The Mysterious Russian Soul

"You can't understand Russia with your mind,
Not measured by the common yardstick:
It has a very special nature.
One can only believe in Russia".

The Russian man, the man is a mystery.
They have been solving this riddle for a long time, but they can't figure it out.
I do not think that he, what an exceptional, and all such a fluffy and correct, and other nations also have their own mysteries, but still the Russian man, and his incomprehensible soul has always attracted by its mystery and spiritual virginity.
Tyutchev in his time brilliantly said about the mysterious Russian soul.
But what exactly is this enigma, passing even into mystery?
This is debated by ordinary people, politicians and scientists, physicists and lyricists.
They argue both in Russia itself and far beyond its borders.
So what is its distinctive and unpredictable character and mentality?
From time immemorial, Russian people are accustomed to live in harmony with their environment, they have always gravitated toward moral principles, valued social foundations, but have not forgotten their private ones.
No other nationality in the world has not suffered, and not only suffered, and suffered a lot, but also created the world's greatest culture and a great state.
Russian soul is, most likely, a force that withstands all the enormous pressures and obstacles encountered on its way and can overcome all, and no despair and hopelessness will not confuse him from his chosen path.
I do not know who said it, but I think he said it quite accurately about the Russian man: "The Russian man is both religious and atheist; he is both intelligent and stupid; he is both generous and greedy; he is both statesman and anarchist; he is both strong and weak; he is both great and insignificant.

I would add that the Russian man is very unpretentious and immensely patient.
His patience can be boundless, some kind of predictability, consistency and logic, and the nature of his actions sometimes simply can not be explained and predicted.
Very often he is just reckless. And after the immeasurable patience can come "Russian revolt, senseless and merciless".
In the mysterious Russian soul so many things intertwined, sometimes even incompatible.
Many consider, that Russian are same, as well as all, but as they say with the cockroaches in a head, for example that on the West call (literally) technically helpless, the Russian person it calls aesthetic.
There are quite a few examples of this.
Another interesting detail in the Russian character is the combination of the fact that he will dream of something fabulous and not quite real, but will trust almost always only what is near and tangible.
And at the same time it seems to him that it is good where it is not.

And how much talk about the breadth of the Russian soul, its scope, commensurate, perhaps, with the vast expanses of the country, a kind of generous Pancake week, which often turns into unnecessary extravagance.
Even Berdyaev said, "The Russian soul is bruised by vastness."

It is impossible not to mention in the story of the enigmatic Russian soul and such inherent features as mercy and generosity, leniency to former enemies, a willingness not to remember past offenses, to refuse to take revenge.
And at the same time, the Russian person, according to Western researchers, on the ability to accept the new, receptivity, flexibility, stands on one of the first places in the world.
And the fact that it is natural and direct, it does not have any price at all. In the West they understand it, and they are even afraid of it. Russians themselves consider their main positive feature to be their kindness and sincerity, and their main negative feature is drunkenness. Of course we can argue with this, because all Russians are different.

Unlike other nationalities, especially western ones, in spite of the rapidly changing world there are still quite many people among Russians who say what they think and a smile is not a formality for them but an expression of benevolence.
It is also a characteristic of Russians to look at the world with mild irony and humor. There are still more optimists among them than pessimists.
But maybe in fact there is no Russian soul and it's all someone's imagination?
So much has happened over the centuries.
The invasion of the Tatar Mongols, the gloomy years of the Troubles, Western reforms of Peter the Great, Tsarist autocracy, bloody wars, Soviet ideology, the current flight into the wild capitalist tatters.
Has the totality of the qualities of the Russian man, which characterize his Russian soul, changed over all this time? Probably, it has changed, but by how much? There are only questions.
Mysterious Russian soul.
She, the object of raptures and curses,
It is the object of raptures and curses,
Concrete obstacles crumbling.
Or suddenly becomes thinner than a petal,
Transparent as an autumnal cobweb.
And then it flies, like on the first day of the fishing season.
The desperate mountain river.

Mysterious Russian soul...
Treatises are written about her across the sea,
The film cameras rage on and on,
To catch the comet by its tail in a hurry.
What a wasted effort! It's high time to know:
One Ivanushka by the bird's tail
In a popular fairy tale he managed to catch the tail of the firebird.
And you can't compete with him all the same.

The mysterious Russian soul...
It's as complex as the change of colors at dawn.