In her Wall Street Journal column Peggy Noonan wrote, like a middle schooler, about how she spent her summer vacation. She spent it reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Tolstoy’s masterwork is long (more than 1,000 pages) but his thoughts remain relevant.
I wanted to cite one passage from her column because it provides some direct quotes on Tolstoy’s assessment of the Germans, French, British, and Russian that are worth reflecting on:
I didn’t understand what good company Tolstoy is. The Russian general Pfuel, an ethnic German, is “self-confident to the point of martyrdom as only Germans are, because only Germans are self-confident on the basis of an abstract notion—science, that is, the supposed knowledge of absolute truth.†A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally as irresistibly attractive. “An Englishman is self-assured, as being of the best organized state of the world.†“A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known.â€
I wonder what his assessment of today’s Americans would be?
I read War and Peace (1,200 pages), Anna Karenina (800 pages), and Resurrection (300 pages) along with other, shorter Tolstoy works in one 16 week period more than 50 years ago. I doubt I’ll read any of them again not because they’re not worth reading but because reading them is such a fulltime job.
I read them, but if you read them in Russian, we probably read different books. At one time, I did not understand the importance of the translator. Tolstoy is good, but in my opinion, Dostoevsky is one of the greatest thinkers of all times.
His description of Russians is one answer to “the Russian Question”. I assume you know what this is, but I doubt Ms. Noonan or Mr. Tammany have any idea of what it means. It probably began with Peter the Great, and I doubt it has been answered, since.
Basically, Russians question who and what they are as a people, and in turn, this leads to additional questions about how they should live. Underlying all of this is the pervasive question of why.
Are they Europeans or Asians? Why? Whichever, are they Western or Eastern, Northern or Southern? Why? Should they dress traditional or western? Why? Should they build with wood or stone? Why? Are they strong or weak? Why?
The Question was not answered with the overthrow of the Czar. The Question was not answered with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and I doubt the Question has been answered with the rise of Putin.
Historically, the Russians have many of the same questions as adolescents, and in many ways, they are adolescents. In private, I suspect most Russians would agree more with the negative Russian assessments than the positive ones.
I wonder how much of this has to do with Russian Orthodoxy as their primary religion? It sounds kind of harsh when I read about it and my direct experiences have not been that positive. An employee of ours for about 6 years killed herself a few years ago. I went to the funeral. It was the harshest, meanest funeral I have ever attended. The priests I have met have tended to be rather cold. You kind of expect religion to have at least some positive influences on a culture but not clear that happened with Russians. Maybe they would be worse without it?
Russians and Eastern Europeans in general, at least in our area, have been difficult to work with. We have consistently had such bad experiences that we avoid hiring first generation people unless they have very good recommendations. I have one now, part time TG, who is brilliant and very technically skilled. Probably one of he best in the country at what he does, but is such a personality mutant I know its only a matter of time until I have to fire him.
Steve
TastyBits:
I, too, prefer Dostoyevsky. I can’t say I’ve read all of his works in Russian but I have read some of them.
Steve:
I think that Orthodoxy is a part of it but it’s just one part. I doubt that Soviet Communism helped much.
True, but Orthodoxy is the culture out of which grew communism. After communism left it is strong again and we have Russia invading other countries using criminals to lead their offensives resulting lots of torture, rape killings of civilians. Communism came and went but the culture remained.
Steve
@steve
I do not think you can seperate the Russian Orthodox Church from the people. It influences the people, but the people want that influence. It is the same with Putin.
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc., people living under a harsh autocratic ruler do not “yearn for freedom”. They yearn for a little more freedom under a less harsh autocratic ruler. Religion is the same.
The Soviet Union was just a different type of Czardom, and Russia is “reverting to the mean”. This goes back centuries, and it is no different from any other authoritarian ruled country.
You are trying to answer “the Russian Question”.
I apologize. You deserve a far more detailed reply, but I already wrote my “wall of words” for this month.
No need for apology. I think you did a good job with relatively few words (compared with he complexity of the issue). I just think it odd that people want to ascribe so much of Russian behavior to communism when it seems there are larger and longer termed influences.
Steve