Klyuchevsky about the formation of the national character of the Great Russians. On the national character of the Great Russian

From the article by Konstantin Leontiev "Literacy and Nationality".
We read and heard a lot about the illiteracy of the Russian people and that Russia is a country where "barbarism is armed with all the means of civilization." When the British, French and Germans write and say this, we remain indifferent or rejoice in that internal horror for the distant future of the West, which is heard under these lines, hardened without meaning.
Unfortunately, such an unreasonable notion of Russia and Russians also exists among those peoples who are connected with us by tribal affinity, or by faith and political history. Chance forced me to live quite a long time on the Danube. Life on the banks of the Danube is very instructive. Not to mention the proximity of such large national and political units as Austria, Russia, Turkey, Serbia, Moldavia and Wallachia, a visit to one such region as Dobruja cannot pass without a trace for an attentive person.
In this Turkish province live under the same government, on the same soil, under the same sky: Turks, Tatars, Circassians, Moldavians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Gypsies, Jews, German colonists and Russians of several kinds: Orthodox Little Russians (who partly retired here from the Zaporozhian Sich, partly later during the time of serfdom), Great Russians-Old Believers (Lipovans), Great Russians-Molokans and Orthodox Great Russians. If we add here the coasts of Moldavia, which are so close - Izmail, Galati, Vilkovo, etc., then the ethnographic picture will become even richer, and in Moldavian cities, in addition to the above-mentioned Russian infidels, we will also find eunuchs in large numbers. There are a lot of eunuchs among the cabbies, for example, who drive around Galati in chaises. The same thing, as one hears, was until recently in Iasi and Bucharest.
A systematic, comparative study of the life of the tribes inhabiting the banks of the lower Danube, I am sure, could give remarkable results. Circumstances did not allow me to do this, but I am already satisfied with what life itself has given me without careful and correct research. I cherish especially the two results obtained: a lively visual acquaintance with the Russian commoner, transferred to foreign soil, and also an acquaintance with the views of our political friends on us and on our people.
In Dobruja, two old men recently died - one rural Bulgarian; the other is an Old Believer fisherman from Tulchin. Both were extremely remarkable as representatives: one of a narrow Bulgarian nature, the other of a broad Great Russian nature. Unfortunately, I forgot their names; but if anyone doubted the truth of my words, then I could immediately make inquiries and present the very names of these peculiar Slavs. Both were very rich for commoners. The Bulgarian was under 80 or even under 90 years old. He lived without a break in his village. He worked tirelessly; his huge family lived with him. He had several sons: all married, of course, with children and grandchildren; the eldest of the sons themselves were already gray-haired old men; but even these gray-haired old men obeyed their father like children. They did not dare to hide a single piastres earned by them from their patriarch or spend it without asking. There was a lot of money in the family; most of them buried themselves in the ground so that Turkish officials would not get to them. Despite all their prosperity, this huge family on weekdays ate only onions and black bread, and ate mutton on holidays.
Our Old Believer lived differently; he was childless, but he had a family brother. This brother constantly complained that the old man gave and helped him little; but the Old Believer preferred his comrades to his relatives.
He had a big fishing team. By winter, fishing ended and the old Great Russian distributed his huge earnings in his own way. He counted on the fishermen, let go of those who did not want to stay with him; gave something to his brother; he bought provisions, vodka and wine for a whole artel and supported all the young people who remained with him all winter without compulsory work. With these comrades, the healthy old man reveled and had fun until spring, lived all the money and again in the spring set to work with them. So he spent his whole long life protesting his brother's complaints that "he loves his boys"! Often they saw an old fisherman in the Khokhlatsky quarter of Tulchi; he would sit down in the middle of the street on the ground, furnish himself with wine and dainties, and exclaim:
- Khokhlushki! go make me laugh!
Young Little Russian women, who, although stricter in morals than their northern compatriots, love to joke and have fun, ran to the gray-haired "communist", sang and danced around him, and kissed the cheeks that he offered them.
All this, let us note by the way (and very opportunely!), did not prevent him from being a strict executor of his church charter.
It is also curious to add that an old Polish gentry, an emigrant of 1936, enthusiastically told me about the fisherman of the Old Believer; and the Greek merchant spoke with respect about the stingy Bulgarian plowman.
Both the Greeks and the Bulgarians, in the spirit of their domestic life, are equally bourgeois, equally disposed towards what the Germans themselves called philistinism.
Whereas the sweeping chivalrous tastes of the Polish gentry are closer to the Cossack width of the Great Russian.
I do not want to humiliate the Bulgarians by this and exalt the Great Russians through measure. I will only say that the Bulgarians, even the "indigenous" - rural in spirit, are less original than ordinary Great Russians. They are more recent than any other respectable villagers.
The serious and modest qualities that distinguish the Bulgarian people can give them a wonderful role in their own way in the Slavic world, so diverse and rich in forms.
But "creative" genius (especially in our time, so unfavorable for creativity) can descend to the head only of such a people, which is diverse in its very depths and in its entirety most unlike others. Such is precisely our Great Russian great and wonderful ocean!
Perhaps someone would object to me that Russians (and especially real Muscovites) precisely because they are riotous and too disposed to be "St. Petersburg" people, are not very disposed to capitalization, and capitalization is needed.
I will give two examples of this: one from Little Russia, the other from the Great Russian environment:
In "Birzhevye Vedomosti" they tell the following incident, which happened recently in Poltava. In the local treasury, peasants dressed in the common folk style appeared - a husband and wife. Both floors were puffed out from some kind of burden. The husband turned to the official with a question: is it possible for him to exchange old-style credit tickets for new ones?
- How many do you have? the official asks.
- How can I tell you?., really, I don’t know myself. The official smiled.
"Three, five, ten roubles?" he asks.
- No, more. My wife and I counted all day but did not count ...
At the same time, both showed piles of banknotes from under the floor. Naturally, there was suspicion regarding the acquisition by the owners of such an amount. They were detained and the money was counted: it turned out to be 86 thousand.
- Where do you get money from?
- Great-grandfather folded, grandfather folded and we folded, - was the answer.
According to the inquiry, the suspicions were not justified and the peasant was exchanged money. Then they come back to the Treasury.
- Do you exchange gold, goodness?
- We're changing. How much do you have?
- Two boxes...
These peasants live in a simple hut and are illiterate."
But they will tell me: "this is not very good"; it is necessary that the money does not lie, like this Ukrainian or the old Bulgarian patriarch, it is necessary that they go into circulation. If these people were literate, they would understand their mistake.
But in response to these words, I will take a new fact into my hands and hit those poor Russians who are unable to sympathize with me.
Filipp Naumov, an Old Believer, still lives in Tulcha. He does not know how to read; can only write numbers for his accounts. He not only does not smoke or drink tea himself and wears a loose shirt, but is so firm in his charter that, often going to taverns and coffee houses to treat people of different faiths and nations who conclude trade deals with him, he, treating them, does not touch anything. Even wine and vodka, which are not persecuted by the Old Believers, he never drinks. He does not like to invite anyone to his place, because, having invited, it is necessary to treat, and having treated, it is necessary to break, throw away or sell dishes desecrated by non-Christians (even if they are Orthodox). It has several hundred thousand piastres of capital in constant circulation, several houses; of them, one large one on the banks of the Danube is constantly rented out to people with means: consuls, agents of trading companies, etc. He himself and his family, with a beautiful wife and a beautiful daughter and son, live in a small house with Russian-style gates and decorated the premium and the pre-originally white walls of this house are wide blue with a brown checkered stripe at half the height. /
He is very honest and, despite the severity of his religious removal from the Gentiles, is reputed to be a kind person. For many of his transactions, he does not give receipts; the guests, when they pay him for the house, do not require a receipt from him for receiving - they believe him anyway. On top of all this, he was one of the first in Tulcea (where there are so many enterprising people of different tribes) who conceived the idea of ​​ordering a steam engine from England for a large flour mill and, probably, his wealth will triple after this, if this business ends successfully.
One very learned, educated and in every respect worthy Dalmatian, an official of the Austrian service, whom I knew, always looked at F. Naumov with amazement and pleasure.
- What I like about this man (the Austrian told me) is that, with all his wealth, he does not at all want to become a bourgeois; but remains a Cossack or a peasant. This is the Great Russian feature.
A Bulgarian or a Greek, just as he started a grocery or haberdashery shop and learned to read and write, so now he took off his oriental clothes (always either stately or elegant), bought from a Jew on the corner an awkward frock coat and pantaloons of such a style that they had never been worn in Europe, and in a cheap tie (or even without a tie) with dirty nails, he went to make visits to Yu l "europIenne with his heavy wife, European visits in which the brilliance of the conversation is as follows: "How are you? -- Very good! - How is your health? -- Very good! -- And yours? -- Thank you. -- What are you doing? - I bow to you. -- What are you doing? - I bow to you. “And what is your wife doing?” "Bows to you."

On the national character of the Great Russians

Talking about national character is very difficult. Here we mean certain typical folk traits. Meanwhile, the author of this book, until the age of forty, very conscientiously tried to become just like everyone else and only after many desperate and unsuccessful attempts did he give up this occupation and decide to still be yourself. No matter how much the author fought, he could not understand who this like everyone else. Among the Russians there is not a single person who closely resembles another, and, as it is sometimes imagined, their typicality consists in the complete absence of typicality. Any Russian team is simply a collection of unique individuals, and for effective leadership they sometimes require remarkable diplomacy and resourcefulness, coupled with a steel will and nylon nerves.

There is a well-known incident that occurred at the Third Congress of the Communist International. Then the Italian socialist Lazzari declared: “We know the psychology of the Italian people,” to which V.I. Lenin remarked: "I would not dare to say this about the Russian people."

For example, one of the main mistakes of everyone who wants to talk about the national character of the Great Russians is to turn to classical Russian literature of the 19th century, that is, to the works of F.M. Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy, N.A. Nekrasova, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin and others. There is no doubt that writers are considered as if a mirror of the people's soul, but the trouble is that the vast majority of Russian prose writers and poets, the study of whose work is imposed on the masses by the school curriculum, belonged to a very narrow liberal-revolutionary layer of the Russian empire (we will not mention Soviet literature now, talking about it is too painful). Alas, the Russian liberal revolutionaries were terribly far from the life of the people. Even writers like N. Leskov, who are considered truly folk writers, and they carry a certain element of conflict, discontent, hostility and misunderstanding of Russian life and Russian customs, that is, an element of schismatics.

The postulate about the notorious Russian "slavery" as one of the fundamental properties of the Russian character is fix idea every liberal from A. Radishchev to some V. Novodvorskaya. All free-thinking literature of the 19th – 20th centuries downright permeated with lamentations about the torments of the unfortunate serfs and their widespread torture.

R. Pipes very aptly remarked on this subject: “The violence that permeates the 20th century and the simultaneous “release” of sexual fantasies contribute to the fact that modern man, indulging his sadistic urges, projects them onto the past; but his desire to torture others has nothing to do with what actually happened when such things were possible. Serfdom was an economic institution, and not some kind of closed little world created to satisfy sexual appetites. Separate manifestations of cruelty in no way refute our assertion.

R. Pipes quite correctly reflected the essence of the issue, and there is nothing to add here.

One of the fundamental historical factors that influenced the formation of the Russian national character, in addition to the above serfdom, is usually considered the 250-year-old Mongol-Tatar yoke, and also in the sense that it paved the way for the enslavement of the peasants.

According to V.O. Klyuchevsky, the Horde dominion “was one of those national disasters that bring not only material, but also moral ruin, for a long time plunging the people into a dead stupor. People helplessly dropped their hands, their minds lost all vigor and elasticity and hopelessly gave themselves up to their deplorable situation, not finding and not looking for any way out ... Even worse, the children born after it became infected with the horror of the fathers who survived the storm. An external accident threatened to turn into an internal chronic illness, the panic horror of one generation could develop into popular timidity, into a trait of national character, and an extra dark page could be added to the history of mankind, telling how the attack of the Asian Mongol led to the fall of the great European people ".

The German philosopher W. Schubart, who, like V.O. Klyuchevsky, cannot be called any kind of Ruson-hater, believed that “no other phenomenon in European history can be compared with the Tatar-Mongol yoke. It weighed heavily on the Russians for almost two and a half centuries (1238–1480), and yet they did not perish either in the state or spiritually, although this caused deep damage to their souls, which has not been overcome to this day.

From this, W. Schubart drew a number of conclusions: “Since then, the soul of a Russian person has often been overshadowed by bouts of cruelty ... Having experienced too much lack of rights, they lose faith in the moral and practical value of law ... Without the Tatar invasion, there would be no Russian revolution! .. Not tsarist Moscow of the 16th century, and free Novgorod of the 14th century is a reflection of the essence of the Russian spirit ... ”Etc.

Alas, all these conclusions are erroneous, if only because they are based on a circumstance invented by Russian historians. But even if the Tatar yoke were not an invention, but a fact, then even in this case it would have absolutely no impact on the formation of the Russian national character. That's the paradox!

Academician D.S. Likhachev notes that "the Russian national character took shape before the enslavement of the peasants." Let's assume that it is so. Now we will try to find out some features of the life of the vast majority of Great Russians up to the end of the 15th century. The fact is that until the end of the XV century. no serfdom, no yoke, no despotism in general on the territory of Great Russia was purely physically possible, due to the dominance of the slash-and-burn agriculture system here, the underdevelopment of arable agriculture and, accordingly, the underdevelopment of the estate economy, which just needed a permanent (attached) worker and agricultural contingent. The transition to arable farming, moreover, to three-field agriculture, in which the land is not depleted or is depleted weakly, began to occur in the middle of the 15th century. Only then did the first written news about the three fields appear.

In the north of Russia, for example, in the Vologda, Olonets, and Arkhangelsk provinces, slash-and-burn agriculture persisted almost until the early 1930s. There was practically no landlord economy here, and the peasants of the Russian North were classified as state-owned, owned personally by the princes, and later by the Russian tsars and emperors directly.

In general, the Russian peasantry was divided into state and owner. The number of the latter by 1861 was 37.7% (22 million 500 thousand people) of the total population of Russia. Serfs in the classical sense of the word, that is, peasants sitting on corvee, under the direct authority of their landowner and forced to perform any work at his request, in 1858-1859. was from 12 to 15% of the population of the empire.

So what is slash-and-burn agriculture? And why is talking about him so important for understanding such a subject as the Great Russian national character? The fact is that " models of agriculture and the associated social structure are much more dependent on the natural environment than industrial models. They are shaped by soil and climate and can thus give rise to different forms of land ownership, social structure and government.».

There are two varieties of slash-and-burn agriculture. 1st is the actual subsection. Trees in the forest area selected for sowing undercut, i.e., on a tree, with a ring 20–40 cm high, the bark is removed. Even a teenager from the age of 12 can successfully perform this operation. With a certain skill, up to 200 trees can be cut (peeled) per day. It does not require any special tool, an ax, a cleaver, a flint scraper or a cleaver is suitable. The undercut has been known to the population of the forest regions of Eurasia since ancient times.

The cut tree dried up in 2-3 years, while the site itself was ready for burning in 5-15 years, because the trees on it were not felled, but waited for the windblow. After the windblow, the site was set on fire. Since the burnt material turned out to be more than enough, during the burning there was a burnout of the turf and grown young growth and an abundant formation of ash, which was an excellent fertilizer. Then they collected unburned material, burned it and sowed turnips, flax, millet, oats, barley, rye, etc., sometimes in still warm soil. After that, they ate a knotty harrow from the top and harrowed a plot for it, but not for crushing the earth, but for covering the grain into the soil. Slash-and-slash farming required little seed material (1.5–4 poods per tithe), sowing was deliberately sparse so that abundant seedlings would not overwhelm each other. Slashing plots were not uprooted, sowing was carried out between burnt stumps. There was also no hoeing.

The use of the site lasted a year or two, less often three. In total, the family had 10–15 plots at their disposal, and they were scattered over a large area for 10–12 or more miles from the main housing. Accordingly, at the disposal of the family was not only the main place of residence, i.e. yard, as well as several so-called repairs. In the 15th century, 70% of the population, for example, in Northwestern Rus' lived in one- or two-yard forest settlements. In three or four courtyards - about 20% more.

Only about 10% of the population lived in larger villages and cities, led arable farming, was organized into estates, was engaged in trade, crafts and was the direct support of the state princely power. These 10% lived mainly in the districts opium, i.e., in relatively treeless areas. The economic center of the Great Russian statehood was the Nerl opolye and, accordingly, the Zalessky principality with its center in Pereyaslavl-Zalessky. A distinctive feature of the geographical location of the Zalessky principality was the possession of the banks of the Upper and part of the Middle Volga, the main trade route, which was especially important for Novgorod in its trade with the Bulgarians.

So, by the end of the 15th century, that is, by the end of the “Mongol-Tatar yoke”, the overwhelming majority of the Great Russian population lived in single-dvorka villages in large patriarchal families of 50–60 people, the heads of which were patriarchal fathers. The distance between villages averaged 20–30 versts, or even more. The slash-and-burn farmer did not have permanent arable land. He was not tied to a "patch of land." He constantly moved, periodically changed undercuts and places of settlement - repairs. Having settled in one place and having harvested two or three times, at the first unsuccessful harvests, he looked for a new place and settled there.

According to the well-known researcher of slash-and-burn agriculture V.P. Petrov: “If a feudal landowner, in order to receive income, i.e., a surplus product, had to have a peasant on his land who had an allotment, inventory, livestock, then the non-corvée economy of the North of the 18th–19th centuries. in the conditions of free forest management, it was built by a peasant who did not own any equipment, or livestock, or allotment. Slash-and-slash farming did not require tools for cultivating the land. Cattle, which was of paramount importance in arable farming, also did not find application. And a landless, horseless, ownerless peasant is an unsuitable object for feudal exploitation (as well as exploitation in general, even if it is "Tatar" - K.P.). Cattle, implements, and land, which had no use in tillage forms of slash and row farming, acquire paramount production importance in plow farming, when the land, displacing forest, becomes the most important means of production, when they begin to resort to the use of the draft power of livestock, when cattle breeding takes on the importance of dung cattle breeding. and in the composition of agricultural implements, along with an ax, a flint, a knotted knot, a plow, a ralo and a horse acquire the meaning. With the forest-field system, much less horsepower is required than in other strips of Russia; manure is not needed, therefore, there is little need for livestock; what is needed is mainly an ax, a knotted harrow and fire, an abundance of forests and freedom of communal forest management. The condition for the existence of slash-and-burn agriculture is the presence of vast forest areas, an unlimited area of ​​untouched forests and freedom to use them.

The productivity of slash-and-burn agriculture was excellent. Harvest self 25 was the most common; very often the harvest itself was 30-35, and in some places, and moreover often, it was 40 itself and even reached 60 itself. These figures were not the limit. In the literature, there are references to yields of 60-80-100. Grain from undercuts was of better quality than from arable land.

The 2nd variety of slash-and-burn agriculture was the felling of a site. Cutting, with a fairly large expenditure of effort, was distinguished by the fact that the felled area was put into operation in two or three years, in addition to this, the peasant received commercial timber. This variety began to be practiced mainly after the 15th century, and already it required some draft cattle and working equipment.

By and large, a Russian person, throughout his entire history, or rather until the 15th-16th centuries, was not a peasant, and this word itself is a slightly distorted Christian. Velikoross, according to V.P. Petrov, was only partly a farmer; agriculture was not his direct and somehow the only occupation. “At the same time, he was a hunter and fisherman, he mined bark, bast and birch bark, potash, coal, resin, resin, was engaged in beekeeping and a number of other crafts, which in the aggregate constituted one complex, surprisingly harmonious system of economy based on the exploitation of forests and forest wealth."

The search for a place to cut was mainly associated with hunting. The search for game was combined with the search for a slashing site. After a suitable site was found, it was marked by cutting some trees along the perimeter, and after that no one encroached on it, although the then Great Russian had no concept of private property. In his view, the land was common and anyone who wished could plow and sow on it.

But how, then, were the relations between the authorities and the bulk of the population of North-Eastern Rus' built? Is it ever, at least once a year, for some Tatars was it possible to go around the darkness of small villages scattered across the vast Russian forests, and establish a regime of totalitarian terror and some kind of yoke among the subject population? Obviously, the day on which she was going to file was the day in which the state revealed itself to the people. During the next period, that is, until the new requisition, the inhabitants of the odnodvorka enthusiastically discussed all the details of the act of despotism that had taken place.

The points of contact of the Great Russian masses with state power, the church and trade were churchyards(from others - Rus. visit- to visit), special inns, where the prince, clergymen, as well as merchants (guests) temporarily stopped. Exactly churchyards and began to be called administrative-territorial units, consisting of many small villages, and their centers. Churches were built on the graveyards, near which there were cemeteries. Various duties were also laid out in the graveyards. Incidentally, the longest pogosts were preserved in the north of Great Russia, where, as already mentioned, many black (state) and palace peasants lived. The division into churchyards was officially ended only in 1775.

Now let's try to determine the main source of income for state power in the Middle Ages until the beginning of the New Age. According to R. Pipes: “ How important the role played in the Russian budget by forestry is evident from the fact that in the 17th century. profit from the sale of furs (mainly to foreign merchants) was the largest income to the imperial treasury».

I think comments are unnecessary here.

As it should be understood, for many, many centuries, if not millennia, perhaps from Neolithic times to the beginning of the New Age, the Great Russian and his ancestors, in fact, did not know any other authority, except for the family authority of the Father. This power was direct and always personalized . Thus, the system of power relations, characteristic of the ancient Great Russian archetype, is very simple, this system can be briefly described as "The Father and his people (children)". Hence and sovereign father And empress mother.

According to R. Pipes, the Russian peasant “looked at the tsar as a vicar of God on earth, created by the Lord to command the peasant and take care of him. He attributed everything good to the tsar, and for everything bad he blamed either God's will or the landowners and officials. He believed that the tsar knew him personally and if he knocked on the doors of the Winter Palace, he would be warmly received and not only listened to, but also delved into his complaints to the smallest detail. It was precisely because of this patriarchal worldview that the peasant showed such familiarity towards his sovereign that there was absolutely no place in Western Europe. During his trips around Russia with Catherine the Great, Count de Segur (de Segur) noted with surprise how at ease the simple villagers talked with their empress.

So. The views on life developed by the people over many centuries cannot be changed in the course of any liberal reforms, no matter how destructive. As O. Spengler once wrote: “Political forms are organically connected with the people who created them; he carries them in his blood, and only he can carry them out. Political forms in themselves are empty concepts. Anyone can proclaim them. But no one has the power to bring them to life, filling them with reality. There is also no choice in political life: every culture and every individual people of any culture conducts its affairs and fulfills its destiny in the forms that were born with it and are essentially unchanged.

G. Lebon and N.Ya. Danilevsky.

Alas, whether someone likes this circumstance or not, the political system of the Great Russians is autocracy. Autocracy is not notorious totalitarianism, which goes back precisely to the Western European mechanistic standards of thinking. This is a patriarchal, paternal power, the flip side of which can be a certain despotism and autocracy, but any phenomenon has a flip side.

Did real slavery exist in Russia, and not squeezed out drop by drop by liberal writers? Yes, there was. Slaves were originally captives captured in military campaigns, namely serfs. “The serf did not pay taxes, was not subject to draft duties and did not belong to any community. Serfdom had its inconveniences for the government, and it issued many decrees forbidding subjects to surrender to bondage, as a result of which the number of serfs in Muscovite Rus' was steadily declining.

After the 15th century, along with the formation and development of the state and the local system with its arable agriculture, the Great Russian peasantry gradually became enslaved, that is, attached to the land, and in this respect its position is very similar to the position of both peasants and workers in Stalin's time. . Both, as you know, were not allowed to change jobs at their discretion. The author of this book, having experience of living in Russia in the 90s of the twentieth century, will not undertake to judge what is better, forced employment or liberal unemployment, but there is no doubt that the vast majority of the working population of Russia will prefer at least some material guarantees to real ones. the prospect of starving to death.

Meanwhile, the political views of the Great Russians do not mean that such views were characteristic of all Slavic peoples. Perhaps the political system adopted by one or another nation at the dawn of its ethnic formation depends on two main factors. As you know, any power grows out of two basic needs: the first is the organization of tribal (national) defense, the second is the need to ensure the security of trade routes.

Power, the emergence of which was mainly caused by the 1st need, is non-commercial power, and, by the way, Marco Polo called Russia non-commercial country. For such a power, the territorial issue is of great importance, since the key problem of the existence of any tribe (nation) is the issue of habitat. By its very nature, it is monarchical. This paternal power, the sovereign here is the Big Father. The father, as you know, is not chosen, therefore the 1st kind of power is undemocratic.

Power, the emergence of which was mainly caused by the 2nd need, is trading power, its base was the division of fighters hired to protect trade caravans and enterprises. By its nature, it is democratic, at the head of it were atamans (khans, kagans, etc.) chosen by the military circle. This fraternal power, it is no coincidence that members of the military trade corporations considered each other brothers, i.e. brethren, brethren etc. This kind of power gives rise to oligarchic rule, the sovereign here is only the first among equals, that is, Big Brother. This is a nomadic power, the territorial problem is of little concern to it, individual strategic points, in particular markets and trade routes, matter to it.

The 1st kind of power is characteristic of Moscow, the 2nd kind of power was inherent in Novgorod, Kyiv and the Horde. The last statement may seem doubtful to the reader, since historical science tried to instill in him the idea of ​​the Horde as a kind of matrix of autocratic tyranny, which was imprinted in the Moscow monarchy over 240 years of cruel arbitrariness. Alas, this conventional wisdom is not consistent with reality. The political orders of Moscow do not in the least emanate from the Horde. Why is that?

N.K. Arzyutov in the book "Golden Horde" characterizes the Golden Horde state as a "power of merchants". According to him: “The real head of state was the merchant class, the commercial bourgeoisie. The merchant was, speaking in essence, the khan himself. The whole military policy was reduced to keeping in their hands such trade routes as from north to south - the Volga and from west to east - land.

Russian monarchism could not have been borrowed by Muscovy from the Turks, whose khans were elected military commanders. As L.N. Gumilyov, “the army proclaimed the khan. These were not elections in the sense of twentieth-century democracy; parliamentarianism and corruption would not have found a place in the military headquarters and the villages surrounding it. Usually a descendant of the khan became a khan, but he received power only when the soldiers raised him on a felt mat and with clicks expressed their consent to obey him during the war. And in peacetime, the custom prevailed, which the khan himself obeyed, like any shepherd, if he wanted to keep his head on his shoulders.

It is unlikely that the political order of Byzantium (the Roman Empire) could have strongly influenced the formation of the Moscow great power. It is known that Byzantine emperors were often appointed at the choice of the Senate and with the approval of the people and the army. In Byzantium there was no concept of the imperial family, just as there was no law on succession to the throne. Byzantine history is full of examples of the seizure of power by people of the lowest origin, for example, Justin was a peasant from Macedonia, and the most famous Byzantine legislator and conqueror Justinian was a simple peasant from Illyria, his childhood name was Government.

It is also impossible to assert that Great Russian monarchism originates from the Swedish kings, even if we assume that Rurik was a Swede. According to L.N. Gumilyov: “In the IX century. there was no overpopulation in Scandinavia, since there are still many free fjords, although there are more people. The formation there was primitive, and the kings were elected tribal leaders (emphasis mine. - K.P.)».

So. Ivan IV Vasilyevich the Terrible refused the "brotherhood" of the Swedish king Gustav I Vasa precisely because he was the elected king. For the same reason, he did not recognize as his equal the elected Polish King Stefan Batory (“We, the humble John, the Tsar and Grand Duke of All Russia by God’s will, and not by the many-rebellious human desire”), but the English Queen Elizabeth I (called by him “sister loving, loving") reproached: "... you have people who own past you, and not just people, but also trading men ... And you arrive in your girlish rank, like there is a vulgar girl."

It should be added that, in his understanding of the essence of true aristocracy, Ivan Vasilyevich differed little from his father, Grand Duke Vasily III Ivanovich. So, in 1532, Emperor Babur, the founder of the dynasty and state of the Great Moghuls, a descendant of Timur, was denied the conclusion of an agreement on "friendship and brotherhood." The refusal was worded as follows: “In the brotherhood, he did not order him, because he (Vasily III. - K.P.) does not know the state - it is unknown: he (Babur. - K.P.) - the sovereign or the state officer to that (i.e., the ruler with limited power. - K.P.)».

“Ultimately,” notes R. Pipes in the book “Russia under the Old Regime,” “only two rulers met Moscow’s high requirements: the Turkish Sultan and her own Grand Duke, the very two rulers whom Bodin singled out as “seigneurial monarchs Europe".

However, what will be the conclusion from the above? Undoubtedly, Russian power, according to its original nature, belongs to the power of the first kind, that is, the one that was created predominantly for the purposes of warfare, defensive or offensive, there is no difference. Obviously, this nature of power turned out to be due precisely to the nature of the people, since the princely layer of North-Eastern Rus' actively participated in world trade and, in theory, should be inclined towards power relations of the 2nd kind. It is very curious that all Russian political rhetoric for many centuries has been reduced practically to the following statements: "There are enemies all around, we are in danger, keep the line, there are not enough cartridges (arrows, swords, cannons, missiles, tanks ...)". Here the author is far from condemning or welcoming such sentiments; it would be more important for him to understand them.

Some features of Russian policy were well noted by G. Kissinger in his fundamental work “Diplomacy”: “In the minds of Russian leaders, the need for conquests and the demands for security merged into one. Since the Congress of Vienna, the Russian Empire has sent its troops into foreign territory more often than any of the major powers. Analysts often explain Russian expansionism as a product of a sense of insecurity. However, Russian writers much more often justified Russia's desire to expand its borders with its messianic vocation. Moving forward, Russia rarely showed a sense of proportion; encountering opposition, she usually plunged into a state of gloomy indignation.

Nevertheless, it cannot be argued that there are no and never have been good grounds for Russian doubts about its own security.

So. The shortcomings of the Russian autocracy, in general, are well known. Russian liberals tried to reveal them in their entirety. Is this completeness caricature and grotesque, we will not find out now. However, if we are not going to draw another caricature, then perhaps we should talk not about the merits and demerits, but about properties.

The properties of autocracy are especially good in the military sense. A society in which resources are under the control of the state, and political power belongs to the sovereign sovereign, in the event of a military danger or a military enterprise, can quickly enough, with the least publicity and with the greatest completeness, collect the necessary funds in the main direction of the alleged aggression or the supposed own strike. Let us add to this the properties of the Russian people, who are able to endure disasters with extreme stamina, respectively, we will add here the properties of the Russian soldier, who, under cramped circumstances, with incredible patience, can endure the severity of any climate and the hardships and hardships of military life, and as a result we will get a garrison of a fortress, oh which H.J. Mackinder in the middle of the 20th century stated the following:

"The mainland core of the world (the Heartland) - it is the largest natural fortress (highlighted by me. - K.P.) on the ground. For the first time in history, this fortress has a garrison sufficient to hold it both in numbers and in quality.”

H.J. Mackinder is absolutely right. The external security of Great Russia has always been ensured by the fact that it was a natural fortress. This was due, firstly, to the forests, secondly, to the harsh climate, and thirdly, to the vast expanses. Meanwhile, although the above factors are favorable conditions for defense, one must be able to use them, since frost, forest, and space have the same effect on the defenders as on the conquerors.

Therefore, the human factor is still decisive.

H.J. was wrong. Mackinder, perhaps, only in one. A garrison sufficient to keep the heartland under control has appeared here at all not for the first time.

The author believes, and many readers may agree with him, that the ethnic history of the Great Russian people is hardly a kind of continuous continuum from ancient times to the present period. And the point is not at all that certain conquerors, like the same notorious "Tatar-Mongols", came and tore the chain of traditions. No, that's not the point. L.N. Gumilyov, in principle, argued quite reasonably that every ethnos, just like every person, is born, lives and dies, but unlike a separate individual, an ethnos often does not stop its physical existence, but is reborn into a new state, is resurrected. It is this chain of births and deaths that is characteristic of the Great Russian people, and it is not without reason that Russia is often compared to the Phoenix. Alas, ethnic transformation (i.e. death-birth) is sometimes accompanied by some historical amnesia, since the newborn ethnos sometimes rejects some of the values ​​of the ancestral ethnos.

However, more on that later.

Now we will continue talking about the national character of the Great Russians, while there is a need to go beyond the time frame of the “Tatar-Mongolian” period.

According to the author, most of the opuses on the theme of the national character of this or that people sin with a more emotional than scientific assessment. Take, for example, W. Schubart's book Europe and the Soul of the East, in which he characterizes not only the Great Russians, but also the Germans, the British, the French and the Spaniards. Undoubtedly, one cannot accuse this author of bias, as well as a lack of observation and intelligence. Let us quote some excerpts from this work, dedicated to one or another European people. You, the reader, will have to guess which nation the following statements refer to. Try to replace the dots with the corresponding ethnonyms.

1) … feels the isolation of his nation as a blessing, not a danger;

2) relation y … to foreign countries he oscillates between slavish imitation and vehement protest;

3) take away from … a common enemy, and they will begin to quarrel with each other;

4) … national feeling reveals hysterical traits. It manifests itself abruptly and exaltedly, quickly flares up and quickly fades away;

5) how much … brave as a soldier, so timid as a citizen. He does not have the courage to declare himself as such;

6) there is not a single people who would behave in relation to their bright minds so vilely as …;

7) … leaves the troubles that threaten him unattended, hoping that they will somehow be settled by themselves, without his intervention;

8) … - in the words of one modern statesman - will always lose the first battles in the war and always win the last;

9) … does not care about the future, does not think about the long term. Plans, scrupulously developed for all cases, are not his business. He reacts to problems as they approach and solves them on a case-by-case basis;

10) because … does not care too much about the future, he neglects petty hoarding and willingly shows the breadth of his lifestyle;

11) … norms are lowered from above, deriving from far-fetched abstractions;

12) technological progress … not to your liking;

13) soul … the middle state is missing. This is a maximalist in which there is no temperate zone;

14) … indulges in suffering with pleasure.

So. Items 1-6 refer to the Germans, 7-10 to the British, 11 to the French, 12-14 to the Spaniards, and all together they can also be used to characterize the Great Russians. There is no doubt that the characterization of the Germans as neat and meticulous people is fully justified and is quite clearly visible, just like the well-known Russian slovenliness. However, this notorious slovenliness does not prevent the Russians from successfully engaging in nuclear energy and space technology. If, by the way, to collect all the examples of blatant outrages committed by the same Anglo-Saxons of the United States through oversight and negligence, then you can come to a real horror. Imagine, they are even capable of easily losing their nuclear bombs from time to time and reporting it as if it were a randomly dropped copper. And, of course, it would not be superfluous to recall here the Fukushima accident. The latter was programmed during the design.

It should be recognized that the topic of national character is very complex and it is hardly worth trusting writers and philosophers in this matter. Somewhat more important information may be of an official nature. For example, the combat experience of the military personnel of a country that lost in a military conflict. In this case, the victims have to recognize at least some of the strengths of the enemy.

In 1960, W. Schwabedissen, a participant in both the 1st and 2nd World Wars, a general, former commander of the 2nd Fighter Air Division of the 12th Luftwaffe Aviation Corps, later commander of a group of German troops in the Netherlands, published a book in the USA “ Stalin's falcons. Analysis of the actions of Soviet aviation in 1941–1945. (Russian edition). In the book, he summarized for the Americans his military experience gained on the Eastern Front. In the 60s of the twentieth century, a conflict between the US and the USSR seemed quite possible, and the US military departments considered it necessary to get acquainted with the characteristics of the future enemy. The book was intended primarily for American military pilots, so the general did not portray the Russians as semi-idiots, otherwise his readers would not understand why the Third Reich still lost the war.

V. Schwabedissen described the nature of the potential adversary of the United States as follows: “Such national traits of the Russians as perseverance, steadfastness, thrift, and especially obedience, together with ruthless totalitarian government methods, laid a good foundation for the training of aviation personnel. The widely held belief in those years that the Russians had very little, if not no, technical ability was refuted. The opposite was true."

In addition, V. Schwabedissen identifies the following national traits of the Russian people: suspicion and secrecy, the ability to improvise, natural ingenuity, flexibility in decision-making, tough leadership, natural self-confidence. Describing, for example, Russian attack pilots, V. Schwabedissen gives them an excellent assessment: “German field commanders characterize the personnel of the Soviet attack aircraft as aggressive, courageous and stubborn ... It is obvious that the average Soviet attack pilot was a courageous and completely fearless rival” .

However, the former German general did not speak too flatteringly about the average Russian fighter pilot. In his opinion, the average Russian fighter lacked the qualities of an individual fighter: “If we take into account the inherent slowness and lack of initiative in the average Russian pilot (and not only that), as well as his tendency to collective action, vaccinated in the process of education (highlighted by me. - K.P.), then you can understand why the Russians lack the pronounced qualities of an individual fighter. Here I ask the reader to note that the emphasis on collectivist thinking is a feature of communist education, and not a national Russian feature, since Russian aces fighters were quite enough.

Now we will try to answer the following question - do we have the right to call the national character of the Great Russians bourgeois? First of all, we must define the meaning of the term bourgeois. Bourgeois is French for commoner, commoner, originally - city ​​dweller. In German bourgeois this is b?rger. Burg(from the late Lat. Burgus) in ancient times was called a fortified urban-type settlement. Urban settlements in ancient times were created, firstly, as points of tribal defense, and secondly, as centers of trade and handicraft production.

We note some important facts. If the peasant receives his livelihood through exchange with nature, then the townsman receives these means through exchange with people, since his occupation is trade, industry and services. Consequently, there is a fundamental difference between the consciousness of a peasant and a city dweller. What does it consist of?

Ancient and medieval agriculture, especially in risky farming areas, was often the plaything of the elements. The latter did not obey the man, and he, in this case, could only rely on the mercy of higher powers. The affairs of commerce and industry depend chiefly on the efforts of men, and to a lesser extent on nature. The peasant prays to God to send him a harvest, the city dweller prays to the state, as the state enforces the laws governing trading activities. The peasant does not care much what his prince will get into his head, since he is not able to prevent a drought, but for the city dweller, the actions of the authorities are incomparably more important. The god for the bourgeois is the burgomaster, and his angels are the district guards.

Thus, in one case, a person becomes a hostage to climatic conditions, in the second - to human greed and stupidity, and it is difficult to say what is the lesser evil here. In the 90s of the 20th century, in industrialized and urbanized Russia, a social explosion did not occur, followed by the destruction of the ruling stratum, only because the economic collapse of the country was damped by the presence of small plots of land for citizens to grow potatoes and other vegetables. Otherwise, the events of 1993 could have ended differently.

The living conditions of a city dweller dictate certain behavioral stereotypes to him. According to Yu.G. Markova, “the ideology and psychology of consumerism are largely born precisely in the conditions of the urban lifestyle. The larger the city, the higher its potential in terms of meeting the consumer needs of its population. Urbanization and consumerism are two parallel, interrelated processes. And from this point of view, both of them seem unnatural and dangerous for the fate of human civilization.

When did urbanization begin in Russia?

The practical beginning of the urbanization of Russia should be carried out from 1929, that is, from the beginning of the so-called Great Break. Back in 1926, with a total population of Russia (within modern borders) of 92.7 million people, its urban population was only 18%. From 1929 to 1937, the urban population more than doubled to 33%, in 1961 to 55%, in 1981 to 70%, and finally by 2000 it was 73%, reaching its maximum. In total, we have only 80 years of urbanized life. This period, obviously, is not enough to radically change the national character of such a powerful people as the Great Russian.

So, there is a connection between urbanization and the growth of consumer relations. Urbanization is the higher, the higher the growth of industrial production. The growth of industrial production is accompanied by an expansion of the range of manufactured consumer goods, i.e., not one or two varieties of goods are produced, but ten or twenty, from cheap to expensive varieties, etc., etc. The expansion of the range of manufactured products leads to stimulation of consumer psychology and the development of commodity fetishism. Consumer psychology fundamentally contradicts the Christian consciousness and, ultimately, begins to crowd it out. Christian consciousness is incompatible with the capitalist market and capitalist relations.

But why?

There is one point to which attention should be paid. V. Schubart believed that the basis of the worldview of the Promethean man, i.e., the archetype that was most fully embodied in the West, is primordial fear, which is "characteristic of him as the predominant spiritual mood." Promethean man, according to W. Schubart, “does not firmly believe in superearthly forces that meaningfully organize life. He experiences the world as chaos... he is constantly tormented by the fear that the world will burst at all seams, as soon as he removes his creative hand from it without rest. This is an unfortunate person, much more unhappy than a Russian, a gloomy shadow of worries lies on the Promethean culture ... A. Dürer looked deeper than others into the Promethean soul; I looked into that distant time when it was just beginning to form. His engraving "Melancholy" contains everything that is characteristic of Promethean man. Before us appears a stupidly thinking figure, not recognizing the power of the moment, restless in a bleak circle of thoughts about the mysteries of the future. All around you can see compasses, measuring instruments, scales, a table on the wall - means of calculation, with the help of which a person tries to approach the future unknown to him. It is clear that here a classic symbol of the culture of care and provisioning(highlighted by me. - K.P.)».

The main fear of Promethean man is fear of the future, this fear makes him pay great attention to the material side of life. The Promethean type of consciousness and the norms of behavior dictated by it are incompatible with Christianity, primarily in this fundamental principle. But what is the result? The fact is that it is fear that makes a person a slave. Fear breeds hatred and anger. Hatred and malice breed violence and murder, chaos and confusion. It was from the fear of the future that Christ wanted to save people.

“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your soul what you will eat or drink, nor about your body what you will wear. Is not the soul more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you much better than them? And who among you, by taking care, can add even one cubit to his stature? And what do you care about clothes? Look at the lilies of the field, how they grow: neither toil nor spin; but I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like any of them; But if the grass of the field, which is today, and tomorrow will be thrown into the oven, God dresses like this, how much more than you, you of little faith! So do not worry and do not say: what shall we eat? or what to drink? Or what to wear? because the Gentiles are looking for all this, and because your Father in heaven knows that you have need of all this. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all this will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of its own: enough for each day of its own care” (Mat. 6:25-34).

In the author's opinion, these words of Christ contain one of the foundations of his teaching. Of course, the reader may object that the foundation of Christianity is love. This assertion is difficult to dispute. Nevertheless, it should be noted that Buddhists also love all living things and exalt goodness, but Buddhism, as such, is not a religion at all, does not assert the existence of God and does not call for relying on him, including in everyday life.

Now let's think about the following question. What lies at the basis of bourgeois consciousness? What distinguishes it from the Christian consciousness? The answer on the surface is consumerism, consumer psychology.

Speaking in the spirit of the Gospel, we can say that at the heart of the bourgeois consciousness is anxiety about what to eat and what to drink, anxiety about tomorrow. In moderate limits, it is not a particular problem. However, cultivated and hypertrophied anxiety turns into bourgeois hoarding, a perverted concept anxiety degenerates into a race for success at any cost, into haggling, skiffing and commodity fetishism, and the latter, to put it bluntly, is a mental anomaly. Behind the lack of peace hides fear, as a result - anger, hatred, psychosis of destruction and self-destruction, loneliness in the crowd.

In the pre-capitalist era, Europe was dominated by the Christian worldview. As W. Sombart stated in his time: "The main feature of pre-capitalist life is a feature of confident calm, characteristic of any organic life." And further: “I ... now affirm more definitely than ever before that economic life in the pre-capitalist era was really under the influence of the principle of covering needs, that the peasant and artisan in their normal economic activity sought their livelihood and nothing more.”