RUSSIAN
MENTALITY:
CRITICISM OF THE MOST CONSTRUCTIVE CONCEPTS
Mir Rossii,
2011, No 1
The article analyzes three concepts, claiming the
disclosure of the underlying foundations of the Russian mentality as sources of
highly controversial features (including negative ones) of the "Russian
national character." There are considered
esoteric presentation by Nikolai Berdyaev of "femininity of the Russian
soul", a sociological tradition of the Levada-Center
(Yury A. Levada, Lev D. Gudkov, etc.) treating types "of simple Soviet" and
"post-Soviet" man, the concept by Igor G. Yakovenko
about ‘sinkrezis’ as the basis of Russian
archetypal consciousness. It is shown that the texts
of contemporary authors, claiming to "modern consciousness", are not
free from the characteristics attributed to the “archaic consciousness”.
The very dichotomy "traditional – contemporary” with its presupposition
of a unilinear social evolution is criticized. An
alternative model to explain the typical Russian ideological preferences is proposed, and approach of sociological research for testing
correspondent theoretical hypotheses is presented.