Everything we touch becomes Russian. So I would answer the questions, what is the peculiarity of national psychology, is there a Russian character and a special path.
At one of the talk shows, where, according to the order sent by the Kremlin's Beklemishevskaya tower, I took a position of increased Russianness, quoted Tyutchev (other lines, not about "arshin") and beat the liberal in our way, in the taiga way, so as not to spoil the skin, a weighty argument came from the other side. “Here you are here making Berendey out of yourself, and you yourself are wearing Levays. “It’s not me who’s becoming an American wearing cowboy pants there,” I replied. “These are pants (by the way, Chinese ones) that are becoming Russian, hugging our become, always looking for adventure and looking into the future.” I answered reflexively, within the framework of the discussion - and only then I realized that judgment is extremely useful for its metaphoricity and universality. And I remembered it.
It will be very useful to us, comrades. Russia is really young by Babylonian standards, the Russians “strain their strength in struggles” strongly after the ancient Greeks (as, incidentally, were the various Saxons and Gauls). Our culture, everyday life, faith, way of life, undoubtedly, are based on borrowings. But! Our "heroes", nee "bagaturs", beat the Turkic ancestors, only the ringing was ringing. The Kremlin was built by Italians, but look at Moscow from the roof of Pashkov's house, like Woland: definitely not Milan. Not Murano. Not Apulia. Korolyov knew very well the A-4 device of Wernher von Braun. (According to the apocryphal Beria forced him. Sergei Pavlovich did not want to, he said that the P-1 is in his head, and it is better than the German rocket, but Beria gently convinced the scientist: “Sergei … Pavlovich, daragoy, we fought for four years, we put millions so that you go to Nordhausen, inspect the trophies. It will not get worse.and?" And looked over his pince-nez). Korolyov thought it good not to argue. I went and looked. It didn't get any worse. 20 years have not passed - and Gagarin flew. The Russians beat everyone up.
Tellingly, people of other nationalities, imbued with the general mood of our amazing Motherland, also irreversibly crumble, "with greedy eyes they grasp what is good in the West" (and in the East as well) and drag them into the house. I did here for the Rodina magazine a text about Klavdiya Shulzhenko and mentioned the poet Pavel German. He is the author of at least two Soviet hits: "We were born to make a fairy tale come true" and "Your note in a few lines" (1931, German operetta aria). The domestic version is deeper and lighter than the original, that's what is amazing! It turns out that the Jewish songwriter Herman understood the Russian soul? It turns out so.
And the phenomenon of Russian Art Nouveau? Go to Abramtsevo, take a look at what Shekhtel, Vasnetsov, Vrubel have done with the European delicate twist of iris …
And look, what does the “great and mighty” do? Nowadays he is just falling into a rockfall of borrowings, since technological progress and consumer enthusiasm were not our strong points, and they never became. On the one hand, this gives rise to all sorts of "barbershops" where the "Dream" salon huddled before. On the other hand … You will come to the most advanced office paradise. "Klava", "mother", "ICQ" (outdated - approx. Ed.), "Soap", "press the loaf" … Pure Friday evening in the village bathhouse! Recently I read it from an observant linguist: an aunt in a store is sorting through apples and grumbles, "They are hacked!"
Now let's talk about more serious matters. I'm not sure if I can do it without offending my senses, but I'll try. Take, say, Orthodoxy. Why did Russia choose him? "Did we have a choice?" - I will put the question. Judaism is stingy and hermetic, Catholics are Gothic and monochromatic, Mohammedans are easy to confuse with Basurmans … And only the golden, shiny onion of Orthodoxy stretching towards the sun had a chance. And it was used in full! In it, of course, you can and should see the Byzantine basis, and standing in front of St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice, it is easy to imagine yourself in Vladimir. But everything great and global, from the notes of the Rosenbergs, laid on Kurchatov's table, to those collected from the fragments of the Byzantine stone ligature of the St. George Cathedral in Yuryev-Polsky, everything in Russia bears a powerful imprint of overcoming, salting out by bitter experience, rediscovering all-lightness,a victory achieved at a double, against others, at a cost.
Well, by the way, I'll tell you more about St. George's Cathedral. At the beginning of the XIII century, it was built by Prince Svyatoslav. He decided that he would be both a master and an architect, and erected something truly outstanding on the endless Russian plain, carefully Byzantine, lace, tattooed with white stone carvings from head to toe. Like a footballer. But a little fragile - the temple stood until the 15th century. Collapsed. Then it was carefully built anew - from stones that did not crumble into dust. And adding new ones. Lefties, therefore, the building was shod a little, the proportions were changed, the slabs were moved, but, battered by fate, the temple, in our own way, in the Russian way, has revived and ascended from itself.
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And only on the foundation, on the only tile, a tiny piece of old carving was preserved intact. A trifle like a joke of Svyatoslav: a sprout resembling a lily of the valley breaks out of the frozen ground.
I have everything about the Russian soul.
Vladimir MAMONTOV, publicist. Newspaper Culture No. 16
