What is most important in the Russian soul. The mysterious Russian soul (national character of Russians and peculiarities of communication)

At some point, the site was “filled” with the word “Russian” or phrases of different meanings, in which the main role is still assigned to the above-mentioned term. I won’t say that this happened without my participation, but still, the significance of my participation is “somewhat exaggerated” because the greater degree of “appearance” of this term both on the site and on the Internet, and in general throughout the world, all the same events played and are playing, happening around or with the direct participation of Russia.

For this reason, there was a desire to take a closer look at the current phrase “Russian soul” and try to understand what is “hidden” behind this definition.

The Russian people “can be fascinated and disappointed,
You can always expect surprises from him, he is eminently capable of inspiring strong love and strong hatred.”
N. Berdyaev.

Instead of a preface

At first I thought that the ability to create a collective mind was a feature of only the Russian people, passed on to them by their distant ancestors. But gradually, studying, observing and comprehending the life of the human community, I came to the conclusion that the collective mind is capable of creating other nations, in which all its constituent entities are connected to each other by a spiritual, or rather, energetic connection, which has its own distinctive properties for each nation in separately in a single spiritual (energy) field of the Earth.

Peoples whose subjects live on the same territory according to common laws, but are not united by a single spiritual (energy) connection, are essentially not a single people (let alone a nation) and are not capable of creating a collective mind. At critical moments, such nations fall apart into separate parts. In this regard, Russia, as a multinational state, is an exception to the rule, and this is a special conversation.

What interesting and “new” can be said about the “mysterious Russian soul” and is it such by definition? After all, even in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) “Beyond Good and Evil” there is a description of the German national character: “In the German soul there are passages and passages, there are caves, hiding places and dungeons; in its disorder there is much that is charming and mysterious [...]. Foreigners are amazed and attracted by the mysteries that the fundamentally contradictory nature of the German soul poses to them.” If you wish, you can replace the term “German” with “Russian” - and now we can say that Nietzsche wrote about Russians.

It should be noted that N.A. was one of the first to conduct a detailed analysis of the psychology of the Russian people and European peoples. Berdyaev. He noted several differences between representatives of Russian and Western cultures.

1. Western people view every problem directly in the manifestations of culture and history of the past, that is, indirectly in terms of time. I will note in passing that this way of perceiving Russians or Russians themselves as a certain “problem” (I would correct the question) is now being imposed on us. Why do we look for all solutions not in ourselves today, but in our past. Foreigners, when considering a problem, do not make it personal, that is, they do not attribute it to their personality, but include the entire people as a whole in the “solutions”. Russians consider problems on their merits, and not in cultural reflection.

2. Westerners extol their culture and achievements
own civilization, which is why they are under strong pressure. Their thinking, broken by historical periods, formed a certain chronological and psychological structure, which is why it lost flexibility and was burdened and, in essence, weakened by the tradition of thought. They do not believe in the possibility of resolving issues on the merits, believing that this is only possible through the study of the history of thought.

This distrust of one’s own mental capabilities shaped national views on history and the development of mankind and on attitudes towards other cultures. The irony manifested in this creates a certain hierarchy in consciousness, which is why they place their culture higher than the cultures of other peoples. In Russia, the soul is not yet completely shackled by human civilization, which is why Russian thought is still capable of not only leading to consensus, but also resolving contradictions without the use of pressure and force, i.e. allowing for a different opinion and a different solution to problems. “Therefore, in Russian nature, in Russian houses, in Russian people, I often felt creepiness, mystery, which I did not feel in Western Europe” (Berdyaev, p. 333).

3. Russian mental life is more obvious, i.e. is on the surface of Being than the mental life of Western man, which is closed and oppressed by the norms of the so-called civilization. “The Western soul is much more orderly, rational, organized by reason than the Russian soul, in which there is always a significant irrational, disorganized and disordered element.”

4. Russians are much more oriented towards the opinions of their community, more inclined and capable of communication than people of Western civilization. They have no conventions in communication. Since the need to communicate not only with friends, but also with good acquaintances, to share thoughts and experiences with them, to argue, reveals the remaining ability and possibility of spiritual consolidation and communion. Hence, they tend (I would add the need) to unite in communities, commonwealths and groups, discuss world problems and philosophical worldview aspects in them.

Russian people do not so much exalt the “small cell of society” and the related component of life, but rather the social, collective formation. Why, when pronouncing the term “Kin”, most often it means not one’s family and one’s own relatives, but the entire people as a whole. The French, for example, are less sociable. The French, according to N.A. Berdyaev, is characterized by isolation, “clogging” in one’s own type of culture, lack of interest in foreign cultures and the ability to understand them. The French are convinced that they are bearers of the universal principles of Greco-Roman civilization, humanism, reason, freedom, equality and fraternity. The French believe in the universality of their culture; they do not recognize the plurality of cultural types. Most Russians have difficulty penetrating French culture. Germany is a world in between. Its culture is based on a reality that is deeper than facts. The Germans believe in the irrationality of fate (Berdyaev, p. 334).

5. The Russian people are characterized by a kind of collectivism, which must (can) be understood not sociologically, but psychologically. In Russian culture there was absolutely no individualism characteristic of European history and European humanism. A.S. Khomyakov, I.V. Kirievsky, Yu.F. Samarin, P.Ya. Danilevsky, V. Solovyov, F. Dostoevsky, N. Fedorov, V. Rozanov, P. Florensky - opposed individualistic culture, preached a collective, “conciliar” culture, although differently understood (it was these authors who put psychological resonance into circulation - Slavophilism).

Back in the 1970s, scientists from different countries discovered a phenomenon that is referred to as the ethnic paradox: “the features of ethnic culture are being erased, but people’s ethnic self-awareness is growing.”
At the same time, as noted by researcher of Russian culture Yu.V. Harutyunyan: “ethnic self-awareness is understood not only as identifying oneself as one or another nationality, but also one’s idea of ​​one’s people, their characteristic features, culture, language, nature, and historical past. These ideas, which create the image of “we,” are emotionally charged and form a feeling of pride, empathy, etc. The study showed that Russians, one of the most urbanized and educated ethnocultural communities in Russia, consistently identify themselves regardless of their ethnic environment (“Russians, with . 369-440).

In foreign anthropology, the “Slavic soul” was studied by J. Gorer, M. Mead, E. Erikson, K. Kluckhohn. And singling out the “Russian” from its composition, K. Kluckhohn believed that Russian people are characterized by such qualities as warmth, humanity, dependence on social contacts, emotional instability, irrationality, strength, indiscipline, and the need to obey authority. At the same time, “Western rationalism is opposed by Russian spirituality, morality, and the Russian desire for the ideal; Western individualism - conciliarity, community, collectivism" (Kluckhohn, p. 226)

According to the American scientist V. Mendel (“A New Look at Russia”), Russians are characterized by the following features: 1) “an extraordinary ability to survive: physical, mental and moral endurance are very high; 2) high need for knowledge; 3) high distance in relation to power. Russians view power as a force that exists against, not for, the people. This explains the attitude of Russians towards the law as something imposed. Compassion for another person surpasses the law in importance; 4) indulgence towards human weakness, kindness and tolerance towards oneself and others. Russians do good out of love, sympathy, the instinct of charity is more developed in them than the sense of duty; 5) Russians have an innate sense of spirituality - the search for something outside of themselves."

National character, and this is well known, is formed under the influence of many different conditions, these include the historical path and location of the territory and climate, and traditions, in which I include the worldview and the forms and methods of arranging life and the gastronomic component. For me, the most important are only three components: territory (hence the climate), worldview (hence the traditions) and nutrition (hence the forms of life).

All this explains why we are the way we are and not otherwise. And even if everything is explicable, like Russian patriotism arose from constant military danger, which I very, very doubt. Rus' as a state fought few serious wars with anyone. “Mice would hardly dare to fight a bear,” and even more so the lands of Rus' (the main part of it) were not in the zone of attention of world militancy. Forests and swamps, before the discovery of minerals in them (17-18 centuries), attracted few people. Further: collectivism is a derivative of climatic conditions. Quite logical. And so on, that’s not the point...

Many foreigners, “admiring” our collectivism, explain this by the fact that we lived in communities for a long time and resolved issues together. But few of them wonder why it was this way, i.e. why they lived communally and why their individualism was so “developed”. After all, with all their admiration, they just can’t understand why even today Russians, without hesitation (on request), interfere in the affairs of strangers (relatives, loved ones, friends) and even, which is completely unacceptable, give advice and interfere in the communications of strangers right on the street .

They “notice” that Russians have at least a “strange” attitude towards legislation and more so towards the laws themselves. Considering that laws are created by people (we think by someone, but not by us), so that they can be followed, otherwise life turns into anarchy. It seems that the form of thinking plays a big role here. A Russian, regardless of the regulation of the laws of life, still relies more on his own understanding of the situation, even if in the end he ends up “losing.” Foreigners, relying on the law, “turn off” their thinking, surrendering to its power completely and completely.
This mentality stems, in my opinion, from different conditions for the formation of legal relations. At the “dawn of the development” of law in Europe, the result of breaking the law was death. For the laws in Europe were not “written” by the inhabitants themselves, but were written by those who usurped this right by force. In Rus', the situation was different, laws were not written at all, since there was an order of trust, providing for the concept “one of your own will not peck out your own eye,” i.e. even if it came to a “showdown,” everything was handed over to someone whom both parties trusted. And in this case, having “entrusted” the decision to someone, they no longer complained about the decision of a third party, because in this case the person himself “chooses his own destiny.”

When laws began to be written and presented in a “European” way, the attitude towards them did not change, because Russians believe that if a law is written by a person, then a person is free to cancel it, change it, follow it or not follow it. Only the highest law of Rule, due to its immutability and inevitability, could not be violated by the Russian people. And even if he committed a crime, he never tried to avoid punishment, considering it pointless and impossible. Subsequently, the concept of “Rule” was replaced by the concept of “God”. But the relationship to higher powers remained. That is why many foreigners, without understanding the essence, noted the great, so to speak, religiosity of the Russian person.

In the present desire of many “Rodnovers” to return a reverent (I would note thoughtful) attitude towards higher powers (gods) has no basis, since this desire is caused by the desire to have a certain surroundings. But in its deepest content, the situation is not just different, but diametrically opposed. The main thing is not the presence of gods (higher powers), but in understanding their significance for the Russian race and the corresponding attitude, which should form the basis of the forms of existence of the Russian person.

And for this you don’t need to “run away” either to the wasteland, or to an eco-village, or even to Prostokvashino. In this I see not just resistance to the existing order, but also the restoration of the original parity between the original Russian existence and the existence that is being forcibly introduced among us, only so that we become “Ivans who do not remember kinship.” And repeated repetition of the word “sugar” will not make your mouth any sweeter.

I hope this will be the topic of the next article.

I once already expressed the idea that we are not really who we consider ourselves to be, but who others see us as. Now, having corrected myself a little, I will note that we are both as we consider ourselves and as others see us.

“Well, you’re right, Borisych, you gave out “earrings to all the sisters” and you think that this is enough for both those on the left and those on the right to agree with you?

In this case, I do not want to “reconcile” the parties by identifying myself as the middle. I am only deepening my original thought. The main thing I have... What do you think? That's right, the concepts of trust and mistrust. What is surprising is that, for all our gullibility, we are the most distrustful people. We instantly find a common language with a fellow traveler on the train and for years we cannot establish relationships with our neighbors at the entrance. We trust poverty, believing that someone who has nothing to lose and has no need to deceive, and we do not trust wealth, believing that if he only has ways to make money in his head, then why can’t we also be the object of these desires. We don’t believe our friends who bring bad news, but we happily exaggerate the “nasties” that “pour down” on us from the TV screen. And finally, we obstruct the words of the “eyewitness”, the words of a person who thinks differently and says this to our “face” personally, but we selflessly “fall out” in that “good” that many have already eaten, digested and high, excuse me, then, what came “under our feet” on the polluted field of the public Internet.

Our innate sense of thirst for justice “plays” such a cruel joke on us, which is why we are sometimes even proud of the fact that we are poor and constant in our thoughts, believing that God cannot give everything to one. And money for one and one “smart chamber”, but not for others. After all, internally understanding that there is a lot of everything in Space, but everyone should have it equally, and if someone does not have something, it means that someone else did not receive it fairly, since others, for various reasons, are deprived of it. Unfortunately, this is just a manifestation of elementary envy. Envy and greed arising from the laziness and pettiness of the soul, the soul whose priorities are the desire to have, and not the search for ways to achieve it.

For these very reasons, many Russians (I do not exclude myself) do not bother to put in a lot of work to “shorten their language” in their statements, or to “cut down” their desires. In short, match your needs with your own capabilities. And do not strive to make your complexes “public knowledge”.

Fortunately, any phenomenon does not have an unambiguous not only in its manifestations, and hence its interpretation, but also in its solutions leading to a certain conditional development. That is why, having statements regarding some of the negative traits of the Russian person, one cannot help but note his so-called positive traits.

Breadth of soul. Russian people are so broad-minded that sometimes it becomes dangerous. Gifts that a Russian person can give you can not only shock you, but also cause damage. But sometimes something is presented that you never expected and the rational thinking of a foreigner simply would not have thought of. A Russian person, not for ethical reasons, but out of a sincere impulse, can give you something, the absence of which will ultimately lead him to problems. But at this moment he does not think about the consequences, he thinks about making you feel better. He may rush to your aid without adjusting his actions to the extent of the danger to himself.

Researchers studying relationships in Russian and foreign environments have drawn attention to the fact that people in Europe or America, when building their relationships in the professional sphere, focus primarily on professional competence, while being very biased and intolerant of the manifestation of impulsiveness in communication.
In our country, this topic is also “gaining momentum” and many of our fellow citizens react more to the form of presentation of the material, the expression with which this material is presented, than to its content.

In the West, importance in relationships is given to abilities, special social norms and sanctions that follow their violation. Russian people try to earn the approval and respect of others, not by depicting the benefits of decency and tolerance (tolerance), but by showing their individuality, originality and openness in expressions of feelings, i.e. they are largely focused on establishing trusting, friendly rather than partnership relationships.

This is also noticeable in the existing order. In the West, a person is assessed from the point of view of loyalty to society and laws through professional growth, the external structure of his life (front gardens, lawns, flower beds near houses), through his relationships with neighbors and complete strangers.

In social relations, what matters is not the results of activities, but the loyalty of the individual to the community: the management of the company, enterprise, team. The manifestation of professional and territorial solidarity is of great importance. For Westerners, moral principles of relationships are not important. Society places great importance on mutual expectations of conformity and agreement. This is a special, different from Russian, form of realization of public (here I would not use the term collective) self-awareness. Where, in a generalized perception of the surrounding world, a person strives with all his might to break out of this environment, thereby cultivating materialism in parallel with not being tied to material well-being. This contradiction in the composition of the foreigner’s psyche makes him not just “deaf” (lack of compassion) to other people’s problems, but also contributes to the development of aversion to these problems (lack of need for complicity) in the circle of his own interests.

Doctor of Psychological Sciences from St. Petersburg L. Pochebut drew in her research on the “reverse paradox” that exists in our society. In relationships in the professional sphere, people demand competence from an individual, but evaluate it (the individual) by the degree of loyalty to the community. Thus, the Western form of perceiving an individual based on professional qualities, which has “penetrated” into our environment, forces the opponent to believe that he will be assessed by professional competence, and accordingly will be blamed for his lack of it. But while “demanding” competence from a person, the assessment is nevertheless made based on the level of his loyalty to others. And they punish him for showing disloyalty.

This is confirmed by a “series of comments” on some topics, which resulted in a small demarche by Yarana.
But there is nothing “surprising” about this. While we adopt Westernized behavior in our professional activities, we still essentially remain in “our own field,” we are Russian. And we don’t care about the knowledge of this or that person; we are only interested in him as someone who will “write in the same hole with us.”

That’s why when they start telling me that, they say, the Magi, the Magi this, and the Magi that. I do not believe in this. A Russian person could not blindly and unconditionally follow the even competent, but personal opinion of another person. And don’t convince me that they “had great respect for the knowledge that these wise men possessed.” Firstly, the Magi did not share this knowledge with everyone, which is why many did not know what the Magi knew, and secondly, in order to understand something it is necessary to know. Here I will say with complete confidence that if a Russian person (Rus) says that he knows, then he always knows about it. Other peoples sometimes confuse their so-called knowledge with awareness or sensations. And this, as you understand, is two big differences.

As we see, the inconsistency that comes from the “vinaigrette” of external form and internal content, which is not characteristic of Western culture, again makes us “unlike” Western people, forcing the latter to resort to the definition of “mysterious Russian soul.”

And there would be nothing mysterious about it if the Russians had not tried every time, in accordance with their “bursting” desire to “try everything,” to put on “that hat” that, in the apt expression of V.I. Lenin, “Europe has long thrown out into the trash can."

The conclusion, by the way, of the group headed by Lyudmila Pochebut was that “the psychological paradox of the system of relationships in Russian society that we discovered is a significant obstacle to the effective development of Russian society.”

It seems to me that if Russian social society does not find the strength within itself and does not “break” with “the entire civilized world” in terms of “dragging” other people’s mental manifestations onto its soil, it may face Hamlet’s dilemma – “to be or not to be.”

“Wow, it’s scary again. One such toilet scared me, now he’s sleeping it off!”
It’s not me who is scaring, it’s the Westerners who are gradually trying to bring us to the “European denominator”.

Of course, I would be more happy to talk about the positive qualities of the Russian people than to “raise” people’s pride in their own. But, firstly, each of you can say something good. And secondly, I was not going to raise anything from anyone. If it’s “worth it, it’s worth it,” if not, then no matter how hard you try, everything will “hang.”
- “But how it “hangs!” You cry out in a fit of “awakened” pride.
It hangs well, no doubt about it. And yet, I want to repeat, what I exaggerated (or massaged? I still wanted it to “stand”) higher.

Thus, the mystery of the Russian soul is explained by many by the fact that:
-Russians want to help everyone and always, even when they are not asked for it, a kind of messianism that Russian classics clearly wrote about;
-Russians have a pathological thirst for knowledge and, as a consequence, the development of new territories;
– Russian people, being typical shadow leaders, show their character only in cases of extreme situations;
- for Russians, labor, unlike Western (internal need) people, is only a “conscious necessity”, while Russians are a hardworking and persistent people;
– Russian mentality is determined by the vast territories of the Russian state, which influences the peculiarities of the national mentality and behavioral form and, accordingly, the worldview. And this, at a certain period of time, became not only the basis, but also the need for the existence of Russians. A Russian cannot live fully in the limited space of Europe. And Europe, no matter how it “covets” our expanses, is unable to live without having a sense of its border “next door”. Their psyche “goes to pieces,” while ours is “blissful” from the space;
– and lastly, the Russian is always ready to fight, and if at first he does it clumsily and reluctantly, then he subsequently goes into a “rage” and then any shaft becomes a formidable weapon. Russians can fight with anything, anything that comes to hand. That’s why when they tell me that many weapons came to us from the West, I only clarify that only a sword and all kinds of armor (except chain mail) came to us from the West. Everything else was born and applied by us and then “went for a walk around the world.”

I understand that on our Earth there is a German and Chinese and French and even American and Slavic soul. But by and large, I don’t care about them. Why is my own soul not a “mystery” for me and I don’t think that it is mysterious at all. Most likely it turns out like in that joke with cowboys, John – not perceptible. Elusive because no one catches him. Why am I not going to let in much fog and, by exaggerating, attribute non-existent (unknown) qualities to the “Russian soul”. And, nevertheless, regardless of our or anyone else’s attitude to this, the phenomenon of the “Russian soul” still exists, the question is: how is it expressed. But more on that in the next part.

My friends! The entire feed is filled with posts of love and blowjobs. Is it spring in the gallery?
I'll take you away from this topic. Found a new friend! A must listen to the song!)))
“You can’t understand Russia with your mind,
The general arshin cannot be measured:
She will become special -
You can only believe in Russia.”

Russian man, a man of mystery.
They have been solving this riddle for a long time, but they just can’t solve it.
I don’t think that he is somehow exceptional, and is all so fluffy and correct, and other nations also have their mysteries, but still it was the Russian man and his incomprehensible soul that always attracted people with their mystery and spiritual virginity.
Tyutchev once brilliantly spoke about the mysterious Russian soul.
But what exactly is this mystery that even turns into mystery?
Ordinary people, politicians and scientists, physicists and lyricists argue about this.
They argue both in Russia itself and far beyond its borders.
So what is her original and unpredictable character and mentality?
From time immemorial, Russian people have been accustomed to living in harmony with their environment; they have always gravitated towards moral principles, valued public principles, but did not forget their private ones.
Not a single nationality in the world has endured even a fraction of what the Russian people have endured, and they not only endured, but endured numerous sufferings, but also created the world’s greatest culture and great state.
The Russian soul is, most likely, some kind of force that can withstand all the colossal loads and obstacles encountered on its way and can overcome everything, and no melancholy or hopelessness will lead it astray from its chosen path.
I don’t know who said it, but I think he said it quite accurately about the Russian person: “The Russian person is both religious and an atheist at the same time; he is both smart and stupid; he is both generous and greedy; he is both a statist and an anarchist; he is both strong and weak; he is both great and insignificant.”

I would add that Russian people are very unpretentious and immensely patient.
His patience can be limitless, there is some kind of predictability, consistency and logic, and the nature of his actions is sometimes simply impossible to explain and predict.
Very often he is simply reckless. And after immeasurable patience, a “Russian revolt, senseless and merciless,” may come.
So many things are intertwined in the mysterious Russian soul, sometimes even incompatible.
Many people believe that Russians are the same as everyone else, but as they say with their cockroaches in their heads, for example, what in the West is called (literally) technically helpless, Russian people call it aesthetic.
There are quite a lot of examples of this.
Another interesting detail in the Russian character is the combination of the fact that he will dream about something fabulous and not quite real, but he will almost always trust only what is nearby and tangible.
And at the same time it seems to him that it is good where he is not.

And how much talk about the wide open breadth of the Russian soul, about its scope, commensurate, probably, with the endless expanses of the country, a kind of generous Maslenitsa, which often turns into unnecessary extravagance.
Berdyaev also said: “The Russian soul is bruised by the vastness.”

In the story about the mysterious Russian soul, it is impossible not to mention such inherent traits as mercy and generosity, condescension towards former enemies, a willingness not to remember past grievances, and to renounce revenge.
And at the same time, the Russian person, according to Western researchers, is one of the first places in the world in terms of his ability to accept new things, receptivity, and flexibility.
And the fact that he is natural and spontaneous is of no value to him at all. In the West they understand this, and are even afraid of it. Russians themselves consider kindness and sincerity to be their main positive trait, and drunkenness to be their main negative trait. Of course, one can argue with this, because Russians are all different.

Unlike other nations, especially Western ones, despite the rapidly changing world, among Russians there are still quite a lot of people who say what they think; a smile for them is not a formality, but an expression of goodwill.
Also in the Russian trait there is such a property as looking at the world with slight irony and humor. There are still more optimists among them than pessimists.
Or maybe in reality there is no special Russian soul at all, and all this is someone’s invention?
So much has happened over these centuries.
And the invasion of the Tatar-Mongols, the sad years of unrest, Peter's Western reforms, tsarist autocracy, bloody wars, Soviet ideology, the current flight into wild capitalist hell.
Has the totality of qualities of a Russian person that characterizes his Russian soul changed during all this time? It has probably changed, but how much? Just questions.
Mysterious Russian soul…
She, the subject of admiration and curses,
There is a male fist clenching,
Concrete obstacles crash.
And then suddenly it becomes thinner than a petal,
More transparent than the autumn web.
Otherwise it flies like on the first day of Putin
Desperate mountain river.

Mysterious Russian soul…
Treatises are written about her overseas,
Movie cameras go wild
Grab the comet by the tail in a hurry.
Wasted work! It's time to know long ago:
One Ivanushka for the tail of the firebird
Managed to grasp it in a folk tale.
And you can’t compete with him anyway.

Mysterious Russian soul…
Complex, like the change of colors at dawn.
Efforts of institutions and intelligence services
To understand her - they are not worth a penny.
Where are the west and the east united?
And where is their separation and merger?
Where the northern lights converge
And the source of solar energy?

Mysterious Russian soul…
Since you are friends, I’ll tell you a secret:
The whole secret is that there is no secret at all,
Her openness is good.

The one who erected insincerity and lies
In the rank of virtues, powerless to understand,
That straightforwardness is always wiser than convolutions.
Where there are no locks, you can't pick up the keys.
And for those wandering in the darkness of sunset,
Fallen leaves rustle like gold,
May it forever remain a mystery
Dawn in April -
Russian soul!
Evgeny Dolmatovsky.

Or maybe the mystery of the Russian soul lies in the fact that it does not involve guessing?...

Russian soul- a term of Russian philosophy, indicating the peculiarities of Russian character and worldview. It is used in philosophical and literary works, in musical creativity, as well as in everyday speech. Such features of the Russian soul as mystery and breadth are often noted. The theories of the Russian soul by N. A. Berdyaev and G. V. Florovsky are well known.

The concept of “Russian soul” reflects the unknownness of Russian self-awareness - a contemplative combination of sacrifice and submission to God, with the will and desire for truth.

Berdyaev about the Russian soul

Berdyaev sees two opposite principles of the Russian soul: the pagan element and ascetic Orthodoxy. According to Berdyaev, the trouble with the Russian soul is its “feminine passivity, turning into “womanishness,” its lack of masculinity, its tendency to marry someone else’s and alien husband.”

Links

Science articles

Periodicals

Fiction

• Romanov P. S. Russian soul
• Erofeev V. Encyclopedia of the Russian soul

Philosophical works

• Florovsky G.V. Paths of Russian theology. Vilnius, 1991.
• Berdyaev N. A. Russian temptation // Russian thought. 1910. No. 11
• Berdyaev N. A. About the “eternally feminine” in the Russian soul. - Exchange statements. 14 and 15 Jan. 1915.

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

See what “Russian soul” is in other dictionaries:

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soul- angelic (Kozlov); aromatic (Hoffmann); boundless (P.Y.); sinless (Fofanov); serene (Frug); cloudless (Kozlov); carefree (Rathgauz); permanently lonely (Balmont); formless, like clouds (Gorky); innocently trusting... ... Dictionary of epithets

Russian icon, also known as “Christ Crucified Seraphim”. According to the prophet, “He gave up His Soul to death” (Isa. 53:12). The hands and feet of Seraphim nailed to the cross are depicted according to the earthly appearance of the Savior crucified on Golgotha ​​... Russian history

Already at its initial stage it is characterized by involvement in world civilizational processes. The philosophical tradition in Ancient Rus' was formed as the general cultural tradition developed. The appearance of ancient Russian culture to a decisive extent... ... Collier's Encyclopedia

And, wine. soul, plural souls, w. 1. The inner mental world of a person, his experiences, moods, feelings, etc. Someone else’s soul is dark. Proverb. He observes, studies, captures this eccentric, mysterious nature, understands it, comprehends it... Soul... ... Small academic dictionary

SOUL - DARKNESS- It is impossible to fully know and understand another person. This means that it is impossible to accurately guess the thoughts, intentions, or guess the feelings of another person. unformed ✦Alien soul of darkness. unism. They are independent in the role. statement or grammatical basics offered... Phraseological Dictionary of the Russian Language

Books

• Russian soul, Svetlana Simina. Svetlana Simina is a poet and prose writer, whose poems reflect Russian nature and ordinary Russian people with their...

Controversial reading... What do you say to this?

The following characteristics should not automatically apply to any Russian living in Russia. There are probably many people in Russia who have nothing in common with the image of Russians that has taken root in the minds of many peoples.

Rather, it is a characteristic of society, Russia as a whole, or the image of its “arithmetic mean” representative. For the most part, society consists of people not very different from this representative, and these people determine the way of life and way of life, its problems and joys, all the little things that ultimately make up the way of life, life itself. Most of the problems of today's Russia lie precisely in the mentality of the majority of its population.

One of the persistent myths that exists in Russia is the myth about some special mysterious Russian soul, “high spirituality” of the Russian person. This myth is still sincerely believed today by many semi-intellectuals in Russia who have fallen into excessive romanticism and patriotism. It is used in every possible way by Russian jingoists. It is also believed by some people in the West, mostly those who are well acquainted with Russian literature, but not with Russian life.

To understand its failure, it is enough to understand the reason for its occurrence. It is no secret that life in Russia for many centuries was (and is), to put it mildly, unsightly, or rather, primitive, vile, and disgusting upon closer examination. In the nineteenth century, educated people appeared in Russia, who were brought up in a European manner and absorbed all the best that was available in Europe at that time. Being the elite of Russian society, they had the opportunity to travel around Europe and live there for a long time. Writers, poets, artists were surprised to discover that life in these countries differs for the better from life in Russia. And, above all, the life of ordinary people is different.

The monstrous gap between the man of the West and the Russian man became the worm that corroded the souls and minds of all thinking people in Russia at that time. An artist (in the broad sense of the word) is always a philosophical, aesthetically receptive nature. The desire to get answers to the questions that arose (why is this so? what to do? who is to blame? etc.) was natural and ineradicable.

The intellectual elite looked for answers to their questions and did not find them. Each offered his own thoughts, often in the form of products of his own creativity. At times, the search for truth drove writers and poets to madness. The thought of the inferiority of the Russian people did not occur to them. But even if it did come, they were unable to admit to themselves that it was obvious. After all, for the most part they were also Russians and considered themselves as such, and further life with this thought would have been unbearable for them. For complacency and self-deception, they came up with the concept of a special “Russian soul” - they say, well, even if everything is so bad with us, we, Russians, have a special soul. This supposedly special, mysterious Russian soul, moreover, was contrasted with the Western mind - as if a German, Dutch, or Frenchman had no soul at all.

The entire disgusting Russian history and life to this day proves the opposite: in the actions or inactions of Russians, there is the least spirituality, and there is animal, unreasonable anger and cruelty, servility, lack of principles, corruption, stupidity, bad taste.

Russia's truth is a lie. Russians are prone to lies and hypocrisy. All life in Russia from beginning to end is saturated with lies, and lies are perceived by Russians as something that goes without saying. Some types of lies are not even considered such. The line between truth and lies is blurred and is crossed back and forth by the Russians as needed. No remorse is felt in this case. Russians simply do not strive for the truth, do not seek it and do not fight for it. They feel comfortable in these conditions and create them themselves. People who do not fall under this characteristic are considered strange, eccentrics, fools, suckers, an annoying nuisance that is better to get rid of. The life of such people in Russia often turns into hell.

The Russian's sense of his own human dignity is in its infancy. Moreover, he does not bother to respect such feelings in another person. This feeling is spoiled by the Russians at every step. Especially where there is some kind of hierarchy between people: parents - children, bosses - subordinates, officers - soldiers, etc.

If in some social relationships, for example, at work, a Russian is dependent on another, then he is ready to endure humiliation from him, to be a hypocrite and, in advance, of his own free will, to grovel - all this for the sake of the imaginary well-being of his insignificant life. Having reached a significant position, he changes accordingly in relation to his subordinates. (I’m the boss - you’re a fool) The cattle-like essence of such people lies in the ability to humiliate themselves in front of a person standing above them in the social and property hierarchy and the desire to humiliate people below them in this hierarchy.

A Russian perceives a normal, friendly attitude towards himself as weakness and a signal to go on the offensive. Russians either generally lack an instinctive sense of the boundary of that imaginary sphere beyond which the personal world of another person begins and into which one cannot break without an invitation, or they take pleasure in violating this boundary. At the same time, they develop a sense of their own superiority, which replaces their self-esteem.

It should be noted that, oddly enough, the most “bestial” nature of relationships is manifested by Russians in their relationships with each other. Russians do not tolerate Russians well and treat them more as a competitor in life than as a brother. Just a few amazing historical facts:

The Russian princes brought young girls of their fellow tribesmen as gifts to the khans of the Golden Horde;

Serfs, that is, slaves in Russia, were fellow tribesmen - Russians, and almost never people of other nationalities. In other countries, during periods of slavery, slaves were foreigners, captives; On the contrary, in Russia, defeated foreign military leaders were often given noble titles and, in addition, Russian serfs in their possession;

When Russians talk, for example, about the construction of St. Petersburg, they are filled with a sense of pride and admiration for the idiot Tsar Peter I, and not with a feeling of indignation and resentment for those hundreds of thousands of serfs on whose bones this city was built.

Russians have never valued human life other than their own, much less human dignity.

A “fallen” person who gets into trouble in Russia will most likely be beaten and trampled, completely humiliated, rather than trying to help him in order to return him to the circle of normal life. If a Russian provides another Russian with any help or service, then he will automatically consider that he is his debtor and is obliged to him for the rest of his life, instead of doing it because it should be so.

The corruption of Russians has no limits. Without dwelling in detail on the fact that all of Russia is corrupt, it is obvious that today it is the world leader in the supply of prostitutes to the countries of Europe and the Middle East. Hundreds of thousands of Russian prostitutes flooded the streets of the cities of these countries. Supplied by pimps - their own fellow tribesmen - they are ready to do anything for money. It is noteworthy that in some countries of the Middle East the name “Natasha” has become synonymous with a prostitute. No normal people, even those in a more disastrous situation from a financial point of view, would allow their women to become prostitutes, and even on such a scale. In Russia, it's just business. It is known that in Russia they often send their own daughters and wives to the panel for the sake of a bottle of vodka (and this is not an exaggeration!).

Envy is one of the main behavioral motives for Russians. For Russians, success in the lives of others, especially people they know, is perceived almost as a personal insult and can lead him to very vile acts. Superficiality of thinking is a trait of a typical Russian. He is not inclined to attach importance to little things, to show curiosity, to dot the i's. For him, a quick glance at a thing, a person, a phenomenon is enough for him to form an idea. But in fact, so that a stereotype is formed.

This is another remarkable feature of Russians: in their actions and judgments they are guided by their own or, more often, borrowed stereotypes. This makes it more convenient and simpler for them. Such stereotypes spread with amazing ease in Russian society and no attempt is made to subject them to critical reflection. We can say that all Russian ideas about life, phenomena, and other nations fit into a certain set of stereotypes. Therefore, knowing certain techniques, it is very easy to turn a Russian into anyone: a communist, a democrat, a nationalist, a monarchist, etc., and it is also easy to transform him into someone else.

Russians are incapable of introspection, of critical reflection on their own self. Pangs of conscience are unknown to them, since there is no process of identifying and realizing disgusting qualities in themselves in order to get rid of them. So much for the mysterious Russian soul.

A Russian is not capable of hating himself. It’s funny and sad to watch how Jewish comedians, well aware of this quality, tell the whole country on TV in a joking tone to Russian goyim for their own money about what idiots and bastards they are, and this causes general laughter and admiration for the “talent” of the storyteller. The public, having laughed at itself, continues to live in the same spirit. This is called humor and there is an opinion (stereotype) that other peoples do not have a sufficient degree of humor. If a German, an American, or, in general, a foreigner talks about the same thing in a serious tone, then this will be perceived by a Russian as an insult.

A real confirmation of the material presented in the article can be an article in which, using a real example, the wretchedness of thinking of the modern Russian mentality is shown.

Important Topics

Twelve main features of Russian national character from the point of view of social psychology

“In 1941, in the difficult situation of military failures, Stalin was forced to publicly pronounce those names that had never been uttered from high stands since 1917. Stalin found himself faced with the need to use the only suitable “keys”, and thereby unsealed the memory cell of the people associated with the Patriotic Wars.”

On November 28, 1866, the Russian poet, diplomat, conservative publicist and corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences since 1857, Fyodor Tyutchev (1803-1873), wrote a quatrain that soon became iconic. These are the memorable lines for almost every Russian:

“You can’t understand Russia with your mind,

The general arshin cannot be measured:

She will become special -

You can only believe in Russia.”

To be fair, it should be noted that numerous tales were circulating about the “mysterious Russian soul” even before the birth of Tyutchev’s quatrains. After Fyodor Ivanovich wrote these legendary lines, little has changed. For more than 200 years, the “mysterious Russian soul” has been constantly present as an argument in numerous studies devoted to the peculiarities of the development of Russia. But what exactly is this mystery and mystery, what kind of “enigmatic Russian soul” is this? When you ask such a question, you can hear a wide variety of answers, but, as a rule, they will be very vague and vague, not essentially explaining anything.

Meanwhile, in the USSR, back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a group of enthusiastic sociologists tried to study this issue from a scientific point of view. And when the professionals got to work, the most interesting things became clear! However, first things first.

TILES ABOUT THE “MYSTERIES OF THE RUSSIAN SOUL” AND ATTEMPTES TO DETERMINE THE ESSENCE OF THE NOTORIOUS “MYSTERY”

The Russian Empress Catherine II once uttered a phrase that was extremely relevant both then, in the 18th century, and now, at the beginning of the 21st century: “There is no people about which so many lies, absurdities and slander have been invented as the Russian people.”. That's how it really is, unfortunately. A colossal number of myths and legends of the most dubious kind about Russia and Russians have been launched. Some of them are of a completely innocent nature, and arise, so to speak, from ignorance of the subject. Other ethnic groups are not protected from this kind of tale. For example, the concepts of “buffet” and “Swedish family”, known to almost everyone, in fact, in their origin did not and do not have any relation to the population of Sweden.

But there are stories and myths that do not occur due to lack of awareness. The legend about the “mysterious Russian soul” belongs precisely to this category of misconceptions. Moreover, the misconceptions are very persistent. So what is the “mysterious Russian soul”, and how did this definition, so popular for more than a century, come into being?

Without much difficulty you can find in the Russian part of the Internet definition, according to which the quatrain of Fyodor Tyutchev quoted above is: “One of the characteristics of the Russian state and the Russian mentality, emphasizing a certain irrationality of behavior. An element of the literary image of the “mysterious Russian soul”, which is of a romantic nature, in contrast to the negative one, for example, in Bismarck: “Never fight with the Russians. They will respond to your every military cunning with unpredictable stupidity.”

Disputes about the “mysterious Russian soul” (ZRD) periodically flare up with renewed vigor. Moreover, addressing the topic of air defense systems may not be as harmless as it sometimes seems at first glance. For example, back in 2008 against the Moscow artist Lena Hadiz(born in 1959) an appeal was initiated to the Basmanny District Prosecutor's Office. A group of proactive citizens asked to initiate a criminal case against Elena Alekseevna under Part 1, Art. 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for “committing actions aimed at inciting hatred or enmity, as well as humiliating the dignity of a person or group of persons on the basis of nationality, committed publicly or using the media.” For some reason, this case was only started in June 2010. And one of the reasons for such an appeal was the provocative work Lena Hadiz from the “Welcome to Russia” series, which you can see below.

As can be seen, from a purely theoretical aspect, the debate about the “mysterious Russian soul” has already begun to develop into a very specific criminal plane. But since the debate about ZRD does not subside, since a final, “officially accepted” point of view on the nature and characteristics of the Russian national character has not yet been formulated, let’s hope that research in this area will not be equated in Russia with attempts to falsify history.

So, about the nature and characteristics of the air defense missile system express a wide variety of points of view, according to which, for example, the “mystery of the Russian soul” is explained:

- the strange, pathological desire of the Russian people to develop new territories;

Messiahship, which is very well reflected in the works of classics of Russian literature;

The desire to put into practice the idea formed in the first third of the 16th century by the elder of the Pskov Eleazar Monastery Philotheus, which is briefly defined by the well-known thesis “Moscow is the Third Rome”;

The character of Russian people is that they are typical shadow leaders, which only manifests itself in cases of extreme situations;

The mentality of the people, who are used to fighting always and with everyone; for a Russian, work is a conscious necessity, because you always want to eat, but you even have to plow with a sword, because it is unknown who and when will want to take away the fruits of your work;

Different phases that are present in the life of the Russian people: during some they seem to withdraw into themselves, on their territory, during others they spill out;

The vast territories of the Russian state, which influences the peculiarities of the national mentality;

In fiction: there are, of course, peculiarities in the Russian soul, but there are no more of them than in the American, French, German, etc. soul.

Even from this short list it is clear how wide the range of points of view is that explains the “mystery of the Russian soul.” Now let’s try to determine when exactly the thesis about the ZRD was launched. There is also a wide range of opinions on this issue.

“THE MYSTERIOUS RUSSIAN SOUL”: HISTORY OF THE ISSUE

Russian culturologist, historian and translator (including from Polish; translated into Russian, in particular, many works by Stanislav Lem) Konstantin Dushenko (born in 1946) on the date of the introduction of the concept of “mysterious Russian soul” into the mass consciousness in the April issue magazine "Reading Together" (2008) writes the following: “The mass Soviet reader learned about the mysterious Russian soul in the spring of 1927, when the country was experiencing another “war alarm,” and the slogan of the day was “Our answer to Chamberlain!” One of these responses was Alexei Tolstoy’s feuilleton “The English, when they are kind,” published in Ogonyok. Tolstoy recalled [the events of the First World War - Consp.]:

“When, after withdrawing from Poland, Russian troops were again thrown into an attack on the icy heights of Erzurum, when the government and the liberal Russian press for the hundredth time declared their loyalty to the allies and their readiness to fight to the last drop of peasant blood, when near Ypres the Germans released chlorine and plowed all the English front with heavy shells - then the British began to say that, in essence, they had always loved and admired the Russian people and that the Russian soul was a special soul, mysterious and mystical, and the British lacked precisely this soul for the fullness of existence. (. ..)

The Patriots were extremely happy. And out of terrible joy, when a person does not know what else to throw away, they fell into mysticism. It turned out - in their words - that the Russian peasant with his mysterious soul is, as it were, the female part of European civilization: called to perceive the seed of European civilization, and that he is aware of this (metaphysically) with a blind feminine instinct and therefore will blindly and selflessly die in battle for your masculinity, that is, for your allies."

A.N. Tolstoy’s version is very close to the truth, although the “red count” corrected some things. Indeed, just in 1916, a collection of articles by English and Russian authors, “The Soul of Russia,” was published in London, and it is very likely that the British were the first to talk about the “mysterious Russian soul.” But this happened long before the World War - in the years when Russia was considered almost the main enemy of Britain.

On May 3, 1902, Arthur Simons' essay "The Russian Soul: Gorky and Tolstoy" appeared in the London Saturday Review. An English critic called Gorky's novel "Foma Gordeev" a "chaotic but interesting book" that is worth reading if only to "learn something more about the mysterious Russian soul." So, pending the discovery of another metric certificate, the birthday of the mysterious Russian soul can be celebrated on May 3.

Before this, the Russian soul was of little interest to Europe. It was noticed only towards the end of the 19th century, thanks to the translations of novels by Turgenev, Tolstoy and, of course, Dostoevsky. “The Russian soul is a mystery.” This was said by none other than Dostoevsky,” asserted one German author in 1919. This is how he translated the words of Prince Myshkin: “The alien soul is dark, and the Russian soul is dark; for many it is dark.”

A slightly different point of view is shared by Vladimir Medinsky, deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation of the 5th convocation, professor at MGIMO University of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, doctor of political sciences. Vladimir Medinsky (born in 1970) in recent years has published a series of books, united in the “Myths about Russia” series.

In one of the books in this series (“On Russian theft, a special path and long-suffering”, published by the OLMA Media Group publishing house in 2009), Vladimir Medinsky talks about the origin of the phenomenon of the “mysterious Russian soul”. Medinsky believes that the first mention of ZRD dates back to the very beginning of the 18th century. He writes that the first to mention the mysteries and secrets of the Russian soul was the German philosopher, mathematician, physicist, inventor, linguist, historian, lawyer, diplomat and astrologer Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716) in his book “New Experiments” on the human mind" (completed 1704, first published 1765).

Medinsky refers to the first edition of this work by Leibniz in Russian, published in the USSR in 1936, and adds that Leibniz “repeatedly spoke “on the record” and completely officially about the mysterious Russians, following their own incomprehensible path.”

Gottfried Leibniz, as is known from his biographical data, was at one time actively associated with Russia and conducted research trying to identify the genealogical roots of the imperial Romanov dynasty. About the reasons for the theoretical constructions of the brilliant German scientist regarding the air defense missile system, Medinsky writes the following: “Leibniz was among the very first to not study, but to “scientifically” invent Russia. He had many ideas, and the great theorist often created diagrams of how the Universe should have been structured. He also came up with a lot of things about Russia: a wild country that is alien to enlightenment, but whose king wants enlightenment. Russia must lose the Northern War, become a colony of Sweden, and under the leadership of Peter begin to be enlightened, Peter must create a regular state in Russia [...]. The Russians did not fit into his wonderful scheme: they won the Northern War, did not want to become vassals of Sweden and did not create a regular state. For which they became an incomprehensible people, and Russia was declared to be following a “special path.”

Then this was repeated many times. Many different ideas came from Europe to Russia. But we gradually digested all these ideas coming from Europe, and partly turned them into our own. Each such idea - a regular state, enlightenment, classicism, sentimentalism, romanticism, anarchism, communism, liberalism, political correctness, a European home - is its own special myth about what Russia certainly “should” be.

The further it went, the more reason there became to talk about the incomprehensibility of the Russians. After all, we did not correspond to any of the myths that were invented about us. And, paradoxically, not a single myth that we ourselves invented.”

About Leibniz, in addition, it is known that he spoke quite disparagingly about Russians, calling them “baptized bears,” which, for example, is mentioned by the Russian philosopher and art critic Karl Cantor (1922-2008) in a collection of scientific articles that was published under his editor and was called “Centaur before the Sphinx: German-Russian dialogues” (M.: April-85, 1995).

On the topic of air defense systems, as I said above, a considerable number of studies of various types and levels have been written to date, as can be clearly seen from the quotes above. From these same quotes we can conclude that the “mystery of the Russian soul” is largely an artificial phenomenon, invented on purpose. It is also obvious that, trying to determine the nature of ZRD, numerous authors use mainly emotional, expressive-evaluative, but not scientific definitions.

But if this is the case, then, most likely, “mystery” and “mystery” (in the emotional and mythological aspect) may also be present in assessments of the national character of other peoples. And this, in turn, must be reflected in some fairly well-known texts. The way it is. And here is one example of this kind.

In the work of Friedrich Nietzsche (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche; 1844-1900) “Beyond Good and Evil” (1886) there is a definition of the characteristics of the German national character, almost identical to the characteristics of the Russian character. In Nietzsche (section eight, chapter 244) we read the following: “In the German soul there are passages and passages, there are caves, hiding places and dungeons; in its disorder there is much that is charming and mysterious [...]. Foreigners are amazed and attracted by the mysteries that the fundamentally contradictory nature of the German soul poses to them.” Replace the word “German” with “Russian” - and you can easily convince your interlocutor that Nietzsche wrote these lines specifically about Russians.

Thus, it is obvious that in the study of the phenomenon called the “mysterious Russian soul”, an emotional, but not a systematic scientific approach prevailed and prevails. A similar approach, meanwhile, can be applied to the study of the question of what constitutes Russian national character.

WHAT DOES THE CONCEPT OF “NATIONAL CHARACTER” INCLUDE?

In fact, what, in principle, can be considered “national character”? Speaking in purely scientific language, we can get the following definition. National character is “the society within us”, existing in the form of reactions of the same type for people of the same culture to familiar situations in the form of feelings and states. This is our national character. He is part of our personality [...].

The basis of a national or - more precisely - ethnic character is a certain set of objects or ideas that, in the minds of every bearer of a certain culture, are associated with an intensely colored range of feelings or emotions. The appearance in the consciousness of any of these objects sets in motion the entire range of feelings associated with it, which, in turn, is an impulse to a more or less typical action. It is this unit of the “principal denominator of personality,” consisting of the chain “object - action,” that we will henceforth mean by the concept of “social archetype.”

The above definition is taken from the book by Valentina Chesnokova (when signing the book, Valentina Fedorovna used the pseudonym “Ksenia Kasyanova”) “On the Russian National Character” (M.: Academic Project; Ekaterinburg: Business Book, 2003). From this study we can easily draw a fundamental conclusion: the basis for national character (social archetype) is culture. Moreover, culture is not only in our usual understanding: science, art, education, etc. The definition of “culture” includes a wider range of concepts, namely:

The way people belonging to the same nation interact with each other;

The way people belonging to one nation interact with representatives of other ethnic groups;

The way people belonging to one nation express themselves in situations familiar to them;

The way people belonging to the same nation manifest themselves in non-standard, unusual situations for them.

This foundation of national character contains basic values. Valentina Chesnokova writes about these values: “Currently, values ​​are studied in social sciences mainly by the survey method. Apparently, some value orientations can be captured in this way. But regarding those that represent the matrix and “denominator of personality,” the survey method turns out to be powerless for the simple reason that it presupposes contact between the researcher and the subject in the verbal sphere, and the unconscious structures of social archetypes are mainly outside this sphere.

But if they were just non-verbal, it would be easier. The trouble is that they are also “filled up” with “heaps” of verbally acquired concepts. These are, in the full sense, “alien” words and thoughts, but we often use them to express the most real, genuine feelings.

This happens especially strikingly when some simple person, not specifically engaged in intellectual research, tries to express the moral feelings that have arisen in him: he either pushes out some completely torn phrases and fragments of thoughts, or suddenly explodes into a fireworks display of the most “densely pop” newspaper articles. clichés that make everyone's ears just "lose."

And at the same time, you understand, listening to him, that in the depths of this person’s consciousness the stamps are tied to something very important. But they do not express this important thing; they designate it, and in a very conventional way. The logical connection between all these cliches is extremely weak, or even simply absent, because they tend to be located not depending on each other, but in accordance with the “force field” of value orientations. But identifying this field through them is a difficult task.”

An attempt to identify these very “value orientations” that constitute the essence of the national character of Russians was first undertaken by Soviet scientists in the 1970s using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), which was developed in 1940 by S. Hathway and J. McKinley.

DEVELOPMENTS OF US SCIENTISTS IN THE FIELD OF PSYCHODIAGNOSTICS AND THEIR APPLICATION IN THE USSR

Sometimes you hear and read that the MMPI was developed to diagnose mental illness, but in fact, the Minnesota Personality Inventory was originally used as a technique for the professional selection of candidates for the US Air Force. And it’s clear why: training a professional pilot takes time and is not cheap, especially in wartime conditions. That is why the Americans, approaching the matter with their usual meticulousness, decided to develop a reliable test that would allow, at the initial stage, to select applicants for the Air Force without any reservations who are suitable for service in the Air Force.

Later, after the end of the war, the MMPI began to be used in clinical diagnostics, where it showed excellent results, as well as in other areas, in particular in social psychology. Today, the Minnesota Personality Questionnaire is one of the most reliable and generally accepted tests, and - this is what researchers see as its great advantage - it continues to be improved and refined with the help of numerous additional scales.

In the USSR, the MMPI test was first translated into Russian in 1965-1967. Work on translating and adapting the test to domestic realities proceeded in parallel in Moscow and Leningrad. Muscovites took the line of eliminating difficult-to-translate questions that worked mainly on additional test scales, and sought to adapt the test mainly for clinical diagnosis. Which, of course, affected the effectiveness of diagnosis using the MMPI in general.

The Leningraders took a different path: they tried to adapt the full version of the questionnaire, for which they made a number of consistently improving translation options. And in this form, the results obtained using the “Leningrad version” of the MMPI on additional scales could easily be compared with American data.

“Initially there was terrible opposition to the use of the test, writes Valentina Chesnokova. - He was reviled for his bourgeois, mathematized, formal approach to personality, unacceptable in a socialist society. This trend has continued since the 30s, when test methods created for professional selection were destroyed. However, at present, this opposition has greatly softened, scientific public opinion has generally come to terms with the fact of the existence of tests, although our classical psychologists and psychiatrists still react extremely painfully to everything related to tests. But in scientific circles there is great curiosity about them, and the tests are now being distributed with great speed. True, typical methods of camouflage have been developed. Tests are called “clinical” everywhere (although they are mostly used as personal ones)...”

Valentina Chesnokova

Valentina Chesnokova wrote these lines in the early 1980s. It is necessary to say a few words about this scientist. Valentina Fedorovna Chesnokova (Ksenia Kasyanova, as already mentioned, her pseudonym) was born on June 28, 1934 in Tomsk, in the family of a professional military man. She graduated from Leningrad University, and then graduated from graduate school with a degree in History of the USSR. She worked in various parts of the Soviet Union - in Naryan-Mar, the Far East, Novosibirsk, Moscow.

Her life was not easy - a serious illness from her youth, a difficult path in science. At the age of 31, working as a senior teacher at the Vladivostok branch of the Moscow Institute of Economy. Plekhanov, already preparing to defend her dissertation, she committed an act that put an end to a successful scientific career - she ordered a memorial service for her deceased mother, for which she was fired from her job on ideological grounds. She had to work as a dishwasher, a senior technician, and after a little over two years, in 1967, she was able to return to scientific activity at the Novosibirsk Institute of Economics and Organization of Industrial Production (IE and OPP) of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where she was accepted by T.I. . Zaslavskaya. It was here that Valentina Fedorovna’s acquaintance with sociology began.

She was engaged in translations of T. Parsons, C. Cooley, B. Malinovsky, F. Znaniecki, which was then a matter of paramount importance for the nascent Soviet sociology. In 1973, she moved to Moscow, four years later becoming a senior researcher at the Research Institute of Culture, where she worked until her retirement in 1990.

Since the sphere of her scientific interests - Russian culture, Russian national character - was unacceptable for official Soviet sociology, V.F. Chesnokova was doomed from the very beginning to write and work at a desk. But the topic was so excitingly interesting that this did not stop her at all. No one before her, not only in the Soviet Union, but also in world science, had studied the Russian national character from a sociological point of view. She is a pioneer, a trailblazer. She was the first to begin the scientific development of the elusive, vague, already well-worn theme of the “mystery” of the Russian soul, Russian culture on the basis of new methodological approaches.

Valentina Chesnokova introduced the concept of “social archetype”, based on an analysis of MMPI tests (Minnesota Multifactor Personality Inventory), identified a certain model of behavior determined by stable personal qualities, characteristic of Russian ethnic culture, and on this basis reconstructed the value system, social norms and sanctions that are defining for Russian culture.

Who are we, how do we differ from others, what is our strength, what is our weakness? These are the questions that could be answered in her main book, “On Russian National Character.”

The book was completed in 1982, circulated for some time in samizdat, and in 1994 was officially published for the first time in Russia by the publishing house of the Institute of National Economic Model. The second edition, supplemented and expanded by a number of journalistic works, was published, as already mentioned, in 2003. It is noteworthy that in both editions of the book “On the Russian National Character” Chesnokova changed practically nothing in the main text, written, as already mentioned, in the early 1980s. The small additions made by Valentina Fedorovna in her book were not of a fundamental nature.

In her work in the field of ethnopsychology, Valentina Chesnokova, using the Minnesota Multifactor Personality Inventory, compared graphs constructed based on surveys of the American and Soviet populations and interpreted the discrepancies in “average” indicators.

In recent years, she has worked with the Public Opinion Foundation and the Institute of National Economic Model. Author of the books “In a Close Way: The Process of Churching the Population of Russia at the End of the 20th Century”, “On the Russian National Character”, “The Language of Sociology”. She also worked at the Valery Abramkin Center for Promoting Criminal Justice Reform.

In her work, Valentina Chesnokova also used data obtained in the early 1970s by Lyudmila Sobchik (Lyudmila Nikolaevna Sobchik - Doctor of Psychological Sciences, leading researcher at the Serbsky State Scientific and Social Sciences System, chief scientific director of the Institute of Applied Psychology, corresponding member of the International Academy of Informatization at the UN ; scientific editor of the Moscow Psychological Journal). L.N. Sobchik introduced into scientific circulation the data she obtained in the USSR on the basis of testing Soviet pilots, which were presented, in particular, in the collection “Manual for the Use of MMPI,” published in Moscow in 1975.

We will not go into detail about how exactly the MMPI test works, its additional scales, etc. Firstly, professionals can talk about this better, and secondly, everyone can turn to printed and online sources. And finally, thirdly, we are primarily interested in what features of the “Russian national character” were identified using the Minnesota Multifactor Personality Questionnaire.

NATIONAL CHARACTER: CONCLUSIONS OF GUSTAVE LEBON

The basis of the mentality of a particular nation, as mentioned earlier, is the social archetype, or the character of the people. National character is a stable, repeating set of personality traits characteristic of representatives of each specific ethnic group.

The French psychologist, sociologist, anthropologist, historian, founder of social psychology Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931) wrote about this in detail at the end of the 19th century. In his books “The Laws of the Psychological Evolution of Nations” (“Les lois psychologiques de l"evolution des peuples”, 1894) and “Psychology of the Crowd” (“La psychologie des foules”, 1895), he was perhaps one of the first to clearly record that which even today seems far from obvious to many, namely: the character of the people (or their mental makeup) changes extremely slowly.

It should be noted that these two fundamental works of Le Bon were at one time carefully studied by Lenin, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and many of the principles and conclusions contained in them have been successfully used in advertising and political technologies for decades. What conclusions did the famous French scientist come to?

The nature of power, the form of government, state and public institutions, laws and codes, art and science - even during the life of one generation of a people, all this can be changed very quickly, sharply and radically. But - and this seems paradoxical at first glance! - external changes are a manifestation of the same constant national character, which changes incomparably slower than externally visible “modernizations”. To understand how right Le Bon was in his conclusions, here are a few quotes from his book.

About the reasons that it is character that is the determining factor in the psychological evolution of peoples, Le Bon writes the following: “By examining one after another various factors that can act on the mental make-up of peoples, we can always state that they act on secondary and unstable aspects of character, but do not affect his basic features at all, or affect them only through very slow hereditary accumulation [...].

Character is formed by a combination in varying proportions of various elements, which psychologists now designate under the name of feelings. Of those that play the most important role, we should mainly note: perseverance, energy, the ability to control oneself - abilities that stem from the will. We will also mention morality among the basic elements of character, although it is a synthesis of rather complex feelings.

We take this last word in the sense of hereditary respect for the rules on which the existence of society rests. Having morality for the people means having well-known firm rules of behavior and not deviating from them [...]. A daughter of character, but not at all of mind, she can only be considered firmly established when she has become hereditary and therefore unconscious [...].

Mental qualities can easily change under the influence of education; qualities of character almost completely elude his action [...]. Discoveries of the mind are easily transmitted from one people to another. Character qualities cannot be transferred [...]. Advantages or disadvantages of character constitute the exclusive property of every people. This is an unchanging cliff into which the wave must beat day after day for centuries in order to sharpen only its contours [...].

The character of a people, but not its intelligence, determines its development in history [...]. The influence of character is the most powerful factor in the life of nations, while the influence of the mind is indeed very weak [...]. The extreme weakness of the work of professional psychologists and their insignificant practical interest depend mainly on the fact that they devote themselves exclusively to the study of the mind and leave almost completely aside the study of character.”

Conducting a comparative analysis of the peoples inhabiting the countries of South America and the United States, Gustave Le Bon asked an obvious question: why is it that, having, in principle, more than similar natural conditions for life and activity, the peoples in these countries live so differently? The answer, according to Le Bon, lies precisely in the peculiarities of the national character of the Anglo-Saxons: “Whether the English have a monarch at their head, as in England, or a president, as in the United States, their mode of government will always have the same basic features: the activities of the state will be reduced to a minimum, while the activities of private individuals will be reduced to a maximum, which is the complete opposite of the Latin ideal. Ports, canals, railways, educational institutions will always be created and supported by personal initiative, but never by the initiative of the state.

Neither revolutions, nor constitutions, nor despots can give to any people qualities of character which they do not possess, or take away from them those qualities which they have, from which their institutions flow. The idea has been repeated more than once that every nation has the form of government that it deserves. It’s hard to admit that he could have another.”

A SHOT FROM THE PAST. WHO ARE RUSSIANS FROM VIEWPOINTMMPI?

It is obvious that the peculiarities of the national character must be taken into account by the leadership of the state in their daily activities. Today in Russia, unfortunately, we see a slightly different picture. Legislative and executive authorities (at the federal and regional levels), representative and executive bodies of local self-government often make the most important, fundamental decisions not on the basis of mathematical processing of data obtained using statistics and sociology, but, at best, on the basis of expert proposals. But experts are people too. And they, too, may not know everything; they, too, may make mistakes.

Vladimir Soloukhin, in his reflections on the ruins of the Optina Pustyn “Time to collect stones” (the text was first published in the magazine “Moscow”, No. 2, 1980) wrote: “In the East there is a saying: “If you shoot at the past with a pistol, the future will shoot at you with a cannon.”. The way in which numerous reforms have been carried out in Russia over the last twenty years very well demonstrates the ignorance of many, if not the majority of those in power, of the history of their country, their people, and the desire to correct this history (including relatively recent) in the interests of the current “ political moment." All this quite naturally leads to the fact that the lessons that history can teach from the events of the past are not learned, so as not to repeat elementary mistakes in the present and future.

A small example. At the everyday level, we now often hear from people who are tired of the nonsense and “reforms” of the Russian authorities, something like this: if Russia were occupied by the Americans (Germans, Chinese, Japanese - different options are possible), you see, then there would be more order, and life would be normal. But this is not new.

The remarkable Russian legal scholar, linguist, literary critic and publicist Sergei Zavadsky (1871-1935), shortly after emigrating from Soviet Russia in 1921, published his memoirs “At the Great Break. A citizen's report on his experiences in 1916-1917" (in our time they were republished in the 22-volume "Archive of the Russian Revolution", T. XI. - M.: Terra-Politizdat, 1991).

In the summer of 1917, Sergei Vladislavovich got into a conversation with one man on a Ukrainian farm: “Ivan calmly and with complete conviction declared that it really didn’t matter to him to be Russian (he said “Russian”, not “Ukrainian”) or German: the Germans would give him more land , so he will be German [...]. And I felt that this was not cynical" ubibene, ibipatria" (Latin proverb: “Where it is good, there is the homeland” - Consp. ), but the naivety of a person who has not yet realized his nationality. I realized that almost everyone around Ivan felt (not reasoned, but felt) this way, and that therefore there was and could not be any connection between the “gentlemen” and the “men.”

Another quote: “There are no public detention centers. Society disintegrates into elements without social connection. Our psychology is an organism without a backbone, soft-bodied and unstable. The Russian people are supposedly religious, but now religion is not felt anywhere, nothing is “a sin.” This is true among the people, and the same among the intelligentsia. Success is everything. We rush towards success like a herd.” If you didn’t know that the Russian writer Vladimir Korolenko (1853-1921) wrote these lines in his diary on November 4, 1917, you would think that he was describing Russia not at the beginning of the 20th century, but at the beginning of the 21st century. And this once again emphasizes how slowly the national character changes, how strong an influence it has on the real state of affairs in society, regardless of the socio-political system.

Analyzing the data obtained by Lyudmila Sobchik, supporting them with her own research, Valentina Chesnokova came to the following conclusion regarding the characteristics of the Russian national character: “If we are “cleansed” of cultural standards, then the type of personality that psychiatrists call “epileptoid” will clearly appear in us.

Polish psychiatrist Anton Kempinski ( Antoni Kępiński; 1918-1972), describing an epileptoid, warns that it is “characterized by certain features that sometimes appear in epilepsy, hence its name, but it is not always associated with epilepsy. Epilepsy itself also does not always produce personality changes described as epileptoid.” In general, an epileptoid is not a disease, but a so-called accentuated personality type.”

Valentina Chesnokova’s opinion is this: Russians are not epileptoids in their pure form, but, so to speak, “cultivated” epileptoids. The Russian national archetype is the product of long-term influence of nature and culture. In this process, culture confronts the genotype, striving not to reflect or consolidate it, but to adapt it to the environment, to the environment, processing and “cultivating” it. We can say this: the task of the genotype is to create difficulties, the task of culture is to overcome them.

In such constant interaction and confrontation, the genotype and culture have developed over many centuries (and, possibly, millennia) stable models of behavioral complexes and systems of attitudes, applicable by each individual representative of the Russian nation for many similar situations. All this can be called the term that has already been used above - social archetype. It represents external manifestations of typical properties of the Russian character, easily fixed from the outside.

But what are they - the main features of the Russian national character? How and in what ways do they manifest themselves?