About the slave psychology of Russians. How Russian slaves were sold in Ancient Rus'

When the writer and one of the most authoritative representatives of the Moscow community of Crimean Tatars, Ernst Kudusov, mentioned the historical image of Russians, calling them “hereditary slaves,” I wanted to stand up and give him a standing ovation. Even so, someone has to call a spade a spade! And there is no need to scold grandfather, he is a tape recorder. The recording was made by completely different people. Bayer, Miller, Karamzin, Soloviev... All the “lights” of Russian historical science to this day, who, under the nourishing patronage of tsars, general secretaries and presidents, created a majestic monument to the “martyr people”.

Of course, slaves! The broadcast on the Russian “Public Television” that caused a stir only drew a line under the thoughts that appear in the head of everyone who has ever taught Russian history. After all, we all know that our past is a sequence of successive scenes of violence and humiliation against Russians. It is no coincidence that the participants in that program (ethnic Russians, by the way) did not blink an eye when Kudusov described who they were. No one jumped up or overturned the table. The host of the program (also Russian) continued to nod in agreement following the words of his gray-haired guest. True, with a petrified face.

One word - slaves. And the unceremoniousness with which the authorities in Russia itself treat the population? We know that in both Spain and France people would take to the streets as soon as they were told about an increase in housing and communal services tariffs or gasoline prices, as happens here regularly and absolutely without any disturbances. It even seems to me that we don’t believe in Maidan either, because deep down in our souls we ourselves can’t imagine how a people can just like that - easily - decide their own destiny, change their own statehood? Of course, there were a lot of different things stuck there - bandits, provocateurs, spies (the fate of Crimea was predetermined by Moscow’s fear of seeing Sevastopol as a NATO naval base), but there is no doubt that all this evil spirit is swirling around a white-hot feeling self-esteem Ukrainians.

Why over the past 20 years have they learned to be offended, while we were and remain “Soviet” people?

The answer is simple - read modern textbooks on the history of Ukraine! On the Maidan there is a generation that grew up on these textbooks. I am not going to evaluate the theories of Ukrainian historians, but it is quite obvious that modern young Ukrainians feel like the descendants of demigods and are determined to be worthy of the memory of their ancestors. This is an ethnic group unfamiliar to us. Russian history, as it was, remains the history of “hereditary slaves.” In it, even the obvious upsurges of the national spirit are castrated and smoothed out.

Let me give you an example of the fate of such historical fact like the “Battle of Molodinskaya”. It's about about the battle of the times of Ivan the Terrible, which was not mentioned in Russian textbooks, although in its historical scale it is not inferior to either Borodino or Stalingrad. Just a few years ago, “folk” historians on the Internet drew attention to the fact that in 1572, governors Vorotynsky and Khvorostinin not only defeated a certain “Crimean army” near Moscow - they destroyed the military potential of the Sublime Porte, of which the then Crimea was a part. Respected Ernst Abduraimovich would be talking about “hereditary slaves” if he school years Did you know that the Russians put an end to the movement of the Ottomans deeper into Europe by actually “cutting out” near the village of Molodi half of the entire personnel of the armed forces of the Ottoman Empire?

By the way, at that moment the Ottoman state was at the zenith of its power, commanding almost the entire world.

History is telling someone who has lost their memory who they are. Whatever you say will be so. We were told that we are a great people, but oppressed by everyone, who deserve a better life because we are “spiritual.” That's why we are such idiots. What else can you call a people who, throughout a reliable period of history, reserved for themselves the last word in all the greatest cataclysms on the planet (Napoleon, Hitler), but easily believes the tales of Catholic monks of the 17th century, who told the world about three hundred years of Russian slavery? After all, even the phrase itself “ Tatar-Mongol yoke"came to us from the German language.

We are shown our ancestors as a faceless mass of people with the same bowl haircut, and we don’t bother to think about why these primitive communities, always “oppressed” by some “Franco-Saxon feudal lords” or “Mongolian Murzas,” assimilated their enslavers? In any case, this is what historical science says. Imagine the Spaniards who in America began to speak the language of the Aztecs, wear their clothes, and call their children Aztec names. All this is called “assimilation”. So the Crimean Tatar, who spoke importantly about the greatness of his nation and about the “nation of slaves,” did not speak at all in his native Turkic language. And not at all in the multimillion-dollar Bakhchi-Sarai. He spoke as part of the great Russian civilization and even as its voice, as far as one can judge.

That's the funny thing about the situation: the Russians are not convinced by reality - we believe the words. Personally, sometimes it seems to me that we are called “Slavs” because we are easily suggestible. There is now a lot of talk about the fact that in the fire of medieval wars between Catholics and pagans, a whole library of forgeries of “ancient” Latin texts was cast, where, among other things, it is written that the Latin word “sklav” (“slave”) came from the tribal name “sklavina” "(Slavs), since slaves in Ancient Rome were originally from this tribe. Until now, this myth is one of the key points in the national self-identification of the average European, although it has already been proven that in the Roman era, almost the entire population of the future Europe spoke dialects of the Russian language (that is, the mythical “claves” are simply ancient Europeans). Is this circumstance reflected at least in the textbooks of the interested party - Russia? Of course not! After all, the settled representatives of the tribe of “hereditary slaves” are accustomed to looking into the mouths of their Western colleagues, and for the reasons stated above, they are in no hurry to introduce the available data into scientific circulation.

Is this not the reason why Ukrainians did not want to have a common history with us?

It's time for Russians to take a swing at the “foundations”. Following Academician Fomenko, foreign researchers have already started talking about the need to create a new chronology (read: a new world history) (Uwe Topper, Die "Große Aktion"). Obviously, the subject of history itself must become new. In this sense, Russian historical science is still waiting for its Crimea. And then there will be no need, as Chekhov advised, to “squeeze out the slave drop by drop.” All generations of Russians who grow up with the new textbook will receive that sense of national dignity that we, alas, “hereditary slaves,” so lack today.

Fedor GRIGORIEV

NOVOSIBIRSK

Russians are slave people! The entire history of this people confirms its slave nature. Scandinavians, Khazars, Tatars, Romanov tsar-emperors, German princesses, Judeo-Bolsheviks, and again the heirs of the Khazars - all these are the masters of the Russian people, silent, weak-willed and slavish in their essence. That's the myth. Popular myth. A myth that is driven into our heads. You Russians are slaves. You are not worthy of freedom, you are not capable of living independently.
And we believe. We agree! What do we agree with with our slave essence?
Here, take a bite!
The Russian people are freedom-loving people! The entire history of the Russian people is the history of the struggle for freedom from foreign oppression and state oppression. From time immemorial, Russian people have been fighting for their freedom.
So why are we silent about this and agree with the peacemakers who show us “our” place at the bucket. We are ready to believe in the 300-year-old Basurman yoke, we are ready to believe in the good kings and empresses at whose feet our ancestors supposedly lay.
Everything is correct. After all, the more we believe in the slave nature of our ancestors, the more we ourselves become slaves. But why fight for freedom, why fight for your own nation state, if we are slaves by nature, if our ancestors were serfs, relying only on the master.
And they are already in a hurry from different parts of the world, there are registered bares, those whose ancestors fled in the 17th year “to Paris to drink our money away,” there are novobares. Some demand that the Russian lands be returned to them, saying why they were taken away, they demand that a Jewish boy be placed on the throne. Others are acquiring estates, playing kings, buying titles. Monarchists, damn it. Although the majority of the Novobar are nouveau riche, they just want to grab some money, buy some Chelsea, and then burn Rus' with a blue flame. And everyone screams with one voice: “Russian slaves by nature, they can’t live without a master.”
Yeah, right now!
Obrov was beaten, the Khazars were defeated. The Normans, who had been sitting in Novgorod for some time, were expelled. Where is the slavish essence of our ancestors who expelled and destroyed those who tried to throw their yoke around the Russian neck.
Tatars. Oh yes, three centuries of obedience and slavery. The Russian serfs bowed their heads before the Mongols, and waited for three centuries until the yoke itself disappeared. But the Russophobes are silent about the ushkuiniki who ravaged the Horde lands. Throughout the second half of the 14th century, young lads destroyed Horde cities, and in 1374 they destroyed the capital of the Horde, Sarai. And in the 75th, having already plundered the Horde lands out of habit, they looked again at the khan’s capital.
This is how the “slaves” tormented their “masters”; in total, in the period from 1360 to 1375 there were absolutely 8 raids on the Horde, one raid every two years. What kind of yoke can we be talking about here?
Russophobes are also silent about the Russian uprising in 1262.
In 1262, in Russian cities (Rostov, Vladimir, Suzdal, Yaroslavl, Pereslavl, Utyug and other cities), an uprising broke out against the occupation administration, which was organized in nature and took place with the participation of the princes. The Russians did not like this vertical power structure. Chronicle reports contain discrepancies, but nowhere is there any mention of retaliation on the part of the Horde; punitive troops did not arrive in order to establish “constitutional order.” Official historians are also silent about the defeat of the Horde army by Prince Vasily Georgievich on the Holy Lake, in the lands of Kostroma. But the legend about this battle has been preserved, and its place has been established by archaeologists. They’re just silent about it, because all this doesn’t fit into the theory of the slave soul of the Russian people. A slave cannot go against his master.
And how many small local uprisings of Russian people there were against the Horde, perhaps not as large-scale as the uprising of 1262. But no, they remain stubbornly silent and continue to spread the myth of the three-hundred-year Tatar yoke and the submission of the Russians to the Mongols.

What's next? The time of tyrant monarchs - emperors.
And again the Russian people are rebelling, fighting for their freedom. They are fleeing from the hated government. Colonization of Siberia, Far East, Alaska in the end - all this is the result of the love of freedom, the search for one’s own land, one’s free people. Only behind the free people did the state machine follow. The same Ermak and his comrades were of free blood, for which they were wanted by the tsarist authorities, who wanted to impale Timofeevich. But no, the will turned out to be stronger and it was free people who gave Siberia to Russia.
What about the Cossack freemen? These are now Cossacks of “special blood,” but then fugitives from all over Rus' went to the Don and to Zaporozhye. And they fought not only with the Turks, but also did not give rest to the Russian tsars.
But what about the uprisings of Bulavin, Razin, Pugachev, which engulfed almost the entire state? Or, again, this does not fit into the myth about the slavish nature of the Rus. How many other less significant actions of men against injustice, against the imperial order.
Serfdom. It’s scary how long it took them to cancel it. Russians are slaves who endured for a long time. But gentlemen Russophobes forget that in the empire the flight of peasants was very cruelly punished, which means that those who ran did not measure themselves against fate. And in the most progressive Europe, serfdom was ended only with the campaigns of the “Antichrist” Napoleon. In general, it’s funny, Bonaparte gave them freedom, and for this they made him the Antichrist. Well, that’s not what the story is about. They also forget that in 1812 a peasant delegation was sent to Napoleon with a request to abolish serfdom, saying that then the people would follow him. But Napoleon was afraid to do this. Why? He was probably afraid that if the Romanovs were thrown out along with the free men, he wouldn’t be in Moscow either. I think Napoleon did not believe in the slavish essence of the Russian peasant, and he did the right thing. So he received the “club of the people’s war.”
Again, by the way, if you read memoirs or notes of overseas travelers, where they compare the lives of Russian and Western peasants. Sometimes the latter only cause pity.

In the end, one can talk long and hard about the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy, about the fact that the Jews overthrew the king from the throne. Yes, not without it. But 1917 is both a merit and a victory of the Russian people in the struggle for their freedom from Romanov-Holstein, or Holstein-Romanov rule. Yes, this victory, used by the Judeo-Bolsheviks, turned into a tragedy for the Russian people. But in 1717, the Russians did not fight for the Bolsheviks, but this was a continuation of the centuries-old desire for freedom and the struggle for a national state. The Bolsheviks, it is worth giving them their due, understood what the people needed and very well used understandable and close to the common man slogans.
Yes, after there was a tragedy, a civil war and repression. But the people were not silent, as the democratic-liberals are now trying to imagine. The entire 20s were a series of anti-Bolshevik uprisings, and they rebelled under the same slogans as in 1917. Here is a classic example of the Tambov or Antonov uprising. How many were there?

Therefore, the Judeo-Bolsheviks unleashed terror against the Russian people, because, unlike us, they did not believe the myths about Russian slaves. They knew that the Russian people are freedom-loving people. So they undermined the foundations of the Russian people, slaughtered the main, active part of it.

What’s interesting is that when the war began in 1941, in many areas after the escape of the Red administration, the first thing the men did was disperse collective farms, symbols of Bolshevik power in the countryside. And the Germans were greeted as liberators, this is also a fact, no matter what it was.

Russophobes are also silent about the uprising in Krasnodar in 1961. Why can a Russian person raise his hand to power? But even in the 70s in the USSR there were protests, consciously or exclusively on a subconscious level, Russians were drawn to freedom, they did not want to put up with the disgusting power.

The entire history of the Russian people is the history of the struggle for their survival, this is the history of the struggle for their freedom. The fight against external enemies who tried to lay their paws on Russian soil and against government officials who wanted to deprive the Rus of their will.
Today, little has changed. Today the whole picture is the same. Russophobes, fed by the occupation authorities, shout about the slavish Russian soul, about the impossibility of them, the Russians, creating their own independent national state.
Today, the descendants of the Khazars, who have taken the place of the Romanov-Holsteins, the elderly general secretaries from the Politburo, are doing everything so that the Russians do not have any spirit left for Volya. Everything is included: propaganda in print media and on TV; myth-making, notice how the neo-Normanists raised their heads; abortion propaganda; alcohol; drugs…..etc. the list can be continued for a very long time.
Today it depends only on us whether the Russian people will live. Today it is only up to us whether our people will be free. Today it depends only on us: whether the Russians will have their own national state, whether Rus' will live!
All in our hands! Our ancestors were once not slaves and throughout their history they fought against regimes that tried to deprive them of their will.
So let’s not disgrace the memory of our ancestors!

Enslavement is a natural state for the Russian people. It is in this state that the Russian people are the most monolithic, capable, and productive. Enslavement, i.e. giving up individual freedoms gives Russians maximum clarity and meaning in life. Russian nature is designed for enslaved, reckless, driven behavior; it is like a swamp tractor that has nothing to do on the asphalt.

Here I repeat the “80/20” rule: judgments about community members are never right 100% of the time. If a judgment in the public sphere is true at least 80% of the time, then it is a true judgment. Yes, among Russians there are also intelligent, highly cultured people with fine spiritual organization and developed intellect, but such intellectuals will never become leaders of public opinion in the Russian environment, they will always remain marginalized and eccentrics here, at best. Oh, what kind of spirituality can barbarians have? - Only primitive.

Russians and democracy are incompatible concepts. As soon as serfdom was abolished in 1861, under pressure from the victorious allies of the Crimean War, the Russian Empire began to skid, fermentation and disintegration began within it. The Russian elites did not prepare their people for emancipation and independence, which is why 1917 happened.

In Russia, only those social technologies work that are designed for primitive rabble culture, i.e. Only the “sledgehammer and crowbar” civilization really works. The greatest historical achievements of Russians fall during periods of repressive-coercive maximums: the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible, cutting down the “window to Europe” during the time of Peter the Great, industrialization during the era of Stalin... With the mob it is impossible otherwise: no coercion, no work!

Democracy is contraindicated for Russians; Russians simply despise high culture. Russian nature is a hostage to vast spaces, a hostage to vast territories inhabited by dozens of peoples. The Russians are watchdogs for 1/6 of the land, they can’t do anything with this territory except patrolling: keep it and don’t let it go!” - that's their motto.

Russians have neither the strength nor the skills to build normal relations with dozens of conquered peoples. The main concern of the Russians is the preservation and expansion of the empire; for the sake of this super task, they abandoned the development of their own nation, so that nothing would distract them from serving as dogs in the manger for their foreign ruler. In total, the Russians abandoned their own nationality in favor of their imperiality.

The weak side of the Russian imperial-serfdom paradigm is that such a fortress does not generate creativity, ingenuity, and innovation in the Russian environment, therefore this empire has always welcomed and attracted foreign talents. As a temporary measure, it worked, but at the same time the social and cultural distance between the alien creative layer and the Russian mob grew. So, Russians are traditionally a primitive, barbaric people who are incapable of displaying individual culture. Russians are Asians who attract the Varangians to themselves so that they themselves can look like Europeans.

Three symbols of Russian statehood:
- autocracy means supreme power, preservation of the fortress. Autocracy frees Russians from the need to make independent decisions - “the autocrat always knows best”;
-Orthodoxy provides Russians with spiritual enslavement. It is enough for Russians to know that they have “the most correct faith in the world” - this automatically provides them with a “special spirituality”;
-nationality, as a principle, means the enslavement of the national question.
Total, three symbols - and three enslavements!

The strength of the Russian people for the authorities is that they are ready to abandon the values ​​of their individual, small-group life, in the name of the triumph of the imperial idea. Selflessness and self-denial are widely represented in Russian history, but this is not the result of some special Russian spirituality, it is a consequence of the atrophy here of the values ​​of individual life. Russians traditionally place a very low value on their personal lives, this is how they have been modeled. Russians are a huge group of people who can be manipulated very easily. It is enough to shout “For the Motherland, for Stalin!” - and crowds of suicide bombers will run forward like Pavlov’s dogs!

In a civilized society, the basic values ​​for an individual are the values ​​of his individual and small-group spheres of activity, i.e. those areas where he is represented by a specific, special figure, and participation in social activities is a means of optimizing the realization of one’s individuality. In Russians, everything is the opposite: here the personality, individuality is relegated to the background, in the name of the imperial, statist dominant. In Russia people are proud social order, imperial achievements, space flights, conquests of new lands, but they live in dilapidated houses and dress in the traditional Russian dress code: kirzachi, sweatshirt, earflap hat!

This is the readiness of the Russian person for self-denial, self-sacrifice - it creates a special resource for the Russian government. Russian man is born in order to serve his empire, his tsar-father, he is designed for slave-serf service. When there is no such demand from the authorities, then a Russian person loses his life guidelines and begins to drink or otherwise waste his life; he does not see any other meaning for his life.

It was not for nothing that K. Marx said that the Russian people are an ideal client for testing the ideas of communism on them, and they still are such a client. A Russian without an empire is like ownerless trash, he doesn’t know and doesn’t understand what to do with himself, why is he needed at all? Then the drunken, riotous self-burning of life by Russians begins: if there is no one to serve, there is no point in living at all!

Another side of the Russians’ attachment to imperial standards is their unparalleled cruelty towards everyone dissatisfied with their empire and their order. Any manifestation by a person of his will, his desires, his position is perceived by Russians as an attack on their imperial idea, on the sovereign’s cause! Why are Russians so cruel to other nations? – For them, any manifestation of free-thinking, love of freedom is absolute heresy, nonsense, disorder, subject to immediate liquidation! This is a personal insult for the Russians, because they sacrifice themselves, their personal for the sake of the sovereign’s cause, but here someone is demanding something for themselves personally! Hence the intolerance of the Russian mob towards any manifestations of individuality and critical thinking. This mob decisively pushes the very smart into the margins, and even represses them. Russians very easily use their fists against their opponents, forming verbal counterarguments is very difficult for them, the use of physical violence is somehow clearer for them...

The Russian happily dissolves in the face of power, turns into an obedient instrument of the imperial will, here is his spiritual catharsis. The Russian longs to become a cog, a man of the system, a faceless element of a great community; the larger the empire, the greater its representative he feels. Remember how the Russians elected a president in Ukraine in 2004 and 2010: as a tsar-father! In a word, you can’t waste your genes even in a foreign land!

The “special Russian soul” consists in the fact that Russians renounce their personal soul, their personal choice and personal will, in favor of the “common imperial soul.” It is this common imperial soul that makes up the special Russian spirituality. The Russian Empire had the advantage over other states that it always had at its disposal many such unquestioning servants, whose lives it could easily sacrifice, without the slightest unpleasant consequences for itself. The Russian people were scattered by the sovereigns like consumables, that’s why they put together an empire on 1/5 of the land, as of 1830. Why stand on ceremony: Russian women still give birth! Russian rulers, the Russian aristocracy themselves called their people “rabble,” so there is no need for me to throw accusations about denigrating the topic.

The Russian people are a rabble people in their own way. A categorical rejection of individuality, of one’s personal rights and freedoms, in favor of one’s belonging to the empire, to the community - all this does not allow the development of Russian individuality, in principle. Remove the intelligentsia, the upper class, from the ranks of foreigners from the Russian people - and you will be horrified by the wretchedness of the pure Russian ethnos! This is the price of an ethnic group’s refusal to acquire its own individuality. Now the Russian people yearn for a new, correct serfdom for themselves, the “great serfdom cycle” rules!

Summary. What is the difference in the mentality of Russians and Ukrainians? - A Russian is the first guy in a Eurasian village, and a Ukrainian is the last guy in a European suburb!
Both Russians and Ukrainians are special ethnic entities, with a broken, deformed ontogenesis, as a result of which full-fledged nations cannot be formed from them. Russians are formed as an ethnic caste of the rabble, Ukrainians are formed as a low-class ethnic entity. Neither Russians nor Ukrainians are able to “get pregnant” with their own national elite, they are not able to go beyond the boundaries of primitive civilization. Russians are like robots out of obedience; you will never get normal human behavior from them, but only the launch of some narrow targeted programs.

Now in the world there is an era of individualism, this is a universal sign of civilization: in the modern world, everyone is for himself. The world has become too complex and confusing for a faceless, driven person to find a worthy place in it. Russians are a grossly infantile nation, but paternalism no longer works anywhere, and traditional monarchy societies are also hard to find during the day. In other words, the sub-imperial, impersonal type of personality is no longer required anywhere, at the state level. Russians must gain internal freedom, internal development, or come to terms with their historical defeat and disappearance into oblivion, under the pressure of more aggressive and capable peoples.

PI: The discussion that began some time ago on our website about the relationship between “Russian nationalism” and “empire” gave rise to a heated discussion not only on social networks, but also on the pages of our project. Our authors and readers began to send their thoughts about the Russian national character, about what the “Russian idea” is. Almost simultaneously, the editors received two articles, Andrey Tsygankova And Vladimir Nikitaev, in which, although in different aspects, one topic is touched upon - the idea of ​​justice as a cornerstone for the Russian mentality. But if Andrei Tsygankov builds his thoughts from the perspective of Russian emigration, then Vladimir Nikitaev - on the basis of a historical excursion.

“Slave mentality” is a frequent and historically long-standing accusation against the Russian people from its critics and ill-wishers of various stripes. The Russian liberal opposition takes it to such extremes as attributing “love of slavery” to the Russian people, and consoles itself with this in the event of its constant political failures. To explain the fact that Russian “slaves” created a great empire, “love of slavery” is combined with “love of power” (the so-called “imperial syndrome”), creating a bizarre construct in which one side acts as a fundamental feature of the national character, and the other as a national idea or something like it. This construct has become today, in fact, integral part Russian liberal ideology.

Let's try to understand some of the foundations of this ideologeme and, at the same time, find a more worthy candidate for the role of the Russian national idea.

Since Russian liberalism is an imported product, has always taken its cue from the West and been fed by Western theories and assessments, including (and even primarily) in relation to its own country, Russia, it makes sense to start, so to speak, from the primary sources.

The primary sources are represented mainly by the triumvirate of visitors: the Austrian baron Sigismund von Herberstein(1486 – 1566), English trade representative Giles(Giles) Fletcher(1548 – 1611) and French marquis Astolphe de Custine (1790 – 1857).

Of course, there were other foreign guests. For example, the English navigator Richard Chancellor(d. 1553), whose name is given to a street in Severodvinsk. In search of a northern sea route to India, he ended up in Russia and met with a warm welcome from Ivan the Terrible, became the founder of permanent trade relations between England and Russia and left notes about his visit to the Muscovite kingdom. Or Heinrich (von) Staden(1542 - after 1579), German adventurer and outright scoundrel who fled to Muscovy from criminal prosecution. He was kindly received by Ivan the Terrible, baptized, lived in the country for about twelve years, six of them, according to him, he was a guardsman, showed off a bit, and when “the game was over” (sic!), he fled. In Holland, he thanked God for delivering him “from under the power of these infidels,” wrote his memoirs “The Country and Rule of the Muscovites,” and proposed to European rulers, including the Holy Roman Emperor RudolfII, detailed plan the seizure of the Moscow kingdom, its plunder and occupation. However, Chancellor, Staden and others did not, as far as one can judge, make any noticeable contribution to the myth of the “slave mentality” of the Russian people.

The question is not even how accurate the foreign visitors turned out to be in their descriptions of Russia and its prevailing morals, but how much they tried or could be unbiased and objective. Perhaps their main goal was to gain popularity among European readers with fabulous stories about “overseas miracles.” Or solve some other problems that are far from research? After all, talking about how terrible the rulers of neighboring countries are and life under their “heel” is an old technique that is equally effective for strengthening the authority of one’s ruler and gaining his favor. At the same time, no one, of course, bothers themselves with the statistics of victims and comparing their sovereign with others on this parameter.

If we talk about the first two of the mentioned “foreigners in Russia”, then Sigismund von Herberstein visited Russia in the period before the reign of Ivan IV the Terrible (who is a kind of reference point for Western denouncers of the “bloody Russian regime”), diplomatically represented states hostile to Muscovy, and was a Catholic; Giles Fletcher came on the eve of his ascension to the throne Boris Godunov, represented a trading company experiencing friction in trade with Russia, and was a Protestant. Both looked down on the Russians and neither succeeded in their mission, and the Englishman, one might say, failed miserably due to his arrogant behavior at his first audience with the Tsar.

Baron von Herberstein in “Notes on Muscovy” devotes little space to the assessment of the political regime, being not always accurate and often exaggerating. By writing about Vasily III: « He oppresses everyone equally with cruel slavery“, the baron cites as examples of “slavery” the duties of the nobility, quite common for that time, to perform palace, military or embassy service, or (which for some reason especially outrages him) the practice of confiscating into the treasury from ambassadors who returned home all the gifts they received from foreign sovereigns . The baron explains the resignation with which the courtiers perceive this “slavery” by faith in the Divine nature of power.

“That’s why the sovereign himself,” writes von Herberstein, “when he is approached with requests for some prisoner or other important matter, usually answers: “God willing, he will be freed.” Likewise, if someone asks about some untrue and dubious matter, he usually receives the answer: “God knows about it.” great sovereign”. It is difficult to understand whether the people, due to their rudeness, need a tyrant sovereign, or whether the tyranny of the sovereign causes the people themselves to become so rude, insensitive and cruel"(Italics hereinafter in quotations are mine. - V.N.).

A modern field researcher would wonder how sincere the statements of his interlocutors are, how much true faith they contain, how much external, speech ritual, how much desire to stop annoying communication leading in a politically undesirable direction - but the Austrian baron is far from this kind of reflection.

Von Herberstein admits that he does not understand the essence of Russian state power, nor the foundations of the Russian national character, and therefore expresses his value judgment with caution, which was practically not characteristic of his followers.

Giles Fletcher presented to the European public both a thorough and negative overview of Russian life during the Fyodor Ioannovich“On the Russian State (Of the Russe Common Wealth).” His Russian women are ugly, the food is more than strange, the common people are prone to drunkenness, laziness and adultery, the nobility are robbers of the people, the Orthodox Church is an ignorant and greedy appendage of power, and power, of course, is tyrannical. However, Russian tyranny for him no longer looks “far superior to the power of all monarchs,” as Baron von Herberstein imagined, but with reservations, only “like the Turkish one,” which the Russians, according to Fletcher, imitate. At the same time, he gives examples of the tsar’s tyrannical acts, mainly not from personal observations of the reign of Fyodor Ioannovich, but by retelling horror stories and stories about Ivan the Terrible.

In fairness, it is worth noting that Fletcher notices in the Russian people an ability for any kind of work, good mental capacity and natural common sense, but believes that all this does not develop as much as in other peoples, due to oppression by the royal government and the Church. In his opinion (in which he is not original), it is beneficial for the king and priests to keep the common people in darkness and savagery, since otherwise they would hardly obey them.

Fletcher sees the tyrannical nature of autocracy mainly in the fact that “all its [the state’s] actions tend to the benefit and benefits of one king” (here he simply repeats the Aristotelian definition of tyranny). What is surprising is that while describing in detail the general dependence of the ruling class and the state of affairs in the country on the tsar, Fletcher manages to single him out as some kind of special figure, with his own selfish interests, separate from the interests of the state (including “his” treasury) . The situation, at least for that time, was completely uncharacteristic of Russia. Even when in his famous address to the Russian troops before the Battle of Poltava Tsar Peter I separated himself from the state, from the Fatherland, he did this only to emphasize that he had no other interests other than serving the Fatherland.

We must give Fletcher his due: analyzing in detail the socio-political structure of the Russian state, he vaguely perceives a certain connection between the vast Russian expanses, rare focal settlement and the rigidity of the governance structure. In the geographical, demographic and foreign policy conditions in which Russia developed, any strong, independent local government was fraught for the center, if it weakened, with a loss of control over the situation in the province, with all the ensuing consequences. Actually, in order to understand this simple truth, we only need to remember the “parade of sovereignties” of the 90s.

However, the Englishman is not interested in the sustainable development of the Russian people, which he sees in decline after the reign of Ivan the Terrible - no, he is interested in the possibilities of radical changes in Russia. Not finding any, he sadly states: “it is difficult to change the way of government in Russia in its present situation.” Neither the nobility nor the common people, according to Fletcher, “have the opportunity to venture on any innovation” as long as the army, receiving a constant salary from the royal treasury, is satisfied with its position and supports the king.

“This is a hopeless state of affairs within the state,” writes Fletcher, “ makes the people for the most part desire the invasion of some external power, which, in his opinion, alone can save him from the heavy yoke of such a tyrannical rule.”

And yet there were European rulers who decided to test this statement of Fletcher in practice! Do we need to be reminded of their fate?

The image of Russia that Herberstein and Fletcher had just begun to form received a completed form from the Marquis Astolphe de Custine, which has hardly been surpassed by anyone so far in the book “Russia in 1839.” In less than four months of his travels around Russia, not knowing the Russian language and driven, in his words, by love for France and love for humanity, the Marquis created a work that gained fantastic success and became a kind of bible of Russophobic liberalism and the foundation of the West’s ideology towards Russia. Pearls that have been repeated about Russia for hundreds of years: “prison of nations”, “scratch a Russian and you will find a Tatar”, etc. are a literal or free quotation of de Custine's work. However, the Marquis himself did not hesitate to repeat the opinions of other authors about Russia.

A brilliant analysis of the de Custine phenomenon has been made Ksenia Myalo(“Walking to the Barbarians, or the Eternal Journey of the Marquis de Custine”: http://www.pseudology.org/literature/HozhdenieMyalo.htm). In particular, she draws attention to the fact that the decisive thing for de Custine’s attitude towards Russia was the unmentioned by him, but no less dubious consonance of the Russian monarchical rule with the rather moderate royalism of the Marquis. The Marquis attached much greater importance to the confrontation between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, of which he was a zealous adherent and to which he devoted many pages at the very beginning, in the preface to his book. “The world must become either pagan or Catholic,” writes de Custine, and, as we see, Orthodoxy has no place in this future world. The fate of the world, according to the Marquis, will be decided in the struggle of ideas:

“Everywhere I happened to be, from Morocco to the borders of Siberia, I saw the sparks of the future religious wars; wars, which, one hopes, will be waged not through weapons (such wars, as a rule, do not solve anything), but through ideas...»

Actually, Liberty, for which the Marquis advocates and for the complete absence of which he accuses Russia, is primarily freedom for clergy (and only Catholic priests, in his opinion, actually possess it); for everyone else it is not so necessary. So we are unlikely to be much mistaken in classifying the Marquis de Custine, saying modern language, to the fighters of the ideological clerical front.

It can be said that Astolphe de Custine is also characterized by geopolitical thinking, traditionally operating with the West-East opposition, into which, however, the Marquis introduces a specific, predominantly mythopoetic, interpretation of the East, dividing it, relatively speaking, into the Moorish East and the Byzantine and Asian East. And if in the relations of the West with the first East, the Moorish, he sees points of contact or even the possibility of some kind of synthesis (as in Spain), then the second East, represented for him by Russia (“a monstrous mixture” of Byzantium and Saray), is an absolute antipode, an infernal enemy The West, a stronghold of tyranny and slavery.

Unlike his predecessors in writing about Russia, de Custine saw the real military and political power of Russia, and he was much more concerned than Fletcher about the place and role of Russia in European civilization, about the possibilities of isolating Russia, resisting it and winning. It is no coincidence that he republished his opus at the height of the Crimean War, to which he attached extreme importance for the fate of Europe.

The Marquis periodically tries to convince the reader of his impartiality and objectivity in general, and in relation to Russia in particular. He claims that many things in Russia caused him admiration and makes certain compliments, mainly in relation to Emperor NicholasI(whom he considers “a natural German, Russian by calculation and necessity”) or Russian men from the common people. However, it is unlikely that de Custine manages to mislead anyone regarding his true attitude towards Russia (“ hatred of this country, its government and the entire population»).

Just approaching the borders of Russia, de Custine writes:

“I am curious to see Russia, I am delighted with the spirit of order which seems to be necessary for the government of this vast power, but all this does not prevent me from making impartial judgments on the policy of its government. Even if Russia does not go beyond diplomatic claims and does not dare to take military action, its rule still seems to me one of the most dangerous things in the world. No one understands the role destined for this state among European countries: in accordance with its structure, it will personify order, but in accordance with the character of its subjects, under the pretext of fighting anarchy, it will begin to impose tyranny... This nation lacks a moral sense, with its military spirit and memories of invasions, it is ready to wage, as before, wars of conquest – the most cruel of all, while France and other Western countries will henceforth limit themselves to propaganda wars.”

It seems that the marquis is not at all embarrassed that the facts, to put it mildly, do not quite correspond to his “theory”.

The Marquis was quite familiar with Russian high society back in Paris. And in Russia, without knowing the Russian language, he could still communicate with the same circle of people, that is, the Russian nobility and, so to speak, the intelligentsia. From his acquaintance with them, he comes to the conclusion that the only gift of the Russians is the gift of imitation (to Europeans). The Marquis sees nothing in these Europeanized Russians except falsehood, ingratiation with foreigners, combined with hidden hostility to them, imaginary cordiality, etc., in short, nothing but lies, against which he declares himself an uncompromising universal fighter. In contrast, the simple Russian people, whom de Custine met on a road trip, made a mostly favorable impression on him, and in some ways even aroused sincere admiration. He “feels sorry for the Russian peasants, although they are the happiest, that is, the least pitiable people in Russia,” and he doesn’t feel sorry for them, since they meekly endure their servile position under serfdom. In general, when describing Russian national traits as he sees them, the Marquis does not forget to give every characteristic that could have a positive meaning an epithet that clearly changes its sign to a negative one: “ Vain sagacity, servile insight, caustic deceit - these are the main properties of their mind ... "

We can agree that Most of what de Custine wrote regarding the character of the Russian noble-bureaucratic class is correct. If these passages belonged to a Russian writer, they would be regarded as a criticism of “kowtowing to the West” and, at the same time, a criticism of “lagging behind” it, but the Marquis clearly had other motives.

On the one hand, the Marquise de Custine is seething with indignant European arrogance: how can the Russians, these northern barbarians, these “disguised Chinese,” whose calling is only to “translate European civilization for Asians,” claim a significant place among the civilized peoples of Europe! For him, Russians en masse are subhumans, hiding their bestial bear fur under European dress and external gloss. Russians, the Marquis repeats, need to be taught “humanity” for a long time (nowadays this is called “universal human values”), “ it would be criminal to talk to Russians of any rank about their love of freedom; our duty is to preach humanity to them all without exception.”

On the other hand, one can guess about a carefully hidden, but no less acute inferiority complex and bewilderment: how could these barbarians, these “semi-savage people” gathered into regiments, defeat the brilliant Napoleon with his best in the world, half a million European army?.. And de Custine does not find a better answer than “fire under the ice, a weapon of Dante’s devils: this is what God gave the Russians to repel and defeat us!”

One of de Custine’s favorite activities in his work is the debunking of Peter I, all his plans and undertakings, and indeed any achievements of the Russian state and Russian people. At the same time, he uses a technique that is still one of the main ones in the arsenal of the Russian liberal intelligentsia, namely: discrediting Russian victories and achievements through accounting of costs and sacrifices. Thus, the architectural splendor of St. Petersburg or Moscow evokes disgust or horror in the Marquis, since it “stands on bones” and “glorifies despotism.”

In characterizing the political system in Russia (as, indeed, on many other issues), de Custine is not original: he immediately begins with a quote from von Herberstein (cited above), which he read from Nikolai Karamzin, and develops it in various variations with his characteristic French wit and glibness of language. At the same time, the problematic nature that was present in the Austrian baron completely disappears in the French marquis: he is categorically convinced that “ if a people lives in chains, it means they deserve such a fate; tyranny is created by nations themselves" Yes, in fact, in Russia the nation is fake, “ there are no Russian people yet- there are only emperors who have slaves, and nobles who also have slaves; They all don’t form a people.”

In his interpretation of the Russian political system, de Custine a priori uses the same scheme as his predecessors: the tyrant and the slaves. The marquis’s addition to it consists only in the fact that he sees in Russia, as in his native France, the absence of social hierarchy and “ universal equality».

The marquis draws examples of Russian tyranny and slave psychology from Nikolai Karamzin’s “History of the Russian State,” abundantly quoting and commenting on the pages devoted to the reign of Ivan the Terrible, as well as repeatedly quoting quotes that the “timid historian” Karamzin himself (this is the description given to him by de Custine) makes from the writings of foreigners about Russia. Although de Custine is well aware of the Decembrist uprising, and of Chaadaev (whom he could have met, but did not), and of the peasant revolts, he does not doubt for a moment that the Russians are a “nation of slaves.” He admits that the Russian tsars did good deeds for their people and country, and Nicholas I was generally a darling, but he believes that this is worse than if they were torturers and completely did outright evil, since it reduces the likelihood of an uprising and overthrow of tyranny.

Astulf de Custine's mythopoeic tale about an icy desert inhabited by ghostly people (despite the fact that almost the entire time of his journey the Marquis was languishing in the heat), a kind of Kingdom of the Dead on earth, every now and then turns into a harsh ideological register of pathetic exposure of the insidious and vile Russians plans Admitting that he was able to truly understand only a small fraction of what he saw in Russia (“I hoped to get to the answers, but I brought you only riddles”), he is nevertheless confident that he has comprehended the main thing.

“In the heart of the Russian people,” writes de Custine, “a strong, unbridled passion for conquest boils - one of those passions that grows only in the soul of the oppressed and is fed only by the misfortune of the people. This nation, aggressive by nature, greedy from the hardships it has endured, with humiliating submission at home in advance atones for its dream of tyrannical power over other peoples; the expectation of fame and riches distracts her from the dishonor she experiences; the kneeling slave dreams of world domination, hoping to wash away the shameful stigma of refusing all public and personal freedom».

Actually, this is where we can end our excursion into the work of the Marquis de Custine, since all the main features of the myth about Russia as a copycat and the slave mentality of a non-existent people thirsting for world domination are manifested with sufficient clarity.

Is it worth asking the question of what kind of revelations about Russia, what kind of insight into the depths of the Russian national character can be expected from foreigners with such a negative, hostile attitude?.. The question is obviously rhetorical.

Nevertheless, two substantive, essential questions remain: about the real attitude of Russians to power and the true main feature of their mentality (or national character).

Let us turn to the historical (or mythical) episode of the “calling of the Varangians,” mentioned in the “Tale of Bygone Years.” Let's assume that such a fact actually took place as described, and let's try to understand what it indicates. Is it really about the love of slavery?

According to the “Tale”, the initial situation of the “calling of the Varangians” was that among several Slavic and Finnish tribes, for a reason unclear to us, a bloody civil strife arose (“there was a great army between them and strife, and hail upon hail, and no more in none of the truth"). In order to stop the civil strife, they decided to turn to the Varangians, whom they themselves seemed to have expelled some time before (“driving the Varangians overseas, and not giving them tribute, and Volodya have a little time in themselves"). The chronicler reports this as follows: “And I decided to myself: we will look for a prince who would rule over us and would dress rightfully" They went overseas to the Varangians and said: “Our land is great and abundant, and outfit(precisely “outfit”, not “order.” - approx. V.N.) is not in it. Come reign and voladeti us".

So, what is the request? Even if we translate “order” as “order,” the petitioners describe a situation of lack of order in the sense of lack of power. Internecine conflict between equal sides in ancient times, conflicts were resolved by turning to an arbitrator (and even today such an institution exists). Word " dominate", as indicated, for example, " Etymological dictionary Russian language" M.R. Vasmera, means not only and not so much “to own” in the sense of possession or ownership, but rather “to rule, to rule.” The fact that this is the meaning that is meant in this case is indicated by the part of the text that says that the tribes “ruled themselves,” that is, they ruled themselves. The call to “reign” meant to come with a squad and provide military protection first of all. Thus, the tribes, who were unable to resolve the conflict among themselves, turned to a third party, the leader of the Varangian military squad, so that he would come to rule them, provide military protection and resolve disputes (“arrange”) “by right.”

What a miracle - foreign rulers! At that time in Europe this was a common thing. Only if other tribes and lands were seized by warlike Normans and Vikings by force and enslaved, then the Slavic-Finnish tribes mentioned in the “Tale” invited the Varangians themselves, and concluded with them, so to speak, a kind of “social contract”. One must have a very developed imagination or be confident in the absolute value of power to see in this episode a desire to willingly become slaves.

If we talk about the attitude of Russians to power, then this example shows, rather, that power as such for those tribes that called the Varangians and became the original basis of the Russian state, was not of particular value. It was important for them to stop the bloody internecine conflicts and get an authority that would “rule by law” and with professional armed force would protect them from those who wanted to seize their goods and drive them into slavery - the most common slavery in a foreign land.

We can say that a Russian person, in a typical case, does not understand the complex physics and metaphysics of power, does not strive for power, it does not have any meaning for him. intrinsic value. If a Russian person takes power into his own hands, then, as a rule, it is based on some motives extraneous to the “will to power”: positive (the desire to “get things done”) or negative (selfish interests, compensation for an “inferiority complex”) . It happens that he is persuaded to take a high position: “you see for yourself - there is no one else.” If we talk about kings, then, as is known, the first Romanova, Mikhail, were elected king without asking personal consent, and then persuaded to ascend the throne. Many Russian historians doubted that sixteen-year-old Ivan IV, the future Terrible, took the initiative to become king (emphasizing, as in the case of Mikhail, the role of the abbots of the Russian Orthodox Church). It is difficult to imagine Ivan the Terrible’s statements about abdication coming from the lips of European monarchs. The last Russian emperor did not particularly hold on to power either. NikolaiII, who called himself “Master of the Russian Land.” Not least because the Russian people do not strive for power, but rather perceive it as a burden, among the “ruling class” in Russia there have always been such a disproportionate number of foreigners.

Moving on to the answer to the second question - about what national character trait or what idea is fundamental for the Russian people - let us return to the archetypal situation of the “calling of the Varangians” by the proto-Russian ethnos.

The description of the disastrous situation of bloody “showdowns” between tribes is summarized by the chronicler with the words “ and don’t worry about the truth in them", and the requirement for the future prince is expressed in the words that he " rightly dressed" In general this means a request for justice.

That is, Our ancestors sought not slavish dependence, not power over themselves, but justice. And to attribute a kind of masochism to them based on this episode is quite strange.

The idea of ​​justice - in the Russian language etymologically, in the Russian mentality archetypally and in Russian civilization ontologically - is connected, or even derived from the idea of ​​truth (better even with a capital letter: “Pravda”). “Where there is justice, there is truth,” says the saying, and the expressions “seek the truth” and “seek justice” are almost synonymous. The truth, according to its idea, is so self-evident - “the truth is brighter than the sun”, “the truth is right by itself” - that everyone who sees it has no doubt about who is to blame and what to do. It is no coincidence that the main ancient Russian source of law associated with Yaroslav the Wise, was called “Russian Truth” (much later “letters of judgment” and “Code of Laws” appeared).

The ontological light of Truth also illuminates the practical side of the idea of ​​justice, expressed by the classical principle “to each his own.” This principle was used to define the concept of justice even Plato, it was accepted by Roman jurists and, through the reception of Roman law, was one way or another reflected in the legal systems of European states.

There is reason to believe that the principle “to each his own” has much more ancient roots than antiquity, and, like magic, had an almost universal distribution among humanity. He assumes that nothing in this world happens just like that - everything finds an answer, receives a reward, and justice consists in the fact that everyone gets what they deserve for everything. “As it comes around, so it comes back”, “what goes around comes around”, “if you love to ride, you also love to carry sleighs”, “a hat according to Senka”, “what is the work, so is the pay”, “he who is a cheat gets a whip “,” “good is answered with good” (however, “do not answer evil with evil”), etc.

Truth is practically important for justice, since the application of the principle “to each his own” is associated with resolving the issues of who “each” is (and what kind of “each”) and what “his” is due to him.

Empirically, however, a situation often arises when each of the parties to the conflict has “its own truth,” that is, there is actually no Truth (“there is no truth in them”). To maintain the integrity of the ontological picture of the world, additional assumptions have to be made. For example, introducing the idea that there are many human private “truths” and true Truth (also called “Truth”), which seems to float in the heavenly world and does not depend on passions, predilections, “optical distortions” of the earthly, human world. Using Plato’s well-known metaphor, we can say that the truth in each case (life situation) is unique, but only God and, perhaps, the souls of people in the Heavenly world see it, and living people are content with only shadows on the walls of the cave of their limited mind. In the Gospel, essentially the same idea is expressed in words Jesus Christ: “I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). Orthodoxy claims that a believer under all circumstances can count on Divine Truth, and this is the basis of his salvation (Ps. 35:6; 39:11; 90:4).

Hence, there is a natural requirement for a person who is called or undertakes to dispense justice, that he have some kind of Divine mandate. It is possible, by the way, that in the archetypal situation of the “calling of the Varangians”, tribal priests were involved, but in further retellings of this story by Christian monks, information about this, of course, was omitted.

So-called sacralization of power in its Russian version testifies not to the strength of the idea of ​​power or the state, but to its weakness in the mind and soul of the people. The autocracy had to be strengthened by religious authority precisely because it never lacked its own authority, “from the calling of the Varangians.”. The state and the Church in Russia have always supported each other and also fell almost together. For their sustainability, of course, a third component is necessary, namely the people, their disposition towards power and religion. Triad Uvarova- not only and not so much an ideologeme as a statement of historical fact.

Justice, in the opinion of the Russian people, expressed in proverbs and sayings, “will crush a stone,” “illuminate the darkness,” and even “resurrect the dead.”

The idea of ​​justice is closely connected with Russian patriotism. A Russian man rises to the defense of his country when he sees that it do injustice, and is suspicious of those actions of the authorities (including military ones) in which he does not see justice. Recent history can serve as an example Chechen wars, namely, the difference in the attitude of the Russian people to the first and second war.

The self-sufficient idea of ​​justice, however, has not only a bright side, but also, so to speak, a dark side.

On dark side For example, there is a rather disdainful attitude towards laws. If a certain law is assessed as unfair (not to mention the assessment “unfair”), then it almost automatically becomes optional. And since the understanding of what is fair or unfair in a given situation often depends on one’s own interest (“in other people’s affairs everyone is fair...”), it is under strong influence the desire for one’s own benefit (“where there is benefit for people, there is justice”) or other factors, then the overall picture that emerges as a result is not difficult to predict. In fact, it is right before our eyes.

The dark side of the idea—more precisely, the principle—of justice is also associated with the phenomenon of patience, which has so surprised foreigners, starting with von Herberstein. In a strictly stratified (class or caste) society, in which the boundaries of strata, social groups or the status of individuals are enshrined in culture (traditions, customs), and not just in laws, the principle of justice opposes social change: since “everyone” turns out to be different depending on the stratum, then his “own” turns out to be different, which is fully consistent with the principle “to each his own.” Therefore, the common people endure “oppression” (in the opinion of an outside observer), which is inflicted on them by the nobility, and the nobility endures “oppression” from the monarch - and this whole structure of patience lasts as long as the framework defined by the culture (mentality) is more or less observed acceptable “harassment.” Disturbance occurs when in a stratum or social group for some reason, the opinion appears and spreads that she is being deprived (not given enough) of “hers” (“the common people are being robbed in the bar”), which was before or to which she now for some reason begins to believe that she has the right. Or when an opinion is formed that the superiors and those in power are somehow “not like that” (“the king has been replaced”), who do not actually have the right to what is due to this stratum/group. The growing dissatisfaction with such “obvious injustice” sooner or later leads to the fact that patience is exhausted: those involved in the authorities conspire, the common people go on the run or rebel. There are countless examples of this in Russian history - and where has the “slave mentality” gone!..

Of course, there are many different facets and nuances in the topic of national Russian character and ideas; they can hardly be covered in one article; we have made only a sketch, but from it, I think, it is sufficiently clear that the idea of ​​justice may well claim to be an enduring Russian national idea, and the desire for justice is the main feature of the mentality of the Russian people.

In patriotic sources, the emergence of this myth is usually associated with the sensational works of foreign travelers like Baron Herberstein and the Marquis de Custine. In my opinion, this is a clear misunderstanding. I don’t argue that in the works of the mentioned authors, “eternal Russian slavery” and love for it are mentioned on almost every page. But where did they get this idea from? I’m afraid that the authors’ “natural hatred” of Russia and Russians alone cannot explain the strange conviction in the slavish nature of the Russian people.

Let's try to figure it out in more detail.

Baron Sigismund Herberstein, an Austrian nobleman, visited Russia twice (in 1517 and 1526) during the reign of Vasily III, carrying out diplomatic missions. Based on the results of his observations, he wrote the book “Notes on Muscovite Affairs.” There were the following lines: “They all call themselves serfs, that is, slaves of the sovereign. These people find more pleasure in slavery than in freedom,” “The power that they exercise over their subjects easily surpasses all the monarchs of the whole world. And he also completed what his father began, namely, he took away from all the princes and other rulers all their cities and fortifications. In any case, he does not even entrust fortresses to his own brothers, not trusting them either. He oppresses everyone equally with cruel slavery , so that if he orders someone to be at his court or to go to war, or to rule some embassy, ​​he is forced to carry out all this at his own expense."

It is clear that for a representative of the ruling class of “patchwork” Europe, which had not yet entered the era of absolutism, the Russian order seemed wild. The power of Emperor Maximilian was, in general, nominal. In Germany there was a complete stripe, all the sovereign lords considered themselves the navel of the earth, and the kings, at best, were first among equals. And here on you: “he took away all their cities and fortifications from all the princes and other rulers.” Horror! Forces vassals to perform government duties AT THEIR OWN EXPENSE! Nightmare! And the vassals, instead of staging a good rebellion, glorify their overlord.

Marquis Astolphe de Custine, a convinced royalist and a homosexual rolled into one, visited Russia during the time of Nicholas I. He outlined his impressions of this trip in the book “Russia in 1839.” In addition to descriptions of the types of asses of Russian coachmen and the imperial court, the Marquis left detailed (according to the progressive liberal public) descriptions of morals, customs, orders and political life of Russia and Russians. The book immediately became a bestseller in the West, went through about a hundred editions and was translated into almost all European languages. It seems that the Russian tour greatly disappointed the French homosexual: “Russia, I think, is the only country where people have no idea about true happiness.” The Marquis managed to stigmatize everything in Russia: from landscapes and birch trees to the highest establishment.

Another thing is interesting: how pretty he is a short time, without knowing the Russian language at all, managed to see and understand so much from us? The answer is simple and is contained in the book itself. The author derived most of his “observations” from private conversations with a certain Russian aristocrat (diplomat and writer Prince P. B. Kozlovsky) and, probably, with the publicist A. I. Turgenev. The mentioned gentlemen were apparently not too shy in their assessments Russian life. The “expert on Russia” Baron Herberstein, in his time, also visited almost nowhere except Moscow, but he had plenty of conversations with Prince I.M. Vorotynsky.

That is, the Varangian guests did not invent any special Russophobic malice themselves. And it’s not easy to compose a lie without having any idea about the subject without any basis - you need at least some kind of verisimilitude. There have always been enough idiotic lies about Russia and Russians in the West, but stories about bears walking the streets did not cause much republication. And the mentioned citizens not only sucked virtual Russian reality out of thin air, in many ways they simply retold to their European readers the opinion of high-ranking Russian liberals about Russia in general and about the Russian people in particular. So you can imagine how the liberal intellectuals of that time cried into the vest of a visiting foreigner and excitedly told him about the oppressive Russian government, the vile people, the complete absence of rights and freedoms. And the foreigner nods sympathetically. Then together they begin to remember and savor the delights of European service: clean hotels without bedbugs, smooth roads, fashionable resorts and chic courtesans. However, I apparently lost track of the courtesans. The Marquis had the wrong sexual orientation. (From RP - and even about bedbugs and lice in Europe then everything was much worse than in Russia) In order to understand how this happened, imagine a conversation between some Gaidar or Yavlinsky with a Western correspondent.

Therefore, the conclusion suggests itself: the myth about the “love of the Russian people for slavery” is, alas, our own myth. It was created, supported and maintained by the liberal part of our own elite.

To complete the understanding, it should also be noted that according to the realities of that time, all discussions about rights and freedoms relate only and exclusively to the rights and freedoms of the ruling class. Both our and European elites did not give a damn about the rights and freedoms of the so-called “vile people”. They didn’t even consider them to be people. The essence of the claims of Russian liberals to their own state was that this very state made (in their opinion) excessive demands on the elite and linked the sacred right to enjoy numerous privileges with the performance of certain duties to society. And, as you might guess, few people like responsibilities.

By and large, our liberals had reason for their suffering. In the sense that specific historical circumstances over the course of many centuries forced the Russian ruling class to bear a much greater burden than their European colleagues, but they received significantly fewer preferences. So the toad always strangled them. And don’t give a damn about objective difficulties, the geopolitical situation and economic realities. A purely liberal approach: give me everything here and now, and then there will be a flood. And whoever supports the concept of “sovereign tax and service” and honestly fulfills his duty is, without any doubt, a born slave. How could it be otherwise if he is unable to understand that his personal rights and freedoms are much more important than the interests of the state?

Throughout the nineteenth century, these sentiments spread rapidly throughout Russian elite. As a result, the Russian nobility received the coveted freedoms and liberties. That is, having retained and expanded privileges, the “mean” class assigned the responsibilities it had resigned. While living in estates and spending time at European resorts, it is very pleasant to talk about “crafty slaves” who cannot appreciate the high achievements of civilization: they rebel, die, and play dirty tricks on the landowners. Well, they don’t want to provide their owners with the same beautiful life like in Europe.

It’s no wonder that many famous Russian writers of that time managed to talk about the original Russian slavery. Moreover, even those of them who allegedly cared about the people in words. It is good for a liberal to love Russia and its people from afar. Best from Paris or Nice. Take, for example, the fiery freedom fighter A.S. Pushkin. Let me remind you that the poet was at one time in the service of the Fatherland. A disaster occurred in the Novorossiysk province - an invasion of Central Asian locusts. The governor sent several minor officials, including Pushkin, to assess the scale of the disaster. Text of the order: “To the collegiate adviser Pushkin, who is on my staff, the Collegium of Foreign Affairs. I instruct you to go to the districts of Kherson, Elizavetgrad and Alexandrovsky and, upon arrival in the city of Kherson, Elizavetgrad and Alexandria, appear at the local general district presences and demand information from them : in what places the locusts have revived, in what quantity, what orders have been made to exterminate them and what means are used for this. After this, you have to examine the most important places where the locusts have most revived, and observe with what success the means used to exterminate them work and are sufficient "I recommend that you report everything that you find for this purpose to me." A real catastrophe, without any quotation marks, its consequence will be mass famine with tens, or even hundreds of thousands of dead. So the state tried to mitigate the consequences.

Alexander Sergeevich, like a true Russian intellectual, is trying to make a trip to grow potatoes, in the sense of locusts, worse for his health, and without even trying to maintain the appearance of decency. He writes a letter to the governor’s office: “For eight years now I have been carrying death with me. I can present the testimony of any doctor. Is it really impossible to leave me alone for the rest of my life, which will surely not last?” And the 25-year-old forehead is not ashamed.

"Zakos" does not work, the poet receives travel allowances (400 rubles in banknotes), which, by the way, is a lot of money. But he still doesn’t go to the locusts, but goes to his friend’s estate, where he calmly celebrates his 25th birthday, drinking Hungarian wine and reading the first chapter of Eugene Onegin, while spending the money on his own entertainment, that is, he simply stole it. Upon returning to the place of duty, instead of a report, he submits mocking rhymes to the office: LOCUST May 23 - Flew, flew, May 24 - And sat down; May 25 - I sat and sat, May 26 - I ate everything, May 27 - And flew away again. This is the collegiate adviser Alexander Pushkin. Having received a verbal blow from his superiors, “Our Everything” is offended and resigns, writing to his friends that he is not going to hunch for a lousy 700 rubles a year. For comparison, the annual income of the average peasant family at that time was about ten rubles. These are the "souls" beautiful impulses"dedicated to the Fatherland. I note that Pushkin was not sent to drive away locusts, but to assess the extent of the disaster. At that time, the treasury provided assistance to areas affected by natural disasters. The amount of this assistance, as one might guess, directly depended on the report of the official sent to assess the situation. About that, How many human lives of “vile little people” did the touching entertainment of the Russian poet cost, it is outrageous for denouncers of the “slave people” to even think - that there are some lives of children who died a cruel death in comparison with the entertainment of a Free Personality?

Moreover, Pushkin’s mythical illness did not at all prevent the poet from spending time at balls and drinking parties, chasing after women and hanging around brothels. Let us note that the saboteur Pushkin was treated “in a slave country” incredibly and unacceptably softly - for embezzling government funds in a real “free Europe” he could easily have faced debtor's prison and confiscation of property.

And even in our time, the liberal intelligentsia continues to nurture and cherish the old myth of natural Russian slavery. For example: in the writings of modern writers one can often find laments about disgraced Soviet functionaries who resignedly went to totalitarian dungeons. They even came from abroad for this. No, so that Free Individuals can escape beyond the cordon and enter the service of the enemies of Russia. Born slaves, there can be no other opinions! But in the Roman state, the emperor did not even bother with arrests. He simply sent a centurion to the senators with the words: “Caesar wants you to die.” And no one denied him this little thing. And the Turkish Sultan handed over a silk cord to his officials as a transparent hint. And they smothered themselves like little ones. Slaves too? Well, it’s somehow inconvenient to even talk about the morals of the French and English courts and what the kings there did - they simply ground an objectionable person into powder, their heads rolled off the block like pumpkins, they rotted alive in prisons with such cruelty and sophistication that " Russian slaves" never dreamed of.

And now, when the centuries-old dream of the Russian liberal elite has come true and it has completely freed itself from any written or unwritten responsibilities to the country and people, is it good? Was her right to travel abroad on safari and her freedom to buy villas on the Cote d'Azur worth the catastrophe of our people and state?

Andrey Khodov

http://zhurnal.lib.ru/h/hodow_a/hhh-3.shtml

From Russian Project: The myth of the “Russian slave soul” is much older. It dates back to the times of Ivan the Terrible and the ideological war that began in the West against the Russian people. Then the campaign of slander against the head of state and the Russian people was started by traitors of both Russian, German or Polish origin who fled to the West, and was picked up and promoted by the ruling elites of our geopolitical opponents. Opponents regularly suffered crushing defeats from our people; to understand this, just look at the map. Slaves don’t fight like that, our country is a real cemetery for unsuccessful conquerors. Therefore, as is usual in the West, having not succeeded on the battlefield, they began to fight from the quiet swear word and slander.

By the way, the quatrain from a well-known poem given as an epigraph was only attributed to Lermontov by falsifiers after his death. Literary scholars have known for a long time that Lermontov did not write it, at least there is no evidence that he wrote it, that is, from the point of view of science, announcing his authorship and introducing it into school textbooks is a blatant disgrace. This rather mediocre Russophobic creation was written and put into circulation almost half a century after the death of the poet. Why it was attributed to Lermontov and who, despite the protests of professionals, introduced it into school textbooks, committing purposeful ideological sabotage is a separate matter. In the next RP publication we will talk about this.