The true faith of our ancestors. Old Faith of Rus' – Orthodoxy
Conversation “What Russian People Believed”
Target: introducing children to the Slavic beliefs in spirits.
Tasks:
- expand children's ideas about fairy-tale characters;
Replenish children's vocabulary;
Cultivate interest in folk beliefs;
Teach children to distinguish between good and evil.
Preliminary work: watching cartoons “Kuzya the Little Brownie”, “Little Baba Yaga”, “Uncle Au”, “Flying Ship”, “Koschei the Immortal”, “Finist - the Clear Falcon”.
Equipment: illustrations with images of fairy-tale characters.
Progress of the conversation:
Organizational moment.
Our ancestors believed in different creatures inhabiting everything that surrounded a person. Some were considered kind because they coexisted peacefully with people, helped them and protected them in every possible way. Others were considered evil because they harmed people and were capable of murder.
These creatures differ from each other in appearance, abilities, place of residence and way of life. Thus, some creatures outwardly resemble animals, others resemble people, and others do not resemble anyone else. Some of them live in forests and seas, others live directly next to people, sometimes even in their homes. Fairy tales describe them in detail appearance, way of life, ways to appease certain creatures or how to survive when meeting them.
Today I want to tell you about several such creatures.
Conversation.
Babai . Yes, yes, the same Babai with whom many were scared. The name "babai" means old man, grandfather. This word refers to something mysterious, unwanted and dangerous. Babai is a scary, lopsided old man. He wanders the streets with a stick. Meeting him is dangerous, especially for children. Even modern mothers and grandmothers can sometimes tell a naughty child that if he doesn’t eat well, the old woman will take him away. After all, he walks under the windows, as in ancient times.
Brownie
- a good spirit, guardian of the house and everything in it. The brownie looks like a small old man (20-30 centimeters tall) with a large beard. The brownie lives in almost every home, choosing secluded places to live: behind the stove, under the threshold, in the attic, behind a chest, in a corner, or even in a chimney.
The brownie takes every possible care of his home and the family that lives in it, protecting them from evil spirits and misfortunes. If a family keeps animals, then the brownie will look after them; the kind spirit especially loves horses. The brownie loves cleanliness and order in the house, and does not like it when the inhabitants of the house are lazy. But much stronger spirit does not like it when the residents of the house begin to quarrel with each other or treat him with disrespect. Then the angry brownie begins to knock on doors and windows; interferes with sleep at night, making terrible sounds or screams, sometimes even wakes a person up, pinching him painfully, after which large bruises remain on the body; and in extreme cases, the spirit is capable of throwing dishes, writing bad messages on the walls and starting small fires. However, the brownie will not cause serious harm to a person, and sometimes the spirit living in the house plays pranks without any particular reason.
Water.
The merman cannot be called either evil or good - he is a spirit guarding his body of water, which, however, does not mind playing tricks on those who come there. The merman looks like an old man with a large beard and a fish tail instead of legs, the old man's hair has a green tint, and his eyes look like fish. During the day, the merman prefers to remain at the bottom of the reservoir, and with the rising of the moon it rises to the surface. The spirit prefers to move around the pond on horseback, mostly swimming on catfish.
The spirit lives in rivers, lakes, swamps. However, sometimes it comes onto land and appears in nearby villages. In reservoirs, the merman prefers to choose the deepest places for his dwelling. The vodyanoy guards his body of water and does not forgive those who treat him disrespectfully: the offending spirit can drown or severely injure. However, the merman can also reward people: it is believed that the merman can give a good catch, but he is also capable of leaving the fisherman without a single fish at all. The spirit also loves to play pranks: he scares people at night with strange screams, he can pretend to be a drowned man or a baby, and when he is pulled into a boat or pulled ashore, he will open his eyes, laugh and flop back into the water.
It is almost impossible to fight a merman in his native element, but you can scare him away from you with iron or copper, which in the end will only anger him more. Therefore, in ancient times they preferred not to anger the merman, and if he became angry, they tried to appease the spirit by throwing bread into the water.Mermaids.
Mermaids serve the merman. According to people's beliefs, drowned women and children became mermaids. Mermaids have eternal youth and beauty, they have green hair and enchanting voices. On clear summer nights they play, dance and sing on the banks of rivers, swing on tree branches, and weave wreaths. In the summer, during Mermaid Week, mermaids come out of the water and dance in circles in the fields. Many thought that where the mermaid passed, there would be better bread to be born. Meeting with mermaids is dangerous: they can tickle the person they meet to death or drag him into the water.
Bannik - the spirit that lives in the bathhouse. The bannik looks like a small, skinny old man with a long beard. He has no clothes on, but his whole body is covered with broom leaves. Despite its size, the old spirit is very strong; it can easily knock down a person and drag him around the bathhouse. Bannik is a rather cruel spirit: he loves to scare those who come to the bathhouse with terrible screams, and can also throw hot stones from the stove or scald with boiling water. Bannik doesn't like it when people disturb him at night. But if the bannik is angry, then you can appease him: leaving him a piece of rye bread sprinkled with coarse salt. Just like the merman, the bannik is afraid of iron.
Kikimora- an evil spirit that sends nightmares to a person. In appearance, the kikimora is very thin and small: her head is the size of a thimble, and her body is thin as a reed; she wears neither shoes nor clothes and remains invisible most of the time. During the day, kikimoras sleep, and at night they begin to play pranks, performing small pranks: they either knock on something at night, or they begin to creak. The kikimora's favorite pastime is spinning yarn: sometimes he sits in the corner at night and starts working, and so on until the morning, but this work is of no use, it only tangles the threads and breaks the yarn. Kikimors prefer to live in human houses, choosing secluded places for themselves: behind the stove, under the threshold, in the attic, behind the chest, in the corner.
Baba Yaga - a fairy-tale Russian character who lives in a dense forest; witch. Let's answer the question: who is the fabulous Baba Yaga? This is an old evil witch who lives in a deep forest in a hut on chicken legs, flies in a mortar, chasing it with a pestle and covering her tracks with a broom. Loves to feast on small children and good fellows. However, in some fairy tales, Baba Yaga is not evil at all: she helps a good fellow, giving him something magical or showing him the way to it.
Ovinnik - in Slavic beliefs, he is in charge of the barn and barn. He looks after the cattle and combs the manes of his favorite horses. He makes sure that the fox does not drag away small ducklings and chicks. Kind spirit for children.
III . Summing up.
There are other spirits that Russian people believed in. You can learn about them when you grow up a little. Should we be afraid of these spirits? All of them are fairy-tale characters. We met them by reading fairy tales. And now I just reminded you of them.
Target: formation of a respectful attitude towards the traditions of Russian people.
Tasks:
— expand initial ideas about people’s faith in natural, earthly and unearthly forces, cult attributes (temple, icon, cross, holy books);
- cultivate cognitive interest in the culture of one’s people;
— to develop skills in the practical application of information in gaming activities.
Equipment: a letter, a pre-designed cover and sheets for a homemade children's book “What the Russian People Believed”, a painting by V. Vasnetsov “The Bogatyr Outpost”, an audio recording of the music by M. Mussorgsky “The Bogatyr Gate” from the series “Pictures at an Exhibition”, small-sized pictures- coloring books with outline images of Russian heroes, colored pencils and markers, audio player.
Progress of the lesson
Educator. Guys, we received a letter from a teacher from the Tatar kindergarten. In her letter, she said that in their group there are many different books about the life of Russian people, but there is no one that tells what the Russian people believed. Who did the teacher turn to with a request to help her find a book that would have a lot of pictures and games on this topic. After all, small children love to look at pictures and play different games! But, unfortunately, she could not find it anywhere. At her request, the parents of children from the Tatar kindergarten even went to Perm to look for it in bookstores, but such a book is not available anywhere. Suddenly she found out that there are guys who were told and read a lot about what the Russian people believed in, what you can do yourself interesting books, so she decided to ask you to make such a book for the children of her group. Guys, do you agree to make a book for children from the Tatar kindergarten?
Children. Yes.
Educator. And to make the book interesting, I propose today in class to remember everything you know about what the Russian people believed. Previously, people believed in various unearthly forces. Which ones?
Children. In brownie, goblin, water.
Educator. Guys, who is a brownie?
Children. This is a good spirit, he lives in the house.
Educator. Yes, Russian people believed that in every house, in the attic or behind the stove, there lives a good spirit - a brownie. Guys, why did our ancestors consider him kind?
Children. He kept order, looked after animals, and warned about fire.
Educator. Russian people believed that if you maintain a good relationship with a brownie (treat him with a kind word, leave some tasty food), he will return kindness for kindness (take care of livestock, help keep the house in order, warn of impending misfortune). They believed that he took care of the children, loved to play and play pranks with them. Russian people have always treated the brownie with respect. How affectionately did they call him?
Children.“Grandfather-next-door”, “hostess-master”. Many songs, fairy tales, and games have been invented about the brownie. I suggest playing one of these games.
Game "Ayushki"
A child is selected to play the role of Kuzy by a counting rhyme.
Children. Kuzya!
Kuzya. Ayushki!
Children. Where have you been?
Kuzya. At the hostess's.
Children. What did you bring?
Kuzya. Pancakes.
Children. Where are they?
Kuzya. Under the bench.
Children. What a weirdo! We would put the pancakes on the table and eat them. Kuzya!
Kuzya. Ayushki!
Kuzya looks out.
Children. Where have you been?
Kuzya. At the hostess's.
Children. What did you bring?
Kuzya. Boots.
Children. Where are they?
Kuzya. And I put it on the table and ate it, as you ordered.
Children laugh.
The game can be repeated 2-3 times, changing the words.
Educator. Guys, who will we talk about on the first page of our book?
Children. About the brownie.
Educator. What can we put here?
Children. Our drawings and portraits of the brownie, stories about him, a description of the game “Ayushki”, a song about Kuzya.
Educator. Who can we be told about on the second page of the book?
Children. About the devil.
Educator. Who is the devil?
Children. People thought that he lived in the forest, that he was in charge there.
Educator. Yes, Russian people believed that a goblin lives in the forest, that he is in charge there, commands the birds and animals. How did Russian people treat the devil?
Children. They left him treats on the tree stumps and thanked him for the mushrooms and berries.
Educator. Yes, our ancestors believed that a goblin not only could “get lost” in the forest, play pranks, scare people, but often also help a person, especially if that person respected him in some way.
Therefore, they left him treats on the stumps, thanked him for the mushrooms and berries, and asked permission to pick them. Listen to the fairy tale about the goblin, which was invented by the Russian people. On a stormy night, a stranger, cold and wet, asked to come into the hut. The man let him in, fed him and put him to bed, but the next morning, when he began to give him money for lodging for the night, he didn’t take it, he refused. Saying goodbye, a passerby said to him: “Let the cows walk into my forest without a shepherd; not a single animal will offend.”
What do you guys think, who asked to spend the night with the guy?
Children. Leshy.
Educator. How did the goblin thank the man?
Children. He began to graze cows in the forest.
Educator. In your opinion, was the goblin good or evil?
Children. Kind.
Physical education lesson “One - fungus, two - fungus”
A goblin walked along the path,
I found a mushroom in a clearing.
(Children walk in place.)
One - fungus, two - fungus,
Here's the full box.
(They squat.)
The goblin groans - he’s tired,
Because I was squatting.
The goblin stretched sweetly,
(Stretch.)
And then he bent backwards
And then he leaned forward
And reached the floor
(Bend over.)
He turned both left and right.
(Turns the body.)
Leshy performed a warm-up
And he sat down on the path.
(They sit down.)
Educator. What will we put on the second page of our book?
Children. We can draw pictures for a fairy tale, a portrait of a devil.
Educator. Guys, what other unearthly power, besides the brownie and the goblin, did the Russian people believe in?
Children. In the merman.
Educator. What can you tell us about the merman in our book?
Children. He was a kind spirit who lived in the water.
Educator. Russian people believed that if you treat the merman kindly (thank him, talk to him kindly, leave him a treat), he will not break the net and will not be pulled under the water. Our ancestors treated the merman with respect; many songs, fairy tales, and games have been invented about him. I suggest you play one of them.
Russian folk game "Water"
The players hold hands and form a circle. The driver is selected - “water”. He closes his eyes and squats down in the center of the circle. The players go in a circle and say:
Grandfather is a merman,
Why are you standing under water?
Go out for at least an hour
And catch one of us!
Then they say: “Night!” and squat, and the “water” with eyes closed walks in any direction, trying to catch someone. Having caught the player, the “merman” tries to find out who he grabbed: he feels his head and clothes. If he recognizes the one caught, the latter becomes a “merman”.
Educator. Guys, can we talk about this game in our book?
The children answer.
I think everyone will like it.
In addition to unearthly forces, the Slavs highly valued earthly forces. What earthly powers did they believe in?
Children. By virtue of the Russian heroes who protected from enemies native land.
Educator. What Russian heroes do you know?
Children. Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich.
Educator. Songs and epics were written about them. What are epics?
Children. These are stories about the exploits of heroes.
Educator. Yes, epics are stories about the battles of heroes, about the exploits they performed defending their native land. Before there was no television, how were songs and epics transmitted from one person to another?
Children. Guslars.
Educator. Yes, guys, songs and epics were passed down from generation to generation by special songwriters - guslars. How did they do this?
Children. They walked from one city or village to another.
Educator. That's right, they walked from city to city, from village to village. To the sound of the gusli, guslar songwriters told people about the military battles of Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich, the strength and glory of Mother Russia, the love and loyalty of the Russian people.
A painting by V. Vasnetsov “Bogatyrskaya Outpost” is hanging. It sounds! music by M. Mussorgsky “Bogatyr Gate” from the cycle “Pictures from | exhibitions."
Listen to an excerpt from the epic “Russian Heroes”.
Here are all the heroes, all the Holy Russians,
They mounted good horses,
And we drove along the expanse of open fields...
And from that mountain and from high
The old Cossack and Ilya Muromets saw,
Otherwise, the heroes are riding in an open field,
And then they ride on good horses,
And he set off from the high mountain,
And he drove up to the heroes of the Holy Russians,
He stood next to them.
Guys, I suggest you color the pictures with | heroes and beautifully place them on the next page of our book.
Children color small-sized coloring pictures with | outline images of the heroes and then combine them all on the page of the future book into one collage called “The Heroic Army”.
Guys, listen to the proverb about faith, which we will also write down in our book “Faith will move a mountain.” What does it mean?
Children. Faith helps a person.
Educator. It means that faith gives strength. It is impossible to live without faith. All people believe in something. Which of you believes in what?
Children. Into the sun, magic, squirrels, fairy tales, joy, the Firebird.
Educator. Each of you believes in something different, but everything you believe in can be called in one word - “good.” Everything that the Russian people believed in can also be called this word. They believed that good is stronger than evil, that it always wins. We will write this beautiful word “good” on the last page of our book, and next to it we will place our drawings about what we believe in. Guys, let's once again look at the pages of our book about what the Russian people believed.
The teacher looks at the pages of the book with the children.
Do you think the teacher and children from the Tatar kindergarten will like our book?
Children. Yes.
Educator. Why do you think so?
Children. The book has a lot of pictures and games, we came up with interesting stories.
Educator. I also think that everyone will really like our book.
Today in Russia a situation has arisen in which the Russian religious idea is gaining an increasing place in political life our country.
The “Pussy-Rayot” affair, which could have passed unnoticed in any European country, has acquired in Russia dimensions unimaginable for a modern European, which can only be compared with the reaction of Muslim countries to attempts by “non-believers” to violate the inviolability of the Koran or the Prophet. The reaction of the state and believers to what happened in the XX century exposed a hidden, but latently growing confrontation and touched the central pain nerve of Russian society. A conflict was revealed between the very furious, militant assertion that “God exists,” and the no less militant assertion that “There is no God.” These two extremes in Russia have always been and are still in heated confrontation. In the modern world, such tension can be observed exclusively in Muslim society. We will not see anything similar in other Christian countries, even in Orthodox countries - Greece or Bulgaria.
This irrational reaction of Russian society to the blasphemy of punk girls made me think that our civilization is to some extent closer to Islamic than to Christian. And then I thought about what Russian people know about God.
Remember the huge queues at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior - to the belt of the Virgin Mary. Remember the separate entrance for VIPs, to which limousines drove up, and European-dressed officials, active communists in the recent past, with a concentrated look dived under the sacred relic, bypassing general queue... Personally, I see something very ancient in this - most likely, paganism, which was preserved in Russian Orthodoxy and has not yet been eradicated.
What does this mean?
After the adoption of Christianity, instead of pagan talismans and amulets, icons and crosses began to be made according to Byzantine models, which would protect against disasters and illnesses. For the Russian Orthodox, any object or artifact associated with faith - a cross, an amulet, a belt - is sacred, a kind of materialization of God. This comes from paganism, because the god of the pagan is OUTSIDE HIS PERSONALITY, he is a powerful neighbor - in the sky or in the water or in the forest. It was difficult for ancient, archaic man to imagine a deity without his material embodiment, a totem.
This embodiment can be made of marble, wood or clay, but most importantly, it can be touched, hung around your neck or even carved! Leo Tolstoy, in his reflections on Russian religiosity, noted that the pagan belief in the spirituality of an object passed into Russian Orthodoxy and was not eradicated.
Why was paganism never eradicated in Russia? Probably because Russian religious consciousness was historically deprived of the process of mental comprehension of God - intellectualization religious consciousness, - through which other Christian denominations passed. That is why the comprehension of his attitude to faith and to Christ, the search for God in his soul, led Leo Tolstoy to very radical conclusions. In a letter to the Synod, he wrote: “If He (Christ) came now and saw what is being done in his name in the church, then he... would probably throw out all these terrible... crosses, and bowls, and candles, and icons , and all that by means of which they, through sorcery, hide God and his teachings from people..." (L.N. Tolstoy “Response to the Synod”, 1901)
The phenomenon of thousands of queues to the belt of the Virgin Mary, characteristic of today's Russia, is infinitely far from modernity, I would say, separated by centuries. And if such a pilgrimage can still be imagined in peasant southern Italy, then in Northern Europe it is simply unthinkable. How can we explain this difference?
The fact is that since the advent of Christianity in Europe, theological disputes have never ceased. For millennia, free thought was not afraid to question any theses and rituals of Christianity. Russian religious culture excluded this right and was built only on faith - religious thought did not exist in Russia until the middle of the 19th century. Instead of the right to think about God, Russian people had the obligation to truly believe.
Vasily Klyuchevsky wrote in 1898 that “... Along with the great benefits that the Byzantine influence brought us, we also learned from it one big drawback. The source of this drawback was one thing - the excess of the influence itself. Entire centuries of Greek, and after them Russian shepherds and the books taught us to believe, to believe in everything and to believe in everything. This was very good, because at the age we lived through in those centuries, faith was the only force that could create a tolerable moral community. But what was not good was that. at the same time, we were forbidden to think - and this was bad most of all because at that time we already had no desire for this activity. We were pointed out to the temptations of thought before it began to tempt us, we were warned against abusing it when we did not yet. knew how to use it... We were told: believe, but do not think. We began to fear thought as a sin, an inquisitive mind, as a seducer, before we knew how to think, before our inquisitiveness awoke. thought, we took it on faith. It turned out that we turned scientific truths into dogmas, scientific authorities became fetishes for us, the temple of sciences became for us a temple of scientific superstitions and prejudices. We were freethinking in the Old Believer way, Voltairian in the Avvakum way. Just as the Old Believers broke with the church because of church rites, so we were ready to break with science because of an incomprehensible scientific thesis. The content of the thought changed, but the method of thinking remained the same. Under Byzantine influence we were slaves of someone else's faith; under Western European influence we became slaves of someone else's thought. (Thought without morality is thoughtlessness; morality without thought is fanaticism) (V.O. Klyuchevsky “Unpublished works. Belief and thinking,” 1898)
Klyuchevsky’s thought is the deepest penetration into the essence of not only Russian thinking, but also the way of life of the Russian person. Russian culture was, of course, determined by many factors, but
the method of thinking was introduced by a special form of Orthodoxy, in which this religion came to Rus'.
But, pointing out the positive and negative consequences of Russia’s adoption of Orthodoxy, Klyuchevsky did not answer the question of why the thinking of an Orthodox Russian person was deprived of the right to doubt. Let's try to find the answers ourselves.
The division of Christianity into two branches began somewhere in the 4th-5th centuries. It arose quite naturally, because the two great ancient civilizations - Greek and Latin - despite all their cardinal differences, continued to coexist. These two great cultures determined the emergence of two religious and political centers: the eastern - Byzantium and the western - Rome. But the method of thinking in both civilizations remained European. This is easy to see if you look at the works of patristic philosophers. The Holy Fathers of both the Eastern and Western Churches were exceptionally educated, they spoke three languages - Greek, Judaic and Latin. That is, they operated with common tools of logic and sophistry. The art of eloquence and polemics was a means of finding truth and the reason for the development of European theology, including Byzantine. Theologians competed in eloquence and logic even in Byzantine bazaars!
But, unfortunately, the philosopher Chaadaev was right - “the time of great motives, great achievements, great passions” did not touch Rus': “First wild barbarism, then crude superstition, then foreign domination, cruel and humiliating...” (P.Ya. Chaadaev "Philosophical Letters", 1836). When the Vikings came to Rus' in the 8th-9th centuries, the Eastern European plain was populated by scattered wild, barbarian tribes of Slavs and Finns. The tribes were at an extremely low civilizational level with deeply rooted paganism and a communal tribal system. The Slavs had no idea about the market and trade. They did not have their own written language, let alone the science of philosophy. The Vikings colonized these completely barbaric territories and lived in them as Christian communities in closed enclaves, without mixing with the natives. The enslaved pagans were called "smerds".
In 863, Cyril and Methodius translated the Gospel into Church Slavonic. First they brought their work to Bulgaria, and then to Rus'. The work of Cyril and Methodius led to an incredible democratization of Christian teaching itself. And that's wonderful. But, on the other hand, being translated into Old Slavic, it interrupted the connection of the teaching itself with its philosophical justification, with the cultural roots of ancient European civilization. We received Orthodoxy as a guide to unquestioning adherence without the possibility of logical analysis, since, deprived of Greek and Latin, we did not have the opportunity to understand ancient philosophy or sophistry. Our virgin pagan consciousness never learned what a culture of discussion is. As a result, we began to perceive any attempt at a critical understanding of religion with pagan trepidation - as a mortal sin.
Therefore, if in Western Europe The development of universities began in monasteries and religious centers; in Rus', monasteries became security outposts of the only and infallible truth. It is not surprising that in Russia the university as an independent institution arose six centuries later, for the university is a debate. It is also not surprising that it immediately became a hotbed of sedition and freedom and subsequently existed under the watchful eye of the Tsarist Secret Service and under the constant threat of closure.
It can be said that for almost nine hundred years, critical reflection on the Christian faith had no right to exist in Russia and was mercilessly punished.
At a time when the building of modern civilization was being erected in the West, Orthodox Rus' was fighting against paganism. Studying the history of the baptism of Rus', I was surprised by the cruelty with which the eradication of paganism was carried out. It was a bloody process. And yet, paganism is still alive in our culture. So one can even now observe a kind of “dual faith”.
But not everyone knows that at a certain period in the Moscow land there was even “three religions”! Quite a “mixture” of Christian saints, pagan gods and Allah. The religion common to Muscovy and the Horde was a strange symbiosis of Islam and Arian Christianity (in which Jesus and Mohammed are equal!), and the division of faith occurred in 1589, when Kazan adopted pure Islam.
Russian philosopher G.P. Fedotov wrote: “There is one area of medieval Rus' where the influence of Tatarism is felt more strongly - at first almost a point, then a blurring spot that covers the entire eastern Rus' for two centuries. This is Moscow - the “gatherer” of the Russian land. Obliged by its by elevating, first of all, the Tatarophile and treacherous policies of its first princes, Moscow, thanks to this policy, ensures the peace and security of its territory... Tatar orders are introduced in Moscow land in administration, court, and collection of tribute (In Muscovy at that time they wore Islamic clothing, women wore veils and sat secluded. in the towers, when meeting, the Muscovites said to each other “Salom”). Not only from the outside, but from the inside, the Tatar element took possession of the soul of Rus', penetrated into flesh and blood...” (G.P. Fedotov “Russia and Freedom”, 1945)
During the Horde period, the Turkic language had a radical influence on the language of Rus'. For example, the well-known “Walk beyond the Three Seas” by Afanasy Nikitin begins with a Turkic-Arabic prayer from the Koran, written in Slavic: “...By the grace of God, the three seas passed away. akbir, akshi Khudo, ilello aksh Khodo.
Such an exotic symbiosis of several faiths, “three religions,” could not but affect the formation of Russian religious consciousness.
And at this time in Europe, in the sphere of influence of the Catholic Church, the rapid development of cities was taking place, the bourgeoisie was strengthening, civic consciousness was emerging, and the concept of Personality was taking shape.
What does "urban consciousness" mean? This is not a place to live or work in the city. This is a complex of ideas and awareness of one’s responsibilities and rights. This is the consciousness of a person who earns money not by using someone else’s land, but by his own knowledge, skill, specialty, and freely sells the fruits of his labor. When such a person gains economic independence, he begins to demand political freedoms. As soon as a person demanded political freedoms, he became an individual, a citizen. The emergence of the bourgeoisie led to the evolution of religious consciousness in Europe.
In Rus', due to political and economic reasons, cities did not arise on the Western model - political entities with independent self-government, with market relations, with rights enshrined legally, which is called Magdeburg law.
In Muscovy there was not a single, I emphasize - not a single (!) - city with Magdeburg law. In Ukraine, about 60 cities used Magdeburg Law, in Belarus - about 40, and in Russia - not a single one! True, Novgorod and Pskov had self-government, trade and crafts developed there. But where did they end up? They were destroyed by Muscovy. All rulers tried to destroy them, starting with Alexander Nevsky.
Novgorod and Pskov resisted Moscow totalitarianism for three centuries, until Ivan the Terrible drowned everything in blood.
Therefore, in Russia, the peasant communal-clan consciousness remained intact, since a national bourgeoisie did not arise.
I can’t help but digress from the topic and say a few words about Alexander Nevsky. The confrontation between this prince and the freedom-loving Novgorodians - let's say, is not very convenient for historians and apologists of Alexander Nevsky. When the Novgorodians rebelled and drove out his son Vasily, Alexander rushed to the Horde and set the Tatars against the recalcitrant Republicans. For two decades, Novgorod and Pskov were subjected to the cruelest terror of Alexander and the Horde, but they did not give up.
It seems to me that for now official history our country will remain distorted along ideological lines, we will not be able to understand the cause-and-effect relationships that explain why we are the way we are.
What happened to European religious thought in the 15th - 16th centuries?
The emerging bourgeoisie wanted to consciously comprehend its relationship with God. When a person felt like an individual, felt that his success depended on him personally, and not on the priest, as God’s vicegerent on earth, a protest movement arose against the self-interest and lust for power of the Catholic Church, which always tried to crush secular power under itself. There are no totems in Protestantism; the only sacred thing in it is the Bible. Read and live by it. And if someone wears a cross, then for him this cross is simply a symbol of his belonging to a religion, and not a magical object that protects against evil, like a bear tooth for a Tungus or feathers for an Indian. For a Catholic, and even more so for a Protestant, the dependence on miraculous relics is gone. The awareness has emerged that God is your constant and strict Judge, whose presence in your soul and consciousness precisely requires personal responsibility from you. And not only before God, but before brothers, before children and parents.
This personal, individual, and, most importantly, ANONYMOUS responsibility of a person before God is the basis modern society- conscientious work, paying taxes, a strong family, no street children on the streets. Personal anonymous responsibility is the cornerstone of the modern state and society.
I am convinced that archaic consciousness has been preserved in Russia to this day, and the majority of the population of our country still lives in a “pre-bourgeois” society. In this sense, our state has more common features with African states than with European ones. This explains the absence of civil society in Russia: there are no citizens, there is a population.
Peter the Great made a radical attempt to return Russia to Europe. Petrine reforms marked the beginning of a new type of Russian. We can say that these reforms gave birth to another people - Russian Europeans, who, according to their beliefs, have nothing in common with the huge mass of Russian people living in a semi-pagan state.
This small people is a “small people,” the Slavophile Khomyakov compared it to a European settlement abandoned in the country of savages (“big people”), and in two hundred years, developing and multiplying, it created the entire culture that Russia is proud of today. We say: “our ballet, our Tchaikovsky, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Pushkin.” Everything that was created in just two hundred years, everything that influenced and enriched world culture, was created by a “small” nation of Russian Europeans.
If Peter the Great had not existed in history, what would we know? What would we influence?
Russia as a great cultural country entered the world stage only after Peter. But the existence of two peoples, directly opposed in their ideals and beliefs, could not but lead to disaster. And it happened: in 1918, the Tsar - “the only European” (in Pushkin’s words) was shot in the Ipatiev House, and then the rest of the representatives of European Russia began to be driven through the streets, sent away on “philosophical ships” and simply shot. Lenin openly admitted: “We do not shoot for crimes, we shoot for belonging to a class.” And this class was the class of “white” Russians. But by 1940, European Russia was over. Rus' and Muscovy remained. We still live in it to this day!
I have been studying the connection between a nation's culture and its economic development for twenty years. I am interested in how much the “national characteristics” of a people influence the political system of their country. The Argentine sociologist Grondona and the American cultural scientist Harrison devoted their lives to precisely these issues. Both of them came to the conclusion that there are dynamic cultures, i.e. easily accepting changes, and “inert” cultures that resist any changes and are hostile to attempts at modernization. Grondona came to the conclusion that the Argentinean mentality is difficult to change, say, in contrast to the Brazilian mentality. He explained this by the fact that cultural codes, these unwritten laws that determine a person’s daily behavior, his relationships with his family, his work ethic, his ability to organize his life, are formed under the influence of many factors - climate, geography, history, etc. d.
Harrison discovered that religion is an essential factor shaping culture. And when he classified countries by religion, he came to an irrefutable conclusion: countries with different dominant religions have different economic performance. (L. Harrison "Who Prospers", 1993).
According to the so-called UN Human Development Index, in which the most developed country ranks first, and the most backward - 162nd. Countries professing Christianity, according to the UN report on the 2001 Human Development Index, are located as follows:
Protestant countries - 9.2
Catholic - 58.3
Orthodox - 58.9
This fact amazed me, and it seems to me that in Russia it is simply ignored! But it requires serious study and analysis in Russia with the participation of historians, sociologists, theosophists, cultural experts and politicians. Look at the chaos in the most European Orthodox country - Greece. This is not Protestant Estonia, in which there is nothing at all except granite and herring, but there was and is order. But in Greece, not a single reform is taking place. Or Cyprus, where all the money that was pumped into the EU went into someone's pockets. This only confirms that in Orthodox countries the attitude towards the law is very loose, because the ethical code itself is soft and vague. Especially in Russia.
If you ask a Russian person what kind of God he believes in, most likely he will answer that he is a God who will forgive everything. Maybe that’s why today, in addition to many simple and sincerely believing people, all the little guys and girls go to church? The all-forgiving Russian God gives notorious criminals the simple hope that visiting church and an icon in a jeep will provide him with atonement for all his mortal sins, and will also protect him from death at the next “arrow”. Only this can explain the widespread churching of criminals.
I will now return to the name that I proposed: what god does the Russian person believe in? Anton Pavlovich Chekhov wrote in 1897: “Between “there is God” and “there is no God” there lies a huge whole field, which a true sage traverses with great difficulty. Russian people know any one of these two extremes, but the middle between them is not interested him, and therefore he usually knows nothing or very little."
I will give here an analysis of Chekhov’s thoughts made by the wonderful Slavist Alexander Chudakov. Here is his reasoning:
First. “There is a God” and “there is no God” - these two concepts, Anton Pavlovich believes, separately either mean nothing or mean very little. They acquire meaning only when there is a field between them, through which only the sage passes.
Second. Anyone who is not interested in this field is simply not accustomed to thinking. A Russian person is only interested in the affirmation of either one or the other. He is not interested in the middle, the “field” - the intellectual, spiritual path that only a sage can follow.
Third: Chekhov did not indicate the vector: from “There is no God” to “There is a God” or vice versa, it doesn’t matter to him. The Path is important. It is not for nothing that Chekhov very often says in his works: it is not about God, but about the search for him. Real religion is in search of God.
And when Tolstoy wrote in the same letter to the Synod - “I believe in God, whom I understand as spirit, as love, as the beginning of everything. I believe that he is in me and I am in him...” - he meant exactly that he looked for God and found him! I found it in my soul, that is, I went through with great difficulty the “field” that a sage must go through. Now tell me, how many people in Russia walk along this “field” and do this mental work? An insignificant number! That is why Chekhov said that Russian people know nothing or very little about God!
Why is the Russian person not interested in the middle? Because his archaic, “pre-bourgeois” culture did not teach him to think, and for him, as a pagan, it is enough to touch the material embodiment of God - an icon, a cross, holy relics - in order to feel bodily closeness to the divine and receive peace. There is no room for doubt in such a worldview! Hence it turns out that, as Aksakov said, a Russian person is either a saint or a brute. There is no middle ground.
This pagan “passionarity” of the Russian people was especially clearly manifested in October 1917. The “great” Russian people entered the historical stage and immediately demonstrated a return to barbaric civilization, destroying the incomprehensible and hostile world of the “other” European Russia. Actually, Bolshevism blossomed as revenge, as revenge of the Russian “big” people - pagans who escaped from under the centuries-old oppression of Russian-Europeans and the institution of the church. How else can one explain that the majority of the Christian population of a huge country so willingly succumbed to atheistic, Marxist propaganda and began to mock religious temples and shrines, destroy the clergy and, with chilling inspiration, participate in the destruction of their brothers...
Alexander Chudakov emphasizes Chekhov's conviction that a truly religious person is free in his choice between one extreme and another. European humanism as an idea appeared precisely when man began to search for himself “between the saint and the beast.” It was then that the “pre-bourgeois” society gave way to a new formation. Russia still has to go through this difficult path of self-discovery.
The phenomenon of Russia lies in the fact that with its gigantic territory, powerful human resource, inexhaustible source of talent that supplies the whole world with scientists, musicians, athletes, dancers, with all this, Russian culture cannot and should not be self-sufficient, like Indian or Chinese, - no matter how much we lay claim to a “special path”, pursuing our own economic and political interests. It is time to cast aside false shame and admit that, from a historical point of view, Russia arose on the periphery of the Christian world, in the deepest province of Europe. And the beginnings of European thinking, without having time to develop, were distorted by the Mongol-Tatar invasion. This incompleteness of the civilizational process, interrupted by another archaic civilization that came from the East, has made us today unsure, not knowing which way to move, afraid to admit our backwardness and open ourselves to the cruel “winds” that blow in the modern world.
I ask myself: has the current leadership destroyed Russia, or has Russia “ruined” it? After all, many people, including the opposition, have a firm conviction that the government has ruined Russia. But this is nothing more than an illusion, and a very Russian one at that - the need to find someone to blame, abdicating personal responsibility.
And if Peter created the army, navy, courts and ministries, a semblance of European statehood, then Peter failed to overcome the Russian method of thinking, which Klyuchevsky wrote about, and create a single European people. It is clear that modern leaders will not succeed either. Muscovy is a powerful mental block that they failed to move aside or at least crumble. I have no doubt that if at first they had hopes of being able to push society towards the development of private initiative on the ground under strict state control, then subsequent years showed that local authorities instantly adopted the traditional feudal habits of Rus' and merged with the criminal (read feudal) consciousness of the most enterprising people. In a pre-bourgeois society, the only form of initiative can only be lawlessness.
I am convinced that the most important thing for us is to understand what and why is stopping us. And how can the prerequisites be created in Russia for the withdrawal of the “great” Russian people from the “pre-bourgeois” state. Create conditions under which Russian Europeans will become the majority. Only then will we have free religious thought, the Russian Orthodox Church will open to open dialogue with other Christian denominations, and people who are not afraid to doubt will be able to build a modern state.
The question of what kind of people will be created in Russia - Asian or European - will become the main historical choice of the future government.
How should ordinary Russian people treat Putin? For example, US Vice President Biden told representatives of the Russian opposition on Thursday that if he were Putin, he would never have gone to the 2012 elections, because it would be bad for both the country and himself. Such advice from an overseas uncle is very important for our liberals. But the rest need to choose their position in relation to the authorities themselves. Understand for yourself what is good and what is bad.
Although it will soon be a quarter of a century since our country entered an era of crisis, nothing lasts forever - the period of testing will end sooner or later. Everyone wants it to happen quickly, the majority wants Russia to emerge from it as a strong and self-confident power. But at the same time, few people are satisfied with the processes taking place in our country - everyone is dissatisfied with both the direction of development and the methods of governing the country. Lately, this dissatisfaction has been growing and becoming more and more violent.
But everyone is unhappy with different things...
Most noticeable is the dissatisfaction of a small but vocal group - liberals. This is a large part of the elite and high society, as well as the intelligentsia that has joined them. They don’t like both the fact that the highest power is in the hands of Putin and his associates (“bloody gebni”), and the fact that the ruling bureaucracy steals a lot, suppresses the free development of civil society and private business, and does little to globalize all aspects of life in Russia . In general, Russia is moving very slowly towards their beloved “European standard” (despite the fact that the “golden billion” itself is in the deepest crisis - both internal (loss of the will to live) and external, due to the upcoming change of world order). Society dislikes the people no less than the authorities - during the years of reforms they have called them names every time. In short, they are a slavish, lazy and xenophobic people.
Patriots – and this is a smaller part of the so-called. The intelligentsia and middle class, and at the same time the ordinary people who have joined them, express their discontent much more quietly. But not because they have fewer complaints - they just have much worse access to the media, and they do not live the blog life as actively. Patriots are dissatisfied with the fact that a social structure alien to the Russian spirit is being built in the country (wealth, like poverty, is inherited), the country is becoming less and less fair, and the youth are growing less and less national. The fact that we are being integrated deeper and deeper into globalist structures, the fact that the government is stealing, surrounded by Jews and favors Caucasians. But people are even more dissatisfied with the so-called. “society” - because it calls the people cattle and tries to teach the “correct” attitude towards life, family, work, history, and the Motherland.
For simplicity, let's call these two sides “good society” and “common people.”
The authorities are also dissatisfied - both with themselves (this is expressed), and with society (this is poorly hidden), and with the people (this is only breaking through). It is difficult to clearly formulate the preferences of the authorities - they are too heterogeneous. Consisting mostly of representatives of “good society”, it belongs to it in spirit (thievish and unprincipled) - but still, by virtue of its very function, it tries to restore order in the country and ensure its development.
But the problem is that the country has neither the goal of this development nor the principles that unite all - and without this nothing can be done. Why doesn’t the government take up the task of formulating the “Creed” and the “Ten Commandments”? Because at the top there is neither a team of like-minded people, nor a single will for a breakthrough. Everyone is busy with current problems: at best, state ones, at worst, personal ones. The most imagination can do is to assure that Skolkovo will allow us to break into world leadership.
But what about the real future? Does Putin seriously think that the current structure of the economy and society is capable of not only ensuring the real development of an empire (in the form of which only Russia can live), but even preserving the current squeezed Russian Federation? With such an “elite” that the people consider to be thieves (they stole state property in the 90s or are stealing from the budget now), with such a lack of ideals in the most idealistic country in the world, with such a crisis of justice and trust?
Of course, Putin also has a globalist load - an open and secret geopolitical game. The desire to provide Russia with safe external conditions for internal development, and not to be left in the cold during the ongoing reshaping of the world order - all this takes a lot of energy. It is precisely on the game behind the scenes that Putin’s main attention is focused. recent years. But this does not justify him at all - refusal of personnel and ideological work could cost Russia much more than any benefit from Blue Streams and Masonic oaths.
It is impossible in Russia, after a thousand years of striving for justice, after the Orthodox kingdom, empire, Soviet Union, invite everyone to live quietly family values, run your own personal business, and at the same time build an “effective state.” Even without other aggravating circumstances (the collapse of the 90s, the bastard elite, a “society” divorced from the people), this would not have worked.
We need to search for a new economic structure that takes into account all the achievements of the Soviet experience, national ideals of labor and economy. A fair, non-capitalist system with strong local self-government and a strong supreme power is what the Russian people will accept. Without games of presidential or parliamentary republics, without all this party tinsel, without oligarchs, without the cult of profit and consumption, without sycophancy and monkeying with the West. Three centuries of imitation of the West are coming to an end - as, by the way, is the West itself.
So what needs to happen for the authorities to begin to formulate the Russian future? Maybe civil protest is just what can motivate her to change? Or should it be overthrown altogether? Doesn't she have faith?
What do Russian people even believe in today?
What and who can be a guideline for a normal Russian person living in 2011? Which star should we check our path by, who should we follow? Or, in the absence of general guidelines, is everyone free to choose for themselves?
Putin? Human rights? Navalny? West? Faith? Stalin? Justice? Money? Russian people? Legality? Consumption? Pleasure? Career? Order? Globalization? Self-government? Autocracy? Will?
What unites the people - Stalin, justice, faith, the Russian people, order, will, Putin - infuriates society.
What unites society, what it worships - human rights, the West, consumption, globalization, money, career, pleasure - makes the Russian people sick.
But no one believes the government’s incantations about legality and modernization - because the people simply want a strict establishment of order, and society wants control over the government, or rather, the government itself.
This is where the temptation begins for a normal Russian person - how to defend national values if the government, through its inaction, leads to the fact that they will be desecrated and replaced with globalist dummies? So we need to demand a change in this government?
And since the liberals are the loudest in demanding Putin’s departure, is it not a sin to unite with them on this point? We may have different goals, but if we remove the corrupt regime, then we will deal with the liberals, since their cat cried, and no West will help them. And behind us are the whole people and the truth of our ancestors. Logical?
No - because there will be no “later”. Russia really hangs on Putin – what it is now. By removing it, we will get a second series of chaos, civil unrest and the collapse of the country.
And if not removed - decay and gradual destruction of the people and Russia?
No - because Putin must change and change the elite. Start a revolution from above. He can't help but do it.
Because continuation of the current course will lead to an explosion of socio-national contradictions and revolution. Or to a liberal revenge, an intra-elite coup, an acceleration of the globalization of Russia - with the same subsequent revolt of the indignant people. So, without changing, you cannot be saved. Neither Putin nor Russia.
