Books on Russians

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to get political, but can anyone recommend books on the Russian identity, why they think & act the way they do, etc. does it stem from Peter the Great or the time of great distrust under Soviet rule? From serfdom to war of 1812 and world wars, etc? I think Ken Follett did a fine job, as well as Rutherford, but they are researchers, and can't truly convey the identity. TIA!

It appears that you’d like to read some quality Russian-bashing literature. I remember a Russian analyst on this board with ridiculous impressions , so maybe s/he could help with your search. I suggest this book https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Art-Soviet-Cooking-Longing/dp/0307886824

Russians are different just like Americans are, with many social and cultural elements responsible for the diversity in views, life styles, etc. I was traumatized by my Russian childhood in many ways, but I appreciated a healthy dose of fun absurdity in my life and I do miss it. I find Mexico in many ways similar on some “spiritual level”, although I can never clearly conceptualize why.

I wouldn't say I was traumatized by my Russian childhood but there were certainly some negative parts to growing up there. There was also much that was good, and looking back at it from here, I appreciate it even more.

OP, it won't do you any good to read the foreigners' attempts to catalog the "Russian identity." The best thing to do, if you want to understand a culture, is to immerse yourself in how this culture expresses itself. This will give you more clues to the "mysterious Russian soul" than all the Fionas Britain ever produced. Read Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, read Chekhov, Kuprin, Bunin. Read Bulgakov, although that's hard to get for a foreigner. Read Fazil Iskander. Read Rybakov. Read Yuri Nagibin, read Daniil Granin. Read Voynovich. Then read some more.

+1.
I call BS on the entire 'Russian identity' premise. Is there a clear "American identity" and what books should we read to fully grasp it?

Of course there are no books, but there are Tv shows and movies! Americans don't read! You should start with Married with Children as intro, then onto Dynasty and Dallas, and if you are really into diversity Duck Dynasty! Gotta watch up on them Mericans!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Any history book would tell you as much. Russians historically comprised close to 80% of the population. Other minorities were non-European and on par with their non-European counterparts in mentality, religion and culture. I don’t think that the OP is interested in Chechens, Tatars, Bashkirs, Yakuts, Buryats, and other forty or so ethnic minorities. Some of these minorities also participated in the wider Russian culture and politics. The Jewish minorities actively contributed to Russian culture and science, for instance, and many were persecuted and discriminated against, which made them change their names and hide their identity.

Forty? Dagestan ALONE has over eighty ethnicities, you dolt!

Anonymous wrote:
Europe was more prosperous and educated than Russia. And the countries that were colonized by Europeans had roads, hospitals, schools and now enjoy a richer life and better opportunities than the equivalent never colonized countries. Look up the statistics, and former colonies would have much better living standards.

Oooh that's right, white people left them much better off, what are they complaining about! Hey, if I leave your daughter better off than her neighbor, may I colonize her for a few years?

I’m not an expert on ethnic minorities. Do any of these minorities, whatever their number, have at least one scientist, world known novelist, composer, architect, philosopher, Nobel prize winner, inventor - at least one per each minority?

The daughter is not an equivalent comparison. The fact is former colonies are now better off than the never colonized countries. I will leave out your racie-related remarks. You can look at some native human sacrifice rituals and cannibalism that were no longer in place after colonization. You intellectually can’t understand apples to apples comparison.

You aren't? What else aren't you an expert on and yet have confidently opined on? You're saying an ethnic group has to produce a Nobel prize winner to be counted as human in your book?

Perhaps the daughter remark was too subtle for you, so here's the blunt version: roads, hospitals and schools aren't a good price for getting colonized. And since you're getting all "intellectual", let's not forget a basic truth that colonizers weren't in the colonies to build roads, schools or hospitals, they were there to get stuff. To extract resources they didn't own. To steal, pillage and plunder, by force if necessary. Schools and hospitals (and prisons and amputated thumbs) were just a side effect.

Mostly correct
You forgot to mention that before colonialism the land was invaded by another people that came to plunder the inhabitants
And those inhabitants had hunted the previous people who lived in the land

And the one people that came to blunder before colonialism were on the run from an even bigger nation

Oh, the Arab and Portuguese slave trade

By the way, that is history. It is what woke up the entire continent and thrust it into modern age
Stop blaming, it was not a pretty century anywhere

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
As a person born in the USSR, I agree. Oppression and tyranny are never ok. Some people still can’t understand the basic premise of human rights. In the SovietvUnion people were doing what the state told them to do, they were like domesticated animals. If they strayed and did not work, for instance, they were immediately jailed for 15 days. Even being late for work had serious consequences. I remember stories about women who slept in and ran out the door in nothing but a coat to avoid tardiness.

LOL you say this like there were no housewives in the USSR. Enough women did not work you know.

Did you live in the same USSR? Everyone had to work, even military wives. If there was a housewife that was the exception, perhaps, some nomenclature wife with connections. Maternity leave was about eight months and I’m not sure what it was for the rural people who lived on collective farms.

I don't know what to tell you. I grew up in the North Caucasus. In my recollection, at least 25% women were homemakers. For some ethnic groups, it was seen as unseemly for married women to work you know.

I am not familiar with that part of Russia. Perhaps, ethnic minorities had concessions, not the core populace, which further proves my point that Russian government really loved oppressing its own people the most.

Could it possibly be two Russians had different experiences? And that no one person really understood what life was like EVERYWHERE in Russia?

Let the third Russian jump in. The laws regarding work were the same throughout USSR. It was illegal for able bodied men not to work, thus the infamous 15 days sentence. It was not illegal for married women to be housewives. Whether they were shamed for it and to what extent (for all practical purposes forced to go to work?) depended on local customs, whether they had children and how many, any disabled kids, an so on.

[Anonymous]

I didn’t read the whole thread so this may have come up - Charm School by Demille. It’s fiction but loaded with history and culture. It’s used in university classes on Russian studies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
As a person born in the USSR, I agree. Oppression and tyranny are never ok. Some people still can’t understand the basic premise of human rights. In the SovietvUnion people were doing what the state told them to do, they were like domesticated animals. If they strayed and did not work, for instance, they were immediately jailed for 15 days. Even being late for work had serious consequences. I remember stories about women who slept in and ran out the door in nothing but a coat to avoid tardiness.

LOL you say this like there were no housewives in the USSR. Enough women did not work you know.

Did you live in the same USSR? Everyone had to work, even military wives. If there was a housewife that was the exception, perhaps, some nomenclature wife with connections. Maternity leave was about eight months and I’m not sure what it was for the rural people who lived on collective farms.

I don't know what to tell you. I grew up in the North Caucasus. In my recollection, at least 25% women were homemakers. For some ethnic groups, it was seen as unseemly for married women to work you know.

I am not familiar with that part of Russia. Perhaps, ethnic minorities had concessions, not the core populace, which further proves my point that Russian government really loved oppressing its own people the most.

Could it possibly be two Russians had different experiences? And that no one person really understood what life was like EVERYWHERE in Russia?

Let the third Russian jump in. The laws regarding work were the same throughout USSR. It was illegal for able bodied men not to work, thus the infamous 15 days sentence. It was not illegal for married women to be housewives. Whether they were shamed for it and to what extent (for all practical purposes forced to go to work?) depended on local customs, whether they had children and how many, any disabled kids, an so on.

You forgot to add the most important factor - on how much money their husbands made. Yes, in the USSR, just like anywhere else, family budgets ruled the day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to get political, but can anyone recommend books on the Russian identity, why they think & act the way they do, etc. does it stem from Peter the Great or the time of great distrust under Soviet rule? From serfdom to war of 1812 and world wars, etc? I think Ken Follett did a fine job, as well as Rutherford, but they are researchers, and can't truly convey the identity. TIA!

It appears that you’d like to read some quality Russian-bashing literature. I remember a Russian analyst on this board with ridiculous impressions , so maybe s/he could help with your search. I suggest this book https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Art-Soviet-Cooking-Longing/dp/0307886824

Russians are different just like Americans are, with many social and cultural elements responsible for the diversity in views, life styles, etc. I was traumatized by my Russian childhood in many ways, but I appreciated a healthy dose of fun absurdity in my life and I do miss it. I find Mexico in many ways similar on some “spiritual level”, although I can never clearly conceptualize why.

I wouldn't say I was traumatized by my Russian childhood but there were certainly some negative parts to growing up there. There was also much that was good, and looking back at it from here, I appreciate it even more.

OP, it won't do you any good to read the foreigners' attempts to catalog the "Russian identity." The best thing to do, if you want to understand a culture, is to immerse yourself in how this culture expresses itself. This will give you more clues to the "mysterious Russian soul" than all the Fionas Britain ever produced. Read Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, read Chekhov, Kuprin, Bunin. Read Bulgakov, although that's hard to get for a foreigner. Read Fazil Iskander. Read Rybakov. Read Yuri Nagibin, read Daniil Granin. Read Voynovich. Then read some more.

+1.
I call BS on the entire 'Russian identity' premise. Is there a clear "American identity" and what books should we read to fully grasp it?

Of course there are no books, but there are Tv shows and movies! Americans don't read! You should start with Married with Children as intro, then onto Dynasty and Dallas, and if you are really into diversity Duck Dynasty! Gotta watch up on them Mericans!

You're being sarcastic but at least you're referring people who want to understand Americans to the pop culture produced by the Americans - not, say, the French or the Japanese. Unlike others in this thread who think clues to a Russian national identity can only be found in books authored by non-Russians - as if these savages cannot be trusted to explain themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
As a person born in the USSR, I agree. Oppression and tyranny are never ok. Some people still can’t understand the basic premise of human rights. In the SovietvUnion people were doing what the state told them to do, they were like domesticated animals. If they strayed and did not work, for instance, they were immediately jailed for 15 days. Even being late for work had serious consequences. I remember stories about women who slept in and ran out the door in nothing but a coat to avoid tardiness.

LOL you say this like there were no housewives in the USSR. Enough women did not work you know.

Did you live in the same USSR? Everyone had to work, even military wives. If there was a housewife that was the exception, perhaps, some nomenclature wife with connections. Maternity leave was about eight months and I’m not sure what it was for the rural people who lived on collective farms.

I don't know what to tell you. I grew up in the North Caucasus. In my recollection, at least 25% women were homemakers. For some ethnic groups, it was seen as unseemly for married women to work you know.

I am not familiar with that part of Russia. Perhaps, ethnic minorities had concessions, not the core populace, which further proves my point that Russian government really loved oppressing its own people the most.

Could it possibly be two Russians had different experiences? And that no one person really understood what life was like EVERYWHERE in Russia?

Let the third Russian jump in. The laws regarding work were the same throughout USSR. It was illegal for able bodied men not to work, thus the infamous 15 days sentence. It was not illegal for married women to be housewives. Whether they were shamed for it and to what extent (for all practical purposes forced to go to work?) depended on local customs, whether they had children and how many, any disabled kids, an so on.

You forgot to add the most important factor - on how much money their husbands made. Yes, in the USSR, just like anywhere else, family budgets ruled the day.

I was talking about the outside forces, not the decisions that families make internally. Certain high earning men were expected to model good socialist behavior and therefore their wives must have been working, even if it were some sort of make-believe no show jobs. Other guys, no one gave a damn whether their wives worked or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I was talking about the outside forces, not the decisions that families make internally. Certain high earning men were expected to model good socialist behavior and therefore their wives must have been working, even if it were some sort of make-believe no show jobs. Other guys, no one gave a damn whether their wives worked or not.

Honestly only party officials were in a position where people might have cared. For 99% of other high earners, nobody cared if the wife worked.

[Anonymous]

Tolstoy Dostoyevsky

[Anonymous]

"Nicholas and Alexandra" by Robert K. Massie is an iconic volume. At this point, it's pretty dated (written in 1967) and of course it's from an outside historian perspective, but it's still iconic and probably the best known work out there about the fall of the Romanov dynasty, the relationship of Nicholas and his wife, the Russian imperial court and the foibles of the tsarist system. There's a lot of information in those pages. Though fair warning, he goes into brutal, graphic detail on what happened to the family in July 1918. That chapter stuck with me for a long time. While Nicholas and Alexandra are hardly the first monarchs to meet a bloody end in a revolution, the way their children and servants were butchered is an appalling disgrace.

I don't think you can just focus on the USSR in your readings. The Soviet Union formed as it did in response to the uniquely Russian institution of tsarist autocracy and the legacy of serfdom. You have to go farther back. Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky are great and should definitely be read, but I don't see how they're any less limited than historians, just from a different perspective. They were already atypical for being well-educated and able to read and write, which marked them in a certain class with a certain viewpoint. And between the tsars, the Orthodox Church, the USSR, and now Putin, Russia has never had a truly free press, so some outside analysis is definitely needed.

[Anonymous]

The Romanov family was executed by Hungarian
No Russian would have agreed to do something like that. The imperial family was sacred, imperial family was Russia
Can you imagine someone English shooting, bludgeoning the Brittish royal family?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Romanov family was executed by Hungarian
No Russian would have agreed to do something like that. The imperial family was sacred, imperial family was Russia
Can you imagine someone English shooting, bludgeoning the Brittish royal family?

Alexandra wasn’t Russian, you dolt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Nicholas and Alexandra" by Robert K. Massie is an iconic volume. At this point, it's pretty dated (written in 1967) and of course it's from an outside historian perspective, but it's still iconic and probably the best known work out there about the fall of the Romanov dynasty, the relationship of Nicholas and his wife, the Russian imperial court and the foibles of the tsarist system. There's a lot of information in those pages. Though fair warning, he goes into brutal, graphic detail on what happened to the family in July 1918. That chapter stuck with me for a long time. While Nicholas and Alexandra are hardly the first monarchs to meet a bloody end in a revolution, the way their children and servants were butchered is an appalling disgrace.

I don't think you can just focus on the USSR in your readings. The Soviet Union formed as it did in response to the uniquely Russian institution of tsarist autocracy and the legacy of serfdom. You have to go farther back. Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky are great and should definitely be read, but I don't see how they're any less limited than historians, just from a different perspective. They were already atypical for being well-educated and able to read and write, which marked them in a certain class with a certain viewpoint. And between the tsars, the Orthodox Church, the USSR, and now Putin, Russia has never had a truly free press, so some outside analysis is definitely needed.

Soooo...you think that a historian will be...I dunno...less educated or able to read and write, or free of his/her class and viewpoint? Well OK.

We can all agree that Nicholas and his family had a terrible end. There is no argument there.

However - Alexander was a terrible ruler - arrogant and incompetent. It is difficult to see the value of someone who thought he was anointed by God to rule his country, who fought tooth and nail the introduction of the slightest moves toward a constitutional monarchy and a more representative form of government, who was nicknamed "Alexander the Bloody" for his role in the Khodynka disaster and the execution of Bloody Sunday, who drowned the 1905 revolution in blood, and who had an irrational inclination to every charlatan he met.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to get political, but can anyone recommend books on the Russian identity, why they think & act the way they do, etc. does it stem from Peter the Great or the time of great distrust under Soviet rule? From serfdom to war of 1812 and world wars, etc? I think Ken Follett did a fine job, as well as Rutherford, but they are researchers, and can't truly convey the identity. TIA!

It appears that you’d like to read some quality Russian-bashing literature. I remember a Russian analyst on this board with ridiculous impressions , so maybe s/he could help with your search. I suggest this book https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Art-Soviet-Cooking-Longing/dp/0307886824

Russians are different just like Americans are, with many social and cultural elements responsible for the diversity in views, life styles, etc. I was traumatized by my Russian childhood in many ways, but I appreciated a healthy dose of fun absurdity in my life and I do miss it. I find Mexico in many ways similar on some “spiritual level”, although I can never clearly conceptualize why.

I wouldn't say I was traumatized by my Russian childhood but there were certainly some negative parts to growing up there. There was also much that was good, and looking back at it from here, I appreciate it even more.

OP, it won't do you any good to read the foreigners' attempts to catalog the "Russian identity." The best thing to do, if you want to understand a culture, is to immerse yourself in how this culture expresses itself. This will give you more clues to the "mysterious Russian soul" than all the Fionas Britain ever produced. Read Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, read Chekhov, Kuprin, Bunin. Read Bulgakov, although that's hard to get for a foreigner. Read Fazil Iskander. Read Rybakov. Read Yuri Nagibin, read Daniil Granin. Read Voynovich. Then read some more.

+1.
I call BS on the entire 'Russian identity' premise. Is there a clear "American identity" and what books should we read to fully grasp it?

Of course there are no books, but there are Tv shows and movies! Americans don't read! You should start with Married with Children as intro, then onto Dynasty and Dallas, and if you are really into diversity Duck Dynasty! Gotta watch up on them Mericans!

You're being sarcastic but at least you're referring people who want to understand Americans to the pop culture produced by the Americans - not, say, the French or the Japanese. Unlike others in this thread who think clues to a Russian national identity can only be found in books authored by non-Russians - as if these savages cannot be trusted to explain themselves.

I can't even begin to fathom how ignorant you sound.

So to understand you correctly, you are saying that the only people who can describe a given country's identity are citizens of that country? So you are rejecting the entire disciplines of sociology, anthropology, much of political science, much of history, etc. unless those researchers come from the countries they are analyzing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I can't even begin to fathom how ignorant you sound.

So to understand you correctly, you are saying that the only people who can describe a given country's identity are citizens of that country? So you are rejecting the entire disciplines of sociology, anthropology, much of political science, much of history, etc. unless those researchers come from the countries they are analyzing.

So you don't find it in the slightest bit interesting that out of the three pages of recommendation, NOT A SINGLE BOOK by a Russian author was mentioned?

Bigotry.