Any ethnic unit (clan, tribe, people, nation) appears in history a certain type behavior. This type itself is determined to a great extent by the nature of the people, or, rather, by its psychology, “soul building” (basic needs and interests, traditional preferences and habits, initial moral norms, initial attitudes in communication, etc.). The psychology of peoples, the nature of their feelings, dominant emotions - this is “ characters»Their stories. If we understand the psychology, the “soul” of a people, its inherent basic values ​​(“supervalues”), one can understand and predict the nature of its relations with neighboring peoples, its historical aspirations and goals, its position and role in world history, in the fate of humanity in general.

No management of the state or the people can be effective if the "governors" (monarchs, presidents, parliaments, just various "leaders") do not understand and do not take into account the mental structure, the "soul" of their people or a specific social group... Perfectly conceived social, political, military, economic and other actions, including in international relations, fail if statesmen or politicians do not feel the deep attitude of people to these actions, their internal psychological attitudes or assessments. This is especially true of the Russian people with its deep and subtle mental organization. For example, in the last two decades, the Russian people have been dying out, scattering, do not want to have children, stealing, drinking, swearing not from lack of culture, ignorance or poverty (thank God, no one dies from hunger in our country, the high general education of the people is obvious), but because the vast majority of people do not psychologically perceive and do not accept the way of life, or rather the socio-economic system, type public relations, which, willingly or unwillingly, is building up in the country.

It is very difficult to understand what the psychology of the Russian person is, or rather, the psychology of "Russianness". “You cannot understand Russia with your mind, you cannot measure it with a common yardstick, it’s special to become, you can only believe in Russia.” it deep thought poet-philosopher F. Tyutchev has become for many a widespread explanation of the "mysterious Russian soul", that universal miracle or, according to some, (starting with P. Chaadaev), some absurdity that Russia is in the world space.

How to explain that small and clearly deprived natural resources peoples like the Belgians, the Dutch, not to mention the Germans, the French or the British for centuries live in prosperity, prosperity and order, and the Russians are always tormented, starving, suffering? “Show me such a monastery, I have never seen such a corner, wherever your sower and keeper, wherever the Russian peasant groans” (N. Nekrasov).

For most of the 20th century, the Russians were eagerly building a "bright tomorrow" - communism. They paid for a "happy future" with hardships, health, and the lives of millions. Considerable successes have been achieved, including in the economic, cultural, moral development people. But in the end, Russia turned out to be inhabited, although equal and educated, but poor, cut off from world civilization, spiritually crushed by people.

After 20 years of democratization and liberalization, the country has become many times weaker, lost 20 percent of its territory, and lost centuries of conquests. In terms of the level of the people's well-being, Russia has steadily “settled” in the 50-60th place in the world. The Russian nation is dying out in the literal sense of the word (in many regions, the death rate is two to three times higher than the birth rate). Every year about a million of our fellow citizens leave the country. Millions of abandoned children roam the streets, wild drunkenness and drug addiction are typical. The number of suicides in the country exceeds the number of those killed, we are in first place in the world in terms of female and child alcoholism, and in third place in terms of female crime. In the village, about half of the inhabitants live below the poverty line. Again "hungry, poor Russia groans"? (A.S. Pushkin). But everything seemed to be correctly copied from the civilized West. Tens of thousands of foreign advisers taught us how to create economics, politics, sex correctly.

What is it all the same? Are the Russians stupid? Are the Russians lazy? Do they always drink and walk? Are the rulers of Russia brainless and stupid?

A considerable number of scientists - sociologists, historians, philosophers, just thinking people both in the past and in the present they have tried to offer their understanding of this enormous complexity of the issue. Certain aspects of the social and moral character of the Russian person, and the peculiarities of his psychology, were correctly ascertained. But the main thing was not caught.

From our point of view, the most important indicator of the psychology of any nation, its deep initial sense of self, is its intuitive understanding, the determination of the location of their "I" in relation to their social environment, other "I". This is the focus of the national psychology of the people, the most intimate base point of reference in all behavior of a person of any nationality, his original primordial anthropological sense of self.

A Russian person always feels like a part of something larger than himself. Russian psychologically, spiritually "is present" not only "inside himself", like a "Westerner" (for example, a German, Frenchman, Englishman), but also "outside himself." The center of his spiritual existence is outside of him. A Russian is born not only and even not so much for himself as for another, and he sees the meaning of life in serving another1. This is what explains essential features behavior and destinies of a huge number of Russian people.

Due to the limited space in this case, you can pay attention only to some of them. This is, first of all, the breadth of the Russian soul, noted by all foreigners, interest in the whole world, accessibility a huge number phenomena and events that, it would seem, do not directly concern him. (A Swiss or a Norwegian, for example, is mainly interested in the state and fate of his own country). The Russian, on the other hand, cares about everything. The Russian feels himself a citizen of the world, and responsible for the fate of this world. This is a specific Russian "messianism". (In the past, this was how the ancient Egyptians, ancient Romans felt themselves). From here, the amazing openness of the Russian, his kindness, benevolence to another, a desire to serve, to help him, opened up.

Hence the well-known tendency of the Russian to speak "heart to heart", to feel the "heartbeat" of another, to understand him, to sympathize, to share his grief. (Multiplied by the excessive Russian emotionality, these traits become part of life, part of the main needs of the Russian).

Hence his amazing ability, desire, even the need to “die for the people,” for someone else. Therefore, for him the feat of Christ is so attractive, who accepts death for people.

By virtue of these parties of his basic psychology, the Russian is "not self-sufficient." He always lacks himself. It is not enough to satisfy one's own needs. A Russian always needs a big common goal. Without it, life is meaningless. (This was perfectly captured by the communists, proposing a general great purpose- communism). Unfortunately, now the Russian people have Russian society there is no such big common goal. And the Russians for the most part feel a terrible emptiness, the meaninglessness of existence. Since the Russians perceive and demand everything in a maximal way, it is understandable why the Russians perceived the destruction of Russia as a great power as a terrible misfortune, defeat, tragedy, shame.

Here you can also see the reason for one of the unpleasant and dangerous manifestations of "Russianness". When communicating with others (especially with foreigners), Russian very often perceives not himself, but another as a “starting point”. The fact is that the feeling that you are not the “master” of yourself, but your “master” is something more than you, gives rise to a feeling of your own imperfection, “partial”, inferiority. Self-esteem drops sharply. Therefore, a Russian surrounded by, as it seems to him, “significant people” is not confident in himself. This is a well-known all over the world, quite typical for many Russians, a feeling of their own incompleteness, even inferiority, the dependence of a Russian on someone else's authority. (“I am Russian, therefore, I am a fool, therefore it smells from me” - A. I. Herzen). Hence, groveling, ingratiating himself, groveling before every "lord", fear of all bosses, lack of "moral courage", as Napoleon called this quality. "A nation of slaves," as N. G. Chernyshevsky contemptuously said about the Russians in this connection.

Therefore, the Russian should be more often encouraged, praised, inspired (like any insecure person). He really needs a strong, authoritative, just leader ("the king-father"). His psychological type requires authoritarian control. "Democratic" and especially "conniving" type of leadership causes a disturbance of internal balance, decentralization of psychological attitudes, loss of moral standards and, ultimately, a state of anomie. Loss of relevance social norms and demands, deviant and self-destructive behavior is growing, the number of suicides is increasing, etc. Kind, affection, praise from a Russian can achieve almost anything. (In particular, this prompts many social psychologists to assert that the Russian people have a "woman's soul").

Russian is very sensitive to moral judgments and therefore is not protected against "moral banditry". Easily falls for socially significant slogans and appeals. He really wants to respect someone and he himself really needs respect. Moral purity a Russian person, his initial need to believe in something significant, in goodness, in nobility, the need to serve something sublime, to help someone often makes him the victim of the most outright deception, acting, meanness. He is amazingly open and trusting to the opinions of people who seem to him honest, respected, authoritative. (“The Russian people are gullible,” noted N. Karamzin). The Russian man is a godsend for any unprincipled politician, for any clever businessman in the media. It is this quality that makes it easy to manipulate the Russian electorate in all sorts of elections.

The greatest quality of the Russian type of self-realization is the ability to be content with little in meeting material needs. This quality of his makes Russians amazingly capable of resisting in hard times, in times of war, famine, natural disasters. During the Civil War and the Great Patriotic War, entire villages and regions for more than one month ate only swans, oak bark, acorns, and nettles. And they survived.

But this ability to be content with little, unfortunately, allows Russians to be satisfied with a minimum of comfort and convenience even in good, peaceful times. Hence the reasoning about the laziness of the Russians. That is why "a Russian person is a bad worker." (V.I. Lenin). He doesn't need an achievement highest quality under normal conditions (Let us recall N.V. Gogol's "Rus-Troika": "He was not seized with an iron screw, but hastily, alive with one ax and a chisel, equipped and assembled it by a smart Yaroslavl man. And the devil knows what ...") ... Therefore, the destiny of Russia, as the pre-revolutionary publicists mockingly repeated, is “to wear hats rejected by Europe,” that is, the destiny to be late, to imitate. And again to assert that "culture comes from the West." But it is precisely the freedom of spirit, freedom from small efforts to improve one's life, to “polish the polished” that gives the Russian people the opportunity to create amazing masterpieces of culture, to make amazing inventions. The Russian spirit is incredibly creative. The Russian people are one of the most creative peoples the world.

Europeans and Americans, both in the past and in the present, are most struck (and frightened) by the heroism and dedication of the Russian people, their invincibility. Indeed, as history shows, it is impossible to defeat Russia. This is not blind fanaticism or mindlessly following orders. Due to the original features of his worldview, a Russian person dying feels that he is not dying at all, because that great common - and, above all, the Fatherland, the Motherland - for which he lives and of which he is a part - is immortal. Indeed, such a people cannot be defeated.

Of course, here it is not possible to note and evaluate many other qualities of "Russianness" in all their complexity and contradictions. They are correlated, interdetermined, complementary. But ultimately their origins are precisely in the indicated deep properties of Russian psychology. Only their accounting in different areas social and public policy can finally lead Russia to its desired historical goals.

Notes (edit)

Perhaps in this one can see the historical (and biological) purpose of the Russian ethnos. It is the representatives of the Homo sapiens species, which differ in such anthropo-psychological indicators, that can be designed to save the species (humanity) in critical situations.

I Romanov Readings."Romanov collection" ... Kostroma. May 29-30, 2008.

For many centuries, foreign guests and merchants, visiting first Russia, and then - Russian Empire... Worldwide famous classics Russian literature also did not stay away from solving the riddle of the Russian mentality - in their works they tried to describe Russian men and women and as fully as possible reveal the facets of their character and peculiarities of their worldview. But still, even now, to most foreigners, Russians seem mysterious and largely incomprehensible, and Russians themselves can accurately distinguish their compatriots among the crowd of foreigners in another country. But what is the peculiarity of the mentality and psychology of Russians that makes them so unlike representatives of other peoples?

National characteristics of Russians

National characteristics The character of Russians has been formed over the centuries, and the basis of the unique mentality of the nation began to be laid back in the Middle Ages, when most Russians lived in villages and conducted a collective economy. It was from those centuries that the opinion of society and their own position in the team began to mean a lot for Russians. Also, at that time, such national trait Russians like and adherence to patriarchal traditions - the survival and well-being of the entire village, volost, etc. largely depended on the cohesion of the team and on the presence of a strong leader.

These features are inherent in the psychology of Russians even now - the majority of representatives of the nation are sure that the country needs a strong leader, do not consider themselves entitled to openly criticize and challenge the decisions of their superiors, and are ready to support the government in any case. In relation to the role of each individual in society, the Russian mentality, like the geographical position of Russia, is located between the "west" and "east": it is difficult for representatives of this nation to accept the Western European model of society, in which the individuality of each individual Russians do not have the privileged role of the collective over the individual, as is typical of the Chinese. We can say that the Russians were able to find " the golden mean"between collectivism and individualism - they give great importance public opinion and their role in the team, but at the same time they know how to value the individuality and uniqueness of the personality of each person.

Another national feature of the Russian character, which distinguishes him from the mentality of other nations, is the "breadth" of the soul of the Russian person. Of course, the soul cannot be wide in the literal sense of the word, and this expression means that Russian people have the following character traits:

Psychology of Russians in personal life and in everyday life

The majority of Russian people believe that the spiritual is more important than the material, therefore they do not set the goal of their life to earn millions, but choose other priorities - family, self-development, etc. representatives of this people are characterized by a "light" attitude to money - A Russian person will not be too discouraged during the time, and will also often prefer to spend money on something pleasant for himself, rather than save up finances for the future.

However, despite such an attitude to finance, Russians love luxury and pretentiousness, so they do not spare money for expensive housing repairs, fashionable gadgets and status items. In Russian houses, in addition to furniture and household appliances, there are many interior decorations - a variety of souvenirs, figurines and other cute trinkets. It is also not uncommon for any unnecessary things to lie in the closet of an apartment or house for years - since the existence of the USSR, Russian people have not yet completely got rid of the habit of leaving in reserve everything that could theoretically be useful in the future.

V love relationship Russian men are gallant, romantic, generous and courteous and always strive to surround their lady with maximum care. Russian women are able to completely dissolve in a loved one, are ready to make sacrifices for the sake of love and are confident that "with a sweetheart paradise and in a hut." In most Russian families, the relationship between husband and wife is equal, but still taking care of children and household chores are considered predominantly women's business, and making money for the whole family is for men.

WORLD DANGER (FOREWORD)

The work of N. Berdyaev "The Fate of Russia" was created in exile, but most of the articles included in the collection were written during the First World War before the revolutionary events in Russia. In the preface, the author sadly states: "Great Russia no longer exists, and there are no world tasks facing it, which I tried to comprehend in my own way." But the new time requires a revision of the reactions of the living spirit to everything that happens in the world. The revolution and the withdrawal from the war are regarded as a fall and dishonor, which contributed to the military successes of Germany. But on the other hand, Berdyaev believes that “Germany is a perfectly organized and disciplined impotence. She overstrained, exhausted and forced to hide her fear of her own victories. "

The philosopher sees a more real threat than Germany, a threat from the East. “From the East, not Aryan or Christian, there is a thunderstorm all over Europe. The results of the war will not be used by those who count on it. Nobody will win. The winner will no longer be able to take advantage of his victory. All will be defeated alike. " How does this echo the events currently taking place in the world (September 11, Iraq, Al-Qaeda, Chechnya), which are provoked by religious, political differences in the world, which can lead to a religious war on a planetary scale, where there will definitely not be winners and losers. “And then the punishment will come from Asia. On the ashes of old Christian Europe, exhausted, shaken to the very foundations by its own barbaric chaotic elements, another race alien to us, with a different faith, with a civilization alien to us, will wish to take a dominant position. Compared to this prospect, the whole world war is just a family strife. "

Berdyaev predicts that after the weakening and disintegration of Europe and Russia, “Sinism and Americanism will reign, two forces that can find points of convergence with each other. Then the Sino-American kingdom of equality will be realized, in which no ascents and ascents will be possible anymore. " We currently have only two superpowers - the United States and China. The United States is striving to turn Russia into its raw material appendage, a dumping ground for radioactive waste, a "third world" country. China, which by its rapid development, the seizure of the world market, the provision of cheap labor, the development of high-precision technologies, has turned into a country with enormous potential and an acute shortage of territory, is conducting a quiet expansion of the Russian Far East. The settlement of our territories by the Chinese, their assimilation is purposefully carried out, all this clearly confirms the idea of ​​the author. If the author's prophecies come true, then no state in the world will be able to resist this Empire.

The author proposes a revival through the unification of spiritual, Christian forces against the forces of anti-Christian and destructive. He believes that “sooner or later a“ sacred union ”of all creative Christian forces, all faithful to the eternal shrines, should arise in the world,” but he himself adds: “The world is entering a period of long troubles and great upheavals. But great values ​​must be carried through all trials. For this, the human spirit must be clothed in armor, must be chivalrously armed. " Berdyaev sees only one way of positive development of society - its development through spiritual self-improvement and development inner peace a single person.

I. Psychology of the Russian people

I.I. Soul of Russia

“For a long time there was a premonition that Russia is destined for something great, that Russia is a special country, unlike any other country in the world. Russian national thought was nourished by a sense of God's chosenness and God-bearing in Russia. "

This chapter examines the role of Russia in world life, its possibility of influencing the spiritual life of the West "by the mysterious depth of the Russian East." Berdyaev believes that the outbreak of the First World War pitted the eastern (Russia) and western (Germany) humanity. The war became a kind of catalyst for the development and unification of East and West. It should help Russia to occupy a "great-power position in the spiritual world concert", to become a full-fledged member of Europe.

The author believes that “the hour of world history is close when the Slavic race led by Russia is called to a decisive role in the life of mankind”, but on the other hand, considering the Russian mentality, he admits: “Russia is the most stateless, most anarchist country in the world. And the Russian people are the most apolitical people who have never been able to organize their land. " And this contradiction raises a natural question for me: "How can a country, whose internal organization does not stand up to any criticism, with a heavy, clumsy state apparatus, an" apolitical people ", can, according to Berdyaev, claim a leading role in determining the fate of mankind?" After reading this book, I have not received an answer to my question.

The author's assessment of the Russian character, its passivity, contemplation is magnificent: "At the heart of Russian history lies a significant legend about the vocation of foreign Varangians to rule the Russian land, since" our land is great and abundant, but there is no order in it. " How characteristic is the fatal inability and unwillingness of the Russian people to establish order in their own land! The Russian people seem to want not so much a free state, freedom in the state, as freedom from the state, freedom from worries about the earthly order. " The eternal Russian laziness, the hope for a "good master", the thirst for "freebies" in any of its manifestations are shown in this quote in all its glory. And after all, what is surprising, almost 100 years have passed since the book was written, but nothing has changed in the perception, desires, and worldview of the Russian person. "Varyag-foreigner", "kind gentleman" - we still have enough of these characters (German Gref - financier, Abramovich - " best friend all the Chukchi ", Putin -" only from Berlin ", Mavrodi -" partner ", etc.), but the desire to try to do something on his own, to work for himself, and not for a penny for the state, our man did not have , and no. A Russian is not accustomed to taking risks, because it is much easier to live badly, but with confidence that you will not be fired from a low-paid job. Living in a small apartment, consoling yourself with the thought that someone is living in a "hostel", etc. "The Russian people have always loved to live in the warmth of the collective, in some kind of dissolution in the elements of the earth, in the bosom of their mother."

“Russian folk life with its mystical sects, and Russian literature and Russian thought, and the terrible fate of Russian writers and the fate of the Russian intelligentsia, separated from the soil and at the same time so characteristic of the national, everything, everything gives us the right to assert the thesis that Russia - a country of endless freedom and spiritual distances, a rebellious and terrible country in its spontaneity, in its popular Dionysimism, which does not want to know the form. " This thesis was confirmed by further historical events: revolutions, the establishment of Soviet power, which destroyed the Great Empire with its foundations, spirituality, introduced new moral and spiritual values, physically destroyed the intelligentsia, which led to a change in the nation at the genetic level. The fruits of which we are now successfully reaping, observing the general lack of spirituality, hypocrisy and thirst for profit.

The antithesis of this thought: “Russia is a country of unheard of servility and terrible obedience, a country devoid of consciousness of individual rights and does not defend the dignity of the individual, a country of inert conservatism, enslavement religious life the state, the country of a strong life and heavy flesh. " In his antithesis, Berdyaev proclaims that the country is almost impossible to budge, that it is inert and meekly puts up with its life, but after only a few years, his antithesis was destroyed to the ground.

Considering the confrontation in the world war between Germany and Russia, Berdyaev characterizes it as a confrontation between races, cultures, spirituality, polar opposite to each other. He thinks that: " World War, in the bloody circulation of which all parts of the world and all races are already involved, must in bloody torments give birth to a firm consciousness of all-human unity. Culture will cease to be so exclusively European and will become world, universal. And Russia, which occupies the place of the mediator between the East and the West, which is the East-West, is called upon to play a great role in bringing humanity to unity. The world war brings us vitally to the problem of Russian messianism. " It seems to me that any war cannot be a unifying factor for humanity, since the warring parties after the end of the war, even after many years, at the subconscious level, continue to hate each other for the sacrifices and destruction inflicted on them. Allies united by an external threat and common goals(enemy), after the end of hostilities, they begin to act independently, trying to get the maximum amount of dividends from victory just for themselves. All these reasons, in my opinion, lead to the separation of peoples, nations, and not to their consolidation, as Berdyaev believes.

The problem of Russian messianism is a key topic for the author, he writes: “Christian messianic consciousness can only be the consciousness that in the coming world epoch Russia is called to speak its word to the world, as the Latin world and the German world have already said. The Slavic race, headed by Russia, must reveal its spiritual potential, reveal its prophetic spirit. The Slavic race is replacing other races that have already played their role, already leaning towards decline; it is the race of the future. All great nations go through the messianic consciousness. This coincides with periods of special spiritual uplift, when the fate of history given people calls to do something great and new for the world. " It would be strange that Russia, with its difference from other countries, did not give the world something great and terrible. The change through rebellion of the political, economic and spiritual system in a single country, the creation of a coalition of dependent states, entailed such changes in the world that it almost led to a nuclear war.

“The soul of Russia is not a bourgeois soul, it is a soul that does not bow before the golden calf, and for this alone one can love her endlessly. Russia is dear and loved in its monstrous contradictions, in its mysterious antinomy, in its mysterious spontaneity. "

Russia is a special country facing global challenges; the country chosen by God. This thought goes back to old idea Moscow is the Third Rome. This idea was stained with lies and falsehood, but something truly Russian was reflected in all this. Both an individual and a whole nation throughout life cannot be accompanied by a feeling of a special great vocation without a special purpose.

Russia is still unclear and foggy to the West. It is not given its due, is not considered according to its dignity, but nevertheless it is drawn after this unknown, contradicting itself barbaric-cultural essence. If now the Slavs as a race do not play such a role as Russian diplomacy and do not occupy such a position as the Latin or Germanic races, then this is what the war should change; The processes taking place within the national spirit splash out on world stage... Statehood is completely absent in the Russian people. Anarchy is what Russians are. The intelligentsia and that aspired to freedom and truth, excluding statehood as such in principle. Russia is a submissive, feminine land. Its people do not want a free state, they want freedom from the state. These properties became the basis for Slavophil philosophy.

Although imperialism does not favor the Russian people, it nevertheless devotes all efforts to its creation and strengthening like a weak-willed slave. And this is the secret - how did such an anarchic and apolitical people create such a huge empire?

2 conflicting statements:

1) Europeans are nationalists, Russians, in this regard, are absolute liberals who consider Nazism to be evil.

2) Russia, a country saturated with Nazism to the marrow of its bones, believes that the real church is only in Russia.

An innumerable number of antitheses can be cited, because Russia is limitless in spiritually... Soloviev stands up to defend the church - the only weapon against the nationalist antithesis.

The essence of the antithesis is that Russia is a country of merchants, money-grubbers, conservative to the point of immobility, a country of officials who never overstep the boundaries of a closed and dead bureaucratic kingdom, a country of peasants who do not want anything but land, and who accept Christianity outwardly and selfishly. Russia does not like beauty, is afraid of beauty as a luxury, does not want any redundancy. It is almost impossible to budge Russia, it has become so heavy, so inert, so lazy, so immersed in matter, so humbly putting up with its life.

So where does this inconsistency come from? The root of these deep contradictions lies in the disconnection between the masculine and the feminine in the Russian spirit and the Russian character. War is the hope for a way out of this vicious circle.

The author writes that Western Europe and Western culture will become immanent for Russia; Russia will finally become Europe, and it is then that it will be spiritually distinctive and spiritually independent. A world war, in the bloody cycle of which all parts of the world and all races are already involved, should, in bloody torments, give birth to a firm consciousness of all-human unity. Culture will cease to be so exclusively European and will become world, universal. The world war brings life to the problem of Russian messianism. Messianic consciousness is the recognition of God's chosen people who will save the world. But, after the appearance of Christ, messianism in the Hebrew sense becomes already impossible for the Christian world. Christianity does not allow national exclusivity and national pride, condemns the consciousness that my people are higher than all nations and the only religious people... Christianity is the final affirmation of the unity of mankind, the spirit of all-humanity and universality.

Freedom to travel. Russian culture can only be finite, only going beyond the boundaries of culture.

About the "eternal woman" in the Russian soul

Rozanov is now the first Russian stylist. Everything that he wrote - there is a huge biological stream, to which it is impossible to stick with any criteria and assessments. Rozanov is some kind of primordial biology experienced as a mystic. For him, the very stream of life in its power is God. There is so much characteristically Russian, true Russian in Rozanov. He is a brilliant exponent of some aspect of Russian nature, of the Russian element. It is only possible in Russia. In the very depths of the Russian character, there is eternally womanish, not eternally feminine, but eternally womanish. Rozanov is a brilliant Russian woman, a mystical woman. And this "womanish" is felt in Russia itself.

Centralism and popular life

Most of our political and cultural ideologies suffer from centralism. Our trends such as Slavophilism and Narodism were treated with special respect and attention to folk life and in different ways tried to rely on the very bowels of the Russian land. But in both, there was a significant proportion of the utopianism of centralist ideologies. One of the fundamental mistakes of Narodism was the identification of the people with the common people, with the peasantry, with the working classes. The spiritual and cultural decentralization of Russia, which is absolutely inevitable for our national health, cannot be understood as a purely external spatial movement from capital centers to remote provinces. This is, first of all, an internal movement, an increase in consciousness and the growth of conciliar national energy in every Russian person throughout the Russian land.

On the attitude of Russians to ideas

One of the saddest facts in social and folk psychology is indifference to ideas and ideological creativity, the ideological backwardness of broad strata of the Russian intelligentsia. Some consider that the minimum of thought contained in Social-Democratic brochures is sufficient in our country, while others - that which can be found in the writings of the Holy Fathers. Any Russian person seeks salvation, the creation of values ​​is always a little suspicious for him, while in the West a person creates values, creates cultures.

Russian intellectual maximalism, revolutionism, radicalism are a special kind of moralistic asceticism in relation to state, social and historical life in general. The Russian intelligentsia doubts whether it is worth accepting history with all cruelty and anguish, is it not more correct to reject it? Russian thought has always differed from creative thought in the absence of dynamism; it is static, despite changes in relation to various doctrines.

Russian dislike for ideas and indifference to ideas often turn into indifference to truth. And the Russian man is not looking for the truth at all. He seeks salvation from different angles, there is a real Russian truth in this. Thought, the life of ideas was subordinated to soulfulness, but soulfulness itself was not subordinated to spirituality. Russian spontaneous people's soulfulness takes on various, most opposite forms - protective and rebellious, national-religious and international-socialist. The Russian people are perhaps the most spiritual people in the world. But his spirituality floats in some kind of spontaneous soulfulness, even in corporeality. In this infinity, the spirit did not take possession of the soul. Hence - distrust, indifference and hostility to thought, to ideas. Hence the well-known weakness of the Russian will, of the Russian character. Narodniks and Slavophiles against "abstract thought". There is truth in this, which was drowning, because it could not go through division and dismemberment, as any thought should go through. The originality and originality of the Russian soul cannot be entwined with thought. This fear is disbelief in Russia and the Russian people.

The creative movement of ideas is in crisis at the beginning of the 20th century. The intelligentsia is not interested, the whole movement is not inspired by the movement of ideas, even the conviction has developed that public figures these ideas are not needed. A cultural atmosphere has not yet formed around this. It was impossible to approach the world tragedy with the old stock of ideas - and there was no demand for new ones. The ideas on which the old government rested have completely disintegrated. It is necessary to move to a different ideological dimension. In the world struggle of peoples, the Russian people must have their own idea. In this struggle, Russians must not only rebuild their state and society, but also rebuild themselves ideologically and spiritually. The time has come for Russian ideological preaching, on which the future of Russia depends. And at this most crucial hour in the country, ideological anarchy, there is a mortification of conservative and revolutionary thought. But in the depths of the Russian people, great opportunities are still hidden. Russia must mature to a world role with a spiritual revival.

Soul of Russia

Russia is contradictory, antinomical. The soul of Russia is not covered by any doctrines ... it is possible to approach the solution of the secret hidden in the soul of Russia, immediately recognizing the antinomy of Russia, its terrible contradiction.

Russia is the most stateless, the most anarchist country in the world. And the Russian people are the most apolitical people who have never been able to organize their land ... The Russian soul wants a sacred community, a government chosen by God. The nature of the Russian people is recognized as ascetic, renouncing earthly affairs and earthly blessings ...

Russian history is based on famous legend about calling the Varangians-foreigners to govern the Russian land, since "our land is great and abundant, but there is no order in it." How typical this is for the fatal inability and unwillingness of the Russian people to establish order in their own land! The Russian people seem to want not so much a free state, freedom in the state, as freedom from the state, freedom from worries about the earthly order. The Russian people do not want to be a courageous builder, their nature is defined as feminine, passive and submissive in matters of state, they always wait for a groom, husband, ruler ... It is very characteristic that in Russian history there was no chivalry, this courageous beginning. This word is associated with the insufficient development of the personal principle in Russian life. The Russian people have always loved to live in the warmth of the collective, in some kind of dissolution in the elements of the earth, in the bosom of their mother. Chivalry forges a sense of personal dignity and honor, creates a temper of personality. This personal temper was not created by Russian history. In the Russian person there is softness, in the Russian face there is no carved and chiseled profile.

Russia is the most state-owned and most bureaucratic country in the world; everything in Russia is turning into an instrument of politics. The Russian people created the most powerful state in the world, greatest empire... Russia has consistently and stubbornly gathered from Ivan Kalita and has reached dimensions that stagger the imagination of all the peoples of the world. The forces of the people, about whom it is not without reason that they think that they are striving towards inner spiritual life, are given to the colossus of statehood, which turns everything into its instrument. The interests of creating, maintaining and protecting a huge state occupy a completely exclusive and overwhelming place in Russian history. The Russian people had almost no strength left for a free creative life, all the blood was spent on strengthening and protecting the state. Classes and estates were poorly developed and did not play the role that they played in history Western countries... The personality was crushed by the enormous size of the state, making unbearable demands ... No philosophy of history, Slavophile or Westernizing, has yet figured out why the most stateless people created the most enormous and powerful statehood, why the most anarchic people are so submissive to the bureaucracy, why a free spirit people seem to be would not want a free life? This secret is associated with a special ratio of feminine and masculine principles in Russian popular character... The same antinomy runs through the whole of Russian life.

There is a mysterious contradiction in the attitude of Russia and Russian consciousness to nationality. This is the second antinomy, no less important than the attitude towards the state. Russia is the most non-chauvinistic country in the world. Nationalism in our country always gives the impression of something non-Russian, superficial, some kind of unremarkable. Germans, British, French - chauvinists and nationalists in the mass, they are full of national self-confidence and self-righteousness. Russians are almost ashamed of being Russian; they are alien to national pride and often even - alas? - national dignity is alien. The Russian people are not at all characterized by aggressive nationalism and inclinations of violent Russification. Russian does not advance, does not exhibit, does not despise others. In the Russian element, there truly is some kind of national disinterestedness, sacrifice, unknown to Western peoples.

Russian history has shown a completely exceptional spectacle - the complete nationalization of the Church of Christ, which defines itself as universal. Church nationalism is characteristic Russian phenomenon... Our Old Believers are soaked through and through with it. But the same nationalism reigns in the ruling church. The same nationalism penetrates into the Slavophil ideology, which has always replaced the universal with the Russians. The universal spirit of Christ, the courageous universal Logos is captivated by the feminine national element, the Russian land in its pagan originality. This is how the religion of dissolution in mother earth, in the collective national element, in animal warmth was formed. Russian religiosity is feminine religiosity, religiosity of collective biological warmth experienced as mystical warmth. The personal religious principle is poorly developed in it; she is afraid of going out of the collective warmth into the cold and fire of personal religiosity. Such religiosity refuses the courageous, active spiritual path... This is not so much the religion of Christ as the religion of the Mother of God, the religion of mother earth, the female deity that illuminates the carnal life.

Mother Earth for the Russian people is Russia. Russia turns into the Mother of God. Russia is a God-bearing country ...

The Russian people truly have freedom of spirit, which is given only to those who are not too absorbed in the thirst for earthly profit and earthly well-being. Russia is a country of everyday freedom, unknown to the advanced peoples of the West, enslaved by philistine norms. Only in Russia there is no oppressive power of bourgeois conventions, there is no despotism of the bourgeois family. The Russian person with great lightness of spirit overcomes all bourgeoisness, leaves every way of life, from all normalized life. The wanderer type is so characteristic of Russia and so beautiful. The wanderer is the most free man on the ground. He walks on the ground, but his element is airy, he has not grown into the ground, there is no squatness in him. The Wanderer is free from the "world", and all the burden of the earth and earthly life was reduced for him to a small knapsack on his shoulders. The greatness of the Russian people and its calling to higher life concentrated in the wanderer type.

And here is the antithesis. Russia is a country of unheard of servility and terrible obedience, a country devoid of consciousness of individual rights and does not defend the dignity of the individual, a country of inert conservatism, the enslavement of religious life by the state, a country of a strong life and heavy flesh. Russia is a country of merchants immersed in heavy flesh, money-grubbers, conservative to the point of immobility, a country of officials who never transgress the boundaries of a closed and dead bureaucratic kingdom, a country of peasants who do not want anything but land and accept Christianity outwardly and selfishly, a country of the clergy, immersed in material life, a country of ritualism, a country of intellectuals, inert and conservative in their thought, infected with the most superficial materialistic ideas. Russia does not like beauty, is afraid of beauty as a luxury, does not want any redundancy. It is almost impossible to budge Russia, it has become so heavy, so inert, so lazy, so immersed in matter, so humbly putting up with its own life.

How to understand this mysterious inconsistency of Russia, this equal fidelity of mutually exclusive theses about it? And here, as elsewhere, in the question of the freedom and slavery of the soul of Russia, of her wandering and her immobility, we come across the secret of the relationship between the masculine and the feminine. The root of these deep contradictions lies in the disconnection between the masculine and the feminine in the Russian spirit and the Russian character. Boundless freedom turns into boundless slavery, eternal wandering turns into eternal stagnation, because courageous freedom does not take possession of the feminine national element in Russia from the inside, from the depths. The courageous beginning is always expected from the outside, the personal beginning is not revealed in the Russian people themselves. Hence the eternal dependence on foreign things. In philosophical terms, this means that Russia always feels the courageous principle in itself as transcendent, and not immanent, coming from outside. This is related to the fact that everything courageous, liberating and shaping in Russia was not Russian, foreign, Western European, French or German or Greek in the old days. Russia is, as it were, powerless to shape itself into free being, powerless to shape itself into a personality. A return to one's own soil, to one's own national element, so easily assumes the character of enslavement in Russia, leads to immobility, turns into a reaction. Russia is getting married, waiting for the groom, who should come from some heights, but not the betrothed, but a German official comes and owns it. In the life of the spirit, it is possessed by: now Marx, now Kant, now Steiner, now some other foreign husband. Russia, such a peculiar country of such extraordinary spirit, was constantly in a servile attitude towards Western Europe... She did not study from Europe, which is necessary and good, did not join European culture, which is salutary for her, but slavishly obeyed the West or, in a savage nationalist reaction, smashed the West, denied culture. God Apollo, the god of courageous form, did not go to Dionysian Russia. Russian Dionysianism is barbaric, not Hellenic. And in other countries you can find all the opposites, but only in Russia does the thesis turn into an antithesis, bureaucratic statehood is born from anarchism, slavery is born from freedom, extreme nationalism from supranationalism. There is only one way out of this hopeless circle: the disclosure within Russia itself, in its spiritual depths, of a courageous, personal, shaping principle, mastery of its own national element, the immanent awakening of a courageous, luminous consciousness.