Russian and American Cultures: Two Worlds a World Apart 9781498538336, 1498538339

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
I: Religion
1 Spirituality and Education in Early Medieval Rus’
2 Religious Culture in Muscovy
3 St. Petersburg
4 Religion in Russia Today
5 A Culture Oriented toward Expression
II: Russian Collectivism and the Work Ethic
6 Historical Origins of the Russian Work Ethic
7 Attitudes toward Work through the Eyes of Russian Literature
III: Legal Nihilism
8 Case Study
9 Concepts of Legal Nihilism in the Contemporary Russian Context
10 Historical Roots of Russian Legal Nihilism
11 Law in Contemporary Russia
IV: Perceptions and Reactions
12 Russian Perceptions of America
13 Individual Characteristics of Consciousness and Perception of a Foreign Culture
14 Development of Individual Consciousness within National Culture
15 Asymmetry in Russians’ Perception of America and Americans’Perception of Russia
Conclusion
Works Cited
Index
About the Author

Citation preview

Russian and American Cultures

Russian and American Cultures Two Worlds a World Apart By Konstantin V. Kustanovich

LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom Copyright © 2018 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ISBN 978-1-4985-3833-6 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4985-3834-3 (electronic) TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Preface

vii

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

xi

I: Religion 1 Spirituality and Education in Early Medieval Rus’ 2 Religious Culture in Muscovy: The Fifteenth through Seventeenth Centuries 3 St. Petersburg: Development of Secular Culture 4 Religion in Russia Today 5 A Culture Oriented toward Expression: The Legacy

1 3 11 23 31 39

II: Russian Collectivism and the Work Ethic 6 Historical Origins of the Russian Work Ethic 7 Attitudes toward Work through the Eyes of Russian Literature

47 49 67

III: Legal Nihilism 8 Case Study: Vitaly Kaloyev—Murderer or Hero? 9 Concepts of Legal Nihilism in the Contemporary Russian Context 10 Historical Roots of Russian Legal Nihilism 11 Law in Contemporary Russia

79 81 89 95 109

IV: Perceptions and Reactions 12 Russian Perceptions of America: Historical Perspective

115 117

v

vi

Contents

13 Individual Characteristics of Consciousness and Perception of a Foreign Culture 14 Development of Individual Consciousness within National Culture 15 Asymmetry in Russians’ Perception of America and Americans’ Perception of Russia

133 167 185

Conclusion

197

Works Cited

201

Index

209

About the Author

217

Preface

This book represents an interdisciplinary project employing ideas and research results from such disciplines as cultural and psychological anthropology, social psychology, psychology of child development, sociology, semiology, law, history of Russia and Russian religion, and literary criticism. Relying heavily on existing studies in these fields, I neither claim any original research of my own except for some literary analysis that I include in this work, nor do I examine the nuances of the theories to which I refer. Scholarship, especially in the humanities and social sciences, does not hold one uniform opinion on the subjects of its research. There are many points of view, some lying on opposite ends of the spectrum. In favoring one position over others I was guided by my own convictions, studies, and personal experience rather than by unconditional loyalty to a specific school or trend. It is up to the reader to judge whether it has worked. TRANSLITERATION Russian words are transliterated according to the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS). The only exception is the transliteration of Russian names. In the body of the text, Russian names are always spelled as they appear or would appear in English-language publications. In the parenthetical text citations and Works Cited the spelling of the same name may be different. If a work was published in English, I use the spelling of the original publication. For books published in Russian, the transliteration follows the CMS. Thus the name of the author of The Brothers Karamazov is spelled “Dostoevsky” in the body of the text and appears as such in Works Cited and the text citations, if the book was published in English. However, if the cited text was pubvii

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lished in Russian, his name is transliterated as “Dostoevskiy” both in Works Cited and the text citations. TRANSLATION All translations into English are mine unless indicated otherwise.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Vanderbilt University for its generous support during the early stages of my research. My thanks also go to my friend and professor of psychology William P. Smith for discussing my work with me, although not always agreeing with my ideas. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Professor Peter Rutland for reading an earlier version of part 3 on legal nihilism and encouraging me to publish it. Professor Emil Draitser has read the entire manuscript and proposed several relevant additions, which I gratefully implemented. Of course, the responsibility for the content and views expressed in this book is entirely mine. The New York designer Catherine Fet generously provided her original art Mother Russia for the book’s cover. I can’t thank her more for this beautiful and meaningful image. My patient wife and editor Nina Warnke has been exposed to my thoughts about Russian culture even before I started working on this book. She is still with me, and I thank her for that. My editor Cyndy Brown has always been there to help, graciously adjusting to my schedule. And last but not least, I thank all my Russian and American friends and my sister Marina Lindberg, who read some chapters of this book and shared their opinions about my observations.

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Introduction

MARIA ROZANOVA: Having arrived to the West, we, the third emigration, built a world that is absolutely the same as the one we had left behind. The same as the one we were once fighting so fiercely. . . . The only thing is—we can’t build our own Lubyanka [The headquarters of the KGB and internal prison in Moscow]. But I think that is only because . . . ANDREI SINYAVSKY : . . . Because we live in a free country. MARIA ROZANOVA : Because we live in a country where the government wouldn’t allow us to do so. But if they did, we would do it immediately. Immediately. —John Glad, interview with Rozanova and Sinyavsky, 1986

WHAT IS WRONG WITH RUSSIA? Russia is a great country—both in its size and its achievements. It is the largest country in the world and, perhaps, the richest country in the world if one counts all its natural resources combined. In general, Russians are good people, although not always and not all. They are talented, hospitable, warm, and kind, again not always; they can be pretty cruel and nasty. Russia’s population is well educated and its sciences and technology are quite advanced. Within the last two centuries, starting practically from zero, the country has produced a very impressive body of artistic works in literature, classical music, painting, and theater. It is also a country with political, legal, and economic systems similar to those in Western Europe and North America. Yet its economy is in bad shape. Many people live in poverty; many others barely manage to make ends meet. Teachers, university professors, and doctors receive a paltry salary; many have to work additional hours or take another job. The gap between rich and poor is the highest in the world. xi

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Corruption runs amok. The democratic political system is unable to shake off the practice of authoritarianism, not only in the government but also throughout the entire society. The justice system works well only for the rich and powerful. The Church is more interested in ideological squabbles than in the spirituality of its flock. Despite Western traditions in education and the arts; despite greedily consuming Western fashions, pop music, cars, and gadgets; and despite choosing the West as a primary destination for vacations, if they can afford it, the majority of Russians (about 60 percent) have a negative attitude toward the West. Also puzzling is the fact that, given the country’s poor economy and diminishing income, about 77 percent of the population voted on March 18, 2018, to elect Vladimir Putin as their president for another six years. To find an answer to the Russian riddle one has to look into the unique history of Russian social and political development, in other words, into the development of Russian culture. Culture Matters The word “culture,” however, presents a certain problem: its semantics is so broad and usage is so fuzzy that before making any attempt to discuss culture one must define the exact meaning of this word that will be used in this particular discussion. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) gives fifteen different meanings of the noun “culture,” not counting its attributive usage in compound phrases. The concept of culture used in this book is the one introduced into anthropology by Edward Tylor and later adopted and developed by many generations of scholars in various fields of social science. OED defines this meaning of the word culture as follows: “The distinctive ideas, customs, social behavior, products, or way of life of a particular nation, society, people, or period. Hence: a society or group characterized by such customs, etc.” I also include here values and traditional folk art and crafts. For the purpose of brevity I call it Culture 1. What is excluded from consideration in this cross-cultural comparison are other categories that are also referred to as culture: high and popular arts; fashions; society etiquette; cuisine (with the exception of some “weird” ethnic dishes); 1 the high level of refinement in tastes, manners, and education; as well as technology and methods of production—anything that can easily cross borders and be appropriated by diffusion. I call this Culture 2. Diffusion of the constituents of Culture 1 outside its borders, their adoption by other cultures, is extremely difficult; if it happens at all it takes a very long time. It begs an analogy with natural language (semiotics indeed tells us that culture, like language, is a set of signs). While foreign words can easily be adopted into the language, the syntax remains unchanged or changes very slowly. Since both syntax and vocabulary are constituents of language, both Culture 1 and Culture 2 are often conflated under the general notion of culture. There is, however, a

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qualitative difference between them. The traits of Culture 1 are specific to a given group and determined by unconscious cultural codes, which will fiercely fight against and bar any foreign “invaders” coming from different cultures. Foreign elements of Culture 2 can be effortlessly appropriated, changed, dropped, or otherwise modified. They are not specific to a particular culture. I refer to them as cultural phenomena. In addition to confusing usages of the word “culture,” there is another obstacle that stands in the way of studying this aspect of our life. A profound and frank discussion of Culture 1 has been problematic in the contemporary Western world, which is very sensitive to its current political and ideological ethic. We try to be fair and treat everybody equally, especially when minority cultures are involved, which makes us stop and think before engaging in any cross-cultural comparisons and then, more likely than not, drop the idea. Although in the 1940s and 1950s anthropologists vigorously studied national cultures, in the 1960s the interest in this field of knowledge withered. For several decades of postmodernism, multiculturalism, globalism, and “the end of history,” the notion dominated in the West that the time has come to bid farewell to any binary oppositions, between cultures in particular, and establish the global realm of liberal democracy free from the reprehensible features in the historical national, religious, and ethnic realms. Many attempts have been made to this end around the world, and they have failed. Now the West faces the fact that cultures vehemently and often violently resist any changes in their traditional ways. Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Arab Spring provide good cases in point. Other cultures come back to their traditional paradigms, also vehemently and violently, after a period of forceful containment together with different cultures within the same sociopolitical structure. The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia come to mind in this regard. However, even before these occurrences telling signs have always been there—for those who were able and willing to see them—indicating that a democratic “paradise” on Earth is still far away. The early 1980s marked the revival of interest in differences between cultures. In 1985 Lawrence Harrison published an article claiming that the underdevelopment of Latin America is caused by a specific culture of this region. The article was subjected to passionate criticism and protests from scholars in many fields. Samuel Huntington’s seminal article on the clash of civilizations (1993) and the eponymous book that followed (1996) stresses the importance of cultures and religions in international relations. His work also caused numerous negative responses. Nevertheless, one should not forget the ancient wisdom of Horace’s maxim, “You can drive out nature with a pitchfork, but she keeps on coming back.” The discussion of differences between cultures is coming back with a vengeance—in politics, economics, international affairs, and so on—in practically every area of human existence.

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Introduction

In 2000 Harrison and Huntington edited and contributed to a collection of articles, based on the symposium “Cultural Values and Human Progress” held in April 1999 at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge, Massachusetts (Harrison and Huntington 2000). The symposium participants and subsequently the collection authors explore the impact culture has in politics, economy, and social relations. They demonstrate that culture is responsible for promoting progress or holding it back. Culture determines the level of corruption in a given country. The efficacy of institutions also depends on the dominant values and social mores. Relations between the genders, observance of human rights, and adherence to law are defined by culture as well. The authors also stress the importance of religion in shaping the culture. Protestantism, Confucianism, and Judaism seem to be instrumental in their adherents’ success by comparison with other cultures. Harrison later developed this thesis in the book Jews, Confucians, and Protestants: Cultural Capital and the End of Multiculturalism (Harrison 2013). Some contributors to Cultural Values and Human Progress denounce cultural relativism, asserting that some cultures are better than others. In these articles the “bad” cultures are those that allow widespread violence and suffering of the population. Other scholars rank cultures by their promotion of or resistance to progress. In his book In Defense of Elitism (1994), 2 William A. Henry III, himself a liberal democrat, ranks cultures by their achievements in providing liberty, education, scientific and technical development, and a comfortable life for their population. He is not shy about contending that, based on these criteria, there are superior and inferior cultures. He is a strong opponent of affirmative action and an advocate of meritocracy. In Grave New World (2017) Stephen D. King portrays the failure of globalization in overcoming the “selfish” behavior of nation-states and bringing general well-being. Culture Persists Cultural Values and Human Progress also includes articles by detractors who do not recognize the primary role culture plays in development, institutions, and social relations. According to them, a better organization and education of the population can drastically improve the situation. However, while it is possible to devise new educational tools and child-development policies for parents to inculcate their children with good values, it is infeasible to reeducate the entire population of a given country and completely change the parents’ ways, making them use these tools consistently and in their entirety. First, to succeed in changing child-rearing methods in the general population all adults who have or plan to have children would have to be trained en masse, and they would also have to be eager participants in such training and be willing to implement it. Second, even if the parents conscientiously follow the instructions they have received during the train-

Introduction

xv

ing, thousands of patterns of their unconscious cultural behavior will be observed and absorbed by their children—not only their behavior but also that of other family members and the nearest milieu. To complete such a “Herculean labor,” all adults should be separated from their children, driven to the desert, and kept there for forty years to die out while their children are brought up by knowledgeable educators (just kidding). These considerations give us an idea why it is impossible to change ways of culture even by general consent and with a willing government; why Russia, after it acquired freedom and democracy in the late 1980s, immediately plunged into the nightmare of organized and common crime of unheard-of proportions and later returned to its habitual authoritarianism; and why widespread corruption and general disrespect for law still dominate Russian society, as they have for centuries. After the reforms, Russia has had no problem accessing and appropriating elements of Western Culture 2, unattainable prior to perestroika. All genres of contemporary Western music; Hollywood movies; books on all topics; innumerable bars, clubs, and restaurants boasting international cuisines; as well as the opportunity to travel abroad for tourism, work, and study are now readily at hand and widely consumed (by those who can afford it). At the same time, Russia has failed to become a genuinely democratic country ruled by law rather than by one person and a small cohort of the ruler’s inner circle. Russians still respect power and authority more than freedom and personal dignity. They still prefer crumbs from the table of the corrupt government and oligarchs to the labor and, sometimes, risks of personal initiative. In my opinion the explanation lies in the fact that Culture 1 and Culture 2 are acquired by different means and internalized differently. Psychology operates with the concept of schema (pl. schemata)—a mental structure created in our brain that stores information of the past experience. Schemata that hold information of a cultural character (values, modes of behavior, and so on) are also referred to as “cultural models.” When a person encounters a phenomenon the brain tries to match it to the existing schemata in the process of assimilation. If the phenomenon does not fit any of these schemata, in other words, if they do not recognize it, then assimilation is impossible and the schemata must be changed or new ones added. This is the process of accommodation. There are schemata of different levels of quality: some of them are internalized very strongly and embedded very deeply in the mind while others are less so. The cultural models of Culture 1 belong to the former class of schemata; they are “chiseled” into the human brain in the process of socialization during childhood and remain there for life. Their bearers perceive them as normal and natural, and to change them or create new schemata of the same depth and permanence later in life is practically impossible. For obvious reasons, they are specific to the culture in whose environment the child undergoes socialization; in most cases the child does

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not know any other cultural environment. The cultural models of Culture 2 are created later, after the process of socialization has been completed. At this stage of development the new schemata are much more flexible and not as long-lived—in other words, not as deeply internalized—as those formed during childhood. Creating schemata for new fashions and discarding the old ones, or developing a taste for international cuisines does not take much effort. Before perestroika there were no sushi places in the Soviet Union; now dozens of Japanese restaurants have popped up in Moscow and St. Petersburg as well as other cities. The situation with music is more complex. In different families small children are exposed to different music or none at all. Depending on what they hear and how early or late in life they hear it, they develop different schemata of different strengths. For most Russians who grew up in the Soviet Union without having access to Western music except for jazz, assimilating Western musical genres is difficult. However, their children and especially grandchildren do it with ease, having had access to all kinds of Western music on radio, television, Internet, CD recordings, and at concerts. Fashions, cuisines, high and pop art, and other elements of Culture 2 are not culture specific. The articles by cultural and psychological anthropologists in the 1992 collection Human Motives and Cultural Models establish a link between human behavior and cultural models, in particular those internalized during socialization in early childhood. To the best of my knowledge, no in-depth studies of the stages of sociocultural development analogous to Piaget’s study of the stages of cognitive development have been conducted. Hence my proposition that cultural models formed in childhood are extremely rigid and remain in one’s consciousness for life is but a hypothesis. Nevertheless, some scholars mention the tenacity of cultural models created during early childhood, which determines their depth and longevity. Many definitions of culture state the fact that it is passed from generation to generation; obviously cultural models in an individual mind are produced not by nature but by nurture (by the surrounding cultural environment). On the other hand, many studies asserting that schemata can be formed at any age omit the question of qualitative differences between the schemata internalized in childhood and those formed at an adult age. The reason for bypassing this important difference may be that intellectual capacities are much easier to evaluate and measure than the variety and efficacy of cultural models at different ages. Moreover, the stages of intellectual development are determined by genetics and are therefore more or less uniform for all human beings. Cultural development depends on so many variables that it would be extremely difficult to construct a scientific study that could consider all or the majority of them. However, intuitively it is clear that what we learn during our childhood constitutes the bedrock of unconscious cultural knowledge. Again, an analogy with language can prove helpful. The native

Introduction

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language stays with us for life, while a foreign language acquired at a later age can be forgotten if not used. The goal of this book is twofold. First, I seek the causes of the difference between Russian and American cultures 3 in Russian history. Second, based on my hypothesis of the tenacity of culture, I propose the continuity of Russian culture: from the beginnings of the Moscow state or Muscovy in the fifteenth century, to the Imperial Russia of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with the capital in St. Petersburg, to the Soviet Union, and, finally, to post-Soviet Russia. Below is a summary of the book’s structure. Part 1 is devoted to the history of religion in Russia. Religion is by far the most powerful formative factor of any culture, and Russia is not an exception. In 988 Russia (then called Rus’ 4 ) chose Greek Orthodoxy to replace the existing paganism. That was the first step in Russia’s path away from Western Christianity and consequently from Western culture. There were accompanying factors in Russian development that further contributed to widening the gap between Russia and the West. The population of Rus’ promptly converted to Christianity, but yesterday’s pagans did not learn much about their new religion. About 90 percent of Russians had no access to either religious or secular education until virtually the nineteenth century. From church services they received a primitive outline of the story of Christ and some notion of Christian morality, but that was all. Not only was education unavailable, but sermons were generally not preached either. The nobility could have used its privileged status to acquire knowledge, but few chose to take advantage of this opportunity. Even the clergy mainly learned only the language of the holy texts, Church Slavonic, in order to conduct religious rituals. The reason for such lack of motivation to learn was simple: the new Christians had no tradition of education and, although they warred and traded with Muslims (Volga Bulgars), Jews (Khazars), and the Greek Orthodox (the Byzantine), the intellectual influence from these sources was negligible. In the West Latin was the language of religion, science, scholarship, manufacturing, and trade. One needed Latin to succeed in earthly life and to achieve salvation beyond the grave. During the Renaissance in the West Latin, together with ancient Greek, was instrumental in reviving the interest in Greek philosophy, Roman law, and classical arts, sciences, and literature. In Russia Latin was banned as the language of heretics—everything that came from the hated “Latins” came from Satan. In fact, the Church discouraged any education and called for “simplicity in Christ.” The emphasis was placed on strict observance of religious rites and ignored spiritual development, which resulted in creating a culture oriented toward appearance rather than content. Lacking spirituality, Russian religion, with its underlying belief in magic, was more akin to the old paganism than to Christianity. Toward the end of part 1 I describe the state of religion and the Church in Russia today. As before, it has no ambition of instilling spirituality in the

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believers, and rather busies itself with politics and ideology. At the same time, faith has acquired a new, nonreligious function: most “believers” today do not seek salvation but turn Russian Orthodoxy into a unifying banner of nationalism. In part 2 I explore the roots of Russian collectivism and find them in the long history of Russian agricultural communes that, in fact, lasted five centuries longer than in the West. Communes were formally abolished only in 1906 but continued to function as in the past until the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, and then, ten years later, reappeared in the form of Soviet collective farms. The patriarchal structure of the commune mirrored the authoritarian structure of the entire society from top to bottom. The prince, later the tsar, and then the emperor had absolute power over the entire population in their domain, including the nobility, landowners, the army, and the peasants. Landowners were absolute masters to their serfs. Inside the commune power was in the hands of the elected elder, who nonetheless was the landlord’s serf as were all other peasants. In an extended peasant family the indisputable authority lay in the hands of the family elder, and in a basic family in the husband. No rung existed in this social ladder where the interests and dignity of an individual counted; he or she was completely subsumed and subjugated by the collective, whether it was the family or the commune. In turn, the collective unconditionally obeyed the authority figure, whether it was the commune elder, the landlord, or the tsar himself. Oppression and abuse occurred on a grand scale, and absolute dependence on the whim, cruelty, or kindness of the higher authority ruled social relations. There was no law or judge to defend an individual from abuse; laws and judges served only for the dispensation of punishment. However, one important exception provided a way to render the everyday existence of the peasant more or less bearable. Although in the commune, as everywhere else, strict hierarchies and disregard for the interests of the individual ruled, there was generally no abuse among commune members; on the contrary, mutual help and support were common. Peasants worked out their intracommune problems by relying on their sense of fairness and trust. They had no contracts or any written documents, they did not believe in written laws, nor did they turn to any outside enforcers for justice in cases of conflict. The authority would only add insult to injury and cheat them in the bargain. All conflicts, except for serious crimes, were resolved within the commune. This existence fostered a culture of disrespect for the law and reliance on the commonly accepted collective morality. It also begot the dominance of the collective over an individual, as well as veneration of the strong hand. In part 2 I also discuss the development of the Russian work ethic. Both life in the commune and serfdom, which in all practical terms was more like slavery, left no room for personal initiative or motivation to work hard and accumulate wealth. Almost everything in the peasant’s life was predeter-

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xix

mined. Also, geographical conditions in central Russia, with its short summers and long frigid and snowy winters, were not conducive to continuous, systematic agricultural labor. Russian peasants could work miracles, toiling away during the summer, but in the winter the pressure was off and the work was not as demanding and urgent. All these factors formed the work ethic of seeking comfortable, habitual, and easy labor rather than straining to achieve greater financial status. The last chapter in part 2 provides an illustration of this attitude toward work through the Russian literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Part 3 deals with legal nihilism—disrespect for law cultivated by the conditions of serfdom and life in the commune. The only recourse against oppression and abuse was cheating the abusers. On the other hand, the informal relationships among commune members promoted the development of a culture in which people could trust only the commonly accepted morality. The case study at the beginning of this part demonstrates that legal nihilism is still widespread throughout the vast majority of the population, and that in their social life Russians are directed more by their inner sense of justice than by law. In the chapters that follow, a survey of several periods in Russian history establishes that legal nihilism is deeply rooted in the Russian consciousness. The attempts to make Russia a pravovoe gosudarstvo (a state governed by law) have not produced the desired results to date; in my opinion—since culture matters and persists— they will not produce them in the near future. Part 4 analyzes Russian perceptions of America. How people see the surrounding reality necessarily affects their behavior. Different people can view the same phenomenon differently, and their reactions to it will be different. Thus an analysis of their perceptions of a foreign culture can provide a vivid picture of how their mind works and help predict their views, attitudes, and behavior in interactions with foreigners. Understanding one’s interlocutor is crucial to conducting successful dialogue, and for that knowledge of the foreign language is necessary but may not be sufficient. Understanding culture is as, if not more, important as understanding language. I distinguish between transitory attitudes toward foreign countries and broader and deeper perceptions of foreign cultures. The former are based on the immediate economic and political circumstances and change when the circumstances change. The latter are determined by people’s individual psychological makeups, which in turn depend on the variety, depth, and richness of schemata in their minds. In my analysis of Russian perceptions of America I exclude transitory attitudes and focus on the psychological responses of Russians in their encounter with American reality. To classify different types of such responses I digress into social psychology and the psychology of child development. Two major factors influence the formation of cultural models in the mind: the dominant national culture that a child

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absorbs in the process of observing it and interacting with its bearers, and the relationships with parents and siblings. I single out three types of Russian perceptions of America: essentialist, objectivist, and existentialist. Part 4 contains more concrete examples than any other part in this book. They are necessary to support my conviction that the first type of Russian perception of America is most common and originates in Russian collectivist culture, as well as in the traditional hierarchical and authoritarian upbringing of Russian children based on strict discipline and obedience. The last chapter discusses the differences between Russian perceptions of America and American perceptions of Russia. I find that the Russian consciousness, which tends to create myths sees America in light of one of such myths, either pro- or antiAmerican. Russian attitudes are not rational but affective. Americans, as individualists with rational minds, do not as a rule create myths of Russia, and in general they base their judgments of Russia on the current political situation. Finally, it cannot be overemphasized that although this study represents a cross-cultural comparison between Russian and American cultures, no claim is made that they are entirely homogeneous and uniform. It is the predominant aspects of these cultures that allow the generalizations I make. There are always exceptions and deviations. I return to this important qualification more than once in this book. Also, since the United States is part of the Western world I do not limit my study to this country alone, and often include the West as a whole. NOTES 1. After all, people everywhere in the world use basically the same ingredients, spices, and methods of cooking, and the basic gustatory parameters of the human brain are perhaps innate rather than cultivated. Nobody likes food that is too bitter, too salty, or even too sweet. However, some cultural preferences in food are instilled in the process of acculturation. 2. Seventy-six years earlier, the Russian philosopher Nicolai Berdyaev wrote the book Filosofiya neravenstva (philosophy of inequality) in which he expounded ideas similar to those of Henry’s. 3. Henceforth the word “culture” in my book refers to Culture 1 unless otherwise specified. 4. Rus’ was a conglomerate of principalities located in territories of today’s Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. After the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century Rus’ was split, and the above three ethnicities formed with different but similar languages and cultures.

I

Religion

It's a pity that we dream of idols as we did before, and we still keep seeing ourselves as slaves. —Bulat Okudzhava (1964)

In the process of its development, Russian religion has produced a unique culture, which still determines social, economic, and political behavior of individuals and the country as a whole. At the time of Christianization, the ancient Rus’, completely lacking the tradition of education, could not and did not adopt the theological constituent of the new religion. The believers perceived and assimilated only ritualistic aspects of Christianity, its external expression, ignoring the spiritual content that was inaccessible to them. The resulting religious culture was not much different from pre-Christian paganism. Its main function, as in the age of paganism, was magic rather than spiritual. Indirectly, a similar function was attributed to the tsar as the vicegerent of God on earth—a kind of living idol. The tsar was never the addressee of the people’s anger; 1 the priests, the landlords or the government were. When under the Soviet regime faith was annihilated, the magic properties were transferred to the Communist ideology and the new idols, Lenin and Stalin. Khrushchev and Brezhnev ruled during an era of extreme political and spiritual cynicism when even Communist idealism was gone; therefore they lacked the divine properties of a God’s vicegerent. The turmoil and tribulations of the late nineteen-eighties and nineties engendered a new faith, nationalism, and its idol, Vladimir Putin. Those millions of Russians who claim to be Orthodox believers in fact use the external attributes of Ortho-

2

Religion

doxy to create a national identity. Very few go to church regularly and observe the religious precepts. Similarly Russian people focus on the external aspects of other cultures, which prevent them from perceiving real content behind the appearance. Combined with the traditional animosity toward other faiths, this mental disposition has begotten a binary way of thinking that has led to dividing the world into friend and foe; hence the strong presence of xenophobia in Russian culture. Perhaps the most vivid manifestation of such a mindset is antiWesternism and especially anti-Americanism, which represents a curious combination of megalomania, rooted in the ancient feeling of superiority of Orthodoxy over Western Christianity, and an inferiority complex fomented by the envy of the higher level of quality of life and technical and scientific progress in the West. NOTE 1. Nicholas II and his family were executed in 1918 not by the people but by a group of Bolsheviks—the execution was actually an assassination. There was no trial or any other legal procedure.

Chapter One

Spirituality and Education in Early Medieval Rus’

RELIGIOUS AND SECULAR EDUCATION IN THE WEST Religion has played a major role in shaping the values and behavior of people around the globe. To effectively influence the consciousness of potential believers and spread the basic dogmas, it is necessary to offer some kind of religious education. In Western Christianity believers have learned the foundations of Christian doctrine in two ways: through sermons and schooling. Homilies and sermons have always been a part of Christian liturgy, but by themselves they were not sufficient. Regular schooling, however elementary, was necessary to raise the religious and secular consciousness of Christians. Even in the Dark Ages some system of school education was formed around monasteries and cathedrals. At first, monastic schools served to educate boys for the future functions as clergy and monks. Monasteries were also depositaries of knowledge where manuscripts were kept and copied. In some monasteries monks copied not only Christian books but also works of classical antiquities, which proved useful during the Renaissance. Toward the end of the first millennium A.D., monastic and cathedral schools became accessible not only to future clergy but also to a small number of lay children from the surrounding areas—both affluent and poor. In the ninth and tenth centuries, monastic schools developed a division between the inner schools intended for their future clergy and the outer schools for the laity; many accepted children without taking their social standing into account. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, elementary and secondary education was spreading across the population, at least in the cities, and in addition to religious subjects, it included Latin, arithmetic, rhetoric, physics, and music. Knowledge of Latin was a requirement for priests, monks, and educated 3

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people in general. Besides being the language of religion, it was the language of scholarship, sciences, technology, and trade. Learning Latin also entailed access to the classical heritage stored in the extant ancient manuscripts: literature, philosophy, sciences, and—of utmost importance—Roman law, which was later adopted by major West European countries, except for England, as the basis for their respective legal systems. During the Middle Ages this kind of knowledge was dormant but it was awaiting its awakening in the Renaissance. Meanwhile, the first universities arose all over Europe. By the time of the Reformation, elementary education for lay children was not an exceptional phenomenon. In the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries London, education became so important that many guilds would not enroll apprentices unless they could read and write (Hanawalt 1993, 82). “Perhaps 40 percent of lay male Londoners could read Latin, and 50 percent or more probably read English and perhaps French” (82). The goal of the Reformation was to spread education to all Protestants so that each believer could read the Bible and other religious texts, at least in the vernacular. Luther translated the Bible into German, and thousands of religious pamphlets were printed in the spoken language and spread all over Europe. RELIGIOUS AND SECULAR EDUCATION (OR LACK THEREOF) IN RUSSIA One could assume that Russia would not be an exception. Called Rus’ during the medieval period, Russia adopted Christianity at the end of the tenth century under Grand Prince Vladimir. According to a legend, in choosing the religion for Russians, he considered Judaism, Islam, and Greek Orthodoxy. At the end he selected the latter for the beauty of both the liturgy and the sublime interior of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople that his ambassadors observed. They reported that during the liturgy they did not know where they were—whether on earth or in heaven. Vladimir’s seat was in Kiev from where Christianity spread to other principalities of Rus’. How, then, has Russian Orthodoxy shaped the culture during the process of a millenniumlong development of the Russian nation? In his study A History of the Russian Church, Yevgeny Golubinsky devotes a whole chapter to the faith, morals, and religiosity of the Russian people. The main question he discusses there is what role the Christian church played in the moral and religious education of the masses as opposed to the upper layer of the population. The answer he offers is quite skeptical: the church had very little if any influence on the moral, intellectual, and spiritual uplifting of the lower social strata, that is, the vast majority of Russians. We will see below that, in fact, until the eighteenth century the Russian elite differed little from the general population regarding its level of ignorance.

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According to Golubinsky, two conditions are necessary for the clergy to be an effective transmitter of religious doctrine and its ethical component: the teachers, i.e. the clergy, must be interested in delivering knowledge to their flock, and the flock must be motivated in receiving it. But because people are weak and sinful, as Golubinsky says, both educators and masses neglected religious and moral education. A much more important factor than the lack of motivation was the clergy’s incapability to deliver sacred wisdom even if they had been eager to do so. They themselves lacked religious knowledge with the exception of what was necessary for ritual functions. Yet without education there can be no genuine faith. “In order to believe one should know what to believe in, in other words, know the teaching of the faith or its dogmas. Knowledge presupposes [having] means for learning since, according to the apostle, ‘how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard’ (Romans, 10, 14)” (Golubinskiy 1904, vol. 1, pt. 2: 831). However, the means—an educated and motivated clergy—did not exist. At the very opening of his book on Russian theology, the Russian theologian and church historian Protopresbyter George Florovsky raises the question: “With a great sense of amazement, an historian moves from the excited and often verbose Byzantium to the quiet and silent Rus’ and hesitates in astonishment: What is it? Is it silent and wordless in some kind of pensiveness, in a hidden contemplation of God or in stagnation and spiritual laziness, in dreams and half-sleep (Florovskiy 1937, 1)?” He does not provide an answer. The question itself, however, the issue of Russian “silence” following Christianization, points at the absence of Russian theological writings— an absence on which other historians comment in a more straightforward manner. Golubinsky writes, “Having become a Christian people, we by no means have become an enlightened people. Education was introduced and delivered to us, but it failed to take root and become implanted; and it disappeared completely without a trace almost immediately after its introduction” (Golubinskiy 1904, vol. 1, pt. 1: 701). According to him, Prince Vladimir did want to bring education to Russia, and Greek teachers were invited to teach the children of the nobility. They could have passed on to them the tremendous cultural, theological, and philosophical wealth stored in Byzantium, but there were no takers. The schools that were opened were private, and education was not mandatory. Very often parents decried that their children were subjected to the tortures of learning (Karamzin 1989, 154; Golubinskiy 1904, vol. 1, pt. 1: 711–12), the result being that literacy was instilled but no real education. Literacy consisted of learning Church Slavonic for the purpose of reading the texts that had been translated in Bulgaria from Greek into the language understandable to all Slavs, including Russians. And even this kind of literacy was accessible only to a very narrow circle of some princes, boyars (the nobility), and monks. Another Russian religious philoso-

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pher and church historian, G. P. Fedotov, is no less categorical in his characterization of the intellectual paucity in early Rus’: The poverty of intellectual culture in ancient Russia is amazing. For seven centuries—that is, until the seventeenth—we know of no scientific work in Russian literature, not even a dogmatic treatise. The whole of literary production had a practical, moral, or religious character, with the exception of Chronicles, whose great artistic value vividly emphasizes, by contrast, the complete lack of scientific culture. Modern Russian historians, of a new nationalistic brand in the USSR, are unanimous in overestimating the level of ancient Kievan culture, which, according to them, was not inferior to and even surpassed the contemporary Western civilization. Their complete failure to substantiate their claim constitutes by itself a new proof of the poverty, at least the intellectual poverty, of this culture (Fedotov 1960, 38).

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, during the peak of the Kievan period of Russian history, when universities started sprouting in Europe, small numbers of the Russian nobility and monks could boast learning nothing but reading and writing. There were individual exceptions of course, such as Metropolitan Ilarion of Kiev or Prince Yaroslav the Wise, both in the eleventh century. They were educated and well read, apparently having made use of those Greek teachers invited to Rus’ by Yaroslav’s father Vladimir. In spite of the sparsity of educated people, the myth of a superior Kievan culture has been quite popular, but it actually appeared long before the Soviet historians adopted it. Golubinsky convincingly demonstrates that it was launched by the eighteenth-century Russian statesman and historian Vasily Tatishchev and later picked up by other historians of patriotic persuasion, including Nikolay Karamzin. Golubinsky cites numerous examples of Tatishchev’s inserting his own words and phrases into the text of extant chronicles he was publishing, trying to create the impression that Russian princes eagerly sowed education among their subjects (Golubinskiy 1904, vol. 1, pt. 1: 871–80). Golubinsky also rejects another explanation for the presumed religious literacy of Russians, which states that they had a great advantage over their Western counterparts because church services in Russia were (and still are) conducted in Church Slavonic—a language allegedly comprehensible to all believers as opposed to Latin in the West (Fedotov 1960, 40). In fact, vernacular Russian was different from Church Slavonic even in medieval Russia although not as much as today’s Russian. Perhaps a literate person could make out the meaning of a written text in the process of reading it, but understanding the rather complicated texts that were read or sung in Church Slavonic during the service was beyond the ability of uneducated believers. Golubinsky asserts that uneducated people (again, the vast majority of the population) would not understand services even in Russian because “even [their] own Russian language is only fully comprehensible for common folk

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[prostoy narod] when it is spoken rather than literary” (Golubinskiy 1904, vol. 1, pt. 1: 832). The church service, contends Golubinsky, is not conducted to teach religion to the unlearned but to direct the learned who should possess a certain level of preparation to comprehend it. This level, however, was close to zero among Russian believers. Another reason often mentioned in connection with the deficiency of thorough religious education in early Rus’ was the lack of appropriate texts in translation. As Fedotov notes, the Bulgarians who translated religious literature from Greek had no ambitions for higher learning, and they translated what an average Greek monastery had in its library. “Russia had nothing to do with this choice, but she had to bear its consequences for centuries” (Fedotov 1960, 49). The texts that were translated were extremely limited in scope and purpose. Almost all of them had only the practical function of conducting church services and maintaining religious life. Practically no philosophical or scientific texts were available in Russian; even the texts containing Christian theological dogma were ignored. This situation lasted for many centuries. The question, however, is: even if philosophical and theological texts had been translated, would there have been eager readers? Newly Christianized Russians had no tradition of education whatsoever: why would they have had interest in and motivation for studying such texts? The low intellectual level of writings available and used in Russia extends much beyond the Kievan Rus’ period. Golubinsky emphasizes the complete absence of scholarly writings through the seventeenth century: “Having no sciences, it is impossible to write works of scientific character. And from this follows quite naturally that, as such works were not written in our country during the Kievan period, they could not be written during the Muscovite period” (Golubinskiy 1904, vol. 2, pt. 2: 143). Many Russian historians are unanimous in noting a deep contrast between the state of education in the West and in Rus’. The prominent Russian historian Vasily Klyuchevsky juxtaposes the barbaric Germanic tribesmen with the Slavs. The former settled among the ruins of classical antiquity and, without any conscious efforts on their part, fell under the influence of the conquered culture. The latter arrived at the wooded territory scarcely populated by tribes that were culturally inferior even to them. The Slavs could learn nothing from these tribes (Klyuchevskiy 1987–90, 1: 47–48). The tradition of education was never interrupted in the West; it was nearly but not completely extinguished. To revive it one needed only to rekindle the flame from under the ashes, while Slavs would have had to start a completely new fire, an impossible task for the culture of early Russian Christianity (Golubinskiy 1904, vol. 2, pt. 2: 717–18). Fedotov also uses the image of barbarians who absorbed ancient culture together with Latin.

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Chapter 1 The western barbarians, before they were able to think their own thoughts and speak their own words—about A.D. 1100—had been sitting for five or six centuries on the school bench, struggling with the foreign Latin language, learning by heart the Latin Bible and the Latin grammar with Vergil as the introduction to the Bible. Men of the dark ages had no independent interest in culture. They were interested only in the salvation of their souls. But Latin gave them the key to salvation. As the language of the Church, Latin was a sacred tongue and everything written in it became invested with a sacred halo (Fedotov 1960, 39).

One finds a similar juxtaposition and imagery—West European barbarians sitting on a school bench or on the straw studying the depths of Christian theology and ancient philosophy—in a book by the Russian folklorist and church historian Evgeny Anichkov: While there, in the West, universities were established, and students from different ethnic groups sitting on the straw at their teachers’ feet listened to theologian scholastics, learned about Plato, Aristotle, and Averroes, sorted out the mistakes of the Manicheans and Paulicians, and discussed the mystery of Predestination and the Original Sin, the Byzantine and Russian followers of Christ and the learned taught at their religious councils the very basics of Christian morals and Christian liturgy (Anichkov [1914] 2003, xxxvii).

The nobility and the clergy in Russia could at least learn reading and writing on the individual basis—either with home teachers or monks—but the common people had no access to religious and/or secular education whatsoever. Although they were ardent believers, they were absolutely ignorant about the religion in which they believed. Even in the nineteenth century, when a peasant was asked if he knew what the Trinity was, he immediately replied, “Of course, it is the Savior, Mother of God, and Saint Nicholas the Miracle Worker (Wallace 1912, 66)!” The nineteenth-century German intellectual and author August von Haxthausen, the first scholar to study the Russian peasant commune (obshchina) in depth by traveling in Russia and observing the life of Russian peasants first-hand, wrote: “In spite of their great piety, devoutness, and their absolute submission to the precepts of the church, the majority of Russians possess only a very superficial knowledge of dogma. Because they receive little instruction in church doctrine, their faith is in this respect as naïve as that of a child” (Haxthausen 1972, 261). Indeed, how could Russians learn their religion? Unlike in the West, neither sermons nor schooling was available to the masses (Golubinskiy 1904, vol. 2, pt. 2: 151–52). If a parish priest wanted to deliver a sermon, he would have had to present it to his bishop for approval because the church was “afraid of the possible dissemination of heterodox teachings and ideas” (Haxthausen 1972, 270). Only higher clergy like bishops, metropolitans, or patriarchs could deliver sermons on their own volition. Since even bishops

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were ignorant, Golubinsky argues, it was actually to the benefit of the believers that they did not preach (Golubinskiy 1904, vol. 2, pt. 2: 151). Individual initiative was not welcome; after all, the religious authorities had to be sure that lower priests did not spread the wrong ideas. When a provincial priest from Perm published a collection of his own unauthorized sermons, the reaction of the church was extremely negative: [The church] was hostile toward “the living word,” branded church sermons “a heresy,” and persecuted the Perm orator. Opponents of any kind of novelty both in everyday life and in the church tradition did not tolerate education[, seeing it] as some dangerous augmenter of the consciousness of the masses. Away with schools—the apparatus for proliferation of superfluous smart alecks. Individual “masters” teaching small groups of volunteers would do. In calligraphy books of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries an instruction by one of such masters was reproduced: “Do not be overly wise, Brethren. If anybody asks whether you know philosophy, answer him: I have neither learned Hellenistic abomination, nor read eloquent astrologers, nor been with wise philosophers. I have not even seen philosophy. I study books of the divine law to purify my sinful soul of sins” (Kartashev 1992, 2:246). 1

Yet, “studying books of the divine law” could not involve any interpretation of the text and forming one or another opinion about its meaning. The influential sixteenth-century monk, Joseph of Volotsk (Volokolamsk), taught his disciples: “Opinion is the mother of all sins. Opinion is the second Fall” (Kartashev 1992, 1:412). In general, from the very beginning of Christianity in Rus’, education was believed to have been a source for heresies. NOTE 1. The original text paraphrased in Kartashev, as well as in many other works, is taken from the epistle “Of Evil Days and Hours” by elder Philotheus (Filofey), see http://lib. pushkinskijdom.ru/Default.aspx?tabid=5105

Chapter Two

Religious Culture in Muscovy The Fifteenth through Seventeenth Centuries

THE CHURCH AND THE STATE The two and a half centuries of the Christian Kievan Rus’ were followed by two centuries of the so-called Mongol yoke when the Russian land lay in stagnation. Russian princes paid tribute to the khans of the Golden Horde and feuded and warred among themselves, while the impoverished population simply tried to survive. In the fifteenth century Russians shook off the yoke of the then enfeebled Horde, and Moscow, in a gradual process of accumulating power and subjecting other principalities to its rule, became the center of the new Russian state. Toward the end of his reign, Ivan III (The Great, 1462–1505), grand prince of Moscow, became an autocratic ruler after having minimized the participation of the Boyars Council and the church in political decisions. The Russian culture of today is rooted deeply in and shaped by the developmental processes that Muscovite Russia was undergoing in the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries. At the end of Ivan III’s rule one episode in the history of the Russian church could have changed the path of Russia’s political and social development. At that time a conflict developed between the so-called possessors and non-possessors (stiazhateli, also called Josephites after their leader Joseph of Volotsk, and nestiazhateli). 1 The spiritual leader of the “non-possessors,” Nilus of Sora, tried to convince Ivan III and the Church Assembly to change the existing status of monasteries which had accumulated huge tracts of land together with villages, peasants, and buildings, including beautiful churches, as well as gold, silver, and precious church accessories and icons. Nilus called on monks to give up these riches and live an ascetic life providing for 11

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themselves by the labor of their hands, praying, and studying sacred writings as well as becoming more concerned with the well-being of the believers than with adorning the churches. He and his followers, however, advocated a critical approach to the existing texts, which contained many mistakes and at times intentional distortions inserted for political purposes by the copyists. “There are many writings,” he wrote, “but not all of them are divine” (Kartashev 1992, 1:411). Of course, deciding which texts were genuinely canonical and which were apocryphal or simply distorted required education and critical thinking. This “radical” (411) approach was unacceptable for the Josephites and their leader whose dictum about the danger of opinions was cited above. Joseph, who was the abbot of the Volokolamsk monastery, argued that monasteries needed their wealth in order to prepare the high clergy and provide assistance to the sick and needy. But such an enormous wealth also yielded tremendous influence and power, with which the Josephites were not prepared to part. Ivan III was torn. At first, he sympathized with the nonpossessors, mostly because the idea of acquiring the monasteries’ wealth was tempting, but Nilus and his followers insisted on complete independence in their teachings and opinions. Besides, they also criticized the prince and his government for the injustice against and neglect of the poor that held sway in the Russian land. In the end, the “non-possessors” lost: monasteries kept and augmented their wealth, while critical thinking, disinterested spirituality, and asceticism failed to take root in Russian life. Had the result of this conflict been different, Russia could have undergone its own Reformation; but within the context of the Muscovite culture of the time, it is hard to imagine a different outcome. With the status quo preserved, the union of the autocratic ruler and the powerful church, together with a multitude of wealthy monasteries, spelled a double oppression and financial burden for the Russian people. The church had little independent political power, but it possessed a significant influence over the population in its support of the ruler, shaping the domestic culture, and mercilessly exploiting the people. Ivan III’s grandson, Ivan IV (The Terrible), was crowned as the first Russian tsar in 1547 at the age of seventeen. 2 During his reign of thirty-seven years the last remnants of political influence of the Boyars Council and the church disappeared. In the atmosphere of the horrific atrocities perpetrated by the crazed tsar no one dared to even minimally display any disagreement with the ruler; suspicion alone would have been enough to bring torture and death upon the unfortunate and his family. Only one church hierarch found the courage to confront the tsar openly and protest against his brutality. Philip, the abbot of the Solovetsk monastery, was summoned by Ivan to Moscow and ordered to accept the rank of the Moscow metropolitan. He served as Metropolitan of Moscow and All Russia for two years, but after several public clashes with Ivan about his atrocities, Philip was deposed by the Church Council, “the most shameful in the entire history of the Russian

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church (Kartashev 1992, 1:447),” and exiled to a monastery. A year later he was strangled there on Ivan’s orders. 3 The Latin versus Greek Controversy In the seventeenth century, after Russia had survived the so-called Time of Troubles, 4 the necessity to develop closer ties with the Western neighbors and the need for education became clear, at least to some members of the ruling elite who wanted that books be translated and published and schools be opened. The government realized that the country needed to develop exploration and extraction of ores and build factories in order to produce metals and manufacture weapons and ammunition, so it could maintain its military position vis-à-vis its enemies (Klyuchevskiy1987–90, 3:247–49). However, the country lacked qualified and educated people to achieve this goal. Obviously, Russia was unable to supply educators from its own midst. Geologists, engineers, and advisors who could not only organize the industry but also teach Russians how to work independently had to be brought in from Western Europe. Knowledge of the appropriate language was a very important element for this kind of project. And this language had to be Latin as the language of science and technology. Yet anything coming from the West, including Latin, was considered heresy in Russia and therefore banned. Exceptions were diplomacy and trade, but simply purchasing the necessary equipment and weaponry was no longer possible. The country could not afford to purchase them in the required amount. The solution came from Kiev. A brief historical digression is in order to explain how it happened that Kiev could provide teachers for Muscovy. After being destroyed and deserted in the mid-thirteenth century as a result of both internal feuds among the princes and the Mongol invasion, the city experienced further plunders by Lithuanians and Crimean Tatars. Eventually, the entire southwestern territories of Rus’ along the Dnieper, including Kiev, were absorbed by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later by the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth. The European environment had a strong linguistic and cultural influence on the Russians who lived in this territory, and in the course of several centuries new Ukrainian and Byelorussian ethnicities were formed with languages and cultures different from those in what became Russia proper. Despite the constant pressure from the Catholic Poles to convert, the Orthodox population in the Commonwealth kept its faith. Orthodox brotherhoods appeared and, to counteract the Catholic and Protestant influences, brotherhood schools were organized. Nonetheless, they did not reject Western knowledge as Russia did. Instead, they provided a broad curriculum, which included Latin as well as geometry, astronomy, arithmetic, music, and philological studies in addition to religious subjects. Perhaps the most advanced of these brotherhood schools was one in Kiev under the

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tutelage of the Metropolitan Peter Mogila (Mohyla). In 1615 this school was renamed “Academy” to demonstrate its elevated status. 5 Students from all social strata of the Ukrainian population were admitted. Kiev became the center of book printing and, during the first half of the seventeenth century, Moscow was actively importing books and texts from there. It would be “a Western-Russian Orthodox monk educated in a Latin school or a Russian one with a Latin style of education who was the first to be invited to Moscow to introduce Western knowledge” (Klyuchevskiy 1987–90, 3:259). In 1649 the young tsar Alexei Mikhailovich summoned highly educated monks from the Mohyla Academy and the Kiev Pechersky Lavra (monastery) to translate the Bible and other religious texts as well as secular books on various topics such as anatomy, pedagogy, geography, and politics (259). At the same time the tsar’s advisor and friend, the boyar Rtishchev, established a school and invited thirty monks from Kiev to teach grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy in addition to Greek and Latin (Kartashev 1992, 2:243). After 1654, when a part of Ukraine located on the left bank of the Dnieper was annexed by Russia on the request of the Khmelnitsky Cossacks who were warring against the Poles, 6 the flow of learned men from the southwest to Moscow greatly increased. Plans developed to open a higher education academy in Moscow with a broad curriculum in both religious and secular disciplines. In 1682, shortly before his death, tsar Fyodor, Alexei’s son, signed the document that approved the establishment of the academy. Yet there was always opposition to any education coming from the West and to any rapprochement with it. “The need for new knowledge encountered an insurmountable antipathy and suspicion in Moscow society—that had been rooted there for centuries—to everything coming from the cursed Latins” (Klyuchevskiy 1987–90, 3:265). Thus two tendencies in education clashed then in Moscow: one understood the importance of including Latin into the curriculum; the other demanded excluding Latin and studying only Greek. The progressive movement was leaning toward catching up with the West, especially in science and technology, and Latin was the most crucial element in their program; conservatives, on the other hand, insisted that no education other than learning holy texts was necessary, and for that only the Greek language had to be studied. According to them, Latin was the weapon in Satan’s hands since it was the language of what they considered heathen Western religions. Eventually the Greek tendency won and the only academy that taught Latin was closed. Thus all attempts to enhance schooling and bring education closer to Western standards broke against the wall of diehard conservative ignorance. This suspicion, often even hatred toward the West as the ultimate villain permeated Russian culture for centuries. Peter the Great’s reforms opened the gate to Western education, sciences, technology, and secular arts but did not eradicate animosity toward Western culture. The legacy of these anti-Western attitudes remains overwhelming in today’s

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Russia creating paranoia about Western intentions and determining Russian opinions and reactions in international politics. It seems inexplicable why Russian church hierarchs were so irrationally adamant against Latin and why Russia would not adopt and appropriate education, science, and technology that were so crucial for its further development and ultimately for its prosperity and security. Does the reason lie only in some differences in Christian dogma? And if it does, why did several religious beliefs so strongly affect all aspects of Russian life as late as the seventeenth century? Perhaps the Raskol (the Russian Church schism) that took place exactly at this time, in the middle of the seventeenth century, could give us a clue. Raskol: A Battle of Signs When Patriarch Nikon decided to edit the sacred books and liturgy in order to bring them in line with contemporary Greek religious texts and rituals, he encountered ferocious resistance from a large part of the Russian clergy and thousands of lay believers. Nikon had no intention to alter any Orthodox dogmas or change the doctrine. Only some external, formal elements in the church rituals and texts were subjected to this revision. These changes included switching the number of fingers from two to three when making the sign of the cross; singing the word hallelujah three times instead of twice; correcting the spelling of Jesus from Isus to Iisus; changing the form of the cross on the communion wafers and their number used during the liturgy; and reversing the direction of the church procession from walking “along with the sun” (posolon’) to the opposite. Some minor grammatical revisions were introduced as well, but that was all—to repeat, there were no changes in content or meaning. However, for many, corrections of the spelling, changes in grammatical cases, numbers and other obsolete forms were considered heretical and subject to anathema because the original spelling was believed to have come directly from God and not a single letter could be changed in God’s words—as if God himself had written these texts in Church Slavonic. Boris Uspensky quotes Archpriest Avvakum who objected the change of just one letter: “It is a small letter, but it contains great heresy” (Uspensky 1993, 111). Avvakum’s fellow Old Believer, Deacon Fedor, exhibited similar fanaticism: Deacon Fedor, one of the Old Believer Leaders . . . declared, “It behooves all of us Orthodox Christians to die for one az [i.e., for one letter a], which this cursed enemy [Patriarch Nikon] threw out of the Creed.” The question here concerned the exclusion of the conjunction a (but) in the Creed. In the original wording it was rozhdenna, a ne sotvorenna (born but not created), but under the new wording it was rozhdenna, ne sotvorenna (born, not created). Fedor

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Chapter 2 actually died for his Creed, accepting a martyr’s death at the stake (108, Uspensky’s emphasis).

Klyuchevsky asks why, although rituals and texts have been important everywhere in the Christian world, only in Russia insignificant formal changes caused such a furious opposition and a schism of such a tremendous scale (Klyuchevskiy 1987–90, 3:273). The explanation, he suggests, lies in the history of the Russian Church and its relationship with the Byzantine Patriarchate. Traditionally the Russian Church was subject to the authority of the Byzantine Patriarch, but the Greek hierarchs never earned much respect among the Russian clergy who considered their Greek counterparts crooks. A sentence in a twelfth-century Russian chronicle clearly reflects this attitude: “He was a toady because he was a Greek” (274). According to N. I. Kostomarov, the seventeenth-century Croatian linguist and missionary Yuri Krizhanich, who lived and worked for about twenty years in Russia and who was obsessed with the idea of Pan-Slavic unification under the Russian tsar, expressed extremely hostile feelings toward Greeks, “especially for their ignorance, arrogance, and mendacity” Kostomarov [1873–76] 1990–92, 430). At the Ecumenical Council in Florence in 1439, Greeks consented to reunification with the Roman Catholic Church on Catholic terms. They agreed to accept the papal primacy, the filioque (the dogma that includes not only the Father but also the Son as the source of the Holy Spirit), and the concept of the Purgatory. The Russian Church rejected the terms of the reunification, which caused a significant, although short-lived, strain in the relationship between Moscow and Constantinople. The “umbilical cord” between the two churches had, for all practical purposes, been severed by the sixteenth century; only formal connections remained. In 1453 Byzantium was conquered by the Ottomans, and although the Constantinople Patriarchate survived, the center of Orthodoxy moved to Moscow as the only independent Orthodox power. Now Greek hierarchs would come to Moscow not with authority but for financial support, which could not help but make Russians feel their superiority and resentment toward the formal primacy of the Greek Patriarch. Moscow no longer had any reason to recognize the Greek Patriarchate as the senior partner. In the 1524 epistle to Grand Prince Vasili III, the elder Filofei of Pskov formulated quite poetically this shift from Byzantium to Russia as the center of world Orthodoxy. By comparing Moscow to the two cradles of Christianity, Rome and Constantinople, he wrote, “Listen to this, pious Tsar! Two Romes have fallen. The third— Moscow—stands. And there will not be a fourth” (Klyuchevskiy 1987–90, 3:275). And finally, in 1589, Russia established its own patriarchate when the Greek Patriarch Jeremias II, who “came to Russia for alms (275),” enthroned Job of Moscow as the first Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. This

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strengthened the belief in the exceptional role that the Russian Orthodox Church played in world Christianity. The organic flaw of the old Russian clerical community consisted in considering themselves the only truly Orthodox church in the world and their understanding of the divinity as exceptionally truthful. They considered the creator of the universe as their own Russian God, not accessible and understandable to anyone else and they also positioned their own domestic church as ecumenical. Having smugly settled on this opinion, they also concluded that their own domestic ritualism was an untouchable sanctity and their religious interpretation the norm and truth of theology (279).

Klyuchevsky concludes that this Moscow notion of self as the center of world Orthodoxy engendered a great sense of pride among Russians who would not accept any changes in their ancestral legacy. After all, these changes came from Greece, which in their eyes had lost its former glory and leadership by first giving in to the hated “Latins” in the reunification agreement of 1439 and then surrendering the “Second Rome” to the pagan Turks in 1453. So, when the Russian hierarchs of the seventeenth century headed by Nikon revamped the old books and rites in accordance with the current Greek tradition, a large segment of the Russian clergy and the faithful rebelled, considering it an attack on the newly acquired religious pride—Moscow the Third Rome (291-92). Such an explanation for the Raskol may be quite plausible in relation to the somewhat educated high-ranking Russian clergy. As for ordinary parish priests, Kartashev offers the following reason for their rejection of the Nikonian revisions: the lower priests were so illiterate that learning several changes in texts and rituals constituted an insurmountable hurdle (Kartashev 1992, 2:171). But how do these explanations apply to many thousands of completely unenlightened peasants who knew nothing of Byzantium and Moscow the Third Rome and who did not have to strain their brains to acquire new knowledge? Why would they resist the changes with such ferociousness and be prepared to die under torture for some letters or signs? Maybe because, as N. M. Nikolsky suggests, the elements that were subjected to revision had their own magic significance for the Russian believer. The center of gravity for the Christian Byzantine cult lies in conducting the public liturgy around the Eucharist—the main service associated with the dogma of redemption. But this idea was completely incomprehensible to [Russian] high society of those times. The main emphasis was placed on the precise reading and singing without omitting anything that was prescribed for the service. A magic significance was attributed to the formulas and rites of the service, no matter in what order they were performed. The formula for singing the Hallelujah was considered a great inmost mystery; the Stoglavy Sobor [the Council of a Hundred Chapters, 1551] established the dogma of doubling the

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Chapter 2 Hallelujah singing. The order of walking during a religious procession was also considered “a great and most profound dogma;” the same Council established that a procession has a magic effect only if it moves in the direction of the sun and not against it. The dvoeperstie (making the sign of the cross with two fingers) was also believed to possess magic power; any other combination of fingers when making the sign of the cross and giving a blessing was considered a sin, and a mortal sin at that (Nikol’skiy [1912] 1991, 5–6).

Thus, since the theological content of Christianity was practically nonexistent in the minds of Russian believers, including the clergy, the form of religious texts and rituals was their most significant element and had the magic power characteristic of the old pagan beliefs. “Animistic notions were rooted too deeply even in the minds of the clergy at that time [sixteenth and seventeenth centuries] and they [the clergy] carried them up to the nineteenth century” (3). As for the lay believers, they still actively used the magic formulas and rituals inherited from the pre-Christian paganism. At the same time, they conflated the old paganism and the new religion into a system of beliefs; this was mostly Christian in form but magic, pagan, in function. Sometimes the celebration of a Christian holiday was pagan even in form. In the Russian Orthodox Church the feast day of St. Constantine and St. Helena celebrates the Christianization of the Roman Empire by the Emperor Constantine and his mother Helena in the fourth century. Russian peasants radically changed the meaning and celebration of this holiday adjusting it to their own magic beliefs. The Russian name for Helena is Elena but its folk form is Olëna whose middle part lën represents the Russian word for flax. The feast day of these saints falls on May 21—the time when flax is sown. As a result, the celebration of establishing Christianity turned into a magic ritual intended to bring a good crop of flax. As late as the nineteenth century, a peasant woman sowing flax would do so completely naked in the hopes that flax would take pity on her and provide taller and better plants so she can be dressed (see Sinyavskiy 2001, 239). The cults of religious icons and saints resembled in their functions the cults of the pagan idols in pre-Christian Russia. Icons were treated like living entities; they could hear and understand. To establish immediate contact with them, people prayed only in front of icons, and up to the eighteenth century they prayed only to their own icons and even brought them to church. Although this practice was denounced by the Moscow Church Assembly in 1667, it continued well into the eighteenth century. The icons were “dressed” in beautiful frames called riza (attire); if the owner could afford it rizas were made of silver or gold and adorned with jewels and pearls. People would even attach money to the candles that were placed in front of the icon expecting help in return. However, if the icon did not deliver what was expected from it, it could be punished. Both foreign observers and Russian scholars note numerous occasions of icons being punished (see Uspensky 1982, 114,

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182–83). Quoting from Olearius, Uspensky describes how in 1611 during the conquest of Novgorod by Swedes, when the city was in flames, a Novgorodian prayed to the St. Nicholas icon asking the saint to protect his house. When the house caught fire nonetheless, the man threw the icon into the flames saying, “You did not want to help me, now help yourself” (see Olearius 1967, 256). Even in the nineteenth century peasants continued the tradition of punishing icons. A noblewoman noticed that in the room of her old maid the icon of St. Nicholas was turned with his face to the wall. It turned out that the maid was displeased that praying to it did not produce the desired outcome. (Uspensky 1982, 114). During sexual intercourse Russian peasants covered the icons in the room with a towel (Sinyavskiy 2001, 261). Idolization of icons and other remnants of paganism in Russian Christianity were omnipresent (around 90 percent of the population followed these practices) and long-lived (practiced through the nineteenth century) because peasants, lacking religious education, knew nothing but the ancient pagan tradition. In villages priests had to compete with conjurers and sorcerers; to do so they often adopted their magic rites, spells, and formulas adjusting them to Christian rituals (Nikol’skiy [1912] 1991, 4–5). For these reasons the magic constituents of Russian beliefs that lay in the external form of texts and rituals were of utmost importance and changing them was perceived as blasphemy and mortal sin. Placing the emphasis entirely on form explains why everything written in Latin, including the Gospels and other canonical texts, was rejected, why this language was banned from schools, and why the clergy who knew it were not allowed to use it when communicating with visitors from the West. “Latin was perceived as a paradigmatically heretical language that, by its own nature, distorted the content of Christian teaching. It was assumed to be impossible to speak Latin and remain Orthodox, and vice versa” (Uspensky 1993, 113). When the Greek Metropolitan Paisios of Gaza tried to dispute with Nikon in Latin, the latter exclaimed, “O cunning slave, I judge by your lips that you are not Orthodox for you befoul us in Latin” (113). Latin was the language of free studies and free exploration in the fields of both sciences and religion, while Greek was an auxiliary language with the only function of perceiving the word of God. In the struggle between the two systems, the two ideologies, Latin lost (Klyuchevskiy 1987–90, 3:296). For the same reason, every word or thought that would come from the West, however useful and beneficial it could be, was anathema: if it comes from the evil source (Catholicism or Protestantism), it could be nothing but evil. Hence the resistance to the Western style of education. The Russian clergy chose “to please God in simplicity,” rejecting the “craftiness” of education (296).

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Russian Culture: Orientation toward Expression The fact that the Russian religion was practically devoid of deep theological content and was preoccupied only with the external ritual resulted in developing a culture in which the form, or expression, assumed the role of content. Iu. M. Lotman and B. A. Uspensky distinguish between the two types of culture: a culture predominantly oriented toward expression and a culture predominantly oriented toward content. In the former the connection between expression and content is strictly determined and cannot change; in the latter, this connection is random. In the former, for example, the spelling of a sacred entity is identified with the entity itself: one cannot replace Isus with Iisus since it would be considered as blasphemous an act as switching from the real God to a fake one: for Old Believers Iisus did not stand for Christ but for Anti-Christ. To illustrate the difference between the two cultures, Lotman and Uspensky juxtapose ritual and symbol, respectively. “If the symbol presupposes a usually external—and relatively random—expression of some content, then the ritual, in contrast, is assumed to be able to form the content and to influence it” (Lotman and Uspenskiy 2001, 491). Thus in a culture oriented toward expression each phenomenon (the content) is rigidly tied to its name: if a name is changed, so would the content. In the other type of culture, the name of the phenomenon can be easily changed by agreement without affecting the nature of the phenomenon. For a culture oriented toward expression, those cultures that have different correspondences between name and content are perceived not simply as different cultures but as “wrong” cultures, as anti-cultures (495). The Russian religious culture described above certainly falls under the category of a culture oriented toward expression, 7 and it has produced the same kind of general culture in which the appearance actually “created” the content in people’s minds. Therefore the cultural codes responsible for behavior do not prompt people to improve the content, but instead emphasize improving the appearance. When the Byzantine Patriarch Jeremias II came to Russia in 1588 to collect alms, he was courted by Boris Godunov who intended to establish a Russian Patriarchy in Moscow for which the formal blessing by the Byzantine Patriarch was still necessary. The Greek delegation was treated with expensive gifts, money, and lavish dinners at the Kremlin. The guests also observed the wealth and extravagance of the Russian court. They were struck by the sight of brocade attires adorned with pearls and precious stones, richly decorated icon frames (riza or oklad) made of gold and silver, huge silver dinner vessels in the shape of animals, birds, and trees, and wall mosaics glittering with gold and bright colors (Kostomarov [1873-–76] 1990–92, 1:580). The Russians had not created this abundance to impress the Greek Patriarch; they had done it for themselves. For the Russian consciousness oriented toward expression, the appearance did actually denote the wealth and power of Russia. In fact, it

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represented only the wealth of the Russian tsar because the rest of the country lay in poverty (Krizhanich 1985, 142). Here is another telling example from the mid-nineteenth century. The Russian parochial clergy, not receiving any sustenance from the government except for a small lot of land, experienced great financial hardship. Some money was raised to relieve their condition, but of the 2,500,000 rubles collected, “2,000,000 were expended on the maintenance and embellishment of churches and only 174,000 were devoted to the personal wants of the clergy” (Wallace 1912, 70). Lotman and Uspensky define culture as “non-genetic collective memory expressed in a specific system of prohibitions and precepts (Lotman and Uspenskiy 2001, 487, the authors’ emphasis),” and declare that culture is simultaneously static and dynamic; that is, it has a tendency to change but is also trying to remain the same. For different cultures the ratio of the dynamic and static is different. It seems that for Russian culture “the striving is typical to perpetuate every current (synchronic) condition, and it might be that the possibility of some significant change of the existing rules in general is not permitted” (487). Russia appears to be a very inert culture always striving to preserve the status quo. NOTES 1. Parallels can be drawn with similar conflicts and accompanying events that took place in the West at the time, but their discussion lies beyond this book’s objectives. 2. Ivan III occasionally used the title Tsar (Caesar) but only Ivan IV was formally crowned as Tsar. 3. The fact and the way of Philip’s murder have not been documented but, based on various accounts, they are accepted by the majority of Russian historians. 4. A period of about twenty years between the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries during which the Russian people lived through a great political and economic upheaval of foreign invasions, severe famine, wars, uprisings, death and destruction. A symbolic way to date this period is between the end of the centuries-old Rurik dynasty with the death of Tsar Fyodr Ioanovich in 1598 and the founding of the Romanov dynasty in 1613, which lasted until the revolution of 1917. 5. An internationally recognized university in today’s Kiev bears the name of this academy: National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. 6. This annexation started the thirteen-year Russo-Polish war. 7. Although Lotman and Uspensky never mention specific cultures, a close reading of their article and their examples, mainly taken from Russian history, make it plausible to conclude that it was Russian culture they described as the one oriented toward expression. Since this article was first published in the Soviet Union in 1971, the authors could not openly make this point.

Chapter Three

St. Petersburg Development of Secular Culture

PETER I’S REFORMS: THE WINDOW TO EUROPE? At the beginning of the eighteenth century radical reforms were conducted in Russia by the young and energetic tsar and the first Russian emperor, Peter I. They brought to Russia European education, sciences, and technology. Thousands of European, mostly German, scientists, scholars, teachers, and engineers were enticed to move to Russia to help jump-start education and economy. The reforms were swift and often forced on diehard traditionalists. Even the appearance was mandated: First and foremost, Peter ordered his nobility to shave their beards and replace the traditional Russian kaftans with European clothing—another example of form prevailing over content. The reforms, however, did not extend to ordinary people; they affected only the numerically insignificant but wealthy and powerful upper classes. In 1703 Peter founded St. Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland and moved the Russian capital from Moscow to the new city. The move was not only pragmatic (it provided the country’s new and only sea access to Europe through the Baltic Sea—“the window to Europe” 1 ), but also symbolic, indicating a clean break with the old Muscovite culture. The reforms brought fast progress in all practical matters as well as in developing secular literature and arts, virtually absent in Russian culture until then. However, the old Muscovite customs, traditions, and values stubbornly resisted any changes not only among the entire peasant population but among many educated people as well.

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CHOOSING THE RIGHT PATH: SLAVOPHILES VERSUS WESTERNIZERS In the nineteenth century many educated Russians recognized the population’s theological illiteracy and often referred to Russian religious practices, including worshipping icons, as idolatry. On the other hand, there were powerful movements among the intelligentsia of the time that insisted on the unique religious talent, a kind of instinctual capacity for the boundless love of Christ, that the People (narod) 2 possessed, even without any education. By the mid-nineteenth century two intellectual movements developed among the Russian intelligentsia: Slavophiles (slavyanofily) and Westernizers (zapadniki). Slavophiles were convinced that the Petrine reforms distorted the true and unique Russian path, and that there was nothing Russia could beneficially adopt from Europe; on the contrary, in their opinion, the Russian people had a great advantage over Europeans, which lay in Orthodoxy. Westernizers, on the other hand, believed that Russia should abandon the old Muscovite ways, appropriate not only European technology and education but their values as well, and merge into the family of European peoples. Close to Slavophiles in their ideology were the so-called pochvenniki (“Men of the Soil”)—thinkers who also idealized the old Russian (Muscovite) history, the People, and Russian Orthodoxy. Like Slavophiles, they strongly objected to the Europeanization of Russia and were convinced of Russian moral and spiritual superiority over Europe. They also called for Russian society to return to its Muscovite roots—its soil. The main difference between the two movements was that, unlike the Slavophiles, the Men of the Soil recognized the importance of Peter’s reforms in sciences and technology. One of the most vocal representatives of the Men of the Soil was Dostoevsky. Besides creating his immortal fiction, he was engaged in journalistic activity including publishing A Writer’s Diary during the 1870s in which he ardently voiced his spiritual and political views. In one of the 1876 issues of the Diary he responds to the writer and critic V. G. Avseenko who spoke sarcastically about the intelligentsia’s idealization of the People. Before attacking Avseenko in his response, Dostoevsky quotes two long paragraphs from Avseenko’s article in which the latter contends that only the educated class, which lives in complete isolation from the People, could devise this idealistic notion of them. “Just recall [Avseenko writes] that those of little education who have lived very close to the People have long since met this need for contact practically and materially; they have found no sign of these beautiful Popular ideals and are firmly convinced that the peasant is a dog and a scoundrel” (Dostoevsky, F. 1993, 441). In his response Dostoevsky performs a sort of “sleight of hand” putting words into Avseenko’s mouth he did not utter in his article. Avseenko never mentioned Orthodoxy, but Dostoevsky, devising his own concept of the organic connection between the

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People and Orthodoxy, accuses Avseenko of spiting not only the People but Orthodoxy as well. “Here, in this clever selection of words, the most important conclusion is that the principles of the People (and Orthodoxy with them, because in essence all the principles of the People have emerged entirely from Orthodoxy) have no cultural efficacy and not the slightest educative significance, so that in order to get all these things we had to go off to Europe” (442). The maxim in the parentheses above, “All the principles of the People have emerged entirely from Orthodoxy” has become one of the most quoted phrases from Dostoevsky’s oeuvre. It reflects the view that the People and Orthodoxy are one and the same. According to Slavophiles and Men of the Soil, the Russian People were real Christians while European Christianity had lost its spirituality. Catholicism had turned into a statelike clericalism, while Protestantism was rapidly approaching atheism. Orthodoxy, on the other hand, according to Dostoevsky, “is by no means only clericalism and ritual; it is a living feeling that our People have transformed into one of those basic living forces without which nations cannot survive. In Russian Christianity—real Russian Christianity— there is not even a trace of mysticism; there is only love for humanity and the image of Christ” (631). The People have preserved these “living forces” “over the course of two centuries of slavery, dismal ignorance, and—of late—repulsive corruption, materialism, vile Jewry, 3 and cheap vodka” (597). 4 This raises the questions where the Russian People’s deep religiosity comes from and how exactly they acquired their unique, instinctual connection to Christ? The answer to the first question is found in the very name “Men of the Soil.” Dostoevsky asserts that the intelligentsia, which has split away from the People, simply cannot comprehend that peasants who never studied anything could have such knowledge of their faith. Educated people “will never understand that the peasant’s teacher in ‘matters of his faith’ is the soil itself, the whole Russian land; that these beliefs are born with him, so to say, and are strengthened in his heart as he lives his life” (Dostoevsky 1994, 1024). I would like to suggest that the “soil” with which Men of the Soil, including Dostoevsky, strive to reunite is what we would refer to now as the national culture. The core meaning of their thinking can be summarized as follows: Pre-Petrine Russia was developing organically along its own path, and although “she developed slowly in a political sense, she worked out her own form of unity” (Dostoevsky 1993, 525). The country also understood that it was carrying in itself a jewel that nobody else had: Orthodoxy and the true image of Christ, which had obscured in all other Christian faiths. Moreover, the old Russian culture had come to the conclusion that any rapprochement with Europe could corrupt the Russian mind and the Russian Idea; therefore pre-Petrine Muscovy locked itself away from the outside world, thus inadvertently preventing their “jewel,” the Russian Idea, from

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spreading over the world. According to Dostoevsky that was wrong, but that was not his main concern. Much more important for him was that the Petrine reforms opened the flow of European culture into Russia and broke the nation into two segments: the People, which preserved “the jewel” of real Orthodoxy, and the Europeanized intelligentsia, which split away from their national culture and lost “the Russian Idea.” Only a small part of the educated class (Slavophiles and Men of the Soil) recognized the value of “the jewel” and called for returning to the roots and reuniting with the People. But how, in practical terms, did Russian national culture, the “soil,” endow the Russian People with their unprecedented connection to Christ? First, Dostoevsky offers the rather unconvincing explanation that the peasant learned his Orthodoxy in churches listening “for centuries” (Dostoevsky 1994, 1298) to prayers and hymns. 5 He brushes away the arguments that uneducated peasants did not understand the Church Slavonic of the religious texts used in the liturgy, that they—he paraphrases his opponents—“can’t even say a prayer, they worship a wooden plank [an icon] and mumble some nonsense about Holy Friday and Florus and Laurus” (Dostoevsky 1993, 440). But then he produces a much more plausible explanation of the People’s love for Christ. “The People know Christ, their God, even better than we do, perhaps, although they never attended school. They know because for many centuries they endured much suffering, and always in their grief, from the beginning until this day, they would hear of this God-Christ of theirs” (440, emphasis mine). Identifying with the suffering of Christ, the Russian People adopted, without any schooling, the best aspects of Christianity: “And so it is because the Russian People themselves were oppressed and bore the burden of the cross for so many years that they did not forget their ‘Orthodox cause’ and their suffering brethren; and they ascended in spirit and in heart, totally prepared to help the oppressed in every way possible” (599). Russian people, indeed, can be very kind, generous, and empathetic, but can the reason be not because of their innate spirituality but rather because of the unbearable hardships they have experienced, which have made them capable of relating to other people’s suffering? At the same time, Dostoevsky admits, Russian people can also be “sinful and coarse, . . . they do bear the image of the beast. . . . Brutality and sin exist among our People. . . . The People sin and commit abominations every day” (Dostoevsky 1994, 1300–1301). If they were so intrinsically and deeply religious, how could they combine their love for Christ with sin and brutality? Again, beside the mystical interpretation of the Russian character, Dostoevsky offers a quite rational explanation: “But you liberal people,” addressesing his opponents, “must be fair at least once: just think how much the People have endured over so many centuries (1300)!” Thus the capacity for both kindness and cruelty in the Russian people can be explained by the history of oppression and suffering to which each generation has been subjected from a very early childhood. As an exam-

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ple of the Orthodox spirituality characteristic of the Russian People, Dostoevsky cites Russian contributions of money and volunteers to assist their co-confessionalist Serbs in the Serbo-Turkish war of 1876–78. It can be argued, however, that the People’s enthusiasm for fighting Muslims to defend their Orthodox brethren, although based on religious sentiments, was more akin to contemporary nationalism than to genuine Christianity. Along with oppression and suffering, the Russian collectivist spirit may have also played a significant role in the People’s capacity for empathy and their eagerness to help, a spirit that was cultivated during centuries of living in agricultural communes. In order to survive, Russian peasants could count only on themselves—neither their masters nor the law would give them relief or fair treatment. The effect of the commune on Russian culture is discussed in the next part of this book. While Slavophiles denounced the Petrine Europeanization in its entirety, Men of the Soil were prepared to accept the technical progress that arrived in Russia together with the reforms, insisting, at the same time, on returning to the old Muscovite culture. In his Diary Dostoevsky suggests adopting sciences and crafts from Europe but keeping the People’s values and traditions in their ancient purity. For him these lay first and foremost in Russian spirituality firmly rooted in Orthodoxy. Sciences and trades . . . —we truly must not pass over, and we truly do have no way to escape them, and no reason to try. I also agree fully that we have nowhere to acquire them except from European sources. . . . But spiritual light that illuminates the soul, enlightens the heart, guides the mind, and shows it a path in life . . .—there is no reason for us to take up such enlightenment from West European sources owing to the complete availability (and not absence) of Russian sources (Dostoevsky 1994, 1298).

This arrangement was an utterly utopian proposition. European sciences, crafts, and education could not have traveled to Russia in a vacuum. In order to prevent at least some alien ideas from piggybacking on the technological development and secular education coming from Europe, one would have had to apply the pre-Petrine Muscovite approach of totally barring everything, including sciences and education, from entering Russia. But this, Dostoevsky believed, was wrong (Dostoevsky 1993, 525) because then Russia would remain a backward country isolated from any progress. Yet, Slavophiles and Men of the Soil turned out to be better “social psychologists” than Westernizers. They understood that simply transplanting foreign culture onto Russian soil was counterproductive. A. D. Gradovsky, a professor at St. Petersburg University, argued with Dostoevsky that creating an exemplary society based only on Russian spirituality without adopting European social institutions is but a dream. “People’s social betterment,” he wrote, “depends in such a large measure on the betterment of social institu-

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tions that develop, if not their Christian, then their civic virtues (Gradovskiy 1880. Quoted in Dostoevsky 1994, 1313. Gradovskiy’s emphasis)” to which Dostoevsky responded that “civil perfection” could not exist without moral perfection. There are no social, civic ideals as such, ones that are not linked organically with moral ideals but exist independently. . . . There are no such ideals that, at last, can be taken from outside and transplanted successfully into the spot of your choosing in the form of distinct “institutions”; such ideals, I say, do not exist, never did exist, and cannot exist (1316–17)! “Civic ideals are always directly and organically linked with moral ideals; what is most important, the former are always derived exclusively from the latter” (1318).

He accuses Westernizers of “seeking salvation in external things, . . . mechanically importing some sort of ‘institution’ from Europe,” and believing that by doing so “all will be saved” (1319). These European forms, Dostoevsky asserts, “are alien to our People and not suited to their will” (1319). This conviction that a mechanical transfer of one culture onto a different one would always work at cross-purposes has proved to be accurate. It has been confirmed by the failure of Russia’s attempts to build a free, democratic society—first of a socialist ilk and, recently, a capitalist one. One should also recall numerous instances when great powers tried to modify cultures of other countries in accordance with their own ideals and values. In the end, all these attempts have come to naught. Both Slavophiles and Westernizers devised impossible paths for Russia: the former dreamt about bringing back the past, rejecting cultural and ideational Europeanization; the latter wanted to Europeanize Russia, completely ignoring the past. There was one notion, however, they agreed upon. They readily admitted that the educated class lived in complete isolation from the People. In dealing with this problem the two movements clashed in the ideological battles of the time. Slavophiles contended that the Europeanization of the intelligentsia had resulted in their loss of the true Orthodox faith (they made an exception for themselves, of course) and ultimately would lead Russia along the ruinous path toward atheism, socialism, and revolution. Dostoevsky most vividly expressed these views in his novel The Possessed. In a way he was prophetically right, which the revolution of 1917 convincingly confirmed, although other reasons played a more important role in the advent of this calamity than the intelligentsia’s split from the People. On the other hand, some Westernizers believed that the intelligentsia, having no knowledge of the People, naively put them on a pedestal. In fact, in their opinion, the People were ignorant and morally corrupt, especially in their enthusiasm for drinking. Thieving and lying were also often mentioned

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among common inadequacies of the People. Instead of idealizing them, Westernizers demanded that good education should be provided along with social and political institutions of the European type. In their own way, they were also right in mocking and denouncing the naiveté of Slavophiles who dreamt of returning the country to the old Muscovite culture. However thin the social layer affected by it was, the Petrine revolution could not be undone; some of the European values had already “leaked” into Russian society and could not be summarily shed. Yet, both groups, I believe, were also mistaken in one and the same respect. The split between the educated class and the People was not as absolute as they believed it was—not on a deeper level of consciousness. Despite the European education that the intelligentsia has had the opportunity to acquire since the Petrine reforms, such national tendencies, developed in old Muscovy, as authoritarianism and strict hierarchism, respect for the strong hand, and emphasis on appearance over essence as well as widespread corruption, cheating, and lying have never died—neither in the People nor in the educated class. They are still pretty much alive today. NOTES 1. This metaphor was conceived in 1739 by Francesco Algarotti and made famous by Alexander Pushkin who used it in his poem “The Bronze Horseman,” 1833. 2. In a broad sense the Russian word narod means the people of a nation (the American people, the Russian people), but in a narrower sense, especially in the nineteenth-century context, it refers to Russian peasants. In the twentieth century, the word expanded its semantics to blue-collar workers, acquiring the meaning “the working class” in general. When using “people” in the narrow sense of narod I capitalize it. 3. Dostoevsky uses the word zhidovstvo, which can be literally translated as “kikeness.” The fact that this word is contiguous to sivukha (bad vodka) may be explained by the writer’s claim that Jews, besides committing other malicious deeds against the Russian population, were ruining the nation with alcohol. (One of few occupations Jews were allowed to pursue was producing alcohol and being innkeepers. One should note that Russians have always had a weakness for drinking—long before and long after Jews were involved in this occupation.) 4. “Two centuries” refers to the formal enserfment of peasants in Russia in the seventeenth century. “Of late” is about the changes in peasant life that occurred after the abolition of serfdom in 1861. The level of moral corruption among them rose sharply due to lack of traditional constraints that could replace the power and control of the landlord. More about this in part 2. 5. Was Dostoevsky a follower of Lamarckism and a precursor of Lysenkoism in his notion of Russian peasants learning their Christianity “for centuries,” i.e., inheriting acquired knowledge?

Chapter Four

Religion in Russia Today

THE CHURCH AND THE STATE For seventy years after the 1917 revolution, the Russian people lived in a country of official atheism. Formally, religion was not banned but it was strongly discouraged by the government while atheism was promoted by official propaganda from early childhood on. Membership in the Communist Party automatically excluded any religious practice from the life of a communist, unless he or she were prepared to part with their party card and all the privileges that came with it. Toward the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Party counted about twenty million members, which was almost 10 percent of the population. But even non-members who wanted to have a meaningful job and a successful career could not openly practice religion. In any case, after several generations, very few Soviets retained any connection to the church; and for most, the separation was voluntary. The majority of churchgoers were old babushkas (grandmas) praying in the few remaining churches. The 1960s and beyond witnessed a slight growth of church and synagogue attendance among young people in large cities, mostly in Moscow and Leningrad. This phenomenon did not reflect a rising religiosity but was rather an expression of the growing protest against the government. Popularity of religious services increased alongside expanding dissident sentiments in general and, in particular, among young Soviet Jews who were in opposition to the surge of official anti-Semitism after the Six-Day War in 1967. Undoubtedly, as always, there were true believers among those young people but they were few and far between. With the advent of perestroika in the late 1980s, official antireligious pressure was lifted from the Soviet population; people became free to choose whether they wanted to confess a religion 1 or remain outside of it. Suddenly 31

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the number of those who identified themselves with Orthodoxy started to grow very rapidly. Even those who recently were convinced communists and denounced religion, including former functionaries in the Soviet government, began showing up in churches, especially on main church holidays and especially if those particular services were broadcasted by TV. The official Orthodox Church has become a very powerful and very conservative (not to say reactionary) institution having merged with the government into a harmonious, mutually beneficial symbiosis. The church has supported all of the government’s actions and policies; the government, in turn, has been generously returning to the church sweet morsels of very expensive property confiscated after the revolution. The latest “victim” of such a deal became St. Isaac’s Cathedral—one of the main museums in St. Petersburg. The government has also done nothing to curtail the church’s ideological interference into arts and other areas of public life, although in Russia, as in the West, the church is formally separated from the state. Prominent members of the government, including the Russian presidents Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin (both communists in their Soviet past) have demonstrated this tender relationship by attending major liturgies and church events widely broadcasted by the media. According to many observers in Russia and abroad, the Russian Orthodox Church pays very little attention to the spiritual needs of its flock but is very intimately involved in politics and ideology of the country. “In its struggle for influence in the Russian state, for domination in ideology, and its ‘games’ in foreign politics, the church has forgotten about people” (Zorkaya 2009, 83). Some authors even believe that the Russian Church can be considered a political party, or corporation, or a governmental institution (80–81). According to the contemporary thinker and culturologist Mikhail Epstein, the church today substitutes spirituality with its immediate interests. In a sarcastic manner he accurately portrays a situation when the church energetically participates in matters that have nothing to do with spirituality and religion. The very shepherd who is supposed to prepare souls for the Last Judgment walks along the cars of a special commercial train swinging a censer and consecrating seats on which the bosses of Moscow businesses will soon plant themselves. Or he himself never fails to appear at presentations of new commodity exchanges, joint-stock companies, political associations, literary journals, and film festivals. A priest is indispensable at a convention of veterans or a meeting of a garden cooperative, establishment of a charity fund or a Cossack gathering, the Supreme Council congress or a Parent-Teacher Association meeting (Epshtein 2005a, 379–80).

Epstein, himself a believer, contends that these activities are worse than atheism. He contemplates on the epoch of the Antichrist that did not come with the Soviet regime, as many had believed. In his opinion, what is going

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on in Russia now is more akin to it, for the Antichrist, before the end of the world, would not directly fight with God, as Lenin and Stalin did, but would pretend being God and speak in God’s name. He finds an appropriate analogy in the second letter of Paul to the Thessalonians in the paragraph about the Second Coming: “he [Antichrist] takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thess 2:4)—a rather strong condemnation of the today’s Russian Church (380). The church penetrates more and more into education and governmental institutions. It is pushing now to add a mandatory course on Orthodoxy to the school program, which would be tantamount to re-introducing Zakon Bozhiy (Our Lord’s Law) taught before the Revolution—a course in Orthodox doctrine and liturgy, presenting them as religious instruction, rather than as history or culture, and ignoring other major faiths. A church should, of course, take care of religious education but on its own soil, as it were, without forcing it into secular state schools where many students may belong to other denominations or to none at all. But the church cares more about power and influence than religious education. In contemporary Russia, as in seventeenth-century Moscow, theologians still debate as to whether theological education is necessary or strong faith is all believers need to live a righteous life. Many among the Russian clergy still call for the “simplicity in Christ” in contrast to the “craftiness in knowledge” (Kuraev 2007). Another example of blatant church interference in state affairs is launching navy ships and submarines that are now consecrated not only by breaking the traditional bottle of champagne but also with an Orthodox service. Even space rockets and ballistic missiles are consecrated with a prayer before the start (Zachem 2015). Recently, a relic of St. Seraphim of Sarov was flown to the International Space Station and, according to the Russian cosmonaut Sergei Ryzhikov, by orbiting the Earth it consecrated the station itself and the entire planet. On April 12 2 it was returned to the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of Our Lord in Star City (Zvezdnyy gorodok)—the center for cosmonaut training (Chastitsa moshchey 2017). Of course, without the full support of the government such activities would be impossible. In 2007 ten members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, including Zhores Alferov, the winner of the Nobel Prize in physics in 2000, published an open letter to President Putin, expressing their concern about aggressive attempts by the Russian Orthodox Church to spread Orthodoxy into social life, education, and scholarship (Aleksandrov 2007). Since then the interference of the Church into secular matters has only increased. The Church and the People The religious situation among ordinary Russians is no less odd. Since the beginning of perestroika, people, when polled, have responded in ever great-

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er numbers that they consider themselves Orthodox. In 1989 only 17 percent of the polled responded that they were believers and confessed Orthodoxy while 75 percent responded that they did not consider themselves believers. In 2013 these numbers were 68 percent and 19 percent, respectively (Rossiyane o religii 2013). A strange phenomenon indeed: people who lived without religion or even denounced it suddenly claim a strong affiliation with it. With no religious education and no tradition, they turned in no time from complete indifference toward faith to declaring themselves Orthodox believers. Their religiosity, however, manifests itself in a strange way. They would enthusiastically participate, en masse, in some events that could be referred to as quasi- or even pseudo-religious. For example, it has become very popular to celebrate Epiphany and the Baptism of Christ 3 by bathing in an opening in the ice cut out in the shape of a cross, called Iordan’ (Jordan). According to some hierarchs of the Russian Church this is a new tradition (Ne vytashchit’ iz prorubi 2017); before the revolution the purpose of the religious procession to the Iordan’ was to sanctify the water and then take it home but not to bathe in it. Many priests complain that this new tradition seems more like a sport than a religious ceremony. Besides, most of the people who come to brave the ice-cold water in the Iordan’ never go to the church service celebrating this holiday. Here is how one journalist describes this fashionable ritual: Today bathing in an ice hole has become a fun winter activity—a legitimate ritual with a fashionable patriotic slant: like, here we are, beating those shivering Europeans and other weaklings. Priests complain that people come to these baptisteries not for religious purposes but to get an adrenaline rush, experience the sensation of an extreme sport, and demonstrate, following significant alcohol consumption, that they have no problem diving into cold water, especially on the holiday of Baptism (Ne vytashchit’ iz prorubi 2017).

Another quasi-religious event that gathers hundreds of thousands of believers is worshipping holy items and relics brought to Russia for a temporary observation and veneration. In 2011 a girdle allegedly belonging to the Virgin Mary during her earthly life was brought to Russia from Vatopedi Monastery in Greece. People formed a line stretching for hundreds of meters and waited for hours before reaching the relic placed at the cities’ main cathedrals. Limos drove up carrying VIPs who enjoyed a separate entrance without spending hours in line. In forty days, it traveled to fourteen Russian cities and was venerated by over three million people including then Prime Minister Putin. The Russian media reported miraculous cures that happened to the believers who venerated the girdle. A man with cancer in the final stage got rid of it after kissing the reliquary; a blind woman regained her vision; and a woman who had not been able to conceive gave birth to quadruplets.

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In the summer 2017 a part of St. Nicholas’s relics (a left rib close to the heart and therefore especially valuable, according to some) arrived in Moscow from the Italian city of Bari. The same situation as with the Virgin’s girdle recurred: lines of hundreds of meters (kilometers, according to some reports) and hundreds of thousands (or millions) of people waiting for hours to pass by and kiss the reliquary placed in the Christ the Savior Cathedral. This time, though, the organizers promised there would be no special entrance for VIPs. (One wonders how many VIPs came to venerate the relic this time.) Putin did come again, but, naturally, he did not have to wait in line and fortify himself with buckwheat kasha and a hot dog sold in special tents for a dollar and a half. A similarity with the veneration of Lenin’s “relics” during the Soviet times is undeniable: long lines and hours of waiting to pass by in a moving procession. Then, like now, dignitaries did not have to wait. There is a difference, however: the atheist Soviet government did not promise immediate miracles produced by Lenin’s corpse, although they did promise to build Communism on the foundation of his teachings—another miracle that has never come true. Today, the national veneration of relics is part of the official propaganda. Channel One, the state TV channel, reported with great admiration and pride that even a month after the relic’s arrival in Moscow, people’s enthusiasm did not peter out. People were coming not only from all around Russia but also from Ukraine and Belarus. They were happy to stand in line for six, eight, or even ten hours. More than a million people visited the cathedral to venerate the relic. Putin is visibly present in these and other important religious events. Some educated Russians, though, see these mass events as barefaced propaganda on the part of the government and idolatry on the part of the believers. “This line to the miracle-working relics demonstrates very clearly that there is no Orthodoxy (and Christianity in general) in Russia at all, and there is only overt paganism characteristic of ignorant savages of remote ancient times. And there is also active support of such savages by the government and the governmental media because they [“the savages”] represent the most pliable strata, which can be exploited for any purposes” (Tatarnikov 2017). Such rituals and public events combine in themselves a festive show and the magic function that has always been an important constituent of Russian Orthodoxy. At the same time those millions of enthusiastic believers rarely pray and appear in church to maintain their relationship to God. While identification with Orthodoxy has been continuously growing among Russians, church attendance and regular prayer at home has been declining. The Russian sociologist Natalya Zorkaya published interesting statistics reflecting the peculiarity of Russian religiosity. In 2009, only 42 percent of those who identified themselves as Orthodox gave an affirmative answer to the statement: “I know that God exists and have no doubts about that.” Twenty-five

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percent “sometimes have doubts about the existence of God; 13 percent “sometimes do not even believe in God;” 8 percent “do not believe in God but believe in some higher force;” and 6 percent “do not know if God exists and doubt that God’s existence can be established” (Zorkaya 2009, 72). I would like to underline that all these respondents call themselves Orthodox Christians. 43 percent of the self-identified Orthodox Russians do not have any religious books in their household and only 26 percent have The New Testament (74). In a 1998 poll only 21 percent of Orthodox believers responded that they pray every day; 29 percent never pray; 19 percent do from several times a year to less frequently than once a year. 71 percent have never gone to confession and only 2 percent have done that approximately once a month. Similar statistics exist for Communion. In 2009, only 3 percent of Russian Orthodox believers received Communion at least once a month, and only 10 percent at least once or twice a year (most likely on the main religious holidays), 19 percent less frequently than once a year, and 62 percent had never done it. Zorkaya concludes, “If one follows the traditional notion of belonging to the Orthodox Church, when those who receive Communion less frequently than once a year are considered ‘fallen from the church,’ then 81 percent of those who call themselves Orthodox exist outside the church” (75). While in the United States 57 percent of believers go to church at least once a month, in Russia this figure is 20 percent (77). A Not-Religious Religion Thus we face a paradox: While most Russians consider themselves Orthodox Christians, “neither church nor religion per se plays a significant role in everyday life of the vast majority of them” (80). And from another source: “For the vast majority, the declared belonging to Orthodoxy does not entail either regular observation of basic rituals (prayer, communion, confession) or visiting, more or less frequently, church services, or practical participation in the life of the church community, or any practical activity of bringing Christian ideals into everyday life” (Dubin 2004, 40). There could be only one paradoxical conclusion: religion plays a role different from a religious function. This role is a unifying pseudo-religion—nationalism. After the collapse of the Soviet Union people lost their Soviet identity, some of whose aspects they were proud of. After all, the USSR was a superpower, a space exploration pioneer, and “even in the area of the ballet it was ahead of the entire planet.” 4 This identity has disappeared and been replaced by nationalism— the pride of simply being Russian. Orthodoxy turned out to be an effective means of cementing the nation together, alas without boosting people’s spirituality. As in the old Russia, external attributes, such as religious symbols and the magic properties of icons and relics, are very important—each ideological movement has to have its own symbols and banners. However, unlike

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the peasants of the past, people now ignore the labor of prayer and the communion with God through the church—an attitude that theologians would consider one of the mortal sins—sloth, or acedia. Many “believers” know much less about Christianity than even uneducated peasants knew in the nineteenth century. Developing the nationalist thread in his article, the sociologist Boris Dubin writes, “The self-denotation ‘Orthodox’ . . . adopts more and more the semantics of the word ‘Russian,’ merging, first of all, with the complex of ideas and symbols of Russian exceptionality (‘the Russian myth’) and, second of all, with the xenophobic principles against ethnic Others, the West, and America, which are shared today by the relative majority of the society, including those who are not and have never been believers” (Dubin 2004, 41). Zorkaya, too, points at the connection between the growth of Orthodox identification among different groups of the population, including the young, and “the increased sensitivity toward questions of Russian national identity manifested in the growth of nationalist . . . and xenophobic sentiments, including the growth of negativism toward the West and former Soviet republics, especially those that are striving for rapprochement with Europe” (Zorkaya 2009, 71). 5 Thus, on the one hand, contemporary Orthodoxy in Russia has inherited a tendency toward superstition and magic, which survived the atheist period of Russian history because they existed in mass culture and did not require any organized institutions or rituals; on the other hand, and most importantly, it has become for many, especially for the young, the banner of nationalism and xenophobia. Or as Epstein puts it, “Orthodoxy turns out to be simply the most battle-worthy form of patriotism, from time immemorial defending holy Russia from Jewish, Catholic, Masonic, and other foreign scum” (Epshtein 2005a, 385). 6 NOTES 1. Discussion of religions other than Russian Orthodoxy lies beyond the scope of this book. 2. Cosmonautics Day, celebrated in Russia to commemorate the anniversary of the first man, Yuri Gagarin, orbiting Earth in outer space on April 12, 1961. 3. On January 19 (January 6 according to Julian calendar). 4. From a song by Aleksandr Galich. 5. Undoubtedly, Zorkaya hints at Ukraine—a former Soviet republic leaning toward Europe. 6. The last part of this sentence is free indirect speech that reflects the views of Orthodox patriots rather than Epstein’s own.

Chapter Five

A Culture Oriented toward Expression The Legacy

BEAUTY VERSUS DOGMA Prioritizing appearance in Russian culture led to developing both positive and negative phenomena. Even under the most dire conditions people value beauty. From the very beginning of Christian Russia, love for beauty, not dogma, was adopted from Byzantium and further developed for centuries to come. In his magnum opus on Russian culture, The Icon and the Axe, James Billington emphasizes this imbalance in Russian religion between dogma and beauty: . . . the complex philosophic traditions and literary conventions of Byzantium (let alone the classical and Hellenic foundations of Byzantine culture) were never properly assimilated [by Russia] . . . Concrete beauty rather than abstract ideas conveyed the essence of the Christian message to the early Russians . . . Man’s function was not to analyze that which has been resolved or to explain that which is mysterious, but lovingly and humbly to embellish the inherited forms of praise and worship. . . . In all early Russian writings about a Christian prince ‘the mention of physical beauty is never lacking. Together with mercy and almsgiving, this is the only constant feature of an ideal prince’ [quoting Fedotov 1960]. The early Russians were drawn to Christianity by the aesthetic appeal of its liturgy, not the rational shape of its theology (Billington 1970, 6, 7, 9).

For Russians, beautifying everyday existence rather than engaging in hard work and accumulating wealth has been the way to improve the quality of life. Religious beauty—beauty of icons and churches—has existed side by 39

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side with folk art such as the famous Russian lacquer boxes, which originated from icon painting. Produced in four villages in Central Russia, they are hand painted with remarkable attention to detail and striking colors. Russian silver is unparalleled in its diversity of shapes and decorative techniques, such as niello, engraving, and enameling, but also, and especially so, in its emphasis on the aesthetic aspect of the item’s appearance. One can say that the function of these silver items was secondary to their beauty. We are not talking here about Fabergé or other famous silversmith firms such as Ovchinnikov, Khlebnikov or Sazikov. Thousands of silversmiths 1 created richly decorated spoons, beakers, salt cellars, and cigarette cases for middle-class Russians. Within the nineteenth century, Russian plastic arts made a tremendous leap from exclusively religious paintings 2 to all known art genres, catching up with and sometimes even surpassing the arts of Western Europe. One can observe a similar leap in all other kinds of arts that took place in the nineteenth century, especially in music and literature. On the other hand, the centuries-long tradition of the orientation toward expression that Orthodoxy has cultivated in people is responsible for neglecting the content in all aspects of life. In today’s Russia, prestige is won by the latest model of the iPhone, an expensive watch or brand-name clothing. “Ponty,” a slang word that roughly means pretending to be richer and “cooler” than one actually is, embodies this phenomenon. People live in the ponty world in which the sense of reality is limited to appearance. When foreign visitors from the West arrive in Russia and meet their hosts or friends, they are surreptitiously examined for what watch and phone they have and what clothes they wear. They would still be dear guests even if they show up in cheap and uninteresting clothing and have an old fold-up phone—Russians are hospitable people—but if they glitter with a Rolex watch or swing a Louis Vuitton handbag, the level of respect will shoot up. A Russian saying goes, “They meet you according to your clothes; they see you off according to your intellect.” The first part is true indeed; the second part is more complex: your intellect needs to be congenial to the views and values of your Russian interlocutors to be recognized as worthy of love and respect. Russian pride suffers when the neighbor looks and lives better, be it the next-door neighbor or a foreign country, particularly the United States or Western Europe—the countries that “count.” There can be several ways to improve one’s standing vis-à-vis one’s neighbor. The practices of working hard, saving, and developing the economy on a personal or national level in order to outperform the neighbor have never taken root in Russia while creating ponty (appearance) is relatively easy to achieve and widespread. To a large degree, the proverbial beauty of Russian women is the product of skillful work with makeup and wardrobe selection (the sexier, the better). If enhancing the appearance is insufficient in the race for success, then sabotaging a successful neighbor is still easier than surpassing him or her through

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hard work. This approach has thus been quite popular at least in domestic competition 3 —after all, for Russia it is not easy to undermine the economies of Germany or the United States. The focus on appearance is obvious in the following example, which also demonstrates the permanent Russian desire to enhance their self-image vis-àvis the West. The Russian Internet news site Gazeta.ru published impressions of a Russian woman who has lived in Denmark for five years because of her husband’s job (Lukashenko 2016). Her article, full of negative stereotypes about Danish life, is an example of projecting the values of one’s own culture on foreigners. One of the main aspects of the Danish culture that annoys the author is the appearance of Danish women. According to her, they are all dressed in old, ugly, dark, and shapeless clothes; their hairdo is usually reduced to a little scruffy bundle of hair; and they never wear makeup or perfume. The conclusion is, they do not take care of their looks and therefore of themselves. The appearance creates the content. Nor, according to her, do they take a good care of their children and children’s health, allowing them to run around with snotty noses instead of taking them to the doctor, dressing them too lightly for the weather, sometimes even taking them outside barefoot. The latter, she argues, can not only cause a severe cold but also expose the poor children to zillions of bacteria. The article was published on October 16, 2016. Within four days there were 703 comments—an unusually high number in general and for such a seemingly unimportant topic in particular. Most comments were from people who have lived or visited Denmark or other North European countries and many agreed with the author. The reason for this mass negative consensus is simple: belonging to a collectivist culture, Russians are always happy to create and enjoy the myth of their nation’s superiority over foreign cultures, especially those of Western Europe and the United States. What is particularly pertinent here is that sheer appearance and the Russian notion of its propriety or impropriety serve as the basis for turning it into meaningful content followed by generalization and stereotyping. Based only on the “sloppy” look, many commenters assert, without offering any evidence, that Danish/European women wear not just ugly but dirty clothes and neglect brushing their teeth and taking a shower—a clear sign of Europe’s decline. There were few sober voices noting that judging foreigners by the standards of one’s own culture is counterproductive. And some remarked that in Denmark, despite “neglecting” children, child mortality is much lower than in Russia and life expectancy, much higher. 4 The following excerpts from a long comment by a Finn sum up these sensible opinions very well. His life was connected with Russia for sixteen years, and he lived and worked there and still visits St. Petersburg quite often.

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Chapter 5 I did not like everything there [in Russia] but as a guest it did not cross my mind to criticize the country, which I just visited. After all, living there was my own choice. . . . In Scandinavia practicality is more important. For example, it is comfortable to go shopping in comfortable shoes rather than in sixinch-high heels, and ladies believe that it is not worth spending half an hour applying makeup for a short visit to a store. . . . What is wrong if children walk barefoot or sit on the grass. To catch a cold is not as easy as they usually think in Russia. . . . It has been proven that excessively strict hygiene makes it easier for children to catch infectious diseases. [Then he quotes from the original article:] “Children are allowed everything: they can drink from a puddle, wallow in mud, pour it on their heads, run around in socks or barefoot, take off clothes even in the winter or run around completely naked.” Whatever [the author says], but on average they live to eighty without problem and do not get any dangerous illnesses from all that (Lukashenko 2016).

Expression is not limited to visual appearance in general and to superficial observation of foreign cultures in particular. Unfortunately, the cultural orientation toward expression that is rooted in Orthodoxy affects Russian life far beyond anti-Western mythology and flattering self-deception. In Stalin’s time the traditional conflation of the sign denoting some content with the content itself could cost someone his or her life. For example, an editor of a newspaper could be sentenced to twenty-five years of hard labor in the Gulag 5 for missing an inadvertent mistake in Stalin’s name. The crime would qualify as sabotage. A similar sentence could be handed to a cleaning lady who accidentally broke an alabaster bust of Stalin. Only in this case she would be tried and sentenced for terrorism. These incidents were treated as vicious attacks against the sacred person himself—the Great Leader and Genius of All Peoples. Verbal expression, especially literature, has a tremendous power within Russian culture precisely because the alternate realities it produces are perceived as authentic content—as life itself. The Russian writer Vladimir Makanin likened literature to a physical environment and suggested that Russians live in it by literary plots (see Kustanovich 2007). Therefore Russian rulers have been so vigilant about the word, be it literature or journalism, an oral communication or a song, an opposition meeting or a theater play, and therefore censorship has been so strict. Under Stalin poets and writers perished in much greater numbers than artists working with other media. A folk wisdom regarding appearance comes to mind: “One should not carry trash out of the house.” Hide it, do not let anyone see it, and everything will look (and be) perfect. In every culture people often try to hide embarrassing things from the public, and perhaps in every culture there exist similar wisdoms. In English, for example, there is the idiom “to sweep under the rug.” The difference is that in Russia hiding trash may become a matter of national concern rather than of individual vanity. One can be held responsible for

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exhibiting “national trash” in front of the West and thus humiliating the entire country before the eyes of the enemy. Often such perpetrators of the national shaming turn out to be prominent writers. Strongly believing in the power of verbal expression, the government has quashed domestic criticism to prevent the exhibition of Russian shortcomings to the outside world. Keep the Trash inside the House of Literature Some interesting literary facts in the post-Stalin Soviet Union can be explained by approaching them from this angle. Boris Pasternak was hounded and possibly driven to his death 6 after he won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1958. Considering the ideological slant among the Nobel Committee for Literature in selecting the winners, the prize was awarded mostly for his novel Doctor Zhivago. Although Pasternak was more famous as a poet and as such had been nominated for the Nobel Prize several times previously, he received it only after Doctor Zhivago was published in Italy and became famous in the West as an anti-Soviet work. Pasternak had submitted the novel to Soviet literary magazines and publishing houses in 1956 and had realistic hopes for its publication since it was the peak of the Thaw period. True, it was rejected for ideological reasons, but the author was not persecuted or had any problems with the government. In 1957, Pasternak openly passed the manuscript to Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, an Italian publisher and communist, for publication abroad. Pressure was put on Pasternak to withdraw the manuscript, which he formally did, but he secretly let Feltrinelli know that he wanted him to go ahead with the publication. The novel was published in Italian that same year and translated into several languages. At home Pasternak was criticized, but there still was no large-scale public campaign against him. Only when he was awarded the Nobel Prize and the novel became widely known and celebrated in the West did the hounding begin. He was expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers, which meant being expelled from the literary profession; he had to decline the prize and write a humiliating open letter to the Soviet government begging not to be exiled from the country; and within a year and a half, this man who was healthy, fit, and energetic prior to the so-called Pasternak affair was dead. His crime: in the government’s eyes he allowed the trash being taken out of the house. The novel covers the time span from 1903 to 1929, which includes the two Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917. Yet the book is not political and even less anti-Soviet. It is a philosophical work in which life in general and Russian history in particular are explored through the lens of Christianity. The book is symbolist in its literary method and thus not easily subject to analysis and interpretation. However, for political reasons it was interpreted as antirevolutionary in the West. For the Russian mind, how it appeared on enemy

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territory was much more important than its actual meaning, and the author paid the price. Twenty years later, when the Thaw had long been gone, at the peak of the Brezhnev stagnation period characterized by a much stricter censorship, another Soviet writer, Yuri Trifonov, published several novellas, which dealt with moral and political issues. Two of them were particularly conspicuous for their political context. The first, The House on the Embankment, describes the atmosphere of fear, arrests, and moral compromise in the Soviet Union under Stalin. It was published in 1976 when the Solzhenitsyn-type anti-Stalin revelations were completely out of favor. The other one, The Old Man (1979), portrays abuses and atrocities perpetrated by the Bolsheviks during the Russian revolution and civil war of 1917-1920 much more directly than the symbolist Doctor Zhivago. Both works were published, I believe, because, unlike Pasternak, Trifonov was known in the West primarily to only a small circle of scholars and critics working in the field of Russian literature. Hence his works did not make as big a splash abroad as Doctor Zhivago had done. In other words, the trash remained inside. For that and other domestic reasons, whose discussion is beyond the scope of this book, these works were given the green light. A similar juxtaposition can be drawn between Vasily Aksyonov and the Strugatsky brothers, Arkady and Boris. Around 1963, both Aksyonov and the Strugatskys switched from their early, politically harmless, genres to social satire written in the so-called Aesopian language—a technique that allows the author to expose negative aspects of Russian society by placing them in a nonexistent environment. It can be a different planet or an apartment house in which a fantastic steel bird 7 terrorizes the tenants—products of sheer fantasy but with recognizable features of the Soviet reality. All of the Strugatskys’ works were published in the Soviet Union although a couple of them only in remote Siberian literary magazines. Aksyonov, on the other hand, could not find a Soviet publisher for the five plays, two novellas, several short stories, and two large novels that he wrote between 1966 and 1980, the year of his emigration/exile to the United States. Why? In the early 1960s, Aksyonov was one of the most brilliant and popular representatives of the liberal new wave in Russian literature, and as such he was the darling of the Western media interested in Soviet affairs. His works were published in the West and he himself was invited and, most importantly, allowed to travel abroad to give readings and lectures on the literary situation in his country. Naturally, the government watched very closely what he and other young authors of the new wave wrote and said—especially abroad. When they crossed the red line expressing, for example, their anxiety about the possible reversal of deStalinization in the country, the inevitable Party wrath fell on them. On March 8, 1963, during a meeting in the Kremlin between the Soviet leaders and the “creative intelligentsia” (writers, artists, filmmakers, and other prom-

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inent figures in the arts), Aksyonov, along with the poets Andrei Voznesensky and Evgeny Evtushenko, was personally and viciously attacked by Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev who, at the time, was the absolute authority in the arts and in all other matters as well. Aksyonov’s popularity in the West turned out to be a precarious blessing. The Strugatskys, on the other hand, were read in the West only by the limited audience of science fiction lovers to whom the allegorical meaning of their satire was most likely lost. Like Pasternak, Aksyonov effectively delivered some negative views of the Soviet Union to the West; for a culture oriented toward expression that was the ultimate betrayal. NOTES 1. A reference book on Russian silver marks lists over 5,000 silversmiths who had registered marks. Most of them worked in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and had workshops with a number of skilled workers who did not have their own marks (Ivanov 2002). 2. Some secular painting appeared in the eighteenth century but only in the nineteenth century did all arts in Russia blossom in full strength. 3. An excellent example of this approach to competition is Andrei Konchalovsky’s movie Kurochka Ryaba (1994). 4. In 2015 the rate of under-five mortality in Denmark was 4 per 1000; in Russia 10. See http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.DYN.MORT. In 2015 life expectancy for both sexes in Denmark was 80.6, in Russia, 70.5 with 64.7 for men. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_ of_countries_by_life_expectancy#List_by_the_World_Health_Organization_.282015.29 5. The Main Administration of the Stalin labor camps. Usually understood as simply the system of these camps. Cf. Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago. 6. 30 May 1960. 7. The origin of the alias Stalin is the Russian word “stal’” meaning “steel.”

II

Russian Collectivism and the Work Ethic

The sense of unity in the nation, in the commune, and in the family is the foundation of Russian society. … [The Russian] loves the authoritarianism of a father, of a starosta [elder], of the tsar, and of his master … He does not want to be governed by rigid laws or lifeless constitutions. He loves human arbitrariness. —August von Haxthausen (1843) The Russian people lived only by the communal life; it understands its rights and responsibilities only in relation to the commune. Outside it, it does not recognize responsibilities and sees only violence. —Alexander Herzen (1850)

Collectivism, authoritarianism, poor geographic conditions, and lack of religious exhortation prevented developing habits of continuous and disciplined hard work among Russians. Their life provided few chances for accumulating significant wealth and also choked individual initiative and individual responsibility for one’s well-being. It also formed a consciousness prone to striving for immediate gratification. Working under permanent stress led to seeking easy and comfortable work, thus minimizing quantity and quality of the product of labor. Also, mutual trust and interdependency among the members of the village commune and lack of such trust in relation to the authorities and the law

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combined with seeing outsiders as fair game for any unlawful actions have fostered a very strong notion of the division between us and them—insiders and outsiders—that in turn engendered such prominent features of the Russian culture as nationalism, nepotism, favoritism, and legal nihilism. On the other hand, life in the commune produced the custom of deep loyalty and devotion among family members and close friends. Such relationships caused people to provide mutual help and support to each other, but they also were, and still are, instrumental in covering up each other’s immoral acts and ridding themselves of feeling shame or guilt in this regard. The national tendencies still follow the patterns that have been acquired over the past six centuries. The principle “us versus them” governs all social and political relations on all levels: People love their family and friends but envy the prosperous neighbor, often trying to undermine him to bring him down to their level: “You are fine but I am quite the contrary, so let you be the same as me. To equalize” (Uspenskiy 1988, 52). They are proud of the motherland and hate the West; strong xenophobia and homophobia (another Other) reign, even among the most educated people. Today, Russians are very proud to see the West worrying about Putin’s international politics. The motto “Crimea is ours!” has become the finger they happily show to the West, especially the United States. They refer to it as “standing up from the knees” onto which, they believe, the deceitful and treacherous West forced them in the 1990s. Sheer force is respected more than kindness. The wise Herzen wrote, “Russia is, in a way, a slave because she finds poetry in physical force and sees glory in causing fear in other peoples” (Gertsen 1956a, 203). The collectivist mindset stands in the way of fair competition, personal responsibility, ambition, and initiative. People expect to get some morsels from the national wealth and in exchange agree to be managed and controlled, calling it stability. At the same time, they are always prepared to swindle the state and their employers whenever and wherever they can. If a problem arises, the initial gut reaction is how to go around rules and laws. Russian scientists are good although there are better ones in other countries, but Russian hackers are the very best.

Chapter Six

Historical Origins of the Russian Work Ethic

THE ROLE OF RELIGION: THE CLERGY Religion has played a major role in shaping the values and behavior of people around the globe; it also greatly influenced attitudes toward work. Max Weber’s classic opus ascribes engendering capitalism to the Protestant work ethic, juxtaposing it to that of Catholics. He also discusses the work characteristics typical of those professing Confucianism, Judaism, and other religions. Many contemporary scholars further develop Weber’s approach, exploring religious or quasi-religious (Confucianism) influences on economic situations. Although many cultures currently experience a strong tendency toward secularization, the cultural paradigms developed during past centuries still determine social, political, and economic realities today. The tremendous growth of the economy after World War II in such East Asian countries as Japan, China, Vietnam, and South Korea is believed to have resulted from their populations’ work ethic being deeply rooted in Confucianism (Harrison 2013, 71–87). The fact that the world economic crisis of the late 2000s has impacted North European countries much less severely than their southern neighbors can also be attributed to the difference between the Protestantism of the former and Catholicism or Greek Orthodoxy of the latter. Some scholars question the fact that Protestants still work harder and more effectively than Catholics, but the differences in the social, ethic, and human capital between them has been well researched (Arruñada 2010). Statistically, Protestants are better educated and have a greater respect for the law. Their moral values are more homogeneous and less tied to family and friends, that is, they are much less inclined to resort to nepotism in their professional life. They are more willing to trust strangers, and they do more volunteer work. “With 49

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its relatively more homogeneous standards, Protestantism seems . . . better adapted for impersonal trading between anonymous parties, such as those in commerce, finance and industry” (Arruñada 2010, 908), which in turn may result in significant differences in economic well-being. In Russia, however, religion had little, if any, influence in forming the work ethic. As discussed in part 1, the Russian clergy lacked theological knowledge, and the church cared little about educating their flock even about those values that constituted the core of the Christian doctrine. Sermons were rarely delivered; parish schools did not appear until the nineteenth century; and the entire religious experience was reduced to the observation of the church rites, of which common folk understood very little (Mel’nikov [Pecherskiy] 1860, 176). One religious concept can serve as a telling example of the difference in the church’s attitude toward work in Russia and in the West. One of the mortal sins in both the Catholic Church and Orthodoxy is sloth. For Protestants sloth is “a waste of potential that undermines God’s plan and thus serves the devil’s purposes” (Allen, G. 2009, 226). In Latin—the language of the Western church—this sin is referred to as acedia, whose literal translation is “no care” or “no concern.” In the religious sense acedia indicates not caring about anything, dejection, spiritual apathy, withdrawal from the world and other people, neglecting one’s talents given by God, but also laziness and idleness. The Bible contains many verses about the sinfulness of laziness, and in Western Christianity it is this aspect that comes to mind first when the word “acedia” is mentioned rather than spiritual or psychological apathy. In English-speaking countries “sloth” is commonly used to refer to the sin of acedia. Many European paintings depicting this sin portray people recumbent in sleep or rest. The word originally derived from the Middle English word “slowth,” or slow, and this connotation produced the English name for the South and Central American animal. It was named so because it does very little during its waking hours. In Russian, there are two translations of sloth. The name of the animal is “lenivets,” meaning “a lazy one,” but the sin is referred to as “unynie,” the word for melancholy or ennui. In the Western Church laziness is strongly condemned together with spiritual passivity as equally important aspects of the mortal sin; the Russian word for the sin of sloth does not even contain the aspect of laziness. If in some Russian religious writings laziness (len’) is mentioned, it mainly refers to spiritual laziness, namely skipping prayers or church services, but not laziness toward work. The difference becomes obvious if one compares Google images for sloth (the sin, not the animal) and Russian images for the corresponding sin unynie. The sloth images consist predominantly of “couch potatoes”—men and women sprawling on all kinds of horizontal surfaces, sleeping, watching TV, or eating pizza (Sloth, sin). The images for unynie do not include laziness and depict only depressed men and women, sad animals, sad children, and gloomy landscapes (Sloth, unynie). Laziness toward work is apparently

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not recognized as a sin in the eyes of the Russian Church; not attending church regularly is. One possible source of religious exhortation nurturing work values in the peasants could have been the village priest, whose moral authority could have had direct influence on them. Alas, there were few priests who fit the role. As I discussed in part 1, there was little spiritual guidance that Russian priests offered to their flock. Priests instilling a hard-work ethic in peasants was an even more rare occurrence. The British scholar and diplomat Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace observed Russian peasant life firsthand, living in a Russian village for half a year and conducting there his anthropological fieldwork, as it were, in addition to studying written sources and documents. In his voluminous and well-researched book on Russia he devotes an entire chapter to the village priest, whom he juxtaposes with the parish Protestant pastor. A pastor should possess a certain amount of education and refinement, is expected to deliver weekly sermons explaining the Christian doctrine in clear and simple language, assist the sick and the needy, counsel the doubting, and admonish those who stray from the path of righteousness. This is an ideal, but pastors generally strive to realize it. “The Russian priest, on the contrary, has no such ideal set before him by his parishioners. He is expected merely to conform to certain observances, and to perform punctiliously the rites and ceremonies prescribed by the Church. If he does this without practicing extortion, his parishioners are quite satisfied. He rarely preaches or exhorts, and too often he neither has nor seeks to have a moral influence over his flock” (Wallace 1912, 65). Usually, however, the peasants were not satisfied with their priests but disrespected and even hated them. In his book Wallace publishes excerpts from a secret report submitted by “Mr. Melnikof to the Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaevitch” (Wallace 1912, 60). 1 The excerpts cited by Mel’nikov in his report portray a disgusting picture of corruption and vice among the Russian clergy. One priest stole money from under the pillow of a dying man during confession; another christened a dog; priests are seen drunk in taverns and on the street; they fight each other; extort money from Old Believers; and issue false certificates to those who did not partake of the Eucharist. People “see that truth has disappeared from them [the clergy], and that the Consistories, guided in their decisions not by rule, but by personal friendship and bribery, destroy in them the last remains of truthfulness” (Wallace 1912, 59–60). Naturally people had no respect for such priests and could not view them as role models. They treated “them with derision and reproaches. . . . In nearly all the popular comic stories the priest, or his wife, or his laborer is held up to ridicule, and in all the proverbs and popular sayings where the clergy are mentioned it is always with derision” (Wallace 1912, 50). Some of these comic stories were collected by the Russian folklorist A. N. Afanas’ev (1826–1871), the Russian analogue of the Brothers Grimm. His main work,

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three volumes of Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian folktales, were published in tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union countless times in countless editions, but the stories mentioned in Mel’nikov’s report most likely belong to Afanas’ev’s collection of obscene tales, which could not be published in Russia until perestroika. Prerevolutionary censorship forbade the publication not only because of the extremely obscene content and language, but also because the main targets of the folk humor were landlords and priests. The Soviet censors would have been happy to approve the publication of these crude attacks against class enemies, but they were as prudish as their tsarist precursors. 2 The first incomplete edition of these tales came out in Geneva in 1872. The first complete scholarly edition, based on the extant manuscript and appended with a long preface, two articles, and exhaustive commentaries, was published in Moscow in 1997 (Afanas’ev 1997). This book includes 142 full texts in Russian and sixteen incomplete texts and texts in Ukrainian. Of these 142 tales, forty-eight are stories about a smart peasant and a stupid, greedy, and licentious priest. Usually the smart peasant fools the priest, and not only copulates with the priest’s wife or daughter or both but also dupes him out of money. Another foreigner who studied Russian life in the nineteenth century, Baron August von Haxthausen, came to a similar conclusion about Russians’ attitude toward their clergy. “Even in Russia it is frequently alleged that the common man does not have the slightest love or respect for his clergy” (Haxthausen 1972, 261). Placing his hope on a younger generation of priests, Haxthausen sees the majority of older priests as “exceedingly unrefined, ignorant, and self-seeking. In performing the ceremonies, reading the liturgy, and administering the sacraments, they frequently use their office to procure gifts and favors” (262). 3 Individual priests existed who were honest, sober, hardworking, and moral, but, reverting to Haxthausen again, “excellent clergymen are indeed a rarity in rural areas” (262). One should keep in mind that Haxthausen was invited to conduct research in Russia by the emperor Nicholas I, and that the Russian government sponsored his travels and all other expenses for the entire year (Starr 1972, xviii). This does not necessarily mean that his generally positive account about Russia was insincere, but it does make one perceive his criticism as objective rather than as simply the anti-Russian opinion of a biased foreigner. The loathing that the rural population felt toward their priests was also observed and commented on by Russians. Stepniak addresses this issue in unequivocal terms in his book on Russian peasantry. He writes that both nobles and peasants disrespect, scorn, or even hate the clergy, who “have no moral influence over the masses, and enjoy no confidence among them” (Stepniak 1888, 229). Priests “are looked upon by their parishioners not as guides or advisers, but as a class of tradesmen, who have wholesale and retail dealings in sacraments” (229–30). In even stronger words, “Our churches are

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not houses of prayer, but houses of plunder” (231). In his letter to Jules Michelet, Herzen adds to the list of the priests’ corrupt behavior in addition to extortion: “People listen to monks with trust, but monks and the high clergy, preoccupied exclusively with life beyond the grave, do not care about the people. And priests have lost any influence due to greed, drunkenness, and close ties with the police” (Gertsen 1956b, 320). Thus most of the Russian clergy were completely disinterested in the moral education of their parishioners. Indeed, what could they have taught them? As for corruption and extortion common among the clergy, although this behavior cannot be excused, it is still possible to find social and economic reasons for its flourishing. The parish priest lived in dire conditions receiving miniscule monetary support from the government, if at all. He and his family had to subsist on working a small lot of land and whatever income he could obtain from conducting religious ceremonies for the peasants. Baptisms, marriages, and burials were the events from which peasants could not abstain, and they had to pay for these rites either in money or in kind, usually both, including working on the priest’s lot. Considering the poverty in which both parish priests and peasants lived, this situation led to a very tense relationship between them. The few good members of the clergy who did not steal, drink, or squeeze peasants out of their last kopeck were nevertheless also disinterested in passing on Christian teaching to them. In a culture oriented toward appearance, the clergy’s main focus was on performing the religious rites. Spiritual functions were not required from them, and since they themselves lacked adequate knowledge of theology, they could not access this source to pass such knowledge on to the parishioners. Some basic Christian notions could possibly have trickled down and settled in the minds of Russian people: “Give to beggars and to the needy, donate to the church, and so on” (Uspenskiy 1988, 160). Giving alms to prisoners was also in the tradition of the Russian poor. The question is whether that was a product of some elementary knowledge of Christian morality or simply a collectivist empathy toward “the insulted and humiliated” in whose place the giver could find him- or herself tomorrow. One wellknown and widely used Russian proverb is Ot tyur’my i ot sumy ne zarekaysya (Don’t count out a prison cell, a begging bowl may come as well). Stepniak believes that since religion was so weak among Russians, the pre-Christian, natural empathy for other human beings was not replaced by love for God, as happened in Western Christianity. He claims that since Russian peasants were not “corrupted” by theology that encouraged love for God rather than for people, they preserved the original innate humanity in social relations. For them the teachings of Christ came naturally as remnants of the ancient tribal “socialism.”

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Chapter 6 The social conditions under which our peasantry lived for centuries have been favorable to the spontaneous development among them of such “pan-human” morals. They are Christ-like as a matter of course. The infiltration of actual Christian ethics among them is very probable, nay, certain, given such favorable ground; but whether this be so to a great or only to a small extent, this does not in the least imply that Christianity as a religion has a strong hold over them. Furthermore, the fact that our people dub their whole system of morality with the name of religion is equally inconclusive (Stepniak 1888, 217).

THE VILLAGE COMMUNE: THE BIRTHPLACE OF COLLECTIVISM If religion did not contribute anything to shaping the Russian work ethic, what did? The attitudes toward work evolved in the course of a multifaceted historical development affected by such factors peculiar to Russia as the prolonged existence of the agricultural commune; authoritarianism and abuse of power throughout the entire social fabric; serfdom, which was more like slavery; and, last but not least, geography. Until the last century Russia was predominantly an agricultural society based on the peasant commune (obshchina, or the older word mir). Its early history was similar to the development of the rural commune in other parts of the world. A patriarchal family commune consisted of several generations of the same extended family cohabiting in the same household, working together and sharing the fruits of their labor. Later several of these family communes living in close geographical proximity united into larger, territorial communes. Perhaps in early preChristian Russia individual peasant families owned land privately, which was not formalized but sustained simply by the abundance of available land and unwritten customary law. However, in the process of the transition to a more complex society, the arable land that these peasants had developed was seized by more powerful people who could overcome the peasants’ resistance (Grekov 1940, 8–9). Eventually the princes became sole owners of the entire territory within their princedoms and passed, as gifts or payments for service, large tracts of their land into the private ownership of the nobility or monasteries. The land was thus either in the possession of the prince or privately owned by wealthy landowners and monasteries, but never by the peasants themselves. Correspondingly, the peasants could either work on the prince’s land and pay rent, or remain on the landowners’ land and work for them as their subjects (smerdy). Payments to landlords were made in the form of money, in kind, or in labor. Peasants working on the land of the prince or, later, the tsar and then the emperor were referred to as black or state peasants. They were more independent than smerdy, who, on the other hand, were protected by their master and could also borrow tools and sup-

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plies from him. State peasants working on state lands were located mostly in the north of Russia and in Siberia. The state peasants could dispose of their arable land any way they found necessary: they could sell it, will it to their heirs, or leave and move to another place. Yet no matter who worked it, this land belonged to the ruler. Peasants expressed it in this way: “The land belongs to God and to the sovereign but what we plow [rospashi] and what we harvest [rzhi] is ours” (Klyuchevskiy 1987–90; 2, 274). Toward the late nineteenth century the state appropriated more and more land, thus significantly increasing the number of state peasants. The ratio of state peasants to landowners’ peasants changed from about 7 percent in the seventeenth century to 52 percent in 1858, just before the abolishment of serfdom (Blum 1961, 268, 477). Until 1497 peasants were free to leave their landowner and move to another lord whenever they wanted, provided that they paid off their entire debt as well as some exit fees. The 1497 legal code reduced the time in which changing masters was allowed to a short period of two weeks: one week before and one week after St. George day (November 26), when all the field work was over and peasants could settle their accounts with their master. This practice gradually declined toward the end of the sixteenth century, and peasants stayed on the land on which they worked permanently. Russian historians cannot find any documents that legally attach peasants to the land at that time; many, including Klyuchevsky, believe that such documents did not exist but rather a situation arose in which peasants were simply unable to leave. (Klyuchevskiy 1987–90; 2, 290ff). Over the sixteenth century the amount of payments due to the landowner rapidly rose. In the first half of the seventeenth century, in the wake of the national turmoil during the Time of Troubles, the burden of these dues became so unbearable that many peasants cut their arable land to the sheer minimum necessary in order to survive because the amount of their taxes depended on the size of their lot. Thus they were unable to pay off their debt and exit fees, without which they could not legally leave. In addition, settling in a new place would mean another debt from the new master. At some point a practice existed in which a wealthy landowner would pay off the peasant’s debt in order to move him and his family to his estate because labor was in short supply. However, this practice was ruining small landowners who had the important function of supplying the prince with people and materials in case of war. For that reason the practice was banned. By the late sixteenth century very few peasants changed masters. This was the de facto beginning of serfdom. The Code of Law of 1649 finalized the formal attachment of the peasants to the landowner on whose land they lived and worked. 4 In any case, Russian peasants, working within the village commune, never owned the land, which fed them. Usually an elected elder (starosta) managed the affairs of the entire commune. He was responsible for the distribu-

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tion of tillable land in accordance with the size of each individual household. The household could consist of the extended family: two or three generations of men, their wives, and children living and working together. A larger household would receive more land than a smaller one. If the size of the household changed the land would be redistributed, but not immediately. As a result, some peasants could have more land than they could manage while others did not have enough. However, it was not in their power to acquire additional land outside of the commune distribution. G. Uspensky describes a hardworking peasant who attempted to increase his land holdings. All households of the commune were allotted equal areas of the forest to fell timber for their personal use or sale. This peasant not only cut the trees but also cleared his lot and prepared it for plowing. The commune immediately took away this additional parcel from him reasoning that he should not have more arable land than other members. When the narrator asked him why others did not clear their lots the answer was they did not want to. People differed in their diligence, but they did not want their fellow commune members to prosper above their own level. Another important function of the elder was to collect taxes from the peasants. Settling the accounts with the landlord or the state, and paying taxes or rent was the responsibility of the commune rather than the individual members. This practice was called krugovaya poruka (literally, a circular guarantee). The elder made sure the appropriate payments from individual households were collected and then passed on to the landowner. If for some reason a household did not pay, the commune had to cover for them and then sort out the issue with the delinquent family through the internal punishment system. The commune also carried out the functions of a judge regarding small crimes and violations, such as theft. Punishment could be in the form of a fine, flogging, or even imprisoning the culprit in a cell for several days. The question of when the commune, as it was known in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, appeared is disputable. Blum contends that the commune as an institution did have a place in ancient Russia. “It managed the common forests, fisheries, and pastures, controlled the use and distribution of unused land, divided the tax burden among its members and served as a tax collector. But it had not periodically redistributed and equalized the holdings of its members” (Blum 1961, 510). According to him, data exist that demonstrate that redistribution was practiced as early as the sixteenth century, and became common in the eighteenth (511). Within individual households life was regulated and the work supervised and assigned by the elder of the family (bol’shak or khozyain), often but not necessarily the oldest man. When the bol’shak died or became incapable of carrying out his functions, the role of the elder was passed to his brother or older son. The process of transition or the seniority of potential candidates was not formalized; the family selected the most suitable man for the role.

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The household, comprised of the house, a little plot of land for the garden, farm implements, and the livestock, was the common property of the entire family. Only personal clothes were considered individual possessions, yet the necessity and expediency of purchasing them for a family member could be disputed and postponed until better times. Personal relationships were also the family’s business. A young woman would not be allowed to marry if the family situation was not favorable for letting her go. G. Uspensky describes a beautiful girl who had many promising suitors but could not marry because her labor was badly needed at home (Uspenskiy 1988, 42-43). Thus the Russian peasant lived in the commune from the time immemorial until the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. To compare, in Western Europe agricultural communes disappeared with the beginning of capitalist development around 1500. Formally, the Russian commune was abolished in 1906, but the full transition to an individual agricultural economy had no chance of taking root in the short time before the revolution. A little over a decade after the revolution the commune was back in the form of the Soviet collective farm (kolkhoz), as was serfdom of sorts: kolkhozniks were permanently attached to their kolkhoz and could not leave it without special permission. Unlike other Soviet citizens, they did not have internal passports—a mandatory identification document without which one could not move around the country, get a job, or obtain housing. Only in 1974 were kolkhozniks issued passports. The main effect the commune had on the peasants’ consciousness was cultivating a collectivist mindset. An individual did not count; he or she was an integral part of the entire family completely subject to the common good. The next level of collectivist interdependency was the commune with the elder at the helm, who disregarded the interests of individuals and entire families in favor of the proper functioning of the commune. Herzen cites the article of another Westernizer, Konstantin Kavelin, that in Russia “the individual (lichnost’) has always been subsumed (pogloshchalas’) by the family, the commune and, later, by the state and the church” (Gertsen 1956a, 244). There was very little room left for individual initiative. Everything was set from beginning to end. The tools and methods of labor remained the same for centuries. The land was distributed more or less equally in size and quality so no one had a significant advantage. The peasants’ prosperity or lack thereof depended, of course, on how hard they worked, but their economic situation was also contingent on many factors that were outside of their control. Among these factors were the size of the family; 5 how many working hands and nonworking mouths were in it, and whether all adult members of the family worked equally hard. The weather during a very short farming season also played a crucial role in peasants’ lives. Too much rain after the grass was mowed but not piled yet brought disaster: no hay to feed the livestock or sell to make an extra kopeck. A drought would result in a poor harvest, which

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meant starving in the winter. The range of peasants’ skills was both wide and narrow. They could build a house using only an ax and with the same ax cut out wooden spoons and bowls; they could slaughter cattle and perform all agricultural work, but even in the beginning of the twentieth century they still mowed, plowed, sowed, reaped, and threshed using the same primitive tools and techniques as in centuries before. The Commune Morality The peasants’ behavior was determined by the commune’s customs, traditions, and rules—what Wallace calls “constitution” and describes as “a body of unwritten, traditional conceptions, which have grown up and modified themselves under the influence of ever-changing practical necessity” (Wallace 1912, 130). They were always open to their neighbors’ observation, judgment, and punishment, if necessary. They could rely only on themselves and other members of the commune—the law, judge or police would not provide justice and defend them; on the contrary, peasants could expect only harassment, extortion, and persecution from them. For that reason commune members rarely committed immoral acts toward each other, but would have no qualms about cheating an outsider or stealing from him, especially if he was one of the oppressors. The difference between the religious ethic or formal law on the one hand and the communal “constitution” on the other was that the former demanded an absolute morality. In the first, cheating or stealing was considered bad under any circumstances, while the latter allowed a “creative” approach in which one would not swindle one’s fellow commune members but would not hesitate to do this to the landlord or the government, for example. Moreover, one would not experience any shame or pangs of conscience regarding such behavior. Juxtaposing Baltic Germans to Russians, Herzen writes, “They have immutable morals while we have moral instinct” (Gertsen 1956a, 143). He responds to Michelet’s assertion that the Russian “constantly lies and constantly steals, and does it absolutely innocently because it is in his nature”: “Russian people lie, cheat, and steal only from the landlords, police, bureaucrats, and all sorts of administrators—in a word, their worst enemies” (319). But, he continues, “peasants rarely deceive each other; almost unlimited trust reigns between them, they do not know contracts and written agreements” (321). Similarly, Wallace contends that “the Russian peasants, when dealing with the authorities, consider the most patent and barefaced falsehoods as a fair means of self-defense (Wallace 1912, 205),” but among themselves the habit of lying is not “abnormally developed” (206). Stepniak, too, points at the ethical relativism of Russian consciousness: “With a Russian mir [commune] the law is nowhere, the ‘conscience’ everywhere. Not merely criminal offences, but every disputed point is settled according to the individual justice of the case, no regard being

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paid to the category of crime to which it may chance to belong” (Stepniak 1888, 86). However, such people’s “democracy” and equality existed only within the commune. “Life of the Russian people . . . has been limited by the commune; only in his relation to the commune and its members [does the Russian recognize] his rights and responsibilities. Outside the commune he perceives everything as based on violence” (Gertsen 1956a, 321). Life in the commune also cultivated a strong instinct of fairness in Russians. Peasants’ survival depended on the fair distribution of land, both in quantity and quality. Their existence also hinged on strict adherence to their “constitution,” which had nothing to do with formal law but was based on fairness. Hence Russians have a predilection for seeking the truth (pravdoiskatel’stvo): “A passion for Equality and Fraternity is and will ever be the strongest, we may say the only strong social feeling in Russia” (Stepniak 1888, 91, emphasis mine). At the same time, centuries of serfdom have left the majority of Russians with a tendency of social indifference and unconscious deference to people of higher ranks. A serf who was absolutely powerless before his oppressors had only two ways to survive the abuse: either to lie and cheat, or accept it with complete submissiveness and sycophancy. Writing about this aspect of the Russian character, Herzen notes “the lack of dignity and firmness . . . a strange docility” (Gertsen 1956a, 207). WORK ETHIC: THE PEASANTS The centuries of communal life fostered not only moral relativism in the Russian culture but also relativism in the work attitude. In general, peasants would work hard to feed their family and fulfill their obligations to the commune, but few of them had a drive to accumulate wealth. In practical terms, becoming rich within the Russian agricultural commune was very difficult. An individual “subsumed by the family” could not accrue personal possessions; he had to share everything with other family members. That often killed the motivation to work hard for others, especially if others were less eager to exert themselves. Living in close proximity with and strong dependency on other households in the commune and being unable to catch up to more successful ones caused envy and the desire to undermine one’s neighbor rather than compete with him. Finally, for most families working for the landlord and/or paying all the necessary dues and taxes precluded any opportunity to achieve a level of prosperity above having enough food on the table and a warm house (firewood was plentiful). A few lucky ones whose family household contained several strong, hardworking men had good houses and a significant number of livestock. They were even able to accumulate large sums of money. For the majority, though, the unconscious feeling was: why kill yourself, everybody lives like this and as long as we are not

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starving there is nothing wrong with such a life. Psychologically, living without continuously struggling to achieve a higher level of affluence was rather comfortable. The motivation for working hard was absent because of the lack of religious exhortation and the difficulty of achieving noticeable financial rewards. Another factor that influenced the formation of work habits was absolute authoritarianism. Peasants were completely subjugated by the nobility and the state, and the entire country by the emperor. This principle was inherited from Byzantium together with Orthodoxy. It determined Russian life for centuries to come and permeated the entire society from top to bottom. Everyone had someone above him (except for the emperors who had only God above them) and someone below, someone to be oppressed and abused by and someone to oppress and abuse. In Herzen’s words, in “this monstrous empire . . . every police officer is the tsar and the tsar is a crowned police officer” (Gertsen 1956a, 222). . . . “Any landlord played the role of grand prince of Moscow in miniature. . . . Law did not determine and assert anything in precise terms; there was only abuse on the government’s part and passivity of the people” (168). The peasants were at the very bottom of this hierarchy; only their wives and children were under their command. However, the nobility was not excluded from this same treatment. As late as the end of the eighteenth century a highly ranked aristocrat could slap or punch another aristocrat of lower rank; the latter’s emotional response would not be a sense of insult or humiliation but a fear of losing his present status. This social structure created a people who had very little control over their lives, and whose individual initiative was extremely limited by their dependence on political considerations or often simply the whims of the higher-ups, the state, or the ruler of the state. Law was excluded from this equation, hence the tradition of legal nihilism flourished. Finally, in the lives of peasants geography played the role of another “tyrant” with unlimited power, sometimes even worse than the landlord. Conditions in central Russia around Moscow are not conducive to engaging in agriculture. The farming season lasts only five months and the soil is relatively poor. To grow enough foodstuffs to provide not only for one’s family but also for the insatiable appetites of the landowner and the authorities, the peasants had to work extremely hard in the summer. The thought that they would starve in the winter if they did not exert themselves now was almost instinctual and ever present in their mind. In fact, they did exert themselves from the very early spring when plowing began. Then, they started sowing and planting early crops such as wheat, barley, oats, flax, carrots, cabbage, and beets, followed by buckwheat, millet, and potatoes. When sowing was done haymaking began; then harvesting and threshing, and finally sowing the winter grains. Very little time was left for sleep and rest. This labor had its own rewards, and the notion that the peasant loved his

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soil and his toil is perhaps true. Observing new life springing from your efforts could produce a tremendous, almost euphoric feeling of satisfaction. A good crop and plentiful hay at the end of the summer meant that the debts would be paid and life would be comfortable until next spring. This obviously provided gratification of the highest degree. However, in bad years the peasant and his family would starve; most had no grain reserved from previous years. In addition, after the tremendous summer exertion came a long, frigid winter with its semi-forced idleness. The house and tools might need repairs, but unlike the farming activities carried out at very specific times, these repairs could be postponed. How did these three factors—life in the commune, life under an absolute power weighing down the peasant from many social layers above, and the geographic conditions—shape the work attitudes in Russian people? Let us discuss the proverbial Russian laziness, which is noted by many observers of peasant life. One of the most interesting treatises on Russia is the book by Iuri Krizhanich, a Croat who lived in the seventeenth century. He dreamt of all Slavic nations united under the rule of the Russian tsar. Born in Croatia, he studied in Italy and traveled extensively around Europe before coming to Russia to serve the tsar. After barely a year in Moscow he was exiled to Siberia. The reason was unclear, but most likely simply on a suspicion of disloyalty. A century earlier under Ivan the Terrible such a suspicion would have cost him his life, after prolonged torture, but the time was different and he was even provided with decent financial support. In Siberia he wrote his book on Russia, among other works. Unlike most Russian nobility who had neither reason nor desire to travel abroad unless they were fighting in a war, he had seen how people lived in foreign lands and could compare life in Russia and Europe firsthand. Yet in spite of his exile and of observing many things he did not like in Russia, he remained an ardent Russian patriot; identified himself with Russians; and hated foreigners with all his heart, believing that they were robbing and ruining Russia. The call for xenophobia is the most salient topic in his text, yet he is not hesitant to address Russian faults in strong and straightforward language: “We are called barbarians, savages, beasts, thieves and cheaters only because of our illiteracy, laziness, and stupidity” (Krizhanich 1985, 110, emphasis mine). . . . “Compared with these [European] nations, we are not very clean or well cared for: stupid, ignorant in science, and almost completely impoverished. Moreover, we are burdened with several nationwide vices; especially laziness, wastefulness, poor speech, and what is most ruinous, the entire nation drinks—young and old, laity and clergy, the lowest and the highest” (126, emphasis mine). In his response to Michelet’s attack on Russians, Herzen acknowledges the “carefree and lazy nature” of the Russian peasant (Gertsen 1956a, 319). I am not sure if there is a gene of laziness, most likely not since at least during the summer most Russian peasants did not exhibit any traces of it. To

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understand what Russian laziness means we need to think about the motivating factors in their lives. What makes people work hard? We have established that religion was not a driving force in developing the Russian work ethic. An exciting creative activity would certainly be one such motivating factor. Artists, writers, composers, and craftsmen, for example, fall under this category. Scholars, scientists, and inventors would find it hard to get away from their research. But to be motivated by creative work people have to be independent, free, and able to control their work regimen themselves. Russian peasants were fettered by so many external ties and pressured by so many external forces that free, enjoyable work was simply impossible. Individual initiative could be hindered at every step by the family, commune, landlord, and the government, as well as by the sporadic character of work due to exertion in the summer and more relaxed conditions in the winter. These factors did not allow for habits of methodical, uninterrupted labor to develop; therefore, observing strict work discipline and systematic regimen did not take root in the Russian tradition—a “creative” approach was much more efficient. Russians could demonstrate miracles of achievement for short periods of time, “storming” a task, but such behavior would necessarily be followed by a period of relaxation that included drinking. Given the limited access to good tools and implements, they could be very inventive in increasing the functionality, if not the aesthetics, of their infrastructure. In their work they relied on talent and shrewdness rather than on education and professional training. Saving and expanding their financial status was not in the habit of Russian peasants; instant gratification was. The resulting work ethic that developed during centuries of collectivism and authoritarianism is well illustrated by Herzen. He juxtaposes the work habits and attitudes of Russian Germans and Russians. By the mid-nineteenth century when Herzen wrote his essay, several generations of ethnic Germans—the descendants of Germans who had migrated to Russia in the eighteenth century and kept their ethnicity and culture—occupied various positions in the Russian army and government as well as in artisan production and estate management. In Herzen’s opinion the Germans combined “the precision and dispassion of a machine” with obedience, diligence, and honesty “very rare among Russians” (Gertsen 1956a, 179). They were educated, but to exactly the level that was required by their position—no more, no less. In addition, they were completely indifferent or even scornful toward their Russian subjects and had no interest in or knowledge of the Russian national character. In contrast, in their work performance Russians are characterized by “more dexterity than diligence, more talent than knowledge. They can produce a lot at once but they cannot systematically plod over their work and cannot adjust to the monotonous and measured discipline of a German” (180). A corresponding difference existed in the relations between a workshop owner and his Russian workers. If the owner was Russian, his treatment

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of the worker was flexible. They both got drunk on the same holidays, so the master was sympathetic and showed leniency when the worker arrived late to work suffering a hangover the day after a feast. On other days, however, the worker would work till midnight if necessary without complaining. If the worker drank away all his money, the master would give him some advance on his salary. If the master experienced financial difficulties, the worker might not be paid for months. The master could beat the worker, and sometimes the worker could hit back (after which he would most likely be thrashed), but they would never go to the police to sort out their quarrel. By contrast, the German master would not tolerate workers coming to work late or leaving earlier, even by an hour. He wrote down every absence from work and heavily fined the worker. He would run to the police or the landlord, if the worker were a serf, to complain about the worker’s delinquency. WORK ETHIC: THE NOBILITY AND THE INTELLIGENTSIA The commune had a decisive influence on shaping the Russian peasant culture, but what shaped the culture of the minority—the nobility? They did not live in the commune setting, and since vertical social mobility in Russia was practically nonexistent until the nineteenth century, these two cultures did not mix. However, one culture-forming factor was common to both peasants and aristocrats—autocracy. Individual initiative was perhaps even more restrained in the nobility than in peasants. They lived and acted much closer to the ultimate ruler than peasants. The complete, servile obedience to a higherup was a way of life, but the collectivist mindset of the peasants cultivated in the commune was not as prominent in the gentry, which was perhaps slightly more individualistic. This bifurcation increased drastically in the course of the Petrine reforms of the early eighteenth century and afterward. The powerful influx of European culture, forced on Russia by the emperor, exposed the nobility to European education and values. However, the autocratic foundation and the servile character of the entire society could not be uprooted and eliminated even by the seemingly unrelenting Europeanization of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Thus the Russian aristocracy as well as the new social group that appeared in the nineteenth century, the intelligentsia, never became entirely European in their views, values, and behavior. During and after the 1917 revolution and civil war a substantial share of the Russian nobility was either destroyed or emigrated. The “weeding out” of the “exploiters” continued in the thirties through drastically curtailing their rights, including access to higher education and jobs. Former aristocrats lived in poverty and despair, forsaking their culture and traditions. The assassination of the Leningrad party chief Sergei Kirov on December 1, 1934, marked

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the beginning of the Big Terror—the Stalin purges of 1934–1938. In Leningrad mass arrests, trials, and subsequent labor camps and executions of innocent people accused of complicity in the assassination were accompanied by a persecution campaign against the remaining nobility, priests, and former merchants. About 5,000 were executed and close to 40,000 exiled to areas in Central Asia with severe climate. Many, especially old people and children, succumbed to starvation and diseases soon after their arrival (Lur’e 2014, 48). By the late 1930s those members of the old Russian nobility who still remained free in Soviet society tried to forget about their origins and merge with the surrounding masses. Of course, they could not even think about offering their Europeanized views and moral principles to the new class armed with the Bolshevik ideology. They had no influence on the developing Russian (Soviet) culture. Their children and grandchildren were forcibly bent into conforming to the new Soviet order. The rest of the population carried in them the culture of their peasant progenitors as Emil Draitser demonstrates in his analysis of Russian folklore and contemporary “jokelore” (see Draitser 1999, 16–25). According to the sociologist Igor Kon, 83 to 85 percent of sixty-year-olds living in cities in 1990 were born in the countryside (quoted in Draitser, 22). These people constituted a large share of the management personnel in industry, economy, and politics. The decimation of the government and higher management during Stalin’s purges in the 1930s increased the role of migrating peasants who replaced the purged leaders and shaped the ideology and governmental policies in the Soviet Union. What distinguishes today’s Russians from their peasant ancestors is the total literacy and very good education of a sizable part of the population. However, education is not culture; the contemporary Russian population bears the collectivist and authoritarian spirit and values of the old Muscovites. The nineteenth-century Slavophiles turned out to be right: Peter the Great’s reforms failed to turn Russia into another European country. NOTES 1. Wallace does not provide information for his source. Most likely it was the report written by P. I. Mel’nikov (Pecherskiy) and dated 1857. Later, in 1860, it was published in London in an uncensored collection of materials about the Russian schismatics (see Mel’nikov 1860). Mel’nikov, in his turn, quotes the facts of the clergy’s depravity from the reports concerning the Russian clergy in the Nizhny Novgorod province submitted to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Holy Synod. 2. In fact, a few tales from this collection, cleansed from the unprintable lexicon and imagery, were published in the Soviet Union. One section in a book that included these tales was titled “Folk tales about god, saints, and priests.” (The word “god” was not capitalized in Soviet orthography unless it appeared at the beginning of a sentence.) See Kostyukhin 1997, 7. 3. Alas, since Haxthausen conducted his study in 1843, several generations of priests changed in Russia before the Revolution but their moral makeup remained generally the same. 4. For detailed information and analysis of the peasant life in the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries see Blum 1961, chap. 13 and 14.

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5. Peasants knew only one method of birth control—complete abstention, which, of course, very few observed (see G. Uspenskiy 1988, 179 ff.). Thus, the size of the family and the timing of births were variables that peasants could not control.

Chapter Seven

Attitudes toward Work through the Eyes of Russian Literature

A quarter of a century after changes began in Russia in the late 1980s, the country has failed to develop modem capitalism: corruption in the country runs rampant, business development is curtailed by bureaucracy and racket, and the political system dominates both the judicial and economic segments of society. In addition to these aspects of the Russian economy that are obvious and widely discussed, I suggest that the development of modem capitalism in Russia has been held back by a lack of the “spirit of capitalism” in the general population, about which Max Weber wrote more than a century ago. In this chapter I discuss Russian attitudes toward work as exemplified in Russian literature, and compare them to and juxtapose them with the descriptions by Weber and the American sociologist Talcott Parsons of the work ethic necessary for the development of a modern capitalist society. In his famous work The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism Weber contrasts a traditional attitude toward work with the capitalist one based on the Protestant ethic. In particular, he observes that in economic traditionalism (the traditional economic ethic as opposed to the Protestant ethic) increasing the piece rate salary does not increase productivity. Instead of producing more and working more to make more money, people prefer to work less and be content with the same amount of money they made before the increase. “The opportunity of earning more appealed to him [traditional worker] less than the idea of working less” (Weber 2009, 72). Comparing traditional female workers and female workers from Pietist homes, Weber establishes that the former were unable and unwilling “to give up customary and once-mastered modes of work in favor of other, more practical work techniques. . . . The situation is often different only with young women from a specific religious background, namely for women from Pietist homes” (78). 67

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The traditional worker, according to Weber, is striving for “maximum of ease and comfort and a minimum of productivity” (78). In Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy depicts a similar juxtaposition of two attitudes toward work. The protagonist, Konstantin Levin, is trying to manage his estate in a rational, “capitalist” way, organizing work in the fields in the most efficient manner and introducing the latest imported machinery to facilitate and expedite labor. His efforts, however, meet continual resistance from the peasants. Their work habits bear a striking resemblance to Weber’s presentation of economic traditionalism: “He [Levin] was fighting for every farthing . . . whereas they [the peasants] were only anxious to be left to do their work lazily and comfortably, in other words, to work the way they always had done. . . . What the laborer wanted was to take it as easy as possible, with rests, and, especially, not have the trouble of worrying and thinking” (Tolstoy 1986, 344). The peasants work for money, but they will not increase their labor or productivity to earn more. When they can, they swindle Levin by working less than they should, such as mowing for hay a field with good seed clover instead of the field overgrown with weeds that he had told them to mow. It is easier to cut the former than the latter. They would perform some extra work if Levin asked but not for extra money. They ask for vodka, which both gives them instant gratification and shows the master’s appreciation of their work: money is impersonal; vodka is personal. Levin’s attempts to introduce new machinery at his estate fail abysmally. He [Levin] sent out the tedder to pitch the hay—it got broken in the first few rows because the peasant found it dull sitting on the seat in front with the blades swinging over his head. And he was told, “Don’t worry, master; sure the women will toss it in no time.” The ploughs were practically useless because it never entered the peasant’s head to raise the share at the end of the furrow— the horses were forced to wrench the plough round, straining themselves and tearing up the ground (344-45).

Tolstoy leads Levin to the eventual realization that Western ways are inapplicable on Russian soil because what motivates the Russian peasant is not the mind, which is aimed at making more and more money, but the heart, which accepts only labor that is easy, pleasant, and habitual. While, according to Weber, the Protestant ethic strives only for incessant acquisition of wealth— not for any earthly gains or pleasures but solely as an indicator of being predestined for eternal salvation—economic traditionalism seeks comfort and pleasure as the ultimate condition of labor. Perhaps nothing portrays the Russian work ethic completely devoid of the spirit of capitalism better than another nineteenth-century masterpiece, Ivan Goncharov’s novel Oblomov. The protagonist, the landlord Oblomov, spends his days and actually years lying on the couch and dreaming about the projects he will complete in the future. He is contrasted to his childhood

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friend Andrei Stoltz, a German on his father’s side and an energetic, enterprising young man. Oblomov’s credo is “Everyone wants peace and quiet” (Goncharov 2006, 157). Stoltz scornfully names this way of life oblomovshchina (oblomovism), while he himself finds the meaning of his life in work. Half a century before Weber, the Russian writer Goncharov formulated the essence of the Protestant ethic in his character Stoltz. Oblomov cannot understand the drive that makes his friend work so hard and he searches for an explanation in his conversation with Stoltz. “But you’ll stop working some time,” Oblomov observed. “Never, why would I?” “When you’ve doubled your capital,” said Oblomov. “Even when I’ve quadrupled it I won’t stop.” “Then what’s it all for?” he continued after a moment’s silence. “Why knock yourself out, if it’s not to make yourself financially secure for life so that you can then take it easy and live a life of leisure?” “Oblomovshchina rustic style!” said Stoltz. “Or even to make your mark in your career and achieve a position in society and then rest on your laurels and enjoy a well-earned rest.” “Oblomovshchina St. Petersburg style!” Stoltz retorted. “Then what is there to live for?” retorted Oblomov, annoyed by Stoltz’s remarks. “What would you torture yourself for all your life?” “For work’s own sake, and that’s all there is to it! Work is the way, substance, element, and purpose of life, at least for me” (158–59). 1

Stoltz’s main goal is the acquisition of wealth, but not for any hedonistic purposes—only as a meaningful outcome of his drive to work. When he bids farewell to his father, heading up to St. Petersburg to start a new, independent life, the father offers his old friend’s address should young Stoltz need advice. The friend is a successful German who lives in St. Petersburg in his own four-story house. Stoltz’s response demonstrates his single-minded purposefulness: “‘Never mind, don’t bother,’ said Andrei, ‘I’ll go and see him when I have my own four-story house; for now I’ll get by without him’” (137). But even if Stoltz has two four-story houses he will never stop working. Working for the sake of working is the attitude Oblomov cannot understand or accept. Immediately after Oblomov’s publication, the critic Nikolay Dobrolyubov analyzed the novel in his famous article “Chto takoe oblomovshchina?” (What Is Oblomovism?). Goncharov liked the article so much that he said it helped him better understand his own work. Dobrolyubov asserts that oblomovism is to a degree characteristic of all Russians: “There is a large portion of Oblomov within every one of us” (Dobrolyubov 1962b, 158). He describes the Oblomov types in terms similar to Weber’s characterization of economic traditionalism: “No occupation in their life is a vital necessity for them, a shrine in their hearts, a religion, organically merged with their whole

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being, so that to deprive them of it would mean depriving them of their lives. . . . If all of them were offered gratis all the external advantages that they obtain by their work they would gladly give up working.” 2 (165). Russia indeed needs many Stoltzes with Russian names, he agrees with Goncharov, but “for the time being there is no soil for them” (171). Parsons suggests that several characteristics in the socioeconomic makeup of a country are crucial to its becoming an industrial society. These characteristics include a legal system with an independent judiciary; markets with the developed ethos of fair trade; and labor, which is alienated from non-economic factors and constantly motivated to increase production output (Parsons 1960, emphasis mine). Parsons was the first translator of Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism into English, and Weber’s works strongly influenced his development as a sociologist. Parsons introduces the concept of alienation of labor: “labor must be alienable” and performed “in organizations specifically differentiated from other, non-productive, functional contexts” (20). This necessary condition of separation of labor from all stimuli unrelated to economic purposes can be traced to Weber’s description of one of the aspects of the Protestant ethic: The acquisition of money, and more and more money, takes place here simultaneously with the strictest avoidance of all spontaneous enjoyment of it. The pursuit of riches is fully stripped of all pleasurable (eudämonistischen), and surely all hedonistic, aspects. Accordingly, this striving becomes understood completely as an end in itself—to such an extent that it appears as fully outside the normal course of affairs and simply irrational, at least when viewed from the perspective of the “happiness” or “utility” of the single individual. Here, people are oriented to acquisition as the purpose of life; acquisition is no longer viewed as a means to the end of satisfying the substantive needs of life. (Weber 2009, 72)

In his The Diary of a Writer from 1876 Dostoevsky compares German and Russian work habits and attitudes. 3 He describes young German women serving water to thousands of spa customers at the Bad Ems resort. They fill the glasses, six or seven at a time, never spilling water, dropping glasses, or mixing up the customers and their specific dosages of water and milk. Another striking example is a young woman working as a maid in a hotel. She alone services twelve rooms, cleaning them and responding to clients’ calls, as well as helping the hostess with other chores and even taking care of the hostess’s three little children. She would go to sleep at 11:30 p.m. and at 5:00 in the morning the landlady would get her up with her little bell. Her salary is very modest, “inconceivable in Petersburg” (Dostoevsky 1993, 564). She is always neatly dressed, cheerful, friendly, and at the same time dignified; she does not look oppressed or humiliated by this kind of work. According to the writer, in Russia not a single maid would agree to such “hard labor,” not for

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any amount of pay. “Moreover, she would not work as the German girl did: a hundred times she would forget something, spill something, fail to bring something, break something, make mistakes, get angry, and talk back to her employer” (564). Dostoevsky also describes the work of postal clerks in Bad Ems. Serving thousands of visitors, most of whom rely on general delivery, two or three clerks have to sort and search piles of letters, answer questions, provide information. They never show any displeasure; on the contrary, they are always polite, friendly, and dignified. A Russian postal clerk “is angry and irritable. . . . He has a face as haughty and proud as Jupiter” (564). He is characterized by “boorishness, inattentiveness, carelessness, hostility to the public . . . and, above all, the attitude of the petty Jupiter” (565). It would seem that the conclusion as to who are the winners in these comparisons would be clear and unequivocal. Yet Dostoevsky, with his usual ironic ambiguity, while praising Germans points to a serious flaw in their mastery of the work they perform. He suggests that their perfection is achieved by limiting their lives to their occupation, which—and only which—they learn almost from their birth. “Everyone knows his job here, although everyone knows only his job” (564, emphasis mine). He illustrates this German narrowness by describing his trip to see the Dresden art gallery without knowing the exact route, hoping that any Dresden resident would be able to show him the way. He indeed stopped a man “who had a most serious and educated appearance” (567) to ask for directions. The following dialogue ensues: “Could you tell me, please, where the picture gallery is?” “The picture gallery?” The German stopped and considered my question. “Yes.” “The Royal Picture Gallery?” (He put particular emphasis on the word Royal.) “Yes.” “I don’t know where that gallery is.” “But . . . is there any other gallery here?” “No, none whatsoever” (567)

This short dialogue provides ample information about Germans. First, we see lack of culture: although the German with “an educated appearance” knows about the gallery he obviously has never been in this famous museum. Then the concept of a “picture gallery” is so foreign to him that he has to take a moment to digest it. Finally, his question about the Royal gallery, given that there is only one gallery in the city, demonstrates the thickness and slowness of German mind. 4 The reader can thus surmise from these episodes that German efficiency and perfection in work are achieved at the expense of cultural, spiritual, and emotional life, which makes Germans some kind of

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soulless automatons: it is beyond human capacity to work like the housemaid and always be happy, friendly, and neat. Here in these wonder-Germans he exemplifies exactly that alienation of labor that Parsons considers a necessary condition for the successful development of an industrialized nation. Nikolai Berdyaev sees in Dostoevsky an epitome of Russianness: “Our greatest national genius—Russian of Russians” (Berdiaev 1997, 228), and “One can study the soul of Russia in Dostoevsky” (235). Dostoevsky’s ardent rejection of utility and rationalism, so powerfully expressed by his Underground Man and reflected in his sardonic Diary entries concerning German work habits, portrays the Russian inability to disengage their work practices from the social and emotional aspects of their lives. One finds the closest approximation to the Protestant ethic in the ideas of Russian utilitarianism of the 1860s, in particular in writings of the Russian revolutionary democrats Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Dmitry Pisarev. These latter recognize work as the crucial and most important aspect of human life and thus seemingly approach Weber’s characterization of the Protestant attitude toward work. Pisarev describes his “new men” as people for whom work becomes a necessity, who can live without pleasure but not without work. In fact, “for them work and enjoyment merge into a single concept called the satisfaction of the requirement of their organism” (Pisarev 1958, 631). When all people adopt this attitude toward work, then new life, just and fair to all members of society, will be realized. Chernyshevsky portrays such a utopia in his novel What Is to Be Done? The heroine, Vera Pavlovna, establishes a sewing shop that very quickly becomes so popular that from the initial three seamstresses the workforce grows to over twenty; she is eventually able to open a store on Nevsky Prospekt. She pays her workers more than the usual seamstress’s salary. Most importantly, she does not pocket the profit but rather pays herself a modest salary; the remaining money goes back to the seamstresses, to the common bank, or to cover the seamstresses’ entertainment and education. The seamstresses also save on housing and food by living together in communal apartments. There is no exploitation; everyone works conscientiously for their personal and the common good, which here become one and the same. (Of this idyllic description, only communal apartments became a reality in Soviet Russia, and Chernyshevsky would have found them quite different from what he envisioned in his novel.) One can find other parallels between Russian utilitarianism and the Protestant ethic. The former places a special emphasis on finding a favorite vocation in order to succeed in transforming society through hard work (Pisarev 1958, 634), which resembles the concept of the vocational calling in the latter sans religious connotations. Pisarev’s concept of “economy of intellectual forces” stipulates that “people should engage only in those works that can provide real benefits for society. Such economy of intellectual forces is

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necessary everywhere and at all times” (Pisarev 1968, 227). Protestant asceticism similarly stresses “tireless, continuous, and systematic work in a vocational calling” (Weber 2009, 152). All these similarities, however, are outweighed by one crucial difference. The ideas of the revolutionary democrats represented nothing but an intellectual utopia that had no bearing on the practical life of the majority of the Russian people. Protestant teaching, on the other hand, provided “psychological motivations [that] gave direction to the organization of the believer’s life and held the individual firmly to it. . . . People at that time brooded over seemingly abstract dogmas to an extent that becomes understandable to us today only if we comprehend the connection of these dogmas with practical-religious interests” (102). These motivations were religious beliefs that hard work and accumulation of wealth represented “the highest of all ascetic means for believers to testify to their elect status”(152)—to their salvation. Unlike the strong religious convictions that motivated Protestants, the model of an ideal society created by the Russian revolutionary democrats—a “Kingdom of God” on Earth for all of humanity—could hardly have inspired Russian peasants. The majority of the Russian population at the time “did not want anything but land and were accepting Christianity absolutely superficially and covetously” (Berdiaev 1997, 238). There was, however, a brief period in the history of twentieth-century Russia when a measurable part of the population working toward a common goal did indeed experience something akin to a religious frenzy. This period was Stalin’s industrialization in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Those who belonged to this segment of the population were mostly young communists and Komsomol members, and of course they were all atheists. But, as Berdyaev notes, even “Russian atheism has a religious character” (237). The enthusiasm of the new “believers” who sacrificed their personal lives and experienced many privations to build a new society is portrayed in such novels as Fyodor Gladkov’s Cement, Valentin Kataev’s Time Forward, and Ilya Ehrenburg’s The Second Day. These works, precursors of socialist realist fiction, undoubtedly belong to propaganda literature; one should thus treat them with caution when seeking information about the period. Yet such heroes existed; they were not all devised by obsequious writers. The documentary Magnitogorsk (Smit 1996) describes one of Stalin’s industrial projects—the construction of a gigantic steel plant in the Urals. The widow of one of the best workers there tells his story. A foreman in the iron-producing unit, he worked day and night yet also found time to study for a high school diploma. To people who were awed by his stamina he responded that he could not waste a single moment and that this was the time when people have to give all their energy to build a new life. The thoughts of this life gave him the strength to endure such work and made him happy. He also forced his men to work so hard that they would come to his wife,

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begging her to somehow restrain his enthusiasm lest they all die from overwork. They obviously were not as enthusiastic as he. He won praises, prizes, and medals. But in 1937 he was arrested and shot. Lidia Chukovskaya’s novel Sofia Petrovna, which she wrote in 1939-–40, immediately following the peak of the purges, portrays the similar fates of two engineers, young Komsomol believers who were well educated and eager to build socialism and who perished in the Stalin camps. In the same manner thousands if not tens of thousands of innocent, enthusiastic men and women became the victims of Stalinist purges. That spelled the end of the industrialization “rush”; collectivization produced the same chilling effect in agriculture. Thus, by the end of the 1930s the quasi-religious drive among Soviet “believers”—those who survived the purges—was gone and general cynicism set in, as evidenced by a Soviet joke: “They [the authorities] pretend to pay us, we pretend to work.” At that time the situation regarding mass violations of work discipline became so desperate that a law was passed in 1940 to impose prison terms for tardiness and absenteeism. Popular proverbs reflected this cynical attitude toward work: “Work turned monkey into man and turned man into [work] horse”; “Work is not a wolf—it won’t run away to the forest,” or another version, “Work is not Alitet, it will not go to the hills.” The last two proverbs mean that one should not hurry to complete a work assignment, it can always wait. The latter version appeared immediately after Tikhon Semushkin’s novel Alitet Goes to the Hills was published in 1948 and received a Stalin Prize. Post–World War II Russian literature testifies to the continuous tendency toward economic traditionalism. In his novel Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak creates a dichotomy similar to that between Oblomov and Stoltz in Goncharov’s novel—the dichotomy between traditionalist and quasi-Protestant attitudes toward work. 5 In the novel the two male antipodean protagonists Yuri Zhivago and Pavel Antipov (a.k.a. Strelnikov) differ in their characters as well as their professional inclinations and education. Zhivago is characterized by poetic talent, originality, spontaneity, and a predilection for philosophy. He completes his university education in medicine, specializing in vision. He is also a great diagnostician in general. Doctor Zhivago is a novel-parable extremely rich in symbolism, and these qualities of Zhivago symbolize his capacity for intuitive knowledge—seeing deep into the essence of things. Antipov, on the contrary, is rational, disciplined, and has strong willpower, but his only talent is a talent for imitation. He is single-minded and works hard and systematically toward his goal, not hesitating to sacrifice his own life, the lives of his loved ones, or anyone else who stands in his way. He perfectly fits the description of someone who has adopted the Protestant ethic. While Zhivago graduates from gimnaziya 6 —a secondary school emphasizing humanities and languages—Antipov graduates from real’noe uchilishche (realschule), a school with predominantly technical disciplines.

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Contrasting Catholic (traditionalist) and Protestant students, Weber observes that the latter choose technical disciplines much more often than the former. Pasternak’s sympathy clearly lies with the traditionalist Zhivago rather than with the rationalist Antipov. If I allow some necessary simplification here, Antipov is a villain and antihero (although a victim at the same time) while Zhivago is an ideal type, a Christ figure. Pasternak’s treatment of these characters reflects a general Russian attitude that idealizes poetic talent, spontaneity, inspiration, intuition, working for pleasure and spiritual satisfaction (such as writing poetry) and demonizes Western/Protestant rationalism, discipline, a practical mind, and hard, systematic work. Berdyaev’s words about Dostoevsky—“a Russian of Russians”—could easily be applied to another great Russian writer, Alexander Solzhenitsyn. In his writings too, work is always more than just economic acquisition; economic factors are much less important than social and emotional ones. Matrena from the story “Matrena’s Home,” a peasant woman who is sickly and already advanced in age, helps her relatives and neighbors not for money or any other benefit but out of the kindness of her heart. Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, the protagonist of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich who is a Gulag prisoner working as a bricklayer, cannot leave the wall he is building unfinished and continues working after the signal for the end of the day. He is not asked or forced to do this; he will receive no additional food or money, and he himself would probably not be able to explain his reasons for doing so. This behavior seemingly resembles a Protestant drive to work for the sake of work, but Shukhov is driven by complex relationships within his work gang and in particular with the leader of the gang. True, Solzhenitsyn idealizes Shukhov’s work ethic that had been formed and developed in old times, before collectivization or even before the revolution, yet Shukhov differentiates his attitude toward work depending on social considerations. “Work was like a stick. It had two ends. When you worked for the knowing you gave them quality; when you worked for a fool you simply gave him eyewash” (Solzhenitsyn 1963, 26). Similarly, this relativism is reflected in the semantics of the slang word khaltura that means both “moonlighting” and “shoddy work.” What you do outside your main occupation does not have to be of high quality. No period in contemporary Russian history was further away from Protestant asceticism than the periods of the Thaw and Stagnation. Due to postStalinist relaxation in all aspects of life and prevalent atheism the workplace became something of a club where coworkers partied, celebrated official holidays and their birthdays, established friendships, had affairs, and discussed literature, theater, and soccer. This carnivalesque atmosphere is best described in Vasily Aksyonov’s works—both his early, still very socialist realist novels Oranges from Morocco and It’s Time My Friend, It’s Time and in his later magnum opus The Burn. His characters are shown engaging in

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various kinds of professional occupations, but the main subject matter of these novels is not their work but their personal relations focused on drinking and sex, as well as the political atmosphere in the country. Working for pleasure was characteristic of all social layers in the Soviet Union at the time. Kirpichenko, the protagonist of Aksyonov’s short story “Halfway to the Moon” works as a truck driver in the harsh climate of the Soviet northeast, where he makes very good money because of the special pay rates. His month-long vacation begins with three days of drinking and sex in the house of his coworker’s sister. Kirpichenko sleeps with the sister, while the coworker sleeps with another girl, the sister’s friend. Money is not a problem, and Kirpichenko pays for everybody—for all the liquor and food they consume during this three-day revelry. He then continues on to Moscow. The plan is to buy a couple of expensive suits, spend some time in the capital, and then fly to the South to blow the remaining money at Black Sea resorts. A romantic twist in the plot interferes with this plan. On the airplane to Moscow he falls in love with a stewardess and spends the rest of his vacation time and money flying back and forth on the same flight hoping to see her again. Kirpichenko does not hesitate to spend one year’s worth of hard work on a wild vacation of drinking and girls, or a platonic romantic pursuit of a “Beautiful Lady”—either being a far cry from Protestant asceticism. A blue-collar worker in Vladimir Vysotsky’s song “Nu o chem s toboiu govorit’” (What Is There to Talk with You About) tells his sweetheart about his and his friends’ “important problems”: Our conversations are straightforward and rough, We solve all our problems yelling and screaming: How we can land a buck we are short of And who will then run to get vodka. [Razgovor u nas i pryam, i grub— Vse problemy my reshaem glotkoy: Gde dostat’ nedostayushchiy rup’ I komu potom bezhat’ za vodkoy.]

Sergei Kaledin’s novel The Humble Cemetery is a poignant illustration of this unpuritanical single-mindedness. Strelnikov in Doctor Zhivago has one goal—to change life; characters in The Humble Cemetery have their own priority. They work hard, and they are highly skillful gravediggers. They make good money, but they do not buy cars and dachas, they do not even buy decent clothes. Whatever they make they immediately squander on alcohol. Working for instant or prompt gratification is typical of a very large portion of the Russian population.

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To conclude, Russians like Weber’s economic traditionalists seek ease and comfort in their work, but if they work conscientiously they do it not to increase their income and accumulate wealth but rather for extra-economic reasons—it can be vodka or it can be love. In Boris Akunin’s novel Coronation, a butler at the court of one of the Romanov grand princes says: “English butlers are good in all respects, of course, and they know their occupation, but they, nevertheless, could learn something from us, the Russian personnel: namely cordiality. They simply serve their masters, while we also love ours. How can you serve someone without loving him? This, then, would be really some kind of mechanical process [mechanistics–mekhanistika], as if we are not human beings but automatons” (Akunin 2000, 27). This notion of a Western employee working without heart like an automaton, and a Russian working with love and for love echoes Herzen’s and Dostoevsky’s comparisons of German and Russian workers. The Russian housemaid and postal clerk are rude because they want recognition; they want love. What they cannot tolerate is indifference, working just for money. Nothing has changed in the Russian attitude toward work since the mid-nineteenth century, since the times of Goncharov and Dostoevsky and perhaps much earlier. Indeed, in her foreword to the latest English edition of Oblomov the contemporary Russian writer Tatyana Tolstaya notes that the tremendous popularity of this novel has survived the abolition of serfdom, social reforms, wars, revolutions, and the totalitarian and democratic eras. Following Dobrolyubov, she attributes this popularity to the fact that “there is something deeply Russian in the character of Oblomov, something that strikes the chord in every Russian heart” (Tolstaya 2006, viii). In his article on the characteristics of industrial societies Parsons writes that the two factors of the social system necessary for the possibility of such a society to form are “(1) commitments to values; (2) the [appropriate] structure of institutional systems” (Parsons 1960, 18). He also asserts that the system of values does not have to develop in the society itself: it can become institutionalized by “diffusion,” namely by the “child” culture (Russia, in this case) appropriating values from the “adult” (Western) cultures. Here I take exception to this latter assertion of Parsons. In the introduction I distinguish between cultural codes and cultural phenomena, which in turn are based on the schemata formed during early childhood and those developed at a later age, respectively. A work ethic is, apparently, determined by cultural codes rather than by cultural phenomena, therefore the structure of institutional systems can be put in place, but they will not work because they are not suitable to the corresponding schemata. The Russian work ethic resists the spirit of capitalism and the capitalist institutional systems borrowed from the “adult” Western culture, hence the failure of Western-type capitalism in Russia.

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NOTES 1. The translation is slightly modified to bring it closer to the original. 2. The translation is slightly modified to bring it closer to the original. 3. His comparison is very similar to that of Herzen’s discussed in chapter 6 although their political and ideological views were polar opposites. 4. However, it might simply demonstrate that Dostoevsky did not use the usual name for the gallery at the time, Neues Königliches Museum (New Royal Museum), and the German wanted to make sure he understood the foreigner. For example, if in St. Petersburg someone asks where the cruiser is, most likely he or she would be asked in return, “You mean Aurora?” because although there is only one cruiser in St. Petersburg, it is referred to as “Cruiser Aurora” or simply “Aurora” but never just “cruiser.” In addition, Dostoevsky’s German was not good, as he himself admits (543), which could have prevented a smooth dialogue. However, none of these reasons matters vis-à-vis Dostoevsky’s obvious intention to show the limitations of German intellect and culture. 5. One should keep in mind that Pasternak presents this dichotomy on a deep, metaphysical level. While Goncharov directly juxtaposes Oblomov’s and Stoltz’s attitudes toward work and there is no subtext whatsoever in this opposition, the contrast between Zhivago and Antipov symbolically represents life and death, respectively, in all their manifestations: in these characters’ personal fates, in the way they live and think, as well as in Russian history and the revolution in particular. Although the following interpretation barely scratches the surface of Pasternak’s philosophy in this novel, it suffices for my purposes here. 6. Privileged pre-university schools boasting excellent education in all subjects, from classical languages and literatures to humanities and sciences.

III

Legal Nihilism The Tradition of Law and Morality in Russia

A Russian, of whatever social rank, circumvents or breaks the law wherever it is possible to do without being punished; and the government does exactly the same. —Alexander Herzen (1850) The abstract idea of “law,” as a something which is to be obeyed to the letter under all circumstances, even when the peculiar circumstances of a case make it unjust, is grasped with the greatest difficulty, even by the most cultured Russians. —Stepniak [Kravchinsky] (1888)

Disrespect for the formal law has been a distinctive characteristic of the Russian consciousness from time immemorial. Creating a legal system according to the Western models has not resulted in changing traditional patterns of behavior and making Russia a pravovoe gosudarstvo (a state governed by law). Individual might or an inner sense of justice are much more important in the social and political life of Russians than legal considerations. They may believe in the importance and necessity of the law, but their behavior is governed by cultural norms unless they fear punishment. As a product of centuries-long historical and cultural developments legal nihilism belongs to the realm of cultural codes, which are passed from gener-

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ation to generation and are imprinted in people’s consciousness. They cannot be changed overnight by consensus among the members of the community who share the same cultural paradigms. It seems that the former president Medvedev has finally grasped this fact. In January 2013, representing Russia as the prime minister at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he said in his interview with the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung that to defeat corruption in Russia “the mentality of [Russian] people would have to change” (Medvedev 2013) 1 and that two or three or even five years would not be enough to complete this task. Yet he could not afford to manifest such pessimism concerning the future of his country; he had to come up with a solution. In order to rid the country of corruption, he stated, Russian government officials should simply recognize that being corrupt is “an unseemly thing” (Medvedev 2013) and that would solve the problem. When Russians want to express the impossibility of an event they say it will occur “when the crayfish whistles on the mountain.” Should Russians rely on Medvedev’s prescription, legal nihilism may stay in Russian society until the crayfish whistles on the mountain. NOTE 1. “Die Mentalität der Menschen muss sich ändern.” Interestingly, in the English translation of this interview on the Russian government site (there is no translation into Russian) this phrase has been edited and reads now, “The idea of corruption-based behavior should change.” The notion that the predilection for corruption is embedded in Russian consciousness has been purged. See http://government.ru/en/news/115/

Chapter Eight

Case Study Vitaly Kaloyev—Murderer or Hero?

In the Russian consciousness disrespect for the law and a predominance of considerations external to formal legality have a long history and are deeply ingrained in the culture. This pervasive attitude begets opinions and causes behavior that would not be as widespread in the West under similar circumstances. In juxtaposing “Russian consciousness” to the Western attitude toward the law, I am not implying that all Russians have a uniform mindset; here the “average” Russian is compared to the “average” Westerner. Perhaps “public opinion,” which implies the majority rather than homogeneity, would be a more accurate concept to use. In this part I explore the historical roots of the Russian legal consciousness and the cultural patterns of legal behavior in the Russian population. However, before delving into this task I offer here a case study that will shed light on the fundamental differences between Russians and Westerners in their notions and practices in regard to formal laws, rules, and regulations. THE COLLISION On July 1, 2002, two airplanes collided in midair over the German towns Owingen and Überlingen near Lake Constance, killing all seventy-one people aboard. One of these planes was Russian charter TU 154 of Bashkirian Airlines, carrying sixty-nine crew members and passengers; the other was a DHL cargo plane Boeing 257 with only two pilots on board. Most of the passengers on the Russian airplane were children flying to a resort in Spain, the rest were parents accompanying them. The crash resulted from several 81

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mistakes made by Peter Nielsen, the only air traffic controller monitoring the flights, as well as from the lax policies and negligence on the part of the Swiss company Skyguide that controlled the space over Lake Constance (see A. Perret 2006). Another controller was on duty that night, but he was resting in another room—a common practice at Skyguide to which management closed their eyes although it was against regulations. Immediately before the collision Nielsen was handling two workstations, including the delayed Aero Lloyd flight 1137. Another factor contributing to the disaster was the fact that automatic alert systems and phone lines were switched off for maintenance that night. For these reasons Nielsen, overwhelmed with three flights and his attempts to connect to a German airport in order to notify them about the Aero Lloyd flight, noticed the imminent danger and began communications with the Russian plane only fifty seconds before the crash. He mistakenly ordered the Russian airplane to descend while the DHL flight was also descending. He also gave Russian pilots the wrong location of the DHL plane, confusing the 2 o’clock and the 10 o’clock angles. Both planes were equipped with Traffic Collision Avoidance Systems (TCAS), which instructed the Russian plane to climb and the DHL craft to descend. The DHL pilots obeyed the instructions of their TCAS and started descending; the Russians had to contend with the conflicting orders to ascend from their TCAS and to descend from Nielsen. European flight manuals stipulate that in such a case of conflicting signals priority should be given to TCAS; Russian pilots, on the other hand, are instructed to trust the controller, considering the TCAS as a supplementary means of navigation. Obeying Nielsen’s orders, they continued to descend until they collided with the DHL plane. There were no survivors. Following the collision Skyguide tried to place all blame on the Russian crew, asserting that the Russian pilot responded late to the orders to change altitude and that he had two minutes to do that. The Russian pilots were also accused of not knowing English well enough to understand the controller’s instructions. A participant in an Internet forum addressing the incident wrote the next day, “Teach Russian pilots how to speak better English! Otherwise you will have more of this in future as G7 is becoming G8” (Teach Russian pilots 2002). A minor but telling misrepresentation of the collision in the Western press also demonstrates the bias against the Russian crew. Correspondents for The Guardian wrote: “The [Russian] pilot followed the controller's instructions and ploughed into a DHL cargo plane that was descending in accordance with its own collision-avoiding equipment” (Walsh and Harding, 2004). The correspondent of the British Times offered a similar description of the midair collision: “A Bashkirian Airlines Tupolev 154 crashed into a Boeing cargo aircraft operated by the DHL courier service” (Boyes 2005). The wording in both reports assigns the active role in the crash to the Russian airplane although at the time that the correspondents were

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writing their articles it was well known that none of the pilots was responsible for the disaster. The neutral phrase “the two airplanes collided” would have been more appropriate. In fact, as the German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Investigation (BFU–Bundesstelle für Flugunfalluntersuchung) established in the official report issued on May 19, 2004, it was the DHL airplane that cut across the fuselage of the Russian airplane with its vertical tail (BFU 2002, 9, 24, 74, 107). It soon became clear that Nielsen contacted the Russians only fifty seconds before the crash and they immediately began to descend, following his instructions. But Skyguide was in no hurry to admit responsibility and apologize to the relatives of the victims. Almost two years later, when the Federal Bureau published the results of its investigation on May 19, 2004, that established that the main reasons for the catastrophe were Nielsen’s mistakes and the faulty or disconnected equipment in the controller’s room, did the company issue a written apology. Even then it was half-hearted and tactless. The then-director of the company, Allain Rossier, never fully admitted the company’s guilt. Rossier resigned in 2006, and only in 2007 during a personal meeting with the relatives of the victims did Interim Director Francis Schubert, speaking for the company, offer sincere apologies and accept full responsibility for the collision (Skyguide 2007). The Murder and the Trial This tactless tinkering with very sensitive issues of fault and responsibility in a matter involving the deaths of forty-five children created a great deal of bitterness in the Russian public and caused accusations of double standards when dealing with Western countries and Russia. Perhaps the most distressed among the relatives was Vitaly Kaloyev from the Russian republic of North Ossetia, who lost his entire family—his wife and two children—in the accident. Kaloyev was a successful architect; he had worked in Spain and planned to have a vacation there with his family after his contract ended. He was waiting for them in the Barcelona airport when he learned about the collision. He was one of the first to arrive at the site and identify the bodies of his family. After his return home his life became completely devoted to mourning the death of his wife and children. Yuriy Kaloyev once remarked about his brother’s obsession with grief: “You could find my brother, even at 2 a.m., at the cemetery crying on their gravestones. He suffered. He could not work. He locked himself away” (Walsh and Harding 2004). Despite the tradition of strong family ties, typical for the Caucasus where North Ossetia is located, Vitaly’s brothers and sisters were unable to divert his mind from the tragedy and bring him back to normal life. On the first anniversary of the disaster Kaloyev traveled to the crash site for a reunion with other victims’ relatives and with the locals, who also came

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to commemorate the tragedy. According to the Russian newspaper Izvestia, he confronted Rossier with “uncomfortable questions,” asking who was to blame for the collision and whether the controller was solely responsible. Acknowledgment of responsibility on the part of Skyguide as well as handling the matter in a more personal way rather than in a dry bureaucratic manner could have prevented another tragedy from taking place. In February 2004 Vitaly Kaloyev went to Zurich and got a room in a hotel located within half an hour’s walk from Peter Nielsen’s house. As became known later, he had obtained Nielsen’s address through a private investigator in Moscow. When he approached the house a neighbor asked what he wanted and he showed her a scrap of paper with Nielsen’s name and address; she pointed out Nielsen’s house. There are conflicting accounts of how Kaloyev summoned Nielsen outside. Some say that he called him; others that Nielsen saw him from the balcony and came out. Nielsen’s wife and three children were inside when she heard a noise and ran out. Her husband was lying in a pool of blood and the murderer was running away. When police came Nielsen was already dead from multiple knife wounds. The knife was found nearby. The next day Kaloyev was arrested in his hotel room. As he explained to the police, he came to Nielsen to show him photographs of his children, hoping that Nielsen would apologize. When he held out the envelope with photographs Nielsen pushed his hand away and the photographs fell on the ground. Kaloyev contended that he did not remember anything after that. At the trial Kaloyev’s attorney used the temporary insanity defense, but the prosecution argued that Kaloyev never showed remorse over committing this crime. When a judge asked him if he wanted to apologize to Nielsen’s family, he responded that he did not owe an apology to anyone; on the contrary, he was owed an apology. He even refused to rise when the judges came out to announce the sentence. In October 2005 Kaloyev was sentenced to eight years for premeditated murder; the prosecutor had asked for twelve. The maximum sentence for this crime is twenty years. In all, Kaloyev spent three years and nine months in jail, counting from the day of his arrest. First the Swiss court reduced his sentence to five years and three months; then, based on this term, he was released after he had served twothirds of the sentence. In November 2007 Kaloyev was freed and returned home to Vladikavkaz. From the very day of the disaster the Russian public closely followed the development of the events. Many saw the way that Skyguide and the official German Bureau conducting the investigation dealt with this tragedy as an attempt to cover up Skyguide’s fault and as betraying complete insensitivity for the suffering of the victims’ relatives. Already immensely frustrated by delays in the official investigation and thus by delayed justice, eager to see the guilty punished and the matter brought to long-awaited closure, the Russian public was stirred by the news of Kaloyev’s arrest for the alleged murder

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of Nielsen. On the day that Kaloyev’s trial began, Izvestia conducted a poll among 1,373 readers, asking whether they would acquit Kaloyev if they were members of the jury 1—69 percent responded “yes,” 31 percent “no” (Sokolov-Mitrich 2005). Among the comments were: “Kaloyev is wrong, but he is not guilty,” and “Kaloyev was forced to commit this murder.” During the trial and in its aftermath the support was even more extreme. There were demonstrations in Kaloyev’s home city of Vladikavkaz and at the Swiss embassy in Moscow, demanding punishment for Skyguide. In Moscow banners in English and Russian read: “We are with you,” and “He is not a murderer, he is a victim.” Most of the coverage in newspapers and television defended Kaloyev and placed all the blame on Skyguide and the Swiss government. Twelve people flew from Vladikavkaz to Zurich for the trial, among them the president of North Ossetia, Taymuraz Mamsurov. He came as a private citizen, but such open support for a murderer by the president of a Russian republic was unprecedented. Return of the “Hero” When Kaloyev was released in November 2007 and returned to Russia, he was greeted with a hero’s welcome. At the Moscow airport a crowd of sympathizers met him at a spontaneous press conference. A young woman broke through the cordon and presented Kaloyev with a bouquet of flowers and the words, “You are a real man!” to which he modestly responded, “I am like everyone else.” Along the highway young people belonging to the patriotic youth organization “Ours” (Nashi) held up similar banners: “You are our man!” “You are a real man!” When Kaloyev arrived in Vladikavkaz celebrations continued among his own people, and there too he was greeted as a symbol of justice and retribution. “In two months at home the former prisoner of a Swiss jail Vitaly Kaloyev received hundreds of guests, answered numerous telephone calls and letters and was named ‘Man of the Year 2007’ in Ossetia. Vitaly remains the most popular person in his motherland [the Republic of North Ossetia]” (Gritchin 2008). The ultimate tribute to Kaloyev’s deed came in December 2007, when President Mamsurov offered him the job of Deputy Construction Minister. Kaloyev accepted the position in January 2008. I do not intend to establish Kaloyev’s guilt or innocence. What is most relevant for this study is the reaction of the Russian public. How can one explain the widespread sentiment that engendered his vindication and glorification, completely ignoring the fact that he took a human life and orphaned three little children? 2 The explanation lies in the characteristics of Russian legal consciousness, namely distrust of law in general and belief that justice and morality (spravedlivost’ and nravstvennost’) are above the law, or that the law should be based not on dry formulas but on justice and morality. The

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prevalent opinion was that Skyguide should have promptly accepted full responsibility for the tragedy and offered apologies; the management, including the director Rossier, been sacked; and the controller, Peter Nielsen, severely punished. The explanation that an official investigation was ongoing and that before it was concluded the persons involved could not comment on the events, let alone apologize, and no action could be taken did not convince anyone. Perhaps the best example of disregarding the legal logic and procedure was Kaloyev himself. Below is an exchange between Kaloyev and a judge. Judge: Did it not come to your mind that if Nielsen had admitted his guilt while a criminal case was conducted against him it could have had [undesirable] legal consequences for him? Kaloyev: I was not interested in the legal meaning; I just wanted him to apologize to me and my family (Stepanov 2005). Here the priority of an instinctual sense of justice over legal formalities is obvious. The separation of law from social, political, or moral considerations, which Parsons believed was one of the most important characteristics of an industrial society, thus plays no important role in the Russian legal consciousness. The Russian Public Opinion The general distrust of law in the Kaloyev case was apparent in the bitterness that the Russian public expressed toward Western Europe as a whole, manifesting a centuries-old belief in the West’s malicious attitude toward Russia. The investigation was believed to have been deliberately delayed to let Skyguide off the hook, and the time it took to complete it—almost two years— was considered outrageously and criminally excessive and perceived as a sign of Western contempt for Russia. Elena Ovcharenko, the editor-in-chief of the Russian online version of the newspaper Izvestia, asked rhetorically: “What if the airplane carrying American or English children had crashed (God forbid, of course!), would the investigation have moved faster? Would the punishment have been more severe?” (Ovcharenko 2007). In an open letter to the Swiss president Joseph Deiss, published on March 29, 2004 (a month after Nielsen’s murder on February 24, 2004), the relatives of the victims wrote: “If a similar tragedy happened with Americans, French, Germans or Swiss then ‘a quick solution of the questions still in the murk would be found’ even before the conclusion of legal procedures. The death of Russian children, however, is ‘transformed into a trivial case, speculations, and behind-the-scene haggling’” (Letter to Swiss president 2004). Rustam Ibragi-

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mov, director of the Institute of National Security Strategy in Russia, compiled a list of foreign trials meant, in his opinion, to humiliate Russia. In the article titled “It Hurts to See Mother Russia on Trial,” several legal cases abroad in which a Russian or Russians were tried were presented as malicious attacks against Russia’s honor and dignity, including the Kaloyev case. “It is clear for any person in his sound mind,” Ibragimov writes, “that Kaloyev is a victim of criminal and negligent actions of the air company 3 and Swiss authorities. Before trying Kaloyev and sentencing him to eight years in jail they should have tried and justly punished dozens of officials of the air company Skyguide and Swiss civil servants whose duty it was not to allow the tragedy to happen and people to die. And if citizens of other countries had died (God forbid) it surely would have been this way” (Ibragimov 2005). The Russian critics of Western (in)justice seem to have forgotten that the two pilots of the Boeing were indeed “citizens of other countries”—one British and the other Canadian. They also had families whose loss was not a lesser tragedy than that for Russian families. But I have discovered no reports that the relatives of the Boeing pilots were seething with anger and indignation at the slow pace of the investigation and inadequate sentences for Skyguide employees. Perhaps they knew that for such a complex investigation two years was not an excessive amount of time. The investigation team had to collect all the debris from the two airplanes scattered over a vast territory of fields and woods, put them together, and then examine and record each scratch to re-create the exact picture of the tragedy. To have some idea of how long such an investigation could take, it is helpful to compare this crash with the one near Halifax, Nova Scotia, of Swiss Air Flight 111 flying in September 1998 from New York to Geneva. The reason for the crash was a fire caused by the onboard entertainment system. None of the 229 passengers and crew survived. Most of the passengers were Americans, French, and Swiss (183 out of 215); other countries were represented by one or two passengers each. Twelve of the passengers worked for the UN. Yet although the passengers were predominantly from Western countries the final investigation report took four years and seven months to complete. Perhaps the fat old West has lost its capacity for genuine deep emotions, and the loss of a family member can be easily relieved by a monetary compensation. This is exactly what Elena Ovcharenko thinks. “Europe has become unused to Shakespearian passions. Pampered and clean, dotted with lawyers’ offices, flat-ironed with political correctness, afraid of strong and open emotions, the Old World could not even think that somewhere people still live differently” (Ovcharenko 2007). It is true that in Europe, two warring clans no longer kill each other’s members; and the clan mentality has faded away to a great degree. The general notion is that people should solve their conflicts in courts rather than in personal combat with swords or knives

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in hand. As a matter of fact, there are numerous occurrences when deranged people in the West, especially in the United States, murder their wives, colleagues, or classmates; however, unlike in the Kaloyev case, public opinion does not glorify the murderers, no matter what caused the crime. Thus, the Kaloyev case demonstrates how legal consciousness in Russia differs from that in the West. The tragedy was enormous, especially because so many children died in the crash. The anger was understandable, and I believe that in these circumstances Westerners would feel the same way. American, French, and Swiss relatives of the victims of the Swiss Air flight were surely angry with the company that manufactured the faulty entertainment system and with Swiss Air, which had not heeded the complaints it had received prior to the crash that the system generated a lot of heat. 4 They surely grieved at their loss as Kaloyev did at his. But their emotions were their personal emotions, as Kaloyev’s grief was his personal grief. The public could not partake in these feelings with the same level of intensity. Thus, the emotions that the relatives of the victims experienced and their behavior caused by these feelings are not a good indicator of the public consciousness. They are individual and can differ a great deal. Vladimir Savchuk from Ufa who, like Kaloyev, lost his wife and two children in this crash, did not consider revenge and in fact condemned Kaloyev for the murder. To find the differences between Russian and Western legal consciousness, one needs to look at the public reactions to events. NOTES 1. Kaloyev’s lawyers chose not to have a jury trial understanding that the jury’s sympathies would not be on the side of a murderer who orphaned three little children. 2. Some Russians condemned the murder and did not try to find excuses for Kaloyev. One of the most severe and straightforward judgments of his crime was expressed by Timur Aliev, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Chechenskoe obshchestvo (Chechen society). “Heroization of such criminal actions committed by our compatriots is surprising. On the one hand we talk about abolishing the moratorium on capital punishment motivated by the upsurge of crime in the country. On the other hand, we demand mercy for Kaloyev. Are there two [different] approaches to crime in Russia—one domestic and the other for export? Meaning that we should protect Russians but can murder foreigners” (Aliev 2005). Such opinions, however, were scarce in the Russian media. 3. He means “air traffic control company.” 4. According to some reports, the owner of the company, an American, changed his name and moved to another state.

Chapter Nine

Concepts of Legal Nihilism in the Contemporary Russian Context

SCOPE OF THE STUDY While many studies of Russian and Soviet legal systems exist (see, for example, Berman 1950, 1963; Butler 1996, 1999; Danilenko and Burnham 2000), law scholars have paid less attention to the legal consciousness of the Russian population, and when this topic is indeed discussed, it is usually connected to the country’s political system (see, for example, Barry 1992). The general notion is that once the government and law enforcement agencies cease to perpetrate abuse of the citizens and the law itself, Russia will become a pravovoe gosudarstvo. My goal here is to examine the Russian cultural heritage and to demonstrate that Russian attitudes toward law and their informal everyday practices are more determined by cultural traditions than by the political situation. For that reason, I leave illegitimate or even illegal activities of the Russian government outside of consideration. It is a common fallacy to place the entire blame for corruption, electoral irregularities, “telephone justice,” and so forth on the current administration alone. Undoubtedly, the highest echelons of the Russian government including presidents or— in the not-so-remote past—general secretaries of the CPSU have abused their power and perpetrated unlawful control over the country and its population, but they would not have been able to commit their abuses had legal nihilism not permeated the entire society and culture. The Pussy Riot affair, the recent laws against the NGOs’ activities and protest meetings, as well as the Navalny affair, indicate that the government is tightening the screws on the opposition. The Khodorkovsky case was most likely directly controlled by Putin; similarly, Khrushchev headed Pasternak’s persecution in 1958. However there also are always Danilkins 1 and Soviet writers, respectively, who 89

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eagerly comply with their superiors’ wishes. Additionally, there is the vast majority of the population, which habitually disregards Russian and international laws and supports the governmental measures that blatantly ignore them. For example, after the illegal annexation of Crimea Putin’s approval ratings skyrocketed to 87 percent in August 2014 and remained that high more than half a year later despite a severe economic crisis. His greatest accomplishments are believed to have been “strengthening Russia’s position in the international arena” (that is, standing up to the West) and “establishing order in the country, ensuring a calm political environment” (that is, completely squelching the opposition) (Levada-Center 2014). It is the legal nihilism of these countless executors, and indeed virtually the entire population, that is the subject matter of this part. Different Notions of Legal Nihilism At the very beginning of his inaugural speech on May 7, 2008, President Medvedev declared, “We must achieve true respect for law and overcome legal nihilism (pravovoi nigilizm) which seriously stands in the way of contemporary development” (Medvedev 2008). We do not know what exactly the president-elect meant or what semantics he ascribed to the phrase “legal nihilism”; we can only guess. Medvedev may have been referring to widespread corruption in the country, but most likely he had in mind the general disrespect for law among the population. Corruption can be dealt with, to a greater or lesser degree of success, by introducing and enforcing stricter laws and by increasing the efficiency of law-enforcing agencies, but fighting general legal nihilism may prove a “mission impossible” within the foreseeable future. Thus by the end of Medvedev’s presidency this goal had not been achieved; indeed, little if anything has changed in legal matters in Russia. Some Russian scholars express their opinion about Russian legal nihilism in terms that are much more concrete than those of Mr. Medvedev. A prominent Russian economist, A. N. Mitin, offers a rather pessimistic view of the state of law in contemporary Russia: The higher the position of power, the greater the abuse. Officials use law for their personal benefit. They break traffic rules, decide land allotments in favor of their friends, interfere with Commercial Court resolutions, and in general grant privileges to “useful” people hoping to get something in return in the future. But it is not only the political and government elite that perpetrates violations of the law with impunity. To portray the attitude toward law in the country, Mitin is using the expression “mass legal nihilism” as an “all-society infection” (Mitin 2012, 142, 145–146, 148). And in his view, disrespect for the law is a cultural phenomenon that results from a person’s socialization during early childhood. “A person learns about permissions, bans, the sense of safety and justice—the most important social values—in the very first years of his or

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her life; following the example of older generations, a person ‘creates’ his own personal social values” (Mitin 2012, 148). The phrase “sovereign democracy,” however ridiculous it may sound, coined by Vladislav Surkov, the chief Russian ideologist under Putin and Medvedev, is simply another way of expressing the old idea of the deep dichotomy between Russia and the Western world. As has been mentioned, institutionally Russian and Western systems are very similar. Thus, what distinguishes them is not structural disparity but the traditional cultural paradigms that determine how the corresponding systems function. In Western scholarship the use of the term “legal nihilism” is not consistent and its interpretations are often contradictory. Some scholars hold to the traditional view that observing and respecting law is not characteristic of Russian culture, hence the pervasiveness of legal nihilism among the population. Others contend that Russian legal nihilism is but a myth, and the Russian attitude toward law differs little from that in the West. To demonstrate this, some of the Western legal scholars use sociological methods in their research. However, polling Russians may by itself present a problem. For centuries Russians have been forced to engage in double thinking, having learned to reconcile in their minds different and often opposite beliefs. Living under authoritarian or totalitarian rule requires demonstrating loyalty to the rulers; at the same time, this loyalty is easily betrayed for the sake of survival, or simply convenience. Russians know what is right, and they may even believe in the right thing, but not necessarily practice it. Thus they may provide “the right” answer in sociological questionnaires but in real life their behavior may completely contradict it. In other words, their conscious attitude toward law may lie outside everyday practices based on their cultural conditioning. In addition, the responses in such polls are often interpreted without taking cultural attributes of today’s Russia into account. Western researchers sometimes project their own habitual cultural notions on Russian responses. Below I discuss both opinions by Western scholars in regard to the Russian attitude toward law—the conscious (formal) attitude toward law and the unconscious tendencies in everyday informal practices. A collection of articles on Russian law and its implementation in contemporary Russia, Law and Informal Practices: The-Post Communist Experience, is a rich and well-researched source of information about the Russian attitude toward formal law. Although the authors try to avoid categorical, one-sided conclusions, it is clear that some of them believe in Russian disrespect for law, while others do not see much difference between Russia and the West in the population’s attitude toward law. The book’s coeditors, Dennis J. Galligan and Marina Kurkchiyan, argue that in Russia it is social norms 2 that regulate everyday life rather than the rule of law. According to Galligan, this happens not because of the absence of written law or bad laws but because the combination of Russian history and current circumstances

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“gives such prominence to social norms that they are beyond the reach of orderly legal regulation and the rule of law” (Galligan 2003, 4). What makes the whole issue confusing is that Russian values regarding legality are not much different from those among the populations of Western Europe or the United States, but their behavior is. Kurkchiyan remarks that the collective behavior of Russians does not reflect their true values, that people do not think of bribery, shortcuts, and other corrupt practices as normal, desirable, and rational (Kurkchiyan 2003, 31). Yet they see law as “a door in the middle of an open field. Only a fool would use the door” (38). Kurkchiyan agrees with Galligan that Russian behavior is regulated by ethical principles, which are based not on the law but on cultural norms: “They [ethical principles] carry different social meanings, and they are attached to different sets of social relationships: kinship within the primary and extended family; face-toface links with friends, neighbors, co-religionists, and fellow community members; mutual dependence on colleagues or on other members of a team, and anyone else to whom a person feels honor-bound” (44). Other Western scholars emphasize Russian legal values rather than actual behavior, concluding that the Russian attitude toward the rule of law is not very different from that of Westerners. James L. Gibson draws his conclusions from a survey he conducted in Russia from 1996 to 2000. He included four propositions in his poll: • It is not necessary to obey a law you consider unjust. • If you don’t agree with a law, it is all right to break it. • The government should have some ability to bend the law in order to solve pressing social and political problems. • The law should be flexible enough for the people to use it to achieve their own goals (Gibson 2003, 83). It is evident that all these propositions are concerned with Russian attitudes toward formal law, which indeed differ little from those in the West. But as Galligan and Kurkchiyan indicate, legal values are different from and often opposite to informal practices reflecting disrespect for law in Russia. The difference lies in the conscious recognition of the importance of the rule of law for society on the one hand, and on the other hand the unconscious observation of cultural norms in informal practices that often break legal rules. Gibson is aware of this dichotomy; while rejecting the notion of Russian legal nihilism in general he never fails to condition his conclusions: Generally, the data in Table 5.1 indicate a fairly high normative status of the rule of law among Russians. In these propositions we have given Russians good reasons for setting the law aside, but few actually do so. Thus, at least from the point of view of this aspect of Russian political culture, these data

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provide no evidence that “legal nihilism” is widespread (Gibson 2003, 84, emphasis mine). The data presented in this chapter allow me to reject the assertion that Russian political culture is characterized by “legal nihilism,” at least at the abstract level of normative values. Russians tend to support the idea of rule of law, as applied both to their own behavior and to the behavior of the state (Gibson 2003, 90, emphasis mine).

In 2004 and 2006 Kathryn Hendley conducted similar research in Russia, but offered just one proposition in her survey: “If a person considers the law unjust, he has the right to ‘go around it’” (Hendley 2012, 152). Because this proposition is similar to the first proposition in Gibson’s survey (“It is not necessary to obey a law you consider unjust”), Hendley considers comparison of her results and Gibson’s justifiable. The results turned out to be similar: most Russians disagreed with this proposition. Hendley makes a similar conclusion: “Russians are not bizarrely nihilistic” (160). She explains the fact that “everyone from Medvedev to the taxi drivers [she encountered in Russia] is convinced that legal nihilism is endemic in Russia” (156) by suggesting that Russians are susceptible to the myth of Russian lawlessness created and sustained by both Western and Russian media (Hendley 2012, 158). William E. Butler offers a different explanation for a Russian belief in their own legal nihilism: “A Russian penchant for exaggeration, for overstatement” (Butler 2003, 50). True, Russians tend to be overly negativistic about their country and their lives (sharing their opinions with each other). The question, however, is, why would they choose to be so critical about this particular aspect, if in reality they behave like law-abiding Westerners? There is no smoke without fire. After all, they do not claim that they are rapists or cannibals. Thus, it is clear that there are two different aspects that should be considered when discussing Russian attitude toward law: the conscious, learned values that lead Russians to appreciate formal law and denounce lawless and corrupt practices in government and business; and unconscious cultural norms that regulate everyday behavior and make law simply a stick in the hands of the administration: it engenders fear but no respect. As Gibson’s and Hendley’s surveys show, Russians are not legal nihilists as far as the first aspect is concerned. As for the second aspect, Galligan, Kurkchiyan, and other scholars have demonstrated that Russian behavior in everyday life is regulated by cultural norms that may or may not correspond to formal law. The aspect of legal nihilism that I study here is concerned with everyday practices and behavior of Russians; hence I leave aside a discussion of their conscious attitude toward law, which may indeed not be much different from that in the United States.

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To understand how legal nihilism has developed in Russia one needs to look into the history of crime and punishment in Russian culture. In the following I explore several periods in Russian history to highlight their pertinent role in shaping Russian legal consciousness. NOTES 1. The judge who presided over Khodorkovsky’s second trial and sentenced him and his co-defendant Platon Lebedev to 13.5 years in prison. 2. For my purposes I use the phrase “cultural norms” instead, since social norms may be different for different social groups and may change within a relatively short period of time while cultural norms are more homogeneous for the entire nation and more persistent.

Chapter Ten

Historical Roots of Russian Legal Nihilism

HISTORY 1: KIEVAN RUS’ In search of the phenomena that engendered Russian legal nihilism, it seems worthwhile to look into the very beginning of Russian religious history, the Christianization of Russia by Grand Prince Vladimir in 988 and its aftermath. In Kiev this process happened virtually overnight: after destroying the statues of pagan gods and seeing that many Kievans did not heed his orders to convert, Vladimir declared that those who did not come “tomorrow morning to the river Pochaina to get baptized” would be considered his enemies (Tatishchev 1963, 2:63). Christianization in Kiev proceeded relatively calmly, but in Novgorod the resistance was fierce. It was cruelly squashed by Vladimir’s uncle Dobrynya and his military commander Putyata. An old proverb says, “Putyata baptized with the sword and Dobrynya with fire” (Tatishchev 1963, 1:113). Thousands of weeping and wailing Novgorodians were dragged and driven to the place of baptism; those who refused were killed and their houses burned. Eventually Christianity took a strong hold in Russia, and many foreign observers noted the Russian people’s deep religious devotion. However, Russians could not part with their old pagan beliefs and continued to practice pagan rituals. Fedotov asserts that “the Russian peasant had been living in the Middle Ages through the nineteenth century” (Fedotov 1960, 3) and observes, “Passive resistance [to Christianization] was tough and tenacious. Church historians are right describing the Russian medieval religion as a ‘dual faith’” (8). Any people during the period of transition to Christianity clung to their old pagan beliefs, but in Russia this period 95

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stretched for many centuries and dual faith (dvoeverie) shaped the lives and social behavior of the majority of the population. Florovsky wrote that dvoeverie divided the ancient Russian culture into two: the day culture (diurnal) and the night culture (nocturnal). According to him, the former was “spiritual” (dukhovnaya); the latter was “of the soul” (dushevnaya). The “diurnal” culture was the culture of the spirit and intellect; this was the “intelligent” culture; and the “nocturnal” culture belongs to the area of dreams and imagination. . . . One can see this unhealthy character of the development of ancient Rus’ first of all in the fact that, for too long a time and too persistently, the “nocturnal” imagination hides from and avoids being tested and purified by “intellect.” . . . The defect and weakness of spiritual development of ancient Rus’ consists partly in the lack of ascetic training (and absolutely not in the excess of asceticism), in the insufficient “spirituality” of the soul, in the excessive “emphasis on the soul” (dushevnost’) or on the “poetry,” [and] in the insufficient shaping of the “soul’s elemental force” by the “spirit” (Florovskiy 1937, 3–4).

In the above quotation Florovsky remarks on the weakness of theological dogmatic thought in ancient Rus’ (discussed in detail in part 1) and on the domination of elemental emotionality and poetic imagination rooted in paganism. Instead of the dichotomy of diurnal versus nocturnal cultures, Florovsky could have applied the Apollonian versus Dionysian dichotomy introduced by Nietzsche and adopted by Russian symbolists, in particular Vyacheslav Ivanov, at the beginning of the twentieth century (see Clowes 1988, 115–174). Alexander Blok’s patriotic poem “Scythians” portrays Russians as pagans and barbarians, and threatens the old Europe with a terrible defeat at the hands of elemental hordes. In this poem Russians, not Europeans, are capable of real emotions, real love. Russia is associated with thickets and woods—the realm of pagan gods; Europe is characterized by the demeaning epithet “pretty” (prigozhiy). In Andrei Bely’s novel Petersburg the character with the Apollonian name Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov represents a Western-type bureaucracy whose end, together with the end of the Europeanized city St. Petersburg, is imminent, delivered by Dionysian forces. Here the Dionysian character of Russia—wild, elemental, and capable of unrestrained emotions—is contrasted to the Apollonian character of the “pretty” Europe. What are the reasons for the persistency of dvoeverie in Russian culture? Both Western and Russian scholars contend that it was so long lasting in Russia because the country never experienced the Reformation or CounterReformation (see Levin 1993, 31–52). One can also suggest that the two facets of dvoeverie had different functions, both of which were important in the life of Russians. The Christian facet took care of the afterlife, and the idea of the kingdom of God in heaven appealed to Russian peasants. However,

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their earthly life was extremely hard and full of suffering, and the church provided little relief. Pagan beliefs and rituals addressed the concerns of these peasants’ everyday life, such as illnesses, courtships and other social relations, crops, and natural disasters. Even when peasants prayed to Christian icons they treated them as pagan idols counting on their magic power and believing in the immediate presence of the divinity on the icon. The prolonged influence of paganism and lack of religious education in Russian culture are responsible for the strong tendency toward the myth-making characteristic of the Russian consciousness. Fedotov writes, “Beyond the practical sphere [church rituals], religious needs were satisfied more by apocrypha than by works of dogmatic theology. The Slavic soul craved more mythology than dogma, and it received mythology in Christian disguise” (Fedotov 1960, 48). Pagan practices and beliefs—the religion of the oppressed—were severely persecuted and prosecuted by their oppressors, the church and the authorities. This naturally aroused hostile feelings in the persecuted. In Russian folklore—the skomoroshiny (songs by medieval jesters, skomorokhi) or the zavetnye skazki (secret, obscene folktales) collected by Afanasyev—priests are often the targets of pranks, sometimes quite cruel, by smart peasants. In his article on Afanasyev’s Zavetnye skazki, B. Uspensky notes that a significant number of these were directed against clergy and some even against the Christian religion (Uspensky 1996, 144–45). He concludes that “‘the secret tales’ reveal an indubitable connection with rituals of pagan origin” (151). This folk satire was also persecuted. Skomoroshiny were outlawed and those performing them punished if caught. The situation thus arose that Russians had to obey the official religious doctrine and hide their actual beliefs, which led to developing a culture of lies, mistrust, and disrespect towards the ruling powers. The tendency for lying and cheating has remained one of the most prevalent social phenomena to the present day. In fact, it has even strengthened since all the important reforms have been conducted from above, ignoring the needs of the majority. Peter the Great’s reforms, which brought education and some Western values to the nobility, changed little in the lives of the serfs who could not partake in them. The abolition of serfdom freed the peasants but did not solve the land question thus throwing them into the chaos of new social relations without providing a solid economic basis. Many workers and peasants supported the Bolsheviks in their usurpation of power in November 1917 and in the ensuing civil war believing the promises of a new life only to be cruelly deceived by Stalinism. Collectivization resulted in new serfdom; the great purges turned millions into virtual slaves in the Gulag labor camps; and workers were mercilessly exploited for paltry remuneration. Moreover, the entire population was politically and ideologically fettered. It is not surprising that in his movie Andrei Rublev (1966)

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Andrei Tarkovsky chose Russia of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries as a metaphor for portraying life in the Soviet Union (another work using Aesopian language). Tarkovsky and his co-scriptwriter Andrei Konchalovsky justly recognized the continuity of the centuries-old social and political patterns and their striking resemblance to Soviet reality. Over the course of centuries the religious dvoeverie has metamorphosed into what George Orwell describes in 1984 as Doublethink. People with this kind of split personality conform to the formal ideology and laws (often sincerely believing in them), but at the same time lie, cheat, give and take bribes or steal from the state without considering such actions immoral or shameful. Such a person would observe common social mores in interactions with his or her relatives, friends, or even strangers, but would violate them with no hesitation or regret in his or her relationships with the state or institutions. Lack of spiritual education also played an important role in shaping the Russian legal consciousness. Ancient Rus’ failed to adopt not only theological knowledge from Byzantium but also the classical legacy that the West gained from using Latin as the language of religion and scholarship. An important element of the classical heritage was Roman law. Although its versions were published in Byzantium in Greek, they were not translated into Russian either from Latin or Greek. Medieval Russians could gain some familiarity with elements of Roman law through personal contacts with the Byzantine in the process of trade or war but that knowledge was limited and was not applied to Russian law. The Russian codes of law Sudebniki were based mostly on the ancient law of Kievan Rus’ compiled in the versions of Russkaya Pravda (Russian Justice) of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. 1 According to such Russian thinkers as Petr Chaadaev and Vladimir Solovyov, Byzantium’s influence on Rus’ was only pernicious. Here is an incomplete list of the negative aspects that Rus’ adopted from Byzantium, according to Solovyov: Politicheskoe dvoeverie (political double faith) embodied in Ivan the Terrible: a combination of Christian rhetoric and anti-Christian, pagan abuse of power manifested in the most horrifying atrocities. (Similarly, Soviet rhetoric solemnly pronounced that the People are the real and only masters of the country, while in reality people were oppressed, abused, and exploited by the government.) Lack of respect for personal dignity and personal rights; complete subjugation of the individual to the power of the ruler or the state. Enslavement of the church by the state, the patriarch being in service to the emperor. Fedotov commented on the patriarch’s relationship with the state as follows: “The patriarch who headed the Church was al-

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ways connected with the palace and often shared in its political activities and crimes” (Fedotov 1960, 37). Severe persecution of those who deviated even minimally from the letter of the Church rules (see Solov’ev 2008). Finally, as demonstrated in part 2, Russian legal nihilism developed as a reaction to the oppression perpetrated by the ruling minority upon the absolute majority of the population. Facing injustice and cruelty, peasants had no recourse but resorting to dishonest practices in order to survive. The long tradition of dvoeverie, lack of religious education, and oppression resulted in shaping a consciousness in which Dionysian elemental emotionalism and unruliness dominate over Apollonian clarity, reason, and orderliness. This consciousness scorns strict observance of formal law and is guided by considerations based on a complex conglomerate of emotion, an instinctual sense of justice, national myths and values, collectivist (tribal or kinship) responsibilities, as well as prevalence of appearance over content. The eleventh-century “Sermon on Law and Grace” by the Kiev Metropolitan Ilarion can serve as a metaphor for the Russian attitude toward the law. Ilarion sees transitioning from Judaism to Christianity as moving from the fetters of the law to freedom of grace: “And man is no longer constrained in the Law [of the Old Testament] but move freely in Grace [of the New Testament]” (Ilarion 1991, 7). Russian consciousness moves freely in the grace of legal nihilism, and is not about to be constrained by the fetters of the law. HISTORY 2: LATE MEDIEVAL PERIOD By the second half of the sixteenth century, the time of Ivan the Terrible, Russia had mostly completed the process of becoming an absolute monarchy with the center in Moscow. Local (udel’nye) princes were totally subjugated by the grand prince, as were the boyars and the Church. The law was formally based on the Sudebnik of 1550, but in practical terms two features determined justice in the land: concentration of power in the same hands and corruption in the population from top to bottom. Interesting in and of themselves, these aspects are also relevant because we can observe the same tendencies in today’s Russia. A glance at the history of Russia demonstrates both synchronic differences between Russia and the West in the sixteenth century and diachronic parallels in the state of justice in premodern Russia and in Russia today. One aspect of the legal situation that sets Russia apart from major countries in Europe is that by the sixteenth century European sovereigns had become somewhat limited in their capacity to fully control legal matters, or indeed rule the country. In the course of the struggle between the sovereigns and the nobility the former had to relinquish a share of

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the power and, in some cases, even agree to be subjected to law. In Russia the process went in the opposite direction. In the fifteenth century, under Ivan III and his son Vasiliy III, the boyars still had some say in state affairs but Ivan the Terrible reduced their participation to nil. In his correspondence with Andrey Kurbsky, Ivan expressed his views on the tsar’s power in regard to the nobility. “Our land is governed by God’s mercy and our [Royal “we”] parents’ blessing, and then by us, its monarchs, and not by judges and governors (voevodas), not by magistrates (ipaty) and generals (stratigi). Our monarchy begins with St. Vladimir; we were born and raised as tsars. We possess our own; we did not steal anything from others. It is Russian monarchs who own their kingdoms, not boyars and nobles” (Klyuchevskiy 1987–90, 2:157). In 1549 Ivan the Terrible called the first so-called Zemsky Sobor (Land Assembly), which worked during 1550 and 1551. It approved the new, expanded version of the Sudebnik based on the 1497 Sudebnik. It also approved further development of local self-government. Often these assemblies are compared to the English Parliament or French General States or German Landtage. Russian historians, however, note that while European parliaments or representative assemblies appeared in the process of the struggle between nobility and sovereigns in which nobility strived to limit the sovereign’s power, in Russia Zemsky Sobors were called by the tsar and served mainly to provide moral support to the tsar’s decisions and also to safeguard him against future criticism in case his decision was wrong. Furthermore, European representatives to their assemblies were elected; most of the Russian participants were summoned by the tsar and represented his own administration working in the provinces. Concerning the first Sobor, neither its composition nor the details of its work are extant, but the acts or minutes of the following two Sobors that took place in 1566 and 1598 are available. Both acts list the participants. Based on these lists, the Russian historian Klyuchevsky concludes: “The Sobor representation was not based on public election by trust but on the government call by position and rank. . . . The Zemsky Sobors of the sixteenth century was nothing but a council of the government with its own agents” (Klyuchevskiy 1987–90, 2:358, Klyuchevsky’s emphasis). Another Russian historian, Kostomarov, describes an episode at the Sobor of 1566: Ivan the Terrible asked the participants if he should relinquish some lands along the Dvina to Lithuania. Perhaps sensing which answer the tsar would like to hear, all 357 members responded that he should not yield to the Lithuanian demands but added, “Only God and the monarch know; as our monarch wishes so do we, his slaves” (Kostomarov 1990–92, 1:457). Perhaps the main difference between Europe and Russia was in the relationship between the lord and his vassal. In European feudal society it was based on mutual loyalty; on the other hand, Russian lords were not obligat-

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ed—morally or legally—to be loyal to their subjects. In fact, they could perpetrate any atrocity on them as if they were their slaves. In a letter to Kurbsky Ivan the Terrible declared, “We [the royal “we”] are free to reward our slaves (kholopy) but also free to punish (kaznit’) them” (Klyuchevskiy 1987–90, 2:158). Of course, the “slaves” included the entire population of Russia. The same views were held and practiced by the local princes: “I, Prince so-and-so, am free to reward some and to punish others” (Klyuchevskiy 1987–90, 2:158). The Soviet historian Aleksandr Zimin, an expert in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Russia, describes the atrocities perpetrated by Prince Fedor, a cousin of Grand Prince Vasiliy III. Fedor, the prince of Volotsk, robbed both town dwellers and peasants in his principality. If people were not quick to provide the money he tortured them. He also plundered monasteries. To complaints, he responded: “The sovereign is free in his monasteries—he rewards as he wishes and he robs as he wishes” (Zimin 2009, 104). In his first book, Narratives by Foreigners of the Moscow State, Klyuchevsky summarizes descriptions of a Moscow monarch: “According to foreigners, this monarch stands immeasurably high above all his subjects and in his power over them exceeds all monarchs in the world. This power is similarly extended to both clerical and secular people. Not depending on anyone, not being accountable to anyone, the monarch freely commands (raspolagaet) the property and lives of his subjects. A boyar and the lowest peasant are equal before him and equally have no recourse against his will” (Klyuchevskiy 1991, 56). Power was abused not only by monarchs and princes; the abuse was basically practiced at each rung of the ladder from top to bottom. As Klyuchevsky observes, “It is not surprising that people, used to different ways, after visiting the Moscow Court, carried back bad memories about the country in which everybody is a slave except for its ruler” (Klyuchevskiy 1991, 56). The regional administration, sent to towns and regions by the tsar “to feed” (kormit’sya) and govern, robbed the local population while trying to collect enough for themselves and their superiors in Moscow before their term of feeding ended. “For that, people hate governors (namestniki) seeing that they are placed over them not as much to provide justice as to oppress them and ‘collect wool’ from them not once a year as is done with sheep, but shear and rip them off during the entire year” (Klyuchevskiy 1991, 110). Although local self-government was introduced after the first Sobor, the essence of it, Klyuchevsky asserts, “consisted not as much in the right of the community to manage their own local affairs as to carry out certain state tasks ordered from the center and to elect from their midst executive officials for the monarch’s matters” (Klyuchevskiy 1987–90, 2:345). Kliuchevsky, as well as K. D. Kavelin, and B. N. Chicherin, who belonged to the so-called State School, believed that while in Europe the state grew organically, from

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below, by the activity of society, in Russia, the state was organized from above, by the government, rather than by efforts of the population. Another important difference between Russia and Europe was the degree of corruption and arbitrariness in judicial matters. Not that the European legal system was free from corruption, but the frequency with which foreign travelers to Russia refer to this aspect in their description of Russian justice indicates that the degree of corruption they encountered there was unprecedented. The English diplomat of the sixteenth century Giles Fletcher writes in his book about Russia that at a trial “the quarrel is made rather against the purse, than against the injustice. They have no written law save only a small book, that contains the time and the manner of their sitting, order in proceeding, and such other judicial forms and circumstances, but nothing to direct them to give sentence upon right or wrong. Their only law is their Speaking Law, that is, the pleasure of the Prince and of his Magistrates and officers” (Fletcher 1966, 53). In fact, the new 1550 Sudebnik did stipulate punishment for corrupt judges, but this did not stop the corruption. “Consequently,” concludes Klyuchevsky, “the main thing was not some laws but the ancient traditions and the conditions of life that produced these traditions” (Klyuchevskiy 1991, 109). In spite of strict laws against bribes they did not cease. Petitioners invented various ways to give a bribe so it would not look like one. Bribes were often accepted by officials’ wives, and sometimes gifts were hung on the icons in the official’s house as a donation for candles. Foreign diplomats write about the tsar’s officials extorting bribes and gifts from them. In 1555 a merchant company was founded in England for trade with Muscovy; one of its agents reported back to England that the best place to store English goods would be Vologda. Although Moscow would have been more convenient because most of the trade was conducted there, it would have been much more expensive since “the company would have had to spend half of its profits for gifts to the tsar’s officials” (Klyuchevskiy 1991, 214). The question arises: should one trust these opinions and stories by foreign travelers? They could be a product of prejudice or stereotyping so common among travelers to lands with different cultures. The Soviet historian M. N. Tikhomirov convincingly explains why these accounts contain extremely valuable information. “Travelers left us stories about the countries they visited as foreigners. If chronicles, acts, and other national sources rarely mention various details of the way of life, which for the authors was habitual, then foreigners pay special attention exactly to these aspects of life in the countries they visited and which were unexpected, unusual or unacceptable for them” (Medushevskiy 1991, 240). As an example, Fletcher describes the practices of Russian courts: “As for attorneys, counselors, procurators and advocates to plead their [plaintiffs’ or defendants’] case for them, they have no such order, but every man is to tell his own tale and plead for himself so

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well as he can” (Fletcher 1966, 50). Most contemporary Russian sources would not provide this information since these functions of the court were irrelevant to the existing practice. Fletcher’s account clearly states that the Russian court functioned without legal professionals. It also allows comparison with the English court of the same period because here Fletcher undoubtedly refers to the English legal system. However, one does not have to rely solely on foreign accounts. We find enough information about corruption and abuse of power in Russian sources. A description of corrupt judges in the book by the seventeenth-century civil servant Grigoriy Kotoshikhin is strikingly similar to the account of the Austrian diplomat Sigmund von Herberstein, written a century earlier. In spite of the legal provisions against corrupt judges, they “are not afraid of punishment and cannot take away their eyes and thoughts from temptation and promptly allow their hands to take [bribes], although they do it not themselves but through the back door, through their wives or daughters or sons and brothers, and servants” (Kotoshikhin 1980, 131). It is hard to refrain from drawing a parallel with today’s civil servants, who register their apartments, dachas, and cars in the names of their family members. Corruption and abuse of power are vividly presented in the writings of Fedor Ivanovich Karpov and Ivan Semenovich Peresvetov. Karpov, a Russian diplomat, politician, and writer, lived in the late fifteenth to the first half of the sixteenth century and worked in the time of Vasiliy III, father of Ivan the Terrible. By Russian standards, he was a very educated man who quoted Aristotle and Ovid in his writings. In his epistle to Daniel, Metropolitan of Moscow and all Russia (1522–1539), Karpov discusses a seemingly theological issue: how one should live by patience or by law. First, he offers a general observation: if people rely on patience and endure everything they are subjected to, they will be endlessly abused by stronger, more powerful men. Instead, Karpov suggests, people should live by law, which should be maintained and protected by a strong ruler. Switching then to the present state of affairs in Russia, he points out that the strong abuse their power and the rich perpetrate injustice because people do not live by law. Alas, in our times many masters do not take care of their subjects and orphans but allow their being oppressed by deceitful governors. They do not properly tend their flock and leave their subjects to live under the heavy burden of endurance. They do not take into account that humankind is feeble and yields to the sensual attraction rather than to the righteous judgment of mind. Therefore people, in all the times, ought to live under the power of law: during the first period, at the times of natural life, under natural law; during the second period, at the time of [The Old Testament] Law, under the law of Moses; [and] during the third period, now, at the time of Grace, under the law of Christ (Karpov 2000, 355).

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Karpov wrote his epistle some time around 1530, certainly before 1539. Ivan Peresvetov, also а sixteenth-century writer, submitted his epistle, or “petition” as it is known, to Ivan the Terrible in 1549. He too criticizes lawlessness and emphasizes the importance of living by law. In this epistle, which is actually a fictional narrative, the Turkish Sultan Mehmed II, the conqueror of Byzantium, is juxtaposed with the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI. The infidel Mehmed serves as a positive example here while the Orthodox Constantine is denounced. The former is the ruler who enforced the law and severely punished corrupt judges. Constantine, on the other hand, allowed corruption and lawlessness to flourish in his land. The narration then switches to Moscow. In the dialogue between the narrator, the Moldavian prince Peter, and his servant, the Muscovite Vas’ka Mertsalov, Vas’ka tells Peter that in Moscow Christian faith is good and churches are beautiful, “but there is no truth/justice/law.” 2 Hearing this, Peter weeps and says: “If there is no law, there is nothing at all” He further asserts: “God loves not faith but justice” (Peresvetov 1962, 79). Of course, Constantinople fell not because the Byzantium nobles were corrupt but for political and military reasons, and the Ottomans probably had their own share of corrupt nobility. The allegorical function of the epistle exposing contemporary Muscovy is clear. The historical development of medieval Rus’, the transfer of political and religious power to Moscow did not result in changing the Russian legal consciousness: legal nihilism still ruled the land. HISTORY 3: THE LEGAL REFORM OF 1864 AND ITS AFTERMATH Until the nineteenth century there was practically no legal profession in Russia (see Wortman 1976); the observance and enforcement of the law was in the hands of the emperor and nobility. Each landlord was the judge for his serfs, and the emperor was the supreme judge for the entire population. Lawyers were nothing but clerks who created and filed official documents, often incomprehensible to anyone but themselves. They had poor education, paltry salaries, and low social status. In the nineteenth century under Nicholas I, the situation gradually changed. More lawyers appeared with university education, and although the majority of them were still members of the nobility some came from the lower social strata. The turning point was the legal reform of 1864, which followed the emancipation of serfs in 1861. For the first time in Russian history the judiciary formally became independent of the executive powers, that is, of governors, police, and the tsar himself. The adversarial judicial process was introduced: the accused now had the right to a defender. Trial by jury was also instituted for the first time. Liberally minded Russians were elated; it seemed

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that the rule of law would now govern Russia rather than the rule of oppressive power. Problems began with the very onset of the reform. The police were insulted by the idea that a mere civilian lawyer could summon them for interrogation; governors who had possessed unlimited power in their guberniyas could not adjust to the notion that before the law they were equal to any low-class citizen or even a criminal. At the same time, lawyers themselves, many of whom came from the most progressive, educated, and liberal segment of society, made no effort to cooperate with the authorities; on the contrary, they challenged the establishment wherever they could. Sometimes the conflicts originated from petty battles of vain pride. A governor became outraged when a lawyer came to see him wearing a sheepskin coat instead of an official uniform. The lawyer responded that he did not have to wear the uniform. Conflict was created before they even engaged in any discussion of official business. In order to make the law reform work the regime and its detractors should have attempted to collaborate with each other, even at the cost of reciprocal concessions and compromises. Instead, their relationship grew increasingly hostile, which was especially apparent in political cases. The tsar and his administration were dead set on squashing any revolutionary attempts to change the society. The liberals, on the other hand, often sympathized with revolutionary causes since they also were dissatisfied with the slow pace of the peasant reforms and general lack of civil freedoms. The government’s initial decision to treat political cases in the same way as all others in open jury trials led to too-lenient sentences for revolutionaries, at least from the government’s point of view, and eventually to the transfer of political trials to the Special Tribunal of the Senate (Osoboe prisutstvie Pravitel’stvuyushchego senata). Two famous trials serve as illustrations of such confrontations between liberal lawyers and the tsarist government. The first, known as the Trial of 193, took place in 1877. In connection with this case more than 4,000 people had been arrested for various types of revolutionary activity. The preparation for the trial lasted three years, during which time ninety-three people died, went mad, or committed suicide in jail. This fact demonstrates the cruelty and determination of the tsarist regime to allow no compromise in dealing with revolutionaries. At the same time, the accused had the best and most enthusiastic lawyers, who applied their skills to defeat the hated tsarist regime. According to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (GSE), the defending attorneys “contributed greatly to the political importance of the trial” (GSE). Due to their efforts and general public sentiment sympathizing with the accused, of the 190 defendants (three died during the trial) ninety were acquitted and only twenty-eight sentenced to hard labor. 3 However, immediately following the trial eighty of the acquitted were rearrested and banished to exile on the personal orders of Alexander II.

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The second trial took place in 1878 after the completion of the Trial of 193. The defendant was Vera Zasulich, a revolutionary who shot and gravely wounded the governor of St. Petersburg, Feodor Trepov, in January 1878. Trepov had ordered the flogging of a political prisoner who refused to remove his cap before him. Zasulich, outraged by this act that degraded her fellow revolutionary and even more by Trepov’s impunity, decided to punish him and thus raise the moral consciousness of her compatriots. The tsarist government, confident that Zasulich would be sentenced to harsh punishment, tried her in an open procedure by jury as a common criminal. As with the Trial of 193, Zasulich’s trial turned into a political demonstration of the public’s hostility toward the government and sympathy for revolutionaries. The jury acquitted Zasulich of all charges and she was immediately set free. Alexander II was infuriated and ordered that Zasulich be rearrested and jailed, but she managed to flee abroad. The Chairman of the Court, A. F. Koni, fell into disfavor for many years to come; the Chief Warden of the House of Preliminary Detention who released Zasulich was sent into retirement; and the Minister of Justice, Count Pahlen, was fired. Thus, the courtroom very quickly became a battlefield for two opposing political tendencies: liberalism and autocracy; both groups were more concerned with their own particular political interests than with the strict observance of law. The government undermined the reform by handpicking the judges for the Special Senate Commission that dealt with political trials. These judges were selected from those who were known to be advocates of the most severe punishments for revolutionaries, often with little consideration of the letter of the law. In some cases the authorities, acting on the tsar’s orders, disregarded the law altogether, as in the aftermath of the Trial of 193 when they rearrested and exiled the acquitted defendants. These actions by the government aroused mistrust and animosity in the people, who had high hopes for justice at the onset of the reform. Koni, one of the legal professionals of the new formation who strived for impartial and strict observance of law, “considered the greatest impetus to revolutionary protest to be the insensitive and often unlawful manner in which the government responded to it” (Bergman 1983, 42). On the other hand, as the Zasulich trial showed, the liberal intelligentsia was only happy if the government suffered a humiliating defeat at the court, even if this defeat resulted from political rather than legal considerations. There were very few sober minds among the liberal intelligentsia who would denounce a terrorist act if it were perpetrated against such a hated official like Trepov. In his biography of Vera Zasulich Jay Bergman describes this polarization in Russian society, which crystallized by the late 1870s: “The gap between the State and the intelligentsia was so immense, political dialogue couched so irrevocably in the lexicon of kto-kogo [the Russian equivalent of ‘us against them’], that a modus vivendi based on a mutual adherence to law was no longer possible” (42). Bergman quotes

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Minister of War Dmitriy Milyutin, who described this polarization in his diary when referring to the Zasulich case: “The entire public split into two camps. . . . Any such case creates rumors and stirs up protest in society, on the one hand against our new legal procedures and especially against the institution of juries, and on the other hand against the arbitrariness and despotism of the administrative authorities” (42). The failure of the reform to produce a judiciary independent of considerations external to the law and to make the government stick to the letter of the law resulted from the ancient tradition of legal nihilism. The predominance of “truth” over legality in Russian consciousness is obvious in Dostoevsky’s attitude toward the reform. In his A Writer’s Diary, he denounced engrafting the European system onto Russian soil specifically because this system does not seek the truth so crucial for the “Russian spirit”: “The institution of public trial by jury is not a Russian one, after all; it was copied from a foreign model. Can one really not hope that the Russian nationality, the Russian spirit, will some day, smooth out the rough spots and eliminate the falsity . . . of bad habits, and that the matter will proceed fully in accordance with truth and justice? It’s true that now it is impossible: now, particularly, the defense and the prosecution flaunt these bad habits, for the former are looking to make money and the latter to make careers” (Dostoevsky 1994, 1167). Dostoevsky castigates the mechanical manner of exaggeration “consisting of extremism in the prosecution and utter fury in the defense” and calls for replacing “this mechanical means of dragging the truth out into the open . . . simply by truth: Artificial exaggeration will disappear from both sides. Everything will appear sincere and just and not a game at seeking the truth” (1168). His criticism as to how the formal law was applied in Russian courts is understandable, but the alternative he offers cannot work either, for what is truth? He himself has doubts that his utopia would ever be realized: “All such utopias will be possible, maybe, only when we grow wings and are transformed into angels. But then there won’t be any law courts either” (1168). An excellent analysis of Russian legal consciousness is provided by Bogdan Kistyakovsky, a Russian jurist, sociologist, and philosopher, in his article “In Defense of Law” published in the famous collection Vekhi (Landmarks) in 1909. He writes about lack of respect for law not only among the lesseducated segments of Russian society but also among the Russian intelligentsia. Kistyakovsky quotes Herzen, who attributed the absence of legal consciousness in the Russian people to historical reasons: injustice and inequality borne by the people from time immemorial. “Complete inequality before the court killed in it [the people] any respect for law” (Kistyakovskiy 1990, 130). Kistyakovskiy also comments on the insufficient differentiation of legal and ethical norms in the consciousness of the Russian people, which leads to the impossibility of uniform application of the law (143). Another important aspect of the law absent in Russian culture is the capacity for

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compromise. According to Kistyakovsky, any organization, and social life in general, is based on compromise but the Russian intelligentsia is incapable of open compromise; it is always hidden and based on personal relationships. Kistyakovsky’s conclusions are rather gloomy: “An objective criminal court does not exist in Russia. Moreover, our criminal court became some kind of tool of revenge. The most decisive role here is played by political reasons. . . . The ignorance and sloppiness of some judges are really striking; but most of them simply treat their profession, which requires continuous work of mind, with no interest, thoughtfulness, or realization of the importance and responsibility necessitated by their position. People who know our courts well assert that the decisions in somewhat more complicated and confusing legal cases are made not on the basis of the law but result from some sort of chance” (152–153). Thus, the reform of 1864 failed to transform the Russian state into a pravovoe gosudarstvo by analogy with Western models, the German Rechtsstaat in particular. Both the Left and the Right used law to get an upper hand in their struggle with one another, which led to growing anger and the deepening of the chasm between them. The ubiquitous abuse of law in the Soviet Union only increased mistrust and disrespect for law in the population, and this tradition of viewing law simply as a tool in political struggle or any kind of corrupt activity was inherited by post-Soviet Russia. NOTES 1. The first complete translation of the Digesta of Justinian (compilation of modified Roman law, the sixth century a.d.) was published in Russia in 2002–05. 2. The Russian word pravda that Peresvetov is using here can mean “truth,” “justice,” and “law”—another indication that in the Russian mind these concepts overlap. (“Vera, gosudar’, khristiyanskaya dobra, vsem spolna, i krasota tserkovnaya velika, a pravdy net.”) 3. Among the acquitted were Sophia Perovskaya and Andrei Zhelyabov, future organizers of the assassination of Alexander II on March 1, 1881; they were hanged on April 3, 1881.

Chapter Eleven

Law in Contemporary Russia

In his description of legal systems in industrial societies, Parsons points out that they “have cut across the lines drawn by the traditional ‘primary’ bases of social solidarity, and hence have become in certain respects independent of them. The most important such lines of primary solidarity would be kinship, . . . the ‘feudal’ types of political allegiance, and the solidarity of the smaller units of territorial community. Ethnic solidarities may be regarded in certain senses as extensions of kinship” (Parsons 1960, 22). In contemporary Russia these lines of “primary solidarity” still remain impenetrable by the legal system. Even Stalin could not get rid of traditional informal practices of the patronage within families, clans, and other unofficial conglomerates. In his biography of Stalin Robert Service notes: “Stalin lacked the capacity, even at the height of his power, to secure automatic universal compliance with his wishes. He could purge personnel without difficulty. But when it came to ridding the Soviet order of many informal practices he disliked, he was much less successful. In such cases he was like someone trying to strike a match on a block of soap” (Service 204, 371). Whether it is a kinship of organized crime or political allegiance or both interwoven together, the law often carries out supralegal functions. This happens not only because of governmental abuse, but also because these functions are well rooted in the consciousness of the majority of the population, which therefore takes in stride any deviation from the law—from corruption among petty civil servants to the predetermined outcome of an important trial. Hence general disrespect for law in Russia. Several examples illustrate this aspect in contemporary Russian society.

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CITIZENS AND THE LAW Perhaps the most obvious evidence of Russian contempt for law is widespread corruption. In a 2008 program at Radio Liberty (Rykovtseva 2008), Maxim Kashulinsky, the editor-in-chief of the Russian Forbes, Oleg Kiselev, a member of the board of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, and Aleksandr Lebedev, the owner of the National Reserves Corporation, discussed corruption in Russia. All three agreed that no significant money can be made there by honest means, and that corruption permeates everyday life from top to bottom, offering as an example a civil servant who bought a house in London for 134 million dollars. They discussed the wealthiest people in Russia who are registered in “The Golden Hundred” by the Russian Forbes. In 2007 their combined worth was 337 billion dollars, that is, an average of 3.4 billion per person. However, according to Lebedev, a “shadow” or parallel list of wealthiest people in Russia exists, about whom Forbes keeps silent. Among these people are the top members of the Russian government and bureaucracy. Corruption infects all layers of society, including petty clerks, repairmen, police, and university professors who take bribes for grades or sell term papers to students. None of these people would consider themselves or their actions immoral. I personally heard a story from a prominent Russian scholar who came to America for a conference and boasted that she bought a camcorder, used it for several days, and then returned it to the store before going back to Russia. She had no intention of purchasing it but simply wanted to shoot several tapes of her American visit. Undoubtedly there are people in this country who do such things as well; the difference is that they would probably not be proud of these actions and would not publicize them, particularly in academia, to people little known to them. This kind of behavior could be considered petty theft, yet I am sure that this Russian scholar would never steal anything from her friends or other individuals. From the Russian standpoint she was smart and not at all immoral. Stealing from a company, organization, or the government is not considered a theft in Russia; taking or giving a bribe is illegal but not shameful. Accepting a tip might be, in some cases, more humiliating than accepting a bribe. A tip indicates the lower social status of the receiver; in the case of a bribe the receiver holds power over the bribe giver. The formal law has little or no relevance in any social situations. A column in the Russian popular magazine Ogonek tells a story of a vending machine installed in the lobby of an office building belonging to a large corporation (Kolesnikov 2007). The machine immediately became so popular that a long line formed to get chocolate bars and bags of chips. It turned out that the reason for this popularity was that the machine was malfunctioning: it would drop two or three items for the price of one. After this had been

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discovered by the administration, a guard was stationed next to the machine who was supposed to allow customers to take only one item, keeping the rest to return to the vending company later, yet the company kept losing money. As they learned, the guard was selling the extra items for half price and pocketing the money. The employees of this corporation were earning good salaries and yet they were happy to steal snacks worth a buck each in front of each other. Prominent Russian author Tatyana Tolstaya exhibits this attitude of disrespect for formal law in contemporary Russia in her satirical sketch about America. Writing about the widening ban of smoking, Tolstaya rebels against the strict rules that forbid smoking in public places. What outrages her most is that these rules are enforced not by the authorities—that she could understand and grudgingly accept—but by the surrounding Americans, who react negatively to her smoking. By contrast, Russians would break an uncomfortable rule unless they fear punishment, and would not try to enforce the rule if others are breaking it. Tolstaya relates that she observed a ban on smoking in the northern Russian town of Kem’, which still has wooden sidewalks. Because of the high fire hazard the town’s administration forbade smoking in the summer. “However,” Tolstaya proudly remarks, “it was July and everybody was smoking” (Tolstaya 2001b, 193). The law in Russia has traditionally been forced on the population at large from above and perceived as an external force that should be resisted, deceived, or ignored. In her study of the Russian national character, Kseniya Kas’yanova describes this antagonism between the people and the state as follows: “A Russian is always in opposition to the state as something hostile, therefore no moral constraints apply to [the relationship with] it: it can be cheated; from it one can steal; the promises given to it can be disregarded” (Kas’yanova 1994, 72). Law versus Morality Russians do not generally live in a chaotic society without any guidance for their behavior. Guidance is provided not by legal sensibilities, but by the sensibilities of morality and goodness. Even among Russian advocates of Western-type development for Russia, law and legality have never been given much respect and have always been considered less important as regulators of social relations than morality. An anthology published in St. Petersburg in 1997, beginning with the title Russian Philosophy of Law: Philosophy of Faith and Morality, ascertains the identity between the law and the Ideal defined by the Russian Orthodox faith, as well as the unique morality of the Russian people. In the second edition published in 1999 the editors dropped the second half of the title, leaving only Russian Philosophy of Law, perhaps sensing the excessiveness of the emphasis on faith and morality in

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describing law. However, in the foreword reprinted from the first edition the original title of the book was not edited out, whether intentionally or inadvertently. The author of the foreword, Academician Aleksandr Korol’kov, maintains that “purely formal, rational treatment of laws, so characteristic of the peoples of the Protestant and Catholic branches of Christianity, is alien to the historical culture of the Russian people” (Korol’kov 1999, 6). In the second edition this foreword was supplemented by an afterword written by the same author, titled “Philosophy of Law: West European and Russian Traditions.” This addition even more forcefully emphasizes the difference between the Russian and Western notions of law: “In Russian consciousness law has become a synonym of justice, truth, and even righteousness (pravota, pravda, pravednost’), while in Western consciousness it has approached [the notions of] legality and formal orderliness” (432). Korol’kov contrasts Western rationalism and Russian spirituality, which result in Western adherence to norms (normativy) and Russian belief in the Norm (norma), or the ideal (ideal) (434). This attitude toward law, based on an inner sense of morality rather than on the letter of written laws, can perhaps be best summarized by the words of P. I. Novgorodtsev, a Russian lawyer and thinker of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: “Russian spirit manifests itself in the perpetual striving for something higher than law and state” (Novgorodtsev 1999, 232). The dichotomy between Western and Russian treatments of the law is further elucidated by a comparison of the Canadian and Russian court instructions to a jury. Explaining the phrase “beyond reasonable doubt,” the Supreme Court of Canada issued a long list of elements in the proper charge to the jury which includes the following: “The jury should be instructed that a reasonable doubt is not . . . based upon sympathy or prejudice. A reasonable doubt is a doubt based on reason and common sense, which must logically be derived from the evidence or absence of evidence. . . . Certain references to the required standard of proof should be avoided. . . . [It is not] helpful to describe proof beyond a reasonable doubt simply as proof to a ‘moral certainty’ (Judgments of the Supreme Court of Canada. 1997, emphasis mine). The Russian instructions to the jury read as follows: “The judge, members of the jury as well as the prosecutor, investigator, and interrogator evaluate the proofs following their inner conviction based upon the entire body of the proofs present in the case and guided by law and conscience” (UPK RF, emphasis mine). Thus, in the charges to the jury, Canadian instructions emphasize reason, logic, and common sense and exclude sympathy, prejudice, and morality. The Russian instructions emphasize law, inner convictions, and conscience. The law component obviously does not apply to members of the jury who do not have to know it; it applies to professional jurists participating in the trial. But both the jury and the representatives of

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the legal profession should be guided by their inner convictions and conscience, in other words by prejudice and morality. In the United States, people tend to bracket out notions of morality when they deal with law. 1 For example, out of moral considerations, some individuals murder gynecologists who perform abortions, but the majority of the population, even most of the pro-life advocates, hardly consider these acts as heroic or moral. In Russia, as we have seen, people can get away with murder if in their minds and the minds of their compatriots it is justified by fairness. There, the sense of morality prevails over legality. The general attitude is: what is moral does not necessarily have to be legal. Thus in the West legal aspects are unconditional since they are written into the law and the law has absolute priority in regulating social relations; in Russia they are relative or virtually irrelevant since they are often overridden by the individual sense of morality. Such a society will still be able to function if the notions of morality are common for the majority of the population. The minority that has a different sense of morality is ignored or even suppressed. NOTE 1. In making this generalization, one should always remember that in American culture there are many subcultures—ethnic, racial, and social—whose legal consciousness may differ from that of the white, middle-class majority. Given the scope of this study, I cannot consider these subcultures.

IV

Perceptions and Reactions

Every observation suffers from the observer’s personal traits—that is, it too often reflects his psychological state rather than that of the reality under observation. —Joseph Brodsky (1985)

The disparities in people’s perceptions in general and of foreign cultures in particular can be explained by the peculiarities of their individual psychological makeups. Russians with a similar social and educational background see American people and American culture through different eyes. Some praise American democracy, freedom, independence, tolerance, politeness, hard work, and so on; others perceive Americans as insincere, dumb, selfish, uncultured, and lonesome people who spend their lives in perpetual competition with their fellow citizens for a place in the sun and the mighty dollar. The admirers represent the minority whose consciousness is characterized by a significant share of individualism. The majority of Russians, however, are incapable of an objective, rational view of a foreign culture; their perceptions usually have a negative essentialist nature. An objective, rational, and balanced view of America is a rare occurrence among Russians, which is typical of other cultures as well. Bracketing one’s own cultural models is an extremely difficult task. The specific mode of perception that each individual realizes depends on his or her consciousness that is formed, to a great degree, in the process of socialization and acculturation during childhood. While genetics are important, the family and the closest surrounding milieu play a tremendous role in this process. The predominant Russian culture is collectivist, and that is what

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determines how the Russian mind works when it reacts to the phenomena of a foreign culture. In the Russian consciousness Russia is always surrounded by enemies. Through the nineteenth century the main enemy was Western Europe; in the twentieth century, especially after World War II, this role shifted to the United States. Russian perceptions of America are based on two major factors: collectivism of the national culture, with a clear tendency of dividing the world into “us” and “them,” and the psychological inclination for creating myths, in particular about Russia and its adversaries. On the other hand, American attitudes toward Russia result from the individualist character of American culture and from rational rather than mythical consciousness. For that reason most Americans are concerned only with Russian politics and other pragmatic questions; few have an emotional, mythical view of Russia, its people, and its culture.

Chapter Twelve

Russian Perceptions of America Historical Perspective

Brodsky was not the first to remark on the subjectivity and relativity of our perceptions. The Irish philosopher of the eighteenth century George Berkeley contended that a thing exists only as long as it is being perceived: esse est percipi (to be is to be perceived). The adolescent Leo Tolstoy, deeply impressed by Friedrich Schelling, was obsessed by a similar idea: “I imagined that, besides myself, nothing and no one existed in the whole world, that objects were not objects but images, which appeared only when I turned my attention to them, and as soon as I ceased thinking of them these images disappeared. In short, I agreed with Schelling in the conviction that it was not objects that existed but only my attitude to them” (Tolstoy 2002, 198). Thus the notion that a mental product of our perception is not necessarily identical to what we are trying to perceive appears to be intuitionally solid, if only because different people often cannot agree on characteristics of the same phenomenon or thing. Let alone politics. Similarly, as long as Russians have known about America, they have not been able to agree about it—often even while living there at the same time and observing the same reality. As my research has progressed, one thing has become clear to me: the differences in Russian perceptions of America are not directly contingent on the level of formal education or on the social status of the observers. Individuals may differ in perception of the same reality, but these differences are not entirely random across the population of one culture or across different cultures. Centuries-long cultural processes create dominant paradigms of perception within a culture, which can be different from the dominant perception paradigms among people of another culture. When people of one culture apply their cultural models to another culture, a sometimes dan117

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gerous misunderstanding may occur because people’s perceptions of reality generate particular responses that may appear absolutely inadequate to those who generate the reality in question. The goal of this part of the book is to outline and analyze perceptions of America and Americans commonly held by Russians and to identify their cultural and psychological origins. While in the first three parts of this book I devote significant space to the historical origins of the Russian cultural tradition, this part deals primarily with the current manifestations of this tradition as they are realized in Russian perceptions of America. When the two powerful countries confront each other in practically all aspects of world politics, one cannot overestimate the vital importance of an in-depth understanding of these countries’ mutual perceptions, possible intentions, and (often unconscious) reactions to them. This kind of understanding is impossible to achieve without cultural analysis, hence the extensive elaboration of different types of Russian perceptions and their psychological causes. The space devoted to American perceptions of Russia and Russians is much smaller because, as individualists, Americans do not form a general, collective notion of Russia; each American has his or her own opinion, mainly based on the current political reality. For the same reason Americans are not very interested in the Russian people per se outside of politics, while Russians are fascinated with Americans. The asymmetry in Russian and American perceptions of each other is discussed in the last chapter of this part. At the beginning, I outline Russians’ earlier perceptions of America, but the main portion of the discussion is allocated to more recent perceptions when large numbers of Russians have been able to observe this country firsthand over long stretches of time. EARLY IMPRESSIONS America was mentioned in Russian texts as early as the sixteenth century (Bolkhovitinov 2001, 430); however, a serious interest for this country awoke in Russian society only at the end of the eighteenth century. The American Revolution and development of trade and political relations between the two countries drew Russian attention toward the North American United States, as it was then referred to in Russia. In 1808-09 the Russian Empire established diplomatic relations with the United States after which the intensity of contacts rose. Yet these contacts were limited to occasional visits of diplomats, politicians, merchants, and various artists. Most of them were also of short duration; besides, the visitors’ impressions were often defined by their professional interests rather than by multifaceted observations. On the other hand, unlike the Soviet descriptions of the United States, the early, pre-Soviet impressions did not depend on any external ideological

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pressure. In this sense, they were objective: the observers obeyed the workings of their own consciousness rather than any opportunistic considerations. Already these early descriptions of this country present such opposite images of America that they can be explained only by the individual peculiarities of the observers’ minds. For example, in a letter to his sister the Russian ambassador to the United States Paul Krüdener writes in 1835, after having lived in the country for seven years, I love Europe with all the profound antipathy that America inspires in me in all its details. . . . You do not imagine how society marked with the English imprint makes me suffer, how much this indistinct pronunciation adds to my difficulties of hearing, and therefore to social difficulties . . . to the difficulty of living among a people who are the saddest, the most automatized and the most unworthy of sympathy that there is on earth” (Allen 1988, 21; Ley 1971, 109).

The same year Krüdener complains to his nephew about living “in the midst of a bunch of taciturn swindlers, without education, without knowledge, without conversation, without savoir-vivre, who are neither housed, nor fed, nor amused like civilized beings” (21; 109). 1 In contrast, other authors of that period praise America for its democracy, industry and technology, its energetic, hardworking people, its charities, excellent free education and public libraries, and even for its exemplary prisons. They observe that religions are given equal rights and that children are taught to be self-sufficient, entrepreneurial, and industrious. American women are noted for their firm character and faithfulness to their husbands (see Emme 1914; Tsimmermann 1873). The nineteenth-century critic Nikolai Dobroliubov remarks on the extreme differences in Russian opinions of America: Some, for example, likened the North American States to Russia; others, on the contrary, asserted that disgusting anarchy reigned there. Some admired their high level of education; others lambasted them for the shameful ignorance in all questions of art, poetry, and high philosophy. Some declared that women there occupy a very good position, have fun, and enjoy all human rights; others portrayed American women as miserable, dry, and lifeless creatures akin to a calculator (Dobrolyubov 1962a, 217–18).

Yet there were observers who offered more-or-less balanced descriptions of America. Pavel Svin’in, Aleksandr Lakier, Eduard Tsimmerman and other authors of the nineteenth century left detailed and diverse pictures of American life in their writings. We will see that this tendency of presenting America in three paradigms of shading—black, brilliant white, and multicolored—is deeply rooted in Russian culture along both the synchronic and diachronic axes. In other words, when they think about America and formu-

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late an opinion about it—across different historical times and through various social strata—Russians can be divided into three groups: those who hate it, those who love it, and finally, those who simply state what they see and expound their thoughts from a position of emotional detachment. For historical reasons, which will be discussed later, the first group represents the majority; the second is much less numerous; the third is the smallest and is limited mostly to people who are not engrossed in Russian nationalism (hard to find the likes of such in Russia) or to professionals discussing characteristics of American life relevant to their field. It should be noted that qualitatively the first and the second group are very similar: both lack the capacity for an objective vision and both construct their America on the foundation of prejudices and myths. There is a very small fourth group of Russians who, unlike the rest of their compatriots, are not preoccupied with America at all. These are mostly people possessing a strong creative drive; they are engrossed in their work and not concerned with anything else beyond it. It should be noted that not all people endowed with creative talent stand aloof from nationalistic sensibilities—quite a few of them would seethe with anger at any mention of America. THE FIRST TWO WAVES OF RUSSIAN EMIGRATION IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY At this point, I will move on to the twentieth century, omitting Soviet writings on America: it would be difficult, if not impossible to separate genuine thoughts of a Soviet author from his or her internal censor always present at the author’s desk. There were also actual censors who vigilantly checked the contents of all the materials before publication—even movie posters and theater programs could not avoid the ever-watchful eye of the Glavlit. 2 Besides, starting from the 1930s few Soviets were able to visit the United States, and those who were trusted by the government to stay for longer periods of time—diplomats, journalists or trade representatives—either did not publish their observations and opinions or published the ideologically correct ones. The émigrés who settled in the United States were, on the other hand, free from external pressures if they had a desire to write about America. Similarly free were visitors from the post-Communist Russia. It is in their published perceptions that I am interested here. Traditionally, twentieth-century emigration from Russia is divided into three major waves. The first wave consisted of those who fled the Bolsheviks after the 1917 Revolution; sooner or later, some of them ended up in this country. The second wave comprised mostly the so-called DPs (displaced persons)—those Soviet citizens who, for various reasons, found themselves at the end of World War II in European territories occupied by the Western

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powers, and chose not to return home. Finally, the third wave contained primarily ethnic Jews whom the Soviet government allowed to emigrate in the 1970s and 1980s. I will consider the third wave and the later emigration separately, turning now to the first two. Among the émigrés from the first wave who settled in the United States, we find quite a few prominent people while the second wave list is much less impressive. This difference is explained both in terms of class and by the developments in the Soviet Union. The first-wave emigration included many members of the nobility and wealthy classes educated in gimnaziyas and universities. They inherited the rich literary culture of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Chekhov, and many other great Russian writers. And they grew up in families who appreciated music, arts, and foreign languages and cultures. This cultural tradition characteristic of privileged families was stifled by the new Bolshevik regime, which suppressed and oppressed the remaining representatives of the “bourgeois” classes. Moreover, in the 1930s, Stalinism dealt the final blow to any manifestation of creativity, squashing remnants of the avant-garde and experimental arts and literature by branding them as formalism and allowing only dull, rubber-stamped official Socialist Realist production. Although in the 1920s and 1930s the Soviet government managed to achieve almost total literacy among the population and nineteenth-century literature, realistic art, and classical music were allowed by party ideologues, humanities education in universities and music schools, as well as free development of the arts, were fettered by all sorts of ideological constraints. As a result, by the beginning of World War II, the thriving artistic scene characteristic of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had been destroyed. In the natural sciences prominent scholars were protected by the government and kept in the rear (or in special research prisons, sharashkas, if they were purged) and had no chance to find themselves among the DPs and emigrate after the war. For these reasons, few of the Russian DPs could compare with the crème de la crème of Russian artists and intellectuals that had fled the Bolsheviks in the first wave of emigration. Most of the DPs were ordinary Soviet citizens: soldiers, peasants, blue- and white-collar workers, and engineers educated under the Soviet regime. They might have been skilled professionals but were not highly cultured and sophisticated persons with a broad and deep education. Even an incomplete list of prominent Russians who washed up on the shores of America between the wars (the first wave) is very impressive: the writers Mark Aldanov, Nina Berberova, Igor Chinnov, Roman Gul, George Ivask, and Vladimir Nabokov, the philosophers George Florovsky and George Fedotov, the historians George Vernadsky and Michael Karpovich, the publishers and journalists Mark Vishniak, Roman Grinberg, and Andrei Sedykh, the musicians Serge Koussevitzky, Nicholas Nabokov, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Igor Stravinsky, and the prominent Hollywood composer Samuel

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Pokrass, the artists David Burliuk and Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, the theater director and founder of the Stanislavski school in the United States Mikhail Chekhov, the politicians Viktor Chernov, Alexander Kerenensky, and Irakly Tseretelly, the scholars Roman Jakobson and Pitirim Sorokin, the scientist Stepan Timoshenko, the aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky and the television pioneer Vladimir Zworykin. The list of the second-wave notables is modest. It includes the writers and poets Ivan Elagin, Dmitry Klenovsky, Vladimir Markov, Leonid Rzhevsky, and some others whose names will mean little to the Western, or even to the Russian reader. Yet the representatives of the first two waves had something in common. They did not feel a need to search, analyze, and define their own place within American culture. In their letters, one can find their opinions about America and Americans, but these opinions are tangential to their life interests. Writing to the former minister of the Russian Provisional Government, A. I. Konovalov, Aldanov remarks in passing, “I like America and New York enormously,” and immediately adds, “But [my] ‘tourist’ impressions are not interesting to you” (Aldanov). Despite living permanently in America, he still sees himself as a tourist. Berberova also experiences warm feelings toward America and makes fun of another Russian émigré who cannot stand this country, in particular because pears have no real fragrance here. She responds to him that in postwar Europe, from where she just came, pears have no fragrance either simply because one cannot get any there (Berberova 1983, 574–75). Dobuzhinsky is one of the “haters.” He bitterly describes the poor reception of Mikhail Chekhov’s staging of Dostoevsky’s The Possessed in New York, blaming the critics and the audience for it: “Critics are quite ignoble and the public, quite stupid” (Dobuzhinskiy 1958, 136). (He may not have realized that Dostoevsky’s prophetic antirevolutionary novel, which was highly topical for Russian victims of the Bolshevik Revolution, might not be of major interest to the general American public.) In another letter Dobuzhinsky notes how much he hates New York and how lonely he feels there. Describing his visit to Alexandra Tolstaya 3 at the Tolstoy Farm, he remarks, “My wife and I gave vent to our feelings [otveli dushu] at Alexandra L’vovna’s” (143). Perhaps Tolstaya lent them a sympathetic ear since she herself believed that “all Americans are completely uncultured, credulous fools” (Boyd 1991, 21). Karpovich, on the other hand, rejected traditional anti-American stereotypes. In a letter to his friend Vernadsky, he writes, We are used to think about America as a country drowned in concerns about material wellbeing and mechanical development. But, my Lord, how far is this notion from reality! Americans may now be the most idealistic people in the world. I feel it at any moment—in their attitude toward Russia, Germany, the war, toward the question about universal peace, toward Austrian children and toward each new person they meet. You cannot imagine to what degree they are friendly; you feel it almost in a physical way after the European irritability

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and maliciousness. Also completely erroneous is our notion of their sanctimoniousness—people here are genuinely religious. True, any mysticism in religion is alien to them. But from where do we take the right to believe that simple and naïve faith of an ordinary man is religiously less valuable than mystical depths (Karpovich 1992, 272)?

There is plenty of evidence that Vladimir Nabokov loved America. In his letters and interviews he never ceases to praise American friendliness and sense of humor, American freedom and democracy. In fact, he is trying to stay away from his compatriots, as he explains to his friend George Gessen, “This is a cultured and exceedingly diverse country. The only thing you must do is deal with genuine Americans and don’t get involved with the local Russian emigration” (Boyd 1991, 21). However, these remarks about America, whether positive or negative, are but insignificant asides. When representatives of the first and second waves choose to write more than their “tourist” impressions about their adopted country, they create serious analytical articles free from subjective judgments and cross-cultural comparisons. Thus, the economist A. I. Zak analyzes American economics and politics in the field of nuclear energy, Karpovich discusses the Truman Doctrine, and the art critic Vera Kovarskaya publishes articles such as “American Crafts” and “American Neo-Primitivism.” The Third Wave and After In many respects, the third wave was different from the previous two, at least in part because it was a predominantly Jewish emigration. Of course, the Soviet government did not call it “emigration”—who would want to emigrate from the country of “developed socialism?” Officially, Soviet Jews could leave only for Israel to reunite with their relatives. However, everybody including the government, knew that the necessary invitations sent from Israel by “relatives” were fake since very few applicants had relatives there. But the Soviets could not admit that Jews were fleeing from oppression; therefore, a reunification was a convenient face-saver. After crossing the border, the émigrés were free to choose where they wanted to go—to Israel or some other countries, which were willing to take them, like the United States and Canada. It is important to understand that the vast majority of Soviet Jews were not religious. Their Jewishness was determined exclusively by their ethnicity. Being brought up and educated in the atheistic and Russified Soviet Union, very few had any knowledge of Jewish religion and culture and even fewer knew Yiddish—the language of their parents or grandparents. Thus culturally Soviet Jews were much closer to their ethnic Russian compatriots than to American Jews. For a change, they just happened to be in luck. Although many ethnic Russians or Ukrainians or Georgians would have loved to get out of the Soviet paradise, only Jews had that

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option, which was one of the conditions of the détente between the USSR and the United States in the 1970s. The American administration under Nixon had heeded American Jews who campaigned for the liberation of their Soviet brethren. 4 And they campaigned for good reason: Soviet Jews were subjected to a double oppression—by the totalitarian regime that affected all Soviet citizens and by the state anti-Semitism that created hurdles for Jews in jobs and higher education. Although the so-called Stalin constitution of 1936, still in use in the late 1960s to early 1970s, was on paper perhaps one of the best in the world—guaranteeing freedom and equality to all Soviet citizens— everyday life was regulated by government instructions rather than by the written law. Formally Jews had the same rights as other Soviets, but enrolling in top universities or finding professional jobs was always a race with artificially set hurdles, and in the fields of ideology and defense it was virtually impossible. From time to time, the state also stirred anti-Semitic feelings in the population at large such as during the infamous campaign against “Rootless Cosmopolitans” (bezrodnye kosmopolity) that lasted from 1948 until Stalin’s death in 1953 and during the “anti-Zionist” campaign under Brezhnev that unfolded after the Six-Day War in 1967. Besides ethnic Jews who wanted to leave and applied for “reunification,” the third wave included a small number of other Soviet citizens. They could also emigrate at the time but only if they received invitations from real relatives residing abroad. Some Armenians left in this manner, although theirs was not a large-scale exodus as the Jewish emigration was. In addition, some prominent dissidents of whom the government was trying to rid itself were swept out by the same wave in the 1970s and early 1980s. These “antiSoviet elements” were forced to emigrate by the authorities, no matter what their ethnic origin was. The choice was simple: you either go to the West or to the East, meaning Siberia. Perhaps the most salient example of such a forced emigration was Alexander Solzhenitsyn (ethnically Russian) who was arrested in 1974, and after spending a night in a cell, was flown to West Germany next morning. The future Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky (Jewish), facing the same West-East alternative, had two weeks to pack and leave the country. Aksyonov (half Jewish-half Russian) was allowed to go on a lecture tour to the United States and was stripped of his Soviet citizenship while he was abroad. The dissident poet Alexander Galich (Jewish) and the dissident writer Vladimir Voinovich (half Russian-half Jewish) left under similar circumstances. All these and many others from the third wave, regardless of their ethnicity, were Russian-speaking and Russian-writing writers and poets. After perestroika, when travel restrictions disappeared, many other members of the Russian intelligentsia traveled to the United States, and lived and taught here, and often moved back and forth. To distinguish them from the permanent émigrés, I will call them “sojourners.”

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Unlike the prominent émigrés from the first two waves, many third-wave émigrés and sojourners felt a need to mull over their cross-cultural experiences in America and share their thoughts with the public. Aksyonov, Sergey Dovlatov, Mikhail Epshtein, Eduard Limonov, Dmitri Panin, Vladimir Shliapentokh, Tatyana Tolstaya, Petr Vail and Alexander Genis, Alexander Zinovyev and many others wrote books, essays, sketches, and travelogues about America and Americans. In 1999 the Moscow literary journal Znamya (Banner) published impressions of the West, including America, by such well-known representatives of the Russian cultural scene as Vitaly Korotich, Grigory Kruzhkov, and Veniamin Smekhov. American sketches by Aleksey Turobov and Ada Baskina appeared in Novyi mir (New World), another Moscow literary journal, and in book form, respectively. Despite the abundance of published opinions, descriptions, and impressions, really deep analyses of American life and culture are scarce. Those that immediately come to mind are works by Aksyonov (Aksyonov 1987) who in his youth belonged to the so-called stilyagi, or shtatniki 5—young people who were great admirers and emulators of Americans and their culture. Epstein produced serious philosophical and culturological studies (Epshtein 2005a and 2005b) while Vail and Genis wrote a collection of essays about their American experience (Vail’ and Genis 1983), and Shlyapentokh published his letters to friends and relatives in the Soviet Union describing his life as a new émigré in the United States (Shlyapentokh 1990). Тhe sketches by Smekhov and Kruzhkov (Kruzhkov and Smekhov 1999), relate personal experiences without sweeping generalizations, praises, or castigations. I am very impressed by Nikolai Zlobin’s two-volume methodical, unbiased, and well-informed account of practically all aspects of American life (Zlobin 2012 and 2013). However, most of the other publications contain only superficial observations and hurried conclusions—some are simply superficial, and others are maliciously superficial. Several questions may arise from looking closely into the dynamics of Russian perceptions of America. To start with, why did the representatives of the third wave feel the need to analyze and publicize their American observations while the first two waves did not try to expand their passing opinions into memoirs, essays, or extensive articles? The answer to this question may be twofold. First of all, the American position in the world changed after World War II. Prior to the twentieth century the role of the ultimate Other for Russians belonged to Western Europe. Many members of the Russian nobility traveled there and some lived there for long stretches of time. It is not surprising, therefore, to find diverse opinions about France and Germany, for example, in letters of such famous writers as Denis Fonvizin and Nikolai Karamzin, in the essays Abroad (Za rubezhom) by the satirical writer Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin as well as in Dostoevsky’s A Writer’s Diary. Fonvizin’s travel notes, which he sent to his sister, are extremely scornful of

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practically all aspects of foreign life he encountered abroad. Even when he remarks on something positive, he immediately finds a way to degrade it. Karamzin, on the other hand, registers his impressions in a descriptive rather than affective fashion. Saltykov-Schedrin uses his European impressions as the background for satirizing Russian life. It was only during the Cold War that America moved to the position of Russia’s main adversary; correspondingly, the attention of Russians shifted to this country. Another explanation for the difference between the third wave and the first two waves in their urge, or lack thereof, to contemplate America may be more involved: it may lie in the finality of separation from the Motherland for the émigrés from the first two waves. The umbilical cord connecting them to Mother Russia was completely severed; they were disowned and treated as traitors in a literal, legal sense. Some were assassinated abroad by Soviet agents. The Soviets had their (morbid) reason: many first-wave émigrés tenaciously clung to their hatred toward the Soviet regime and did not hesitate to openly express it. I should digress in parentheses, as it were, to one tragic episode when some first-wave émigrés galvanized by the Soviet victory over Nazism and driven by their own nostalgia for Russia welcomed reconciliation with the Soviets, hoping that the situation had changed there. The seemingly amicable Soviet government invited them to return to the Motherland and issued thousands of Soviet passports 6 to those who considered repatriation. A terrific propaganda ploy it was: prodigal sons return humbled and repentant. Alas, for those who took this bait the reconciliation project failed. After their arrival in the Soviet Union, some were arrested and imprisoned in labor camps. Most, used to Western democracy and the rule of law, had to live in an atmosphere of fear, oppression, arbitrariness of officials, hatred of malicious neighbors, poverty, the dire conditions of dilapidated communal apartments, and food shortages (see Krivosheina 1984). 7 Like the majority of first-wave émigrés, those from the second wave who decided to stay in the West had not much love for the Motherland either. Peasants had witnessed the brutal process of collectivization in the early 1930s. The most prosperous were “de-kulakized,” 8 their houses, tools, and livestock were confiscated, and they and their families were transported to Siberia, the Urals, or Central Asia. About three million of the most industrious and motivated peasants lost everything; many of them died in transit or soon after their arrival in areas with severe climate and no food or shelter. Another four to five million of the Soviet population perished during the artificial famine of 1932–33, mostly in Ukraine. The government confiscated all the grain and prevented the delivery of any assistance to the dying people. 9 Yet another category of DPs comprised Soviet citizens who experienced the Stalinist purges of the late 1930s. Millions lost their family members to executions and the Gulag. Innocent people perished or suffered

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indescribable deprivations and persecution of gargantuan proportions and Kafkaesque absurdity. Many of them had no desire to return to this life of oppression and suffering. Finally, many POWs knew that they would be automatically subjected to the law that declared surrendering to the enemy tantamount to treason. Indeed, thousands of Soviet soldiers who were liberated from Nazi camps and returned to the Soviet Union were immediately transferred to Soviet labor camps. There were also actual Nazi collaborators among the DPs—members of the émigré military organization ROVS (Russkiy Obshche-Voinskiy Soyuz)—as well as POWs who had joined the ROA 10 (Russian Liberation Army) under the command of the former Soviet general Andrei Vlasov. 11 None of these people could even dream about returning to Russia; and any communication with their families in the Soviet Union was out of the question. Their past lives had been deleted; there were no points of reference left for them, should they want to analyze their relations with America. With what would they compare their life in this country? For whom would they do it? Americans would not be interested or understand. The vast majority of Russians lived behind the burned bridges, and no information from their former compatriots would reach them. Thus they shared their opinions and observations in casual conversations and correspondence with fellow émigrés. The third-wave émigrés were also considered traitors—but rather in a symbolic sense, because, from time immemorial, leaving Russia for another country has been considered morally abhorrent. How can one leave one’s own mother? To receive an exit visa, they had to go through several humiliating procedures, one of which was getting a character letter from the place of employment. A general meeting would be called and the potential émigré would be discussed and subjected to a vicious attack by his or her colleagues. What made the situation even more unpleasant was the fact that officially people were leaving for Israel to “reunite with their relatives.” After the SixDay War Israel had become an enemy. The Soviet Union broke diplomatic relations with the Jewish state and launched the anti-Zionist (i.e., anti-Semitic) campaign. Emigrating Jews would routinely have to answer questions like: If the war with Israel begins, whom are you going to shoot from your Uzi? Me? Or him? To be fair, not all felt the same way. Many actually envied the departees, but nobody would dare to show sympathy or extend congratulations on the acquired freedom. Many lost their jobs after these “characterletter” meetings and had to wait several months for their visas with no income. Upon receiving visas, they had to surrender their Soviet citizenship, paying five hundred rubles (the equivalent of three months of an average salary) for this “service.” Yet despite this harassment, the third wave émigrés were not considered traitors in a legal sense. They exited the country with official government

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permission; and although they could never come back (nobody could foresee perestroika and the end of travel restrictions), they were able to correspond with their families and friends in the Soviet Union. They could even talk on the phone with them, although at two dollars a minute, which might be half of a person’s hourly salary, it was prohibitively expensive. In other words, relatives and friends back in the Soviet Union eagerly waited for information about the new life in the new country. That was enough to motivate them to contemplate and write. Unlike many émigrés from the first two waves for whom their decision to stay in the West was, in all practical terms, a matter of life and death, the third-wave émigrés chose this path themselves. More often than not, it was a difficult path especially in the beginning. The new Americans had to decide if they had made the right decision, which also stimulated the thinking process. And since among them were plenty of people who knew how to write and who liked to write, they did write. Other questions addressed in this part concern the types of perceptions characteristic of émigrés from all three waves, and the psychological factors that cause specific perceptions. Why do observers describing the same or similar phenomena come up with different, and often opposite, opinions about them? Why are many of them so emotional in their descriptions of America? And why do they have the urge to constantly “shuttle” between Russia and America with their cross-cultural comparisons when they write about America? Since these are very complex questions, I will devote the remainder of this part of the book to answering them. The materials I use here are limited to published books, articles, letters, interviews, memoirs, and travelogues written by either émigrés who have settled in the United States permanently, or sojourners who stayed in this country for a relatively long time, which allowed them to observe the life and culture here first-hand. Also, since I am interested only in general impressions of Russians about American culture and only in those that require minimal interpretation, I do not consider materials of a narrow, professional character or works of fiction. The only exception are the autobiographical works by Edward Limonov in which he expounds his views and facts of his life in a fictional format. Beyond my reach remain the opinions of thousands of Russians who have no habit of recording their impressions and of those whose notes have not been published. My views, however, have also been influenced by personal observations and conversations with friends and acquaintances. In my analysis of Russians’ perceptions of America I distinguish between those resulting from individual psychology and those caused by some transitory factors. My emphasis here is on the permanent constituent of my subjects’ consciousness rather than on transitory aspects, such as politics and economy, that can affect people’s attitudes. Nevertheless, I consider these transitory factors first in order to create the context and then exclude them from further consideration.

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Transitory Factors At the peak of perestroika in the late 1980s, Russians celebrated a “honeymoon” with America. They were sure that America was the example to be followed, the country in which the communist dream about freedom and prosperity had been realized without loud slogans and elevated words: where everybody is fed and clothed, provided with housing and an excellent social safety net. Russian émigrés coming back from the United States and telling about life there became a fad—an overnight metamorphosis from the image of traitors and pariahs that they had been just a couple of years earlier. For example, it came to the point that when one such émigré compared Moscow favorably to New York (Serbin 1991, 7–8), a Moscow author responded with bitterness and sarcasm how laughable his arguments were (Rubinov 1991, 8, 25). Russians saw America as a friend and ally who would help quickly to overcome the heritage of seventy years of totalitarianism and reach the same heights of democracy and prosperity that reigned in this great country. Although the shelves in the food stores were empty, people lived by the hope for a decent life in a free and affluent society, which would arrive in the very near future. When at the beginning of the 1990s this dream collapsed and Russia plunged into the darkness of economic chaos, organized crime, and social disintegration, America very quickly turned from best friend into culprit of all the grief. From 1992 on Russia has seen a steady growth of antiAmericanism, a phenomenon that can be explained by social psychology. The collapse of the economy, organized and street crime of an unheard-of level, unemployment, and a deep social crisis subjected the entire country to colossal stress. Any social group that finds itself in a state of crisis has the tendency to unite against an external enemy, one they identify as the culprit for its troubles. If no such enemy exists in reality, people will create it. The social psychologist Vamik Volkan asserts that “the individual or group adheres more stubbornly to a sense of ethnicity when stressed by a political or military crisis” (Volkan 1988, 91). Another psychologist writes about the effect economic factors have on the growth of nationalism: “The long-term discontent of people, and especially a significant increase in the amount of discontent over a brief period of time, lays the groundwork for the occurrence of nationalism. The discontent may be caused by various circumstances, although a rapid deterioration of the general economic situation in a society has usually the strongest and widest effect” (Kecmanovic 1996, 87). Why the United States became enemy number one is clear. It was the “potential adversary” 12 during the great rivalry of the two superpowers. In the 1990s Russia lost its “potency” while America, in the eyes of the majority of Russians, trumpeted its victory in the Cold War proudly and with impunity to the entire world. Besides, one should take into account that the “shock thera-

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py” that had caused the crisis was, to a great degree, a product of the economic policies recommended by American consultants. The growth of anti-Americanism was also engendered by the political tensions between the two countries. Between approximately 1992 and 1999 Russian anti-American sentiments were mainly caused by the psychological reaction to the domestic crisis, while from 1999 on, when the situation in Russia began to improve, U.S. foreign policies became the main source of resentment. In 1999 NATO, led by the United States, began the military campaign in Kosovo and the bombing of Belgrade against strong objections by Russia. Although this operation did not touch the vital interests of Russia, the population was embittered about the United States yet again ignoring the former superpower in a most humiliating way. The bombing of Serbia, the expansion of NATO eastward, active support of the “colored” revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, the pressure to scrap the construction of the nuclear power plant in Bushehr, Iran, the war in Iraq, the plans to erect a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, and finally the criticism of the growing authoritarianism in Russia created the feeling that the United States interfered in Russian internal affairs, did not consider Russia as an equal partner, and simply ignored it. Even when Russian opinions produced an American reaction, its tone was sensed as condescending and humiliating—the tone of the strong toward the weak. Russians saw the American position vis-à-vis their country as a threat to the national security and an act of aggression. As a consequence, this perceived external threat conduced the strengthening of unity within the nation and the growth of enmity toward the adversary—in other words, it promoted the growth of nationalism and antiAmericanism in particular. Nothing could describe better the Russians’ emotional attitude toward America than the phrase “My heart bleeds for my great country” [Za derzhavu obidno!] from the cult movie White Sun of the Desert [Beloe solntse pustyni]. With Putin’s ascendancy and the recent developments in Ukraine, Russians feel that, at last, they can assert their political will and respond properly to American dominance in the world. This aggressive posture restores their pride in their country, and the incessant criticism coming from the West, the sanctions and the subsequent worsening of the economic situation in Russia only increase the extreme dislike, if not hatred, toward Western Europe and the United States. Growth of nationalism can also be caused by the fear of losing one’s national identity either because of its disintegration due to an internal crisis (Kecmanovic 1996, 83) or as a result of the invasion of a foreign culture. In Russia both processes developed along parallel paths. The collapse of the Soviet Union deprived Russians of their Soviet identity and caused an intensive search for an alternative identity, which led to the powerful upsurge of Russian nationalism. On the other hand, the flow of all kinds of American mass culture, which was banned in the Soviet Union but flooded Russia

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during perestroika—mostly low-grade movies, romance novels, and TV series—caused anti-American feelings among people who had been brought up on classical Russian literature, music, and theater. Undoubtedly the internal crisis and the foreign politics of the United States played an important role in the growth of anti-Americanism among the Russian people, and such common reasons should always be taken into account in an analysis of Russian perceptions of America. However, here these motives will be left out of consideration exactly because they are transitory and can change overnight, so to speak. Instead, I discuss how the national culture and permanent individual characteristics of the consciousness can affect people’s perceptions of a foreign culture. NOTES 1. Allen translates Krüdener’s letters from Francis Ley’s book (Ley 1971). Ley accessed them in Krüdener’s personal archives. 2. Glavnoe upravlenie po delam literatury i izdatel’stv (The Main Administration of Literature and Publishing Houses that carried out censorship of all printed materials from 1922 to 1991.) 3. Alexandra Tolstaya, Leo Tolstoy’s youngest daughter, founded and ran the Tolstoy Foundation and Farm in Valley Cottage, NY, thirty-six miles from New York City. Among the original sponsors and founders were Sergei Rachmaninoff and Igor Sikorsky. The farm provided shelter and training to Russian refugees from Europe and Soviet Union. 4. It was an unpleasant revelation for the welcoming American Jews to discover that the new arrivals had very little Jewishness about them. 5. From the Russian word Shtaty—States (United States). 6. About 10,000 (see Krivosheina 1984, 169). 7. Krivosheina and her family came to the Soviet Union in 1948 and lived through this nightmare until they were able to return to France in 1974. The Oscar-nominated film East–West (2000), directed by Régis Wargnier, is devoted to this episode in the history of Russian emigration. 8. From the Russian word kulak denoting a well-to-do peasant who often hired (“exploited”) help for the harvest and other labor-intensive projects. 9. The reasons for these policies are complex and their discussion lies outside the scope of this book. 10. Russkaya Osvoboditel’naya Armiya 11. At the end of the war he was captured and hanged in Moscow. 12. A euphemism that was used in the Soviet army to denote the USA.

Chapter Thirteen

Individual Characteristics of Consciousness and Perception of a Foreign Culture

CULTURE MATTERS: RUSSIAN COLLECTIVISM VERSUS AMERICAN INDIVIDUALISM Russians’ passionate, personal attitude toward America and other Western countries is caused to a great degree by the vast difference between Russian and American cultures. Social psychology distinguishes between collectivist and individualist cultures. The geographic locations of these cultures can be described, in the first approximation, by the phrase “The West and the rest” (Triandis 1995, 16). More specifically, the West is Western Europe and Northern America while Russia together with China, India, Japan and a multitude of others belongs to the group of collectivist societies. Among “individualists” the United States is recognized to be a country of extreme individualism even by comparison with other Western countries. The American social psychologist Harry Triandis analyzes the psychology of these two types of culture, and his list of differences between them correlates quite well with those aspects of American culture that cause a negative attitude or misunderstanding among Russians. According to Triandis and other psychologists who are engaged in comparative studies of collectivism and individualism, the actions of individualists are determined by their striving to achieve a specific personal goal or complete a task they set for themselves. The actions of collectivists are often determined by the sense of duty before the collective they belong to, as well as by the rules, responsibilities, and norms established in the collective (Triandis 1995, 45). In 133

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individualist countries striving to achieve success at any price (21) leads to intense competition, which, however, is successfully controlled by the respect for law and a negative attitude toward lying. Thus, despite the competition, society manages to maintain civilized relations between its members. The success is measured by financial achievements, which explains respect for money and for those who possess it in large amounts. In a collectivist culture respect is begot neither by upward social mobility nor by making a lot of money but by upholding moral or spiritual (dukhovnye) values or the devotion to some idea—dissident, messianic, nationalist, or similar. In the consciousness of the collectivist money is a despicable matter, which does not mean, of course, that he or she would not want to acquire it. The collectivist culture is much more tolerant than the individualist one of acquiring wealth through means that are not necessarily righteous. As a rule, the level of corruption is higher in collectivist societies, and the lie, especially a “white lie” (a lie with good intentions), as well as some deviations from the truth, or communications around the subject by using hints and covert suggestions, are also more acceptable and common (21). In individualist cultures children are encouraged to think independently and use personal initiative, even if they break some rules; in collectivist societies children are scolded for breaking rules and praised if they follow the established norms (37). Such upbringing results in the perpetuation of a rigid system of norms and rules of social behavior, increases the tendency for conservatism, and bridles creativity. This approach to child rearing continues through formal schooling. Emphasis is put on discipline and the standardization of secondary and higher education. In Russian colleges students choose their major when they apply to college, and from the very beginning most of the courses are related to the chosen specialty. It leads to a much deeper knowledge of the major, but it limits free choice and flexibility of learning. Unlike in American colleges, Russian students have very few electives during their college education. In other collectivist societies, such as China and Japan, education is even more structured and students are forced to cram prolonged hours to be competitive. Students from these countries usually win international competitions in math and sciences but their creativity is killed during childhood. This probably explains why there are many more Nobel Prize winners among U.S. scientists than those in Russia, China, or Japan. On the other hand, these strict norms, rules, and discipline are violated much more often and are forgiven much more easily in collectivist cultures; hence they have a higher level of corruption. In an individualist society, the distance between individuals is clearly established and discrete, even between friends and within the family, while between collectivists the degree of closeness between people depends on the context and situation (Triandis 1995, 38–39, 63). The American concept of “privacy,” which does not exist in Russia, presupposes existence of a private

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space (whether physical or psychological) whose borders cannot be crossed without breaking social norms. If Americans have to cross these invisible borders due to circumstances they would apologize. For example, in a supermarket aisle when one buyer passes another briefly barring his view of the shelf, the first buyer would say, “excuse me.” One of the manifestations of privacy is the exclusion of many topics that could be comfortably discussed in ordinary, everyday conversations among Russian colleagues and acquaintances who are not very close to each other. These topics include personal life, all kinds of problems and illnesses, and finances. Americans, as a rule, do not ask each other about the exact amount of their salaries, and discussing the prices of their purchases or houses prefer not to provide concrete numbers but simply say “expensive,” “inexpensive” or “cheap.” When Russians discuss jobs, they freely share the sizes of their salaries, and exact prices are always included in the information they exchange. American aversion to arguing is also a manifestation of privacy: everyone has a right to his or her own opinion, and if the opinions differ people do not feel like forcing their views on others. For Russians, sitting in their kitchens, drinking, and arguing until two in the morning about all kinds of topics, often quite philosophical or literary, has always been a favorite pastime. 1 Usually, in Russia there is very little privacy between members of the same family or close relatives and friends. People would share personal information and allow active interference in each other’s personal matters in the form of forceful advice or psychological pressure. In the United States young people often rent apartments or houses together. Usually they are of approximately the same age and social status, which, one would think, creates conditions for begetting close relationships. However, this is not necessarily the case. People often continue to focus on working toward their personal goals, and when it is time to move on, they part no closer than at the beginning of their cohabitation. Sometimes the roommates can be of the opposite sex but this situation would not necessarily lead to intimacy or courting. Individualists can live together without interfering with each other’s personal lives. In Russia, generally, young people would rent housing together only if they are already very close friends or lovers. In a collectivist culture people cannot cohabit without being somehow emotionally involved, and renting an apartment with a stranger, however decent, can develop into a very uncomfortable situation. Soviet communal apartments are a case in point. People did not choose their apartment mates since the rooms were distributed by the state. As a consequence, such close living led neighbors to develop emotionally charged relationships, which ranged from love to hate, but rarely could the neighbors remain respectful yet distanced toward each other. Many aspects of American social life are subjected to strict confidentiality, while in Russia similar situations allow public knowledge. For example,

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teachers in American colleges cannot publicize students’ grades not only to other students but also sometimes to the parents. 2 In Russia professors can freely praise or shame their students in front of their classmates. 3 For individualist societies “open” social groups are typical, while collectivist social groups are “closed” (Тriandis 1995, 58). In the former, a circle of friends is open to new members provided they have a similar social standing and share the workplace and/or neighborhood. Leaving such a group, for whatever reason, is not usually connected with deep emotional trauma. Most members of such groups meet regularly for parties and celebrations but individually they are not necessarily closely involved with each other. These relationships are relatively superficial, they do not tie friends by serious mutual obligations, and they are easily severed when a person feels that socializing with this group or its individual members is not a source of pleasure, intellectual stimulation or useful contacts (44). This system allows people to protect their freedom and independence from others. The tightest social unit in American culture is the family rather than a group of friends. When someone has no family, the precious freedom and independence can cause a sense of loneliness and alienation (29). These feelings can be compensated by a continuous striving for personal development, social growth, and success and be rewarded by general respect if success is achieved. Moreover, many people do volunteer work and help others in order to find meaning in life as well as develop social contacts. This way individualism, freedom, and independence can coexist with social harmony even outside family or friends. In Russia friendship is an extremely important social institution; in many respects and for many people, it is even more important than the family. Usually a circle of friends is formed at a young age—in school, in college or at work. Society in general is less dynamic and mobile than in the United States, which means that many people live all their lives in the same location. This is especially pertinent to large cities, in particular Moscow and St. Petersburg. But even if people move, maintaining old friendships is a crucial part of their lives. The circle of close friends is relatively small, maybe fifteen to twenty people and their spouses or partners. It is practically impossible to break into this circle and win the same degree of closeness as an adult; and conversely friends do not part easily even if they find that the friendship does not fulfill their social needs. Ties to old friends are almost as sacred as relationships with one’s parents. I have lived in the United States for over forty years, and I still maintain close ties with about fifteen friends I acquired in Russia in my youth. Many live now in this country, others are still in Russia, but we get together as often as possible and we regularly communicate with each other via phone and Skype. Our paths have gone in different directions professionally and politically, but the old friendship is above all these “insignificant matters.”

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Comparing characteristics of friendship in America and Russia is a difficult task because the word itself (friendship/druzhba) has different semantics in the two cultures. According to the Russian American sociologist Vladimir Shliapentokh, friends in Russia generally maintain much more intense contact and are emotionally much closer than people who consider themselves friends in America (Shliapentokh 1989, 170). Among Americans the semantics of “friend” includes those with whom you like to hang out or play sports or party—some of your classmates, some kids from your fraternity or sorority, and maybe one or two real soul mates for life. Russians hang out only with their soul mates. And they are, for better or for worse, stuck with each other for the rest of their lives. Moreover, Russians attribute to friendship a much higher place in the system of social values than Americans (Shliapentokh 1984, 219). 4 Stereotyping Another Culture When Russians, brought up in the environment of a collectivist culture, arrive in America and encounter a culture of extreme individualism, the unfamiliar cultural phenomena and notions they observe, often result not only in a lack of understanding but in strong rejection. As a result, negative stereotypes appear. Why and how does it occur? Functions of stereotyping are complex and multifaceted (see Spears 2002, 127–56). A cognitive function is implemented when members of one social group (ingroup) form stereotypes of characteristics of another social group (outgroup). The stereotypes are necessary to comprehend the differences between them through simplification when a complicated and detailed analysis is impossible or impractical. But very often stereotyping is not limited to the cognitive function; fostering a sense of superiority of the ingroup over the outgroup—“enhancement principle”—is another important function of stereotyping: “where possible we prefer positive social identities to negative ones” (128). The formation of stereotypes that help to distinguish “us” from “them” (ingroup from outgroup) may be based on actual observations of the two groups and the subsequent reflection of the differences between them in stereotypes (“reflective distinctiveness”), or may be rooted in a priori motives, notions, and prejudices, even without direct observation (“creative distinctiveness”) (129). In the materials discussed below we deal most often with a combination of reflective distinctiveness and creative distinctiveness. The enhancement intention makes the person observing an outgroup create a negative stereotype of it. It may be partially based on reality (reflection), but the perception of this reality is mostly driven by the enhancement function and limited and distorted by the patterns and notions that already exist in the observer’s consciousness (creation).

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Russian stereotypes about the United States do not have to be negative. They may be excessively glorifying. The latter occurs because, for political reasons, the Soviet Union has become an outgroup in the émigrés’ consciousness while their imagination turned America into their ingroup. Thus, the enhancement principle is turned inside out and applied to the new homeland. Another reason for glorifying the United States may be explained by the (possibly unconscious) desire of an émigré to justify his or her decision to leave Russia. But no matter whether these stereotypes are extremely negative or positive, they have the same essentialist nature. People who create essentialist stereotypes about America do not burden themselves with the collection and analysis of often contradictory and complex phenomena of American reality. They register only those features that are selected by their essentialist mind discarding others that do not fit the simplified picture already existing in their consciousness. In this connection, it seems appropriate to remember an Indian parable about an elephant and six blind men. After touching only one part of the elephant’s body, each of them created his own opinion about what the elephant was. The one who touched the ear was sure the elephant was like a fan; the one who felt the trunk was convinced the elephant looked like a snake, and so on. However, unlike these blind men, our authors have excellent vision or wear glasses. Nevertheless, having observed the entire elephant, they still point at the ear and assert that the elephant looks like a fan. Those with very limited American experience, who, in other words, are to some degree blind, have the option to remember their “blindness” and not rush to essentialist conclusions. But this option, more often than not, remains unrealized. Creating more and more negative essences in the portrait of a foreign culture provides the essentialist pleasure of enhancing one’s own culture. TYPES OF RUSSIAN PERCEPTIONS OF AMERICA Russians who live in the United States or visit it for long stretches of time within the same chronological period may have a similar background and yet they form different and often completely opposite opinions about this country, its people, and its way of life. An analysis of the opinions of Russians about their American experience as described in their publications make it possible to place the authors into three categories: • Essentialist: People who reduce phenomena and manifestations of American culture to a limited number of stereotypes (essences). They base their judgments exclusively on the cultural/psychological paradigms of their own consciousness. To form their opinions, they apply only the appearance of the phenomena they observe, ignoring their functions. As a

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result, they often misinterpret these phenomena because the same or similar occurrences can have different meanings. If they encounter phenomena that contradict their preconceived cultural models of America, they simply disregard them. Their approach to American culture can be described by the formula “us (Russians) versus them (Americans).” Both demonization and idealization of America belong to this category. • Objectivist: People who try to understand and judge objectively the attributes of American life bracketing their own cultural baggage. They try to penetrate beyond appearances and determine functions. These attempts can be characterized by the formula “America as it is.” However, the tenacity of their own cultural schemata as well as lack of sufficient knowledge and understanding of American culture may prove “fatal” for their well-meaning attempts at objectivity. Ideally, their approach is less judgmental and more descriptive than that of the essentialists. However, we will see that this ideal is extremely difficult to achieve. • Existentialist: People who are preoccupied with their own existence no matter where they live. They may have their opinion about the country they live in, be it the United States or Russia, but they are not engaged in emotional cross-cultural comparisons. Very often these are people who pursue their artistic talents and are focused on their creative work. The principle they live by can be described by the formula “I and my existence (creative work).” They constitute a minority, and I will discuss them here to create a contrast with two other categories. ESSENTIALISM Essentialism is a tendency of consciousness to perceive a phenomenon as a set of essences, which are unique to it and which remain unchanged no matter how it changes (see Gelman 2003, 7). When stereotyping American culture and way of life, Russians often include the following characteristics as such essences: individualism, that is the dominance of personal interests over the interests of a collective and society; separation and alienation, that is absence of real, strong friendship, which is substituted by superficial relationships, including lack of real closeness between parents and children; bezdukhovnost’—usually translated as “lack of spirituality (dukhovnost’).” The problem with this translation is that “spirituality” usually has religious connotations while the Russian dukhovnost’ usually has nothing to do with religion; it simply indicates a greater interest in humanities, especially literature, than in houses, cars, and boats. Bezdukhovnost’ is closely connected to another essence, greed: an incessant striving to make as much money as possible: “the dollar is god here.” As a rule, each such stereotype contains an explicit or implicit contrast with a corresponding category in Russian culture.

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In America bezdukhovnost’ reigns, while in Russia people live a rich dukhovnyi life. Americans do not have real friends while for Russians living without close friends is unimaginable. And so on. For people with this type of consciousness, inductive essentialism is one of the most common ways of perceiving a foreign culture. John is American, John is an individualist, thus all Americans are individualists. Deductive essentialism (all Americans are individualists, John is American, so John is an individualist) also plays an important role in the process of stereotyping although not as important as its inductive counterpart. Very often deductive essentialism starts as an a priori prejudice. People form an opinion about a foreign culture even before having personal contact with it—from literature, the media, friends, or a widespread mythology. Having a psychological tendency toward essentialism, they register only those features of social relationships and people’s characters that already exist in their minds when they come to America. An objective judgment is hindered by a mental confusion that occurs when people encounter unfamiliar social paradigms and behavior. Essentialists usually ignore the wealth of American subcultures—not only ethnic or racial, but also geographic (e.g., the South differs from the Northeast, and the West, from both of them) and social ones (more educated and well-off people are more individualistic than the less educated and poor; the intelligentsia finds time for reading and going to theaters and the symphony while others spend more leisure time in front of the TV and in stadiums). Dmitry Panin’s 5 description of the United States can serve as an example of an extreme essentialism when the broadest generalizations are made based on a minimum of personal experience and/or research. In 1981 he spent one month in New York without ever leaving the city, and this visit inspired him to create an image of America that most of all characterizes him rather than this country. Here are several quotations from his impressions about this trip. “The Negro is practically unpunishable. The police have decided to pull the plug on [arresting] him—he would immediately go free anyway” (Panin 1998, 128). (Using “Negro” in the singular, Panin makes sure of the readers’ “correct” interpretation: to him Blacks are not part of the American population consisting, like whites, of different individuals but a biological species whose dominant behavior is crime—something akin to “the lion is a predator.”) “In America freedom is carried to the limit. Wagering on freedom reflects people’s reluctance to think and be responsible for anything” (129). Americans “are often narcissistic, cold, unkind, and bad-mouthing people” (130). It turns out that the source for Panin’s information were not his personal impressions gathered during his stay in New York but Arthur Penn’s movie The Chase (1966) which Panin had seen in Moscow fifteen years earlier. When he lived in New York, he transferred the mores depicted in this fictional drama onto real America. Panin even underscores the full correspondence between the reality in the movie and the one in “live” America. “I

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understood that the movie reflected absolutely correctly the situation [in today’s America] that had already been in America fifteen years ago” (132). 6 Then Panin continues to recapitulate in great detail the nightmarish episodes he saw in the film, identifying them with the general moral climate of the contemporary America. “What strikes you in the first place? Horrific drinking and the disintegration of morals. They probably use drugs non-stop. Wives openly and brazenly cheat on their husbands; husbands openly and brazenly cheat on their wives. They call this open whoring sexual revolution. . . . Some filthy financial machinations. I absolutely believe it: In America the dollar is god. . . . Motives are beastly: thirst for blood, thirst for violence, and thirst for destruction” (132–33). In the annotation and introduction to the Russian edition of Panin's two-volume set quoted here, he is referred to as “a great Russian philosopher,” “a great Russian thinker,” “a most talented man,” and “a famous philosopher.” While these titles can amuse the reader of Panin’s anti-American invectives, which are formulated in a style more characteristic of a kitchen squabble in a communal apartment than of “a great Russian philosopher,” such superlatives are quite applicable to the work of Tatyana Tolstaya. As generally accepted, she is indeed one of the most talented contemporary Russian writers, mostly known for her short stories published in the 1980s and 1990s. But her talent also shines in her journalistic pieces, in particular in her American (or rather anti-American) sketches. However, it is exactly in these works that her talent does not save Tolstaya from sinking to Panin’s level in regards to her judgments and stereotypes of America. In one of such sketches she creates a nightmarish story how her American college students (who, in her opinion, are mostly obtuse and ignorant creatures: out of three hundred students not even one tried to understand Borges) and even her liberal American colleague (who turned out to be a cowardly conformist) subjected her to ostracism because she dared to talk disrespectfully about the allAmerican fetish Mickey Mouse and mock the nation’s infatuation with this “national mouse, rodent, toad, and monster” (Tolstaya 2001a, 169–75). In order to bring home the horror of American conformism and totalitarian thinking, Tolstaya resorts to creating associations with the NKVD 7 and Gulag, expertly emulating the style of newspaper reports typical for the times of the Stalinist purges in the late 1930s. Having taught in American colleges for about forty years, I can assume that a couple of students who had not parted with their childhood yet did indeed feel insulted for their idol. The others did not engage in discussion with Tolstaya about “the rodent” not because they were afraid of their classmates, as she insinuates, but because they had no interest in the topic and also because Americans, unlike Russians, do not like to battle in search of the truth. Usually, pragmatic American students are not willing to waste their class time discussing topics unrelated to the subject they study. After all, their parents pay a lot of money for this time. The

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American colleague hesitated to enthusiastically support Tolstaya’s conclusions also not out of fear of the American Gulag or at least of losing his job but most likely because he was at a loss as he faced this emotional thrust for such a strange reason. Perhaps he tactfully tried to avoid showing Tolstaya that he did not believe her interpretation of the events in class; it was easier for him to suggest leaving Mickey Mouse alone. Of course, in order to analyze this incident objectively, one would have needed to be present in class or at least have its transcript. It is possible that Tolstaya did hurt her students’ patriotic feelings if she let them understand from the beginning that only a nation of idiots can experience such an all-consuming love for this “toad,” which is in fact how she frames it in her sketch. In this case the students’ resentment might have been caused not by their imbecile affection for Mickey Mouse but by Tolstaya’s subjective and contemptuous attitude toward American culture. In another sketch (Tolstaya 2001d, 176–83) Tolstaya comments on the alleged American passion for legal battles in court, and to illustrate this tendency she uses a story from a daytime TV courtroom drama, quite similar to Panin’s use of a drama movie as a portrait of real life. She is probably unaware that these TV courtroom shows are not real-time live proceedings but skillfully created dramas filmed in the studio. They are scripted and directed in advance, and their function is to arouse primitive emotions in the less educated segment of the TV viewers. I conducted a little poll among my students asking them to correlate a dozen well-known TV shows with the education level of their most typical viewers. Out of twenty respondents, nineteen defined the most typical viewer of Judge Judy as a person without a high-school diploma. 8 Tolstaya also does not take into account that even small-claim cases take a significant amount of time and effort to prepare and complete, and larger cases require substantial honoraria to lawyers even before the trial and have no guarantee of success. I don’t doubt that Tolstaya has a sufficient level of intellect to sort out the phenomena she observes in American life, but her purpose in these sketches is not an objective analysis but the creation of a myth about this terrible country America, which is populated with imbeciles, conformists, and litigation junkies. Another essentialist is the poet Yana Djin. She left the Soviet Union for the United States in 1980 when she was thirteen and has been writing and publishing in English and Russian. From 2000 to 2002 the English version of Moscow News published her mini-essays about America in which she expresses her hatred and contempt toward this country with a heat of passion that exceeds all other essentialist publications about the United States I have read. There is no need to go deep into an analysis of her texts; it will suffice to cite just several titles: “Natural Born Killers,” “Tasteless Passions,” 9 “The Fat, The Weary, and The Boring,” “The Horrible and The Miserable,” 10 “The False Messiahs,” “Season of Chameleons,” etc. (Djin).

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Attempt at Objectivity The Baskina Case Those Russians whose attitudes toward America are reduced to primitive stereotyping do not represent the entire body of Russians living or sojourning in this country. There are some émigrés and sojourners who, noting the differences between mores and customs in Russia and America, strive to escape the framework of their own notions, values, and cultural codes and understand American culture from an American, rather than Russian, perspective. Ada Baskina, a Russian journalist and sociologist, seems to belong to this category. For twelve years, she worked in American universities, including Northwestern, teaching Russian studies. She thus had ample opportunity to observe American life and reflect on it. In her book about the everyday life of Americans she makes an attempt at an objective approach to studying a foreign culture. Discussing the differences between the Russian and American sense of humor, she declares, “One should accept a foreign culture as it is” (Baskina 2003, 16). When describing an American wedding where, to her utter disbelief, guests had to pay for their drinks, she repeats in the same spirit, “One should not compare cultures of different peoples. One should simply learn about them, accept them as they are and respect them” (134). However, simply learning about a foreign culture and at the same time wholeheartedly accepting it turns out to be not that simple. First of all, one wonders if, in this particular instance and many others, Baskina, in her magnanimous desire to bracket her own culture, tries unconsciously to enhance it by creating a negative and perhaps false judgment and generalization about American culture. She writes that this was the only wedding she attended in America, yet she presents it as an example typical for American culture. Maybe she did attend a wedding with a cash bar, or maybe she mistook the tip in an open bar for payment. In any case, the fact that she created a sweeping generalization based on one event demonstrates that Baskina rushed to her conclusion and forgot about her intention to learn about a foreign culture. This example reveals how difficult it is to “learn and accept” a foreign culture. In her description of American life, Baskina repeatedly falls into the trap of inductive essentialism by making generalizations. She fails to take into consideration the diversity and complexity of the cultural phenomena she attempts to describe. Moreover, she often forgets about her own call to “accept a foreign culture as it is,” making negative value judgments of American culture—sometimes just as a subtle hint, but at other times in the form of strong criticism. Occasionally this criticism is caused because she simply does not understand the aspect she describes; most often, though, it results from an interpretation of American culture that is informed by the

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Russian, collectivist point of view. Since Baskina’s “mistakes” are typical for many other authors writing about American culture, it seems useful to cite several more examples from her book. In the pages devoted to American patriotism 11 Baskina quotes an observation by her compatriot Sergey Kapitsa, with which she fully concurs: “An American, even the most impoverished one, is convinced of the superiority of his country” (Baskina 2003, 30). Here we face a confusion of concepts and unfounded generalization. A dictionary definition of the word “patriotism” reads as follows: “Devoted love, support, and defense of one’s country; national loyalty” (Random House). This definition does not include the notion of national pride and the feeling of superiority over other countries. Of course, there are Americans, mostly belonging to the less educated classes, who are deeply convinced that the United States is absolutely the best country in the world. Studies in social psychology indicate that the lower a person’s social level the higher the degree of collectivism (Triandis 1995, 17, 38). Shliapentokh who emigrated in 1979 also notes this pattern in his letter about his new life: “An interesting fact. The increase in education is accompanied by the decrease of socializing with relatives and neighbors” (Shlyapentokh 1990, 63). Because the degree of individualism rises in people with higher income and/or education, their sense of belonging to the entire country as their ingroup is less developed. Correspondingly, they do not experience a desire to feel that their country is superior in relation to other peoples and countries; instead they are preoccupied with striving for personal success. On the other hand, the views and values of those Americans who believe in the superiority of their country come close to the collectivist identification with the entire nation that is characteristic of Russians. These are less educated and poorer (or Kapitsa’s “impoverished”) people. The majority of Americans, however, simply approve or disapprove the actions of governments—their own and other countries’. The sense of patriotism (that is, love for their country and loyalty to it) grows when an external threat appears (as was true after 9/11). In this case, hostile feelings toward another country are not caused by an abstract sense of superiority but by a reaction to concrete events and actions. Some Americans (those who are patriots), for example, do not like France and the French. The reason is the common opinion that the French are arrogant and rude toward foreign tourists, Americans in particular. This hostile attitude increased after France sharply criticized the United States for the invasion of Iraq. Such nuances escape Baskina who nevertheless offers sweeping conclusions about an important aspect of American culture. Even less convincing is her interpretation of an episode in her class, which she uses to buttress her notion of patriotism and love for one’s country. From the following exchange between her students Baskina concludes that Americans disapprove of those who criticize the country of their birth—

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their Motherland. A student, who emigrated as a child with his parents from Russia to the United States, declared that he had no Motherland. Russia is not his Motherland because “there is no political freedom there.” Here is how Baskina describes the reaction of American students to his words: “The American kids were shocked. For them it sounded as if someone admitted that he did not have and never had a mother. They looked at him with pity and horror. As if he were sick or feeble-minded—someone extremely wretched. ‘I recommend that you go to Russia,’ a girl suggested finally, showing great compassion, ‘you will like it . . .’ She did not finish but certainly wanted to add: ‘And then you will regain your Motherland after all’” (Baskina 2003, 32). In this description Baskina projects onto the American students her own reaction to the emigrant student’s words. We deal here not with a literal exposition of facts but with bad literature—a melodrama, which hardly reflects the real meaning of the discussion in class. First of all, the notion of Motherland—something “sacred and infallible like a mother” does not exist in the American consciousness. (In fact, American culture has no cult of mother comparable to that in Russian culture.) An American can say “my country” or “my homeland” but these concepts are correlated very little with the sacredness of the Russian “Motherland.” During a war Americans can die for their country as Russians for their Motherland, but if in peaceful times an American decided to leave his country because there is no political freedom his compatriots would not be in shock. From the traditional Russian point of view, a person who rejects his country, his Motherland, is a moral monster. He deserves to be pitied and scorned. In the traditional American view, anyone can choose the place of residency in correspondence with his or her needs, goals, and plans. This choice lies outside of moral considerations. Finally, it is hard to imagine that the phrase that Baskina put into the mouth of her American student, “And then you will regain your Motherland after all,” could appear in the consciousness of an American, but it is very much in the character of Russian thinking. Emigration from Russia has always bordered on treason. Until recently it has never been easy to leave, even during tsarist times, which, of course, cannot be compared with the impenetrable barrier of the Soviet iron curtain. Many fled abroad, some were exiled, but in most cases it was always a permanent loss of the Motherland. As the Soviet poet Andrei Voznesensky wrote, “They do return from prisons sometimes, but never from abroad” (Voznesenskiy 1966, 92). Sometimes, one could “regain” the Motherland by begging forgiveness, returning like the prodigal son with the repentant heart. That is how Alexander Vertinsky returned from emigration, and Igor Stravinsky visited the Soviet Union—not for good but still with the same repentant heart and words. Americans do not “lose their Motherland” when they leave for a different country; this is simply their private decision. And they return not to “regain the Motherland” but simply for some practical reasons. Hence my disbelief

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that an American student could come up with the exalted “You will regain your Motherland.” It is quite possible that she enthusiastically recommended her Russian classmate to visit Russia—not in order to regain his Motherland but to have fun, which she herself apparently had during her visit. American students like visiting Russia: inexpensive pleasures like beer and clubs, warm and loving relations in the families with whom they stay, and rich European and Russian culture if they are in St. Petersburg or Moscow. Here again Baskina substitutes her collectivist notion of the sacred Motherland for the individualism of her American students. One of the aspects of American life that Baskina discusses in her book is American loneliness. Again, she constructs her interpretations seeing everything through a collectivist prism. She writes about the “sad” situations when a college student walks to the cafeteria alone or when parents, after their children left for college, have to face their sad existence as empty nesters. The question is whether Americans really feel sad in these situations. In a Russian college the entire day of study—lectures, seminars, labs, lunch breaks, and cafeteria—is to a large degree part of social life, which can be more important than anything else. Close relationships among Russian students are strengthened by going through their entire university education in one group of about twenty-five people. They take the same mandatory classes (there are very few electives) and see each other six hours a day, six days a week. Thus those who like each other have ample opportunities to socialize not only during lunch breaks but between and right after classes as well. Activities of American students are more discrete, differentiated, and rationalized. 12 During the days and even in the evenings of most of the workweek they focus on their classes and homework although they also find time for TV, sports, and listening to music, doing it mostly alone in accordance with their own schedule. They can meet a friend for lunch or have brief chats with a classmate in the gym or participate in a study group, but if these bits of socializing do not occur due to, for example, a schedule conflict, they do not feel particularly lonely. For students, their social time and fun begins on Friday or sometimes even on Thursday—in many cases, this includes parties involving a lot of drinking despite the fact that the legal drinking age is twenty-one. If Baskina had visited these parties she would have probably come up with the conclusion that even here American students are sad and lonely. American parties may include students who do not know each other well or at all; Russian parties are smaller and usually comprise only close friends—for that reason they may look happier and friendlier. Do American students feel lonely? Some do, some do not, like their Russian counterparts. What is important for a student’s social life is not the form of socializing but how popular or unpopular one is among peers. Those American students who are not too popular can find other ways to join in social activities other than friendship: volunteer work, such as helping the poor, the sick, and the old;

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membership in religious or political groups; or joining other student groups that appeal to their interests, such as art, social causes, politics, academics, or recreation. In Russia, these types of activities either do not exist on a regular basis or are not very common; close friendships constitute the most important aspect of social life outside the family. If we imagine a Russian student placed into the environment of an American college then, even with perfect English and knowledge of all the cultural attributes she or he will most likely feel somewhat lonely missing close relationships with a permanent circle of friends. (Perhaps female Russian students will have an easier time establishing new friendships with their female American classmates than male Russians will with American males (see Caldwell 1982). But American students do not need such tight (if not stifling) relationships that are common among Russians—they may be helpful in case of need but may seem too burdensome emotionally. Russians do not go to therapists, they go to their friends and they often borrow money not from banks but from friends. Americans, especially adults, on the other hand, do not generally turn to friends in case of serious need—there is family and there are professionals: physicians, psychologists, and social institutions. Thus, sitting alone in the cafeteria American students would not necessarily feel lonely but a Russian student would. Parents, finding themselves in an “empty nest” after their children left for college or for jobs, do not have to feel lonely and abandoned either. They do miss their children and the children miss them, but this is not a sad or tragic feeling. It is exciting to see your kids grown up and making progress in life. Now parents have more time for their friends and travel and maybe even hobbies they neglected in the “full nest.” And in an average family with good, loving relations, parents and children visit each other several times a year, communicate via telephone and Skype, text each other every day if they like, and exchange photographs. Since, in general, parents and children are not as tight-knit (whether happily or stifled) in American families as in Russian ones (see Triandis 1995, 37, 63), everyone takes advantage of their freedom, and the sad picture of parents having to live through their old age abandoned by their children does not correspond to reality. In this connection, it seems appropriate to discuss another episode from Baskina’s book that describes the separation of children and parents from the opposite end. In the chapter devoted to old age she writes about the fate of an old woman, Elsy, who lived with her son and daughter-in-law until she was seventy-eight. Then her son had a stroke and it became difficult for him and his wife to look after his mother. She bought an apartment in a retirement home with full services complete with dining, cleaning, and medical care. In the context of American life, the situation does not seem tragic at all, apart from her old age and her son’s illness. Elsy lives a comfortable life and her children visit her regularly. Usually these homes provide plenty of opportu-

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nities for social and physical activities as well as for excursions and shopping. But Baskina suffers for poor Elsy because, according to Russian tradition, for children to “get rid of” their old mother and have her live surrounded by strangers is a shameful act, which should be extremely hurtful for Elsy. 13 The melodramatic ending of this episode demonstrates the same tendency for projecting the values of one’s own culture onto a foreign culture. When Baskina visits Elsy in her wonderful new home and asks about her life, Elsy responds the American way “that here everything is fine, nice—no details. . . . But when I [Baskina] insist on my questions about her life away from her family, she suddenly responds with a long–long glance and there is suppressed anguish in it. Anguish of loneliness” (Baskina 2003, 250, Baskina’s emphasis). Here, I would like to point to a tendency characteristic of Russian authors of similar sketches. They observe some occurrence in American life, create their own interpretation of it, and then “insist” that their American interlocutors comment on their interpretation, clearly expecting confirmation. For Americans, it is easier to tactfully say, “well, maybe you are right,” than get drawn into a senseless argument trying to convince their new Russian friend that the suggested interpretation may be the stupidest thing they ever heard. In this episode, however, Elsy does not confirm anything at all; Baskina reads all the information in Elsy’s “long–long glance” in which she sees “suppressed anguish.” To fully understand Baskina’s interpretation one should know that until recently in Russia old people like Elsy did not have the opportunity to move out from their families and live alone with some kind of assistance. All nursing homes have been the state institutions, which would not accept old people living with their families unless they could not be managed in home conditions. Thus, whether they want it or not, people are stuck with their old, disabled parents. It puts tremendous stress on all involved but there has been no other solution. Only during about the past ten years did private nursing homes start to appear, but only around Moscow and St. Petersburg. Baskina, following her unconscious desire to enhance her ingroup, strove to find something negative in what was actually quite a happy ending for Elsy. Such retirement homes as the one she lives in are expensive and not accessible to everyone. Undoubtedly, living surrounded by old and sickly people is not the best recipe for happiness but the best possible solution under the circumstances. As for her “suppressed anguish of loneliness,” it might have simply been an anguish of old age, illnesses, or approaching death. Or might it not have been anguish at all? Baskina was just eager to establish that “they” are even more miserable than “we.” In the chapter in which she denounces the culture of American colleges, Baskina describes several situations when students complained about her and another Russian instructor. Her Russian colleague Pokrovsky, who told her his story, was a visiting professor in the Slavic department of an American

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college. As in Russia, he was a strict teacher and gave grades according to merit. At some point students began complaining about him (“snitching on him” as she puts it). “He was accused of favoritism—loving some students (who were, in fact, strong) and not loving others (weak ones, of course)” (Baskina 2003, 46–47). Let us try to understand what caused the flow of complaints about Pokrovsky. Everyone who has taught in American colleges knows that grade inflation is one of the main problems of the college education. School administrations try to fight it but, because of the existing system, it is a losing proposition. Approximately two-thirds of all courses in colleges of arts and science are electives. An average professor (not a star) teaching humanities or languages who gives low grades risks losing potential students. Besides, most colleges employ some kind of student evaluation system, which requires students to characterize their professor’s work at the end of the semester. Most C-students are not likely to write an enthusiastic evaluation. Enrollment numbers and student evaluations affect tenure decisions or contract renewals for non-tenured faculty. The system is obviously flawed because instructors depend on the students’ subjective opinions for their standing at the college. Thus when the teacher assigns grades he or she should always consider previous grades for this or a similar class. Perhaps Pokrovsky’s students had been earning their A’s and B’s in other classes when they suddenly slid down to C’s or maybe even lower in his class. Yet Pokrovsky’s main problem was not the low grades but his ignorance of the culture and ethics of American education. According to Baskina’s description, Pokrovsky introduced personal factors into his relationships with his students: he loved strong students, disliked weak ones, and did not hide it. Favoritism was the primary accusation in the complaints against him. And that was his main mistake. One can give low grades but one can never make it personal. An instructor’s attitude toward all students—strong or weak— has to be even and friendly. A student who gets a low grade should not be treated as a bad person. Comparing childcare centers in Russia and the United States, Baskina highly praises the overall friendliness and lack of conflict in American institutions. The weakest and clumsiest, she explains, are given more attention, they are encouraged in a number of ways, the teachers are very careful not to harm them psychologically, and they receive “injections” of positive emotions. Moreover, they are never shamed in front of others for their mistakes. For contrast, Baskina describes an episode in a Russian childcare center where a teacher chastened a little boy in front of all other children for wetting his bed. For some reason Baskina does not extrapolate her observations onto the college setting where the same approach should be applied. Weak students should be helped rather than scolded and scorned. They are not bad persons; they just need more support and should work harder. Moreover, given the strict confidentiality rules in American colleges, an instructor can-

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not leak information about the students’ performance and, even less so, discuss it in class. Describing her own experience with American “snitching,” Baskina manifests the same lack of understanding of American college culture. She was asked to teach a course in Russian on social topics in contemporary Russia. After the first class she discovered that out of twenty-five students only three could understand her lecture. Students did not ask questions either, from which she concluded that they were embarrassed to demonstrate their poor knowledge of Russian in their last year of college. Trying to solve the problem she changed the structure of the course: lecturing in Russian for the first thirty minutes and summarizing the material in English for the remaining class time. After that the three strong students complained—they took the class to learn Russian and did not want to waste twenty minutes or so listening to the summary in English. Discussing this problem with her department chair, Baskina explained that “the students did not know Russian well enough for their level of studies but were ashamed to admit it” (Baskina 2003, 48). The conflict grew even deeper because the students learned of Baskina’s opinion and became very unhappy with her, to put it mildly. In this incident, Baskina made a series of serious pedagogical and cultural mistakes. Before starting her course on a complex topic, she should have evaluated the students’ knowledge of Russian. Finding that almost 90 percent of the class did not understand her, she should have concluded that this was probably the standard level of Russian in the fourth year of this college. Her expectations were based on the level of foreign language departments at good colleges in Russia. There fourth-year students are expected to be quite fluent in their main foreign language. The discrepancy is not due to students in Russia being smarter or more diligent than their American counterparts but because the systems of education are different. Russian students choose their major at the very beginning of their college studies, and the majority of their classes during the following years are devoted to studying it. In American colleges, with so many electives and a broad core curriculum, students majoring in a foreign language have significantly fewer hours of instruction than Russians. The three students in Baskina’s class who knew Russian well enough to understand her might have studied in Russia or in special summer programs in the United States. The rest could not meet her course requirements although their Russian might have been quite adequate for the number of classroom hours they could take during the three years at this college. Baskina did not care to conduct a simple comparative analysis of the systems but instead accused the majority of students of laziness and snitching on her. Another mistake was changing the structure of the course to presenting the material in Russian during the first half of the class and then repeating it in English. In doing so, she neglected the interests of the strong students in favor of the majority. Yet she was happy with this solution. According to

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collectivist logic she did the right thing, but she was in a society where even one person’s interests are no less important than those of ten or twenty. Those three students formally signed up and paid money for the course; therefore they had a right to expect that the entire class be conducted in Russian according to the course description. The weaker students wasted their time as well missing the first half of the class conducted in Russian. As a language teacher myself, I would suggest lowering the level of Russian and, consequently, simplifying the content of the course. I would also offer the three excellent students additional work for extra credit. Even teaching the courses in Western European languages, which are easier to learn for English-speakers than Russian, professors in American colleges sacrifice the complexity or the amount of material (or both) to make it accessible in a foreign language. Only graduate level courses, conducted in the target language in foreign-language departments, are taught in their full complexity, and not at all universities either. The underlying cause for Pokrovsky’s and Baskina’s conflicts with their students, however, was not so much their lack of pedagogical skills as their cultural incompetence. They had been educated and shaped as teachers in a society where the teacher was the “tsar and god,” as Russians say. 14 The instructor’s methods and approaches to teaching could not be questioned by the students who also did not have the opportunity to evaluate their teachers or discuss their grades. A student could only ask (beg) the professor for a better grade but complaining was out of the question. Pokrovsky and Baskina transferred this teacher’s “authoritarianism” to American colleges. They had their own standards and opinions based on their Russian experience and they did not bother trying to understand their students’ complaints, accusing them of “snitching” instead. The use of the word “snitch” 15 in this context is also telling. Baskina refers to Pokrovsky’s and her own students’ complaints and even the department chair’s sharing Baskina’s opinion about her class with the students 16 as snitching. She does not see the difference between the semantics of the words “complaint” (zhaloba) and “snitching” (donos), but it is a very significant difference. Complaint is a statement of loss (whatever kind—financial, moral, psychological, etc.) that a complainant endured due to the actions of the person about whom he or she complains. For the complaint to be properly addressed, the identity of the complainant must be known to the authority and to the alleged perpetrator. Snitching (donos) is usually not about a loss personally suffered by the snitch but about some kind of unacceptable activity committed by the target of the donos. A donos is always made in secret from its target and often anonymously. In the Russian language, the words donos and donoschik (a snitch) have had a negative connotation because the practice has been used for centuries to ruin a rival or an enemy, often a completely innocent person. The act of donos is considered utterly immoral

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since it is committed against a member of one’s own ingroup. The damaging information is submitted to the government which for ordinary Russians has always been the outgroup (except for the chief ruler). A complaint (zhaloba) travels the same channels—by a member of one’s own ingroup about another member of the same ingroup to some organ of an outgroup. For example, in Stalin’s times one worker could anonymously inform on another worker that he was a spy. The “spy” would be arrested and dealt with accordingly by the NKVD and the donoschik would get rid of, say, his wife’s lover. Or a worker’s wife would file a formal complaint to the factory Party Committee that her husband cheated on her. A general meeting would be called and the facts discussed. The guilty party, the husband, would be publicly shamed and reprimanded because one of the Party’s functions was to maintain a proper level of morality among the Soviet people. The husband betrayed his wife cheating on her but she “betrayed” him by delivering him into the hands of the outgroup—the omnipotent Party or administration against which he could have no recourse. Divorcing him, shaming him in front of their family or neighbors, or asking her brother to beat him up would not be considered treachery; complaining to the Party was. Thus, in the Russian mind the semantic difference between the donos and zhaloba gets blurred. In individualist cultures there is no historical tradition of the population’s solidarity against the ruling power because people do not feel that they constitute the same ingroup for which the government is the outgroup. Different people feel differently about the current government, and the government itself, whether local or federal, consists of three different branches, not necessarily homogeneous and in agreement on all issues. Russia, for all practical purposes, has never had such a government. For that reason, in the United States a complainant and the target of the complaint do not belong to the same ingroup for which the organ where the complaint is lodged is the outgroup. They are simply two separate individuals not connected to each other. Here is another example to illustrate the difference between the two cultures: in Russian schools students and teachers stand on opposite sides of the barricades, as it were. Students cheat and help each other cheating; teachers try to catch and punish them. In this context if a student denounces his classmate for cheating he or she will be scorned and ostracized if not physically abused. In fact, it is inconceivable that a student would do it. In the United States students do report cheaters because cheating gives the cheater an unfair advantage. If the cheater learns who “ratted” on him or her, he or she may be angry, but it is doubtful that the classmates would ostracize the one who reported the cheater. Most likely they would either not care or agree that gaining an unfair advantage should not be tolerated. Baskina also comments on the physical appearance of American women. In his letters to friends, Shliapentokh notices that Americans possess a high level of tolerance toward what he calls “non-standard” people—the obese,

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severely disabled, or very old. “Here everyone has a right to be whatever and whoever one likes, even at the expense of general aesthetics” (Shlyapentokh 1990, 12). He points out that for Russia this kind of tolerance is not typical. Baskina manifests such intolerance, insisting on the aesthetical standards of her culture. If a woman has a good, slim figure she can wear shorts and a tight T-shirt. “But when tight shorts cover copious hips and a little T-shirt, big, sagging breasts (young American women do not wear bras 17 ), this is not a pleasant view” (Baskina 2003, 101). For Baskina “there is, after all, an ethics of clothes that developed over centuries. Violating it hurts one’s eyes, irritates” (101). Interestingly, for her it is not just the aesthetics of clothes but the ethics; that is, if the clothes a woman wears do not satisfy the norms as Baskina understands them, the woman commits an immoral act. Here, too, Baskina cannot bracket her own culture, which is oriented toward expression rather than content, and for which appearance is often a representation of the essence. 18 Moreover, unconsciously Baskina connects shorts and a T-shirt with a woman’s sex appeal: on a woman with a “good” figure they underscore her desirability while on a woman with “copious hips” and “sagging breasts” they emphasize her shortcomings as a sex object. Collectivists are more concerned what others think about them than individualists: if a woman does not have an attractive body, she should be aware of it and construct her wardrobe to maximally hide it. The reverse, but in principle the same, is the attitude toward women under sharia law: the woman has to hide her entire body and sometimes even face in order not to have sex appeal for any man but her husband. In both cultures, the woman is seen first of all as a sex object. Similarly, Baskina insists on the absoluteness of the gustation norms characteristic of her culture, and she does it in an even more categorical way: “Older people prefer, for some reason, cold tea with lemon but without sugar. To my taste it is disgusting. I can still understand having tea with lemon, but why without sugar (262)?” Any American will see how untrue, if not ridiculous, this sweeping generalization is. According to the Tea Association of the U.S.A. Inc., 80 percent of American tea consumers drink iced tea, which means that it is popular among people of all ages. As for sweetening iced tea, it is a matter of taste and health considerations: some do, others do not. The following two examples of Baskina’s attitude toward feminism and homosexuality in the United States yet again demonstrate how the American reality is distorted in a consciousness that cannot cross the boundaries of its own cultural codes. After paying some obeisance to liberalism she betrays her lack of understanding of the nuances in these spheres of American social life and bases her judgments on the traditions of her own culture. She opens her attacks on American feminism by describing several stereotypical “absurd” situations. Feminists, in her examples, become outraged when men try to kiss their hand, hold a coat for them, or try to pay for them in a restaurant.

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She does not understand that for many, kissing a woman’s hand looks as ridiculous as a curtsy might look if she made it in her own country. Neither does she realize that the suggestion to pay for a woman one barely knows may be perceived as an attempt to establish a more intimate relationship. In Russia, expecting a woman to pay for herself in a restaurant would be unmanly; at the same time, paying the bill does not give the man any advantage in pursuing the woman. Furthermore, Baskina does not understand or accept the indignation of a female student whom a visiting French professor gave a light pat “on her little butt (zadik) in tight jeans” (Baskina 2003, 162). The female faculty’s struggle for equal salary and representation in ranks seems strange to her. Putting aside her cultural baggage she could have described the same phenomena without the overtones of negative judgment. Even better but much more difficult, she could have tried to understand what has caused these phenomena—whether complete idiocy on the part of feminists, as Baskina insinuates, or some deep processes in American society. But let us turn to the examples. Baskina writes about the sensational case of Lorena and John Bobbitt: In 1993 she cut off his penis while he was asleep. Yet again, Baskina creates a literary sketch instead of providing an objective narration of facts and their analysis. She starts her story as follows: “A pretty Mexican woman marries a white American man” (Baskina 2003, 163). 19 Why would the ethnicity of the participants and the attractiveness of the wife matter? None of these was taken into consideration during the trial. But for Baskina they are important for the dramatization (and trivialization) of the story. She wants the following plot to emerge in her readers’ consciousness: A beautiful adventuress, a Mexican (but it could also be a Gypsy or a Jewess—the common seductress archetypes in Russian literature) catches a naïve white man in her net. After that, Baskina adds the motif of sexuality. The Mexican miscalculated the balance between her husband’s sexual prowess and her own frigidity “despite her southern origin” (164) (another trite stereotype: all southern women must have an insatiable sexual appetite). Lorena decides to liberate herself from the burdensome relationship by one strike of the knife. Of course, the feminists, the author continues, demanded her acquittal, and at the trial “their pressure turned out to be so powerful that Lorena was completely acquitted” (164). Baskina creates her own version of the trial, which advances her point of view of feminism in a context that fit the Russian legal culture rather than the American one: under the external pressure, the court makes the wrong decision—for the Russian reader a quite familiar situation. In the United States, however, the court is independent not only of the pressure presumably exerted by feminists but also of the much more powerful public opinion and even the government. The story of President Trump’s immigration ban demonstrates this quite convincingly. The executive order was stopped by a district judge—a situation that is absolutely unimaginable in Russia. And in

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O. J. Simpson’s case the jury acquitted him in spite of the fact that the vast majority of Americans supported the prosecution. But he had a strong defense team and the prosecution failed to prepare the case. Similarly, Lorena Bobbitt’s defense attorneys were able to demonstrate the history of abuse perpetrated by her husband and the inadequacy of her mental state when she committed the crime. They also demonstrated her revulsion toward him after he forced her to have an abortion. For Baskina the facts were irrelevant; she needed a simple and clear plot: American feminists have such power that they can make the court acquit a criminal. Fear of the outgroup (feminists represent an outgroup for the majority of Russian women) begets the myth of its power. Another story relates Baskina’s “adventures” in the chapter “Gay Problem.” She took a stroll in San Francisco and unknowingly wandered into the Castro District—a gay and lesbian neighborhood. As she was walking along the street, nothing portended the trouble, but suddenly she heard footsteps behind her. For some reason, in the middle of the day and in a quite safe neighborhood she felt alarmed. It even seemed to her that people sitting on their porches and enjoying the beautiful weather were surreptitiously watching her. We already know Baskina’s weakness for melodrama, and this is a good beginning for one with crime story overtones. Looking back, she saw a woman who amiably said hello to which Baskina amiably responded and proceeded her way. The woman continued walking behind her. When Baskina turned around again, the woman said, “How are you?” This time Baskina responded angrily (sic.) that she was fine, and suddenly noticed something strange in the woman’s smile and glance: “Every woman is familiar with this expression, this suggestive, inviting glance. Only usually this glance . . . is male” (Baskina 2003, 188). Finally it dawned on her where she was strolling and what this woman wanted. A situation like this is not unique in a big city, especially in a gay neighborhood, and, of course, is usually not dangerous. As soon as the “pursuer” realizes you are not interested you will be left alone. But Baskina reacted as if she found herself in a plague-stricken area. “I understand everything at once. Of course, this is the center of sex minorities where gays and lesbians gather. They know each other well, and here they see a new person walking unhurriedly back and forth. Clearly, she is looking for her own group, in this case lesbians. It would not make sense to send a man to her, so they sent a woman. I rushed off into the closest lane. On the corner, I looked back. My pursuer was standing at the corner of Castro Street and her face wore the expression of extreme concern” (188, emphasis mine). In my opinion, the “pursuer’s” face must have expressed extreme amazement rather than concern since Baskina’s reaction was absolutely inadequate in this situation. No danger threatened her and no enemies surrounded her. But from the point of view of the collectivist consciousness, Baskina’s behavior can be easily explained. For her, gays and lesbians are strongly defined as an

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outgroup. The majority of the Russian population, including the highly educated stratum, is intolerant and often hostile toward homosexuality. Thus, one can expect danger to emanate from “them.” Any representative of this group is perceived not as an individual but as a part of the whole. Hence “they sent a woman.” Who sent? What enemies? The woman was alone and was acting according to her individual intentions. But in Baskina’s consciousness gays and lesbians act together (zaodno). She manifests a quite traditional attitude toward them—a combination of squeamishness and fear, which make her “rush off.” This fear also manifests itself in her apprehension that the “fad” for same-sex love could spread to Russia because the propaganda of homosexuality in America is so aggressive. To her the danger “seems very real. Might we adopt from this country [the United States] its hypertrophied interest in ‘alternative love’? Might we follow the radical segment of American liberals in confusing the norm and a deviation from it? Might we try too hard . . . [to imitate America] (199)?” One may consider Baskina to be intellectually challenged, and wonder why her stories, opinions, and interpretations are presented as typical. Unfortunately, she represents widespread attitudes of Russians who are “challenged” only in one sense: they follow their gut reactions to the unfamiliar phenomena, and their “gut” has been developed and shaped by a culture very different from the American one. In the following section, we will see how difficult it is to overcome the “gut reaction” (see Haidt 2012) triggered by one’s culture. It may never happen or it may take many years of American experience. Success Stories Baskina’s examples demonstrate how difficult it is to suppress one’s cultural values and norms when interacting with a foreign culture even if one consciously sets the goal to be objective. However, given time and a strong interest in another culture, one can learn to control conscious attitudes and behavior, if not one’s gut reaction. Like Baskina, Shliapentokh experienced fear of the outgroup. In one of his letters home after his emigration to the United States, he describes his trip to London and the punks he encountered there. He calls them “idiots” and “imbeciles,” basing his judgment exclusively on the color and shape of their hairdos—another manifestation of culture oriented toward expression. Passing the building where a concert of “their music” was scheduled to start soon, Shliapentokh asked a policeman standing at the building how dangerous this event was going to be. The Bobby told him that “‘strictly speaking, the danger equaled zero,’ and since he was actually not on duty now, he was considering joining them” (Shlyapentokh 1990, 96). Unlike Baskina’s reaction to an outgroup, Shliapentokh was able to see his fears from another vantage point and could describe them humorously.

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The prominent Russian writer Vassily Aksyonov knew America much better than Baskina and, moreover, was much less inclined to follow his gut reactions without examining them. Like Baskina, he is annoyed by what they consider the aggressiveness of American feminists and the excessively noisy struggle of gays and lesbians for their rights. But unlike Baskina he bases his judgments not on his cultural instincts but on analysis of his thoughts and experience. At the conference, “The Writer and Human Rights,” when he participated in a panel on censorship, he was interrupted and attacked by feminists for allegorically portraying Soviet censorship as an ugly old woman desperately seeking love but not finding any. He tried to explain that in Russian the word for censorship (tsenzura) is of feminine gender, hence this particular metaphor. But he was booed down. Eventually he was “saved” by a male feminist who explained Aksyonov’s terrible gaffe by the centurieslong legacy of slavery in Russia. The episode humorously depicts this act of feminist “censorship” during a panel discussion on censorship, yet it made the writer think. The following two pages are filled with his thoughts about the position of women in Russia, and at the end he admits: “So there was in fact something to the ‘years of slavery’ claim made by my savior at the conference” (Aksyonov 1987, 137). Observing a colorful gay parade Aksyonov even admires the Fellinian bacchanalia of this carnivalesque procession: “beefy men in pink ruffled dresses and pasty makeup; closely cropped women in jackets and ties” (Aksyonov 1987, 131). And he has no issue with a gay couple living one floor above him—“two musicians, one black, one white; they are an integral part of our Adams Morgan melting pot, and things would be drearier without them” (134). But to him the gay movement in the United States has exceeded the original purpose of fighting for gay rights: “A movement that began as a struggle against social hypocrisy has taken on the traits of a mighty ideology and has thereby acquired its own brand of hypocrisy” (131). Whether you agree with his opinions or not, you see that he is trying to understand the Other—a culture that is strange and unfamiliar to him, instead of running away from it in fear and panic. Why is there such a difference between him and Baskina? I would suggest that Aksyonov was “lucky” because his parents had been purged in Stalin’s times when he was five and he grew up not constrained by strict parental discipline or the norms of a homogeneous collective. Thus, psychologically he was more an individualist than a collectivist, which facilitated his movements from one culture to another. His consciousness was not fettered by essentialist clichés, and it was easier for him to examine unfamiliar cultural phenomena impartially, as individual occurrences in the American context.

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Vladimir Shliapentokh: Making Peace with America Nevertheless, people who grew up in a collectivist society cannot help but appropriate at least some values of this society, even if, due to particular aspects of their socialization, they had developed a relatively individualist consciousness. When, however, they move from a collectivist society to an individualist one, i.e., from Russia to America, their consciousness can undergo a transformation as individualist tendencies drive out some collectivist ones. This kind of transformation seems to have occurred to Shliapentokh—one of the most interesting observers of American culture from the point of view of a foreigner. His book Discovering America: Letters to Friends in Moscow consists of the letters he wrote to his friends over approximately seven years—from 1979, when he arrived in the United States, to the onset of perestroika. In the preface, the author forewarns his readers that he abstains from critical comparisons between the Soviet and American systems in order to not endanger his addressees. He also intentionally belittled the advantages of American life so “not to upset his friends who would not or could not even think about emigration” (Shlyapentokh 1990, 6). In fact, in his first letters Shliapentokh tries very hard to demonstrate his “impartiality” in order to differ from those recent émigrés who flooded their friends and relatives in the Soviet Union with ecstatic letters describing their new life in America. He tries so hard indeed that his tone, vocabulary, and sweeping generalizations remind one of yet another essentialist anti-American writing. Here are several examples that sound almost like Panin’s diatribes: “A maniacal emphasis on one’s own self, on privacy” (8); “fantastic ignorance and gullibility” (9); “scholarly arrogance” (10); “mania of independence and individuality” (13); “society that has made a cult of masochism” (16); “wives are madly lazy” (17); and so on, and so forth. However, after two or three such letters the emotional generalizations disappear, and the author finds an appropriate balance being cautious (keeping in mind a possible perlustration of his letters by the KGB), tactful, and objective. But even in the early letters, the attentive reader will discover that the piles of anti-American invectives are weakened and often reduced to null by a delicate play with the text. The very first letter is devoted to American individualism. According to the author, the above cited “maniacal emphasis on one’s own self, on privacy” deprives Americans of the most precious things in life: children and friends. Children “are literally pushed out of home as soon as decency allows but not later than when they are, say, eighteen years old” (8). After that the parents start enjoying life and do not even think about helping their children with grandchildren: “just the thought of grandchildren screaming in their house can drive them crazy” (8). Where is the anguish of the “empty nest,” described by Baskina? Both Baskina and Shliapentokh notice the same phenomenon of American family life: a greater

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distance between children and parents and their greater independence from each other than in Russian families, and they both create bizarre essentialist generalizations that are opposite to one another. But Shliapentokh takes one extra step in his analysis throwing in the idea that the traditional strength of family ties in Russia rests on some deep pragmatic reasons that are absent in American society. “They [Americans] have no . . . fear of a lonely old age that haunts the Russian imagination. They trust in their savings and paid services and are not concerned, as we are, with the ‘children’s gratitude.’ They do not give a damn about this, quite illusory, blessing (and how right they are!)” (8). Thus, Shliapentokh, still maintaining the notion of the difference in family relationships in Russia and America, explains it by objective economic factors—demythologizes it. Shliapentokh uses the same method of objectivizing an originally subjective text in his discussion of friends and friendship. At first, he suggests one of the possible reasons why Americans do not have really close friends such as Russians have. Americans move often from place to place in search of jobs, therefore they lack an opportunity to establish strong ties. This sounds reasonable, at least as a partial explanation. But then Shliapentokh constructs a myth: Americans do not have friends because they spend all their time and energy on financial calculations. “Absorbed in endless problems of [creating] comfort, turning their homes into museums, and, in this connection, thorough calculations of various kinds, especially in their relationships with the state, they literally turn out to be deprived of energy and emotions for spiritual (dukhovnyi) activities for which, and only for which, one needs friends.” Immediately after this sentence, follows a non sequitur: “They do not need friends to discuss potential dangers or unite against enemies, and so on” (8). Hence, one needs real friends not only for “spiritual activities” but also to fight enemies and various dangers together. An attentive reader can conclude that making this logical leap, the author also makes a spatial leap from the American reality to the Soviet one: in the Soviet Union, there are more enemies and dangers, therefore friendship is stronger there—not because Russians are so much more spiritual than Americans. This thought was developed by Shliapentokh in his scholarly work where he argues that “friendship has always served as a refuge for the individual from external threats. All other things equal, the lower the sense of security among people and the weaker their confidence in the future, the more intense and vital are interpersonal relationships” (Shliapentokh 1984, 218). Shliapentokh, however, rarely makes cross-cultural comparisons, even masked ones, in order to avoid the KGB’s attention, which may endanger his addressees. Yet his letters still have an evaluative, rather than objective character. And the values we find in his judgments of American culture expose the presence of collectivist paradigms in his consciousness, especially in his early letters. For him, for example, interests of a collective, a state, or simply

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a majority are always more important than interests of an individual or a minority. He disapproves of the tendency of American media to criticize its government, “even during such an acute period as the Iran crisis” (20). 20 He notes that American newspapers as well as many American citizens do not care about the country’s prestige, often siding with the political adversaries of the United States: “There is no such adversary or action that would not find advocates in the newspaper pages. Is it not a sign of a disease (Shlyapentokh 1990, 21)?” He is appalled that the country’s administration must often take into consideration the interests of various social and ethnic groups, “as a consequence of which many important decisions are never made because of the resulting stalemate” (20). Self-governance and the vast rights of the states and public referenda which allow bypassing federal laws also cause harsh criticism: “Local authorities can get away with whatever they want; the same is true for the general population” (20). Attention given to individuals, in particular to the disabled, is characterized as “unnatural concerns about insignificant problems (delishki) of the individual” (21). The tone and judgments of Shliapentokh’s letters change as time goes by. 21 It seems that after several years of living in the country, the author not only began to understand American culture better but, in the process of his personal acculturation, adopted its values. If in the earlier letters the criticism of their country by ordinary Americans annoyed him and produced thoughts of a “disease,” then in a later letter he finds a rational explanation for this phenomenon: criticism helps to avoid stagnation. America “endlessly seeks and finds its own shortcomings and . . . knows how to correct them. This perhaps makes it not really so helpless as it may seem to those who initially go nuts from its self-criticism” (80). He also re-evaluated privacy and American tolerance toward “non-standard” individuals: “It turns out that, given my great sociability, I love the idea of privacy, especially in family life, and I am also ecstatic that society supports me defending my tastes and desires and their non-accountability [to anyone]” (66). One sees similar dynamics in Petr Vail and Aleksandr Genis’s essay on emigration. Like Shliapentokh they value their liberation from the inner dependence on the collective’s opinion; but it took several years of living in the United States. “The dominating collective consciousness gives way to the consciousness which is individual. You can curse the president, wear a sports jacket with yellow shorts, and publish a satirical journal” (Vail’ and Genis 1983, 182). Those irregular shorts (or an “irregular” body) that so upset Baskina are no longer an issue after several years of living in emigration. But this metamorphosis does not happen to every émigré—only to those whose consciousness turns out to be flexible enough to adapt to the new culture because it had a significant share of individualist properties already from the start. For such people, the main achievement in emigration, as Vail and Genis contend, is acquiring a sense of freedom in taking personal initiative—“fi-

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nancial, artistic, [or] religious” (182)—a freedom that was suppressed in the Soviet Union and is, to some degree, suppressed in any collectivist society. For people who were born and grew up in an individualist culture, this freedom develops naturally in the process of socialization and education. Those who came to this country from a collectivist society have to pay a high price for it. “New life begins on the ashes of the burnt faith. Instead of happy and pure utopia of the world brotherhood we found ourselves in depressing loneliness, an existentialist loneliness at that. We are left to ourselves. Behind us, there are no grandiose vices of our past Motherland anymore; ahead of us, there are no bright summits of the new Motherland. We don’t have a Motherland at all” (191). It turns out that Baskina’s student is not alone in losing one of the most sacred notions of Russian collectivism—Motherland. More precisely, émigrés who manage to undergo this transformation lose not the Motherland but the sense of sacredness connected to this notion. Motherland becomes simply “my country.” The degree of success in adapting to the new culture depends on the émigré’s personal characteristics: level of education, knowledge of or ability to learn the language, and—most importantly—a considerable presence of individualism in the person’s consciousness. Those who have it may never become “real Americans” but they will live normal lives fully immersed in the social, political, and financial systems of this country. If, on the other hand, an émigré is an out-and-out collectivist, he or she will reject the personal freedom of individualism and retain the old values after moving to the United States. There are plenty of such people among Russian émigrés. They keep to each other, forming émigré enclaves, one of which, Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, has become proverbial. They join the cohort of those who are perpetually unhappy with America and perpetually nostalgic for Russia. Most of them, though, will never move back. There is yet another category of people who were born and grew up in a collectivist society but whose consciousness’s collectivist constituents are quite negligible. In such people the existential loneliness that Vail and Genis experienced after shedding their collectivist values in the United States is a way of life, not because their external circumstances have changed (like moving to another country with a completely different culture) but due to the internal processes of their personality development. Where they reside is irrelevant to them. They live in their own inner culture. Existentialism In his essay about Tolstaya, Paramonov suggests that she “tries on Vladimir Nabokov’s fate” (Paramonov 2001) and this attire is the wrong size for her. I am not sure that her anti-Americanism is caused by her failure to measure up to Nabokov but comparing these two writers may shed light upon this ques-

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tion. Nabokov is psychologically focused on himself and his work. He is self-contained and can live quite contentedly without identifying himself with a social or national collective. His is an existential type of consciousness: facing death he sees salvation or comfort only in his creative work. Such questions as American provincialism or individualism do not interest him. He may mock the American motel culture in Lolita or the academic culture in Pnin but not because his goal is to expose social defects of America at large; he simply constructs an environment for his characters Humbert Humbert and Pnin. This is an artistic process of creating a unique literary world rather than an ideological text in the form of fiction. In her article about Nabokov’s existentialism, Svetlana Semenova contends that he “has embodied one of the most important features of an existentialist consciousness: rejecting any kind of generalization—general concepts and ideas, especially those starting with a capital letter, any institutions, anything social, herd-like, collectivist” (Semenova 1999, 183). Contrary to Nabokov, Tolstaya flourishes in a collective; she needs it. With great pleasure and genuine poetic inspiration, she gives lectures and papers instantly conquering the audience, who may not fully agree with her but still experience immense delight from her wit and rhetorical temperament. For twelve years, from 2002 to 2014, Tolstaya hosted the popular weekly talk show The School for Scandal together with Avodotya Smirnova. In 2007 she, together with two other candidates from one of the contending parties, was on the short list to the Duma, the low chamber of the Russian parliament. She also contributes journalistic pieces to prominent Russian and American magazines, including New York Review of Books and New Yorker. Her best prose—two dozen short stories—was written from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, before she immersed herself in all these public activities as critic, author of short journalistic pieces, politician, and talk-show host. It seems only logical to assume that her energetic public life prevented her from producing fiction that would be comparable in quality to her early short stories. As a rule, genuine artists absorbed in their creative work are individualists. It is hard to imagine Nabokov as a TV personality or a politician. In Russian literature, perhaps only Dostoevsky was able to successfully combine creative writing with passionate journalism (whether one agrees with his views or not). Others—Gogol, Tolstoy, or Solzhenitsyn—lost their artistic touch as soon as they chose the stance of national prophets. It is possible to make a similar juxtaposition for another pair: Joseph Brodsky and Eduard Limonov. Both were approximately of the same age (Brodsky born in 1940, Limonov in 1943), both never attended a college (Brodsky in fact dropped out after the seventh grade); both emigrated to the United States at about the same time (Brodsky in 1972, Limonov in 1974); both lived in New York, although at different times; both became prominent writers, although on different scales. With all these similarities, there is one

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fundamental difference between them: Brodsky is an individualist—he does not need a “herd.” Limonov is a collectivist—he cannot exist without a “herd.” Describing his émigré life in New York, he turns his soul inside out: “I needed people, lots of contacts, connections, people and more people. I dreamed about relationships with people in my sleep. I was languishing without people. . . . Oh, how I needed company.” (Limonov 1987, 86, 87). Brodsky is an existentialist—he lives by the unique. Limonov is an essentialist—he lives by the stereotypical. Brodsky, like Nabokov, is self-sufficient. “The poet,” he noted, “is always a creature doomed, to some degree, to solitude. . . . And the longer you have been occupied with it [poetry], the further you move away from everybody and everything” (Volkov 1997, 145). His perception of the senselessness of being devalued for him virtually everything but his art. In an interview with Sven Birkerts, he said, —I think how meaningless everything is, except for two or three things— writing itself, listening to music, perhaps a little bit of thinking. But the rest . . . —How about friendship?—Birkerts asked a provocative question. —Friendship is a nice thing. I’d include food then (laughs) . . . (Brodsky, 1983).

Drawing this parallel between friendship and food—a nice thing but of secondary importance—must sound blasphemous to a collectivist. Like Nabokov, Brodsky had no shortage of friends—both were lonely existentially rather than socially. Their loneliness was universal and did not depend on their place of residence. In another interview Brodsky declared, “I feel my foreignness in general, more or less constantly. In relation to everything. Anywhere. This was at home [in the Soviet Union] and it remains here. Apparently, this is very individual” (Brodsky 2000, 195). Such existential foreignness in relation to any culture excludes the need to belong to a collective (ethnic, political, or religious), dividing between “us” and “them,” forming generalizations, and creating stereotypes about other cultures. If political aspirations were just an episode in Tolstaya’s life, Limonov became an active politician: he founded and headed the now-banned National Bolshevik Party. Similar to Tolstaya and unlike Brodsky, Limonov is oriented toward the social aspect of his life, in particular his life in the United States. His first book of prose It’s Me, Eddie is a pathetic, and often malicious, wail directed against America, the Soviet Union, any establishment, and his wife—against everybody who, he believes, abandoned and neglected him. While Brodsky’s anguish is about being abandoned by God or about the absence of a God—about a meaningless existence, Limonov’s anguish is not existential but social—the anguish of a loner rejected by his “tribe” and deserted by people.

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To summarize: Existential consciousness, oriented toward itself and its “being-towards-death,” to use Heidegger’s term, often finds its authentic existence in creative work shunning the “herd.” It represents an absolute opposite to the essentialist consciousness which is oriented toward the social environment of its habitation. An important function of the essentialist consciousness is creating myths and stereotypes in order to enhance itself or its ingroup. Myth-forming tendencies in Russian culture will be discussed in greater detail in the chapter on patriotism. NOTES 1. This activity has been declining due to the changes of the last thirty years. People still like to argue but social and economic changes have caused a lot of stress and reshuffled previously cohesive groups. 2. If a student is not declared a dependent in his or her parents’ tax return. 3. In the universities that try to emulate the Western system of education, this behavior is disappearing. 4. Shliapentokh conducted his research in the Soviet Union, but as I have contended cultural paradigms do not change overnight. That goes for friendship too. 5. A Russian author, the prototype of Dmitry Sologdin, one of the characters from Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s The First Circle. 6. Panin either did not know or ignored the fact that the script for the movie was written by the Stalinist Lillian Hellman who belonged to the American radical left and therefore was hardly striving to depict objectively the life of the American middle class. 7. Soviet secret police under Stalin. 8. There are exceptions, however. An American scholar, the editor–in–chief of a major Slavic journal, disagreed with this finding of mine, declaring proudly that she herself enjoyed watching this show. 9. In Russian, this title sounds even more contemptuous: “Nizkoprobnye strastishki” (shoddy little passions). 10. In Russian: “Nashestvie varvarov — ili vybor mezhdu uzhasnym i otvratnym” (Invasion of barbarians—or the choice between the horrible and the disgusting). 11. I will discuss American and Russian notions of patriotism in a separate chapter below. Here I use this concept only to demonstrate the possible misunderstanding of it by Baskina and other sojourners and émigrés. 12. As usual, there can always be exceptions from such generalized descriptions and juxtapositions. I am attempting here to portray typical patterns of behavior in typical situations. 13. The vast majority of Russian families (peasants) lived together until the beginning of the twentieth century. See part 2 on the Russian agricultural commune. 14. Russians are now trying to emulate the Western college system: in some universities students’ evaluations have been introduced and it is now possible for students to register complaints. 15. Baskina uses the word “donos,” which is usually translated into English as “denunciation.” However, donos is always informing on someone secretly and often anonymously, while a denunciation may be made publicly, therefore the former is morally more repulsive than the latter. Hence my choice of translating donos as “snitching.” 16. Usually such things are not done. It is hard to imagine that a college professor, especially the department chair, passed to the students a negative opinion about them of another professor. But I have no other choice than believing Baskina's story. 17. Another generalization that is not true. 18. As discussed in part 1. 19. Lorena was from Ecuador.

Individual Characteristics of Consciousness and Perception of a Foreign Culture 165 20. Iran crisis of 1979. 21. Although the letters are arranged in chronological order, they are not dated. But the approximate period can be established by concrete events that are mentioned there, such as the Iran crisis, for example.

Chapter Fourteen

Development of Individual Consciousness within National Culture

UPBRINGING National culture plays a tremendous role in shaping people’s consciousness, which allows social psychologists to distinguish cultures according to the predominant types of consciousness in societies. As I have discussed above, one such major division between cultural types is that of collectivist and individualist cultures. Obviously, this is not an absolute distinction: within a collectivist society, there are always some individualists and vice versa. Moreover, each individual consciousness may contain both collectivist and individualist structures (schemata) responsible for controlling mental and behavioral processes. The difference lies in the proportion. During the socialization of a small child, the shaping of his or her consciousness is determined by numerous influences: society at large, various social and ethnic subgroups with whom the child is in contact, friends and peers, and, of course, parents, siblings, and close relatives. Although within a specific culture these subgroups share most of the general cultural values, some facts of biography, peculiarities of the immediate social surroundings, and methods of upbringing may cause the child to diverge from the general flow of cultural development. Let us look more closely at what determines the outcome of socialization. Discussing the development of intellect in children, Jean Piaget asserts that from approximately two to seven (the preoperational stage), a child is characterized by extreme egocentrism, that is, by the inability to place himself in another person’s position and to understand this person’s point of view. During the same period the degree of susceptibility to orders from and control by adults reaches its maximum. After this stage, the child is able to 167

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overcome egocentrism in the process of “decentration.” This process is tightly connected to the intellectual exchange with other people, which is extremely important for ensuring a successful process of decentration. It is precisely by a constant interchange of thought with others that we are able to decentralize ourselves, . . . to coordinate internally relations deriving from different viewpoints. In particular, it is very difficult to see how concepts could conserve their permanent meanings and their definitions were it not for cooperation; the very reversibility of thought is thus bound up with a collective conservation without which individual thought would have only an infinitely more restricted mobility at its disposal (Piaget 1950, 164–65).

But during early childhood, a child’s intellectual exchange is mostly limited to the cultural paradigms accepted in the family and the nearest social environment, which is likely to be homogeneous socially and ethnically. For that reason, a child in the process of decentration learns only the meaning of cultural symbols common for this particular environment. The disciplinary pressure from strict parents and/or a homogeneous collective would further limit the child’s decentration to the norms, values, and myths entrenched in his or her milieu. It would be logical to conclude that the narrower the sphere of the intellectual exchange in early childhood, the more limited would be the ability of the adult person to perceive cultural paradigms outside this sphere. Thus, the intellectual exchange of two people from different countries can be difficult or even break down completely because of the differences in “permanent meanings” of the common concepts, values, myths, or paradigms that were internalized by these people during the processes of socialization and decentration. In different cultures, symbols (signifiers) can be identical, such as the words “love” or “friendship” or a smile or gesture, but their meaning (the signified) can be different or even opposite. Piaget compares “intellectual interactions between individuals . . . to a vast game of chess, which is carried on unremittingly and in such a way that each action carried out with respect to a particular item involves a series of equivalent or complementary actions on the part of the opponent; laws of grouping are nothing more or less than the various rules ensuring the reciprocity of the players and the consistency of their play” (165). But this consistency breaks down and the reciprocity cannot occur if the meanings acquired in the process of decentration are different because the cultural “rules ensuring the reciprocity” were different. Then the players may think they play the same game while in fact they play by different rules. In other words, people who grow up in different national, social, and ethnic cultures and undergo the process of decentration in the contexts of significantly different meanings may learn a foreign language or even speak the same language but may nevertheless be unable to understand each other. It may happen that they outgrow their egocentrism only within the narrow framework of their own culture. If this is the case,

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they turn again into children who are unable to put themselves into their interlocutor’s shoes and understand his or her point of view when they come into contact with a foreign culture. Using Piaget’s ideas and terminology again, one can say that such people will try to assimilate the new cultural information to the cultural models, or schemata, that had been formed during their early development. When it does not fit, they become frustrated and negativistic. The only way to achieve equilibrium between the new information and the schemata in their minds would be to accommodate this information by drastically changing the old schemata or creating new ones. Many people are unable to do that; others, whose minds are more flexible, are capable to carry out the accommodation. The capacity for accommodation in adults depends on their childhood development. If during this formative period they were exposed to diverse settings (cultural, social, linguistic, etc.), if they received a good education that broadened their horizon, and if they read or heard a great deal about other countries and peoples—then their brains would have acquired a substantial flexibility that would make it easier to accommodate the new realities. If the children’s environment were limited to the homogeneous culture of their family and family’s friends, their development restricted to specific rules, norms, and values and enforced by strict discipline, their capacity of accommodation would be limited. Collectivists with “fossilized” minds try to assimilate the new information without accommodating it, that is, to fit it into their original schemata without changing them. People with flexible minds may succeed in accommodating new cultural information by either changing the existing schemata or creating new ones—a complex task wrought with much effort and frustration. Psychologists studying child development assert that during the age of egocentrism all children are essentialists. They are convinced of the absolute character of their stereotypical notions about the surrounding reality. The child psychologist Susan Gelman offers her little daughter as an example. When the girl was three and a half she was certain that men do not have eyelashes (she got this notion from a male toy, which in fact lacked them). When Gelman invited her husband into the room and asked the girl to look at him and tell if he had eyelashes, the daughter responded he did not because he was a man (Gelman 2003, 157). Moreover, at this age children develop their notions based on form and pay no attention to function. They find a greater similarity between a cake and a top hat than between a cake and a pie (5). As people grow up, they overcome this absolute essentialism of their childhood, but the degree of success may vary. It is obvious that some people’s consciousness remains stuck on the essentialist level while others acquire the capability to look deeper into the nature of phenomena, determine their functions, and only at the end produce their conclusions. Thus, Baskina does not see the difference between a complaint and snitching because on the

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surface both appear to be the same: supplying the authorities with negative information about someone. Another Russian visiting professor, Alexei Turobov, is convinced that herring always has to be salty and never contain sugar as it is in Russia. Having failed to find “normal” herring in American supermarkets that contains no sugar, he became so distraught that he complained to the cashier. Later he wrote a little chapter in his sketches about America with the title “Herring Must Be Salty (Turobov 2000, 126)!” (no humor intended). It did not occur to him that in different cultures fish may have different taste functions. Tatyana Tolstaya scoffs at the American tendency to visit therapists if psychological problems arise; she is proud of the Russian “therapy” which is talking to friends instead (Tolstaya 1996, 73). 1 It is true, psychotherapy is not practiced widely in Russia, and people seek relief and advice by talking to their friends or family. It may work in Russian culture, but Americans, who are not in the habit of revealing their most intimate secrets to their friends, prefer professional help. Here, Turobov and Tolstaya seem to have never outgrown their essentialist tendencies. Similar to overcoming egocentrism, for successfully outgrowing childhood essentialism perhaps the most important factor is the atmosphere within the family. If authoritarian parents suppress their children’s free development and force their values and stereotypes on them, then overcoming the tendencies for essentialist thinking is hindered. If, on the other hand, a child grows up in a family that provides love and a proper upbringing without suppressing any manifestation of personal initiative and opinion, the child’s essentialism is gradually replaced by the capacity for independent thinking without relying on common stereotypes. Traditional Russian families, however, strictly observe hierarchical relationship structures and insist on the child’s obedience. A child has to pay heed to the words of parents, teachers, and all adults in general without questioning their authority. There is very little room for independent individual development, which creates the basis for perpetuating collective values. On the other hand, space for self-expression and free development fosters greater individualism in a child. For example, the individualists Brodsky and Aksyonov grew up without their fathers during the formative years of their childhood. Brodsky’s father returned from the war when his son was eight years old. Aksyonov lost his father (and mother too) to labor camps when he was five. Until then he was primarily brought up by his nanny, a peasant woman who was hardly a strict disciplinarian while his parents devoted their lives to party work. The writer Vladimir Nabokov and his cousin the composer Nicolas Nabokov grew up in an atmosphere of freedom and tolerance characteristic of educated aristocratic families in Russia (exceptions are undoubtedly plenty). Both turned out to be individualists, demonstrating independent thinking and distaste for the collectivist “herd” mentality.

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Conversely, Limonov and Tolstaya, who manifest essentialist tendencies, were subjected to a pretty rigid upbringing, according to some of their own testimonies. In Limonov’s family his mother was the harsh disciplinarian. Several times a week she made the little boy kneel in the corner as punishment for some misdeed, and if the transgression was serious she would make him take off his stockings so he would suffer a bit more (Limonov 1989, 45). Tolstaya’s memories rotate around the constant tortures to which her parents subjected her and her sister as they forced them to study three foreign languages simultaneously and read serious foreign fiction in the original. “There was no escape from parental coercion (Tolstaya 2001c, 297),” she writes. For example, her parents made her read Balsac’s Eugénie Grandet in French, “and I am not going to re-read this book [even] under rifle fire, although the “Russian” Balzac [in Russian translation] I read with pleasure” (301). “They tormented me thus from the age of five until I enrolled in college” (300). “BACK IN THE U.S.S.R.”: IGOR STRAVINSKY AND NICOLAS NABOKOV AS PRODIGAL SONS To demonstrate how early childhood may produce long-lasting effects and determine people’s views and behavior in their adult life I will compare the parallel biographical trajectories of two Russian composers, Igor Stravinsky and Nicolas Nabokov. Of course, my conclusions are but a speculation on my part since this particular psychological “experiment” cannot be “replayed.” We also cannot place the infant Nabokov into the Stravinsky family and vice versa to analyze the difference in the outcome by comparing it with the original situation. I base my analysis on psychological theory, and I leave it to the reader to judge whether my inferences are plausible. I would like to compare and contrast some facts from Stravinsky’s and Nabokov’s childhoods and their responses to similar external stimuli in their adult lives. Stravinsky was born in 1882, Nabokov in 1903. Both belonged to the Russian nobility and were brought up and educated in St. Petersburg. Both left Russia at a young age—Stravinsky in 1910 and Nabokov in 1919—but after the process of child socialization was completed. Both lived and worked in Europe for a long time but eventually moved to the United States—Nabokov in 1933, Stravinsky in 1940. After living approximately half a century in the free world, both traveled to Russia (or, rather, the Soviet Union) under similar circumstances. Stravinsky visited the USSR in 1962 on the invitation of the Ministry of Culture and gave several concerts in Moscow and Leningrad; Nabokov went there in 1967 on a similar official invitation. Despite the remarkable parallelism in their lives, their impressions of these trips turned out to be diametrically opposed.

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We know about Stravinsky’s experiences and feelings from the memoirs of his friend and collaborator Robert Craft who accompanied Stravinsky and his wife to Russia and recorded the details of all meetings and events day after day. Craft describes how upon arrival in the Soviet Union Stravinsky underwent a striking metamorphosis. Having barely taken his first step from the airplane onto the staircase, he greeted the reception committee—and his newly acquired Motherland—with a deep bow. Toward the end of the first day, Stravinsky and his wife, Vera Sudeikina, shared with Craft their ecstatic impressions of what they had seen: people on the streets did not look oppressed at all; they did not differ from people elsewhere. Consumer goods in the stores were of the same look and quality as in the West. The “servility” of pre-revolutionary servants was replaced with the “civility” of Soviet personnel—be it a cleaning lady in the hotel, their chauffeur or a postal clerk. “For them,” Craft remarks, “the U.S./USSR schizophrenia has suddenly disappeared. Their abiding emotion now is a deep love of, and pride in, everything Russian” (Craft 1994, 317). By the third day Stravinsky’s metamorphosis was complete. “What a beautiful factory. Chudny 2 apartment house,” Craft quotes Stravinsky and continues, “In Hollywood, 3 when dinner is five minutes late, heads roll, but a two–hour wait here is commended as ‘excellent service.’ . . . When the dinner finally does appear, moreover, he will comment on ‘the marvelous salt!’ but fail to mention that the pièce de résistance would effectively resist an electric saw. If tonight’s meal had been served to him in France, De Gaulle himself would have received a telegram about the decline of civilization, while here it was ‘vkusno’ (‘very tasty’), a judgment not based on any sustained attempt to eat it” (319). Such a predisposition to not seeing the obvious resembles children’s essentialism, similar to the three-year-old girl asserting that her father does not have eyelashes because he is a man. For Stravinsky, the dinner is good not because it is indeed so but because now everything in Russia must be positive. One can presume that in the process of his socialization Stravinsky never completed decentration. Stravinsky’s admiration and love for everything and everybody around him continued to grow, and toward the end of his visit he declared that his departure from Russia was involuntary and he regretted that he could not participate in the creation of new Russian music (328). It is unlikely that he had not heard about attacks on Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Khachaturian during Stalin’s times accusing them of formalism and unpatriotic tendencies in their music and that he was unable to extrapolate this situation onto his own work. He must have understood that during the rule of Zhdanovism in Soviet arts, the modernism and, at times, religiosity of his compositions would have been absolutely unacceptable in the USSR. However, judging by Craft’s narrative, Stravinsky did not pretend out of politeness but was completely sincere in his ecstatic perception of Soviet reality.

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Like the Stravinskys, the “cosmopolitan” 4 Nicolas Nabokov, who visited in 1967, was there by the invitation of Ministry of Culture and The Union of Soviet Composers, but unlike them he did not experience any tender feelings toward what he observed there. On the contrary, many things annoyed him and inspired jaundiced sarcasm. The Volga car with a chauffeur that was provided to him for transportation around the city would not start right away and when it finally did, it produced a cloud of thick, stinky fumes. His chaperones, the interpreter Mme. Melkumyan, 5 and a representative of the Music Section at the Union of Soviet Composers who met him at the airport, offered a little excursion around Moscow on the way to the hotel but demonstrated complete ignorance about the history of their own city. The room in the “first-class” Pekin hotel was drab and ill kept; the floor in the bathroom, made of dark brown, chipped tiles, was covered with stains of chewing gum left by previous guests; on the first night, the lights went out and in the morning hot water disappeared (Nabokov 1975, 272–73). While, toward the end of the first day, the Stravinskys shared their elation and delight, Nabokov was filled with bitterness and disappointment about his Motherland: What a strange day it had been—a curious un-homecoming, like a parable gone sour: The Prodigal Son returns, but to the wrong address. Instead of “father,” he finds: Hotel Pekin, Mme. Melkumyan, Music Section, and official hospitality. In me there’s not a shadow of a tremor, not a whiff of an emotion, or even the slightest nostalgia. Only irritation and impatience. A desire to get this “welcome” over with, start seeing the few friends I have here, and meet the people I am supposed to meet (272).

One could probably try to find some objective reasons that caused Stravinsky and Nabokov to have such different perceptions of their former homeland. Stravinsky received the best possible treatment; he was even invited to the Kremlin to have a chat with Khrushchev. Nabokov was not widely known in the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, through his friendship with the Rastropoviches, he met Shostakovich and Rozhdestvensky, and he spent time with Khachaturian. The Ministry of Culture organized excursions for him (he barely escaped a visit to Lenin’s Tomb, without standing in the queue as a privileged guest) 6 and meetings with Soviet musicians. Meetings with individual people left the warmest impressions in his memory but the official events caused only irritation. Contrary to Nabokov’s feelings, Stravinsky’s sense of being Russian, belonging to the country and the people reached a maximum during official meetings and receptions, and it was then that he felt the need to pour out his love in most laudatory words. Maybe their difference in age when they left Russia played some role? In 1910 Stravinsky was twenty-eight; in 1919 Nabokov was just sixteen. But Nabokov remembers his childhood in Belorussia and Odessa and his adolescence in St. Petersburg very well. Maybe it was exactly because he remem-

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bered pre-revolutionary Russia so well, that he was continuously looking for it in Soviet Russia of 1967 and not finding it created such a disappointment. One encounter, however, did bring memories of the past and awakened tender feelings in him. Chatting with a middle-aged cleaning lady in the hotel returned his thoughts to the remote years of his happy childhood. Her father was a gardener at the estate of a wealthy landlord before the revolution. She immediately recognized in Nabokov a nobleman from her past and started addressing him “Lordie” [barin milyy] (278). She called the Soviets “these godless people” [eti bezbozhniki] and hinted that a bug was installed in the bathroom (279). But everything else in Soviet reality seemed alien and annoying to Nabokov. Therefore, his trip to the beautiful St. Petersburg, “intact or reconstructed [after the war] with infinite love and care by its inhabitants” “turned out to be a traumatic experience” (285). At the very end of his memoirs he laments: “‘The heroic city of Leningrad’ . . . will forever remain my childhood’s St. Petersburg. . . . It appeared to me as if it were a shell. The content of that shell—its spirit, its soul . . .—was gone, gone forever. I felt like an explorer discovering and entering an inviolate Pharaonic tomb, with all of its beauty intact but with a hopelessly dead Pharaoh and grains of wheat that will never grow again” (285). Stravinsky, on the other hand, was not looking for similarities with his pre-revolutionary Russia, in which he did not like much and which did not understand or recognize him. According to Craft, Stravinsky characterized it “as a combination of ‘caviar and merde’” (Craft 1994, 313). He was rather looking for similarities with the West, where his talent had bloomed and where he had achieved world fame. The comparison with the old Russia could have only been negative. He did not like the “servility” in tsarist Russia; instead he found Western-type “civility” in Soviet Russia. Of course, taking into account the royal reception he was given in the Soviet Union, he would not see anything but “civility.” And even when he did (the dinner on the first evening described by Craft), he preferred not to notice. Thus, it would be a mistake to consider that Stravinsky’s newly acquired patriotism originates in his Russian roots. The fame and adoration surrounding him during his visit were similar to the recognition he experienced in the West. The Russianness of the “cosmopolitan” Nabokov was stronger, but exactly for this reason he could not accept or love Soviet Russia. Thus, objective factors, such as the age difference and the intensity of memories about their past life in pre-revolutionary Russia do not explain much. Most likely, the reasons for such different perceptions of Soviet Russia lie in the differences between their individual minds, which had been determined by different circumstances of the two boys’ upbringing and their relationships in the family. Nabokov’s father, Dmitri Nabokov, divorced his mother soon after Nicolas was born. His mother soon remarried, and the little boy loved his step-

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father. Nicolas had two sisters and a brother and was always surrounded by a multitude of peer friends. He never experienced loneliness or lack of good company. Nor was there excessive pressure from his parents, although, like all children in aristocratic families, he remembers being subjected to boring lessons and annoying rules. But mostly he and his siblings grew up in an atmosphere of love, freedom, and playful leisure time. Closeness to nature intensified the feeling of freedom; until the age of eight Nicolas spent most of his time at his mother’s estate in Belorussia. Nabokov remembers his life there as an idyll, and that is what it really was. Unlike Nabokov, the young Stravinsky was a loner who did not have friends or close relationships with his parents and brother (Stravinskiy 1988, 354). Of his winters in St. Petersburg (during the summers the children lived in the country) Stravinsky remembers: “An infinitely long winter without freedom and playing [and] with strict discipline left nothing bright in my memory” (Stravinskiy 2004, 11). Perhaps an even more dramatic expression of loneliness describes his school years: “During all my years in gimnaziya I did not make any friends toward whom I would develop a more or less serious attachment. . . . I felt absolutely lonely” (13). His parents did not encourage his love for music; in their eyes the main purpose of education was to pursue practical goals. Therefore Stravinsky had to go to law school, studying music on the side. Being fully subjected to his father’s will created the respect for discipline and hierarchy in him. In his adult years he would note, “Now I understand that my parents simply had to make sure the nine- or ten-year-old boy learned some kind of discipline” (11). It is possible that his mother’s aloofness, and his unfulfilled longing for her love led to Stravinsky’s reclusiveness and inability to develop friendships. After all, the mother is the first “teacher” of social behavior. “Very early she becomes a social referent for the first learning. She also teaches, plays with, and interacts with the child in many ways from birth on, promoting the development of his/her social competence” (Attili 1985, 55). Stravinsky’s opportunities for free exchange of social values and opinions were also limited by the strict rules imposed on him by his father as well as by the absence of valuable interactions with his peers. No doubt, throughout his life, Stravinsky’s cognitive intellectual exchange was on the highest possible level: his studies in the gimnaziya and later in law school as well as his studying and composing music served him well in his professional life allowing for smooth and friendly interactions with his collaborators. But the cognitive intellectual exchange occurred after his socialization had been mostly completed. His social interactions during socialization, on the other hand, were extremely curtailed by lack of playmates, aloofness of his parents, loneliness, and severe discipline, which hindered his ability to successfully complete the process of decentration, that is, to overcome childhood egocentrism.

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These remnants of egocentrism are clearly evident in his memoirs written in the early 1930s. There he repeatedly raises the issue of discipline in conducting and performing music. From his point of view, any interpretation of a musical composition by a conductor or performers is out of the question: They must follow the composer’s instructions to the letter. It is of utmost importance to him that his music is performed the way he meant it (Stravinsky 1936, 15, 199, 236). Anyone else’s point of view is taboo. Another feature of Stravinsky’s memoirs may provide an even more convincing example of the egocentric tendencies of his character. One is struck by the great number of people to whom he refers as close friends and for whom he finds very warm and flattering words. It seems that he has overcome the inability to form friendships characteristic of his childhood and adolescence. But a closer look at the text reveals that his “friends” include only those people who recognize and praise his talent and agree to work with him honoring his artistic terms and interpretations. Any deviation from these interpretations is noted and criticized. Yet when he himself worked on the music of eighteenth-century composers adopting it to his ballet Pulcinella, he felt free to change it, putting his love for the music above the respect for someone else’s work (128; see also Huscher). Stravinsky’s egocentrism is most obvious on the pages devoted to Sergei Diaghilev’s death—the man who discovered his talent and launched his career by introducing his music during the first seasons of the Ballets Russes in Paris. At the beginning of my career he [Diaghilev] was the first to single me out for encouragement, and he gave me real and valuable assistance. Not only did he like my music and believe in my development, but he did his utmost to make the public appreciate me. He was genuinely attracted by what I was then writing, and it gave him real pleasure to produce my work, and, indeed to force it on the more rebellious of listeners, as, for example, in the case of Sacre du Printemps. These feelings of his, and the zeal which characterized them, naturally evoked in me a reciprocal sense of gratitude, deep attachment, and admiration for his sensitive comprehension, his ardent enthusiasm, and the indomitable fire with which he put things into practice (243–44).

Diaghilev’s “sensitive comprehension, his ardent enthusiasm, and the indomitable fire with which he put things into practice” are recognized only in the spirit of “reciprocal sense of gratitude.” The remaining part of this “obituary” describes how and why they parted ways with not a word about Diaghilev and his achievements outside their professional relationship. Stravinsky’s memoirs entitled Stravinsky: An Autobiography is a very strange autobiography indeed. He mentions practically nothing about his family: at some point, he remarks that he got married; and toward the end he devotes six lines to his son’s first appearance as a pianist. Descriptions of social relations are limited to simple accounts of how he was received in the

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homes of his collaborators or how these collaborators valued and praised his compositions. The outside world does not exist—it is nothing but a backdrop for his work. Thus, his character combined some features of individualism, such as insularity, lack of close friends, focus on one specific goal, in his case devoting his life to music and becoming a composer, and some features of collectivism, namely respect for obedience and hierarchy. In fact, he himself would emphasize the collectivist principle in his character: Foremost and always, I contrast the notions of personality and individuality; they are often confused, but nevertheless they are phenomena of a different sort. Individuality is arrogant, personality is humble; the former seeks pleasure in conceit, vanity, and rebellion against traditions; the latter, on the contrary, in obedience. I belong to the obedient because I accept the established order, part of which I create myself. I believe I am not wrong subjugating my art to discipline that it constantly demands of me. I subject my art to the hierarchies of values, which it has commanded me” (Stravinskiy1988, 135).

As an illustration of the contrast between personality and individuality, as he sees them, Stravinsky quotes lines from Sophocles’ Antigone: But even if a man is wise, it is no shame for him to learn much and not to be over-rigid. You have seen how, beside wintry torrents, those trees which yield save even their twigs, while those which hold out are destroyed root and branch (136). 7

It appears that “obedience” and “respect for hierarchies” might have caused the instantaneous metamorphosis that Stravinsky underwent during his visit to the Soviet Union. A religious man and a convinced monarchist and antiBolshevik, he suddenly became an enthusiastic advocate of Soviet life. “Just five years ago, in Baden-Baden, he flew into a rage on hearing the news of Sputnik, forbidding us even to mention the Russian achievement” (Craft 1994, 329). But during his visit to the Soviet Union he incessantly praised Soviet achievements, real or imagined. Perhaps it was a “reciprocal sense of gratitude” to the fervent reception on the part of his Soviet hosts, as was the case with Diaghilev and numerous “friends” and collaborators. An egocentric cannot reject or criticize those who share his image of himself—doing that would invalidate and destroy this image. Thus, unconsciously of course, Stravinsky does everything to feed the expectations of his hosts. To be sure, it was not ignoble conformism for some pragmatic purposes or out of cowardice, but rather giving in to the psychological collective pressure on the part of the hosts. The tendency toward obedience and discipline in his character was a major cause of his conformism in relation to the Soviets’ expectations. They wanted to see a prodigal son in him, repentant and renouncing the

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West. And Stravinsky repents: “I regret that circumstances separated me from my motherland, that my works were born elsewhere, and, the main thing, that I was not here to help the Soviet Union in creating new music.” He also distances himself from the West: “I have a right to criticize Russia because it is my country and because I love it; and I believe that no foreigner has this right” (Craft 1994, 330). This last statement was greeted with the most enthusiastic ovation. Stravinsky, at last, found the loving “mother”— Motherland—he never had before, either in a literal or figurative sense, so how could he have not responded to her love with similar love and gratitude? Nabokov was exposed to much more diverse social surroundings during his socialization than Stravinsky, and he was able to successfully complete the process of his decentration. He was more “individuality” than “personality,” more individualist and “cosmopolitan” than collectivist; therefore, he refused to play the role of the classical prodigal son. He detested “kneeling” before people who were in no respect better than he. Unlike Stravinsky, Nabokov did not need to seek a belated resolution for an unrequited love for his mother or for subjugation to his father by transferring them onto the newly acquired Mother/Fatherland. A strong collectivist is formed in the following circumstances within the family: First, a loving and caring mother, with whom there is a very tight emotional connection. If such a relationship does exist, a complete psychological separation of the child—de-identification—from the mother does not occur. Second, a strict father who enforces discipline, rules, and hierarchies and whose word is the law without exception or explanation. There is no significant closeness with him. The child’s social interactions with others outside the family are limited to people with the same values and behavior as his or her parents. In Stravinsky’s case his mother’s aloofness led to the development of a feeling of abandonment, inability to form friendships, and a rigorous ambition to prove that he is worthy to be loved. When his first compositions met with little success in Russia, he left the country. Thus, both his mother and motherland failed him. The second condition was completely realized, hence his respect for discipline and hierarchy as well as his inclination to “bend” to authority and collective. A good illustration of Stravinsky’s collectivism is his handling of his relationships. Although he was in a long extra-marital relationship with Vera Sudeikina, Stravinsky did not divorce his wife. He married Vera only after his wife died. Such behavior is characteristic of collectivists who, according to social psychology, maintain relationships even if they are burdensome. A balanced individualist is “produced” by a family in which the relationship with both parents is close but not too tight. The parents provide love and care but there is also a certain distance between them and the child. They do not oppress the child with their authority and encourage free development in a rich social environment with other adults and peers. That was the situation

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in Nabokov’s family. The relationship between parents and children was warm and loving, and they did not beset them with strict, stifling discipline. Besides, they were absent for long stretches of time, living abroad. The Nabokovs were a large family and Nicolas grew up surrounded by many adults and peers being exposed to many different views and opinions. This was crucial in overcoming egocentrism and essentialism during the early childhood socialization. As a result, Nabokov grew up an individualist and “cosmopolitan” who could easily withstand the psychological pressure of the collective or authority. Unlike Stravinsky he would end a relationship if it became onerous. He was married five times (Pitzer 2013). SIBLING RIVALRY: MIKHALKOV VERSUS KONCHALOVSKY The dynamics of a child’s development depend not only on parents but on siblings as well. In fact, the relationships between them may have a considerable effect on shaping the child’s character. The two Mikhalkov brothers, Nikita (born 1945) and Andrei (Konchalovsky, 8 born 1937), grew up in the same family under similar circumstances. Both had very strong emotional ties to their mother; their father 9 was not much involved in his children’s upbringing; their mother too was very busy writing prose, poetry, and doing translations. Konchalovsky remembers in his autobiography, “We were brought up by mom—she both beat us and kissed us, but all the same, she did not do much with us. She was writing, was immersed in creative work; dad was soaring somewhere in the commanding heights, sat in [official] meetings” (Konchalovskiy 1988, 13). One could expect that with this kind of upbringing children will grow up to be individualists: the absence of pressure, a certain distance between parents and children—everybody is occupied with their own activities, and the children rely to a significant degree on themselves rather than on adults. Some elements that produce collectivism are present as well: emotional closeness with the mother whose love and affection foster dependence on her opinion, which later develops into the collectivist concern about opinions of others. This is exactly what happened with Konchalovsky. Expounding his life philosophy, he writes: “If you think about it, a human being is moved by fear of death and vanity. But vanity is also an expression of fear: you want people to notice you, pay attention to you, not think badly of you and start to think better of you than before. It is horrible if they won’t think [better of you]” (10). Psychological dependency on the opinion of the collective, a fear of failing to please others, to be loved by them—any kind of social conformism—are typical features of collectivist consciousness. At the same time, obsession with death engenders existentialist consciousness characteristic of extreme individualism. Numerous mar-

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riages and breakups with friends confirm Konchalovsky’s individualism: “It is especially complicated with friends. In my life, it happened more than once that I was completely alone” (7). And in his political orientation, Konchalovsky is leaning toward Western values, although he believes—quite correctly in my opinion—that Russia has not ripened yet to build a society on the principles of Western democracy. Nikita Mikhalkov grew up a polar opposite to his brother. Unlike Konchalovsky who has no “clear ideals and values” (10), (which indicates flexibility of mind, non-essentialism), Mikhalkov knows his ideals and values very well and firmly believes in them. He is a nationalist, monarchist, confesses Russian Orthodoxy, and is a convinced advocate of building Russian society based on the Uvarov triad: Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality. 10 Identifying with Russian mainstream religion, ideology, and populist politics points at a strong tendency for collectivism. How can one explain that the brothers who grew up in the same family, the same social environment, and the same national culture differ from each other so much in their psychological makeups, views, values, and ideologies? I suggest that Mikhalkov’s personality has been affected by the processes of sibling rivalry—by his unconscious desire to construct himself in opposition to his older brother. With such a significant age difference (eight years) sibling rivalry is almost always one-way: the younger brother tries to prove that he is not worse and maybe even better than his big brother. The older brother has nothing to prove: by virtue of his age, he is already stronger, more knowledgeable, and has much more interesting friends, at least in his little brother’s eyes. And likely he has a condescending attitude toward his brother. This rivalry may have extended into Mikhalkov’s youth and adult age, which is, perhaps, why he chose to become a movie director like his brother. When Mikhalkov caught up with Konchalovsky having achieved considerable success, his passionate desire to win the competition may shed some light on the choices in his filmography. Konchalovsky himself claims in one of his autobiographical works, “One can follow a certain polemic against me in his [Mikhalkov’s] movies” (Konchalovskiy 2006, 200). To Konchalovsky’s adaptations of Turgenev, A Nest of Gentry (1969), and Chekhov, Uncle Vanya (1970), Mikhalkov responds with his own versions of nineteenth-century Russian classics about the Russian landed gentry: An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano (1977), based on several works by Chekhov, A Few Days in the Life of I. I. Oblomov (1979), after Ivan Goncharov’s Oblomov, and Dark Eyes (1987), again inspired by Chekhov’s stories, mainly by “Lady with Lap Dog.” The last two are permeated with strong nationalist and anti-Western overtones. Interestingly, these overtones appear in Mikhalkov’s movies for the first time in 1979 when Konchalovsky leaves the Soviet Union to work in Hollywood. In his first four movies, prior to 1979, Mikhalkov focuses his creativity on purely artistic aspects. Oblomov is

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the first one to open a long list of ideological films with clear binary oppositions: Russia versus the West, Russia versus America, and the village versus the city. The last opposition follows the old tradition that presents common people, peasants, as the real bearers of the national spirit, while the city folk, the educated class, the intelligentsia are spoiled by Western influences. And it goes without saying that it is the first members of these oppositions that are dear to the artist’s heart. In 1991 Konchalovsky makes The Inner Circle—a film about the Stalin era, which is extremely gloomy not only in its content but in the palette as well: a shabby, poorly lit communal apartment in the basement of an apartment building, dirty, run-down courtyards and streets, dark rooms of the church that was turned into a temporary orphanage for the children of “enemies of the people” 11; even the weather is dark and gloomy. An ultimate symbol of the murderous Stalinist regime is the slaughterhouse located next to the building where the main characters live: every day the cattle destined for slaughter walk by the basement windows of the protagonists’ room. In 1994 Mikhalkov responds with his own film about this period, Burnt by the Sun. The topic is seemingly the same but the contrast is striking. Mikhalkov’s work portrays the carefree life during a vacation in the country near Moscow; the rays of the bright summer sun pierce fields and woods; the Motherland takes good care of the Little Octobrists and Young Pioneers 12 (in contrast to the orphaned children in Konchalovsky’s movie); and happy kolkhozniks tend the fat wheat fields. Mikhalkov does not expose the horrors of Stalinism as Konchalovsky does, although the protagonist Kotov, a hero with a Slavic face, is arrested at the end. The film’s main message is that, apart from Stalin’s purges, the Soviet Union was the best place on Earth for people to live. Mikhalkov was working on this film in the early 1990s when Russia was undergoing an enormous social and economic crisis and when nostalgia for the recently collapsed Soviet Union was at its peak. This nostalgia for the great Soviet empire is even more obvious in the documentary Anna from 6 to 18, which he completed in 1993—the same time that he worked on Burnt by the Sun. In this film, he contrasts the harmonious relations among numerous ethnicities in the Soviet Union with the ethnic wars that began after its collapse in 1991. Yet another episode described by Konchalovsky illustrates Mikhalkov’s choosing his own path opposite to his brother’s. On August 20, 1991, at the peak of the putsch attempt against Gorbachev and the new democracy, Konchalovsky left (fled?) for London to complete his Inner Circle while Mikhalkov armed with a Kalashnikov gun ran to defend the government. For the individualist Konchalovsky, his own plans and life were more valuable than the hopes connected with perestroika, which appeared to be very close to being crushed. The collectivist Mikhalkov joined those determined citizens who were prepared to give their lives for their newly acquired freedom.

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However, in a complete volte-face two years later, Mikhalkov joined the majority of the Russian population in their growing anti-Westernism, antiAmericanism, antiliberalism, antidemocracy, and nostalgia for the Soviet Union as manifested in his Burnt by the Sun and Anna from 6 to 18. In 1998 he completed the movie, The Barber of Siberia, which represents the apex of Russian nationalism, monarchism, and anti-Americanism in his work. Konchalovsky, on the other hand, remained truthful to the Western ideals of individual freedom and personal initiative although he is not overly optimistic about their implementation in Russia. Genetics Psychology does not limit character formation to socialization alone. In the nature–nurture dyad genetics plays as important a role in the development of the mind as does culture. To continue with the brothers, Konchalovsky explains, quite plausibly, the dissimilarity with his brother by genetic factors. “Surikov 13 reminds me in some ways of Shukshin. . . . 14 Both of them have something of the [Russian] roots, something Siberian. This Siberian daring [udal’] was inherited more by Nikita than by me. He has this Russian heroic charm—something of the headstrong Iaik Cossacks. 15 I rather take after Lithuanians and my French grandmother, after my maternal grandmother’s branch, and also after Germans (my father’s grandmother was a Russian German)” (Konchalovskiy 2006, 35). NOTES 1. Cf. a popular song with lyrics by Iaroslav Smeliakov’s: “If I fall ill/I will not turn to doctors/I will turn to my friends . . .” 2. Wonderful. 3. Where the Stravinskys lived. 4. The subtitle of Nabokov’s memoirs Bagazh—“Memoirs of a Russian Cosmopolitan.” 5. Of course, he did not need an interpreter, Russian being his native language. This adds to the absurdity of the Soviet reality on which Nabokov so often comments in his book. 6. Cf. Chapter 4. A parallel with the VIPs having queueless access to the relic of St. Nicholas is indubitable. 7. In the original, Sophocles is quoted in Russian translation. I use the corresponding passage in English translation (Sophocles 1987, 79, 81). 8. He uses his mother’s maiden name as his last name. 9. Sergey Mikhalkov (1913–2009), a prominent Soviet children’s poet and literary functionary. Mostly known for being the author or coauthor of the lyrics of all three versions of the Soviet and Russian national anthem—for Stalin (1944), Brezhnev (1977), and Putin (2001). 10. Sergei Uvarov, Minister of Education under Nicholas I, suggested this triad in 1833 in his letter to Russian educators. 11. “Vragi naroda”—an official designation for people accused under the infamous article 58 of the Soviet criminal code of committing crimes against the state during the Stalin purges. If both parents were purged (sent to labor camps or executed) children were placed in orphanages.

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12. Soviet youth organizations whose function was to instill Communist ideology in young schoolchildren. The membership was mandatory in all practical terms: children from seven to nine became Little Octobrists and from nine to fourteen, Young Pioneers. 13. Vasily Surikov (1848–1916), Russian artist, the brothers’ great-grandfather on their mother’s father side. 14. Vasily Shukshin (1929–1974), Soviet writer. His works often describe the life of common people in the Soviet village. 15. Cossacks from the Iaik (Ural) river region in the Urals.

Chapter Fifteen

Asymmetry in Russians’ Perception of America and Americans’ Perception of Russia

RUSSIAN MYTHS OF AMERICA AFTER WORLD WAR II While during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries people in Russia have continuously shown a strong, emotional interest for American culture and people, in the United States a similar interest for Russia has not been present. Only during World War II did Americans experience a feeling of friendship toward and solidarity with Russians, which quickly disappeared after the defeat of Germany and the completion of the common cause. Most of the times American interest in Russia has been limited to political considerations and lacked an emotional constituent. Even during the Cold War most Americans did not hate Russians; they simply experienced fear of the possible nuclear confrontation between the two superpowers. Russian attitudes have extended beyond the area of politics and represented a complex combination of curiosity, envy, admiration, and animosity. To determine the cause of this difference I will look more closely at the dynamics of mutual perceptions between the two peoples after World War II. In the late 1940s a cult of America emerged in some segments of the Soviet urban population. America had been the main ally in the war and had provided Soviets with canned stew and other foodstuffs as well as Willys Jeeps and Studebaker trucks. (There were also massive shipments of American tanks, airplanes, and ammunition that played a tremendous role in defeating the Nazis but the Soviet government did not advertise this assistance to its people.) Although Hollywood films rarely crossed the iron curtain, some of them, so-called trophy films allegedly seized in Germany, such 185

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as Tarzan, Robin Hood, Stagecoach, The Roaring Twenties, and Sun Valley Serenade were shown and provided a rare opportunity for the Soviets to see some aspects of American life and American fantasy. For many this acquaintance turned out to be a tempting escape from the hungry postwar reality. A myth about America was created—a country of jazz, beautiful women, and heroic men. In these films Soviets saw something that was absolutely new and unfamiliar to them as members of a culture in which an individual mattered nothing and the collective or the nation mattered everything. They saw solitary heroes or simply characters who acted in their own interest rather than in the interest of their group, be it a kolkhoz, a factory, or the Motherland. It exposed people to a completely different mode of existence which was very appealing to those who, for various reasons, were greater individualists than the majority of their compatriots. On the streets of Moscow and Leningrad young people called “stilyagi” appeared. The phenomenon can be somewhat paralleled to English “teddy boys and girls” and maybe, superficially, to American beatniks for their nonconformism. The word itself was derived from stil’—Russian for “style,” but it had a negative connotation introduced by official critics who attacked stilyagi for their non-Soviet way of life. The young people called themselves “shtatniki,” derived from the Russian “shtat” (state) thus identifying with the United States. In their clothes, they tried to imitate Americans, wearing very narrow pants, massive shoes on thick white soles made of natural rubber, tweed blazers with wide shoulders, huge bright ties with exotic pictures on them, and colorful nylon socks called “krepy” (“crepe nylon”). The necessary attributes included kok—the Elvis style hairdo and chewing gum bought clandestinely from American tourists and sold on the black market. The Soviet Union did not import any consumer goods from the United States, therefore the black market was the only place to obtain genuine American jeans and chewing gum. But very few people could afford it. Those who could not had to emulate the American style, as they saw it, by modifying their parents’ clothes or adding extra rubber to their regular shoes. American Jazz and Rock’n Roll were not accessible either. To meet the demand a new underground industry was created: the music was recorded on used X-ray films stolen from clinics. The product was called “rock on the bones.” After Stalin’s death in 1953 and with the advent of relative liberalization under Khrushchev, the Soviet intelligentsia created its own myth of America. Soviet citizens listened to the Voice of America and other Western radio broadcasts in Russian. This was not easy because the government jammed the “enemy voices,” but persistent listeners who switched from one wavelength to another, could manage to catch some information breaking through the static and the jamming howls. These broadcasts provided a flow of information about American life and culture otherwise inaccessible in the Soviet Union. In 1957 Moscow hosted the Sixth World Festival of Youth and Stu-

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dents. Thirty-four thousand young people from thirty-one countries flooded Moscow. Although it was an anti-capitalist event (or “anti-imperialist,” in the parlance of the festival organizers), young people were more interested in meeting each other, singing, dancing, and even making love than in politics. For the first time a little crack appeared in the iron curtain, and Muscovites were able to see with their own eyes different cultures and different social interactions—open, friendly, and unbridled by any social, cultural, and administrative restrictions. In 1959 Soviets had an opportunity to see first-hand the attributes of daily life of ordinary Americans. The American National Exhibition opened in the Moscow park Sokolniki featuring a model house for an average family, appliances, television sets, 1959 automobiles, boats, sporting equipment and a children’s playground. Most visitors had no prior knowledge of American life, and the official propaganda kept feeding them only information about racism and unemployment. To be sure, both phenomena had a place in American life but this was hardly all there was. Now the visitors saw the economic advantages of capitalism first-hand. The same year a two-volume set by Hemingway was published, and the author immediately became an idol of Soviet readers. Although the older generation knew Hemingway in the 1930s when he was already more popular than other contemporary foreign writers, in the atmosphere of the Thaw 1 he was perceived as a phenomenon rather than simply an excellent writer. In 1960 Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye came out and became an immediate success among the post-Stalin generation of young people and possibly influenced the new-wave writers. Both Hemingway and Salinger’s fiction won public acclaim because, like in the “trophy films,” these American authors portrayed free individuals who dealt with their own problems the way they, and only they, deemed necessary. The intelligentsia who, by virtue of their upbringing and education possessed some individualist features, was tired of the unrelenting pressures from all possible collectives—family, friends, teachers, colleagues, administration, government, etc.—and sought relief in free, independent thinking, if only in books and if only unconsciously. The collectivist majority, on the other hand, valued the material aspects of American life rather than freedom and individualism. The positive American myth reached its apogee in the late 1980s, during perestroika, when even the official media published materials about American achievements. One of the popular versions of this myth stated that Communism for which the Soviet Union had been striving unsuccessfully for such a long time had already been achieved in the USA as demonstrated by the high level of technological and scientific progress, the good life of the population, and the generous social programs for the poor and unemployed. However, in the wake of the “shock therapy” failure in 1992 and Russia’s subsequent deep social and economic crisis as well as its loss of its superpower status, the attitude toward America and Americans quickly changed to

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the polar opposite. In addition, more and more Russians have been visiting the United States in recent decades, sometimes for long stretches of time. There they encounter relations, values, and aspirations that differ completely from those in Russia. When these visitors fail to reconcile what they see with their notions of “how it must be,” they form negative stereotypes and create anti-American myths. In the most hateful of them the country is referred to as Pindostan, populated with fat, obtuse, and cowardly pindoses 2 who only dream of destroying Russia in order to grab its natural riches. The American government and the American army are similarly cowardly and obtuse. America survives only by incessantly printing dollars. But the crash is imminent and then nothing will save America from its ultimate demise. The negative attitude toward the United States is widespread not only among hardcore nationalists but even among the liberal intelligentsia. Earlier we discussed Tatyana Tolstaya’s scornful writings of the late 1990s; here are later opinions of those who during perestroika saw in America an ideal worthy of praise and emulation. The well-known liberal writer Alexander Kabakov started his writing career during perestroika. In addition to writing fiction he worked as a deputy editor-in-chief and executive secretary of the most liberal weekly Moscow News. A close friend of Vasily Aksyonov with whom he had shared his love for Shtaty (the States), he wrote in 2005: “Today’s America with its rabid political correctness, limitation of civil liberties, export of democracy and selective struggle against terrorism, wars with pedophiles as in the past it warred with communist agents, and its cultivation of snitching [remember Baskina!] is worse than the Soviet Union—this is a completely different country from the one that we loved so much in our youth” (Kabakov 2005). At the end of his column he admits bitterly: “Before, I was on your side, America, because I wanted the best for Russia, i. e. I wanted the Communist scourge to end. And at that time, I saw the strength in America that would help us overcome this nightmare. Now I see that America is not for a better Russia but against any Russia. We concern them only as potential adversaries, and this is not the kind of competition in which the fallen is helped back on his feet. Our ways have parted—sorry, America” (Kabakov 2005). In 2007, another Russian writer, Dmitry Bykov, who is known for his satire of contemporary Russian reality, bids farewell to America with a similar feeling of disappointment and bitterness. He finds confirmation for his anti-American attitudes in Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections and Jonathan Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close as well as in Michael Moore’s documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. His characteristic is pretty grim: In America “everything is rotten and nothing works. . . . Almost all contemporary American movies . . . are about the same—loneliness, alienation, distrust of authority, idiocy of the press, and irresponsibility of the pillars of society. . . . It’s all very sad,” concludes Bykov, “the former America at which one could

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look with annoyance but also with hope will never be” (Bykov 2007). We have seen the danger of relying on art in Panin’s description of America based on The Chase. Art, like food, is very convenient—you choose what you like: If you are a vitamin freak you chew on raw carrots, celery, and broccoli all day long; if you are addicted to fried and greasy foods you go to McDonald’s. It is much harder to balance your diet with the right combination of foods and also cook right in the bargain. But people first choose their diet and then go to the store to buy the appropriate food. The same way, people who subscribe to anti-American myths have made their choice already and then look for confirmation. If they are intellectuals, like Bykov, they may find it in corresponding novels and films; if they are ordinary people they would watch official TV or listen to like-minded friends and acquaintances. In discussing pro- or anti-American myths I do not use the word “myth” figuratively. Contemporary myths have all the characteristic features of myths in primitive tribes. First of all, the bearer of a myth perceives it as reality. The stilyagi of the late 1940s and early 1950s had their own America—the America of jazz, rock, and square jaws incessantly chewing gum. The intelligentsia of the late 1950s and early 1960s had its America of Hemingway and Salinger, solitary heroes, abstract art (banned by official Socialist Realism), also jazz and freedom. Today’s Americo-phobes have Pindostan. These Americas are all different but for these groups their respective America is the absolute reality, and it would be impossible to convince them that the country is an enormous and very complex world, which cannot be forced into the Procrustean bed created by their notions. Secondly, and this is perhaps the most important aspect, myths are social constructs. They bond their bearers with their own group providing crucial identity and psychological support. The French ethnologist and psychologist Lucien Levy-Bruhl asserts that the primitive man identifies himself with other members of his tribe. For him the being of his collective is even more important than his own being, and he “hardly grasps himself save as a member of his social group” (Lévy-Bruhl 1928, 68). To buttress his conclusions Levy-Bruhl quotes the New Zealand ethnographer Elsdon Best: “A man thought and acted in terms of family group, clan or tribe, . . . and not of the individual himself. The welfare of the tribe was ever uppermost in his mind; he might quarrel with a clansman, but let that clansman be assailed in any way by an extra-tribal individual . . . and he at once put aside animosity and took his stand by his side” (68). Russians manifest the same tendency. When talking with their compatriots, many may express sharp criticism of various aspects of Russian life, but a foreigner, and especially a Russian émigré, stating the same critical views would immediately encounter some kind of negativism and objections if not outright animosity. This happens exactly because, for collectivists, interests of their group are more important than

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their own. This tendency is not new for Russia. The Courlander Jacob Reitenfels, who lived in Russia from 1671 to 1673, wrote that foreign diplomats had a hard time trying to form an opinion about Muscovy from their conversations with Russians. The Russian interlocutors so embellished life in Muscovy that no objective information could be extracted from their descriptions (Klyuchevskiy 1991, 13). One can conclude that Russian patriotism is more concerned with the opinions of outsiders about Russia than with the real state of affairs in the country. It is, as it were, directed outward. Today’s anti-American myths are based on the identification Russians have with their ingroup which, in this case, represents the entire country. And Russia finds itself in practically all important political situations in opposition to the West, in particular to the United States. Unlike the Soviet Union, Russia is no longer a superpower able to talk from a position of strength with the United States. If the collectivists cannot see the power of their group in real life, then their myth-forming consciousness resorts to creating a myth of the rival’s weakness and rotting. The theory of social identity ascribes one of the main functions of stereotype (and myth is similar to an expanded stereotype) to self-enhancement. Kabakov and Bykov’s annoyance with the disrespectful American attitude toward Russia results in a mythical picture of complete degradation and the imminent collapse of this ultimate adversary. Finally, myth is not a rational perception of the world but an emotional, or affective one. The following quotations from The Dialectics of the Myth by the Russian philosopher A. F. Losev illustrate the properties of myths in primitive tribes: “At the foundation of the myth lies an affective root.” Mythic consciousness is “an almost affective consciousness bordering on forms of magic.” “Myth is always extremely practical and topical, always emotional, affective, and vital. . . . Myth is imbued with emotions and real-life feelings; for example, it personifies, idolizes, respects, hates, and maligns” (Losev 1991, 25–28). The same is true for today’s myths. The American myth of the stilyagi “idolizes and respects” America; the Pindostan myth of the Americophobes “hates and maligns.” The rhetorical farewell to America by Kabakov, Bykov, and many similar others—the intelligentsia engaged in antiAmerican myth-forming—is permeated with sadness and disenchantment. Let us look at yet another quotation from Losev: “In order to create a myth intellectual efforts are needed least of all” (25). Intellect and rational reasoning cannot impress a myth-forming consciousness. “Scientific experience simply does not exist for mythic consciousness; it cannot be convinced of anything” (34). To summarize, we can characterize the notions of many Russians about America as myths. They have basic features of ancient myths: unquestionably believed to be reality, they are a social construct, have affective character, and do not yield to rational analysis. Let us turn now to American perceptions of Russia.

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Aside from mythems that are found in the minds of the least educated Americans and which can be reduced to the three concepts—vodka, snow, and bears—the notions of the majority of Americans about Russia cannot be characterized as myths. They are mostly based on the information Americans receive from the media about the current state of political matters. When the character of this information changes, the notions change as well. Most importantly, these notions do not extend to the country in general or to the Russian people. Generally Americans are not interested in the people; they focus on the government, more precisely, the leader. Mikhail Gorbachev is still very popular and respected among those who remember the late 1980s and early 1990s. Americans see him as a positive leader because under him Russia went along the right path—the path of democracy, market economy, disarmament, and granting freedom and independence to the Soviet republics and satellite states. Putin is seen as negative because his politics, both domestic and foreign, go against the principles and intentions of Western democracies. Under him Russia has practically become a rogue state. Yet antiAmerican political decisions of the Russian government are not considered by the American people as a personal attack against the United States—they are deemed simply wrong or in violation of international laws. At the same time, many representatives of the American right respect Putin for decisive handling of Russian liberals and foreign adversaries. Such a discord would be impossible in Russia. Americans’ attitude toward Russia is not emotional. Only some uneducated individuals may still hate Russia and may even consider all Russians communists. It is impossible to imagine Americans of the intellectual level of Kabakov and Bykov to develop personal emotions toward Russia. What determines this difference in the mutual perception of the two cultures is the difference between the individualist and collectivist characters of these cultures. By definition, the ideal individualist consciousness cannot be myth-forming because myth is a social, collectivist construct. Individualism is instilled in American minds from the very first years of life. In contrast to the attitude of Russians toward their country, Americans do not see themselves as members of the same large collective—the United States for which Russia or other countries represent a hostile outgroup. For many Americans, their personal goals and daily cares such as work, family, and leisure are more important than goals and concerns of the entire country. Recently I saw this phrase, “If necessary I will go to defend my family, my home, and my country,”—exactly in this order, and this is not just a chance occurrence. Americans are more patriotic toward their town or county than toward their state or the entire country. People choose the neighborhood where they live, if they can, but it is much more difficult to choose a state and, even more so, the country. In 2004 a poll was conducted with the question, “Are you satisfied with the state of affairs in your community, the state, and the coun-

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try?” Seventy-six percent responded positively to the first part of the question, 53 percent to the second part, and only 46 percent to the third part (Carlson 2004). Most of them are more involved in the matters of their local community than the entire country. Undoubtedly, Americans are patriots, but their patriotism is usually limited by their love for their country and does not include comparisons with other nations. Unlike Russian patriotism, American patriotism is not what Betty Craige calls “nationalist patriotism,” that is, “absolute loyalty and belief in the group’s superiority over others” (Craige 1996, 4). Mainly, the ideology of patriotism is directed inward rather than outward. Since the United States has always been an immigrant country, one of the nation’s most crucial tasks has been instilling love for the new homeland among the recent arrivals. Besides, the government has long been concerned with quelling domestic enemies, be it anarchists, Bolsheviks, Nazis, or Communists. Only during a military threat do Americans unite in their hatred for a foreign enemy and their preparedness to die for their country. Craige puts it as follows: “Although in peacetime love of country may be expressed in different ways, only in the context of a perceived threat from abroad does patriotism command serious attention; then it is commonly appreciated as the willingness to die on the battlefield and celebrated for its value to the whole citizenry” (2). An event that aroused practically total unity among the American population was World War II. The German threat was quite real. It concerned every family and every person; therefore, the entire country merged in one patriotic fervor. But after the war this impulse of general patriotism declined, which caused a serious concern for the government and politicians. In their opinion “peace had opened ‘a dangerous period in our history’ with ‘clear signs of growing disunity . . . and of apparent lack of personal and group responsibility for our national welfare’” (Fried 1998, 18). “One lawmaker characterized the postwar era as a time ‘when we are trying to reinspire our people with patriotic fervor.’ A citizenship activist fondly recalled wartime as a time when ‘a spirit of unity prevails among people’” (20). In miniature, a similar rise and decline of patriotism took place after the 9/11 attacks. According to Gallup polls, in January 2001 55 percent of respondents were extremely proud of being an American. After the September events, in June 2002 this number rose to 65 percent, in September 2002 to 69 percent, and in June 2003 to 70 percent. (The high numbers of 2002 and 2003 may have also been affected by the beginnings of the Afghan and Iraq wars.) Afterwards the pride rate gradually declined: from 69 percent in 2004 to 57 percent in July 2006 (Newport 2006). Another poll also demonstrated an upsurge of patriotism after the tragedy of 2001. In June of that year 66 percent of Americans intended to display the American flag on Independence Day; in June 2002 this number reached 83 percent (Gillespie 2002). “Samuel

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Huntington notes that on Boston’s Beacon Hill, in the heart of anti-Reagan country, the only place on Charles Street where the American flag flew before September 11 was a liquor store. Even the U.S. Post Office didn’t have a flag. But shortly afterward there were seventeen flags flying on the block” (McKenna 2007, 351). However, in November the number declined to twelve, in December to nine, in January 2002 to seven, in March to five, and by the first anniversary of the attack only four were left (353). As to the more sizable wars of the twentieth century, only World War II produced allnational unity for a prolonged period. During the Korean, Vietnam, and Iraq wars from 20 percent to 60 percent of the population—depending on the phase of the war—were strongly opposed to the U.S. participation in the respective war. American patriotism is easy to confuse with a seemingly similar but actually different concept—that of American exceptionalism. While I contend that American patriotism is not based on nationalist myth, exceptionalism, at first glance, seems to be a full-blown myth that insists on a special position of the United States in the world and its superiority over other nations. Exceptionalism, however, is not a mythic concept but a religious one. In his book about the Puritan origins of American patriotism, George McKenna convincingly demonstrates the influence Puritanism had on American ideology and politics including American patriotism. But the Puritan idea about American exceptionality, America’s special mission in the world, and America as the City on a Hill is not about patriotism; it is a religious exceptionalist idea. One should distinguish between patriotism (love and loyalty toward one’s homeland), nationalism (a total and unjustified sense of superiority over other nations: feeling that you are better than others rather than being so), and exceptionalism—living by God’s law as no other nation does and setting an example for other peoples. Exceptionalism has deep roots in religion; nationalism is a product of myth-forming consciousness which can prosper without any religion. McKenna notes the decline of religious faith in America in general and, in particular, the fact that the Judeo-Christian tradition of Puritanism now has to share spiritual space with Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam “or some vague nonChristian ‘spiritual force’” (369). Besides, after the Vietnam and Iraq wars, a series of deep economic crises, lingering racial, social, and political splits in American society, and the inability of the government to govern due to these splits, a significant share of Americans no longer believes in the exceptionality of their country and its divine mission to serve as an example to other peoples. Thus, the concept of exceptionalism is mostly used in the political rhetoric but does not have a noticeable presence in American consciousness. Returning to the non-mythic nature of American patriotism, I suggest that Americans’ attitudes toward Russia and Russians are rational. Here, I will use the concepts developed by Weber, “formal rationality” and “substantive

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rationality” (Weber 1964, 185). Although he applies these terms to characterize economic actions, it seems possible to extend their use to a broader area of social actions and attitudes of which economic actions represent but one aspect. Formal rationality simply searches for the shortest and most efficient way to achieve the set goal. Substantive rationality takes into account some additional values not limiting the path to the goal by sheer expediency. These values can be “ethical, political, utilitarian, hedonistic, the attainment of social distinction, of social equality, or of anything else” (185). According to Weber, capitalist development in the West occurred in conjunction with the process of demagification, or disenchantment of the world (Entzauberung der Welt). The elimination of magic in Protestantism “as superstition and sacrilege” (Weber 2009, 107) resulted in substantive rationality of social action being replaced by formal rationality, shedding in the process elements of myth, magic, religious belief, and feelings. Any action becomes oriented toward a specific purpose—“purpose-rational” (zweckrational)—rather than toward some values—“value-rational” (wertrational). Weber notes, however, that even in Western society degrees of formal rationality versus substantive rationality vary and purpose-rational actions are more characteristic of Protestants than of Catholics. Lévy-Bruhl also writes about the loss of the magic, mystical constituent in the consciousness of the modern man. Because of the rational structure of the civilization developed in classical antiquity and passed on to us, . . . for intelligences which had broken with primitive habits of thinking in order to embrace rationality as the structural basis of thought, the mystical world, along with the world of folklore . . . could no longer be accepted as forming any significant part of reality (Lévy-Bruhl 1983, 255).

He too emphasizes that this phenomenon is not universal but “it was adopted in certain communities only; in those, moreover, only after centuries of resistance” (255). Although we rationally believe only in visible reality, this frame of mind is some kind of “violation of our nature, . . . a rational burden” (256). Lévy-Bruhl does not specify which communities have, in his opinion, developed “rational control” over mind and “rational verification” of reality but most likely he means the capitalist West. Similarly, Rolland Barthes characterizes the consciousness of the French petite bourgeoisie as extremely rational and oriented solely toward purposefulness— zweckrational in Weber’s term: “This class has but one idea totally and infinitely devoted to causality; the foundation of its morality has nothing of magic, but is completely rational” (Barthes 1957, 126). Thus, the ideal American individualist—a product of “disenchantment of the world” and rationalization of consciousness—chooses the most efficient, purpose-rational actions to achieve his or her goals, ignoring everything else

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beyond their framework. In the process of carrying out a practical task, emotions, religious beliefs, and even political convictions are bracketed. Forming perceptions of Russia and attitudes toward it represent one such task based on the response to the immediate political situation. Thus, American attitudes toward Russia are rational rather than emotional and they lean in the direction of formal rather than substantive rationality. They are pragmatic and not personal. In other words, they are not mythic. Such an attitude explains the absence of deep interest in Russia and Russians among Americans. Most of them are interested only in the political constituent of Russo-American relations. NOTES 1. The period of the post-Stalin liberalization from the mid-fifties to the mid-sixties. 2. Pindos is a pejorative word denoting an American (see Klikushin 2014).

Conclusion

So, what is wrong with Russia? The greatest problem is that Russia is Russia. As long as it exists it will never become a Western-type liberal democracy no matter who rules it and what laws it has on paper. Although Russia looks like Europe we should not expect it to behave like Europe. A Russian journalist succinctly (if somewhat imprecisely) expresses this dichotomy between Russia’s appearance and its character as follows: “Externally Russia is awfully similar to Europe, and this constantly confuses Europe, as well as America, making them demand [from Russia] what they demand from themselves. Sometimes Russia even deludes itself by taking itself for Europe. But inside, Russia is much closer to Asia where a monarch, tribe, clan, [and] vizier rule while peoples look and rejoice at the luminescence of the rulers” (Gubin 2007). In the future there may be other attempts, similar to perestroika, to switch the Russian train to the Western track gauge, so to speak, but they are also bound to fail. Unless something disastrous happens—a global war or a natural calamity on a catastrophic scale (God forbid!)—Russia will remain an authoritarian, corrupt, mendacious, nationalist, even xenophobic country. At the same time, Russians will continue to be a warm, cordial, loving, and hospitable people capable of considerable sacrifice in relations with their family and friends. The unconscious collectivist impulse demands mutual support of a much greater intensity than the Western individualistic care regarding the unfortunate, which is rooted in religious principles (love thy neighbor) but has not been subjected to a centuries-long communal existence. 1 Russia will continue to produce admirable arts, literature, music, and theater so that some 10 percent of the population will enjoy a rich life of the soul, while moving materialistic interests to the back burner. Another 20 or 197

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so percent will devote their lives to earning enough money for a comfortable life with good housing, food, and inexpensive vacations in Turkey, Cyprus, or Egypt. A thin layer of swindlers will gain access to luxury, buying villas and expensive cars at home and prestigious real estate in Europe and the United States, sending their children to the best European and American universities, and enjoying vacations in the Courchevels and Nices of the world. The rest of the population will exist in relative poverty with no interest in the arts but with television and sports as substitutes, and no money for anything but essentials. However, as long as essentials are available people will remain politically passive and nationalistic. They will readily consume the official propaganda that explains that their lives are hard because NATO is encroaching and Russia is surrounded by traitorous Americans and Europeans trying all kinds of schemes to subjugate it and bring it to its knees. According to the regime’s propagandists, one such scheme is based on the sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and stirring up trouble in Eastern Ukraine. The diabolical Western plan, they assert, is to cause an economic collapse that would lead to an uprising and ultimately to a change of regime in the Kremlin. Those who believe this feel an even greater desire to spite the West and sacrifice their well-being for their national pride. What is to be done? Should the West approach a relationship with Russia only from a position of strength, or is productive interaction still possible? Yes, it is possible, but it is not easy. For a meaningful dialogue participants must understand each other—not simply their respective natural languages, but, more importantly, their respective cultures, which can be easily misinterpreted and misunderstood. There are plenty of examples of cultural misunderstandings offered in part 4. A couple more, pertinent to political relations with Russia, may prove useful. Sanctions, of course, were imposed not to force the Russian economy to collapse but to stop the Russian expansion in Ukraine. NATO membership of the Baltic countries is also necessary because without it the Crimean scenario could be easily replayed in this region. After all, there are plenty of Russians who live there and who, in the words of Russian patriots, need to be defended from those Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian fascists. Continuous Russian denials of aggression and statements of innocence do not fool Western governments; hence they are firm in their reaction to Russian interference in Ukraine. What they lack here is cultural shrewdness. Contemporary Western cultures try to be maximally open and transparent. The media dwell on important political decisions and events for days at a time, necessarily sensationalizing the story (otherwise it will not sell). They like to trumpet Russian political and economic fiascoes. Do the sanctions hurt the Russian economy? Yes, they do. Has Russia stopped harassing its neighbors across its western borders? It has, but it cannot admit this because that would mean losing face.

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For this collectivist nation, where each citizen shares the same pride or humiliation for his or her country’s standing vis-à-vis the West, acknowledging any defeat in its foreign politics would be an utter disgrace. When the Western media and Western politicians bombard Russia, and Putin in particular, with insults, it causes a very negative, personal reaction, perhaps even an irrational one. In his interview with CNN on June 11, 2015, Jeb Bush stated, “Ultimately, I think, to deal with Putin you need to deal from strength. He is a bully.” He also said that Putin has evolved since 2001 when his brother George W. Bush looked Putin in the eye and “was able to get a sense of his soul.” In Jeb Bush’s opinion, Putin has changed because “he has been emboldened by . . . the perception . . . that we've pulled back” (LoBianco 2015). That may be true. If the West had reacted to the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008 with strong sanctions, the annexation of Crimea and the turmoil in Eastern Ukraine might not have occurred. However, statements like Bush’s arrogant recommendation to deal with Russia from strength accompanied by a personal insult of Putin—statements and insults that are ample and public—may have contributed much more to making Putin a hostile and angry opponent than sanctions. American politicians would most likely have taken such indiscretions as sheer politics. During American presidential debates insults fly back and forth even between members of the same party, but if politics demand the storm subsides and former adversaries become best friends and allies. In contrast, Russians take insults personally and remember them longer. The U.S. government should be firm but not insulting and openly hostile. That means acting but not talking tough with Russia, and especially avoiding public humiliation of both individual politicians and the country as a whole. Such an approach would require more diplomacy and behind-the-scenes interactions to avoid the media sensationalism. Russian politicians similarly manifest ignorance about Western cultures. They often declare that they are ready for compromise but the West does not reciprocate. From the Russian point of view, a compromise with the West must include recognition of Crimea as Russian territory and, in general, ceasing all the fuss about minor participants such as Ukraine and the Baltic countries. It appears that Russians still think in the old models of the Munich Agreement of 1938 and the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact of 1939, when the great powers betrayed Czechoslovakia and then Poland and the Baltic countries in order to appease Hitler. They do not understand that the West, especially Germany, cannot and will not accept this approach, at least within the current political structure. During his election campaign and at the very beginning of his presidency, President Trump showed some inclination toward befriending Putin even at the expense of defending Ukraine, but his position later changed sharply. In France Marine Le Pen strongly believes in partnership with Russia and supports the Russian positions regarding NATO

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and Ukraine. She would have been an ideal partner for Putin but is far from winning a national election, losing 34 to 66 percent to Emmanuel Macron in May 2017. In addition, in the West presidential power is not absolute as it is in Russia. For example, in trying to implement his election campaign promises Trump in some instances has encountered insurmountable resistance in Congress and federal courts. In pursuing its goals in foreign relations, the U.S. government should be guided not only by the moral and ideological principles of American society but also by profound knowledge of its counterparts’ culture. To succeed, it should sponsor and develop university programs in culturology 2 of different countries and regions of the world. Such programs would involve in-depth studies of history, religion, and sociopolitical developments of the country along both diachronic and synchronic axes. This would allow understanding and predicting the political behavior of its current government as well as fine-tuning America’s own conduct. In such programs the emphasis should be placed not on the cultural production appreciated by the affluent and sophisticated—classical music, literature, and the arts—but on the customs, values, and traditions of the population at large. Studying folk arts may also prove useful. This field does not need ideologues: ideology is prejudice. Students should approach their work with open minds and objectivity. During their studies and afterward students should be immersed in the culture they study, in which excellent knowledge of the language is a must. The ideal graduate student would be someone who was born in and lived in the studied country until precollege age, then emigrated to the United States and had an American college education. Obviously there are not many such ideal students around. If a student was born in the United States or elsewhere but not in the country of study, he or she should travel and live in this country for long periods of time to observe and analyze the values, beliefs, and behavior of the people firsthand. A student exchange could be organized with other countries in order to study each other’s cultures. The “three whales” 3 on which such programs should rest are: Cultures are different; cultures matter; cultures persist. NOTES 1. Proponents of Afrocentrism assert that Africans are much more humane, warmer, kinder, and more communal than Westerners. They attribute this to genetic factors (see Henry 1994, 97), but the African communality is most likely engendered by their collectivist style of life. 2. The term “Cultural Studies” would probably better define a study of various cultures but it has been taken and used by the scholarly field, whose principles and approaches are different and often opposite to those that I propose in this book. 3. In Russian folklore the Earth rests on three whales.

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Index

accommodation (psychology), xv, 169 acedia (sins), 37, 50 Afanas’ev, A. N., 51–52 airplane collision, 81–83 Aksyonov, Vasily, 44–45; on America, 125, 157; as individualist, 157; work and pleasure in, 75–76 Akunin, Boris, 77 Aldanov, M., 122 Alexei Mikhailovich (tsar), 14 Alitet Goes to the Hills (Semushkin), 74 America. See United States Anichkov, Evgeny, 8 Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), 68 anti-Americanism, 2, 161; Bykov and, 188; growth of, 129–130; Kabakov and, 187; Panin and, 140, 164n6; Tolstaya and, 141–142; rejection of, 122–123 Antigone (Sophocles), 177 anti-Semitism, 124 anti-Westernism, 2, 14; Mikhalkov and, 182 artificial famine, 126 asceticism, 11, 75, 76 assimilation (psychology), xv atheism, 31, 73 attire (riza), 18 attitudes, xix, 52; toward America, 129–131, 143, 185–188; emotion and, 191; in literature, 67–77; the West and, xi

authoritarianism, xviii; collectivism and, 62; criticism of, 130; parents and, 170; work habits and, 60 Avseenko, V. G., 24–25; the Ballets Russes in Paris, 176 Balzac, H., 171 Barthes, Rolland, 194 Baskina, Ada, 143–157 beauty, 39–43 Berberova, Nina, 122 Berdyaev, Nikolai, xxn2 Bergman, Jay, 106 Best, Elsdon, 189 the Big Terror. See purges, of Stalin Billington, James, 39 Birkerts, Sven, 163 black market, 186 Bobbitt, John, 154, 155 Bobbitt, Lorena, 154, 155 boyars. See nobility bribes, 98, 102, 110 Brodsky, Joseph, 117; Limonov and, 162–163 Bush, George W., 199 Bush, Jeb, 199 Butler, William, 93 Bykov, Dmitry, 188–189, 190, 191; beauty and, 39; the Russian Church and, 16

209

210

Index

campaigns: anti-Semitic in the Soviet Union, 123, 127; in defence of Soviet Jews, 123 capitalism, 67–68, 77 The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger), 187 characteristics, 137; of consciousness, 133–164; of individualist culture, 178–179; of stereotyping, 139–140 The Chase movie, 140–141 cheating, 152 Chernyshevsky, Nikolai, 72 childhood, 115; care centers and, 149; development in, xix, 42; effects of, 171–179; egocentrism and, 167–168, 169; essentialism and, 169; individualist cultures and, 134; mortality in, 41; upbringing and, 167–171 Christianity, 1–2 Christianization of Russia, 5, 95 Chukovskaya, Lidia, 74 church, 26; education and, xvii; the People and, 33–36; sermons and, 9; the state and, 11–13, 31–33 Church Slavonic, 5, 6 circular guarantee (krugovaya poruka), 48 cities, 136 citizens, 124; law and, 110–111 clergy, 8; paganism and, 18–19; religion and, 49–54; wants of, 21. See also priests Cold War, 185 collective farm (kolkhoz), 57, 186 collectivist culture, 144, 197; accommodation and, 169; American individualism versus, 133–137; authoritarianism and, 62; characteristics from, 177; circumstances and, 178; commune and, 54–58; emotion and, 135; work ethic and, 47–48; collectization, 74, 97 colored revolutions, 130 commune, xviii; effect on peasants, 57–59 complaint (zhaloba), 151–152 Confucianism, 49 consciousness, 3, 57, 107; characteristics of, 133–164; child development and, 115; culture and, 167–182; Russia and,

116 Constantine XI, 104 Coronation (Akunin), 77 corruption, xi, xiv; blame for, 89; collectivism and, 134; discussion on, 110; judiciary and, 102, 103; Medvedev on, 80; priests and, 53 cosmonauts, 33, 37n2 country size, xi Craft, Robert, 172, 174 Craige, Betty, 192 creativity, 62 Crimea, 48; annexation of, 90, 198, 199 Cultural Values and Human Progress (Harrison and Huntington), xiv; cultural codes, xii, 20, 77, 79; cultural models, xv–xvi, xix; cultural norms, 79, 91, 93, 94n2; cultural paradigms, 168; cultural phenomena, xii, 77 culture, 198; American college and, 150; consciousness and, 167–182; features of, 48; nobility and, 63; perceptions of, 115; persistence of, xiv–xx; semantics of, xii–xiv; stereotyping and, 137–138; values and, 156. See also specific types of culture culuture, collectivist: characteristics of, 133–136; childhood and, 167–170, 178; individualism versus, 133–136; Limonov and, 162; Mikhalkov and, 180; Tolstaya and, 162; culture, diurnal (day) and nocturnal (night), 96 culture, individualist: characteristics of, 133–136; childhood and, 134, 178–179; collectivism versus, 133–136; Aksyonov and; Brodsky and; Konchalovsky and, 180 culture, oriented toward expression, 20–21; legacy of, 39–45 Culture 1 and Culture 2, xii–xiv, xxn3 culturology, 200, 200n2 danger, 159 decentration, 168; Stravinsky and, 172 de-identification, 178 democracy: liberal democracy, xiii; sovereign democracy, 91 Diaghilev, Sergei, 176

Index The Diary of a Writer (Dostoevsky), 27, 70–72, 107 dignity, xv, 59, 98 discipline and child rearing, 134, 157, 169, 175, 178 discipline and work ethic, 47, 61, 75 Discovering America: Letters to Friends in Moscow (Shliapentokh), 158 disenchantment of the world, 193 displaced persons (DPs), 120–121 diversity, 143 Djin, Yana, 142 Dobrolyubov, Nikolay, 69; on opinions of America, 119 donos. See snitching Dostoevsky, F., 78n4; Avseenko and, 24–25; The Diary of a Writer by, 27, 70–72, 107; Gradovsky and, 27–28; on Russian culture, 24–28 DPs. See displaced persons Draister, Emil, 64 dual faith (dvoeverie), 96, 98 dvoeverie. See dual faith economic traditionalism, 67, 68; Weber on, 69–70, 77 economy, xi education, 13; church and, xvii; education in Europe, 3; education and Europeanization, 29; education in Medieval Rus’, 3–9; Education in Russia, 4–9 egocentrism and childhood, 167–168, 169 elder (starosta), 47, 55–56 elderly care, 147–148 emigration: first two waves of, 120–123; third wave of, 123–128 emotion: attitudes and, 190, 191; collectivism and, 135 empathy, 27, 53 Epstein, Mikhail, 125; on the Russian church, 32–33, 37, 37n6 equality, 59 essentialists, 138–139; essentialism, 139–142, 172 essentialism, deductive, 140 essentialism, inductive, 140, 143–144 ethnicity, 123, 129; Eucharist, 17–18

211

Europe, 28; Peter I’s reforms and, 23; Russia and, 197; universities in, 4 Europeanization, 28, 63; education and, 29; Petrine, 27 Evtushenko, Evgeny, 45 exceptionalism, 193 exile, 61 existentialism, 161–164; existentialists, 139; loneliness and, 161 faith, 5 the family, 57 favoritism, 149 Fedor, Deacon, 15–16 Fedotov, G. P., 6, 7, 7–8; on peasants, 95; on religious needs, 97; on the state and patriarch, 98–99 Feltrinelli, Giangiacomo, 43 feminism, 153–155, 157 Fletcher, Giles, 102 Florovsky, George, 5; on dvoeverie, 96 Foer, Jonathan, 188 folklore, 51–52, 64, 64n2; satire and, 97 Forbes magazine, Russia, 110 formal rationality, 193–194 Franzen, Jonathan, 188 fraternity, 59 friendship, 136–137, 159 Gelman, Susan, 169 genetics, 182 Genis, Aleksandr, 160–161 geography, 60–61 Germans: Dostoevsky on, 70–72; in Russia, 62–63 Gibson, James, 92–93 gimnaziya, 74–75, 121; Stravinsky at, 175 Glavlit, 120 the Golden Horde, 11 Golubinsky, Yevgeny, 4–7 Goncharov, Ivan, 68–70, 77, 78n5 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 191 Gradovsky, A. D., 27–28 Great Soviet Encyclopedia (GSE), 105 Greece, 17, 34 Greek language, 13–15 GSE. See Great Soviet Encyclopedia Gulag, 42, 75; gustation norms, 153

212 Hemingway, Ernest, 187 Hendley, Kathryn, 93 Henry, William A. III, xiv heroism, 85–86 Herzen, Alexander, 47, 79; on empire, 60; letter to Michelet, 53, 58; on work ethic, 62 hierarchy, 60, 170 history of legal nihilism, 95–108; Late Medieval Period, 99–104; legal reform of 1864, 104–108; history of religion, xvii A History of the Russian Church (Golubinsky), 4 homophobia, 48 homosexuality (gays and lesbians), 153, 155–156, 157 Human Motives and Cultural Models (1992), xvi Huntington, Samuel, xiii–xiv ideals, 28, 180 identity, 130; de-identification and, 178; Orthodoxy and, 32 ideology, 1, 192 idols, 1; idolatry and, 35 illiteracy, 61 In Defense of Elitism (Henry), xiv independence, 136 the individual (lichnost), 57 industrialization, 73–74 injustice, 11, 103, 107 The Inner Circle movie, 181 intellect, 4, 5–6, 78n4 intelligentsia, 24–26, 28–29; nobility and, 63–64 Iordan’ (Jordan), 34 Islam, 4, 193 Israel, 123, 127 It’s Me, Eddie (Limonov), 163 Ivan III, 11–12, 21n2 Ivan IV (The Terrible), 12–13 jester songs (skomoroshiny), 97 Jews, 121, 131n4; emigration of, 123–124 jokelore, 64 Jordan (Iordan’), 34 Joseph of Volotsk, 9 Judaism, xiv

Index judiciary, 112; corruption and, 102, 103; independence of, 107 Kaledin, Sergei, 76 Kaloyev, Vitaly, 81–88, 88n1 Kapitsa, Sergey, 144 Karpov, Fedor Ivanovich, 103–104 Kavelin, Konstantin, 57 khaltura, 75 Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeevich, 45 Kiev, 13–15, 21n5 Kievan period, education in, 6; Kievan Rus’, religion in, 95–99 Kistyakovsky, Bogdan, 107–108 Klyuchevsky, Vasily: on education, 7; on Raskol, 16, 17; on Zemsky Sobor, 100 kolkhoz (collective farm), 57, 186 Kon, Igor, 64 Konchalovsky, Andrei, 179–182 Koni, A. F., 106 Korol’kov, Aleksandr, 112 Kotoshikhin, Grigoriy, 103 Krizhanich, Iuri, 61 Krüdener, Paul, 119, 131n1 krugovaya poruka (circular guarantee), 48 labor, 61, 68; alienation of, 70; in Germany and in Russia, 62, 70–71 Land Assembly (Zemsky Sobor), 100, 101 Landmarks (Vekhi), 107 landowners, xviii; payments to, 55 language, xvii, 4; Aesopian, 44; Latin versus Greek, 13–15; Late Medieval Period, 99–104 Latin, 19; learning and, 3–4 law, 33; bribes and, 102; citizens and, 110–111; differences in, 58; disrespect for, xv; legal reform of 1864, 104–108; morality and, 79–80, 111–113; in Russia, 109–113; the West and, 112–113 laziness (len’), 50, 61 legal nihilism (pravovoy nigilizm), xix, 60; context of, 89–94; history of, 95–108; tradition of, 79–80 legal reform of 1864, 104–108 len’ (laziness), 50, 61 Le Pen, Marine, 199–200

Index letters, 128, 165n21; Michelet and Herzen, 53, 58; by Shliapentokh, 156–157 Lévy-Bruhl, L., 189, 194 liberal democracy, xiii, 197 lichnost’ (the individual), 57 life expectancy, 41 Limonov, Edward, 128; Brodsky and, 162–163; Tolstaya and, 171 literacy, 5 loneliness, 146–148; existentialism and, 161; Stravinsky and, 175 Losev, A. F., 190 Lotman, Iu. M., 20–21, 21n7 loyalty, 91 lying, 28–29, 58, 97 Makanin, Vladimir, 42 McKenna, George, 193 media, 34, 42, 199; information from, 191; myths and, 93; publications by, 187 Medvedev, Dmitriy, 80; on legal nihilism, 90 Men of the Soil (pochvenniki), 24 Metropolitan Peter Mogila (Mohyla), 14, 21n5 Michelet, Jules, 53, 58 Mickey Mouse, 141–142 Mikhalkov, Nikita, 179–182 Mitin, A. N., 90–91 Molotov–Ribbentrop pact of 1939, 199 monasteries, 12, 34 monks, 14 morality, 53, 141; communes and, 58–59; law and, 79–80, 111–113 Moscow News, 142 Moscow the Third Rome, 16 the Motherland, 126; Nabokov, N., and, 173; separation from, 178; Stravinsky and, 172 Muscovy (Muscovite Russia), 25–26, 27; religious culture in, 11–21 museums, 71, 78n4 Muslims, 27 myths, xx; of America after WWII, 185–195; education and, 191; media and, 93; Pindostan as, 188, 189, 190, 195n2

213

Nabokov, Nicolas: the Motherland and, 173; Stravinsky, Igor and, 171–179; Tolstaya and, 161–162 narod (People), 24, 29n2 Narratives by Foreigners of the Moscow State (Klyuchevsky), 101 nationalism, 27; growth of, 129, 130–131; as pseudo-religion, 36 nationalist patriotism, 192 nepotism, 11 Neue Zürcher Zeitung newspaper, 80 night culture (nocturnal), 96 Nikolsky, N. M., 17–18 Nilus of Sora, 11–12 1984 (Orwell), 98 Nobel Prize, 134 nobility (boyars), 54; childhood and, 171; intelligentsia and, 63–64 non-possessors, 11 norms, 112; cultural, 93, 94n2; perpetuation of, 134 Novgorod, 95 nursing homes, 147–148 objectivists, 139; objectivity attempt and, 143–161; popularity of, 77 oblomovism, 69–70 observations, 137 obshchina (peasant commune), 8, 54–58 OED. See Oxford English Dictionary Ogonek magazine, 110–111 Okudzhava, Bulat, 1 The Old Man (Trifonov), 44 Old Believers, 15 Olearius, A., 19 opinion, 118; Dobrolyubov on, 119; publication of, 125; of public in Russia, 86–88; writers and, 125–126 oppression, 26; abuse and, xviii; Soviet Jews and, 124 Orthodoxy, xvii, 2; Christianity and, 17; expression and, 40; identification with, 32; the People and, 25–27 Orwell, George, 98 Our Lord’s Law (Zakon Bozhiy), 33 Oxford English Dictionary (OED), xii paganism, xvii; clergy and, 18–19; practices and, 95–97

214

Index

Panin, Dmitry, 140–141, 158, 164n6, 189 Paramonov, B., 161–162 parents, 147, 179; authoritarianism and, 170; on industrial societies, 77; on legal systems, 109 passports, 57, 126 Pasternak, Boris, 43, 74–75, 78n5 Patriarch: Jeremias II, 20; Nikon, 15 Patriarchate, 16, 20 patriotism, 164n11, 174; America and, 144–146; Craige on, 192; decline in, 192–193 peasant commune (obshchina), 8, 54–58 peasants, 64n4–65n5; church and, 26; Fedotov on, 95; work ethic and, 59–63; work ethic for, 51 Pekin hotel, 173 People (narod), 24, 29n2 the People: church and, 33–36; Orthodoxy and, 25–27 perceptions: America and, xix–xx, 117–131, 138–142; asymmetry in, 185–195; differences in, 173–175; of foreign culture, 133–164; reactions and, 115–116 perestroika, xv; Afanas’ev and, 51; myth and, 187; religion and, 31–32; transition and, 129 Peresvetov, Ivan Semenovich, 103 persecution, 89 personality: individuality and, 177; Mikhalkov and, 180 Peter I’s reforms, 23 Piaget, Jean, xvi; on child development, 167–169 Pindostan, 188, 189, 190, 195n2 Pisarev, D., 72, 72–73 pochvenniki (Men of the Soil), 24 political double faith (politicheskoe dvoeverie), 98 politicheskoe dvoeverie (political double faith), 98 ponty (appearance), 40 population, xi, 197–198; Rus’, xvii The Possessed (Dostoevsky), 28 possessors, 11 postal clerks, 71 poverty, xi; as intellectual, 6; parishioners and, 53

pravdoiskatel’stvo (seeking the truth), 59 pravovoe gosudarstvo, xix, 89; reform of 1864 and, 108 pravovoy nigilizm. See legal nihilism prayers and hymns, 26 pride, 40 priests, 1, 64n3; corruption and, 53; unauthorized sermons by, 9; work ethic and, 51 privacy, 135; tolerance of, 160 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Weber), 67; teachings of, 73 pseudo-religion, 36 psychology, 170; psychological motivations, 73; studies in, 144 Pulcinella ballet, 176 purges, of Stalin, 64 Pussy Riot, 89 Putin, Vladimir, 32, 199; election of, xii Radio Liberty, 110 Raskol (the Russian Church schism), 15–19; the Reformation, 4 relationships, 135, 198; hierarchy and, 170; Stravinsky and, 175; students and, 146–147; superficiality of, 136 relics, veneration of, 33–35 religion, 1–2; clergy and, 49–54; exceptionalism and, 193; history of, xvii; perestroika and, 31–32; in Russia today, 31–37 religious culture, 11–21 religious icons, cult of, 18–19 revolutionaries, 105–106 rituals, 16; as fashionable, 34; symbols and, 20 riza (attire), 18 ROA. See Russian Liberation Army Roman Catholic Church, 16–17 Roman law, xvii, 98, 108n1 Rus’, xvii, xxn4; Christianization of, 1; intellectual paucity in, 6; Kievan Rus’, 95–99; spirituality and education in, 3–9 Russia, 116; education in, 4–9; Europe and, 197; Germans in, 62–63; law in, 109–113; perceptions of, 185–195; population and, xi, 197–198; pre-

Index Petrine, 25; public opinion in, 86–88; religion in, 31–37; St. Petersburg, 174 the Russian Church schism. See Raskol Ryzhikov, Sergei, 33 sanctions, 198 satire, 97; by Bykov, 188; on Russian life, 126; by Tolstaya, 111 Scandinavia, 42 schemata, xv; consciousness and, 167; information and, 169; studies on, xvi secret/obscene folktales (zavetnye skazki), 97 seeking the truth (pravdoiskatel’stvo), 59 self-government, 101 self-sufficiency, 163 Semushkin, Tikhon, 74 sense of humor, 143 serfdom, xviii, 29n4, 55; abolition of, 77, 97 sermons, 3, 9 Service, Robert, 109 Shliapentokh, Vladimir, 137; America and, 158–160; letters by, 156–157; on people, 152–153 shock therapy, 187 sibling rivalry, 179–182 silversmiths, 40, 45n1 Simpson, O. J., 155 sin (acedia), 37, 50 Six-Day War, 127 Sixth World Festival of Youth and Students, 186 sskomoroshiny (jester songs), 97 Slavophiles (slavyanofily), 24–29 slavyanofily (Slavophiles), 24–29 sloth (unynie), 50 smerdy, 54 Smirnova, Avodotya, 162 snitching (donos), 150, 151–152, 164n15 social groups, 137 social norms, 91 socialism, 53–54 socialization, xv, 90, 167, 168 Sofia Petrovna (Chukovskaya), 74 sojourners, 124–125 solidarity, 152 Solzhenitsyn, Alexander, 75 Sophocles, 177, 182n7

215

sovereign democracy, 91 Special Tribunal of the Senate (Osoboe prisutstvie Pravitel’ stvuyuschego senata), 105 spirituality: in contemporary Russia, 32, 36; in Medieval Rus’, 3–9 Stagnation (period), 75 Stalin, Josef, 42; biography of, 109; industrialization and, 73–74 Stalinism, 97, 121, 181 starosta (elder), 47; communes and, 55–56 the state: church and, 11–13, 31–33; patriarch and, 98–99; peasants of, 55 Stepniak, Kravchinsky, S., 52–54; on ethical relativism, 58–59; on law, 79 stereotyping, 41, 102; anti-Americanism as, 122–123; attitudes and, 143; characteristics and, 139–140; culture and, 137–138 stilyagi/shtatniki, 125, 186 St. Petersburg, 23–29 Stravinsky, Igor: characteristics of, 177; Nabokov, N., and, 171–179; relationships and, 175 Strugatsky, Arkady, 44–45 Strugatsky, Boris, 44–45 students: college culture and, 150; grades for, 149; relationships and, 146–147 studies, 144; by anthropologists, xiii; legal systems and, 89–90; on schemata, xvi subcultures, in America, 113n1, 140 substantive rationality, 193–194 Sudebnik, 99–100, 102 Sudeikina, Vera, 172, 178 Supreme Court of Canada, 112 Surkov, Vladislav, 91 surveys, 92–93 symbols, 20 Tatishchev, Vasily, 6 Tea Association of the U.S.A., 153 texts, 18; America in, 118; rituals and, 16; subjectivity of, 159; translation of, 7 Thaw (period), 43, 75, 187, 195n1 theology, 5, 20 Tikhomirov, M. N., 102 Time of Troubles, 13, 21n4 tolerance, 160

216 Tolstaya, Tatyana, 77; Limonov and, 171; Nabokov, V., and, 161–162; satire by, 111; sketches by, 141–142 Tolstoy, Leo, 68 totalitarianism, 129 tradition, 40; of legal nihilism, 79–80 transitory attitudes, xix transitory factors, 129–131 travel ban, 154–155 trial: Kaloyev on, 83–85. See also specific trials trial of 193, 105 trial of Vera Zasulich, 106 Trifonov, Yuri, 44 Trump, Donald, 199; travel ban by, 154–155 trust, 47–48 Turobov, Alexei, 170 Tylor, Edward, xii United States, 200; Aksyonov on, 157; attitudes toward, 143; culture and, 115; homosexuality in, 153, 155–156, 157; individualism in, 133–137; law and morality in, 113; myths about, 186; perceptions of, xix–xx, 117–131, 138–142; Russia and, 185–195; Shliapentokh about, 158–160; in texts, 118; World War II and, 192; writers in, 121–123 unynie (sloth), 50 upbringing, 167–171 Uspensky, Boris, 15; on cultures, 20–21, 21n7 Uspensky, Gleb, 55, 57 Utilitarianism in Russia, 72 Uvarov triad, 180, 182n10 values, 41, 134, 180; comparison of, 159–160; culture and, 156 Vekhi (Landmarks), 107

Index Vernadsky, George, 122–123 Vlasov, Andrei, 127 Volkan, Vamik, 129 von Haxthausen, August, 8, 47; on attitudes toward clergy, 52 von Herberstein, Sigmund, 103 Voznesensky, Andrei, 45, 144–146 Vysotsky, Vladimir, 76; on peasants and authority, 58 wealth, 12 Weber, Max, 49; on economic traditionalism, 69–70, 77; rationality concepts by, 193–194; on work attitudes, 67–77 the West, xx, 14; attitudes toward, xi; education in, 3–4; law and, 112–113; similarities with, 174; Stravinsky and, 178 Western Culture 2, xv Westernizers (zapadniki), 24–29 What Is to Be Done? (Chernyshevsky), 72 White Sun of the Desert movie, 130 work ethic: collectivism and, 47–48; origins of, 49–64; peasants and, 59–63 World War I, 125 World War II, 49, 74, 185–195 writers, 42–43; in America, 121–123 xenophobia, 2, 48 Zak, A. I., 123 Zakon Bozhiy (Our Lord’s Law), 33 zapadniki (Westernizers), 24–29 Zasulich, Vera, trial of, 106–107 zavetnye skazki (secret, obscene folktales), 97 zhaloba (complaint), 151–152 Zimin, Aleksandr, 101 Zlobin, Nikolai, 125 Zorkaya, Natalya, 35–36, 37

About the Author

Konstantin V. Kustanovich is Professor Emeritus of Russian at Vanderbilt University. He was the dean (1992–97) and director (1995–97) of The Russian School at Norwich University. He is the author of The Artist and the Tyrant: Vassily Aksenov’s Works in the Brezhnev Era and numerous articles on Russian literature and culture. He holds an MS (equivalent) in physics and mechanics from Leningrad Polytechnic and a Ph.D. in Russian Literature from Columbia University. In 2001/2002 he was a Fulbright Scholar.

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