Who wrote about the character of the Russian soul. Russian national character

But the Soviet man thinks differently - everyone is to blame for him except himself. He is characterized by a bizarre combination of excessive pride and an inferiority complex. He is often two-faced; he can be afraid of his superiors and at the same time despise them.
http://lenta.ru/articles/2016/01/16/homosoveticus/

7) Theft and deception are part of the Russian mentality.

So strong that prison, a logical continuation of theft, is considered by many Russians to be a natural event in life, just like the army.From prison and from the scrip, have you heard? Do you think in Europe they also don’t renounce prison?

The annual losses from corruption in Russia are more than TRILLION. 1,000,000,000,000 rubles.
This is a continuation of infantilism. Russians, like children, do not know how to think and take responsibility for their affairs one step ahead, the master thinks for them, and when the master cannot, discord, theft and drunkenness begin.

Nowhere in the world are there so many sayings justifying theft.
He quietly cheated and left, they say he found him. etc…

8) Russians like to obey
Kindergarten, school, army - and the result is a stereotyped serf absolutely trained to obey, who for many years has lost the habit of challenging the decisions of his superiors and thinking with his own head. And if for some reason I’m not used to it, others will bring it back to normal: “You need it more than anyone else, the smartest one here in the gallery?”
8.1) It’s easier to be a conformist than a liberal.
Always. Russians always agree with the authorities. With any power. A week before the revolution, 85% supported the old ruler; a week after the revolution, 85% will support the new ruler. As mentioned above, three days before the Olympics, not a single Russian considered the absence of Crimea in Russia to be any significant problem.

9) Russians don’t believe that things could be better somewhere and don’t believe in justice
This phenomenon even has a name – reverse cargo cult. Russians sincerely believe that if they live poorly, then the whole world lives even worse.

Any cannibal Papuan is sure that white people cannot help but eat people.

They just eat them very carefully and unnoticed and masterfully hide this fact.

9.1) Russians are sincerely confident that everywhere in the world is equally bad

Surprisingly, most of the comments under this post related to this very point. Several hundred people said without thinking that “ the same can be said about any other nation " This is the same “transferable fool” from paragraph 4.1

But record statistics of murders, daily and widespread rudeness, love of submission, dreams of war, devastation, an urgent need for an enemy and two dozen points further - these are the featuresonly Russians, other nations don’t have this at all!

Spaniards, Finns, Australians, Chileans - they are all different, they are all not angels, but no one has such an explosive cocktailof all these points.
In the meantime, a quarter of Russians consider Russia the leader of the world economy (Russia is 2% of world GDP)

9.2) The word democracy for Russians is synonymous with problems. So does liberalism.
People's power and human rights are practically dirty words for Russians. Why? Maybe because serfs most of all dislike those who want to deprive them of serfdom?

9.3) Russians do not believe in the existence of objective truth

…Russians have a hard time understanding what “objective truth” is. Deep down, many Russians sincerely doubt its existence. The subjective opinion of a Russian person about reality is reality itself for him. http://www.bbc.com/russian/blogs/2016/06/160601_blog_pastoukhov_russian_character

10) Russians do not want to live better; they like to endure hardships.
Orthodoxy teaches us to live in poverty and obedience, education says that the interests of the country are more important than the interests of people, men who shave with an ax and open canned food with their teeth are considered heroes, Russians sincerely consider life in poverty and deprivation to be a blessing.

At the same time, Russia isrichest country on this planet, Russians are sure that one must not live, but survive, this is the only way to preserve spirituality.
If Russia needed a motto, it would be: “ ”.

10.1 Collective narcissism and revanchism.
Having no reason to be proud of their personal achievements, Russians are proud of their achievements Russian Empire and the USSR, but these achievements crumbled into dust in the 20 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and narcissism turned into an expectation of revenge. This is why Russians are so painfully proud of their “Satans”, “maces”, “poplars” and “Iskanders”, but not of their life expectancy, pensions or tourism.

11) The Russians need an enemy.
The enemy is both an incentive and an excuse for the Russians. The Russians will blame any of their problems on the enemy; the Anglo-Saxon enemies pissed at the entrance. Any achievement will be accomplished by order of the master and to the detriment of the enemy. Russians don’t do anything for themselves; the master will take it away anyway.

12) Russians dream of a great war.
Because they understand very well that they are bad at living in peace, all their glory and all their achievements are connected only with war. Crimea will write off everything, but our life is bad, it’s all because of the war, the First World War, the Second World War, cold, against the USA and the entire planet.
Russia lives from war to war and thereby justifies its miserable existence.

The entire history of Russia consists of three stages - preparation for war, war, recovery after the war.

13) Russians are ready to die for their homeland, but do not want to live for it.
This is an artificially created phenomenon in the 21st century; such a nation is grown by the authorities specifically to waste it in wars. Alcohol, drugs, domestic murders, banditry - these are all clear manifestations of Russians’ readiness to die and Russians’ inability to live for their Motherland.

14) Russians don’t value life– life expectancy in Russia over the past 50 years has increased byONE YEAR, when the entire planet (from Nigeria to Switzerland) gained plus over the same years15 years!


14.1) Russian territory more important than people – A big country is more important than living fellow citizens. Russians would rather sacrifice people's lives than the territory of the country. The main wealth of Russia is not people, but land - this is also a legacy of the serfdom, when a person was tied precisely to the land and the loss of land was tantamount to starvation. Crimea was exchanged for sanctions, two years of pensions, and the contempt of the entire planet.

15) Russians are not interested76% of Russians have never been abroad of Russia.70% of Russians do not speak any foreign language.

Science and education in Russia have practically disappeared. Science evaporates budget money, people flee from education to become sellers and earn more. Russia of the 21st century has made exactly two world-class discoveries. The first is the discovery of the 117th and 118th elements of the periodic table on still Soviet equipment, the second was made by Grigory Perelman, who lived in Russia on his mother’s pension, but went to Sweden to live.

Russians don’t study and don’t want to, why? Because after spending 6-8 years on additional education, a Russian will earn the same as a salesperson, and sometimes even less.
Emigration from Russia is a natural stage for a person who wants to develop.

16) Russians love to lie, they do not have their own opinion or are ready to give it up at the first hint from the authorities. They especially love to lie, not for themselves, but for the benefit of the master, this is a proven fact:

17) To please the Russians, you need to destroy them– most of all they love those who destroyed the Russians the most. The most respected ruler of the Russians is Stalin, under him Russia lost the most of its inhabitants, both in numerical and percentage terms. Lenin, Stalin, Peter I - under them, Russia suffered the greatest losses. Russians consider humiliation a concern. They often beat their wives, children, and animals.



18) Russians don't trust anyone except fellow villagers your social circle, Russians can trust them unconditionally. Russians do not trust strangers, foreigners and other nationalities. Why couldn’t they stay at home, they came to steal our goods? Due to mistrust between employer and employee, a situation has arisen in Russia where stealing is more profitable than working.

19) Russians are very touchyand are theatrically offended for any reason, they consider it part of their spirituality. Right now, instead of grinning into their beards, many Russians are already writing angry comments without even reading to the end.
The girl took a photo sitting on the memorial plaque, well, stupid, does it happen that girls danced in front of the monument? They gave me 15 days! The Russians will go into rage, bile and abuse.
Pussy danced in the temple? Half the country took this as a personal insult.

Google finds twenty millionsresponses to the query “insulted Russia” andtwenty-three times lessto the request “insulted USA”.

Russians are firmly convinced that the rest of the world for some reason wants to destroy them.

20) Russians love Russophobia. They wear it on their banners. As soon as Russians are reproached for something, they immediately, with the pleasure of a masochist, begin to complain about Russophobia. A Russian is rude to you, gets personal, you reproach him - that’s it! You are a Russophobe, you did not allow yourself to be cursed by a Russian person. It is very easy to become a Russophobe - just reproach a Russian for something that he cannot dodge or come up with an excuse for. After all, if you loved Russia, you wouldn’t ask about Crimea.

21) Russians love to judge things that are unfamiliar to them And Russians love to teach you how to live.Any Russian is an expert on any life issue; he knows perfectly well when you need to get married, have a child, when you need to gain a few kilos and why it is better for your child to go to the army rather than to university. Just start a conversation about it and they will explain to you that you are doing everything wrong.
Any Russian will tell you in detail why the Americans captured Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Syria. In detail with details, although you will automatically become a Russophobe if you say that America did not invade Libya and Syria.

21.1) Russians have no doubts, they are always right.
Doubt for Russians is a sign of weakness and wrongness, and not at all the basic principle of critical thinking. Russians are always confident that they are right, “In fact” is a very important turn of phrase in Russian rhetoric. With its help, they change reality in their favor, see “In fact, Crimea has always been Russian, in fact, the moon is made of cheese”

Call me when the Russian says “I don’t know,” I want to look at it.

22) Russians hate their neighbors. Those who are not with us are below us. In fact, anyone who has a point of view different from the master’s point of view becomes an enemy.



This is a feature of serfdom, when all serfs were obliged to accept the opinion of the master or be beaten in the stable. Anyone who quarreled with the master found all his serfs as enemies. Sometimes they even hate other Russians:

22.1) Hatred is a Russian national idea.
https://youtu.be/LPL1FwccdrY

. This is a specific phenomenon of the 21st century, the authorities specifically destroyed education, stupid serfs only benefit the master, the authorities are destroying the secondary education system with enviable zeal. There are only two Russian universities in the top 500 universities in the world.

25) Russians sincerely consider themselves indispensable.
They are sure that it was the Russians who saved Europe from fascism, all other countries were just waiting for 6 years of war for the Russians to save them. Russia is confident that its sanctions will ruin Europe, or at least its farmers(food exports from Europe increased by 5%, 4.8 billion euros ).
The Russians are confident that without their gas, if not the entire planet, then Ukraine will definitely freeze(Denmark generated 140% of its energy needs from wind turbines ), and without spirituality it will turn to cannibalism, bearded women and same-sex marriage. The Russians can “make it dark” for the whole world if they close their eyes at once.



26) Russians can sincerely love to do evil.
There is nothing to add here; Russians may approve of thieves, bandits, and cannibalistic power. If you love evil, you won’t need to fight it. If you sincerely love the master who destroys the fraternal people, then you no longer need to doubt the need for war with the fraternal people.

26.1) Shenderovich trap. Or making fun of normality

The simplest and most disgusting method of humiliating people, invented and used only by Russians, I have not seen it anywhere else. As soon as it is discovered that a person is doing something good, those around him begin to frown upon him good for this, trying to collectively drag him into the common “shit”. Relatively speaking, a man took an old woman across the street, after which the entire Russian team with grins will ask every day:

Oooh, look, our lover of old ladies has come, and how, did you translate a lot of old ladies today, are you our virtue?

He will be hounded until the man gives up the idea of ​​moving old women across the road. This trap was found and described by Viktor Shenderovich: http://echo.msk.ru/blog/shenderovich/1768880-echo/

26.2) 44% of Russians believe that the victim of violence is to blame

https://wciom.ru/index.php?id=236&uid=115864

27) Russians don’t even report criminals.
And this is easily explained, in connection with the Russian craving for crazy power, any offense was punished and continues to be punished by the Russians many times worse than the violation itself. Stealing a bag of potatoes can lead to two years in prison even now, simply because Russians are brutal and adore the master.
27.1) Punishment is important to Russians, but not correction or compensation.
Simple examples are Russian prisons, which are more like torture chambers. Sentences that imply years of humiliation, torment and ZERO compensation to the victims (why shouldn’t a person work and pay for the same years). How many thousands of officials received 7 years?conditionallyand a fine of one hundred thousand for the theft of millions of rubles? But they were punished! Punishment is more important!



28) Russians are afraid of change and afraid of making mistakes
Until now, Russians live in a monarchy and serfdom. The word reform for them is a kind of curse. A Russian would prefer to do nothing with a proud look than to make a mistake so that others can see it.


29) Russians love to sneer
The more you criticize other people’s mistakes, the less people look at yours. Psychological defense projection. Russians see their own negative qualities in everyone and condemn them as loudly as possible. It is the “geyropa” who is concerned, although it is preciselyRussia is the absolute leader in searches for “anal sex”and “ass” on porn sites.

But they don’t have to be all gay!

This is a completely standard reaction of a Russian person to this picture - “but women can also participate in this!” This means that we don’t have gays and sodomy is no longer sodomy!

It is surprising that “as if by chance” Russians unanimously “do not understand” that if objects A belong to community B, then the larger community B is, the more objects A can be found in it under natural conditions.
This primitive logical conclusion is simply unacceptable for a Russian person!
If a fish lives in a river, then the larger the river, the more fish there are in it? Is it logical? No, this is a river of one fish, only one correct fish!

All lovers of anal sex in Russia are only heterosexual, period! And the Russian proverb “ whoever is in pain is the one who talks about it” in this case, of course, is not applicable.

Occam's razor says that there is no need to come up with some excuses when the answer is obvious, as in this case.

31) Template thinking(in the process of writing)
Any enemy of the Russians should be simple and understandable, a pendos, a liberal, a crest, a Jew, a gay European.
In any discussion, the Russians will try to squeeze you into one of these stencils, the whole Russian world should be unambiguously simple and understandable, to clarify, you can use the Dulles plan, the witches’ hammer, the Masonic conspiracy and America’s plans to capture Novosibirsk, but everything should and must be unambiguous .

As a conclusion:

You may ask where did such Russophobic scum like me come from? What kind of hellish Satan gave birth to such a bastard...?
Yes, I myself am Russian, like a willow bush above the river, I grew up and studied among the proletariat, but because of bad behavior I was not accepted as a pioneer in October. I went to camp with you, I wrote all this partly to myself.
I somehow found all these traits in myself.

Why did I write this?Don’t read Vata, because any treatment begins with a diagnosis. If you are suffering from something similar, know that it can be treated, you need about five years of living in a normal society to firmly understand that you can easily live without the thirty points above.

Do you want to get rid of this mental ballast? While you live among the same people, you will not be able to do this, just as it is impossible to stop drinking among alcoholics. Replace society and you will change yourself. It’s true that you won’t be able to return to live in Russia after this.

P.S. Yes, Russophobia isfearRussians, a Russophobe was a general who jumped out of the window shouting “the Russians are coming”, Russophobes are those who make films about the terrible Russian mafia, and the lack of faith in Russia and in Russians is Russoskepticism. Purely to broaden your horizons.

N. A. Berdyaev and N. O. Lossky.
Both thinkers, being of a religious orientation, put in the first place the religiosity of the Russian person, which they considered internal to him and from which all the private moral properties of the Russian soul naturally flowed, first of all the permanent - constant and continuous - 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 characteristics of the Russian soul, and it is precisely in understanding this inconsistency lies the solution to the riddle of the Russian soul.
Berdyaev says unequivocally: “One can approach the solution to the mystery hidden in the soul of Russia by immediately recognizing the antinomic nature of Russia, its terrible inconsistency.” Inconsistency - and this is the main thing - leads to the fact that Russia lives an “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 dutifully devoted his energies to the creation of imperialism, in which his heart was not interested. Here lies the secret of Russian history and the Russian soul. No philosophy of history, Slavophile or Western, has yet unraveled why the most stateless people created such a huge and powerful state, why the most anarchic people are so submissive to the bureaucracy, why the free-spirited people seem to not want free life? This secret is connected with the special relationship between the feminine and masculine principles in Russian national character. The same antinomy runs through all Russian existence.”

About the second main feature of the Russian character Berdyaev says: “Russia is the most stateless, 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 turns into an instrument of politics. The Russian people created the most powerful state in the world, greatest empire. Since Ivan Kalita, Russia has consistently and persistently gathered itself and has reached dimensions that stun the imagination of all peoples of the world. The forces of the people, who are not without reason thought to be striving for an inner spiritual life, are given over to the colossus of statehood, turning everything into its weapon.” However, in the quoted there is no contradiction in essence, because in the first case we mean the mechanics of management (and in this regard, everything is correct: we never strived for high-quality management of the country, calling on various kinds of foreigners for this work, in the initial period of the formation of the Russian state - the Varangians, in Peter the Great 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 character trait of the Russian people is tolerance towards foreigners that Berdyaev notes in the following words: “Russia is the most non-chauvinistic country in the world. In our country, nationalism always gives the impression of something non-Russian, superficial, some kind of nonsense. The Germans, British, French are chauvinists and nationalists en masse, they full of national self-confidence and complacency.
Russians are almost ashamed of being Russian; alien to them national pride and often even - alas! - national dignity is alien.
The Russian people are not at all characterized by aggressive nationalism or inclinations for forced Russification.
The Russian does not put forward, does not show off, does not despise others.
In the Russian element there truly is some kind of national unselfishness, sacrifice, unknown to Western peoples.
The Russian intelligentsia has always treated nationalism with disgust and abhorred it as evil... What is national in Russia is precisely its supernationalism, its freedom from nationalism; In this, Russia is unique and unlike any other country in the world. Russia is called upon to be a liberator of peoples. This mission is embedded in its special spirit."

The Russian people do not lend themselves well to political organization.
This happens due to the fact that “Russia is a country of boundless freedom of spirit, a country of wandering and the search for God’s truth. Russia is the least bourgeois country in the world; she does not have that strong philistinism that so repels and disgusts Russians in the West.”
And at the same time: “It is almost impossible to move Russia, it has become so heavy, so inert, so lazy, so immersed in matter, so resignedly comes to terms with his life.
All our classes, our soil layers: the nobility, merchants, peasants, clergy, bureaucrats - all do not want and do not like ascension; everyone prefers to stay in the lowlands, on the plain, to be “like everyone else”
. This kind of property of the 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, although with great difficulty, very slowly, began to emerge in Russia in last years tsarist rule, that is, during the era constitutional monarchy, but all this was completely ruined by the Bolshevik coup, as a result of which the political elite took the reins of power in the country, 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 man, namely: “ keep your head down").

Berdyaev notes as negative trait his Russian character excessive self-importance, in connection with which he says that Russia is “a country that considers itself the only one called and rejects all of Europe as rottenness and a fiend of the devil, doomed to death. The flip side of Russian humility is the extraordinary Russian conceit. The most humble is the greatest, the most powerful, the only one called. “Russian” is righteous, good, true, divine. Russia is “holy Rus'”. Russia is sinful, but even in its sin it remains a holy country - a country of saints living 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 it.” However, this opinion of an outstanding philosopher should be approached with caution, keeping in mind that in this case there is a fine line between truly excessive conceit, which is not good, and a possible underestimation of one’s own national role in the formation of a world system of moral relations, which fully corresponds to the spiritual potential of the Orthodox Russian people.

Berdyaev says that “Russia is a fantastic country of spiritual intoxication, a country of Khlysty, self-immolators, Doukhobors, a country of Kondraty Selivanov (the founder of the scopal sect that existed in the second half of the 18th century in the Oryol province - V.N.) and Grigory Rasputin, a country of impostors and Pugachevism . The Russian soul does not sit still, it is not a bourgeois soul, not a local soul. In Russia, in the soul of the people, there is some kind of endless search, a search for the invisible city of Kitezh, an invisible home. Distances open before the Russian soul, and there is no delineated horizon before its spiritual eyes. The Russian soul burns in a fiery search for truth, absolute, divine truth and salvation for the whole world and general resurrection to a new life. She always grieves over the grief and suffering of the people and the whole world, and her torment knows no satisfaction. This soul is absorbed in solving the final, damned questions about the meaning of life. There is rebellion, rebellion in the Russian soul, insatiability and dissatisfaction with anything temporary, relative and conditional. It must go further and further, to the end, to the limit, to the exit from this “world”, from this land, from everything local, bourgeois, attached... The heroically minded intelligentsia went to their death in the name of materialistic ideas. This strange contradiction will be understood if we see that under a materialistic guise she strived for the absolute. Slavic revolt - fiery, fire element, unknown to other races" [ibid., pp. 9–10]. The properties of the Russian character noted by the brilliant philosopher, it seems, could not help but lead to the idea of ​​Russian cosmism, and it was also quite natural that the Russians, born in free-thinking France, took up the same “crazy” - still difficult to understand - idea of ​​​​solidarism.

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 Publishing House “Posev” in 1957, republished in Moscow by the Publishing House “Klyuch” in 1990 g., 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 and bringing of goodness, love and truth, “in the foreground in it is love for the suffering, pity, attention to the individual personality..." [see. named source, p. 41]. In this regard, N. O. Lossky notes the exceptional role of religious ascetics - monastic “elders”, to whom people went for teaching, consolation and blessing, in searching for answers to many life questions, both the simplest - material, everyday, family, and sublime - moral and spiritual, including about the meaning of one’s existence, about the Kingdom of Heaven, about the meaning church holidays and about other wisdom.

Among the particularly valuable qualities of a Russian person, the philosopher notes a sensitive perception of strangers. states of mind, from which flows live communication even between unfamiliar people. On this occasion, he writes: “The Russian people have highly developed individual personal and family communication. There is no excessive replacement in Russia individual relationships social, there is no personal and family isolationism. Therefore, even a foreigner, having arrived 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 these are the properties main source recognition of the charm of the Russian people, so often expressed by foreigners, is good knowledgeable about Russia"[ibid., p. 42].

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

Among the primary basic properties of the Russian people, according to Lossky, is powerful willpower, the derivative of which is passion as a combination of strong feelings and tension of will, aimed at a loved or hated value. Naturally, the higher the value, the stronger feelings and energetic activity it evokes in people with a strong will. This explains 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 fact of 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 true, according to Lossky, of Russian revolutionary movement, which is also replete with examples of political passion and powerful willpower. Starting with the People's Will, who were obsessed with 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 a totalitarian state in such an excessive form that has never been, and God willing, will not be seen again on earth” [ibid.].

At the same time, Lossky also notes that in the Russian people there is also a property that is opposite to strong will and determination, namely the familiar “Oblomovism”, that laziness and passivity that 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” this way: “...Russian people are characterized by a desire for an absolutely perfect kingdom of being and at the same time excessive sensitivity to any shortcomings of their own and others’ activities. From here arises a cooling towards the work begun and an aversion to continuing it; the idea and general outline of it are often very valuable, but its incompleteness and therefore inevitable imperfections repel the Russian person, and he is lazy to continue finishing the little things. Thus, Oblomovism is in many cases the reverse side of the high qualities of the 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 good and willpower, Lossky considers love for freedom and its highest expression - freedom of spirit. And those who have freedom of spirit are inclined to doubt every truth and put every value to the test, not only in thought, but even in experience. Due to the free search for truth, Russian people find it difficult to come to terms with each other. Therefore, in public life, Russians’ love of freedom is expressed in a tendency towards anarchy, in repulsion from the state. One of the reasons, according to Lossky, why Russia has developed an absolute monarchy, sometimes bordering on despotism, is that it is difficult to govern a people with anarchic 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 a feminine nature, in Berdyaev’s words, eternally feminine. However, Lossky does not agree with this; he talks about the combination of kindness and courage in the Russian character, which seems absolutely true. On this occasion, he writes that “the Russian people, especially their Great Russian branch, the people who created a great state in harsh historical conditions, are extremely courageous; but what is especially remarkable about him is the combination of masculine nature with feminine softness” [ibid.].

This outstanding philosopher associates the property of kindness with the presence in the character of a Russian person of another remarkable human quality- lack of rancor, which occurs in all layers of society. Lossky notes that “often a Russian person, being passionate and prone to maximalism, experiences a strong feeling of repulsion from another person, however, when meeting him, if specific communication is necessary, his heart softens, and he somehow involuntarily begins to show affection. him his spiritual gentleness, even sometimes condemning himself for this, if he believes that this person does not deserve a kind attitude towards him” [ibid.].

In full accordance with the inherent inconsistency of 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 good. Lossky explains this as follows: “The kindness of a Russian person sometimes prompts him to lie due to the reluctance to offend his interlocutor, due to the desire for peace and good relations with people at all costs” [ibid.].

Along with kindness, Russian people have 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. Many negative sides Lossky explains the behavior of the peasants by their extreme poverty, the many insults and oppressions they experience and lead them to extreme embitterment. He considered the fact that in peasant life, husbands sometimes severely beat their wives, most often while drunk, to be especially outrageous.

From the works of Boris Petrovich Vysheslavtsev (1877–1954; by the way, a member of the NTS), the thematic character is the report he 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 don’t fully understand ourselves, and, perhaps, even the incomprehensibility and 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 above-mentioned work, the philosopher, noting that the character of a people manifests itself at an unconscious level, in the subconscious of the people who make up this or that nation (especially Russians, in whose souls “the area of ​​the subconscious occupies an exclusive place” [ibid.]), draws attention to the possibility of penetration into it is the subconscious, so to speak, to see what the mass of the people really think about, without keeping silent about the negative and excessively embellishing the positive. This can be done, according to Vysheslavtsev, through content analysis folk epic, through fairy tales and epics invented by the people (including those used by them for the purpose of educating the younger generation, which is especially socio-politically important), in which, as in a person’s dream, the innermost thoughts, deeply hidden, internal aspirations and dreams of the people are involuntarily expressed . Moreover, both morally positive and not so positive.

Citing examples from Russian fairy tales, Vysheslavtsev identifies the most characteristic character traits of the Russian people, which appear in the form of their fears and cherished dreams. Thus, according to the philosopher’s observation, 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, resting on ignorance, on delusion”; among the Russians “it is their own will, or rather some kind of lack of will.” But there is another fear in the fairy 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 entire gamut of desires, from the most sublime to the lowest, from the most base everyday desires, justified by the notorious “economic materialism,” to ideas about their desired future, based which lie the cherished dreams of Russian idealism [ibid.]. So, the lazy Emelya the fool, who selflessly dreams, 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. There are indeed quite a few such real-life characters in Rus'. It was these slacker dreamers who rushed en masse to the Bolshevik call in 1917. It was they, overwhelmed by a cherished dream, inspired 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, according to my desire,” succumbed to to the temptation organized by the Bolsheviks to take everything from others - in their understanding, from the world-eating rich - under the Marxist slogan about the goodness of “expropriation of the expropriators.” In the latter case, as can be easily seen, we have an example of a Russian person’s inclination to his favorite extreme: awareness of the depravity of the unfair distribution of material wealth in many cases with in practical ways ensuring social justice using the easiest method - “take away and divide”, and not through persistent improvement of social relations.

Another example of a negative property, considered by Vysheslavtsev, is very indicative. This example concerns, unfortunately, the most important moral imperative Orthodox man- his religiosity, or, more precisely, his attitude towards religious shrines, which one day, in the heat of the unbridled resentment of a Russian person for something or someone, suddenly do not become such (again, this is the same case of the manifestation of psychological extremes in the character of 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 shooting with arrows the domes and “wonderful crosses” on Kyiv churches. As the philosopher notes, “here is the whole picture of the Russian revolution, which I saw in a prophetic dream ancient epic. Ilya Muromets - personification peasant Rus', together with the most disgusting mob, with drunkards and idlers, organized a real destruction of the church and state, suddenly he began to destroy everything that he recognized as sacred and that he defended all his life” [ibid., p. 116]. The following is the conclusion that the entire 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 the struggle for a new system of life; this is spontaneous nihilism, instantly destroying everything that the people’s soul worshiped, and, moreover, realizing 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. The Russian monarchy did not understand this prophetic warning, expressed quite clearly in the Russian epic, and thereby doomed itself to inevitable collapse.

Also indicative in terms of reflecting one of the character traits of Russian people is Vysheslavtsev’s noted desire to be transported in his fairy tales “across three seas, to another kingdom, to another state.” As the analytical philosopher notes, this is probably “the main and most beautiful dream of the Russian people.” And although in fairy tales this dream is most often quite prosaic: in most cases it is the desire to get your Vasilisa the Wise, who, again, will provide Ivan the Tsarevich with a personally happy and socially problem-free life, and Ivan the Fool - which happens more often in Russian fairy tales - a comfortable and an idle life. However, in fabulous travels“beyond three seas” also contains something more sublime, namely the desire for the new, unknown. Among the most thoughtful representatives of the Russian people, this was once expressed in the dream of space, which is not just “beyond three seas,” but much further and more inaccessible, and therefore even more tempting.

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

This is what a true patriot thinks and feels when speaking about his homeland: “My people! I was born from your depths in flesh and spirit. The same spirit that burned in my ancestors burns within me. The instinct of national self-preservation that led you through the wilds and torments of your history lives in me and guides me...” “The sigh of my people is my sigh; and the groan of my people is my groan. I am strong with 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 just like him; I pray and work with him, I contemplate and think with him; I dream of having all his virtues and worry about his weaknesses and imperfections. His national interest is mine, personal. I joyfully join in his glory, and am tormented in the days of his ruin and shame. His friends are my friends. His enemies are my enemies. My life belongs to him. His tongue is my tongue. 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 himself who gave birth to me from his bosom. But, being born by him, I chose him and accepted him into the last depths of my heart. And therefore I am faithful to him; and is faithful to him - in all situations, difficulties and dangers of life. I cannot have this feeling for two peoples at once. A person cannot have two mothers, or 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 should find its baptism in his spirit; and each of them is called upon 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, paragraph 15 - Love for the Motherland).

With this baggage - a set of classic positive and negative qualities 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 destiny right up to today, pushing us into a terrible social experiment - the construction of an ugly socialist society, and leading us to the most desperate heights of human thought and action - it was we, Russians, who were the first earthlings to go into space, realizing our own, primordially Russian, idea of ​​​​exploiting the Universe (in the second In this case, we have become truly Gagarinists in everything - both in theory and in practice, having gone from the abstract dream of Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov-Gagarin, which originated in the middle of the 19th century, to the real flight into space of the first earthling - Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin, a century after that, April 12, 1961). In order to go further, it is necessary to consider the factors shaping the character of a Russian person and what Soviet reality did to him.

Recent events such as the overthrow of the government in Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea and its decision to join 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 it this caused a certain phase shift in Russian society, which in the West is very misunderstood, if understood at all. This misunderstanding puts Europe at a serious disadvantage in terms of its ability to negotiate an end to the crisis.

And if before these events they tended to perceive Russia as “another European country,” now they remembered that Russia is another civilization with other civilizational roots (more likely 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 has had a special impact on the Russian character, which, if misunderstood, could lead the whole of Europe and even the whole world to disaster.

If you think that Byzantium had little cultural influence on Russia, then you are mistaken: its influence was actually decisive. It began with the advent of Christianity - first through Crimea (the birthplace of Christianity in Russia), and then through the Russian capital Kyiv (the same Kyiv, which is today the capital of Ukraine) - and allowed Russia to “skip” an entire millennium cultural development. This influence also determined the opaque and clumsy bureaucracy of the Russian state apparatus, which, along with many other things, irritates the West, which so loves transparency, especially among others. Russians often like to call Moscow the Third Rome, after the real Rome and Constantinople, and this is not entirely unfounded. But this does not mean that Russian civilization is something derivative. Yes, she managed to absorb the entire classical heritage, which was looked at primarily through an “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 we are witnessing today.

1. Reaction to attack

Western states were born under conditions of limited resources and unrelenting population pressure, which largely determines how these states react when targeted. For quite a long time, when the central government was weak, conflicts were resolved in a bloody way, and even the most insignificant prick from ex-friend immediately turned him into a rival with whom they fought with swords. The reason was that in these conditions, protecting the territory was the key to survival.

On the contrary, Russia extends over an almost endless territory over which resources are dispersed. In addition, Russia skillfully took advantage of the bounty 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 connected the Black and Baltic seas. In these conditions, it was important to avoid conflicts, and people who grabbed weapons at every side glance would have had a hard time living in such an environment.

Therefore, a very different conflict resolution strategy was formed, which has survived to this day. If you offend or harm a Russian in any way, it is unlikely that a fight will break out (although this is exactly what happens during demonstrative confrontations in public or during the expected settling of scores through violence). More often than not, the Russian will simply 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 most importantly, away from you. In ordinary conversation, all this is formulated with the one-syllable statement “Pshel,” a form of the verb “to send.” With an almost endless amount of free land on which to settle, this strategy works great. Russians live sedentary 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 insult is something of a permanent aspect of Russian culture, and therefore the West, which does not understand this, can hardly achieve the results it desires. For people from the West, an offense 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 apology was made by the one who was sent to hell. A verbal apology, which is not accompanied by anything tangible, is one of the rules of good manners, which for Russians is a kind of luxury. Just a few decades ago, the usual apology sounded like “I’m sorry.” Today Russia is much more polite, but the basic cultural patterns are preserved.

And while a purely verbal apology is priceless, tangible restitution is not. “Getting things right” could mean parting with a rare possession, proposing a new and significant commitment, or announcing a fundamental 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 there.”

2. Tactics against invaders

In Russia big story invasions from all sides, but above all from the West, thanks to which Russian culture has come to a certain type of thinking that is difficult to understand from the outside. First of all, we must realize that when the Russians repel invasions (and the fact that the CIA, along with the US State Department, is ruling Ukraine through Ukrainian Nazis is 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 consciousness, conquering Russia means killing almost all Russians, and as they like to say, “You can’t kill us all.” The population can be restored over time (22 million were killed at the end of World War II), but once the concept is lost, Russia will be lost forever. To people in the West, the words of Russians about Russia as “a land of princes, poets and saints” may seem nonsense, but this is precisely the line of thought we are talking about. Russia has no history, it itself is history.

And since the Russians are fighting over a concept rather than a specific piece of Russian territory, they are always willing to retreat first. When Napoleon invaded Russia, he saw the land scorched by the retreating Russians. Finally he reached Moscow, but it also 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 he finally left his retreating, hungry 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, evacuating the population, entire factories and other institutions to Siberia, families moved inland. But then the German march stopped, turned around and eventually turned into a complete defeat. The standard model was repeated when the Russian army broke the will of the invaders, and most of the local residents who found themselves under occupation refused to cooperate, self-organized into partisan detachments and inflicted the maximum possible damage on the retreating aggressors.

Another Russian method in the fight against an invader is to rely on the Russian climate, which will do its job. In the countryside, people usually get rid of all unnecessary living creatures in the house by simply stopping heating: in a few days at minus 40, all the cockroaches, fleas, lice, nits, as well as mice and rats will die out. This also works with occupiers. Russia is the most northern country peace. And although Canada is further north, most of its population lives along the southern border, and no major cities are located above 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 allow one to survive without cooperation with the local residents, so to destroy the aggressor it is enough to simply refuse cooperation. And if you are sure that the occupier can force cooperation by shooting several locals in order 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, which is almost a sixth of the land. On the scale of planet Earth, this is enough. This is not some kind of exception or historical accident: throughout their history, Russians have sought to ensure their collective security by developing as much territory as possible. If you're wondering what prompted them to do this, 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 vast natural resources, then you are mistaken: access has always been there - all you have to do is ask. Typically, Russians do not refuse to sell their natural resources - even to potential enemies. But the enemies, as a rule, wanted to “suck in” to Russian sources for free. For them, the existence of Russia is a nuisance, which they tried to get rid of through violence.

But they only achieved that after their failure the price for themselves increased. This is a simple principle: foreigners want Russian resources, and to protect them, Russia needs a strong, centralized state with a large and powerful army, so foreigners must pay and thereby support the Russian state and army. As a result, most of the Russian state's finances come from export tariffs, primarily oil and gas exports, rather than from taxation of the Russian population. After all, the Russian population had paid dearly fighting constant invaders, so why burden them with even more taxes? This means that the Russian state is a customs state, which uses duties and tariffs to obtain funds from enemies who could destroy it, and also uses these funds for its own defense. Due to the fact that there is no replacement for Russian resources, the principle works: the more hostile the outside world behaves towards Russia, the more money it will pay for Russia’s national defense.

But this policy is used in relations with foreign powers, not with foreign peoples. Over the centuries, Russia has “absorbed” a mass of immigrants, say from Germany, during the Thirty Years’ War, and France, after the revolution there. Later people migrated from Vietnam, Korea, China and Central Asia. Last year, Russia accepted more migrants than any other country except the United States. In addition, Russia accepted almost a million people from war-torn Ukraine without much difficulty. Russians are a displaced people more than many others, and Russia is a bigger melting pot than the United States.
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 flights and microchip production. You may think that “Champagne” is a protected French brand, but recently on New Year’s I was 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 USA, because, understand, French things may be good, but they don’t taste Russian enough. For almost everything you can think of, there is a Russian version, which the Russians consider the best, and sometimes they directly say that it is their invention (for example, Popov, not Marconi, invented the radio). Of course, there are exceptions (say, tropical fruits), which are acceptable provided that they are from a “brotherly people,” which, for example, is Cuba. This model already worked in Soviet times, and it seems to have survived to a certain extent to this day.
During the ensuing “stagnation” of the era of Brezhnev, Andropov and Gorbachev, when Russian ingenuity truly declined along with everything else, technologically (but not culturally) Russia lost ground in relation to the West. After the breakup Soviet Union the Russians coveted 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 the long-term goal of destroying local industry and Russian production, turning Russia into a simple exporter of raw materials, which would be defenseless against the embargo, and which could easily be forced to lose sovereignty. It would all end in a military invasion, against which Russia would be defenseless.

This process got quite far before it hit a few snags. First, Russian production and non-hydrocarbon exports have recovered and increased several times over the course of 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 trading partners in the world, however, this in no way diminishes the importance of its trade with the West, or 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 displaces imports and helps local producers. Sanctions have undermined Russia's faith in the West's reliability as a supplier, and the conflict in Crimea strengthens Russians' self-confidence. The Russian government has taken the opportunity to support companies that can immediately replace Western imports with other products. The Russian Central Bank was entrusted with financing them at a lending rate that makes import substitution even more attractive.

Some compare the current period to the last time the price of oil fell to $10 a barrel, which to a certain extent brought the collapse of the USSR closer. But this analogy is wrong. At that time, the USSR stagnated economically and depended on Western grain supplies, without which it would not have been able to feed the people. The collapse was led by the helpless and controlled Gorbachev - a peacemaker, capitulator and phrase-monger on a global scale, whose wife loved to go shopping in London. Russian people despised him. Today, Russia is once again one of the world's largest grain exporters, led by the exemplary President Putin, who enjoys the support of more than 80% of the population. By comparing the USSR before the collapse with today's Russia, commentators and analysts are only demonstrating their ignorance.

This passage literally writes itself. This is a recipe for disaster, so I’ll write everything down, point by point, as in a recipe.

1. Take the people who respond to attacks by sending you to hell, turning away from you and not wanting anything to do with you - instead of fighting with you. Realize that this is a people whose natural resources are essential to keeping your homes light and warm, so you can produce transport planes, military fighter jets, and much more. Remember that a quarter of the light bulbs in the United States come on from Russian nuclear fuel, and cutting off Europe from Russian gas would mean a real disaster.

2. Introduce economic and financial sanctions against Russia. Watch in horror as your exporters lose profits and the Russian response blocks agricultural exports. Remember, this is a country that has suffered a long chain of attacks and traditionally relies on unfriendly countries to fund Russian defenses aimed precisely at those enemies. Or Russia turns to methods such as the already mentioned winter. “No gas for NATO countries” sounds like a great slogan. Hope and pray that Moscow doesn't like him.

3. Organize an attack on their national currency, which will lose part of its value, and do the same with oil prices. Imagine how Russian officials chuckle as they go to the Central Bank when the low ruble exchange rate means filling the state budget despite the low oil price. Watch in horror as your exporters go bankrupt because they can no longer take a place in the Russian market. Remember that Russia has no national debt worth discussing, that it is run with a miniscule budget deficit, and that it has large gold and foreign exchange reserves. Think about your banks that “borrowed” Russian companies hundreds of billions of dollars - to those companies for which, by imposing sanctions, you cut off access to your banking system. Hope and pray that Russia doesn't freeze debt payments on the West Bank when they impose new sanctions, because that will blow your banks out of business.

4. Watch in horror as Russia rewrites gas export agreements that now involve everyone except 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 it, because the Russians, so and so, sent you to hell (and don’t forget to take Galich there). Now they will trade with countries that are more friendly to them.

5. Watch with horror as Russia actively seeks ways to exit its trade relationship with you, seeks suppliers in other parts of the world, and sets up 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 EU refuses to sign the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the US, it could join Customs Union with Russia. Why freeze yourself when Washington can freeze? This would be reparation for the EU's previous aggressive behavior, which Russia would accept. And this is an extremely generous offer. And if the EU accepts it, it will prove a lot: that the EU does not pose any military or economic threat to Russia, that European countries very cute and small, produce delicious cheeses and sausages that the current crop of politicians are worthless, dependent on Washington and that great pressure needs to be created in order to understand where the interests of their peoples actually lie... So will the EU accept such a proposal or will it accept Galich as a new member and “freeze” ?

To begin with, I would like to say what to talk about negative qualities, without affecting the positive ones, it is impossible. The world is diverse and polar, we are all different from each other, and, consequently, the soul of each of us is filled with contradictions. We have both good and bad, but for harmony in our hearts, the predominance of positive qualities is simply necessary. What is good about a Russian person? Probably depth and kindness, courage and self-sacrifice....

Now let's move on to the negative. Why do we, the Russian people, suffer so much? Are we destined for suffering? The roots of these problems must be sought in the past. Many classic writers of the 19th century depicted a Russian peasant sitting in a tavern, trying to wash away all the grief and suffering with alcohol. Drunkenness is what was ruining our people back then! Let's remember the image of Marmeladov from the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment". How unhappy he was, he drank all his last money, trying to drown out the mental pain within himself. Yes, it was 2 centuries ago, but even now nothing has changed. How many Russian people ruin themselves by starting to drink adolescence. These young people do not yet understand the full consequences of their addictions. But why are some people so drawn to alcohol? Despair is the character trait of the Russian person that has ruined and continues to ruin the Russian people.

Probably, we, Russian people, are filled with some kind of inner strength that lives in us. But why are many not self-sufficient! Envy destroys everyone, we are no exception. This is what Greek historians said about the Slavs V - VI centuries AD: “The Slavs do not tolerate any power and hate each other.” Here lies the root of many of the problems in our lives! It is disgusting to envy and hate your brothers just because someone is more talented and better than you. This internal envy gives rise to insecurity in people, and in some cases pushes them to extreme measures and meanness. The feeling of uselessness or insignificance turns Russian people into, dare I say it, cattle, which become weapons in the hands of scoundrels.

Now I just have to find one more disgusting feature of our national character. After thinking carefully, I realized that this is a fear that has lived in us since childhood. In what conditions do we grow? Going out into the street, we hear swear words, kindergarten and in elementary school, we, defenseless children, are subjected to constant humiliation and insults. Some teachers constantly shout at us, saying that we are bad and ill-mannered. I remember myself at that age, I remember how they told me - “She will never be able to study perfectly.” No, I don’t hold a grudge against those teachers, I’m glad that I met such people on my way, it was because of them that I tried, I proved, I fought. Now I am not afraid of trials, but in my soul, and even in my heart, the fear that was instilled in me for many years still lives.

I recently learned about the cult of family in Japan. There it is forbidden to even shout at a boy under 7 years old, since otherwise he will not grow into a real man, he will be a coward. The fear that the people around him in childhood gave rise to in him will live forever.

Yes, most likely, it is not interesting to read these lines, because everyone already knows this, but Fear itself will not go away, it must be eradicated. That's why I decided to write these letters to you. I really hope that you will allow me to take part in your project, that I will be able to overcome all my fears and come to you.

To summarize, I would like to once again list these three negative traits Russian character: DESPAIR, ENVY AND FEAR. If each of us can overcome these qualities in ourselves, then it will be possible to change anything in our lives.