I
would say, NO. Maybe Russians do, but I would not be so certain however silly
it may sound. Living in western societies for many years and in Australia most
of the time, but being born Polish, arrogantly, I felt that I have an advantage
in the field of understanding the Russian soul in comparison to people around,
now I am not so sure. I am not sure how much I actually understand myself. OK,
so I have read Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Bunin and others. Even Pushkin as I had to
read Eugene Onegin at school. I even
learn some of it by heart. I have not read Nabokov, but this should not count
as he defected Russia and I do not consider him having a Russian soul so much.
I am planning to check it out as he seems to come to my mind rather often
recently. I like the Russian music, but not more than anybody else who likes
music. Definitely not more that Lech one of the people who comment sometimes on
my blog. I appreciate that there are so many famous Russian musicians famous in
the world. The nation seems to be more sensitive to feelings and changes in mood
than many others. It seems to stand out in the sensitivity department.
I
get mushy seeing birch forests, be it in reality when I go to Poland but I get
sentimental even seeing the trees on films. I am not sure if this is a normal
reaction because they are beautiful trees or it is because I have this purely eastern
liking and birch associations. Today I watched The Last Station, compliments of
Netflix, film about the last days of Tolstoy.
I loved the film, it fitted beautifully with my current mood and just
after I finished the book about Shostakovitch listening quite a bit to his
music. Helen Mirren played convincingly a hysterical wife of Tolstoy (aren’t
they all hysterical in Russian literature?) played by Christopher Plummer who was not himself
a symbol of composure and control over emotions. And the film is based on a
book by Jay Parini, an American writer. They all seem to understand the Russian
soul as well as Julian Barnes does. And they all gave me an opportunity to get
immersed in a very Russian climate and get emotional in the process. I realized
that my feeling of being comparatively a bit of an expert on a Russian soul
does not have grounds. I got humbled.
I think it is time to get out of the eastern climate
and read or see something more level headed. Like Bachelorette or more likely
some book by Alain de Botton. I have ordered so many of his books and I wonder
how many of them I will read. Will I
have time?
I do not have any first hand experience with Russia or Russians. I have however met some people who have studied there or have business connections there and uniformly they say that they find the Russians friendly and hospitable and have nice things to say about life in Russia. India's relationship with Russia dates back to the cold war days and it has survived the major changes that have taken place since then.
ReplyDeleteI would have loved to have gone there but, now it is too late for me.
Yes, they are nice people from my experience as well. Open and warm. There is a lot of literature though that points to their complexity and emotions that are difficult to understand and this fascinates many other nations and people like myself. I may be making more than its worth out of it.
ReplyDeleteAC for mine, you'd have to explain what you mean by "Russians" and also what you mean by "soul" and then maybe further explain why you choose those particular half dozen as exemplars?
ReplyDeleteI don't have the (dis?)advantage of any close proximity to that 300+M population, so anything I might conclude is completely ignorant - but if pressed, I'd say this past century indicates "Russians" are easily lead - sheeplike, almost - willing to put up with great hardship, place little to nil value on individual worth, and are prone to collective violence.
And I'm certain my above quite ignorant sketch is entirely wrong. Maybe almost as wrong as is your own :)
Apologies. Above comment beginning "AC for mine" was by kvd.
ReplyDeletekvd
Well, looks that I will not get out of this one with honour and I will not be able to explain myself. Lech, would you be able to help or do you also think I am writing rubbish? I am calling for Lech’s help as I believe that in Poland such a term as “Russian soul” would be easier to accept and understand. Not that this is makes it right, but he may have better arguments than myself.
DeleteI will try though to explain myself. My judgments relate to literature, mainly from the XIX century. I did not think of real people while writing, but I think that literature represents some fragments of reality so I generalised.
Recently I saw The Seagull, film based on Chekhov's play. Not a very good film and not a very good representation of Chekhov's intentions in showing the characters of the play. The friend who saw the film asked incredulously: who would behave in such a dramatic and hard to understand way. My answer was – Russians! This perhaps does not explain what I meant by my post but it is a step towards it. So, when I say the Russian soul I mean: complex, yearning for some mysterious feelings, events, places, sad, nostalgic for God knows what, self-destructive, sacrificing. This is how it is in Dostoyevsky’s novels. And these other fellows as well. When you get two or more Russians in a right mood and give them a bottle or two of vodka, they will laugh, cry, talk soul to soul, play soul pinching songs and generally be out of control while solving the world’s and existential problems.
Maybe Poles understand this stuff better than others because they are also sentimental and when sitting at the same table with a Russian and drinking together, they discover similarities of the national characters. They become brothers. Kissing and hugging while crying. Messy stuff.
And Russian women of Dostoyevsky’s type, they love, oh they love. He kicks her, abuses her, commits some crime for which he is sent to Siberia and she follows her tormentor, bare foot and already pregnant leaving her comfortable life behind. Or she throws herself under a train. See Anna Karenina. This is love!
Now, I believe I explained everything very well. :)
Ha! See, now you're writing with feeling and heart! Irrational, anarchic, and, even so, completely understandable. This should have been your post, not your reply to my, not unreasonable, comment.
DeleteMinor quibble: I in no way suggested your post was 'rubbish'. But allow me to suggest that your riposte is far better :)
kvd
I did not like the post myself and after Ramana's comment I knew that I missed the mark. Your comment woke me up so I tried to get out of the disgrace, looks like it worked to some extend and my sense of humour woke up.
DeleteI am at the time of my life that I concentrate on myself more than I want to, hence problems with finding subjects of interest. At the same time I want to continue with blogging even if it will not always be satisfactory writing. This is my way of continuing some normalcy and getting to exchange thoughts with people like yourself. Would love to have a chat with you about life and such minor things. Amazing that blogging can provide to some extent a tool to do it.
Lech here - responding to AC's call.
ReplyDeleteI think, that people in Poland, having a long history of quite troublesome relations with Russia, invented this term to separate the outstanding Russian achievements in literature, music and arts from Russian politics and social order. Another point is, that books written by most famous Russian authors are in some way unique, different from books written by authors from France, Germany or England.
Another point is that now, when we got access to books written by authors from many parts of the world, we realized that that there are many other shades of uniqueness.
I think it is not only Poles, who are soul-searching in Russian literature.
Thomas Mann in Dr Faustus wrote something like: French have form but no soul, Russians have soul but no form...
And here I found at Harvard University: https://www.belfercenter.org/event/legend-russian-soul-rilke-and-thomas-mann
So do not worry AC, we are not alone :)
Thank you, Lech. I like your comments very much. The idea of separation of the Russian politics over the centuries from the Russian cultural achievements gave me new perspective and sorted out my confusion to a high extend.
ReplyDeleteI could not get into the Harvard University article if there is one available. I could not find it on their site. Could you guide me?
The post's comments turned out rather interesting and I value all of them. Feel like I had a discussion with like minded people who challenged me. I love it.
And I am not alone!
Re Harvard lecture - I do not think it is available on-line. I just googled "Russian soul" and got this page.
DeleteWhat puzzled me was the Harvard Centre name - Belfer. In Poland's school slang it meant a teacher. After laborious search I found that the word comes from Yiddish and means teacher's assistant.
Before these links disappear off my history page, I thought you might be interested in what my own google search threw up? As you found, and Lech said, the link given did not open more than a synopsis, so like him, I googled:
ReplyDeleteComment by a Russian expat:
https://observer.com/2017/12/russians-arent-amoral-we-just-have-a-different-moral-code/
Comment by an 'outsider':
http://withoutbaggage.com/essays/russia-moscow-mysterious-russian-soul/
Historical piece:
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/03/the_enigmatic_russian_soul.html
Grain of salt applied to each, but it seems to me the "thread" running through all of it is how few actual people ("artists", mainly writers?) get to "speak" to what is meant by "the Russian soul"? For such large and diverse entity, they are given a heavy responsibility - no?
kvd
I caught up the links and read them with great interest. I am very pleased that I started such interesting (and dare I say - intellectual) discussion among people who sometimes read my posts.
ReplyDeleteI have run out of subjects I would like to write about at the moment as my world has shrank. Need to come up with something soon. Tried to read Black Dogs and realised that Poland is mentioned several times. I most likely will come back to the book as it seems to be a good material to feed my philosophizing tendencies.
Hi AC - totally off-topic, but I just stumbled on this fellow called Arthur Chrenkoff by reading his recent post about USA v Australian election processes.
ReplyDeleteHaven't explored further as yet, but I notice his history section recently deals with his homeland - Poland, and I thought you might be interested:
http://thedailychrenk.com/category/history/
Whatever, hope you have a lovely Sunday.
kvd
Hi kvd,
ReplyDeleteThank you for a little push, I just published my last post which I wrote under influence of your comment.Who is Arthur Chrenkoff? Russian name, Polish life episodes, Polish complexes (or at least one - defensive highlighting Polish achievements -see Enigma post). Interesting guy, thank you for the link.
The Sunday is indeed lovely.