FEDERAL AGENCY FOR EDUCATION FEDERAL STATE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

HIGHER PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

"RUSSIAN STATE UNIVERSITY OF TOURISM AND SERVICE"

(FSOUVPO "RGUTiS")

DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY

TEST

Russian national character

Part-time student(s)

Usanova Svetlana

Record book number Ps-19204-010

group PsZ 04-1

Specialty Psychology

Completed____________________

1. National identity of Russian culture

2. National character

3. Features of the Russian national character

References

1. National identity of Russian culture

Demythologization is necessary to study, understand and measure. And to do this, it is necessary to separate from each other two different-order, but closely intertwined phenomena, the joint silhouette of which looks so strange.

As a rule, the main explanations come down to Russia’s border position between East and West, Europe and Asia - from “Eurasianism” to “Asiaopism” (the latter term is by no means an invention of the author). At the same time, they forget that almost all cultures that formed in the contact zone of civilizations have a similar Euro-Eastern binary - Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Bulgarian, Serbian, Turkish and others belonging to the Mediterranean, not to mention Latin American or Christian cultures Caucasus. It turns out that the binary nature of Russian culture is a typical phenomenon, therefore it does little to explain the uniqueness of the “Russian centaur” and to clarify his real origin.

When characterizing Russia and the Russian people, reference to their youth quickly became commonplace. Young Russia and the aged, decrepit West were matched and opposed by a variety of trends in culture and social thought. The list of only big names of authors who paid tribute to Russian youth and the old age of the West would be very long. It is clear that Russian people’s feeling of belonging to a young nation is not accidental. But something else is just as obvious: our people do not differ significantly in age from other Western peoples. If there are differences, they are always in favor of our youth. The Russian person’s sense of the importance of his people cannot be understood literally chronologically. There is something behind this concept other than the age of the ethnic community.

Not only the dialectic of Russian/Russian is contradictory, but also the polar - from nihilism to apology - interpretation of the Russian people from the point of view of understanding it as a cultural and historical subject, the creator of spiritual values. “Russia,” Berdyaev wrote, “is least of all a country of average wealth, average culture... At its base, Russia is full of savagery and barbarism. At its heights, Russia is super-cultural; the historical task of Russian self-awareness is to distinguish and separate Russian super-culture and Russian pre-culture, the logos of culture in the Russian peaks and the wild chaos in the Russian lowlands.” This is the elite version of Russian culture - its identification with the logos of superculture in contrast to the precultural chaos, in essence, not of the people, but of the mass of people. At the same time, it is necessary to distinguish between the ancient Russian people and the people of Russia of the New Age - the era of the formation of the Russian nation - state.

The presence of Russian culture with its own periodization and typologization, which is not covered by the general Western periodization and typologization, is not at all connected with any of our national identity and uniqueness of Rus'. At one time, Rus' successfully entered one of these communities and successfully developed within its composition. This entry was the baptism of Rus' in 989. It is well known that Rus' adopted Christianity from Byzantium. As a result of baptism, in ecclesiastical terms it became one of the numerous, although the largest in terms of population, not to mention territory, metropolis of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Rus' found itself in a situation not experienced by any Western national culture. This situation can be called cultural loneliness. Of course, it was not as complete as Robinson Crusoe's on the desert island. But loneliness in this case is not a metaphor or an exaggeration. The remaining Orthodox cultures did not disappear from the face of the earth after the conquest of Orthodox countries. However, they could not develop in a normal rhythm. Lazarev notes that Ancient Rus' “immediately adopted the Byzantine technique of stone construction with a complex system of domed and cross vaults, as well as Christian iconography, new to it, embodied by means of mosaics, frescoes and icon painting. This distinguishes its development from the Romanesque West, where the formation of stone architecture proceeded along a different path - the path of gradual internal evolution.

The Renaissance is undoubtedly a purely urban phenomenon. Speaking about the Russian pre-renaissance, Likhachev also connects it with the city: “The best currents of the pre-renaissance movement captured all of Western Europe, Byzantium, but also Pskov, Novgorod, Moscow, Tver, the entire Caucasus and part of Asia Minor. Throughout this colossal territory we encounter homogeneous phenomena caused by the development of democratic life in cities and increased cultural communication between countries. Many features of this pre-Renaissance movement affected Rus' with greater force than anywhere else” Likhachev, 1962, p. 35. At the time of independence of the Russian Slavs, civil justice was based on the conscience and ancient customs of each tribe in particular; but the Varangians brought with them general civil laws to Russia, known to us from the treaties of the great princes with the Greeks and in everything agreeing with the ancient Scandinavian laws” Karamzin, 1990, p. 173.

One of the features of the development of Russian medieval culture was that Byzantium served for Rus' at the same time as antiquity and a modern model. Likhachev notes that ““its own antiquity” - the period of the pre-Mongol heyday of ancient Russian culture - with all its attractiveness for Rus' at the end of the 14th-15th centuries, could not replace real antiquity - the antiquity of Greece and Rome with their high culture of the slave-owning formation." If Western Europe were to go through the thousand-year path of the Middle Ages through such milestones as the Great Migration, the formation of barbarian states, the emergence of feudalism and the liberation of cities, and if Western culture was to “survive” the “Carolingian Renaissance”, Romanesque style, Gothic and complete it the Renaissance, then Russia, being a younger state, avoided such a long path of “gradual internal evolution” and cultural-historical “maturation”, using the ready-made Byzantine model, which served both antiquity and modernity. “The charm of Byzantine culture and Byzantine art was so great that it was difficult not to succumb to it. This explains the widespread penetration of Byzantine culture into Russian feudal society” (Lazarev, 1970, p. 218). N. Berdyaev also spoke in his article about the fact that Byzantinism predetermined “eastern” priorities in the historical choice of the path of development of Russia and its immanent opposition to the West , dedicated to Leontyev: “Russia in all its originality and greatness is held together not by national bonds, not by Russian national self-determination, but by Byzantine Orthodoxy and autocracy, objective church and state ideas. These principles organized Russia into a great and unique world - the world of the East, opposite to the West” (Berdyaev, 1995, p. 133).

Byzantinism opposed any form of democratic change in Russian society. Western concepts of free personality, individualism and democracy remained alien and unacceptable for the overwhelming majority of Russian society - a “Western contagion” - and therefore harmful and dangerous. Leontyev spoke about the dangers threatening Russia with the introduction of Western values: “I even dare, without hesitation, to say that no Polish uprising and no Pugachevism can harm Russia the way a very peaceful, very legal democratic constitution could harm it.” And this is because “Russian people are not created for freedom. Without fear and violence, everything will go to waste for them” (quoted from:). He obviously had no illusions about the myth of Russia’s “special historical mission,” widely propagated by a certain part of the Russian intelligentsia of the 19th century. Speaking about Leontyev, Berdyaev argued that “he believed not in Russia and not in the Russian people, but in Byzantine principles, church and state. If he believed in any mission, then in the mission of Byzantium, and not Russia” (quoted from:).

There are many concepts that consider the development of culture and history from the point of view of one fundamental factor, from the position of a single substantial basis. And then, taken in its fundamentals, the history of culture appears as a monologue of one single principle, be it the world spirit or matter. And very few thinkers reveal the dialogical nature of the life of spirit and culture. Among these thinkers we should first of all name N.A. Berdyaev (Berdyaev N.A. The meaning of history. M., 1990. P. 30; Berdyaev N.A. Philosophy of the free spirit. M., 1994. P. 370,458) and M. Buber (Buber M.Ya and You. M ., 1993). Toynbee's merit lies in the fact that he revealed the dialogical essence of cultural development in his concept of “Challenge and Response” (See: Toynbee A.J. Comprehension of history: Collection. M., 1991. pp. 106-142).

If we ignore the figurative style of presentation, Toynbee’s concept provides the key to understanding the creative nature and possible alternativeness of the cultural-historical process. The development of culture is carried out as a series of Answers given by the creative human spirit to the Challenges that nature, society and the inner infinity of man himself throw to him. At the same time, different development options are always possible, because different responses to the same challenge are possible. The awareness of this fundamental circumstance is the enduring significance of Toynbee's concept. A unique concept of culture was developed by the largest Russian sociologist and culturologist, who lived most of his life in exile in the USA, Pitirim Aleksandrovich Sorokin (1899-1968). Methodologically, the concept of P.A. Sorokina echoes the doctrine of cultural-historical types by O. Spengler and A. Toynbee. However, P. A. Sorokin’s theory of cultural-historical types is fundamentally different from the theory of O. Spengler and A. Toynbee in that Sorokin assumed the existence of progress in social development. Recognizing the existence of a deep crisis that Western culture is currently experiencing, he assessed this crisis not as the “Decline of Europe,” but as a necessary phase in the formation of a new emerging civilization uniting all of humanity.

In accordance with his methodological guidelines, P. Sorokin presented the historical process as a process of cultural development. According to Sorokin, culture in the broadest sense of the word is the totality of everything created or recognized by a given society at one or another stage of its development. During this development, society creates various cultural systems: cognitive, religious, ethical, aesthetic, legal, etc. The main property of all these cultural systems is the tendency to unite them into a system of higher ranks. As a result of the development of this trend, cultural supersystems are formed. Each of these cultural supersystems, according to Sorokin, “has its own mentality, its own system of truth and knowledge, its own philosophy and worldview, its own religion and model of “holiness,” its own ideas of what is right and proper, its own forms of fine literature and art, its own rights , laws, code of conduct.

2. National character

The Russian people are the recognized creators of one of the “axial” cultures. In the conditions of the great “change of milestones” and the formation of Russian civilization of the 21st century, solving the problem of continuity with cultural heritage and its renewal has become a condition for the spiritual revival of Russia. “Do not divide, do not fragment Russian history, follow the connection of phenomena, do not separate the beginnings, but consider them in interaction.”

The enormity of these problems is due to the enduring uniqueness, the stable stereotype of their mystical, irrational nature. For many Westerners, the soul of the Russian person remains a mystery. To determine the character, the soul of a Russian person, let's consider mentality. So what is mentality? Mentality is a deep layer of social consciousness. M.A. Borg writes that mentality is “a set of symbols that are necessarily formed within the framework of each given cultural and historical era and are fixed in the minds of people in the process of communicating with their own kind, i.e. repetitions."

The basic characteristics of mentality are its collectivity, unconsciousness, and stability. Since mentality expresses the everyday appearance of the collective consciousness of a certain socio-cultural community, its “hidden” layer, independent of the individual’s own life, it appears as the reality of the collective order. Mentality as a way of expressing knowledge about the world and the person in it serves in everyday life as an ontological and functional explanation and contains answers to the questions What is this? How? Why is this?

The structure of mentality is a stable system of hidden deep attitudes and value orientations of consciousness, its automatic skills that determine stable stereotypes of consciousness.

Reasons that contribute to the formation of mentality: 1) racial and ethnic qualities of the community; 2) natural-geographical conditions of its existence; 3) the results of the interaction of a given community and the sociocultural conditions of its residence. Among the racial and ethnic differences of a sociocultural community that affect mentality, it should be noted its numbers, temperament, and level of development.

The basic features of the Russian mentality are: 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. This is due to a number of reasons, primarily by the fact that from century to century our concern was not about how to get a better job or how to live easier, but only about how to somehow survive, hold out, get out of the next trouble, overcome another danger,” writes Ilyin I.A. So the question is: what to live for? is more important than the question of daily bread, wrote F.M. Dostoevsky.

The influence of the religious factor, primarily Orthodoxy as one of the sources of the Russian mentality, is also significant. The specifics of the Russian mentality are influenced by the social organization of society, which is manifested in the active role of the state; the result is the dominance in the mentality of Russians of the belief in the need for strong power. As mentioned above, the Russian mentality leaves a significant imprint on the character of the Russian community and changes along with it. As Rozanov wrote: “If there is a nation, there is also a culture, because culture is the answer to a nation, it is the flavor of its character, heartfelt structure, mind. “The Russian spirit,” no matter how you bury it or how much you ridicule it, still exists. This is not necessarily genius, poetry, poetry, prose, mind-blowing philosophy. No, this is a way of living, i.e. something much simpler and, perhaps, wiser.”

The Russian person is characterized by a thirst for justice and distrust of legal methods of achieving it, an indispensable love for the distant and selective for the near, belief in absolute good without evil and the dubious value of relative good, passive expectation of the latter and passionary activism of the “decisive battle” for the final triumph of good, loftiness in goals and indiscriminateness in their achievements, etc.

In Y. Lotman's opinion, Russian culture is characterized by a binary structure. The binary nature of the Russian soul is not its unique feature. It is, to one degree or another, inherent in the mentality of other peoples. The main problem is the immensity of the Russian character.

According to G. Florovsky: “The history of Russian culture is all in interruptions, in attacks. There is less direct integrity in it. Incommensurable and different-time mental formations somehow combine and grow together by themselves. But a fusion is not a synthesis. It was the synthesis that failed.”

Therefore, from here, comprehension of the deep foundations of Russian existence takes place on intuition, i.e. there is a reproduction of an irrational archetype, rather than a rational one, which is clearly expressed in the Western mentality.

3. Features of the Russian national character

According to the definition of some studies: national character is genotype plus culture.

Since the genotype is what each person receives from nature, culture is what a person is introduced to from birth, therefore national character, in addition to unconscious cultural archetypes, also includes the natural ethnopsychological traits of individuals.

When Dostoevsky's character learns about "Russian real life," he concludes that "all of Russia is a play of nature." According to F. Tyutchev, “Russia cannot be understood with the mind, // it cannot be measured with a common yardstick. // She has become special. // You can only believe in Russia.” B. Pascal noted: “Nothing is more in agreement with reason than its distrust of itself.” In the awareness of uniqueness, uniqueness, the impossibility of measuring Russia by a “common yardstick” is the key to comprehending both the obvious - with the mind, and the hidden - with faith in Russia.

As mentioned above, the national character of a Russian person includes unconscious cultural archetypes and natural ethnopsychological traits of individuals.

The period of paganism of the East Slavic tribes is not included in the history of culture. Rather, it is the prehistory of Russian culture, some of its initial state, which continued and could continue for a very long time, without undergoing significant changes, without experiencing any significant events.

Since times marked by constant contacts and confrontations with neighboring nomadic peoples, the factor of chance and unpredictability has been deeply rooted in Russian culture and national self-awareness (hence the famous Russian “maybe yes, I suppose” and other similar judgments of ordinary folk consciousness). This factor largely predetermined the properties of the Russian national character - recklessness, daring, desperate courage, recklessness, spontaneity, arbitrariness, etc., which are associated with the special ideological role of riddles in ancient Russian folklore and fortune-telling in everyday life; the tendency to make fateful decisions by casting lots and other characteristic features of a mentality based on an unstable balance of mutually exclusive tendencies, where any uncontrollable combination of circumstances can be decisive. This is where the tradition of making difficult decisions originates in conditions of a tough and sometimes cruel choice between extremes, when “there is no third option” (and it is impossible), when the choice itself between mutually exclusive poles is sometimes unrealistic or impossible, or equally destructive for the “voter” , - a choice that occurs literally at a civilizational crossroads of forces beyond his control (fate, fate, happiness), about the reality and certainty of the past (traditions, “legends”) - in comparison with the unreal and uncertain, dramatically variable and unpredictable future. As a rule, a worldview that develops with an orientation toward factors of chance and spontaneity is gradually imbued with pessimism, fatalism, and uncertainty (including in the strictly religious sense - as unbelief that constantly tempts faith).

In these or similar conditions, other qualities of the Russian people were formed, which became their distinctive features, fused with the national-cultural mentality - patience, passivity in relation to circumstances, which are thereby recognized as having a leading role in the development of events, perseverance in enduring the hardships and hardships of life , suffering, reconciliation with losses and losses as inevitable or even predetermined from above, perseverance in confronting fate.

Dependence on the “whims” of harsh nature and climatic instability, on the unbridled aggressiveness of the nomadic peoples who make up the immediate environment, uncertainty about the future (harvest or shortage, war or peace, home or a trip to foreign lands, freedom or bondage, rebellion or obedience, hunting or captivity, etc.) - all this accumulated in popular ideas about the constancy of variability.

As we know, the adoption in the 10th century had a great influence on the formation of the Russian cultural archetype. Christianity, which came to Rus' from Byzantium in the Orthodox form. Russian people were initially prepared to accept Orthodoxy (through the entire course of their own development).

Orthodoxy, although it included the entire society, did not capture the whole person. Orthodoxy governed only the religious and moral life of the Russian people, that is, it regulated church holidays, family relationships, and pastime, while the ordinary everyday life of the Russian person was not affected by it. This state of affairs provided free space for original national creativity.

In Eastern Christian culture, a person’s earthly existence had no value, so the main task was to prepare a person for death, and life was seen as a small segment on the path to eternity. Spiritual aspirations for humility and piety, asceticism and a sense of one’s own sinfulness were recognized as the meaning of earthly existence.

Hence, in Orthodox culture, a disdain for earthly goods appeared, since they are fleeting and insignificant, and an attitude towards work not as a creative process, but as a way of self-abasement. Hence the common expressions. You won’t earn all the money, you won’t take it with you to the grave, etc.

Vl. Solovyov was especially fond of such a trait of the Russian person as the awareness of his sinfulness - imperfection, incompleteness in achieving the ideal.

References

1. Harutyunyan A. Russia and the Renaissance: History of Russian culture (was there a Renaissance in Russia?; On the influence of Byzantium on Russian culture) // Society, science and modernity. - 2001. - No. 3. - P. 89-101.

2. Babakov V. National cultures in the social development of Russia // Socio-political journal. - 1995. - No. 5. - P. 29-42.

3. Berdyaev N.A. About culture; The fate of Russia // Anthology of cultural thought. - 1996. - Incl. briefly about the author.

4. Guzevich D.Yu. Centaur, or to the question of the binary nature of Russian culture: The formation of culture in Russia // Zvezda. - 2001. - No. 5. - P. 186-197.

5. Ivanova T.V. Mentality, culture, art // Society, science and modernity. - 2002. - No. 6. - P. 168-177. – Culture.

6. Kondakov I. Architectonics of Russian culture // Society, science and modernity. - 1999. - No. 1. - P. 159-172. - On the logic of the historical development of Russian culture.

7. Kondakov I.V. Culturology: history of Russian culture. - M.: Omega-L: Higher. school, 2003. - 616 p.

8. Korobeynikova L.A. The evolution of ideas about culture in cultural studies // Socis. - 1996. - No. 7. - P. 79-85.

9. Kravchenko A.I. Culturology. - M.: Academician. project, 2001. - 496 p.

10. Cultural studies. / Ed. Radugina A.A. - M.: Center, 2005. - 304 p.

11. Cultural studies. Edited by G.V. Drach. - Rostov n/d: Phoenix, 1995. - 576 s.

12. Mamontov S.P. Fundamentals of cultural studies. - M.: ROU, 1995. - 208 p.

13. Sapronov P.A. Culturology: A course of lectures on the theory and history of culture. - St. Petersburg: SOYUZ, 1998. - 560 p.

Concepts of man, creativity and culture in the works of N. Berdyaev: “On slavery and human freedom. Experience of personalistic metaphysics”, “On creative freedom and the fabrication of souls”, “Self-knowledge: Works”, “The meaning of creativity: Experience of justification of man”.

Analysis of culture from a historical perspective. Assessment of countries and historical eras according to the level of their cultural development. Characteristics and features of new political thinking and vandalization of culture. The essence of the internal laws of the development of social consciousness.

Throughout all the centuries of its formation, domestic culture is inextricably linked with the history of Russia. Our cultural heritage has been constantly enriched by our own and world cultural experience.

Russian culture, stages of development and sociodynamics. National culture as a form of self-expression of the people. Three main approaches when considering the cultural-historical process. Two opposing trends - Western and Eastern. People and intelligentsia.

A few words about the philosophy of culture. P.Ya. Chaadaev: ideas of Eurocentrism. The concept of cultural and historical types N.Ya. Danilevsky. K.N. Leontyev. N.A. Berdyaev is a philosopher of freedom and creativity. Yu.M. Lotman: semiotics and structuralism.

Contradictions of Russian culture. Forest as a natural factor in the formation of culture. The steppe is one of the elements of Russian nature. Russian scientists about the role of natural factors.

The concept of a picture of the world. Mentality as a system of stereotypes of a speech community. Foreign concepts of the essence of mentality. Mentality as the irrational subconscious of a person. Mentality is like faith. Domestic research on mentality.

The mentality of Russian culture is not only a national-Russian mentality, it is also an interethnic or supranational mentality, i.e. The mentality of Russian culture is “a set of cultures united in the unity of civilization.”

Mentality, mentality and mental characteristics of culture: a general theoretical approach. The concept of mentality and mentality: features of the definition. Mental characteristics of culture. The influence of Orthodoxy on the mental characteristics of Russian culture.

Culturological thought of P.Ya.Chaadaev. Views on the culture of N.Ya. Danilevsky, V.S. Solovyov and N.A. Berdyaev. Philosophers who contributed to the development of cultural thought. Slavophilism and Westernism as the main spiritual directions.

A cultural archetype is a basic element of culture. Traditional attitudes of Russian culture. Formation, development, features of the formation of Russian culture. Development of the culture of Ancient Rus'. Icon paintings by Russian masters and Christianity, stone structures.

Mentality as a deep structure of culture. Peculiarities of the attitude of Russian citizens to their state. Factors influencing the development of the Russian mentality. Mental foundations as a statement of a famous writer. Mentality as the structure of civilization.

Christianity as the basis of a worldview, its emergence, the main idea. Acceptance and dissemination of teachings in Rus'. Orthodoxy is the cultural and historical choice of Russian society, the motives for making the decision. His influence on the formation of Russian culture.

Cultural ideas in Russia as a form of national consciousness. The problem of antagonism between Russia and the West in the teachings of Chaadaev and Khomyakov. Slavophilism, Westernism, cultural theories of Danilevsky, Solovyov. "Russian idea" in Berdyaev's views.

General concepts of the course. Pilgrimage. Heritage. Stages of the formation of Russian culture. (Formation of Russian culture as a continuous synthesis)

Interaction of factors in the formation of the culture of Ancient Rus'. Architecture of Ancient Rus'. Art instead of culture. As for the objective type of Russian culture, it will most likely gravitate toward the ritualism of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Russia's place in world history, the specifics of its own culture and history. The concept of "east-west" and the definition of the attitude of philosophers-historians to it. Consideration by scientists of the East-West-Russia problem in the dialogue of world cultures at the present stage.

The origins of Christianity in Rus'. The influence of Christianity on the culture of Ancient Rus'. Philosophy of Russian religious art. History of Russian art. For a long time, until the 19th century, Christianity would remain the dominant culture.

Characteristics of an ideational culture based on a religious worldview. The emergence of a sensual mentality, subordinate to life's pleasures and pleasures. Features of an idealistic culture focused on positive values.

The culture of Russian civilization, its formation and stages of development. Essential features of Russian national culture. Russian national character, features of the Russian ethnic group and mentality: passivity and patience, conservatism and harmony.

Russian people have always been and are proud of their culture, which is truly unique.
When cultural studies became an independent science, then the doctrine of Russian national culture was substantiated as original and unique, unlike all other cultures.
Russian national culture began to manifest itself back in the 11th century, when the formation of the Russian independent state began. The Eastern Slavs began to separate into an independent cultural and ethnic community. All spheres of life underwent changes - depending on the political system. It has just begun to take shape, to the language, way of life, traditions. An irreversible process has begun.
The era of paganism as one of the religions was ending, the Slavs began to gradually join Orthodoxy, which came from Byzantium under certain circumstances.
Finding itself in a position between East and West, Russian culture began to absorb elements of both cultures. Therefore, Old Russian culture gradually synthesized European civilizational values, Byzantine mystical ideas, and the Asian principle of mutual coexistence. However, not all features were taken as a basis in Russian life. These were just elements.
The geopolitical situation of Rus' developed in such a way that the country was gradually divided into parts in accordance with the cardinal points. This is how special subcultures were formed.
Representatives of the southern subculture lived in the southern part of Rus', in the steppes. These were former Turkic nomads, the remnants of the Pecheneg troops who submitted to the Russian prince.
The inhabitants of Novgorod and its environs represented a northern and northeastern culture. These were the so-called trade zones with Europe. Accordingly, the Novgorod lands had a somewhat Europeanized lifestyle.
When the unification of Russian lands around Moscow took place, Novgorod gradually began to lose its original European identity, which it managed to maintain during the era of the Tatar-Mongol yoke, which dominated Rus' for a long time.
Russian national culture at the present stage has specific features.
The strong dominance of the Orthodox faith qualitatively distinguishes Russian culture from other types of cultures. A powerful means of forming it was the massive construction of Orthodox churches. Russian education always began in the church; parishioners learned art, literature, and history from church books and records. According to the Slavophile A. Khomyakov of the 19th century, Russian culture heeded all trends - both eastern and western cultures, but remained unlike others. Russian Orthodoxy has outgrown the established dogmas of classical Orthodoxy. Thus, the former Eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians) have somewhat different beliefs from the southern and western Slavic peoples.
In addition to religion, Russians acquired a special Russian national character. This is how the Russian idea of ​​a daring peasant, a holy believer in his God, who loves his Fatherland and reveres the Tsar, was formed. The Russians have a reputation for being unusual people.
The Russian ethnos is a special nation, with a strong and powerful cultural archetype based on collective living, characterized by unconsciousness and stability. Thus, a unique genetic code is passed on from generation to generation: the same habits, moral attitudes and specific norms of behavior are formed.
The Russian mentality is also special. This is a collection of certain symbols that are formed within a certain era and are then passed on to their descendants. Also important is such a concept as national identity - the ability to endow any phenomena, realities, concepts with the same meaning.
The most complex concept seems to be national character, which includes all of the above - national identity, mentality, ethnicity and adding a certain gene pool of the entire nation. It turns out that all Russian people are similar in their characters to their ancestors, even over several centuries.
National cultural archetypes are unique elements of a symbolic nature; they include value, moral, and semantic orientations. Comprehension occurs through the realm of the symbolic.
Of course, Russian national culture has never experienced stagnation in its development. It is still developing now, and actively, copying elements of other cultures. This is how a “dialogue of cultures” arises, which always takes a positive turn for Russian culture, be it participation in a bloody war, or diplomatic relations with representatives of other cultures. At the same time, a Russian person will never lose himself or disgrace his Motherland.

National character is the “spirit” of the people, its deepest manifestations that unite the people of a particular nation. It arises historically, as a result of certain stages that a particular mass of people goes through and the influences that it has experienced.

The main reasons for the formation of a national character, or mentality, are the geographical location of the country, historical circumstances, social conditions, culture and the actual psychology of this people. The brightest representative of the national worldview,

According to scientists, there were G. Skovoroda, T. Shevchenko and M. Gogol. It is in their work that we will find the deepest understanding of it.

Ukraine is located on extremely fertile land, so each Ukrainian family could fully provide for itself and settle separately. Human destiny depended on the earth, so the connection with the earth was strengthened as a guarantee of happiness. The Ukrainian perceived the earth as a holy mother, since it was consecrated by the blood of ancestors and protectors. For nations of farmers, the land was the breadwinner; beating it unnecessarily was considered the same terrible sin as beating one’s mother. The most sacred oath was to eat

A lump of earth is a form of communion to the greatest treasure. Rejoicing in working on the land, the Ukrainian sought closeness to nature more than communication with people. The large expanses of his land nurtured in him the worship of life, the sun, and the earth. Having nature as the main way of knowing God, man identified it with the Creator. Such a God united heaven and earth, and so, the Universe with the people and the individual.

Ukrainian is an individualist; Most of all, he valued the freedom of the individual, and above all the freedom of himself. Therefore, he did not found cities and, in general, valued equality and democracy to the extremes: spontaneity (elections in the Zaporozhye Sich) and anarchy, even narrow selfishness. It is obvious that the family and, more broadly, the clan is the main social unit of the Ukrainian. The rulers changed every day, today's power is stepping on the throat of yesterday's adherents, and the Ukrainians readily divided the whole world into “us” and “strangers”. In politics, nothing depends on me, but in the economy I do everything myself. It is interesting that the ideal of farmers was not the father-hunter and warrior, but the mother-beregin, therefore it was the mother who was the center of many families.

The Ukrainian individualist also established relationships with those around him personally; Cossack twinning marks this. I am responsible for myself, my family, but nothing more. The Ukrainian perceived the world not with his mind, but with his heart. Feelings and intuition are more important to him than evidence. He doesn’t think about it, but experiences life, which is why there is so much lyricism, tenderness, and sadness in Ukrainian songs. Striving for their own happiness, Ukrainians create wonderful examples of love lyrics. Using the example of folklore, we see that, unlike most states, love was almost the main factor in choosing a life partner.

What conclusion will we draw after examining our national character? Firstly, the special character of Ukrainians is a reality. He differs from the characters of all neighboring peoples. Secondly, our character is no better or worse than others. It simply exists and has its disadvantages and advantages. Knowing it, exploring it, respecting it and working to strengthen its strengths and overcome its shortcomings is a task worthy of a modern Ukrainian.

Today, almost all Slavs throughout almost the entire space called the “Slavic world” are engaged in the search for national identity. Russians, Ukrainians, Serbs, Bulgarians and other Slavic peoples declare their desire for this with all seriousness and responsibility.

At the same time, the Russians seem to have finally decided on the main course of their search, having undertaken to form their renewed identity on the basis of the Slavic idea and Orthodoxy. There is undoubtedly logic in this, and there is a sense of perspective. This is seen as the key to the revival of both the national spirit and Russian statehood.

"West" and "East" in Russian consciousness. Russia in the dialogue of cultures

In modern science, the East, West, and Russia are perceived as the most important sociocultural formations in the process of historical development. Traditionally, the time of civilization in history is limited to 5-6 thousand years, starting with the emergence of developed, technogenic societies in the valleys of large rivers (Sumer, Egypt, China, Indian civilization), which laid the socio-economic and spiritual-cultural foundation of the despot states of the Ancient East. These and similar medieval societies (Islamic civilization) are most often associated with the idea of ​​the existence in world history of a special formation - the East, opposite to the West (another fundamental form of global sociocultural experience). East and West are contrasted in the form of the following oppositions: stability - instability, naturalness - artificiality, slavery - freedom, substantiality - personality, spirituality - materiality, sensuality - rationality, order - progress, sustainability - development. In these ideas coming from the philosophy of history, the fact that the East and West are not the original, and therefore not universal forms of civilizational-historical existence, was not taken into account. Hence the criticism of classical historical theories (especially Eurocentrism, the desire to place the West over the East) in the theories of local civilizations, which fundamentally reject the admissibility of using the very concepts of East and West in historical knowledge.