Russian civilization

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

The article by a 16-year-old girl describes the peculiarities of the Rus civilization. A good example to follow: if schoolchildren are already beginning to write about the uniqueness of the Russian people, their role in world history, then why should not adults start fighting for their Motherland?

Russian people and European civilization

Recently, in Western and liberal domestic journalism, much has been written about Russian barbarism against the background of European civilization. But if we compare the moral ideals and the real life of peoples, leaf through the heroic pages of the history of the Russian people, then a completely different picture emerges

For example, in the Russian pagan pantheon there was never a god of war, while among the European peoples the concept of a warlike deity dominated, the entire epic is built around wars and conquests. After the victory over the infidels, a Russian person never tried to forcibly convert them to his faith. In the epic "Ilya of Muromets and Idolische", the Russian hero liberates Constantinople from the rotten Idol, but refuses to be the governor of the city and returns to his homeland.

In ancient Russian literature, there is no topic of enrichment during conquests, robberies, while plots on this topic are common in Western European literature. The heroes of "Song of the Nibelungs" are obsessed with searching for a buried treasure - the gold of the Rhine. The protagonist of the ancient English poem "Beowulf" dies, "saturating his vision with the play of gems and the glitter of gold … In exchange for wealth, I gave my life." None of the heroes of the Russian epic ever thinks of putting their lives in exchange for wealth. Moreover, Ilya Muromets is not able to accept the ransom offered by the robbers - "the gold treasury, colored clothes and good horses as needed." He, without hesitation, rejects the path where “I am rich to be”, but voluntarily tests the path where “I will be killed to be”.

And not only in the epic, but also in legends, fairy tales, songs, proverbs and sayings of the Russian people, the duty of personal or family honor has nothing to do with the duty of personal or family revenge. The notion of revenge as such is generally absent in Russian folklore, it is as if it were not originally embedded in the "genetic code" of the people, and the Russian warrior has always been a warrior-liberator. And this is the difference between a Russian and a Western European.

The Russian historian and philosopher Ivan Ilyin wrote: “Europe does not know us … because it is alien to the Slavic Russian contemplation of the world, nature and man. Western European humanity moves by will and reason. A Russian person lives primarily with his heart and imagination, and only then with his mind and will. Therefore, the average European is ashamed of sincerity, conscience and kindness as "stupidity."

A Russian person, on the contrary, expects from a person, first of all, kindness, conscience and sincerity. The European, brought up by Rome, despises other peoples in his mind and wants to rule over them. Russian people have always enjoyed the natural freedom of their space … He always "wondered" other peoples, good-naturedly got along with them and hated only invading enslavers … ".

The good-neighborly attitude towards the peoples of the annexed territories testifies to the mercy and justice of the Russian people. The Russian people did not commit such atrocities as the enlightened Europeans did in the conquered lands. There was a kind of restraining moral principle in national psychology. Naturally strong, hardy, dynamic people were endowed with amazing survivability.

The famous Russian patience and tolerance for others were based on the strength of the spirit. Under continuous invasions from all sides, in incredibly harsh climatic conditions, the Russian people colonized vast territories without exterminating, enslaving, robbing or forcibly baptizing any nation.

The colonial policy of Western European peoples rooted out the aborigines of the three continents, turned the population of huge Africa into slaves, and invariably the metropolis became rich at the expense of the colonies.

The Russian people, waging not only defensive wars, annexing, like all large peoples, large territories, nowhere treated the conquered as Europeans. From the European conquests the life of the European peoples was better, the plunder of the colonies enriched the metropolises. The Russian people did not plunder Siberia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, or the Baltic states. Russia has preserved every nation that entered it. She was their protector, provided them with the right to land, property, faith, customs, culture.

Russia has never been a nationalist state, it belonged simultaneously to everyone living in it. The Russian people had only one "advantage" - to bear the burden of state building. As a result, a state, unique in world history, was created, which the Russian people defended with their blood, not sparing their lives.

Precisely because such suffering and colossal sacrifices fell to its lot, my people accepted, as their own pain, the sufferings of other peoples under the yoke of Hitler's fascists. And after the liberation of his native country, he liberated half of Europe with the same self-sacrifice, with the same energy. What heroism was! Such is the strength of the spirit of the people that the Russian land gives rise to! And it seems to me that even a great people can decide on such a feat once in a century.

The patriotism demonstrated by the Russian soldier on the fields of the Great Patriotic War is patriotism of the highest standard, which neither world nor national history has known. And I will never agree with the statements in the press about Russian "barbarism" and European "virtue".

I am proud that our ancestors, our heroic ancestors, and we are their descendants were so beautiful, persistent, courageous and hardy!

Anna Zhdanova,

16 years old, a student of the Radkovskaya school

Prokhorovsky district, participant of the regional competition

juniors "Your voice"

Ed.:

Quote from a prominent English scientist Roderick Murchinson:

“Even if Russia expands its possessions at the expense of neighboring colonies, unlike other colonial powers, it gives these new acquisitions more than it takes from them. And not because she is driven by some kind of philanthropy or something like that. The initial aspirations of all empires differ little, but where a Russian person appears, everything miraculously gets a completely different direction. Developed by the Eastern Slavs since pre-Christian times moral standardsdo not allow a Russian person to violate someone else's conscience and encroach on property that does not rightfully belong to him. More often, out of the ineradicable feeling of compassion rooted in him, he is ready to give up his last shirt than to take it away from someone. Therefore, no matter how victorious Russian weapons are, in a purely mercantile sense, Russia always remains a loser. Those defeated by her or taken under her protection, in the end, usually win by keeping their way of life and spiritual institutions intact, despite their obvious inadequacy for progress, as you can easily convince yourself by getting to know them more or less thoroughly, increasing your material wealth and significantly advancing along the path of civilization.

Illustrative examples of this are at least the peoples of Estland and the Caucasus, despised and raped by their neighbors for centuries, but who took an honorable place among the peoples and achieved an incomparable prosperity under the auspices of Russia, while from the acquisition of Estland and the Caucasus, the position of the Russian people, that is the indigenous population of the metropolis did not improve at all. Last thing it seems to us a paradox, but such is the reality, the root causes of which are undoubtedly rooted in features of Russian morality …»

Using his popularity and influence in society, in 1853 this scientist organized a powerful movement in England against Britain's entry into the so-called Eastern (Crimean) War, which delayed the formation of the anti-Russian Anglo-French coalition with Turkey for almost a year. It is interesting to note that in publishing this speech of Murchinson, none of the English newspapers reproached him for unfounded Russophilia. And it never occurred to anyone to suspect him of Anglo- or Euro-phobia.

See also: Who fed whom in the USSR

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