Liudmila Ryabova

Thank you to the organizers of this forum for the opportunity to speak here on behalf of historians, especially since one of the priorities of the development of modern historical science is its interdisciplinary approach. Taking into consideration historical psychology, as well as social, political and cross-cultural psychology has become a methodological norm for the History researchers. I dare to assume that in the framework of psychology as a science, researchers and practitioners consider the historical experience of nations. In this sense, multidisciplinary and transnational scientific collaborations are designed to identify the common and special in the mentalities of peoples, in particular, in the framework of the problem discussed here. Although modern communication practices and globalization in general dilute the "mental boundaries", nevertheless, certain mythologies remain stable, and through manipulating them political elites influence large groups of the population, in fact, exploiting their historical memory. In my presentation I propose an overview (in the historical discourse only) of a number of settled stereotypes defining the "psychology of the Russian people".

The ratio "power-personality" in the history of Russia has always had its own specificity, which is largely confirmed by the Imperial history of St. Petersburg and the Peter and Paul fortress as its symbol. Political opposition (prince Alexei, cadets, members of the Temporary government), protest against the absolute power of the monarch (Decembrists), free political thought (Alexander Radishchev, Mikhail Bakunin, Sergei Nechaev, F. M. Dostoevsky, N. G. Chernyshevsky, etc.) were persecuted not only as an immediate threat to the monarchy or its official ideology, but also as an expression of someone Else's individuality and leadership, which was not typical of the Russian tradition (mentality). Although St. Petersburg reflects the Western orientation of its founder, Peter I, who confronted St. Petersburg to Moscow as a center of opposition and defense of the old world, key power constants were developed and consolidated here. After Peter the Great, the "Russian style" of government dominated also during the Imperial period of the Russian history.

The question of the mentality of nations still remains one of the most urgent in the framework of the concept of "Russia and the West". Historically formed features of "the people’s character" continue defining the behavioral dominants of collective and the individual to a considerable extent that, certainly, does not exclude a deviation from the developed stereotypes. In everyday practices, however, in the power of historical memory/historical instinct of the nation and the life of society, certain constants remain, including the features of the perception of authority at its various levels. Attitude "authority-society-individual" developed in the Russian tradition has become a defining marker of the Russian mentality.

In the history of Russia, the development of the specificity of understanding authority and the role of the individual was influenced by three main factors: religion (Orthodoxy), the Tatar-Mongolian period of history (yoke), geographical (spatial) factor.

Orthodoxy demanded from the Russian man, above all, humility, which was the main virtue, while pride was declared the main sin. The underdevelopment of personal principles did not presuppose leadership in the collective, where the basis of social life was conciliarity, community, solidarity. Breaking these foundations began only shortly before the First world war, and had no time to complete. The revolution of 1917 and then the long period of "Communist religion" re-cultivated collectivity under the leadership of the party. The lack of experience in Russia of individualism, private entrepreneurship, leadership (as the norms of European history) led in the years of perestroika to a distortion of the understanding and implementation in practice of these categories.

At the same time, in the Orthodox tradition, secular authority was declared "divine" (in contrast to the Catholic tradition, where the Pope is the messenger of God on earth, and kings are only the first among equals), and its sacredness was absolute throughout the history of Russia. Until 1917, Russia did not know anti-monarchist actions (except for the Decembrist movement), and popular uprisings with their leaders (Stepan Razin, Emelyan Pugachev, etc.) only confirmed a strong faith in the "good" Tsar (the events of January 9, 1905 weren’t the exception).

The Tatar-Mongol yoke brought another essential element to the Russian practice of authority – Eastern despotism. Combined with the idea of the sanctity of authority, it eventually formed a powerful repressive apparatus, strengthening the servility of subjects. Authoritarianism (reverence) as the Russian formula of authority has developed.

But the Tatar-Mongol period (1230-ies -1480) had another side. In the West, it was the period of chivalry, when the concepts of honor and heroism, behavioral standards were developed, and later were shaped in the legal code, which determined, among other things, human rights. Russia did not know that stage of personality development. As the Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev wrote, "honesty is the Western European ideal, the Russian ideal is Holiness."

The geographical factor of the Russian history (colonization of vast territories) required the centralization of authority to manage those spaces, the subordination of society to the state. At the same time in the conditions of serfdom (until 1961) in search of freedom, people fled from the center of the country to the outskirts, where outside the laws developed a purely the Russian idea of freedom – "the Russian will". This is what Nikolai Berdyaev said, noting that “the Western European man seeks freedom in the state, and the Russian one – freedom from the state”. Elements of the Russian understanding of freedom as "will" were, of course, preserved in the genetic memory of the nation and are manifested in the behavior of the individual in the XXI century.

Одновременно понимание необходимости защиты огромного государства от внешнего врага усиливало веру во власть, которая должна быть сильной, а государство могущественным. Как писал русский консервативный мыслитель Константин Леонтьев, нужно «меньше думать о благе и больше о силе. Поменьше так называемых прав…».

At the same time, understanding of the need to protect a huge state from an external enemy strengthened the belief in authority, that should be strong and the state should be powerful. As the Russian conservative thinker Konstantin Leontiev wrote, one should “think less about good and more about power. Less so-called rights...”.

Thus, the course of the Russian history has led to the development of the following features of the state: statism, paternalism, subordination of society to the state, power, the primacy of society over the individual, the underdevelopment of personal initiative. In the Russian tradition, the value of the state in society has always been higher than the value of the individual. At the same time, the role of the state was defined below the role of the monarch/Secretary General/President, i.e., in the row “power-state-personality” personality has been and still remains the last.

If we talk about the authority of the government as such (abstract, not specific at every stage of history), it is necessary, first of all, to note the ambivalence of attitudes to it in Russia.

First of all, it is necessary to take into account the separation of the concepts of "monarchy" and "authority" in the consciousness of the Russian people (in medieval and modern history). The former was identified with the latter as an idea and shared as a political practice, which was not the case in any European country where the attitude to power is always rational, concrete and practical. There the authority has been overthrown from the pedestal of Holiness, cut and decomposed into components, explained, subjected to scientific and philosophical analysis, clothed in legal norms, in other words, grounded, i.e. it has been "touched by hands", and, not only by professionals, theorists-intellectuals (Machiavelli, Hobbes, J. Locke, S. Montesquieu), but also the people (parliaments, city courts, etc.). It is possible in the West (in England, for example) the formula of authority "the Sovereign reigns, but does not rule" was impossible in Russia.

Another feature of the Russian attitude to authority is related to its unprofessionalism. The matter is that in Russia even by the end of the XIXth century the class of professionals, intellectuals from policy wasn't created yet, the synthesized (education - professional specialization - policy) universal on a national scale social institute (mechanism) on training "staff" for the state wasn't developed. In Europe that practice has existed for more than two centuries. These were strictly elitist structures (corporate and management-oriented), which did not allow democratic strata into their environment, and quite diverse authority bodies, which constituted the “civil servants’ apparatus”.

In Russia, for a long time (up to the Soviet period), the training of "state people" was not carried out at the state level. In contrast to the countries of the Western Europe, where a certain model of power has been functioning and within its framework "brought-up" intellectuals-management practitioners, Russia was constantly in a state of search for that model in its optimal version. Therefore, if "state people" - intellectuals/leaders - appeared in the authorities, political horizons of Russia, they were happily eventual people (as, for example, M.M. Speransky or S.Yu. Witte), or by birth "doomed to authority" and again by happy coincidence turned out to be able to manage. Unprofessionalism of the power as a distinctive feature, certainly, did not promote trust and respect to it.

On the other hand, the Supreme authority has always been seen as "sinful", dirty and hence-squeamish attitude to it, traditionally peculiar not only to the intelligence, but also to the people. L. N. Tolstoy wrote: "the Russian people have always treated power differently than the European nations. The Russian people have never struggled with power, and, most importantly, did not participate in it, did not corrupt participation in it. The Russian people have always looked at power not as a benefit... but looked always as on evil, from which man should keep distance. The majority, therefore, have always preferred to bear the bodily calamities resulting from violence rather than the spiritual responsibility of participating in it... The reason of the attitude of the Russian people to power, I think, is due to the fact that in the Russian people, more than in other nations, true Christianity as the doctrine of brotherhood, equality, humility and love, the Christianity that makes a sharp distinction between submission to violence and obedience to it...". Later VV. Rozanov noted that the Russians, were characterized by “incompetence of power, lack of talent for it” because it is "no sinner".

The above mentioned in the framework of the historical introduction to the problem, however, should be defined only as a historical and cultural matrix, on which already in the twentieth century new properties were developed, for both society and the individual. The Soviet period of history made new demands on the “socialist” man. The development of such personal qualities as enthusiasm, initiative, leadership (within the framework of "socialist" competition, sports, studies) became the norm of the communist upbringing, which was reflected in everyday practices – " boards of honor ", the sign/title of "Hero of socialist labor", as well as in Soviet cinema, music (for example, "March of enthusiasts"), fine arts. However, the development of leadership was limited mainly to the sphere of labor, although it was cultivated in public organizations and, especially, in the Komsomol (Young Communist League). This was already the experience, although limited to the "leading role of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union)", of forming political leadership. Perestroika (since the mid-1980s) has opened a new niche for leadership - political pluralism, private property, business, in which the leadership skills developed in the Soviet period received freedom of expression, while maintaining a purely Russian specificity.