The Russians are proud of what do is almost irrelevant. To convince them that you can not strain to create the present and the future, writes Alexander Plyuschev especially for DW
I do not remember why, but one of the lessons of literature in school our teacher explaining some topic, said that the Soviet people are proud of their revolutionary tradition. This occurred about thirty years ago. Then these few people were surprised and sound could almost any lesson, though, biology or physical education. Students that habitually ignored. But something that day made my classmate Sergei to raise his hand.
The devil is in the details
“This is the people of Germany – flashed Serge the information gleaned from the popular program “the international panorama” – is proud of its roads. That’s what I understand. And how can you be proud revolutionary traditions – can’t understand. This is when nothing else, because, for example, normal roads?”
Even in late Soviet times, this was considered an affront to the foundations and insulting sanctities, in the best case – a mockery of a teacher, so Serezha, without explanation, was kicked out of class.
The other understood – although there is not understood, we knew, has just secured for himself, which is to avoid unpleasant consequences publicly need to be proud of exactly what is offered officially. Let this matter from modern life distant and obscure. Any rational thoughts on this matter condemned and even punishable.
Since, by and large, little has changed. People call those reasons for pride, they offer top. This is evidenced by the results of the survey “Levada-center”. According to this, over the last three years the number of proud of the fact that I live in Russia grew from 70% to 82%. In itself such pride, and there’s nothing wrong, on the contrary. But the devil as usual is in the details. From what develops the national pride of the Russians?
Five reasons
Most (44%) are proud of Russian history, where, probably, it is fall and the revolutionary tradition. However, now is not very clear, the revolution of a century ago – is it good or bad? Like, at every step of say that the revolution, especially in color – it’s bad. But the Bolsheviks-that nobody condemns the Soviet regime, established as a result of the October revolution, is not considered criminal, but rather the opposite – the people. But God is with her, with the revolution. Obviously, in this context primarily refers to the victory in the Second world war.
In second place (38%) among the subjects of pride – the natural wealth of Russia. The fact is that the people are proud of luck. God gave, apparently, is not just. There are, say, in the us something that has provoked his generosity. Armed forces are the three main reasons (36%) of pride for the country not so long ago – only a year, and this is a direct consequence of the annexation of the Crimea.
And then the hypocrisy of the Russians is evident in all its glory: the armed forces we are proud of, but fear them not stopped. Just ask his friends that have teenage sons. Yes, the number of those who openly admits that, if necessary, will find a way to “cover” a family member from the army, according to surveys of the Levada center, a year-on-year falls, but still it is one in four.
Russian culture, which prides itself on 34% of the respondents, it would seem the indisputable item. However, the modern state, including the Minister, raises many questions and disputes. So it’s again about the past from Serov to ballet. Top five is a bit absurd paragraph, under a natural resources – the size of the country (31%). In the twenty-first century mean just the dimensions, not the area of mastered territory, for example? Should the people of Canada, as we are proud of the millions of square kilometers of land where nobody lives and which have absolutely nothing to give the country’s economy?
There is something to be proud of
According to the same survey, only a few percent of the respondents called reasons to be proud of the education system and health care, economic success, fellow citizens (in other words themselves) and the achievements of national science. That is all what you need to make an effort to carry out serious reforms to improve and improve.
Although we have not lost these skills, just look at the IT sector. We have internationally famous and have long since become global ABBYY (famous Internet dictionaries and programs of OCR) and Kaspersky (the world’s popular antivirus programs), and, of course, Yandex is one of the few national search engines that compete with Google on several markets.
Such pride is not necessary?
Programmers and startups from Russia are involved in world-class projects, the recent success of the application Prisma – another proof. But, apparently, such reasons to be proud of our gift is not necessary if laws are passed, like “Spring package” that can bury alive a whole industry. Not to mention the fact that the Creator of the most popular Russian social network Pavel Durov was forced to sell his business and go abroad. And there he breaks into a quite competitive market of instant messaging and offers his Telegram, which it is not clear whether the Russian.
If you leave aside the quality and degree of bias of sociological research in Russia, then only one conclusion – the government funding the propaganda quite work out. It is explained that you can not strain to create the present and the future, if there is something to be proud of in the past. Not to mention its rich natural resources and vast territory, which is always with us.
