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Research work in geography

The mentality of the Russian people

Tynda 2005

• Content
• Introduction
• Riddle and solution of the mysterious "Russian soul"
• The mentality of the Russian people
• About Chinese pragmatism
• China is a land of contrasts
• Poll: Russians about the Chinese
• Misunderstanding of humor in intercultural communication
• Features of the French mentality
• Poll: France is a beautiful country, the French are unbearable
• Russia and the USA
• Russians about their attitude towards the Americans and their idea of ​​the attitude of the Americans towards us
• Output
• Bibliographic list

Introduction

In my work, I will try to answer the following questions:

what character traits the Russian people are distinguished by (according to the authors of literary sources);

how do the Chinese, representatives of European countries, differ from other peoples;

what the peoples of the world think about each other, what they think about themselves;

what needs to be done in order for all peoples of the world to live in peace and harmony

Basic working methods:

analysis of literary sources (textbooks, media materials)

analysis of Internet materials

conducting a social survey;

I will continue to work on this topic in the future, tk. the search for a common language between the peoples of the world remains relevant. Ancient philosophers noted that human thinking is largely reactive and situational. In their daily behavior, people rarely give an account of why they did this and not otherwise. Even Leibniz, long before Freud's theory of the unconscious, wrote that "in our actions we are three-quarters automatons." R. Chartier, who quoted it, noted that “first, there still remains“ one quarter ”of human actions, which are determined by collective determinants. The latter are not necessarily realized by individuals, but, nevertheless, they control and command the actions of people in these cases. " As you know, in difficult historical periods, such as the one that we are now experiencing, the volume of significant social information increases many times over. The collective intelligence of a nation is not always able to efficiently and timely process these overflowing information flows. The importance of mentality among the phenomena of this level can hardly be overestimated. Moreover, without analyzing the deep ethno-mental foundations, it is impossible to understand the originality of the spiritual life of a particular people, to explain why the development of democratic and market principles in Ukraine collided with the psychological inertia of the masses, with the unpreparedness of a conservatively oriented person for worldview pluralism.

Secondly, the theoretical relevance of mental problems is due to the presence of a long period of latent development, when mentality was described and studied without calling it such. It is impossible to discover the concepts of mentality of this period in the philosophical literature by any external signs: the fact that they are talking about mentality becomes clear only after reading the works.

Thirdly, different authors put different content into the same concept of mentality, which greatly complicates a comparative analysis. It is generally accepted that mentality is one of those concepts of scientific and everyday language that are difficult to give in to any strict definition. If you try to somehow explain its various meanings, you get more of an intuitive image than a logically verified category. Different authors at different times understood by mentality and the contradictory integrity of the picture of the world, and the pre-reflective layer of thinking, and the collective unconscious, and the socio-cultural automatisms of the consciousness of individuals and groups, and the "global, all-embracing" ether "of culture" in which "all members of society are immersed." etc. The urgent need to systematize the existing definitions of mentality, which would form the basis of mentology as a doctrine of mentality, its nature, content, and its species manifestations, also determine the relevance of the chosen topic. (1)

Riddle and solution of the mysterious "Russian soul"

Each of the readers has probably heard about the “mysterious Russian soul” more than once. And I read it more than once. Nobody knows what it is (and therefore “mysterious”). Most often it is explained that the mystery of the Russian soul lies in its extraordinary breadth. But what is "latitude"? Not the distance from the equator along the meridian, expressed in degrees! When you understand more thoroughly what exactly is meant by this, it turns out - three things.

First. An unusually great kindness.

Generally speaking, there are good (as well as bad) people among every nation. But there are peoples where a kind person is rather an exception, and an evil one, like a hungry wolf, is the rule. There are peoples who have a lot of virtues, for example, hard work, discipline, musicality, etc. and only in the last place is the kindness that is by no means striking the imagination. And there are peoples who have a lot of shortcomings, but it is the kindness that strikes the imagination.

This is what the Russians are.

This medal also has a downside - an amazing tolerance for oppression, endless suffering from the oppressors.

Second. An unusually humane mentality, when the first place in the human value system is the fate of mankind, far in the background is the fate of one's own people, very little is the fate of one's family and absolutely zero attention is one's own fate.

It was this mindset that distinguished the typically Russian behavior of the late 18th and early 20th centuries. - "intelligentsia" of Russian origin, which has significant differences whether from the Western "intellectuals" and from the Eastern "contemplative philosophy". Today, little is left of the intelligentsia: this breed has been uprooted generation after generation since 1917. However, the tragic fate of Andrei Sakharov, the Russian Robert Oppenheimer, with a surprisingly similar life and fate, shows that something of the intelligentsia has survived to this day. Most striking of all, exactly the same mentality is widespread among the common people - down to and including the last beggar.

There are nations where “every man for himself - one God for all,” and relations between people are governed by laws. There are peoples where the feeling of belonging to their own people, to their own kind-tribe, dominates over everything. It turns people into a close-knit flock of animals, and woe to those who come across this flock on the way (there are more than enough examples of how different flocks of Russians come across on this path). And there are nations where relations between people are regulated not by laws, not even by reason - by heart. Russians belong to them.

An unusually developed sense of selflessness. Not in the sense of complete self-forgetfulness, when, according to the Russian proverb, you need to move a mountain. Russians have no equal when they have to throw themselves into a burning house or into icy water to save a person. When it is necessary to extinguish a fire or excavate a blockage. When you have to stand to death in a besieged fortress or go into a bayonet attack. When it is necessary to lift the unbearable or endure the unbearable. When you need to kind of “dissolve” your life in the life of another person or devote it entirely to the work you serve. (2)

Just one example. Hearing that one of the leaders of the American communists had gone blind, one Soviet schoolchild offered him his eyes for transplantation: after all, he needed them more for the common struggle against the villainous American imperialists who oppressed the unfortunate American people! Someone can say that skillfully staged totalitarian propaganda is capable of bringing to such a state not only a Russian boy. I just want to emphasize that this is typical for Russians.

At the same time, any tourist who comes to Moscow does not get tired of being amazed at the viciousness of the service personnel, the thieving of almost everyone who gets in his way, the shameful laziness that occurs at every step. A typical Russian tourist who finds himself in front of your eyes in a foreign country for him is very far from kindness, dedication, selflessness. How to combine one with the other? Is this really the riddle of the “mysterious Russian soul”?

Let's first remove various husks from this notorious “soul” and take a closer look at its “core”.

In this regard, Russia is distinguished by two essential characteristics.

First, the special character of the Russian community. The Russian countryside has gone far from that primitive stage of communality, when a person's personality literally dissolves in the community, when he turns into a simple detail of the social mechanism of the community, like a warrior of an ancient Greek phalanx, which moved and fought as a whole. This condition is still characteristic of the rural community of developing countries in Asia and Africa (including the Asian republics of the former USSR). It has a number of advantages - mainly in terms of the resilience of enduring hardships - but so uncompetitive in relation to the modern urban way of life that everywhere in the world it is in varying degrees of decay, a transition to more modern forms of life.

Secondly, these national traits of the Russian character were superimposed on this combination. And this increased tenfold. Actually, it was communality (collectivism) that helped and helps to endure the hardships of totalitarianism for the Chinese, North Korean, Vietnamese, Mongolian, Iranian, Iraqi, Libyan, Cuban and other peoples of the world who got into this trouble.

But it was precisely the imposition of the unique traits of the Russian national character on communality that allowed the Russian people to endure not only the burden of totalitarianism, but also the burden of the arms race, which is unbearable for other peoples (on an equal footing with the economically much stronger United States of America!) And even break out of the developing countries into a number of developed countries. peace - albeit mainly through the military-industrial complex and its infrastructure.

This, in our opinion, is the mystery and solution to the imaginary "mystery" of the notorious Russian soul. In our opinion, there is nothing mysterious about it. Many components of this "mystery" are present in many nations. Collectivism is even stronger among the peoples of the developing countries of Asia and Africa. Latin America. Individualism is stronger among the peoples of the developed countries of the world. Many features of the national Russian character are also found in the mentality and social psychology of other peoples, which have their own unique character, no worse and no better than the Russian. Just a unique combination of different components, traits, characteristics has created a unique phenomenon that is difficult to study and therefore acquired a halo of "mystery".

But no matter how we relate to this phenomenon of the "Russian soul", it must be taken into account and kept in mind. Otherwise, it is impossible to understand how, how Russia endured the Civil War, an order of magnitude superior in its hardships, victims and economic devastation to the Civil War of 1861-1965. in the USA. How did it endure the complete destruction of agriculture with tens of millions of victims, very similar in its consequences to the most ferocious hurricanes ever sweeping over the territory of the southern US states, or to the tragic events in the African Sahara of the 70s, Somalia of the late 80s - early 90s. How did it endure the mass terror of tens of millions of victims (in one way or another, affecting almost every third inhabitant of the country), very similar to the tragedy of the Jews during the Hitlerite Holocaust or the tragedy of Cambodia during the Pol Pot era? How did she endure World War II when she was caught unawares, unprepared for war, and had to literally cover the approaches to Moscow and then to Berlin with corpses, when ten Russians were forced to give their lives so that the eleventh could kill one German soldier. Finally, how, and at the cost of what sacrifices, it endured almost half a century of World War III (the so-called "cold") war against a much stronger economically and technologically advanced enemy.

There is no doubt that the Russian people would have endured the burden of totalitarianism and the arms race for some time to come. He was not defeated in World War III. Totalitarianism itself was defeated, which turned out to be uncompetitive in competition with the “democracy + market” system and began to decline, to decay gradually from within. And then suddenly he collapsed like a rock and crumbled into sand. (3)

The mentality of the Russian people

The mentality of the people is an integral part of the national culture. The study of folk mentality is necessary to understand the relationship between nature, culture and society in a certain area. Man is part of the geographic environment and depends on it.

S.N.Bulgakov wrote that the continentality of the climate is probably to blame for the fact that the Russian character is contradictory, thirst for absolute freedom and slave obedience, religiosity and atheism- these properties of the Russian mentality are incomprehensible to a European and therefore create an aura of mystery, inscrutability and incomprehensibility in Russia. After all, for us ourselves, Russia remains an unsolved mystery. F.I. Tyutchev said about Russia:

You can't understand Russia with your mind,

A common yardstick cannot be measured.

She has a special become -

You can only believe in Russia.

The facts indicate that the Russian state and the Russian ethnos were historically, geographically and psychologically “programmed” for opposition from the outside. The Russian ethnos originated in the center of Eurasia, on a plain, not protected either from the west or east by seas or mountains, and accessible for military invasions, both from East Asia and from Western Europe. The only way to maintain independence in such conditions is to occupy as large a territory as possible, in which any enemy armies would be bogged down.

Huge spaces, a harsh climate and the need to resist the combined forces of many peoples from the West and the East at the same time gave rise to the predominant type of subconscious and conscious psychological attitudes.

The severity of our climate has also greatly influenced the mentality of the Russian people. Living in a territory where winter lasts for about six months, the Russians have developed in themselves tremendous willpower, perseverance in the struggle for survival in a climate. The low temperatures for much of the year have influenced the temperament of the nation. Russians over melancholic, slow than Western Europeans.

The North Eurasian character of our nation has formed a type of national psychology that not only does not correspond to the prevailing world trends. But the exact opposite of them. Hence, instead of developing a commodity economy - psychology of care in subsistence farming(saving in the years of foreign intervention, but unproductive for building an intensive economy), instead of independence - habit of paternalism, instead of high material requests - unpretentiousness to living conditions.

The harsh Russian winters had a strong impact on the traditions of the Russian hospitality. To deny a traveler shelter in winter in our conditions means to doom him to a cold death. Therefore, Russian people perceived hospitality as a self-evident duty. The severity and stinginess of nature taught the Russian man to be patient and obedient... But even more important was the stubborn, continuous struggle with the harsh nature. Along with agriculture, Russians have long had to deal with all kinds of crafts. This explains practical orientation of the mind, dexterity and rationality. Rationalism, prudence and a pragmatic approach to life do not always help the Great Russian, since the waywardness of the climate sometimes deceives the most modest expectations. And, getting used to these deceptions, our man sometimes prefers to choose headlong the most hopeless decision, to oppose the whim of nature to the whim of his own courage. This inclination tease happiness, play luck V.O. Klyuchevsky called "Great Russian avos".

To live in such unpredictable conditions, when the result depends on the whims of nature, is possible only with inexhaustible optimistic... In the rating of national character traits, compiled on the basis of the Reader's Digest survey conducted in 18 European countries in February 2001, this quality was ranked first among Russians. 51% of respondents declared themselves optimists (only 3% were pessimists). the rest of Europe among the qualities won constancy, preference for stability.

A Russian person needs to cherish a clear working day. This forces our peasant to hurry, work hard in order to have time to do a lot in a short time. No nation in Europe is capable of such strenuous work in a short time. Such diligence is inherent, perhaps, only in Russians. This is how the climate influences the Russian mentality in many ways. The landscape has no less influence. IN. Klyuchevsky reveals the landscape determinism of the Russian character as follows: “Great Russia of the 13th-15th centuries with its forests and swamps at every step presented the settler with thousands of minor dangers, among which he had to find himself. With whom I had to fight every minute. This taught him to keep a close eye on nature, to look at both, in his expression, to walk, looking around and feeling the soil, not to meddle in the water without looking for a ford, developed in him resourcefulness in minor difficulties and dangers, the habit of patiently fighting adversity and hardships ...

In Europe there is no people less spoiled and pretentious, accustomed to expect less from nature and fate and more enduring. The originality of Russian nature, its whims and unpredictability are reflected in the mindset of Russians, in the manner of his thinking. Everyday irregularities and accidents taught him to discuss the path traveled more than to think about the next one, to look back more than to look ahead. In the struggle with unexpected hardships and thaws, with unforeseen August frosts and January slush, he became more circumspect than cautious, learned to notice the effect more than to set goals, developed the ability to sum up the art of making estimates. This skill is what we call the hind mind ... Nature and fate led the Great Russian so that they taught him to go out on the straight road in roundabout ways. " The beautiful Russian nature and the flatness of the Russian landscapes have taught people to contemplate. According to V. O. Klyuchevsky, “in contemplation, our life, our art, our faith. But from excessive contemplation, souls become dreamy, lazy, weak-willed, unworkable. " Discretion, observation, thoughtfulness, concentration and contemplation- these are the qualities that were brought up in the Russian soul by Russian landscapes.

In many ways, the specific (and often contradictory) features of the Russian mentality are determined by the vastness of the spaces in Russia. The huge sparsely populated territory required a special type of people for its development, capable of decisive actions, daring and courageous. And everywhere during their passage, the Russians created a network of settlements - fortresses, which also played the role of economic centers for the development of the territory. Such a population was distinguished by enterprise, extraordinary love of freedom and rebellion. A significant part of the inhabitants fled beyond the Urals from the "sovereign's eye", and the authorities themselves preferred to keep such citizens away from the capital.

Russians were formed not in a nationally closed space, but in an open plain - a plain of assimilation. They are "boiled out" in this cauldron. And came out of it with two fundamental feelings - a sense of powerful unity with each other and arising from centuries of life experience conciliatory attitude towards peoples - neighbors - and to those who had to seize land, and to those who joined on the basis of their interests; and even more so to those who considered it important for themselves to pass on their knowledge, the creative elements of their culture to the Russians.

The spirit of hostility and rivalry was alien to the Russians, precisely because of their obvious predominance, and also because of their powerful folk root with its Moscow core. This Russian "root" was so strong that it digested the kings of German blood, and the Baltic officials, and the Tatar Baskaks and Murzas, and their French-speaking nobility, and the Ukrainian version of Orthodoxy.

The vastness and incomprehensibility of the country's spaces could not but affect its perception by its neighbors. Emperor Alexander III, in his parting words, made shortly before the country's entry into the 20th century, said: “Remember - Russia has no friends. They are afraid of our enormity. "

A long period of careful dispensing of deliberate distortion of information, seeping abroad, did not contribute to the formation of an objective picture of the country among foreigners. P.A. Vyazemsky, a writer and a friend of Pushkin, characterized such opinions in the following way: “If you want an intelligent person, German or French, to freeze stupidity, make him make judgments about Russia. It is an object that intoxicates him and immediately darkens his thinking abilities. "

“Huge spaces were easy for the Russian people, but it was not easy for them to organize these spaces into the world's greatest state, to maintain and maintain order in it. The size of the state set the Russian people almost impossible tasks, kept the Russian people in exorbitant tension (N.A. Berdyaev). All this could not but affect the mentality of the Great Russians. The Russian soul was suppressed by the immense Russian fields, immense Russian snows, it seems to be drowning, dissolving in this immensity. Long and cold winters were reflected in the joyless sadness in the soul of the Russian people.

The state's conquest of immense spaces was accompanied by a terrible centralization, the subordination of all life to the state interest and the suppression of free personal and social forces, the suppression of any initiative coming from “below”. Centralization affected the Russian spirit in two ways: firstly, the Great Russian decided that the one who ruled over such vast areas that constituted Russia, and the great people, was of almost supernatural origin. From here - personality cult, a sense of reverence for« tsar-father» in the soul of the Russian people. Secondly, the feeling that someone stands over a person and controls all his actions resulted in such a quality of the soul as carelessness. ON. Berdyaev said: "The Russian soul is bruised by the breadth." The soul of a Russian is wide, like the Russian land, rivers, fields - everything can be absorbed by the soul of a Russian person, all human feelings of character will fit in it.

The power of the breadth over the Russian soul gives rise to a whole series of Russian "unworthiness". Associated with this Russian laziness, carelessness, lack of initiative, a poorly developed sense of responsibility.“The breadth of the Russian land, and the breadth of the Russian soul pressed the Russian energy, opening up the possibility in the direction of extensiveness,” N.A. Berdyaev.

Russian laziness (Oblomovism) is widespread in all strata of the people. We are lazy to do work that is not strictly obligatory. Partially Oblomovism is expressed in inaccuracies, lateness.

Seeing the infinity of their expanses, the Russians resign themselves to the idea that it is still impossible to master such a vastness. IA Ilyinsky said: "Russia has endowed us with enormous natural resources - both external and internal." The Russian person considers these riches to be endless and does not preserve them. It breeds in our mentality mismanagement... It seems to us that we have a lot. And further in his work "On Russia" Ilyin writes "From the feeling that our riches are abundant and generous, a certain kindness of soul, a certain organic, gentle good nature, calmness, openness of the soul, sociability ... will be enough for everyone, and the Lord will also send" ... This is the root of the Russian generosity.

“The natural calmness, good nature and generosity of the Russians surprisingly coincided with the dogmas of Orthodox Christian morality. Humility in the Russian people and from the church. Christian morality, which for centuries held the whole of Russian statehood, strongly influenced the people's character. Orthodoxy brought up in Great Russians spirituality, all-forgiving love, responsiveness, sacrifice, spiritual kindness.

The unity of the Church and the state, the feeling of being not only a citizen of the country, but also a particle of a huge cultural community has nurtured an extraordinary patriotism reaching sacrificial heroism... A. I. Herzen wrote: "Every Russian recognizes himself as a part of the entire state, recognizes his kinship with the entire population." The problem of overcoming Russian spaces and distances has always been one of the most important for the Russian people. Even Nicholas 1 said: "Distance is the misfortune of Russia."

The Russian man has perseverance and solidity peasant and nomad blood ( prowess, the desire to withdraw from the habitable places in search of something better, horizontal structured space, etc..) Russians do not distinguish between borders between Europe and Asia, balancing between two models of development.

A comprehensive geographical analysis of the ethnocultural and natural environment today allows us to reveal the most important features of the mentality of any nation and to trace the stages and factors of its formation. (3)

About Chinese pragmatism

The sage cares about the stomach, not about the eyes: he takes what is needed and discards what is superfluous. (Lao Tzu. "Tao Te Ching")

The unifying principle in rethinking and processing the values ​​of various cultures and religions and their assimilation and assimilation in China is pragmatism. It is this dominant feature of the Chinese mentality that determines the amazing adaptability of the Chinese and their ability to survive in the most difficult conditions throughout the most difficult history of the Celestial Empire. That is why the Chinese civilization, which gave birth to one of the most mystical movements - Taoism, lives very pragmatically, does not argue about benefits, but constantly follows it. Just like any Chinese, he seeks to extract his interest from even the smallest detail. Obviously, this circumstance determines the realities faced by a tourist who comes to modern China. First of all, the amazing hard work of the Chinese is striking, or rather, their work in any area, regardless of its appearance and level. On the way to Cheng Te, we watched the Chinese create bulk terraces in the mountains for agricultural work. Before us literally came to life pictures of the distant past: a bull, a plow, a basket and a man. We saw how many kilometers of greenhouses for growing the most common vegetables, peas and beans were covered by workers with mats from the night cold, and in the morning, at sunrise, they were removed, stacking them in huge piles - and so every day. Even at a gas station that is quite remote from the main highway, the toilet is washed and deodorized with incense after each visit of a visitor.

But if « workaholism» is a well-known trait of the Chinese, their love of trade is striking. Wherever you are - near a museum, temple, palace, in a parking lot, at a restaurant, theater, hotel, on an observation deck, everywhere there is a huge number of merchants of various souvenir trifles, toys, postcards, handkerchiefs.

In China, there are more than 500 million “unaccounted for” people, those who were born in a family in excess of the established “minimum”: one or two children - the second with special permission. They are not registered, do not have documents. And everyone needs to live!

China is a country of different languages, peoples, cultures. And even in the Chinese language itself there are four tonic accents. The slightest change in tone - and the spoken word takes on a completely different meaning. Chinese people from different provinces may not understand each other at all. Therefore, video information is preferred in China. Almost all films, performances and programs of information and political nature are dubbed with titles - hieroglyphs in all provinces and are read equally by all. But it was precisely the presence of tonic stresses that contributed to the development of a high musical culture.

Pragmatism Chinese people are manifested in everything, in relation to health, first of all. After all, it is health care that lies at the heart of Taoism, the flourishing of Chinese and Tibetan medicine, and traditional martial arts. Every morning, driving through any city, you can observe groups of people engaged in breathing and meditative qigong exercises, tai chi chuan gymnastics. On weekends, parks and gardens are taken over by retirees for recreation.

China is a land of contrasts

... Being and non-being give rise to each other,

Difficult and easy create each other,

The short and the long are measured by each other,

High and low are drawn to each other.

(Lao Tzu. "Tao Te Ching")

However, upon closer examination, classical culture strikes at the same time with a certain stereotype. In China, everything corresponds to the Taoist canon and therefore is stereotyped. In accordance with the principles of Taoism and its symbolism, the odd number “9” will prevail in architecture - it is the most beloved, a little less often “7”, and there will never be an even number, especially “4”, because it is equivalent to the concept of “death”. At the same time, symmetry prevails, as a rule, associated with the principle of unity of opposing principles - female and male (Yin and Yang). Therefore, in front of all the palaces there will be figures of two lions: on the one hand, a lion with its paw on the ball is a male symbol denoting power, and on the opposite side there will be a lion, under whose paw there will be a child - a female symbol denoting fertility. All buildings, in accordance with the principles of Taoism, will adjoin the mountains with the back wall, and the facade will overlook the river or an artificial reservoir. True, here symbolic elements of the harmony of the Cosmos are intertwined - earth and water, and in the middle a man, with purely practical, functional - protection from enemies, which the Chinese have always had a lot.

Chinese gardens - the most harmonious combination of opposites Yin and Yang: nature and architecture, vertical and horizontal, emptiness and fullness. In any garden, three elements are necessarily present so that a person can live in it: water, rocks and plants. The color scheme will always consist of five colors, in accordance with the Taoist ideas about the five elements. In addition, the color scheme also means the characters of the characters - both in the visual arts and in sculpture. The color scheme is used even in religious rituals. And, of course, the use of animal symbols is canonical, in which the first place is taken by the dragon, personifying water and performing protective functions. Popular are tiger, turtle, horse, unicorn. Among the flowers, preference is given to the lotus - a symbol of purity. Clouds are also a symbol of the sky, the cult of which was of paramount importance in the life of pre-Confucian China. Hence the ancient name of China - Celestial Empire. Dragons on the roofs perform a protective function, protecting all living beings from power and interference in their lives by evil spirits. The same functions are performed by the famous curved roofs with tightly sealed tiles of tiles, as well as a kind of labyrinths from the gates at the entrance to the dwelling of a medieval Chinese.

With all the originality and specificity of Chinese history and culture, in contrast to the history and culture of our country, you can see their common features. These include collectivism - or community, benevolence and hospitality, the ability to artificially create difficulties and then overcome them (5) .

Poll: Russians about the Chinese

As the survey showed, 42% of Russians, judging by their own words, have developed positive image of China. In the groups, the respondents said a lot about the fact that the Chinese are hardworking, patient, and wise people:

« Well, everyone knows that the Chinese are the most hardworking people in the world. And they proved by their hard work, by their work» (DFG, Novosibirsk).

« The country is civilized. And so - this is a country of hard workers ...» (DFG, Novosibirsk).

« Patient people. It seems to me that their whole story<об этом говорит> « (DFG, Moscow).

« Hardy people are very» (DFG, Moscow).

« They are very wise people.» (DFG, Samara).

« This is an old, wise state ...» (DFG, Novosibirsk).

By the way, respondents aged 50 and older speak about a positive image of China much more often than on average (48%). This attitude of representatives of these socio-demographic groups, apparently, is largely due to the perception of this country as one of the last "strongholds" of the communist order. Note that modern television pictures from China - not with pagodas, but with a red banner, a sickle and a hammer - only reinforce this image, heavily seasoned with nostalgic feelings.

Another group, more often than average, who say that they have a very positive image of China are people with higher education (53%).

More than a third of Russians (36%) say that they have developed neutral the image of the eastern neighbor, moreover, more often than on average, this is how young respondents (48%) and people with secondary general education (41%) define their ideas about this country.

Negative the image of China was formed by 12% of the respondents. It should be noted that residents of the Siberian (17%) and especially the Far Eastern districts (29%) speak more often than others about the negative image of this country. It is there that the problem of illegal immigration of the inhabitants of the "celestial Empire" is extremely acute.

« 25% of Vladivostok are Chinese. Free passage of the border, free sale and purchase, well, that's it! In the center of Vladivostok - houses, restaurants, everything Chinese. The same is in Transbaikalia» (DFG, Novosibirsk)

« We ourselves have a lot of unemployed people. Why do they come from there, without any visas?» (DFG, Novosibirsk).

Another 10% of the respondents found it difficult to answer the question of what kind of image of China has developed in their minds.

As for the experts, two-thirds of them have a positive image of China, a quarter - a neutral one, and only one-sixteenth of the surveyed experts speak of a negative image of their eastern neighbor.

Of no small concern to the respondents is the "peaceful expansion" of China in the Far East:

« Everyone knows that they inhabit Siberia and that's all. They take out everything ... They take out the timber, and furs, and everything. They are being introduced, and there is a gradual peaceful seizure of territories.» (DFG, Samara).

« They inhabit our territories ... They slowly occupy our territory» (DFG, Samara).

« In general, if you look at military history, they almost never acted as an attacking side. They acted in a peculiar way: they seemed to let the invader, and then assimilated. And the fact that there are now a lot of Chinese in Russia is more likely that they will crawl there, crawl ...(DFG, Novosibirsk).

Finally, the traditional fear of the "plurality" of the Chinese, judging by the remarks of the focus group participants, is still present in the mass consciousness:

« And this billion fears me. Causes concern» (DFG, Moscow).

« The fear for the whole world is the Chinese expansion. Because it is developing very well, the population is very huge, the army is very strong. So in the future there are fears that she will seize territories» (DFG, Samara). (6)

Misunderstanding of humor in intercultural communication

Misunderstanding of humor as a result of insufficient competence in intercultural communication can be divided into several types:

lack of understanding of everyday humor associated with the lack of similar realities in their culture,

lack of understanding of certain accepted etiquette norms,

lack of understanding of the deep values ​​of the respective culture.

Misunderstanding of humor based on ignorance of realities can be easily removed if there are comments. The only exception is pun: a bearer of another culture understands that, probably, in another language such an accidental coincidence of homonymous units may turn out to be funny, but since these words are by no means homonyms in their native language, there is no comic effect. The clarification associated with the form of words effectively eliminates the unexpectedness of the collision of meaning underlying humor. Likewise, jokes based on rhymes do not make you laugh. Such jokes are not very typical for English culture, and in Russian anecdotes they are registered in our corpus of examples, mainly in relation to primitive anecdotes.

Usually, anecdotes associated with various classifications concerning ideas about other peoples cause a smile. Even if the salt of the anecdote is not immediately clear, the bearer of Russian culture easily guesses that the very structure of the anecdote should prompt its culmination. For example, the following anecdote, translated into Russian, does not quite fit into the Russian idea of ​​Italians, but it becomes clear thanks to the context:

How to convince a rookie skydiver to make the first jump?

An American needs to be told, "If you are a man, you will jump!"

To an Englishman: "Sir, this is a tradition."

To the Frenchman: "This is a lady's request."

To a German: "This is an order."

Italian: "It is forbidden to jump!"

The last remark in the anecdote is built on contrast, this contrast is based on the typical image-stereotype of the Italian in the eyes of Europeans.

More complex is an anecdote with a confused classification:

Paradise is a place where the police are English, the cooks are French, the mechanics are Germans, lovers are Italians, and the managers are Swiss. Hell is a place where cooks are English, mechanics are French, lovers are Swiss, police officers are Germans, and managers are Italians.

The British treat their policemen with respect, the German police are known for their harshness, it is also known that French cuisine is famous for its sophistication, and English is criticized by the French and other Europeans (note that modern English cuisine is largely international). The Germans are known in Europe for their love of mechanics and precise mechanisms, the stereotype of the Italian is a passionate lover, the Swiss are famous for their discipline and good organizational skills, the idea of ​​reliability is enshrined in the concept of “Swiss bank.” This anecdote becomes clear to Russian listeners after commenting, but Europeans often traveling around the countries of their continent, this confused classification causes a genuine smile: they remember that in France no one was able to fix their car, in Italy they had to spend a lot of time at the airport due to administrative problems and irresponsibility of staff, etc. In other words , this kind of anecdotes are based largely on personal experience, i.e. on the conscious experience of incomprehensible realities.

Here is another anecdote that plays up the stereotypes of representing foreign ethnic groups:

German, American and Swedish police participate in the competition - who is the best at catching criminals. The task is given: a hare has been released into the forest, and it must be caught. Swedish police plant informant animals throughout the forest, interview all plant and mineral witnesses, and after three months of intense search, they come to the conclusion that there are no hares in nature. The Americans burst into the forest, prowl through the forest for two weeks, cannot find anyone, set fire to the forest, killing everyone, including hares, and apologize to no one. The Germans get down to business and two hours later return with a badly beaten bear, which yells: “Yes, I am a hare, I am a hare! Just don't kick me! "

From the point of view of the British and Americans, the Swedish police are overly scrupulous and liberal. In our opinion, the Swedes were in this row by accident: it was necessary to build a kind of classification of cruelty and show that there is a people whose police are too soft on criminals. The American police are distinguished not by sophisticated brutality (here the priority belongs to the Germans), but by insufficient competence, which is compensated by the manifestation of brute force. Attention is drawn to the lack of tact emphasized by the Americans ("they apologize to no one"), the latter symptom is painful for those cultures where it is customary to observe the norms of politeness, primarily for English culture. imagining the behavior of American supermen from the films and knowing about the cruelty of the Germans during the war. (7)

The British demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the Russian realities associated with proper names in jokes:

Aunt Valya: “Dear guys! Vova Glazunov from Moscow took the first place in our drawing competition on the theme "Vanya and the Bear". He has the most beautiful drawing. True, his grandfather Ilya helped him a little ... "

The British may not know that Ilya Glazunov is a famous contemporary Russian artist. In addition, the thought of a child sending a picture that they helped to draw to a children's drawing competition seems strange to the British: this idea violates the British idea of ​​"fair play". Likewise, the British do not understand the attitude of the Russians to the hint during the exam: we have a friend who refused to tell you during the exam is unequivocally assessed as a traitor; in English culture, refusal to help in such a situation is not perceived so sharply (punishment for cheating, `cheating at the exam "is quite harsh).

The British had difficulty understanding very specific Russian anecdotes about the KGB:

A man calls the KGB on a pay phone: “Hello, KGB? You are not working well! " He ran to another pay phone: “Hello, KGB? You are not working well! " He ran to the third: “Hello, KGB? You are not working well! " Feels a hand on his shoulder: "As we can, we work."

The specificity of these anecdotes is that state security is endowed with supernatural abilities and is assessed positively. Such an attitude towards power is contrary to the norms of carnival culture, the reversal of values ​​and the nature of the anecdote. It is no coincidence that there is an opinion that such anecdotes were specially invented in the analytical departments of the KGB in order to create appropriate stereotypes among the population. By the way, the abbreviation “State Security Committee” itself was also deciphered jokingly with a positive connotation of “deep drilling office.” The idea of ​​the ubiquity of our special services is expressed in the following anecdote, which is not entirely clear to the British (they understand the intent of this text, but internally disagree with the pathos of the anecdote ):

NASA is wondering why the left SHUTTLE solid-propellant booster exploded, and the KGB - why the right one did not explode ...

Even without taking into account the fact that the KGB is attributed in this text to the function of foreign intelligence, bearers of Russian culture emphasize the ability of our special services to carry out the most fantastic operations. The British perceive such a text as pretentious and partly nationally chauvinistic.

An outspoken apologetics for power is no exception in Russian jokes about meetings of top leaders. Here is a children's anecdote from the Brezhnev era:

Brezhnev comes to America. American President Reagan says: "Press this button!" Brezhnev pressed, and found himself in a cold shower. After a while, Reagan arrives in Moscow. Brezhnev says to him: "Press this button!" Reagan pressed, nothing happened. I pressed it again, nothing happened either. He says: “What is this? Here in America ... "And Brezhnev told him:" There is no longer your America. "

The British did not find this anecdote funny, the reaction was a polite smile, in some cases - a shrug. It cannot be said that the respondents (and they were citizens of the United Kingdom) felt solidarity with the United States, but the frank praise of the power of the USSR in the genre of anecdote seemed strange to them. Interestingly, at the same time, jokes circulated in which Brezhnev was shown as a very weak man, these jokes did not cause misunderstanding among the English respondents.

Speaking about the realities of our culture, incomprehensible to the English respondents, we note that the jokes about the police are very specific for Russian culture. The attitude of the bearers of Russian culture to the guards of order is sharply negative. The police in the mirror of the anecdote are notable for their corruption and narrow-mindedness. For example:

A traffic cop comes home, angry and frozen - he earned little while standing on the highway. A schoolboy son opens the door for him. The traffic cop shouts: "Give me a diary, if I got a deuce, I'll flog it!" The boy runs to his mother in tears: "Today they just gave me a grade!" “Okay, don't be afraid,” says the mother and puts fifty rubles in her son's diary on a page with a two. The boy in horror hands the diary to his father. He, frowning, leafs through, comes to the page with the banknote, puts it in his pocket, sighs with relief and says: "It's good that at least everything is in order at home!"

This text seemed difficult for the British, they realized that they were talking about the inappropriate behavior of a policeman, but the entire system of Russian realities turned out to be closed to them. They had to tell that the police on the roads, the state traffic inspection service, now, by the way, renamed the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate (GIBDD), is almost always perceived in the minds of the carriers of Russian culture as extortionists who unfairly fine drivers for insignificant traffic violations. It is clear that the narrators of anecdotes are victims of the unjust control of the state over people. Bearers of modern Russian culture are also familiar with the procedure for presenting a driver's license to a policeman, usually a banknote is put into the license. The humor of the above text is that instead of a driver's license, a student's diary appears - another reality that is absent in English culture. English schoolchildren do not have diaries, which are a rigid form of child control. (8)

The British could only superficially appreciate the following joke:

At the exhibition of fire departments:

- Uncle, why do you need a helmet and a belt?

- Why, baby, when I climb into a burning house, but if something falls on my head - so the helmet will save me.

- Ugh, you, but I thought that the muzzle would not crack.

A superficial understanding of this text is the boy's mockery of the fat firefighter. In this sense, we are faced with an anecdote-trap. But in this text, the English do not understand the linguocultural presupposition: a firefighter is a person who sleeps all the time on duty, so he has a swollen face that needs to be tied up with a strap so that it does not crack. The boy in many Russian anecdotes is a trickster provocateur who inevitably baffles an adult. This function is expressed in its most prominent form in a series of anecdotes about Vovochka (many of these anecdotes are crude).

The results of our experimental analysis of the perception of anecdotes showed that the sign of “rudeness” did not appear in the responses of the respondents, both from the English side and from the Russian side (however, we did not consider frankly obscene anecdotes, although for objective research in a special work they should also be taken A number of English anecdotes were perceived by Russian respondents as extremely insipid. The British have the same reaction to the exquisite anecdotes of the countries of Southeast Asia:

The monkey king ordered him to get the moon from the sky. The courtiers jumped from a high cliff, crashed, and, finally, the most dexterous of them managed to jump to the moon and brought it to his master. Handing over the moon to the king, the courtier asked: "O great king, I dare to ask, why do you need the moon?" The king thought: "Indeed, why? ..."

Such anecdotes are philosophical in nature, make you think about life, perhaps with a smile, but they can hardly be attributed to spontaneously arising jokes.

The English respondents found themselves in difficulty when trying to understand the anecdote in which a value, which is very specific for the Russian linguistic consciousness, appears:

Announcement in a Ukrainian newspaper: I change a 3x4 m carpet for a piece of bacon of the same size.

In the minds of Russians, lard is the favorite food of Ukrainians; the anecdote contains obvious hyperbole. At the same time, the carpet acts as a measure of value, which in our apartments was often hung on the wall as a decoration and which was considered a valuable investment. In English, there is no one-word and unambiguous translation of the Russian reality "lard", there are words meaning fat, melted fat, the British do not understand the hyperbole in the size of an immense piece of bacon, finally, they perceive carpets only as a comfortable floor covering, and not at all as an object of art or a demonstration The British also cannot understand the specific Russian teasing of the Ukrainians and vice versa, although similar relations take place between the British and the Scots, the British and the Irish, etc. Elements of mutual misunderstanding in intercultural contact, presented in a caricatured anecdotal form, are apparently, an ethnocultural universal, but the qualities of another people, subject to ridicule, are specific.Note that the British could not understand a very typical anecdote for intercultural misunderstanding between Russians and Ukrainians:

Wife: Why did you hit me, I didn't do anything!

Husband: It would be for what, in general, I would have killed.

The presupposition about the husband's right to hit his wife seems strange to the British, although in a large number of anecdotes about the mother-in-law, such a presupposition does not raise questions. The British, in principle, do not understand an unmotivated action: when faced with a world in which, in principle, there is no cause-effect relationship and which is perceived by Russians as cheerful, the British experience a kind of cognitive discomfort. Hence follows the conclusion about the orderliness of the world as a value in the English-speaking consciousness. (9)

These kinds of anecdotes contrast sharply with jokes that exaggerate and caricaturely represent certain human qualities. Our corpus of examples contains a humorous miniature on the topic of radio interception:

Actual radio conversation released by the Chief of Naval Operations (so it says)

Hail: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.

Reply: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

Hail: This is the Captain of a U.S. Navy Ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.

Reply: No, I say again, you divert YOUR course.

Hail: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER ENTERPRISE. WE ARE A LARGE WARSHIP OF THE U.S. NAVY. DIVERT YOUR COURSE NOW!

Reply: This is the lighthouse ... your call.

Radio recording from a navy report.

Request: Please change your course 15 degrees north to avoid collision.

Answer: I recommend that you change your course 15 degrees south in order to avoid collisions.

...

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The time has come to define the main, in my opinion, features of the Russian mentality.

Kindness is one of the primary properties of the Russian people. Kindness in all layers is expressed in the absence of rancor. Often, a Russian person, being passionate and prone to maximalism, experiences a strong feeling of repulsion from another person, but when meeting him, if there is a need for concrete communication, his heart softens, and he somehow involuntarily begins to show his spiritual softness to him. even sometimes condemning himself for it, if he believes that the person does not deserve to be treated kindly.

"Living according to one's heart" creates an openness of the soul of a Russian person and ease of communication with people, simplicity of communication, without conventions, without external grafted politeness, but with those virtues of politeness that follow from a sensitive natural delicacy ...

However, positive qualities often have negative sides. The kindness of a Russian person encourages him to sometimes lie due to his unwillingness to offend the interlocutor, due to the desire for peace and good relations with people at all costs.

Russian people amaze with the versatility of their abilities. He is characterized by a high religious endowment, the ability to the highest forms of experience, observation, theoretical and practical mind, creative perceptivity, ingenuity, subtle perception of beauty and the aristocracy associated with it, expressed both in everyday life and in the creation of great works of art.

Among the especially valuable properties of the Russian people is a sensitive perception of other people's mental states. From this, live communication is obtained even with unfamiliar people with each other. “... The Russian people have highly developed individual personal and family communication. In Russia there is no excessive replacement of individual relations with social ones, there is no personal and family isolationism. Therefore, even a foreigner, having got to 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 properties are the main source of recognition of the charm of the Russian people, so often expressed by foreigners who know Russia well ... ”.

Passion and powerful willpower can be considered as belonging to the basic properties of the Russian people. The willpower of the Russian people is revealed in the fact that a Russian person, having noticed any of his shortcomings and morally condemning it, obeying a sense of duty, overcomes it and develops a quality that is completely opposite to it. Passion is a combination of strong feelings and willpower 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. Hence the passion of the Russian people, manifested in political life, and even greater passion in religious life, is understandable. Maximalism, extremism and fanatical intolerance are the products of this passion.

Love of freedom. Among the primary properties of the Russian people, together with religiosity, the search for absolute goodness and willpower, can be attributed to the love of freedom, and its highest expression is freedom of spirit. Anyone who has freedom of spirit is inclined to test any value, not only by thought, but even by experience. As a result of the free search for the truth, it is difficult for Russian people to come to terms with each other. Therefore, in public life, the love of freedom of Russians is expressed in a tendency to anarchy, in repulsion from the state.

Cruelty. Kindness is the predominant trait of the Russian people. But at the same time, it cannot be denied that there are also many manifestations of cruelty in Russian life. There are many types of cruelty and some of them can occur, paradoxically, even in the behavior of people who are not evil by nature. The cruelty can be explained by the prevalence of poverty in Russia by a multitude of grievances and harassment. Until the last quarter of the 19th century, the family life of the merchants, bourgeois and peasants was patriarchal. The despotism of the head of the family was often expressed in acts close to cruelty.

Laziness, Oblomovism. The Russian person is characterized by a striving for an absolutely perfect kingdom of being and, at the same time, excessive sensitivity to all the shortcomings of his own and others' activities. Hence, there is a cooling to the work begun and aversion to its continuation; its concept and general sketch is often very valuable, but its incompleteness and therefore inevitable imperfections repel the Russian person, and he is lazy to continue finishing with trifles. Thus, "Oblomovism" is in many cases the flip side of the high qualities of the Russian person - the desire for complete perfection and sensitivity to the shortcomings of our reality.

Western sociological surveys show that Russians are mentally similar to North Europeans. However, during the years of Putin's rule, most of them fell back into "traditionalism." The differences in the culture of Russians and Europeans are still significant ...

What is the Russian mentality is shown in the book "The Impact of Western Socio-Cultural Models on Social Practices in Russia" (Institute of Sociology RAS, 2009, circulation 500 copies). Its definition is described by several experiments.

The main enemy of the Russian people for several centuries has been the state in the form of a serving-punitive class. “The source of goodness in the Russian mentality is the community, today it is relatives and friends (Gemeinshaft), and evil is projected onto the state in the form of bureaucracy (earlier - a master, a policeman, etc.); the mode of action is “everything will be fine”, and we think of the triumph of good as undoubted, but ... in the future (“not us, so our children ...”), ”write sociologists.

The Russian mentality is characterized by extremes and contradictions. Russians are characterized by extreme coldness and warm-heartedness, laziness and bursts of energy. The geographical location unites in Russian features of Europe and Asia: despotism - anarchism; cruelty is compassion; collectivism - individualism; religiosity - godlessness; blind obedience is rebellion.

A distinctive feature of Russians has always been the predominance of intuition over logic ("maybe").

Orthodox - Russians have always had one faith, they are not used to pluralism of opinions. In Germany, there is such an opinion about Russians: they say, your problems are in the orthodoxy of your Orthodox Church. For us, as it were, the earthly is not important, we do not have a home, give us the Universe. Take Russian philosophy. There is only about the life of the Spirit. The flesh is completely humiliated, everything material is humiliated. A person's life is immediately devalued. And a Russian person says: "If I live there, then everything here is absolutely inexpensive for me."

Refusal to actively transform the world around us, patience for the sake of reward in the afterlife, adopted in Orthodox ethics, are fundamentally different from the norms of Western Protestant ethics.

The question is natural: what are the pros and cons of the Russian mentality in the implementation of "pro-Western" reforms? Sociologists answer this question: “A German does not rely on“ maybe it’s okay, ”an Englishman or an American seeks justice in courts that protect human rights, which are fixed in the Constitution on the basis of a“ sacred ”agreement between citizens and their elected authorities. As for the victory of good over evil, in Western culture it depends on the activities of parties, their ideas about what is good and what is evil, and, most importantly, on the personal efforts of each citizen. "

The core of the German mentality is the concept of professional duty. The main norm of Protestantism is rational management, focused on increasing productivity and increasing capital. America's ideal: "a creditworthy, respectable person whose duty is to view the growth of his capital as an end in itself."

The Protestant norm "making money is my duty, this is my virtue and the source of my pride and respect for me from fellow citizens" differs from the norm "I will earn money, and it does not matter what others think about it." This is a calling “from God,” and fulfilling this role as diligently as possible is a sacred duty.

In Germany, as well as in other Western European countries, the rational organization of one's own business is the salvation of one's own soul. Therefore, in Germany it is customary to count money, to save and increase it. A German, English or American capitalist is pleasing to God not because he is rich and can rest and taste the fruits of the world. He is pleasing because he cannot afford it, because fulfills the sacred duty of increasing capital, denying himself everything.

A characteristic feature of Protestant morality, which M. Weber called worldly asceticism, is the impossibility of rest, the high intensity of the fulfillment of labor duty due to the rejection of earthly joys.

And then sociologists move from theory to practice. Statistical data are available using psychological tests in intercultural research. K. Kasyanova applied the MMPI test on Russian students and a control group of pilots, comparing her data with the results obtained by other psychologists from many countries. She found that Russians were off the charts in "cycloid". This concept from the language of psychoanalysts means that Russians are not inclined to systematically performed activities that do not depend on mood, unlike, for example, punctual Germans.

The most interesting results of intercultural research were obtained by E. Danilova, E. Dubitskaya and M. Tararukhina. They used the psychological test of the Dutch sociopsychologist Gerd Hofstede, which he developed in the 60s and is actively used to this day. The test is designed to measure the parameters of organizational culture. Hofstede revealed the ethno-national characteristics of labor relations and refuted the belief in their universal rationality. It turned out that the Germans and, for example, the Japanese act rationally in the same way, but assess the balance of the resources expended and the results achieved in different ways.

70 peoples were studied according to the Hofstede test. In recent years, mass testing of Russians has been carried out: 1,700 respondents from among the employees of energy companies in 23 regions of Russia and 518 employees of large machine-building enterprises in Moscow, the Volga region, and the Vladimir region. Power engineers are distinguished by the fact that managers and specialists of the new formation are sufficiently represented in their composition, and the latter (machine builders) are 90% ordinary Russian workers.

The authors came to the following conclusions. According to the personal achievement - solidarity index, Swedes, Dutch, Danes, Norwegians and Finns form one cluster. Dubitskaya and Tararukhina called it the "North European Solidarity Syndrome." The British, Americans, Irish, as well as Germans, Austrians, Italians and Swiss formed another statistical cluster, which was called the "Romano-Germanic achievability syndrome."

Russia, on the other hand, fell into the group of North Europeans (by the way, on the basis of these results it is clear what could take root in Russia as a political and economic formation - liberalism of the Anglo-Saxon type, South European paternalism or Scandinavian socialism).

Researchers have defined another scale in the vocabulary of management as “loyalty to the company in exchange for guarantees,” but in a broad sense it is the mentality of dependence on the external environment or, on the contrary, attuned to the social subject's own resource. In the logic of management, the first is the mentality of an employee, and the second is the mentality of a partner. According to this index, Russians are among those who value the guarantees from the organization more.

In general, they conclude that the Russian cultural matrix (recall, the matrix of labor relations) is far from the Romano-Germanic, and again closer to the mentality of hired workers in the Nordic countries. Organizational culture in Russia is built on two pillars: solidarity between employees and subordination to the organization. In Hofstede's scales, this refers to the culture of "femininity" on test items: caring for each other, intuition, the value of free time. The opposite pole of "masculinity" is assertiveness, rationalism, persistence in achieving goals, money.

“The subordination of the organization in the culture of labor relations is associated with a well-known feature of the Russian mentality - etatism, attitude towards the state in the role of its subjects, not free citizens. In practice, this means loyalty to the existing order in exchange for guarantees from the state, ”the sociologists conclude.

The system of values ​​in Russia, in comparison with the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, is quite close to the Western European one, "but it is more conservative, traditional, more inclined to order, hierarchy and less to the rights and freedoms of the individual." In general, Western and Russian sociologists did not make discoveries here. Another thing is more interesting: has there been a transformation of values ​​in Russia over the past 20 years? There are also studies on this topic.

In the 1990s, there was a noticeable shift towards the values ​​of the “modern personality” (intellectual autonomy, the value of craftsmanship), especially among young people. However, in the period 2000-2005. the increase in hedonism was recorded instead of the values ​​of the development of creative abilities. In the most important areas, there was a rollback ... the cultural prerequisites for modernization have worsened. According to monitoring surveys carried out in 1998, 2004 and 2007. employees of the Institute of Sociology, in the period from 2004 to 2007. the share of so-called modernists decreased from 26% to 20%, and traditionalists - increased from 41% to 47%, while the share of "intermediate" (33%) remained the same.

The authors considered the acceptance of the values ​​of individual freedom as signs of modernity, which is “completely unacceptable” for traditionalists and those intermediate in this matter (80% of the sample!). “For them,” writes M.K. Gorshkov, “the traditional for Russia etacratic model of development is optimal, based on the omnipotence of the state, which ideally serves as a spokesman for the interests of society as a whole and ensures the security of both each individual citizen and the community. Moreover, such a model is perceived rather as a chaotic community, where everyone performs his function, than as a community of free individuals, consciously building various life strategies, guided by human rights recognized as basic by both the state and society. "

So, the above evidence suggests that the value system of Russians is "quite close" to the North European, but more inclined towards order, hierarchy, and less inclined towards the rights and freedoms of the individual. Moreover, the share of traditionalists has been increasing in recent years.

However, the "cultural component" of the Russian mentality is still far from the European one.

The cultural parameters of attitudes towards exclusion in modern Russia are considered in the works of S.S. Yaroshenko (attitude towards the poor) and I.N. Tartakovskaya (gender stereotypes and lifestyles). The study by T.A. Dobrovolskaya and N.B. Shabalina noted the intolerance of Russian respondents towards the very idea of ​​coexistence with atypical people. The respondents expressed a negative attitude to the fact that a disabled person was their relative (39%), a roommate (37%), a boss (29%), a representative of authorities (27%), a subordinate (22%), a teacher of a child (20%). ).

Other studies show that patience as a component of mercy and humanism is less and less valued in post-Soviet Russia. Thus, N.I. Lapin's studies demonstrate changes in the structure of basic values ​​of Russians over the period from 1990 to 2006: if in 1990 the traditional value of self-sacrifice was in 8th place among fourteen basic values, then in 1994 it dropped to 11th place, and by 2006 it dropped even lower in this list, increasingly yielding to such modernist values ​​as independence and initiative.

The situation is different in European countries. A survey was conducted of 135 Russian and 98 foreign (USA, Canada, Austria, Germany) respondents - students, teachers and university staff.

An intercultural study by S.A. Zavrazhin showed that only half of the Russian respondents spoke in favor of helping mentally handicapped people (44% believe that such people should be isolated, 2% - liquidated, 2% - ignored), while among foreign respondents no one supported the idea of ​​eliminating, isolating or ignoring people with disabilities, and 98% were in favor of helping them. Let's pay attention - this is a poll among the intelligentsia, and what can we say about the common people ...

What conclusions can be drawn from this study? On the whole, Russians in a “favorable environment” (democratic government, respect for individual rights, integration into the Western world) are potentially ready to become “North Europeans” (at the level of the same Finns, who were the same Russians a hundred years ago, and who made the transformation into Europeans in a very short period by the standards of world history).

But for now, this is all - "pie in the sky." And "a tit in the hands", the realities of today's life are being broken about the tactics of survival in an environment hostile to the average Russian citizen - where the only savior is only the supreme power with its exclusive right to the "only European".

based on materials from ttolk.ru

Original post and comments on

The national character, the peculiarities of the Russian mentality belong to the ethno and sociopsychological of Russia.

History of the question of national character

The question of the national character has not received a generally recognized formulation, although it has significant historiography in the world and Russian pre-revolutionary science. This problem was studied by Montesquieu, Kant, Herder. And the idea that different peoples have their own "national spirit" was formed in the philosophy of romanticism and soil culture both in the West and in Russia. The German ten-volume "Psychology of Nations" analyzed the essence of man in various cultural manifestations: everyday life, mythology, religion, etc. Social anthropologists of the last century also paid attention to this topic. In Soviet society, the humanities took the advantage of the class over the national as a basis, therefore, the national character, ethnic psychology and similar issues were left aside. At that time, they were not given due importance.

National character concept

At this stage, the concept of national character includes different schools and approaches. Of all the interpretations, two main ones can be distinguished:

• personality-psychological

• value-normative.

Personal and psychological interpretation of the national character

This interpretation implies that people of the same cultural values ​​have common personality and mental traits. The complex of such qualities distinguishes representatives of this group from others. American psychiatrist A. Kardiner created the concept of "basic personality", on the basis of which he made a conclusion about the "basic personality type" that is inherent in every culture. The same idea is supported by N.O. Lossky. He highlights the main features of the Russian character, which is different:

• religiosity,
• susceptibility to higher skill patterns,
• sincere openness,
• a subtle understanding of someone else's state,
• powerful willpower,
• fervor in religious life,
• seething in public affairs,
• adherence to extreme views,
• love of freedom, reaching anarchy,
• love for the fatherland,
• contempt for the philistine.

Similar investigations reveal contradictory results. Any people can find absolutely polar lines. Here it is necessary to conduct deeper studies using new statistical techniques.

The value-normative approach to the problem of national character

This approach assumes that the national character is embodied not in the individual qualities of a representative of the nation, but in the socio-cultural functioning of his people. B.P. Vysheslavtsev in his work "Russian National Character" explains that human character is not obvious, on the contrary, it is something secret. Therefore, it is difficult to understand it and surprises happen. The root of character is not in expressive ideas and not in the essence of consciousness, it grows from unconscious forces, from the subconscious. In this sub-basis such cataclysms are ripening, which cannot be predicted by looking at the outer shell. For the most part, this applies to the Russian people.

This social state of mind, based on the attitudes of group consciousness, is commonly called mentality. In connection with this interpretation, the peculiarities of the Russian character are manifested as a reflection of the mentality of the people, that is, they are the property of the people, and not a set of features inherent in its individual representatives.

Mentality

• reflected in the actions of people, their way of thinking,
• leaves its mark in folklore, literature, art,
• generates a distinctive way of life and a special culture characteristic of a particular people.

Features of the Russian mentality

The study of the Russian mentality was begun in the 19th century, first in the works of the Slavophiles, the research was continued at the turn of the next century. In the early nineties of the last century, interest in this issue arose again.

Most researchers note the most characteristic features of the mentality of the Russian people. It is based on deep compositions of consciousness that help to make choices in time and space. In the context of this, there is the concept of a chronotope - i.e. connections of spatio-temporal relations in culture.

• Endless movement

Klyuchevsky, Berdyaev, Fedotov noted in their works the sense of Space characteristic of the people of Russia. This is the endlessness of the plains, their openness, the absence of borders. This model of the national Cosmos was reflected in their works by many poets and writers.

• Openness, incompleteness, questioning

A significant value of Russian culture is its openness. She can comprehend another, alien to her, and is subject to various influences from the outside. Some, for example, D. Likhachev call it universalism, others, as they note the understanding, call it, as G. Florovsky, universal responsiveness. G. Gachev noticed that many Russian classical masterpieces of literature remained unfinished, leaving the path to development. This is the whole culture of Russia.

• The discrepancy between the step of Space and the step of Time

The peculiarity of Russian landscapes and territories predetermines the experience of Space. The linearity of Christianity and the European pace determines the experience of Time. The huge territories of Russia, endless expanses predetermine the colossal step of Space. For Time, European criteria are used, Western historical processes and formations are tried on.

According to Gachev, all processes in Russia should proceed more slowly. The psyche of the Russian person is slower. The gap between the steps of Space and Time gives rise to tragedy and is fatal for the country.

Antinomy and polarization of Russian culture

The discrepancy in two coordinates - Time and Space - creates a constant intensity in Russian culture. Associated with this is another feature of it - antinomy. Many researchers consider this trait to be one of the most distinctive. Berdyaev noted the strong inconsistency of national life and self-consciousness, where a deep abyss and boundless height are combined with meanness, lowland, lack of pride, and servility. He wrote that in Russia boundless philanthropy and compassion can coexist with misanthropy and fanaticism, and the desire for freedom coexists with slavish resignation. These polarities in Russian culture do not have semitones. Other peoples also have opposites, but only in Russia can bureaucracy be born from anarchism, and from freedom - slavery. This specificity of consciousness is reflected in philosophy, art, literature. Such dualism, both in culture and in personality, is best reflected in the works of Dostoevsky. Literature always provides great information for the study of mentality. The binary principle, which is important in Russian culture, is reflected even in the works of Russian writers. Here is a list compiled by Gachev:

“War and Peace”, “Fathers and Sons”, “Crime and Punishment”, “Poet and the Crowd”, “Poet and Citizen”, “Christ and Antichrist”.

The names speak about the great inconsistency of thinking:

Dead Souls, Living Corpse, Virgin Soil Upturned, Yawning Heights.

The Russian mentality, with its binary combination of mutually exclusive qualities, reflects the latent polarity of Russian culture, which is inherent in all periods of its development. Continuous tragic tension manifested itself in their collisions:

G.P. Fedotov in his work "The Fate and Sins of Russia" explored the originality of Russian culture and depicted the national mentality, its structure in the form of an ellipse with a pair of centers of different polarity, which are constantly fighting and cooperating. This causes constant instability and variability in the development of our culture, at the same time prompts the intention to solve the problem instantly, through a flash, throw, revolution.

The "intelligibility" of Russian culture

The internal antinomy of Russian culture also gives rise to its "intelligibility". The sensual, the spiritual, the illogical always prevails over the expedient and meaningful in it. Its originality is difficult to analyze from the point of view of science, as well as to convey the possibilities of the art of plastics. In his works, I.V. Kondakov writes that literature is the most consonant with the national identity of Russian culture. This is the reason for the deep respect for the book, the word. This is especially noticeable in the Russian culture of the Middle Ages. Classical Russian culture of the nineteenth century: painting, music, philosophy, social thought, he notes, was created for the most part under the impression of literary works, their heroes, designs, stories. Do not underestimate the conscience of Russian society.

Cultural identity of Russia

Russian cultural self-identification is hampered by the specifics of the mentality. The concept of cultural identity includes the identification of a person with a cultural tradition, national values.

Among Western peoples, national and cultural identity is expressed in two ways: national (I am German, I am Italian, etc.) and civilizational (I am European). There is no such certainty in Russia. This is due to the fact that the cultural identity of Russia depends on:

• a multi-ethnic culture base, where there are many local varieties and subcultures;
• intermediate position between;
• the inherent gift of compassion and empathy;
• repeated impetuous transformations.

This ambiguity, inconsistency gives rise to arguments about its exclusivity, uniqueness. In Russian culture, there is a deep thought about the unique path and the highest vocation of the people of Russia. This idea was embodied in the popular socio-philosophical thesis of Fr.

But in full agreement with everything that was said above, along with the awareness of national dignity and the conviction of one's own exclusivity, there is national denial that reaches self-abasement. The philosopher Vysheslavtsev emphasized that restraint, self-flagellation, and repentance constitute a national trait of our character, that there is no people who criticized themselves in such a way, exposed themselves, and joked at themselves.

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- this is the totality of all the results of cognition, their assessment on the basis of the previous culture and practical activity, national consciousness, personal life experience.

The final alloy, which determines the spiritual world of a person as a whole, his approach to certain specific practical matters.

Human

Scientist

Military

The businessman

Each nation, cultural integrity has its own special way of thinking, a way of life, which predetermines the picture of the world, in accordance with which the history of the people and the community develops. Each person behaves in a manner consistent with his national mentality.

Russian mentality . What are its main features?

First, an unusually large kindness ... Naturally, there are good people among every nation. But there are peoples who have a lot of shortcomings, but it is kindness that comes first. These are the Russians. This quality also has a downside - an amazing tolerance for oppression.

Secondly, very humane worldview when in the first place in the system of human values ​​are the destinies of all mankind, in the background - the destiny of our people, in the third - the destiny of your family, your own destiny. This quality also has a downside - disregard for their living conditions. A Russian can live in a dilapidated house, be content with the smallest, not even having a desire to improve something, but at the same time reflect on global problems.

Third, a highly developed sense selfless devotion. A Russian has no equal when it is necessary to lift the unbearable or endure the unbearable, when it is necessary to "dissolve" your life in the lives of other people or to devote yourself entirely to the cause you serve.

All these three qualities - kindness, humane worldview and selfless devotion- can be combined as the first distinguishing feature of the Russian mentality by a common concept - spirituality. Spirituality- this is a special moral and aesthetic state of a person, when he is sincerely committed to such values ​​as truth, goodness, beauty, humanism, freedom, social justice, when he conducts an endless internal dialogue about his purpose and the meaning of life.

The next group of the Russian mentality. First, it is - Community. It could also be called conciliarity, and in the Soviet period it was called collectivism. And here Russians are fundamentally different from Western civilization. Western civilization, especially in Protestant countries, has historically brought up a very special type of person. Its characteristic feature is individualism as a value and psychological reality of individual autonomy.

So, in the United States, the main religious movement was Puritanism, one of the main theses of which was the increase in wealth for the glory of God. Hence the tough individualism: "Everyone for himself - one God for everyone", hard work and energy. The basic values ​​of American society are individual freedom, self-reliance and material well-being as the equivalent of happiness. Individualism has both positive and negative sides. So, the American himself suffers from his loneliness - after all, he must carry all his troubles and misfortunes in himself, and only smile in public. Even in my own family. God forbid trying to "cry in the vest" to someone - you will immediately become an outcast: "These are your problems, you solve them!"

Mentality Russian, historically formed under the influence of the Orthodox Church and the Russian village community, different, communal, cathedral - "one for all and all for one." Everyone is well aware of the expressions: "with the whole world", "with the world on a thread - a naked shirt", etc.

The world in this sense is a village community, which has always been based on mutual assistance and mutual assistance. It is customary for us to "complain" to a neighbor, to friends about our troubles, to borrow money, which is unthinkable in Western countries. And in general, in Russia, a person will not be allowed to perish. On the one hand, begging, widespread in pre-revolutionary Russia and reviving now, and patronage like the Tretyakov brothers, S. Morozov and other wealthy people; on the other hand, as polar phenomena are also a manifestation of this quality - the communal mentality of a Russian. Precisely the "Russian", since Community as a feature of the mentality is characteristic not only of Russians, but also of Jews, Tatars, Buryats, Kalmyks, and in this respect their mentality has a lot in common. Thus, Community is characteristic, obviously, of almost all or all peoples and nationalities inhabiting Russia. Just like spirituality. It is not for nothing that, for example, the East has always been called contemplative.

But Community has its own negative qualities. First of all, the principle is “keep your head down”. In a community, people should live roughly the same: "I am like everyone else," "We are not worse than others." The community does not accept a person who has succeeded much more than others, who does not want to live according to the general canons, and “survives”.

Secondly, it is traditionality, which manifests itself in reliance on folk culture, folk traditions, folk language, folk rituals, folk crafts, crafts, etc. In this respect, it is interesting to draw an analogy with the United States. When you are there, you are surprised - as if folk culture, folk traditions do not exist at all.

Thirdly, it openness, that is, the curiosity of a Russian, the ability of Russian culture to open up to external influences, absorb the values ​​of different peoples, enrich and transform them spiritually, while maintaining its uniqueness and unity.

All these three features can be combined into a second general concept - the nationality of the Russian mentality, characteristic of Russian civilization.

Finally, the third group of qualities.

First is patriotism as love for the Motherland, love for small and large Motherland, readiness to faithfully serve the cause of their prosperity, love your home and readiness to defend it. Of course, patriotism is developed in one way or another among all peoples. But the Russian has an extremely painfully developed feeling of homesickness.

In addition, the Russian people can endure oppression for an extremely long time. But oppression from their own, internal oppressors. And he absolutely does not tolerate not only external, foreign oppressors, but also any external interference in his life. As A.S. Pushkin, he could not stand Russian officials, but he was indignant when the British began to scold them.

Secondly, it is recognition of strong sovereign power... Historically, Russia developed in leaps, and these leaps occurred during periods of strong state power - Ivan III the Great (please do not confuse what often happens with Ivan IV the Terrible), Peter the Great, also called the Great, Catherine II the Great, and - Stalin. Strong state power does not at all contradict democracy - after all, democracy can be strong and weak. So a strong sovereign power in Russia today in the conditions of democratic reforms is extremely necessary.

Russia also needs it in order to resist, under current conditions, those external and internal forces that are striving in every possible way to weaken our country, oust it from the ranks of the leading world powers, or even destroy it altogether.