Russian soul

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The term Russian Soul (or great Russian soul - velikaya russkaya dusha) has been used in Russian literature to describe Russian spirituality. The writings of many Russian writers such as Gogol, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky offer descriptions of the Russian soul.

The Russian word "dusha", is most closely translated into the word soul. The Russian soul can be described as a cultural tendency of Russians to describe life and events from a religious and philosophical symbolic perspective. This word's widespread use and flexibility of its use in everyday speaking is one way in which the Russian Soul manifests itself in Russian culture. In Russia a person's soul or dusha is the key to a person's identity and behavior and this cultural understanding that equates the person with his soul is what is described as the Russian soul. Sentimentality, sensitivity and guilt are general characteristics of the Russian soul. According to Dostoevsky, "the most basic, most rudimentary spiritual need of the Russian people is the need for suffering, ever-present and unquenchable, everywhere and in everything" [1] The Russian soul has been described as: sensitive, revere, imaginative, an inclination to tears [but not publicly], compassionate, submissive mingled with stubbornness, patience that permits survival in what would seem to be unbearable circumstances, poetic, mysticism, fatalism, a penchant for walking the dark, introspective, sudden unmotivated cruelty, mistrust of rational thought, fascination - the list goes on. Russians maintain their integrity in a way that conforms to their inner notion of what a human being should be, with a blatant honesty and integrity seldom seen elsewhere in the world. Above all they have an appreciation for wholeness or complete commitment and faith, no matter what that faith might be related to.

In the story Taras Bulba, Gogol provides one of the early characterizations of what came to be known as the Russian Soul when Taras exhorted his fellow Cossacks, saying: "There have been brotherhoods in other lands, but never any such brotherhoods as on our Russian soil. It has happened to many of you to be in foreign lands. You look: there are people there also, God's creatures, too; and you talk with them as with the men of your own country. But when it comes to saying a hearty word--you will see. No! They are sensible people, but not the same; the same kind of people, and yet not the same! No, brothers, to love as the Russian soul loves, is to love not with the mind or anything else, but with all that God has given, all that is within you."[2][3]

[edit] A context for the concept

The concept of a national soul was first expressed in the Romantic era and is closely associated with the rise of nationalism. The concept started most strongly in Germany, where Romantics like Friedrich Schelling developed the idea of a national spirit as a means to distinguish German culture from others. Schelling was widely read and influential in Russia; one of his advocates, Prince Vladimir Odoevsky, proposed that the less industrialized nations like the Germany and Russia of the period might lack in economic progress, but they made up for this lack by the spiritual virtues of their unspoiled country. This then is the context in which the concept of the "Russian soul" developed in the late 18th century.[4]

[edit] The western view of the Russian Soul

The Russian soul can be best understood in the west through western characterizations for the authors who were thought best to epitomize these characteristics:

  • Turgenev - Melchoir de Vogüé, who popularized Russian culture in Europe in the late 19th century, attributed to the poet Turgenev "the dominant qualities of every true Russian, natural kindness of heart, simplicity and resignation. With a remarkably powerful brain, he had the heart of a child."[5]
  • Tolstoy - Of Tolstoy de Vogüé found, "the skill of an English chemist with the soul of a Hindu Buddhist."[5]
  • Dostoevsky - Malia says of Dostoevsky that "Dostoevsky's power of insight into the lower depths and the higher yearnings of the human soul was particularly Russian, born at once with the Russian people's intimate acquaintance with suffering and their unusual vitality of character."[5]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Russian Talk: Culture and Conversation During Perestroika, Nancy Ries, Cornell University Press (1997), ISBN 0-801-48416-2.
  2. ^ Taras Bulba; by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol; The Project Gutenberg Etext of Taras Bulba and Other Tales; February, 1998; [Etext #1197]
  3. ^ Taras Bulba, available at Project Gutenberg.
  4. ^ Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia; by Orlando Fige; Henry Holt and Company, New York; February, 2002; ISBN 0-8050-5783-8
  5. ^ a b c Russia Under Western Eyes; Martin Malia; Harvard University Press; 1999; ISBN 0-674-78120-1