HOW TO UNDERSTAND RUSSIAN LAMENTATIONS

Westerners are usually a little bewildered by the manner in which Russians tell urbi et orbi their needs, sorrows, and griefs. Russians do not really "complain" exactly; they are busy not so much with accusing others and they do not really seek justice. What they are trying to do is to move the world to pity them. Certainly they welcome any expression of condolescence: material (bread and butter), or spiritual (videos, personal computers, visits abroad), but these are mere symbols of compassion.

The lamentations you hear are really far from the truth. Russians exaggerate their troubles just as mourners of the dead exaggerate the merits of the deceased. Sooner or later this becomes evident. Russians are not ashamed when this is discovered and even then they continue the process.

Are Russians just greedy creatures, settled Gypses? Are they lying because they enjoy lying? How can one understand their lamentations and how they behave? Can Russians change?

Before answering this questions it is necessary to put the problem in a wider context. "Westerners" are also divided into two large groupes, the Europeans and Americans, which consider the manners of the other to be unnatural. American manners seem unnatural to Europeans, but on different grounds than Russian manners do.

Americans are too merry, too optimistic. They overestimate their success, they extol lamentations even at their burials. So there is a problem of unnatural manners both of Russians and Americans. This problem can be solved only by analysis of the most basic -- and religious -- peculiarities of Russsian and American backgrounds.

Russian history for the most part began after the Baptism of the Russian people in the Dneiper River by Prince Vladimir in 988. Three previous centuries of the pagan history were simply removed from their historical memory and thus Russian history differs from the European one.

In 1048, only fifty years after the Baptism of Rus, Metropolitan Hilarion, whose sermons are the oldest preserved, had formulated the idea of Saint Rus. From that time to the present the country was thought to be the perfect society, the Kingdom of God already built, with sanctity achieved, criticism prohibitted (because it was senseless), and only praise welcomed. The New Jerusalem was built once and forever. Sixty miles from Moscow you can find the pompous Monastery of the Resurrection which was built in the mid Seventeenth century and was called the "New Jerusalem" with all other geographical nomenclature of the Holy Land repeated in the names of Russian forests and rivers.

The American way is quite the opposite ideologically. It began with the proclamation of John Winthrop in 1630 and his fellow Puritans about the necessity to build "a New Jerusalem ... a city upon a hill." The Pilgrim forefathers were going to build a new Kingdom of God and this is proclaimed quite often in their writings and in the writings of their succesors. But no one ever proclaimed as Hilarion did, that the construction at the top of the hill was finished. It is impossible to find in the American history a statement that the proclaimed goal had ever been achieved. The ideal society is one which is always strived for and to be realized at some time in the future.

European society included in its historical memory the pre-Christian, pagan tradition. Russian and American people begin their history from the moment when they found Christian ideals, when they agreed that the Kingdom of God is their goal. The difference is that the founders of Russian society stated that the goal is already achieved; the founders of American society placed the goal at a future, indefinite time. Both conceptions are utopian: the Russian utopia is always already realized. The American utopia cannot be achieved at all in any concrete historical moment. Both conceptions are irrational and unnatural, but as psychological orientations, they have survived even in their secularized world of modernity.

Freedom is not an aim in itself both in American or in Russian society. Freedom is a mean to achieve some aim, which is proclaimed by the society--if it is proclaimed. In the country where the aim is always presupposed to be achieved already (Russia), the person is enslaved to the society. He/she has no right to freedom--or, to put it in Russian terms, freedom is not needed.

In America it is the opposite, but not because Americans love freedom more. Neither Russians nor Americans (nor any other people) enjoy freedom as people enjoy strawberries or pizzas. Freedom is a burden and a tool necessary to receive and achieve something else. In Russia this "something" is thought to be already achieved, so freedom is no longer needed. In America this "something" to be achieved in future, so freedom is always welcomed and needed.

The immediate sequence of the perpetual enslavment of the person in Russia is the seeming absence of the civil society. Civil society is not absent, certainly. It simply coincides with the state. But that means that Russian society cannot fulfil those functions which are regarded as primary in the West: counterbalancing the power of the state. Russians are not bothered by this. They tend to feel this to be a normal result of the end of history: everything that could be achieved is achieved, it is impossible and senseless to continue "counterbalancing."

In Europe the individual has a very clear and definite circle of duties, imposed on him (and taken by him) by the society. It is important that the individual has no duty to explicate one's opinion about society. Society is simply a part of the world, something present. It has no peculiar goal in the future (or in the past) which must be achieved, so there can be no judgements about how successful the society is in achieving this goal. This norm is absent both in Russia and in America. In Russia the person must tell society (the state) that it is good: the goal is achieved. In America the goal is to tell society that it is bad. The aim is remote: there is a lot in society which must be done, reconstructed. The society doesn't fit some ideal image in the nation's mind.

Simultaneously Russian society inhibits the person's activity. Everything has been achieved! American society inhibits a person's passivity: everything must yet be achieved. And, at last, both societies prohibit the overt formulation of these inhibitions. These contracts sociales are buried deep in ages of the countries and in spsyche's of their people.

Russia and America are two kinds of Utopia. In Russia the Golden Age is in the past ("The Saint Russia"). In America utopia is "The American Dream" -- it is always in the future. Uthopianism is dangerous in any case, because it contradicts the reality which is always self-oriented.

The main result is that on the conscious level the Russian has a very low estimation of his/her own abilites and successes. At the same time Russia is sure that society (the state) is very stable. It can not be improved and in this sense it is the best possible order of things. In America the person is very optimistic about him/herself and is very negative about society which constantly needs improvement.

Russians tirelessly speak about their personal poverty, weakness, and unhappiness. They criticize society but are sure that it can not be changed. It is more interesting and rewarding for Russians to share their personal tragedies.

Americans are more or less quiet about themselves personally but very anxious that their utopia is still unbuild: "Instead of a divinely blessed 'city upon a hill,' America has become for too many an estranged and troubled nation, beset by violent crime, broken families and deteriorating cities." These words are from the latest news poll from U.S. News and World Report, April 4, 1994 (p. 48.) In Russia such lamentations about a nation can be published only in the communist and Nazi marginal press.

This assessment is demonstrated in the tradition of the happy endings in American films--these happy endings are always private achievements, not social ones. If the film mentions society, then it does so with a constantly troubled tone. In Russia films always have personal unhappy endings, while simultaneously stressing the stability and unchangability of society.

Here is where the underlying mental presuppositions get expressed in national outlooks: the self-assurance of Americans and lamentations of Russians. These lamentations can either be seen as untruths or as a kind of myth about oneself and the world.

But we can also look at lamentations as a form of interhuman communication. As part of this system such complaints can be understood as meta-communication. The person uses meta-communication when it is impossible for him to communicate in any other way.

For example, some drunkard may tell his son: "Am I a drunkard, tell me honestly!." Implicitly he is demanding that the son dare not call him a drunkard. The child receives two contradictory messages. He cannot respond naturally if he doesn't want to be punished. So the child use meta-communication and says: "I have seen a green monkey who crushed the entire house." The father dares not decipher this expression, because it would mean that he consciously agree that drinking makes him a kind of a monkey. The father will simply "not understand" these words and ignore them. The child has been spared punishment and he gave his honest opinion of the father.

In Russia society orders a person to tell the "truth" about society (that it is utopian) and simultaneuosly prohibits him from telling the truth. As a sort of defence mechanism the individual slips out of this double talk by speaking good about society and speaking unnaturally bad about himself.

The same situation is present in the American mindset. American society asks the individual about his/her opinion of society, prohibiting a true and sincere answer (that it is utopian society). The individual then begins speaking badly about society and too good about himself. The difference is that the American exaggerates not his/her troubles but his/her successes. He is guilty not in unjustly complaining, but in unjust personal self-confidence. Where the Russian crawls, the American jumps. Both types of reactions are not the truth.

Both Russian and American societies will not legally punish a person who criticizes society (in Russia) or praise it (in America). They will be not tried by any official structure. They will be punished by isolation from others, by the public opinion of them as "strange."

The social norms here can be pointed out (a rare case!). The European norm of behavior firmly regulates the relations between their mutual rights and responsibilities. These norms are cold but usually rational. Russia and America are not only the geographical extremes of European civilization but also the cultural extremes. They are extremes in their violating the optimal rational distance between the person and society.

The present difference between Russia and America can be explained historically. America is an example of the culture where individualism was built collectively. It is a country where everybody tries to be Robinson Crusoe but can do so only with the help of the society in general. Everything would be simple and logical if only one Father Pilgrim had left the Mayflower. The paradox began when Pilgrims united, and the paradox still remains: "United States" conjures up the image of a "dissembled unity."

Russians enjoy openly stressing that the individual is "formatted" by the society. Americans prefer to say that they are totally self-made, though the fact is that any individual in any culture is more likely 90% society-made. The American society itself dictates its members to feel free from that society. Russian society prohibits the person from saying that society is the source of slavery. The paradox is resolved in meta-communication: "I am unhappy, poor and weak." That means: "Don't punish me, I agree to be a slave without ever mentioning that I am a slave and that society is the cause of it."

This is the way such diversified types appear as elegant and wealthy Russians, for example, complaining and begging with their mouth, and poor and uncertain Americans trying to look elegant, wealthy and self-satisfied. They both are the victims of the conflict of their individual selves with their societies. The focus is on the person's allegiance.

American society struggles for freedom with the help of different kinds of refined slavery, Russian society uses even the refined kinds of freedom as tools for improvement of slavery. Both are not interested in explicating the full truth about themselves.

Is it impossible for Russians and Americans change? Yes, it is possible. We can find self-satisfied Russian and Americans thinking about themselves as "victims" of social unjustice. Now we can speak only about the dominating orientation of two cultures.

Now we can answer the questions formulated above.

Are Russians just greedy creatures, settled Gypses? No, they are not as greedy as it may seem. Mind you that Gypses also may be the victims of some invisible conflict. Also, Americans may be not as generous as they seem.

Are Russians and Americans lying because they enjoy lying? No, they try to communicate a truth about their inner conflict with society -- they just don't identify society with the government!

How do we understand Russian individual lamentations?--Investigate the facts. Try to investigate psychological facts as well: a person may be poor in money but rich in "connections" and "natural products." Everything in Russia is not as bad as Russians say, but everything in Russia is not possible in the exaggerated sense that Americans think everything is possible.

Can Russians change?--What for? Can Americans change? The problem of perversed communication between an individual and society must be resolved by an attack on two fronts: (1) the individual must improve himself and, (2) change society. But both attacks must be led by the individual him/herself. The essence of the disease is such that it must be cured without any artificial means.

1994