximalism, extremism and fanatical intolerance are the products of this passion. As an example confirming the presence of the latter property among Russian people, the professor recalls the self-immolation of many thousands of Old Believers during the reformations of Patriarch Nikon, the most famous among whom was Archpriest Avvakum.

The same was, according to Lossky, the Russian revolutionary movement, which also abounds in examples of political passion and mighty willpower. Starting with the Narodnaya Volya, who were obsessed in their idea of ​​the need to establish social justice in society - the creation of the Kingdom of God on earth, but without God (!?), and ending with the Bolshevik-Leninists. Regarding the second, he writes: “The unbending will and extreme fanaticism of Lenin, together with the Bolsheviks led by him, who created totalitarian state in such an excessive form, which was not, and God willing, will not be anymore on earth” [ibid.].

At the same time, Lossky also notes that in the Russian people there is also a property opposite to strong will and purposefulness, namely the familiar “Oblomovism”, laziness and passivity, which is excellently depicted by Goncharov in the novel “Oblomov”. On this issue, he agrees with the opinion of N. Dobrolyubov, who explains the nature of “Oblomovism” in this way: “... Russian people tend to strive for an absolutely perfect kingdom of being and, at the same time, are excessively sensitive to any shortcomings of their own and other people's activities. From this arises a cooling towards the work begun and aversion to its continuation; the idea and general outline of it is often very valuable, but its incompleteness and therefore the inevitable imperfections repel a Russian person, and he is too lazy to continue finishing trifles. Thus, Oblomovism is in many cases the reverse side of the high qualities of a Russian person - the desire for complete perfection and sensitivity to the shortcomings of our reality ... ”[ibid.].

Among the primary properties of the Russian people, along with religiosity, the search for absolute goodness and willpower, Lossky includes love for freedom and its highest expression - freedom of the spirit. And the one who has the freedom of spirit is inclined to doubt every truth and put every value to the test, and not only by thought, but even by experience. As a result of the free search for truth, it is difficult for Russian people to come to terms with each other. Therefore, in public life, the love of freedom of Russians is expressed in a propensity for anarchy, in repulsion from the state. One of the reasons, according to Lossky, why Russia has developed absolute monarchy, sometimes bordering on despotism, lies in the fact that it is difficult to govern a people with anarchist inclinations, because such a people makes excessive demands on the state [ibid.].

All researchers of the issue under consideration note as an indispensable property of the soul of a Russian person - his kindness, in connection with which they say that the Russian soul has feminine nature, in the words of Berdyaev, forever-woman. However, Lossky does not agree with this, he speaks of a combination of kindness and courage in the Russian character, which seems to be absolutely true. On this occasion, he writes that “the Russian people, especially the Great Russian branch of it, the people who created a great state in harsh historical conditions, are extremely courageous; but in him the combination of a masculine nature with feminine softness is especially remarkable ”[ibid.].

With the property of kindness, this outstanding philosopher connects the presence in the character of a Russian person of another remarkable human quality - the absence of vindictiveness, which takes place in all strata of society. Lossky notes that “often a Russian person, being passionate and prone to maximalism, experiences strong feeling repulsion from another person, however, when meeting with him, if specific communication is necessary, his heart softens, and he somehow involuntarily begins to show his spiritual softness towards him, even sometimes condemning himself for this, if he believes that this person is not deserves to be treated kindly” [ibid.].

In full accordance with the inconsistency inherent in the Russian person, the property of kindness in his character is accompanied by the presence of a negative property - the need to lie in the name of goodness. Lossky explains it this way: “The kindness of a Russian person sometimes induces him to lie due to his unwillingness to offend his interlocutor, due to the desire for peace and good relations with people at all costs” [ibid.].

Along with kindness, a Russian person has many manifestations of the exact opposite property - cruelty. At the same time, Lossky notes that there are many types of cruelty and some of them can occur, paradoxically, even in the behavior of people who are not at all evil by nature. Lossky explains many of the negative aspects of the behavior of the peasants by their extreme poverty, the many grievances and oppressions experienced by them and leading them to extreme bitterness. Especially outrageous, he considered the fact that in peasant life, husbands sometimes severely beat their wives, most often in a drunken state.

From the works of Boris Petrovich Vysheslavtsev (1877–1954; by the way, a member of the NTS), the thematic character is his report made in 1923 at one of the philosophical conferences in Rome entitled “Russian National Character”, in which the professor noted that “we [Russians ] are interesting, but incomprehensible to the West, and perhaps that is why they are especially interesting because they are incomprehensible; we ourselves do not fully understand, and, perhaps, even the incomprehensibility, the irrationality of actions and decisions constitute a certain trait of our character" [see. B. P. Vysheslavtsev. Russian national character // Questions of Philosophy. 1995. No. 6, p. 113]. In the named work, the philosopher, noting that the character of the people manifests itself at the unconscious level, in the subconscious of the people who make up this or that people (especially Russians, in whose soul "the area of ​​the subconscious occupies an exceptional place" [ibid]), draws attention to the possibility of penetrating into it is the subconscious, so to speak, to peep what is real, without silence about the negative and excessive embellishment of the positive, people think for the most part. This can be done, according to Vysheslavtsev, through an analysis of the content of the folk epic, through fairy tales and epics invented by the people (including those used by them to educate the younger generation, which is especially socio-politically important), in which, as in a person’s dream, innermost thoughts, deeply hidden, inner aspirations-dreams of the people are involuntarily expressed. Moreover, both positive in moral terms, and not very good.

Citing examples from Russian fairy tales, Vysheslavtsev defines the most characteristic traits of the character of the Russian people, which appear in the form of their fears and cherished dreams. So, according to the philosopher, the Russian people are afraid of poverty, even more of labor, but most of all of a certain “grief”, which is understood as “not the external fate of the Greeks, based on ignorance, on delusion”, for Russians “it is their own will, or rather some kind of selflessness." But there is another fear in the tales of the Russian people, a fear more sublime than the fear of deprivation, labor and even “grief” - this is the fear of a broken dream, the fear of falling from heaven [ibid.].

Analyzing the composition of the unconscious dreams of the Russian people, presented in national fairy tales, Vysheslavtsev notes the presence in them of the whole gamut of desires, from the most sublime to the lowest, from the basest worldly desires, justified by the notorious "economic materialism", to ideas about their desired future, based on which lie the cherished dreams of Russian idealism [ibid.]. So, the loafer Emelya the fool, selflessly dreaming, sitting on the stove, about a baked bull and milk rivers with jelly banks, is by no means a negative hero of our well-known fairy tales. Indeed, there are quite a few such real-life characters in Rus'. It was these dreamers-loafers who "rushed" with the whole crowd to the Bolshevik call in 1917. It was they who, overwhelmed by a cherished dream, inspired by them by many, by and large, morally and politically vicious fairy tales, dreaming that they would have everything not as a result of hard work, but “at the behest of a pike, at my will”, succumbed to to the temptation organized by the Bolsheviks to take everything away from others - in their understanding, from the rich world-eaters - under the Marxist slogan about the goodness of "expropriating the expropriators." In the latter case, as can be easily seen, we have an example of the inclination of a Russian person to his favorite extreme: awareness of the viciousness of the unfair distribution of material wealth in many cases with practical ways to ensure social justice using the easiest technique - “take away and divide”, and not by persistent improvement of social relations.

Another example of a negative property, considered by Vysheslavtsev, is very indicative. This example, unfortunately, concerns the most important moral imperative of an Orthodox person - his religiosity, or, more precisely, his attitude towards religious shrines, which one day, in the heat of an unbridled resentment of a Russian person against something or someone, suddenly do not become such (again , the very case of the manifestation of psychological extremes in the character of the Russians). We are talking about the valiant Ilya Muromets, who, being "mortally" offended by the fact that Prince Vladimir did not invite him to his "invited feast", began to shoot domes and "wonderful crosses" on Kiev churches with arrows. As the philosopher notes, “here is the whole picture of the Russian revolution, which the ancient epic saw in a prophetic dream. Ilya Muromets - the personification of peasant Rus', arranged, together with the most disgusting mob, with drunkards and loafers, a real defeat of the church and state, he suddenly began to destroy everything that he recognized as sacred and that he defended all his life "[ibid, p. 116]. This is followed by the conclusion that the whole Russian character is clearly visible in this epic: there was injustice, but the reaction to it was completely unexpected and spontaneous. This is not a Western European revolution, with its acquisition of rights and struggle for a new order of life; this is spontaneous nihilism, instantly destroying everything that the people's soul worshiped, and, moreover, conscious of its crime. This is not the restoration of violated justice in the world, it is the rejection of a world in which such injustice exists. Here is this prophetic warning, quite clearly expressed in Russian epic epic, the Russian monarchy did not understand, and this doomed itself to inevitable collapse.

Also indicative in terms of reflecting one of the features of the character of the Russian people, noted by Vysheslavtsev, is their desire to be transported in their fairy tales "over the three seas, to another kingdom, to another state." As the philosopher-analyst notes, this is probably “the main and most beautiful dream Russian people". And although in fairy tales this dream is most often quite prosaic: in most cases it is the desire to get their Vasilisa the Wise, which, again, will provide Ivan Tsarevich personally happy and socially trouble-free, and Ivan the Fool - which happens more often in Russian fairy tales - comfortable and idle life. However, fairy tale journeys "over the three seas" also contain something more sublime, namely the desire for a new, unknown. For the most thoughtful representatives of the Russian people, this was once expressed in a dream of space, which is not just "beyond the three seas", but much further and more inaccessible, and therefore even more tempting.

Another great Russian philosopher and statesman Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin (1883–1954) spoke well about the character of the Russian people: “Motherland is not the place on earth where I was born, came into the world from my father and mother, or where I “used to live” ; but that spiritual place where I was born a spirit and from where I come out in my life creativity. And if I consider Russia to be my homeland, then this means that I love in Russian, contemplate and think, sing and speak Russian; that I believe in the spiritual strength of the Russian people and accept its historical fate with my instinct and my will. His spirit is my spirit; his fate is my fate; his suffering is my grief; its flowering is my joy.

This is what a real patriot thinks and feels when speaking about his homeland: “My people! I was born from your bowels in flesh and spirit. The same spirit that burned in my ancestors burns in me. That instinct of national self-preservation lives in me and leads me, which led you through the jungle and torment of your history”… “The sigh of my people is my sigh; and the groan of my people is my groan. I am strong by his strength and I give this strength to him and for him. I am connected with him into one we. I believe in his spiritual power and in his creative ways. I myself create the way he does; with him I pray and work, with him I contemplate and think; I dream of having all his virtues and I am sick of his weaknesses and imperfections. His national interest is mine, personal. I joyfully partake of his glory, and am tormented in the days of his downfall and disgrace. His friends are my friends. His enemies are my enemies. He owns my life. His language is my language. His earthly territory is my territory, and the army loyal to him is my native army. I did not choose him, for it was he who gave birth to me from his bowels. But being born to him, I chose him and received him in last depth my heart. And therefore I am faithful to him; and faithful to him - in all situations, difficulties and dangers of life. I cannot have this feeling for two peoples at once. It is impossible for a person to have two mothers, or to profess two different faiths. And if my people are great and diverse and have received streams of many bloods, then each of these bloods can and must find its baptism in its spirit; and each of them is called to connect their fate with his fate, and to think and feel in spiritual identity with him "..." (I. Ilyin. For national Russia. Manifesto of the Russian movement, p. 15 - Love for the Motherland).

With this baggage - a set of classic, positive and negative properties of the character of the soul, inherent in Russian people from time immemorial, we met the 20th century. It was the presence of these properties that determined the origin of those events and deeds that accompanied the Russian people and that the Russian people did over the next century. They determined our future fate up to the present day, pushing us into a terrible social experiment - the construction of an ugly socialist society, and taking us to the most desperate heights of human thought and deed - it was we, the Russians, who were the first from earthlings to go into space, realizing our own, primordially Russian, the idea of ​​mastering the Universe (in the second case, we became truly Gagarinites in everything - both in theory and in practice, having passed the path from the abstract dream of Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov-Gagarin, which originated in the middle 19th century, until the real flight into space of the first earthling - Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin, a century after that, on April 12, 1961). In order to go further, it is necessary to consider the factors shaping the character of the Russian person and what Soviet reality did to him.

The character of the Russian people was formed mainly under the influence of time and space. The history and geographical location of our homeland also made their own adjustments. The constant danger from possible raids and wars rallied people, gave birth to a special patriotism, the desire for a strong centralized power. Climatic conditions, it must be said, not the most favorable, forced the people to unite, tempered a particularly strong character. The vast expanses of our country have given a special scope to the actions and feelings of the Russian people. Although these generalizations are conditional, it is still possible to identify common features and patterns.

Since its inception, Russia has shown itself to be an unusual country, not like the others, which aroused curiosity and added mystery. Russia does not fit the mold, does not fall under any standards, everything in it is not similar to the majority. And because of this, her character, the character of her people, is very complex and contradictory, difficult for foreigners to understand.

Nowadays, scientists and researchers have begun to find an increasing role of the national character in the development of society as a whole. It is a single, integral system with a hierarchy of traits and qualities that influence the way of thinking and acting of a given nation. It passes to people from generation to generation, it is rather difficult to change it by taking administrative measures, but still it is possible, though for large-scale changes it is necessary a large number of time and effort.

Interest in the Russian national character is shown not only abroad, but we ourselves are trying to understand it, although this is not entirely successful. We cannot understand our actions, explain some historical situations, although we notice some originality and illogicality in our actions and thoughts.

Today, a turning point is taking place in our country, which we are experiencing with difficulty and, in my opinion, not entirely correctly. In the XX century there was a loss of many values, there was a decline in national identity. And in order to get out of this state, the Russian people must, first of all, understand themselves, return their former features and instill values, and eradicate shortcomings.

The very concept of national character is widely used today by politicians, scientists, media mass media, writers. Often this concept has a very different meaning. Scholars have debated whether there really is a national character. And today, the existence of certain features characteristic of only one people is recognized. These features are manifested in the way of life, thoughts, behavior and activities of the people of a given nation. Based on this, we can say that the national character is a certain combination of physical and spiritual qualities characteristic of only one nation, norms of activity and behavior.

The character of each people is very complex and contradictory due to the fact that the history of each people is complex and contradictory. Also important factors are climatic, geographical, social, political and other conditions that affect the formation and development of the national character. Researchers believe that all factors and conditions can be divided into two groups: natural-biological and socio-cultural.

The first explains that people belonging to different races will show their character and temperament in different ways. It should also be said here that the type of society formed by a particular people will also have a strong influence on its character. Therefore, the understanding of the national character of a people occurs through an understanding of society, the conditions and factors in which this people lives.

It is also important that the very type of society is determined by the system of values ​​adopted in it. Thus, social values ​​are the basis of the national character. The national character is a set of important methods for regulating activity and communication, created in accordance with the social values ​​inherent in this people. Therefore, in order to understand the Russian national character, it is necessary to single out the values ​​characteristic of the Russian people.

In the Russian character, such qualities as catholicity and nationality, striving for something infinite stand out. Our nation has religious tolerance and ethnic tolerance. A Russian person constantly has dissatisfaction with what is at the moment, he always wants something else. The peculiarity of the Russian soul is explained, on the one hand, by “walking in the clouds”, and on the other hand, by the inability to cope with one’s emotions. We either contain them as much as possible, or let them out all at once. Maybe that's why there is so much soulfulness in our culture.

The most accurate features of the Russian national character are reflected in the works of folk art. Here it is worth highlighting fairy tales and epics. The Russian peasant wishes for a better future, but he is too lazy to actually do anything for this. He would rather resort to the help of a goldfish or a talking pike. Probably the most popular character in our fairy tales is Ivan the Fool. And this is no accident. Indeed, behind the outwardly careless, lazy, who knows nothing to do, the son of an ordinary Russian peasant hides a pure soul. Ivan is kind, sympathetic, savvy, naive, compassionate. At the end of the tale, he always wins over the prudent and pragmatic royal son. Therefore, the people consider him their hero.

The feeling of patriotism among the Russian people, it seems to me, is beyond doubt. From time immemorial, both old people and children have been fighting invaders and occupiers. Suffice it to recall the Patriotic War of 1812, when all the people, the entire army asked to give battle to the French.

The character of the Russian woman deserves special attention. The enormous strength of will and spirit makes her sacrifice everything for the sake of a person close to her. For her beloved, she can go even to the ends of the world, and this will not be blind and obsessive following, as is customary in Eastern countries, and this is a conscious and independent act. You can take as an example the wives of the Decembrists and some writers and poets sent into exile in Siberia. These women very consciously deprive themselves of everything for the sake of their husbands.

It is impossible not to say about the cheerful and perky disposition, about the sense of humor of Russians. No matter how hard it is, a Russian person will always find a place for fun and joy, and if it’s not hard and everything is fine, then the scale of fun is guaranteed. They have been talking about the breadth of the Russian soul, they are talking about it, and they will continue to talk about it. A Russian person simply needs to roam to the fullest, make a splash, splurge, even if, for this, one has to give up the last shirt.

Since ancient times, there has been no place for self-interest in the Russian character; material values ​​have never come to the fore. A Russian person has always been able to make great efforts in the name of high ideals, whether it is the defense of the Motherland or the upholding of sacred values.

The harsh and difficult life has taught Russians to be content and survive with what they have. Constant self-restraint left its mark. That is why the desire for money accumulation and wealth at any cost was not common in our people. This was the privilege of Europe.

For Russians, oral is very important. folk art. Knowing proverbs, sayings, fairy tales and phraseological units, reflecting the reality of our life, a person was considered educated, worldly wise, possessing folk spirituality. Spirituality is also one of the characteristic features of a Russian person.

Due to increased emotionality, our people are characterized by openness, sincerity. This is especially evident in communication. If we take Europe as an example, then individualism is highly developed there, which is protected in every possible way, but in our country, on the contrary, people are interested in what is happening in the lives of those around them, and a Russian person will never refuse to tell about his life. This, most likely, can be attributed to compassion - another very Russian character trait.

Along with positive qualities, such as generosity, breadth of soul, openness, courage, there is one, of course, negative. I'm talking about drinking. But it is not something that has gone hand in hand with us throughout the history of the country. No, this is an ailment that we caught relatively recently and cannot get rid of it. After all, we did not invent vodka, it was brought to us only in the 15th century, and it did not become popular that hour. Therefore, to say that drunkenness is distinguishing feature and the peculiarity of our national character is impossible.

It is also worth noting such a trait that you are both surprised and delighted at the same time - this is the responsiveness of the Russian people. It is instilled in us from childhood. Helping someone, our person is often guided by the proverb: "As it comes around, it will respond." Which, in general, is correct.

The national character is not static, it constantly changes as society changes, and, in turn, has its impact on it. The Russian national character that has developed in our days has similarities with the character that was once before. Some features remain, some are lost. But the basis and essence has been preserved.

“Peoples in many ways repeat the fate of individual people. They also have their own home, work, live better or worse, but the main thing is that, like people, they are unique individuals with their own habits and character, with their own way of understanding things. History has made such peoples, all the circumstances of their long, difficult life”, - the Russian philosopher Ilyin spoke figuratively about the national character of the people.

In a broad sense, the national character is a natural phenomenon. Its bearers, ethnic groups, come and go; with them come and go various types of ethno-national character. In a narrow sense, the national character is a historical phenomenon; the national character changes over time as the people self-organize, the historical situation changes and the historical tasks facing society. Thus, the circumstances of the peaceful coexistence of various ethnic groups on the territory of European Russia gave rise, in the words of the writer F.M. Dostoevsky, national tolerance and "worldwide responsiveness" of Russians.

An important feature of the Russian character was patience, which ensured survival in natural and climatic conditions. of Eastern Europe. To this were added constant wars, upheavals, hardships of life under the conditions of the 250-year-old Tatar-Mongol yoke. In Rus' they said: “God endured and ordered us”, “For patience God gives salvation”, “Patience and work will grind everything”. The main condition for patience was its moral validity.

The life of a Russian person demanded association in labor collectives, in artels, in a community. The personal interests of a person, his well-being were often placed below the well-being of the community, the state. The harsh life demanded the fulfillment of duty, the endless overcoming of difficulties; circumstances often acted not on the side of a person, but against him, so the fulfillment of what was conceived by the Great Russians was perceived as rare luck, good luck, a gift of fate. Due to the low productivity and riskiness, unpredictability of the results, work for the Russian peasant became a natural, God-given occupation, rather, a punishment (suffering - from the word "suffering").

Openness of borders and permanent external threat brought up in the Russian people feelings of self-sacrifice and heroism. The consciousness of the people associated foreign invasions with the sinfulness of people. Invasions are punishments for sins and a test for perseverance and pleasing to God. Therefore, in Rus' it has always been righteous "without sparing your belly" to protect your land from "infidels."

Orthodoxy brought up the soul of the people in many ways. Philosopher S. Bulgakov wrote: “People's worldview and spiritual way of life are determined by the Christian Faith. No matter how far the distance between the ideal and reality is here, the norm is Christian asceticism. Asceticism - the whole history, with the Tatars that crushed him, standing at the post of protection of civilization in this cruel climate, with eternal hunger strikes, cold, suffering. The values ​​of Orthodoxy merged with moral values and formed the moral core of the people.

The features of the Russian national character include the irrationality of thinking, when figurative, emotional forms prevail over conceptual ones, when practicality and prudence recede into the background. This is also one of the sides of the Russian "dual faith", that is, the preservation and mutual integration of paganism and Orthodoxy.

Patience and humility went hand in hand with love of freedom. Byzantine and Arab authors wrote about the love of freedom of the Slavs in ancient times. The cruelest serfdom could well coexist with freedom-loving as long as it did not encroach on inner world a person or until limitless violence sets in. The protest resulted in uprisings and, most often, in leaving for undeveloped lands. The geopolitical realities of Eastern Europe and Siberia allowed this to be done for many centuries.

At the same time, the best features of the national character crystallized in the composition of subethnic groups. In the consciousness of the Cossack, military prowess and the fulfillment of duty were elevated to the absolute, in the consciousness of the Siberian - inflexibility, perseverance and perseverance.

Thus, the partially considered features of the Russian character make it possible to single out duality, the struggle of opposites. According to the philosopher N. Berdyaev, Russia itself is “dual”: it combines different cultures, "Russia is East-West".

Academician D.S. Likhachev wrote: “We need to understand the traits of the Russian character ... Correctly directed. These features are an invaluable property of a Russian person. The revival of self-esteem, the revival of conscientiousness and the concept of honesty - this is in general terms what we need."

IN. Klyuchevsky:“The prudent Great Russian sometimes loves, headlong, to choose the most hopeless and inconsiderate decision, opposing the whim of nature with the whim of his own courage. This inclination to tease happiness, to play at luck, is the Great Russian chance. Not a single people in Europe is capable of such a strain of labor on a short time which the Great Russian can develop, ... we will not find such an unaccustomed to even, moderate and measured, constant work, as in the same Great Russia.

He is generally closed and cautious, even timid, always on his mind, ... self-doubt excites his strength, and success drops them. The inability to calculate in advance, to figure out a plan of action and go straight to the intended goal, was noticeably reflected in the mentality of the Great Russian ... he became more prudent than prudent ... the Russian man is strong in hindsight ... ".

ON THE. Berdyaev:“In a Russian person there is no narrowness of a European person, concentrating his energy on a small space of the soul, there is no this prudence, economy of space and time ... The power of breadth over the Russian soul gives rise to a number of Russian qualities and Russian shortcomings. Russian laziness, carelessness, lack of initiative, weak developed sense responsibility associated with it. The earth rules over the Russian man... The Russian man, the man of the earth, feels himself helpless to master these spaces and organize them. He is too accustomed to entrusting this organization to the central government ... ".

Alfred Gettner:“The severity and stinginess of nature, devoid, however, of the wild strength of the sea and high mountains, taught him the passive virtues of contentment with little, patience, obedience - virtues still strengthened by the history of the country ...”.