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mentality mentality Russian people

The characterization of Russian culture in terms of its place in the dichotomy "East - West" is a rather difficult task, since, firstly, it occupies a middle position in relation to the geopolitical factor (which is taken into account by representatives of the so-called "geographical" or "climatic" determinism) ; secondly, the study of Russian civilization is just beginning (it is generally possible in relation to the national-cultural integrity that has already become, and in Russia self-identity and national self-consciousness are formed rather late in comparison with European cultures); thirdly, Russian culture is initially super-polyethnic in its composition (Slavic, Baltic, Finno-Ugric with a noticeable participation of Germanic, Turkic, North Caucasian ethnic substrates took part in its formation).

Russian culture began to stand out as a special type within the framework of Christian civilization in the 9th-11th centuries, during the formation of the state among the Eastern Slavs and their introduction to Orthodoxy. From the very beginning, Russian culture is formed on the basis of such cultural features as:

Autocratic form of state power (“patrimonial state”);
· Collective mentality;
Subordination of society to the state;
· Little economic freedom.

One of the most significant factors in the formation of Russian culture was Orthodoxy as a religious and moral landmark of spiritual culture. Old Russian state was a confederation of independent states. Orthodoxy set a normative-value order common to Russia, the only symbolic form of expression of which was the Old Russian language. It "captured" all strata of society, but not the whole person. The result of this is a very superficial (formally-ceremonial) level of Christianization of the "silent majority", its ignorance in religious matters and a naive social-utilitarian interpretation of the foundations of dogma. Therefore, we can talk about a special type of Russian mass Orthodoxy - formal, closely "fused" with pagan mysticism and practice, which allowed N. A. Berdyaev to call it "Orthodoxy without Christianity."

Middleness in relation to the Western and Eastern types of cultures is perhaps one of the leading characteristics of Russian culture, since the "Western" and "Eastern" features in the Russian mentality do not strictly contradict each other, but rather combine and complement each other. So, for example, Christian values are borrowed by Russia as a value system of the culture of the West, but in the “eastern” version they are inherited from Byzantium, and the Russian Church has been dependent on the Patriarch of Constantinople since the 15th century. Also in the types of socio-political structure: Russia "tried on" both the eastern and western models, and the centers of the Ancient

If we try to formulate exactly which features of the Russian mentality can be characterized as clearly Western, and which as Eastern, then we can represent them as follows:

Western features:

· Christian values;
the urban character of culture, which determines the whole society;
· military-democratic genesis of state power;
· the absence of the syndrome of total slavery in relations of the "individual-state" type.

Eastern features:

• lack of private property in the European sense;
· the dominance of the principle, in which power gives rise to property;
autonomy of communities in relation to the state;
The evolutionary nature of development.

As for the so-called "paths" of Russian culture, its cultural history has a completely unique character. Our history is not as “eternally lasting”, rather aimed at stagnation, any maintenance of stability, balance and, if possible, immutability, as in the East, turned into eternity, and, at the same time, not as gradually progressive as in the West, going along the path of qualitative and extensive development. It is as if we are playing, shuffling Eastern and Western types of structuring historical time in our history. Russian culture then falls into some kind of hibernation, in which it even “misses” highlights European history of the spirit (so we did not survive Antiquity, which gave the European and Eastern cultures such a powerful cultural innovation (which K. Jaspers called the "axis" of world history) as the transition from the mythological type of thinking to the rational development of the world, to the emergence of philosophy - we began to form our ethno-cultural "self" immediately in the Middle Ages; The Renaissance type of personality never developed in Russian culture, since we also “stepped over” through the Renaissance, stepping immediately into a good and strong Enlightenment), then it concentrates and, drawing strength from nowhere, is included in some kind of “explosion”, no matter the external whether it is a war, an internal revolution, or something like "perestroika" or other reforms. This is another specific feature of the Russian mentality - polarity. Therefore, life in ordinary language is a zebra, therefore “either pan - or disappeared”, “who is not with us is against us”, “from rags to riches” ... That is, a Russian person does not tolerate intermediate states, loves to “walk along blade of a knife and cut your bare soul into blood. Therefore, he feels great and adapts in crisis, milestone, turning points at the collective and even the state level. This affects our ways of waging wars and our ability to resist an external enemy. So at the individual level, no one, probably, like a Russian person, knows how to put up with life circumstances, with fate (or even fate), and if fate itself does not present any twists and turns, then the Russian person “helps” it, provokes it. It is no coincidence that all over the world the game with death, when a person himself “pulls her by the mustache”, is called “Russian roulette”. This is one of the heterostereotypes of a Russian person in many foreign cultures.

One can also note the accentuated binarity as a characteristic feature of Russian culture, where, in a completely unique and paradoxical way, such oppositions as “collectivism - personality” “coexist”; "activity - passivity"; "borrowing - originality"; "development - stability"; "deconstruction - construction"; uniqueism is universalism.

The results of modern ethnopsychological research record a clash in the minds of Russian people of conflicting attitudes and behavioral stereotypes. So there are five main behavioral orientations:

Collectivism (hospitality, mutual assistance, generosity, gullibility, etc.);
· on spiritual values (justice, conscientiousness, wisdom, talent, etc.);
· on power (respect for rank, creation of idols, controllability, etc.);
· for a better future (hope for "maybe", irresponsibility, carelessness, impracticality, self-doubt, etc.);
· to quickly solve life's problems (the habit of rush work, daring; heroism, high working capacity, etc.).

One of the central features of the Russian mentality is the ideal of obedience and repentance in Christianity (rather than physical labor as an obligatory prerequisite for “smart doing”, similar to the Western Christian commandment “pray and work”, which, according to M. Weber, was one of the essential prerequisites formation of capitalism in Western Europe after the Reformation). Hence, Russians have such a heightened sense of guilt and conscience as the ability of a person to exercise moral self-control. It is savored by Russian literature with a special masochistic taste and is also one of the most common stereotypes.

Russian culture is characterized by a special ethnocentrism and messianism, which are an important part of the Russian way of thinking. This sensitively captures and expresses the language, ironically and hyperbolizing these properties of our mentality (“Russia is the birthplace of elephants”; or in one of the modern commercials: “It was a long time ago, when everyone was still Jews, and only the Romans were Russian”) . We are also largely inclined towards traditionalism, which justifies attempts to attribute Russian culture to the East. This is an all-encompassing traditionalism of thinking - a force realized by members of society, which does not consist in the individual and its intrinsic value, as in the culture of the West, but in the crowd, in the mass. Hence our desire for collective forms - catholicity in Orthodoxy, “hey, pile on, men”, “with the whole world, with all the people”, “Get up, huge country”, these are all hands, collective creativity in any sphere cultural life. Traditionalism is expressed in “decency and orderliness”, in the everyday and personal life of a Russian person, in the presence of rigid canons in literature and art, as well as in a special relationship to time - in an appeal to the past or the very distant future (A.P. Chekhov: “ A Russian person loves to remember, but not to live. One of the sides of our traditionalism is monumentalism - a penchant for grandiose forms of self-expression and self-affirmation. Despite its openness to any intercultural contacts and borrowings, Russian culture is largely introvertive. Open to external influences, it is not susceptible to them due to the cultural immunity developed over the centuries and the “suspicious” attitude towards other, alien cultures. This is well illustrated by our particular way of reforming. For example, Peter's "Westernization" in terms of goals and form became the deepest "anti-Westernization" in essence, and the "revolutionary" and Westernizer Peter I turned out to be a guardian and traditionalist.

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Research work in geography

The mentality of the Russian people

Tynda 2005

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

Introduction

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

what character traits distinguish the Russian people (according to the authors literary sources);

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

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

what needs to be done to ensure that all the peoples of the world 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, because. the issues of finding a common language between the peoples of the world remains relevant. The fact that human thinking is largely reactive and situational was noted by ancient philosophers. In their daily behavior, people rarely give an account of why they acted this way and not otherwise. Even Leibniz, long before Freud's theory of the unconscious, wrote that "we are three-quarters automatic in our actions." R. Chartier, who quoted him, noted that “firstly, there still remains “one quarter” of human actions, which are determined by collective determinants. The latter are not necessarily realized by individuals, but, nevertheless, govern and command the actions of people in these cases. As you know, in difficult historical periods, such as the one we are currently experiencing, the volume of significant social information increases many times over. The collective intellect of the nation is not always able to efficiently and timely process these overflowing information flows. The importance of mentality among the phenomena of this level is difficult to overestimate. Moreover, without analyzing the deep ethno-mental foundations, it is impossible to understand the peculiarities of the spiritual life of a particular people, to explain why the development of democratic and market principles faced 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 as such. It is impossible to detect the concepts of the mentality of this period in the philosophical literature by any external signs: the fact that they are talking about the mentality becomes clear only after reading the works.

Thirdly, different authors put different content into the same concept of mentality, which greatly complicates comparative analysis. It is generally accepted that mentality is one of those concepts of scientific and everyday language that are difficult to define with any strict definition. If you try to somehow explain its various meanings, you will get more of an intuitive image than a logically verified category. Different authors at different times understood mentality as the contradictory integrity of the picture of the world, and the pre-reflective layer of thinking, and the collective unconscious, and the sociocultural automatisms of the consciousness of individuals and groups, and the "global, all-encompassing" 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, its specific manifestations, also determine the relevance of the chosen topic. (one)

The mystery and solution of the mysterious "Russian soul"

About the "mysterious Russian soul" each of the readers has probably heard more than once. And I have read it many times. What it is - no one knows (and therefore "mysterious"). Most often it is explained that the mystery of the Russian soul is in its extraordinary breadth. But what is "breadth"? 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. Extraordinarily great kindness.

Generally speaking, there are good (as well as evil) 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, diligence, discipline, musicality, etc. and only in last place is by no means amazing kindness. And there are peoples who have a lot of shortcomings, but it is kindness that strikes the imagination.

This is what the Russians are.

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

Second. An unusually humane frame of mind, when in the first place in the system of human values - the fate of mankind, far in the background - the fate of one's own people, very little - the fate of one's family and absolutely zero attention - one's own destiny.

It was this mindset that typically distinguished Russian behavior late 18th-early 20th centuries - "intelligentsia" of Russian origin, which has significant differences whether from the Western "intellectuals" or 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, surprisingly similar life and fate - shows that something from the intelligentsia has survived to this day. The most striking thing is that exactly the same mindset is widespread among common people- to the last beggar inclusive.

There are peoples where "every man for himself - one God for all", and relations between people are regulated by laws. There are peoples where everything is dominated by the feeling of belonging to one's own people, to one's own kind-tribe. 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 peoples where relations between people are regulated not by laws, not even by reason - by the heart. The Russians belong to them.

Unusually developed sense of asceticism. Not in the sense of complete self-forgetfulness, when, according to the Russian proverb, you have to move a mountain. Russians have no equal when they have to throw themselves into a burning house or into icy water in order to save a person. When you need to put out a fire or dig a blockage. When you need to stand to the death in a besieged fortress or go on a bayonet attack. When you need to lift the unbearable or endure the unbearable. When you need to somehow “dissolve” your life in the life of another person or devote it entirely to the cause you serve. (2)

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

And at the same time, any tourist who comes to Moscow never ceases to be amazed at the viciousness service personnel, the thieving of almost everyone who gets in his way, the shameful laziness that occurs at every step. Very far from cordial kindness, selflessness, selflessness and a typical Russian tourist, who appeared before your eyes in a foreign country for him. How to combine one with the other? Is this really the mystery of the “mysterious Russian soul”?

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

Russia in this regard is distinguished by two essential characteristics.

First, the special character of the Russian community. The Russian village 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 the ancient Greek phalanx, which moved and fought as one. This condition is still characteristic of the rural community. developing countries Asia and Africa (including the Asian republics of the former USSR). It has a number of advantages - mainly in terms of resilience to endure hardship - but is so uncompetitive in relation to the modern urban lifestyle that everywhere in the world is in varying degrees of decay, transition to more modern forms of life.

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

But it was precisely the imposition of unique features of the Russian national character on the community that allowed the Russian people to endure not only the burden of totalitarianism, but also the unbearable burden of the arms race for other peoples (on an equal footing with the much more economically stronger United States of America!) developed countries world - albeit mainly through the military-industrial complex and its infrastructure.

Such, in our opinion, is the mystery and solution of the imaginary "mystery" of the notorious Russian soul. In our opinion, there is nothing mysterious in it. Many components of this "mystery" are present in many peoples. 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, who have their own unique character, no worse and no better than the Russian. Just a unique combination of different components, traits, characteristics created a unique phenomenon that is difficult to study and therefore acquired an aura of "mystery".

But no matter how we treat this phenomenon of the “Russian soul”, it must be taken into account and kept in mind. Otherwise, it is impossible to understand how, in what way, Russia endured the Civil War, which by an order of magnitude exceeded the Civil War of 1861-1965 in terms of its hardships, victims and economic devastation. in the USA. How did you get complete rout Agriculture with tens of millions of victims, very similar in its consequences to the most ferocious hurricanes ever swept over the territory of the southern states of the United States, or to the tragic events in the African Sahara of the 70s, Somalia of the late 80s and early 90s. How did she endure the mass terror by the sons 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 Nazi Holocaust or the tragedy of Cambodia during the time of Pol Pot. How did she endure World War II when she was caught unawares, unprepared for war, and had to literally cover the approaches first 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, did it endure almost half a century of the Third World (the so-called "cold") war against a much stronger economically and technologically adversary.

There can be no doubt that the Russian people would have endured the burden of totalitarianism and the arms race for some more time. 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, gradually decay from within. And then all of a sudden it collapsed like a rock and crumbled into sand. (3)

The mentality of the Russian people

The mentality of the people component national culture. The study of the national mentality is necessary to understand the relationship of 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 such contradictory, thirst for absolute freedom and slave obedience, religiosity and atheism- these properties of the Russian mentality are incomprehensible to the Europeans and therefore create an aura of mystery, mystery, incomprehensibility for Russia. After all, for us, Russia remains an unsolved mystery. F. I. Tyutchev said about Russia:

Russia cannot be understood with the mind,

Do not measure with a common yardstick.

She has a special become -

One can only believe in Russia.

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

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

The severity of our climate also strongly affected the mentality of the Russian people. Living in a territory where winter lasts about six months, the Russians have developed in themselves great willpower, perseverance in the struggle for survival in the climate. The low temperature during most of the year also affected the temperament of the nation. Russians more 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 during the years of foreign intervention, but unproductive for building an intensive economy), instead of independence - habit of paternalism, instead of high material demands - unpretentiousness to the conditions of life.

The harsh Russian winters had a strong influence on the traditions of the Russian hospitality. Denying shelter to a traveler in winter in our conditions means dooming him to a cold death. Therefore, hospitality was perceived by the Russian people only 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. Russians have long had to engage in all kinds of crafts along with agriculture. 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, having become accustomed to these deceptions, our man sometimes prefers to choose headlong the most hopeless decision, to oppose the whim of nature with the whim of his own courage. This inclination tease happiness, play luck V. O. Klyuchevsky called the "Great Russian Avos".

To live in such unpredictable conditions, when the result depends on the vagaries of nature, is possible only with an inexhaustible optimism. In the ranking national traits character, compiled on the basis of a Reader's Digest magazine survey conducted in 18 European countries in February 2001, this quality among Russians was in first place. 51% of respondents declared themselves optimists (only 3% were pessimists). In 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, to work hard in order to have time to do a lot in a short time. No people in Europe is capable of such hard work in a short time. Such industriousness is inherent, perhaps, only Russian. This is how the climate influences the Russian mentality in such a multifaceted way. 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, marshy swamps, presented the settler with thousands of small dangers at every step, among which one had to be found. With which I had to constantly fight. This taught him to vigilantly follow nature, to look both ways, in his words, 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 patient struggle with adversity and hardship. .

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 were reflected in the mindset of Russians, in the manner of their thinking. Life's bumps and accidents taught him to discuss the path traveled more than to think about the future, to look back more than to look ahead. In the fight against unexpected hardships and thaws, with unforeseen August frosts and January slush, he became more circumspect than precautionary, learned to notice the consequences more than set goals, cultivated in himself the ability to sum up the art of making estimates. This skill is what we call hindsight ... Nature and fate led the Great Russian in such a way that they taught him to go to the straight road in a roundabout way. The beautiful Russian nature and the flatness of Russian landscapes taught the people to contemplate. According to V. O. Klyuchevsky, “in contemplation is our life, our art, our faith. But from excessive contemplation, souls become dreamy, lazy, weak-willed, unworking. Caution, 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 spaces in Russia. A huge sparsely populated territory required for its development a special type of people capable of decisive action, daring and courageous. And everywhere, during their journey, 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 rebelliousness. 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 - the plain of assimilation. They "boiled" in this boiler. And came out of it with two fundamental feelings - feeling of powerful unity with each other and arising from centuries of experience of life conciliatory attitude towards peoples - neighbors - and to those who had to seize land, and to those who joined based on their own interests; and even more so to those who considered it important for themselves to transfer their knowledge, 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 the powerful folk root they had 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 3, in parting words, produced shortly before the country entered the 20th century, said: “Remember - Russia has no friends. They are afraid of our hugeness.”

A long period of careful dosing of deliberate distortion of information leaking abroad did not contribute to the formation of an objective image of the country among foreigners. P.A. Vyazemsky, a writer and friend of Pushkin, characterized such opinions as follows: “Do you want clever man, German or French, froze stupidity - make him express judgments about Russia. This is an object that intoxicates him and immediately darkens his thinking abilities.

“Huge spaces were easy given to the Russian people, but it was not easy for them to organize these spaces into the greatest state in the world, to maintain and protect 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 turned out to be overwhelmed by the immense Russian fields, the immense Russian snows, it seems to be drowning, dissolving in this immensity. Long and cold winters were reflected in joyless sadness in the soul of the Russian people.

The state mastery of vast spaces was accompanied by 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 that came "from below". Centralization affected the Russian spirit in two ways: firstly, the Great Russian decided that the one who controls such vast expanses, representing Russia and a great people, is almost of supernatural origin. From here - cult of personality, a sense of reverence for« father-tsar» in the soul of the Russian people. Secondly, the feeling that someone is standing above a person and controlling all his actions has resulted in such a quality of the soul as carelessness. ON THE. Berdyaev said: "The Russian soul is bruised by the breadth." The Russian soul is wide, like the Russian land, rivers, fields - everything can be absorbed by the soul of a Russian person, all human feelings of property will fit in it.

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

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

Seeing the infinity of their open spaces, the Russians resign themselves to the idea that it is still impossible to master such a vastness. I. A. Ilyinsky said: "Russia has endowed us with enormous natural wealth - both external and internal." A Russian person considers these riches to be endless and does not protect them. It breeds in our mentality mismanagement. We feel like we have a lot. And further in his work “On Russia”, Ilyin writes “From the feeling that our wealth is plentiful and generous, a kind of spiritual kindness is poured into us, a kind of organic, affectionate good nature, calmness, openness of the soul, sociability ... there will be enough for everyone, and the Lord will send more” . This is the root of the Russian generosity.

“The natural calm, good nature and generosity of 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 entire Russian statehood, strongly influenced folk character. Orthodoxy brought up in the 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 brought up in the Russians an extraordinary patriotism to the point of sacrificial heroism. A. I. Herzen wrote: “Every Russian is aware of himself as a part of the whole state, is aware of 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 thoroughness peasant and nomadic blood ( prowess, the desire to withdraw from habitable places in search of something better, horizontal structured space, etc..) Russians do not distinguish between Europe and Asia, balancing between two models of development.

Comprehensive geographical analysis of ethnocultural and natural environment allows today to reveal key features the mentality of any nation and trace the stages and factors of its formation. (3)

On Chinese pragmatism

The sage takes care of the stomach, not of the eyes: he takes what is necessary 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 development 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 complex history Celestial. That is why the Chinese civilization, which gave rise to one of the most mystical currents - Taoism, lives very pragmatically, does not talk about profit, but constantly follows it. Just like any Chinese, he strives to extract his interest even from a trifle. Obviously, this circumstance determines the realities faced by a tourist coming to modern China. First of all, the amazing diligence of the Chinese is striking, or rather their work in any area, despite its appearance and level. On the way to Cheng De, we watched the Chinese create earthen terraces in the mountains for agricultural work. Before us, pictures of the distant past literally came to life: 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, workers covered with mats from the night cold, and in the morning, at sunrise, they cleaned them, putting them in huge piles - and so every day. Even at a gas station quite remote from the central highway, the toilet is washed and deodorized with incense after each visit.

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

More than 500 million "unrecorded" people live in China, 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, they do not have documents. And everyone needs to live!

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

Pragmatism The Chinese are manifested in everything, in relation to health, first of all. After all, it is health care that underlies Taoism, the flourishing of Chinese and Tibetan medicine, and traditional martial arts. Every morning, passing through any city, you can observe groups of people doing qigong breathing and meditative exercises, taijiquan gymnastics. On weekends, parks and gardens are given into the possession of pensioners for recreation.

China is a land of contrasts

… Existence and non-existence generate each other,

Difficult and easy create each other,

Short and 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 is therefore 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 the unity of opposite principles - feminine and masculine (Yin and Yang). Therefore, in front of all the palaces there will be figures of two lions: on the one hand, a lion, putting its paw on a ball - a male symbol, denoting power, and on the opposite side, 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 be adjacent to the mountains with a back wall, and with a facade - to go to a river or an artificial reservoir. True, the symbolic elements of the harmony of the Cosmos are intertwined here - earth and water, and in the middle is a person, with purely practical, functional ones - protection from enemies, of which the Chinese have always had a lot.

Chinese gardens - the most harmonious combination of opposites Yin and Yang: nature and architecture, verticals and horizontals, 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, according to the Taoist ideas about the five elements. In addition, the color scheme also means the characters' characters - both in fine arts and in sculpture. The color scheme is used even in a religious ceremony. And, of course, the use of animal symbols is canonical, in which the first place is occupied by the dragon, personifying water and performing protective functions. Tiger, turtle, horse, unicorn are popular. 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 occupied a paramount place in the life of pre-Confucian China. Hence the ancient name of China - China. Dragons on the roofs perform a protective function, protecting all the living from the power and interference in their lives by evil spirits. The same functions are performed by the famous curved roofs with tightly sealed tubes of tiles, as well as peculiar 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, one can also 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 Chinese

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

« Well, what the Chinese are the most hardworking people in the world, everyone knows it. And they proved with their diligence, 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 history<об этом говорит> « (DFG, Moscow).

« Very resilient people» (DFG, Moscow).

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

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

By the way, respondents aged 50 years and older (48%) speak about a positive image of China much more often than on average. 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. It should be noted that modern television pictures from China - not with pagodas, but with a red banner, a sickle and a hammer - only reinforce this image, fairly seasoned with nostalgic feelings.

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

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

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 about the negative image of this country more often than others. It is there that the problem of illegal immigration of residents of the "under heaven" is extremely acute.

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

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

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

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

The “peaceful expansion” of China in the Far East causes considerable concern among the respondents:

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

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

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

Finally, the traditional fear of the "multitude" 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 Chinese expansion. Because it is developing very well, the population is very large, the army is very strong. So in the future there are fears that it 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:

misunderstanding of everyday humor associated with the absence of similar realities in their culture,

misunderstanding of certain accepted etiquette norms,

misunderstanding of the deep values of the corresponding culture.

Misunderstanding of humor, based on ignorance of realities, is easily removed in the presence of comments. The exception is a play on words: a native of another culture understands that, probably, in another language, such a random 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, in fact, eliminates the unexpectedness of the semantic clash that underlies humor. Similarly, jokes based on rhymes do not cause laughter. Such jokes are not very characteristic of English culture, and in Russian jokes they are registered in our corpus of examples, mainly in relation to primitive jokes.

Usually, anecdotes associated with various classifications regarding ideas about other peoples cause a smile. Even if the essence of the anecdote is not immediately clear, the bearer of Russian culture can easily guess that the very structure of the anecdote should suggest its climax. For example, the following anecdote translated into Russian does not quite fit into the idea of Russians about Italians, but becomes clear due to the context:

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

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

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

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

German: "This is an order."

Italian: "Jumping is forbidden!"

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

More complicated is the anecdote with a confused classification:

Paradise is a place where the policemen are English, the cooks are French, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian and the managers are Swiss. Hell is a place where the chefs are English, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, the police are German and the managers are Italian.

The British treat their policemen with respect, German policemen are known for their harshness, French cuisine is also known for its sophistication, and English food 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 an 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 a `Swiss bank'. traveling around the countries of their continent, this confused classification causes a genuine smile: they remember that in France no one could 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 , such jokes are based largely on personal experience, i.e. on the conscious experience of incomprehensible realities.

Here is another anecdote that plays on the stereotypes of representation of foreign ethnic groups:

German, American and Swedish police are participating in a contest to see who is the best at catching criminals. The task is given: a hare is released into the forest, and it must be caught. The Swedish police set up animal informers throughout the forest, interview all the plant and mineral witnesses, and after three months of intense searching, they come to the conclusion that there are no hares in nature. The Americans break into the forest, roam the forest for two weeks, cannot find anyone, set fire to the forest, killing everyone, including hares, and do not apologize to anyone. The Germans get down to business and two hours later they 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 series 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 cruelty (here the priority belongs to the Germans), but by insufficient competence, which is compensated by the manifestation of brute force. The lack of tact (‘they don’t apologize to anyone’) is also noteworthy, the latter sign is painful for those cultures where it is customary to observe the norms of politeness, primarily for English culture. This anecdote is in general terms understandable to the bearers of Russian culture, who imagine the behavior of American supermen from films and who are aware of the cruelty of the Germans during the war. (7)

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

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

The British may not know that Ilya Glazunov is a famous contemporary Russian artist. In addition, the idea of a child submitting a picture he was helped to draw to a children's drawing competition seems strange to the British: this idea violates the English idea of \u200b\u200b fair play"(`fair play"). Similarly, the English do not understand the attitude of Russians to prompting during the exam: we have a friend who refused to prompt you during the exam, 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 severe).

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

A man calls the KGB on a pay phone: “Hello, KGB? You're doing a bad job!" I ran to another pay phone: “Hello, KGB? You're doing a bad job!" He ran to the third one: “Hello, KGB? You're doing a bad job!" He feels a hand on his shoulder: “As we can, we work.”

The specificity of these jokes is that state security is endowed with supernatural abilities and is evaluated positively. Such an attitude to 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 jokes of this kind 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 jokingly deciphered with a positive connotation `office deep drilling". The idea of the omnipresence 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 do not internally agree with the pathos of the anecdote):

NASA is wondering why the left SHUTTLE solid-propellant booster exploded, and in the KGB why the right one didn’t explode ...

Even without taking into account the fact that in this text the functions of foreign intelligence are attributed to the KGB, the 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 national-chauvinistic.

Frank apologetics of the authorities is no exception in Russian jokes about meetings senior leaders. Here is a children's anecdote from the Brezhnev era:

Brezhnev arrives in America. American President Reagan says: "Press that button!" Brezhnev pressed, and found himself under a cold shower. After some time, Reagan arrives in Moscow. Brezhnev tells him: "Press this button!" Reagan pressed, nothing happened. Pressed again, nothing happened either. He says, “What is this? Here we are, in America ... "And Brezhnev told him:" Your America is no more.

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 these were citizens of the United Kingdom) felt solidarity towards the United States, but frank praise of the power of the USSR in the genre of anecdote seemed strange to them. It is interesting that at the same time jokes were circulating in which Brezhnev was shown as a very weak person, 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 anecdotes about the police are very specific to Russian culture. The attitude towards law enforcement officers among the bearers of Russian culture is sharply negative. The police in the mirror of the anecdote is distinguished by corruption and narrow-mindedness. For example:

A traffic policeman 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 the diary, if I got a deuce, I’ll whip it!” The boy runs to his mother in tears: “Today they just gave me a deuce!” “Okay, don’t be afraid,” the mother says, and puts fifty rubles in her son’s diary on the page with the deuce. The boy with horror gives the diary to his father. He, frowning, flips through, reaches the page with a 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 understood that it was about the inadequate behavior of a policeman, but the whole system of Russian realities turned out to be closed to them. They had to tell them that the police on the roads, the service of the state traffic inspectorate, now, by the way, renamed the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate (GIBDD), is almost always perceived in the minds of the bearers of Russian culture as extortionists, unfairly fining drivers for minor traffic violations. It is clear that the tellers of jokes are the victims of the unfair control of the state over people. The carriers of modern Russian culture also know the procedure for presenting a driver's license to a policeman, usually a banknote is invested in the license. The humor of the cited 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 control over children.(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?

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

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

A superficial understanding of this text is a boy's mockery of a fat fireman. In this sense, we have before us an anecdote-trap. But in this text, the British do not understand the linguocultural presupposition: a firefighter is a person who sleeps all the time in the service, so he has a swollen face that needs to be bandaged with a strap so that it does not crack. The boy in many Russian jokes is a trickster provocateur who inevitably confuses an adult. In the most prominent form, this function is expressed in a series of jokes about Vovochka (many of these jokes are rude).

The results of our experimental analysis of the perception of anecdotes showed that the sign "rudeness" did not appear in the answers of the respondents, both from the English side and from the Russian side (however, we did not consider frankly obscene anecdotes, although they should also be accepted in a special work to conduct an objective study into account). English jokes was 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 to get him 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 their master. Passing the moon to the king, the courtier asked: “O great king, I dare to ask, why do you need the moon?” The king thought: “Really, why?…”

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

The English respondents were at a loss when trying to understand the anecdote, which includes a value that is very specific to the Russian linguistic consciousness:

Announcement in a Ukrainian newspaper: I am changing a 3x4 m carpet for a piece of lard of the same size.

In the minds of Russians, salo 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 as a valuable investment. In English, there is no one-word and unambiguous translation of the Russian reality `fat', there are words meaning fat, lard, the British do not understand the hyperbole in the size of an immense piece of lard, and finally, they perceive carpets only as a comfortable floor covering, and not at all as a piece of art or a demonstration The British also cannot understand the specific banter of Russians over Ukrainians and vice versa, although similar relations take place between the British and the Scots, the British and the Irish, etc. The elements of mutual misunderstanding in intercultural contact, presented in a caricatured anecdotal form, are, in apparently, an ethnocultural universal, but the qualities of another people to be ridiculed 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 that, I would have killed in general.

The presupposition of a husband's right to hit his wife seems strange to the British, although in in large numbers jokes about the mother-in-law, such a presupposition does not raise questions. The British, in principle, do not understand an unmotivated action: faced with a world in which, in principle, there are no causal relationships and which Russians perceive as cheerful for this very reason, the British experience a kind of cognitive discomfort. This leads to the conclusion about the orderliness of the world as a value in the English-speaking mind.(9)

These kinds of jokes stand in stark contrast to jokes that exaggerate and caricature certain human qualities. Our corpus of examples includes a humorous miniature on the subject 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 to the south in order to avoid a collision.

...

The genetically determined features of the Russian mentality include the following:

1. Talent. Diversity in the genetic composition of hereditary biological structures ( chromosomes) gives rise to a very wide range of physical, psychological and intellectual characteristics of individuals. Combined with the size of the population, this genetic property determines the high probability of the appearance of unusual, phenomenal types of people with original genotypes. It is among such people that talents and geniuses are most often found - people with outstanding or unique abilities to a certain type of activity. Peculiar combinations of gene variants in these genotypes explain the talent of the Russian people.

2. High adaptability. High heterozygosity causes the presence in every Russian person of a wide range of behavioral reactions. This implies a high adaptive capacity, adaptability of the Russian population to changing living conditions. The same high adaptability can explain such features of the Russian mentality as unpretentiousness, tolerance for living conditions, since at the unconscious level there is a genetic mechanism for adapting to them.

3. Russian ingenuity is one of the ways to implement high adaptability when you need to find an original way out of a difficult situation. Ingenuity is an intellectual means of survival, overcoming difficulties, regardless of their content.

Considered genetic features of the Russian mentality are inherited genetically. In contrast to them, the socially educated features of the Russian mentality considered below are inherited not genetically, but with the help of the mechanism of historical memory, which includes folk traditions, folklore, literature, art of all kinds, and in general everything that is commonly called culture.

The socially educated features of the Russian mentality are determined by the interaction of its gene- and nature-shaped features with the social conditions of life over a fairly long historical period spanning many generations (hundreds of years). Only a nation with a long history, such as the Russian, can have socially educated features.

The socially educated features of the Russian mentality include the following:

1. Collectivism and conciliarity developed by centuries of life in a rural community. The community did not appear suddenly, but as a historically formed necessity for existence, as a reaction to low soil fertility, low agricultural productivity and harsh climatic conditions, in which it was easier to survive being in a community and using mutual assistance than alone. Russian history has shown that its course is determined not by socio-economic theories of changing social formations, but by the habit of the Russian population for a certain way of life, especially the habit of the rural population for life in a community. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that the stability of socially educated mentality traits is lower than that of genetically and nature-based ones, therefore, urbanization and the rapid reduction of the rural population in Russia may in the near future lead to the degradation of the mentioned collectivist tradition and undermine one of the main foundations of Russian civilization.

2. A heightened sense of injustice among the Russian people social inequality infringing on the interests of the poor. This trait can be seen as a manifestation of collectivism. Hence the ancient feeling of social compassion for people who are spiritually and physically handicapped: the poor, holy fools, cripples, etc., and the leveling tendencies in the Russian understanding of social justice.

3. The religiosity of the Russian people, brought up by the church and the authorities for almost a thousand years. Religion in Russia has always gone hand in hand with secular power. The tsar was considered the representative of God's authority on earth, and the Russian national idea for several centuries was expressed in the formula "God, tsar and fatherland." A specific form of Russian religiosity was Orthodoxy, introduced in Russia again by secular power in the person of Prince Vladimir. public essence orthodoxy, based on the concepts of social justice, goodness, the supremacy of the spirit over the flesh, embodied in the church biographies of Orthodox saints, as well as the forms of Orthodox religious rites - fasts, religious festivals, etc. people. This correspondence explains the stability of the Orthodox faith among the Russian people.

4. The cult of the leader. Deep religiosity, understood as the hope for a deliverer from life's hardships, contributed to the formation of such a socially educated Russian trait as the cult of the leader. All Russian history passed under the sign first of the power of the prince, then the king, and in Soviet period under the flag of the personality cult of the leader of the Communist Party. In all cases, it was the sole power of the leader (prince, king, general secretary) and the people blindly relied on him. It can be noted that the cult of the leader is also promoted by collectivism, one of the manifestations of which is the subconscious subordination of the individual to the collective, and in his person to the one who expresses the collective interests, that is, the leader who personifies the collective in the mass consciousness. Hence the observed now lack of initiative of the main part of the population, political infantilism, inability to politically self-organize, unwillingness to take responsibility for socially significant actions.

5. National and religious tolerance. Almost one and a half hundred different peoples have been peacefully living on the territory of Russia for many centuries. In Russia, there has never been racial hatred, religious wars, prohibitions on interethnic marriages. The country, with few exceptions, has historically been formed as a voluntary multinational association. This could not but give rise to such a socially educated Russian trait as national and religious tolerance.

6. Finally, one cannot but say about Russian patriotism. Patriotism exists in any country, but the basis of patriotism in different countries different. Russian patriotism is patriotism based on people's awareness of their community. The rise of the Russian patriotic spirit always arose during the years of severe trials not for individuals, classes or groups of the population, but for the whole people, when they began to acutely realize themselves as a historical community that was in great danger - enslavement or destruction. It was precisely such tasks that were set by its enemies in the wars against Russian civilization.

In such years, this community was determined not only by the threat of personal loss of family, housing, property, but also by the threat of a general loss of the Fatherland: the traditional way of life, the opportunity to be proud of the past and believe in one or another social idea, that is, everything that is commonly called the self-identification of the people . The people rose to defend the Fatherland as a civilization. The idea of individualism, which is now being introduced into the Russian national consciousness under the flag of individual freedom and human rights, is deeply anti-patriotic, because individualism has never been a social value among the Russian people, as, for example, in the West. European nations, and he will not protect her in case of national danger.

Despite all the virtues of the Russian people listed above, the peoples of Russia are endowed with a number of vices. The main ones are: passivity; drunkenness and rapidly developing drug addiction; theft, which has acquired a truly massive character.

However, sociological studies show that the basic features of the mentality of Russians is still the predominance of moral components. And, above all, a sense of responsibility and conscience, as well as a special understanding of the relationship between the individual and society.

Important features mental life Russian man is the ability to feel and think in different, sometimes mutually exclusive ways; to combine the impulse to unlimited freedom with great patience.

The mentality acts spontaneously, without realizing it, manifesting itself in the totality of principles and habits, reflected in character traits. Thus, the structure of the mentality is a complex multi-level pyramid of mechanisms and modes of action directly related to the centuries-old culture of the people. At the same time, the peculiarities of the mentality of the people serve as the basis for the formation of an ideology and a national idea.

GOU VPO

Voronezh State Medical Academy named after V.I. N.N. Burdenko"

Abstract on the topic:

"Characteristics of the features of the Russian mentality".

Completed: student P-509

Lyamina O.S.

Voronezh 2009

Mentality is one of the basic concepts of modern humanitarian knowledge. It includes the main characteristics of an ethnos and is one of the leading criteria when comparing nations with each other.

The mentality is the subject of consideration of several humanities, each of which brings its own feature to the definition of this concept. The modern Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary interprets mentality as a way of thinking, the general spiritual mood of a person or group, limited only to the study of thinking. Encyclopedic Dictionary Terra Lexicon under this concept means a certain way of thinking, a set of mental skills and spiritual attitudes inherent in an individual person or a social group. In this interpretation, there is no mention of the language as an important component of the mentality, and of the cultural characteristics, probably, only behavioral characteristics are taken into account.

One-sided interpretation is not a feature of only modern science. Mentality as an independent subject of research began to be considered in the 20-30s. 20th century At the beginning of the 20th century, the term "mentality" seems to have been used in two ways. In ordinary speech, this somewhat fashionable term denoted preferably collective systems of attitude and behavior, "forms of the spirit." At the same time, it also appears in the scientific lexicon, but again as a “way of thinking” or “peculiarities of attitude”.

There are many definitions of what mentality is, here are some of them:

Mentality is a special “psychological equipment” (M. Blok), “symbolic paradigms” (M. Eliade), “dominant metaphors” (P. Ricoeur), “archaic remnants” (Z. Freud) or “archetypes” (K. Jung), "... the presence of which is not explained by the individual's own life, but follows from the primitive innate and inherited sources of the human mind."

The term mentality originated in France. It is already found in separate works by R. Emerson in 1856. In addition, W. Raoulf, based on an analysis of French journalism at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. came to the conclusion that the semantic charge of the word mentality was formed before [Raulf W. History of mentalities. To the reconstruction of spiritual processes. Digest of articles. - M., 1995. S. 14], as the term appeared in everyday speech.

It is generally accepted that the category of mentality was one of the first to introduce the category of mentality into the scientific terminology after the publication of his works by the French psychologist and ethnographer L. Levy-Bruhl. In its essence, mentality is historically processed archetypal representations, through the prism of which the perception of the main aspects of reality takes place: space, time, art, politics, economics, culture, civilization, religion. Consideration of the mental features of the consciousness of a particular social group allows one to penetrate into the “hidden” layer of social consciousness, which more objectively and deeply conveys and reproduces the mood of the era, to reveal a deeply rooted and hidden behind the ideology slice of reality - images, ideas, perceptions, which in most cases remains unchanged even when changing one ideology to another. This is explained by the greater, in comparison with ideology, stability of mental structures.

J. Le Goff also noted that “mentalities change more slowly than anything else, and their study teaches how slowly history marches” [Disputes about the main thing: Discussions about the present and future historical science around the French Annales school. - M., 1993.- S. 149.]. If ideology, with certain deviations, as a whole develops progressively, so to speak linearly, then within the framework of mentality, representations change in the form of oscillations of various amplitudes and rotations around a certain central axis. At the heart of such a movement and the development of mentality lies a certain way of life.

So, mentality is a concept that is very rich in content, reflecting the general spiritual mood, way of thinking, worldview of an individual or a social group, insufficiently conscious, in which the unconscious occupies a large place.

The mental characteristics of Russian culture are characterized by a number of specific features, which are due to the fact that any attempt to present Russian culture as a holistic, historically continuously developing phenomenon, which has its own logic and pronounced national identity, encounters great internal difficulties and contradictions. Every time it turns out that at any stage of its formation and historical development, Russian culture seems to double, showing two distinct faces at the same time. European and Asian, sedentary and nomadic, Christian and pagan, secular and spiritual, official and oppositional, collective and individual - these and similar pairs of opposites have been characteristic of Russian culture since ancient times and have actually been preserved to this day. Double faith, doublethink, dual power, split - these are just a few of the concepts significant for understanding the historian of Russian culture, which are already identified at the stage of ancient Russian culture. Such a stable inconsistency of Russian culture, which, on the one hand, gives rise to an increased dynamism of its self-development, and, on the other hand, a periodically escalating conflict. intrinsic to the culture itself; constitutes its organic originality, typological feature and is called by researchers binarity (from lat. duality).

Binarity in the structure of Russian culture is an undoubted result of the border geopolitical position of Russia-Russia between East and West. Russia, throughout its history and geography, has been a Eurasian society for centuries, either striving to get closer to its European neighbors, or gravitating towards the Asian world throughout the entire system of life. [Semennikova L.I. Russia in the world community of civilizations. - M., 1994.]

It was (since the Golden Horde) a country of border civilization. Cultural figures of the West perceived Russia as a country of a different, non-European order. So, G. Hegel did not even include Russians in his list of Christian peoples of Europe. Many observers came to the conclusion that Russia is a kind of Eurasian hybrid, in which there are no clear signs of either part of the world. Oswald Spengler argued that Russia is a centaur with a European head and an Asian body. With the victory of Bolshevism, Asia conquers Russia, after Europe annexed it in the person of Peter the Great [The quote is from the book Russia and the West: Dialogue of Cultures. M., 1994].

In addition, cultural and historical paradigms in Russian history were layered on top of each other: one stage has not yet ended, while another has already begun. The future aspired to be realized when the conditions for this had not yet been formed, and, on the contrary, the past was in no hurry to leave with historical scene clinging to traditions, norms and values. A similar historical layering of stages, of course, is also found in other world cultures - Eastern and Western, but in Russian culture it becomes a permanent, typological feature: paganism coexists with Christianity, the traditions of Kievan Rus are intertwined with Mongolian innovations in the Muscovite kingdom, in Petrine Russia there is a sharp modernization combined with the deep traditionalism of pre-Petrine Russia, etc. Russian Culture for centuries was that historical crossroads, on the one hand, the modernization paths of civilizational development characteristic of Western European culture, on the other hand, the paths of organic traditionalism characteristic of the countries of the East. Russian culture has always strived for modernization, but modernization in Russia has been slow, difficult, constantly weighed down by the unambiguity and predetermination of traditions, continually rebelling against them and violating them. Hence the numerous heretical mass movements, and the daring thirst for freedom (robbers, Cossacks), and the search for alternative forms of power (imposterism), etc.

The mental characteristics of Russian culture historically evolved naturally as a complex, disharmonious, unstable balance of forces of integration and differentiation of contradictory tendencies of the national-historical existence of the Russian people, like a socio-cultural balance (often on the verge of a national catastrophe or in connection with its approaching danger), which declared itself in the most decisive, crisis moments of the history of Russia and contributed to the survival of Russian culture in extremely difficult for her, and sometimes, it would seem simply impossible socio-historical conditions and everyday circumstances as the high adaptability of Russian culture to any, including directly anti-cultural factors of its more than a thousand years of history.

Absolutism is inherent in the Russian mentality - which is reflected even in the Russian language: the frequency of such words as "absolutely", "perfectly" - as well as synonymous with them "terrible", "terrible" - is more than ten times higher in the Russian language, than, say, in English. And the very synonymy of those and other concepts draws an image of global, amazing and extreme changes. Sometimes they go beyond the rational and rational, since the collective mind, like ideology, is the preservation of the existing - and for the sake of a radical change it is necessary to overturn it too.

The constant need for something fundamentally new gives rise to the desire to actively adopt someone else's (just as quickly consigning one's own to oblivion: neglecting it as obsolete). Russian thought was often blamed for turning to foreign heritage, for lack of its own. However, they did not indicate the reverse side of the medal: the ability to assimilate and implement other people's ideas as universal. It is the constant striving for a fundamentally different, new, as well as the perception of the universalism (objectivity) of ideas that makes it possible to cultivate them on one's own soil.

The second Russian trait is going beyond one's own: not only at the level of society, but above all at the level of the individual, which is manifested in overcoming interpersonal barriers. This feature is clearly visible to everyone who has been abroad: Russians strive to unite their own and others, organizing collective interaction in any conditions. They easily manage to do this, unlike representatives of other nations, and this is due to the lack of fear and the habit of invading the very essence of someone else's life, crossing the personal barrier and overcoming the isolation of individuality. Usually this quality is referred to as "Russian sincerity." Foreigners often perceive it as aggression: an attack on a person. For the vast majority of nations, the boundaries of the individual are sacred, and the psychological barrier between souls is insurmountable.

The concept of morality is inextricably linked with the concept of truth, which is very significant for the Russian mentality - which is confirmed by the Russian language. The Russian word “pravda” not only has a high frequency in the Russian language compared to others, but also the epithet “mother” (pravda-womb, pravda-mother), depicting the blood closeness of truth to a person, his original womb and refuge. And also a synonym for "truth", meaning the highest truth: the truth in the spiritual sense, which links it with the concept of the source of morality and ideal.

We can safely say that the desire to unite people / peoples by an ideal or some kind of universal idea is typical of our character. Fulfilling such a role, Russia (Russian people) has a face in front of other peoples (people).

Also important for the Russian mentality are the concepts of the soul: as a special inner, meaningful world - and fate, correlated with humility and the expression "nothing can be done." Such concepts of soul and destiny as unique: inherent only in the Russian language.

This character trait in physical terms is confirmed by more than half a year of hibernation of nature and external passivity during this period - against which there is an internal, unconscious fermentation of the psyche, predisposing to deep religious perception (recent studies have appeared proving that the shortness of daylight hours contributes to meditation , although also depression). The consequence of this is the philosophical depth of spiritual life, manifested primarily not even by philosophers, but by writers whose works have won world fame (Tolstoy or Dostoevsky). When the clear mind falls silent, the images speak. The fact that Russian philosophy expresses itself in fiction more clearly than in rational-logical concepts has been repeatedly pointed out by historians of Russian philosophy, among them E.L. Radlov and A.F. Losev.

Nations deprived of such a prolonged forced decline in physical activity (inevitable in our climate, no matter how the current stressful, violent social rhythm of life may influence it), do not develop such emotional-spiritual philosophical depth.

Also, Russian Orthodoxy played a huge role in the formation of the mental characteristics of Russian culture. It gave an inner certainty to the mentality of the Russian people and during the last millennium determines the spiritual potential of the nation. The Orthodox faith plays the role of a spiritual core or spiritual substance for the Russian national mentality. Orthodoxy did not preach the idea of predestination. And therefore, the responsibility for sins committed of one's own free will fell on the sinner. It was understandable and acceptable. Orthodoxy in this context is identical to the emotional and artistic structure of the Russian mentality: it reflects the Russian commitment to absolute spiritual values, maximalism, figurative and symbolic construction of the national national culture.

The historical conditions of existence, the spatial environment, the Orthodox religion and the Russian Orthodox Church as a socio-cultural institution left an indelible imprint on the Russian national mentality.

The Orthodox faith is a special, independent and great word in the history and system of Christianity. The Russian national spirit and national morality, respect and love for all tribes and peoples are based on Orthodoxy.

The moral and religious dominant gives rise to a number of features of the Russian cultural mentality. Firstly, not a single people had a Christian idea at the national-state level, only Russians. Secondly, the Russian people are capable of religious and philosophical thinking. Thirdly, only Russians tend to cognize the world with religious intuition, unlike the West. Fourthly, of all European peoples, the Slavs, and especially the Russians, are the most inclined towards religion, for they believed in ancient times in one God, and in our monotheistic paganism there was a premonition of Christ and the Mother of God, and Christian concepts such as God, paradise, hell, demons were originally Slavic.

The mental characteristic of Russian culture, which was conditioned by Orthodoxy, is the attitude towards private property, wealth and justice in the Russian mentality. The economic experience of the Russians was dominated not by economic interest, but by the established moral economy, which has survival as its main goal. Therefore, people abandoned economic success and the risk associated with it, those values that seem natural in a modern liberal civilization. Property relations for the bulk of the population were labor in nature, and the achievement of material well-being was not an end in itself. Hence the relative indifference to material wealth and individual property in the character of Russians. The absence of traditions of private property in Russia is an Orthodox view of wealth, which is not the result of labor, it is sent by God and is given not for accumulation and storage, but for beneficial use pleasing to others. The focus is on the righteous use of wealth, not the acquisition of it. Wealth should serve man, and not vice versa. Income was not an end in itself.

In Russia, the Orthodox ethics of entrepreneurship and commodity-money relations was created, while Western Christianity cultivated pragmatism, hoarding, a passion for money and wealth in a person. In the Russian mentality, the category of prosperity acquires the greatest value, as a measure of spirituality in joining wealth. Entrepreneurs looked at their activities differently than in the West, not so much as a source of profit, but as the fulfillment of a task assigned to them by God or fate. Entrepreneurship was seen as certain kind creativity, self-affirmation.

Wealth in Orthodox ethics was perceived as a violation of fair mechanisms. And if the market economy is based on the principles of rationality and expediency, then in Russia priority is given to the ideas of justice. In the historical mentality, the Russians have developed an egalitarian understanding of justice, associated with the harsh climatic conditions of Russia, the need for the physical survival of people. Here there was no objective possibility to ensure the distribution of produced material goods in proportion to the merits of each person to society. Ideas about equality in the Russian mentality are predominantly moral, not legal in nature.

Under the influence of Orthodoxy, a moral tradition of world exploration and management was formed in the Russian mentality, which is preserved even where conscious religiosity has been lost. Russian world development is characterized by the principles of a religious and ethical approach to the development of life.

Many researchers note the indifference of Russians to the arrangement of their earthly life, some strange disregard for the material layer, comfort, convenience of existence. When a culture is oriented towards eternity, then human existence in it is perceived as especially short and ephemeral. In the "Cherubic Hymn" there are the words: "Abandon all worldly care now ...", which means relegating to the background all the troubles associated with ensuring material well-being, arrangements in this world. At the same time, the world for such a person is only a temporary refuge, and the leading type of attitude is “delicate patience of a guest”.

The fact that culture is turned into eternity explains why it has a poorly developed time perspective, orientation towards the future. Therefore, in such cultures it is incredibly difficult to reform anything. They strongly resist any changes, and if they occur, then they are revolutionary, or rather, apocalyptic in nature.

Another mental characteristic of Russian culture is self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice is an absolute value in our culture. Quite strange things happened several times in history - on the eve and during terrible troubles that threatened to destroy humanity, many European countries, their unique, original cultures and peoples were saved by the voluntary bloody sacrifice of Russia.

Of course, the original Russian culture and its spiritual center - Orthodoxy - are difficult for representatives of other national cultures to understand. Pushkin brilliantly said about this: "The Greek religion, separate from all others, gives us a special national character." It is not surprising that the West does not know and does not understand us, it is much more important that we ourselves know and understand our culture and mentality.

Bibliography

1. Anufriev E. A., Lesnaya L. V. Russian mentality as a socio-political phenomenon // Siberian Journal of Life., 1997. No. 4

2. Gurevich A.Ya. Medieval merchant // Odysseus. Man in history. (Personality and society. - M., 1990.

3. Goryunov E.V. The ratio of folk and scientific culture of the Middle Ages in the mirror of church rituals and sacred objects // Odysseus. Man in history. (Picture of the world in popular and scientific consciousness). - M., 1994.

4. Culturology: theory and history of culture. - M.: Knowledge, 1998.

5. Raulf U. History of mentalities. To the reconstruction of spiritual processes. Digest of articles. - M., 1995.

6. Russia and the West: Dialogue of cultures. M., 1994.

7. Stelmashuk G.V. Culture and values // Actual problems of philosophy, sociology and cultural studies. - St. Petersburg: Leningrad State Educational Institution im. A.S. Pushkin. - 2000.

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