Features of Russian civilization. Andrey Fursov

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Russian laziness: a trait of a national character or a special work rhythm? Why do Russians always win the decisive battle?

Andrey Fursov - historian, sociologist, publicist, member of the International Academy of Sciences - argues, what determines the features of any civilization? How did the vast territories that the Russians mastered determined the nature of the development of our civilization? How is the course of our history affected by the fact that our state has no natural borders, we are open from all sides? What is defensive expansion? Why did neither feudalism nor capitalism leave significant traces in Russian history? How does our government differ sharply from the government in the East or the West? Why is power in our country more important than the law and the church? Can it be considered that in a country where the law is not the main one, lawlessness reigns? Why did the autocracy not take root either in the East or in the West? How did Orthodoxy merge with the Vedic religion? Why was there no formula “servant of God” in Orthodoxy until the middle of the 17th century? What determines our psychology - shock efforts in a short period, and then relaxation?

Andrey Fursov:The peculiarities of any civilization lie in the peculiarities of the nature in which the civilization develops, and the history of the civilization itself. Russian development is due to such a factor as the vast space that the Russians have mastered. And this huge space predetermined an extensive path of development. If you look at our textbooks, it was often written there “feudalism in Russia developed more in breadth than in depth”, “capitalism developed more in breadth than in depth”. This means that none of these systems left a serious mark on Russian history, and Russian life itself is a more serious thing than all feudalisms and capitalisms. The second point is that we have practically no natural borders, we are open from the south, from the east, from the west, and therefore we have always tried to carry our borders as far as possible. In this respect, Sir Arnold Toynbee quite rightly said that even Russian expansion is defensive in nature. Another very important factor in our history lies in the specifics of our power, it differs sharply from the power in the east and west. It so happened historically that this power is the main one in our history, it stands above the law, above the church. This does not mean that it oppresses them, but it means that it is the most important, it was connected with the need, "a", mobilization for constant wars that our neighbors were waging with us, and secondly, for the development of a huge territory. Finally, we are the original Orthodox civilization, but our Orthodoxy is very organic, at some point merged with what preceded it, with the Vedic religion. In particular, until the middle of the 17th century in Orthodoxy there was no formula "servant of God", "boy of God" - it came from the Vedic religion, because the boy of God, because we glorify our gods, the gods are our descendants. Then it went away. That is, Orthodoxy, which sharply distinguishes us both from the Catholic West, and from the Protestant West, and from Islam, that is, a whole complex of features fundamentally distinguishes us from both the East and the West. Moreover, in a number of parameters, East and West are more similar to each other than to Russia. They are similar, first of all, from the point of view of the organization of power. Power in both the West and the East is limited, be it China with its eastern despotism or France with its absolutism. Autocracy is fundamentally unlimited power, this does not mean in general that I want to do it, but autocracy is at the top. Moreover, this is reproduced not only in the autocracy, the CPSU was also above the law, this does not mean lawlessness, but it means a very clear subordination. Neither in the East nor in the West this was the case. I'm not even talking about the fact that both the East and the West show us very highly productive agriculture. Be it England, where yields were self-6, self-7, China or India with their two harvests a year. Everything is different with us, we had a yield of 3 and 4, and therefore we had a rather modest economic base, it had to be compensated for by all sorts of other things. In addition, we had a very short period of agricultural work in Central Russia. Mid-May - mid-September, and this has developed a very special work psychology, concentration of shock efforts in a short period, and then relaxation. Western people, Eastern people perceive this as laziness, and they speculate on this, talking about Russian laziness. This is by no means laziness, this is a special work rhythm, that is, even in the work rhythm we differ from the East and from the West. And this, by the way, psychology develops in the behavior of a Russian person not only in peaceful work, but also in military work, therefore, say, the Germans win all battles, except for the main, decisive one. The Russians can lose as much as they want, but in the decisive battle they win. It is sometimes said that Russia is something between the West and the East. No, according to a whole range of parameters, Russia is opposed to both the East and the West, this is our peculiarity of our historical event, for which we must fight, fight, because historical originality is what creates the soul of the people.