Comment by Evgeny Dainov:
I watched an interesting debate between truly insightful experts on Russia - an Englishman and an American. They were trying to understand what Russians are currently thinking. The English expert said something like:
- And yet, let's not forget that there is a humanistic heritage in the Russian psyche. Let's take Dostoevsky's novel "The Idiot", for example. The main character is something like a Buddhist - he loves people, he makes way for ants...
Well, yes - the American intervened - that's why everyone around him calls him an idiot…
What's wrong with Russians
If I'm right in my long-standing assertion that Russia is a country without history – that the accumulating events do not form a gradual formation of a national identity, but simply overlap one another in an endless present – then it makes sense to seek an answer to the question “What's wrong with Russians?“ by drilling back in time. What we see there – is the same today, in some form. Dostoevsky is a good starting point for such an exercise (Gogol is even better, but today Dostoevsky is the word).
I decided to slightly reformat the question to “Why do Russians look at us, Europeans, with such bad eyes?“. In search of the answer, I reread a travelogue by Dostoevsky, entitled “Winter Notes on Summer Impressions“. In 1862, already 40 years old, Dostoevsky went “outside“ for the first time (as Russians still say today). He toured Europe and shared his impressions.
Already at his first stop in Germany, in Berlin, Dostoevsky - this gigantic mind after all - reveals the typical Russian state of acceptance-rejection of Europe. He notes that Berlin is exactly like Petersburg: “…and why the hell did I stagger in the carriage for two days to see the same thing I left?“. It is both the same, and yet it is foreign and disgusting. Within hours, the author comes to the conclusion that "it takes a long time to get used to the German, but due to the lack of preparation, he is hard to bear in large numbers". Days later, already in Dresden, Dostoevsky concludes that "there is nothing more disgusting than the type of Dresden women".
A huge sense of inferiority
Arriving in Cologne, the writer looks at the new bridge - the pride of the city. And he is offended by it: "The bridge, of course, is excellent, but the city is too proud of it. Of course, I immediately got angry with him". He is even angrier when a "German" charges him a toll to cross it. He immediately comes to the following insight: "Maybe he realized that I am a foreigner and a Russian, to be exact. His eyes almost spoke: ‚Look at our bridge, you pitiful Russian - look what a worm you are in front of our bridge and in front of every German person…‘ This is, you must admit, insulting. The German, of course, hardly told me that, but all the same…“.
Entering into a mental conversation with him, Dostoevsky tells him: “The devil take it, we invented the samovar… we have magazines…“. The attempt at self-irony is obvious, but it does not hide that enormous feeling of inferiority that Russians feel to this day in Europe. They still expect that everyone is secretly making fun of them for being Russians. And, of course, they are offended by them, even if no one points a finger at them.
Even when they do not suspect the Europeans of mockery, Russians still rebel against European customs. Dostoevsky is no exception. On the way to Paris, again in a railway carriage, cared for as he had never been at home, Dostoevsky is again offended: “Well, they drive, they take care of you, what more do you need – and yet you feel sad that they take too much care of you, while you sit and do nothing. Indeed, one feels like jumping out of the carriage and running to him on his own two feet. Let it get worse, let me stumble, but if there is a catastrophe and the carriages overturn, I will not be locked inside…“.
The belief that Europe will be befallen by a catastrophe
“You don't want these comforts… And besides, as you sit comfortably and are pampered, sooner or later a catastrophe will befall you…“. The theme of the recent, already visible collapse of Europe is a constant theme in Russian culture, and Dostoevsky from 1862 is no exception. In Paris, he comes to the conclusion that Parisians are convinced that they have achieved the most ideal possible state and that from now on there is nothing to achieve. But - the author warns - they have paid a price: they have become so individualistic that they will soon be unable to live together. And since they have turned their backs on faith in the name of progress, sooner or later they will curse this state of theirs and destroy it in order to commit suicide.
London, too, according to Dostoevsky, will destroy itself, but for other reasons: it is too big, industrial, and aggressive. “This is a city day and night,“ he writes, “bustling and vast as the sea, with the scream and howl of machines, these pavements, this enterprise, this visible chaos, which is actually the bourgeois order, this poisoned Thames, this air poisoned by coal, the wild and half-naked population of the Whitechapel district, this City with its millions, the Crystal Palace…“
“Isn't this“, asks the main question of the Russian visitor, “the ideal finally achieved? Isn't this the end? Shouldn't we accept this as the complete truth and become completely silent?“. No, of course, because all this is doomed to collapse: “This is a biblical picture, there is something from Babylon, this is a prophecy of the Apocalypse, which is happening before our eyes“.
As signs of imminent collapse, Dostoevsky lists: paved sidewalks and streets; excessively bright night lighting provided by gas lamps; pubs, “equipped like palaces“; crowds of Londoners, wandering even at night along the illuminated streets to get to these pubs. For Dostoevsky, all this is terrible – a sign of the coming terrible end for these sinners who turned their backs on “palm branches and white robes“.
The theme of the enlightened individual and his self-development
Dostoevsky also develops another typically Russian theme - that Europe (until it has collapsed) is a duplicitous person who has abandoned what it declares it believes in. He is terribly angered by the slogan of the French Revolution “Liberty, equality, fraternity“. What is this freedom, he asks, which is “the freedom to do whatever you want - but within the limits of the law“? What is this, he continues, equality, which is actually only equality before the law?
In the conversation about the section “brotherhood“ Finally, what makes Europe terrifying in the eyes of Russians shines through: the theme of the autonomous individual, born during the Enlightenment and becoming the foundation of Western civilization. Where, Dostoevsky asks, can "Western man" get this brotherhood, since everything is subordinated to the personal principle, to self-determination, to self-development?
"Brotherhood cannot come from such self-development," the author snaps. The question is - why? Because Western man does not live in a "universal", collective way - because the Western personality is not completely dissolved in the collective. For Dostoevsky, brotherhood can only exist where “each individual, alone, without any coercion, without any benefit to himself, says to society: ‚We are strong only together, take me all, don't think about me while making laws, don't worry – I give you all my rights, please, dispose of me… I will self-destruct, I will cease to exist, as long as brotherhood flourishes‘“.
If it is based on reason, isn't it real?
There are, of course, historical situations in which you must be able to sacrifice yourself for the common good. This is the situation of the Ukrainians today, defending their country from the aggression of Dostoevsky's heirs. But the introduction of the extraordinary as everyday life, the mixing of momentary heroic self-sacrifice with everyday peaceful development – This is pure Russian nihilism and, let's face it, laziness. As Dostoevsky himself wrote about Russians: "We do not like everyday work, we are not in the habit of going step by step, but want to fly to the goal in one leap - or to fall into Gehenna."
If it is not heroic - it is not real. If it is not collective - it is not brotherhood. Excessive lighting of the night streets turns people away from the "white robes" of Christ. And - finally - if it is based on reason, it is not real; everything real is "based on feeling, on nature, and not on reason." That is precisely why there is a denial of industry, progress, law, the individual: these things do not exist in nature. They are artificial things invented by people on the basis of reason.
The power of reason is at the heart of Europe - and it is this reason that infuriates the Russian soul and makes it such an uncompromising opponent of ours.