What did the Russian people believe in? The true faith of our ancestors

How to relate to Putin ordinary Russian people? For example, US Vice President Biden told representatives of the Russian opposition on Thursday that if he were Putin, he would never have gone to the 2012 elections, because it is bad for the country and for himself. Such advice from an overseas uncle is very important for our liberals. But the rest need to choose their position in relation to the authorities themselves. Understand what is good and what is bad.

Although it will soon be a quarter of a century since our country entered the era of crisis, nothing is eternal - the period of trials will end sooner or later. Everyone wants to quickly, most want Russia to emerge from it as a strong and self-confident power. But at the same time, the processes taking place in our country do not suit anyone - everyone is dissatisfied with both the direction of development and the methods of governing the country. IN Lately this dissatisfaction grows ever more tangibly and rages.

But everyone is dissatisfied with different ...

Most noticeable is the discontent of a small but vocal group - the liberals. This is a large part of the elite and high society, as well as the intelligentsia public that has joined them. They do not like the fact that the supreme power is in the hands of Putin and his associates (“bloody gebni”), and the fact that the ruling bureaucracy steals a lot, stifles the free development of civil society and private business, does little to globalize all aspects of life in Russia . In general, the fact that Russia is very slowly moving towards the "European standard" they love so much (despite the fact that the "golden billion" itself is in the deepest crisis - both internal (loss of the will to live) and external, due to the upcoming world order change). No less than the authorities, society does not like the people - over the years of reforms, as soon as it did not call them names. In short, they are slavish, lazy and xenophobic people.

Patriots - and this is a smaller part of the so-called. the intelligentsia and the middle class, and at the same time the ordinary people who have joined them, express their dissatisfaction much more quietly. But not because they have fewer complaints - they just have much worse access to the media, and they are not so active in blogging. Patriots are dissatisfied with the fact that a social structure alien to the Russian spirit is being built in the country (wealth, like poverty, is inherited), the country is becoming less and less fair, and young people are growing less and less national. The fact that we are increasingly being integrated into globalist structures, the fact that the government steals, is surrounded by Jews and favors Caucasians. But even more people are dissatisfied with the so-called. "society" - because it calls the people cattle and tries to teach the "correct" attitude to life, family, work, history, Motherland.

For simplicity, let's call these two aspects "good society" and "common people."

The authorities are also dissatisfied - both with themselves (this is expressed), and with society (this is poorly hidden), and with the people (this is only breaking through). It is difficult to clearly formulate the preferences of the authorities - it is painfully motley. Consisting for the most part of representatives of the “good society”, it belongs to it in spirit (thieving and unprincipled) - but nevertheless, by virtue of its very function, it tries to restore order in the country and ensure its development.

But the problem is that the country has neither the goal of this development, nor the principles that unite all - and without this nothing can be done. Why, then, will the authorities not take up the formulation of the "creed" and the "ten commandments"? Because at the top there is neither a team of like-minded people, nor a single will to break through. Everyone is busy with current problems: at best state, at worst - personal. The maximum that fantasy is enough is to assure that Skolkovo will allow us to break into the world leaders.

But what about the real future? Does Putin seriously think that the current way of economy and society is able not only to ensure the real development of the empire (in the form of which only Russia can live), but even the preservation of the current squeezed Russian Federation? With such an “elite” that people consider thieves (they stole state property in the 90s or are dragging it from the budget now), with such a lack of ideals in the most idealistic country in the world, with such a crisis of justice and trust?

Of course, Putin also has a globalist load - an overt and covert geopolitical game. The desire to provide Russia with safe external conditions for internal development, not to be fooled by the ongoing reshaping of the world order - all this takes a lot of energy. It is on the backstage game that Putin has focused his main attention in recent years. But this does not justify him in the least - the rejection of personnel and ideological work can cost Russia much more than any benefit from the Blue Streams and Masonic oaths.

It is impossible in Russia, after a thousand years of striving for justice, after the Orthodox kingdom, the empire, the Soviet Union, to offer everyone to live in peace. family values, engage in their personal business, and at the same time equip an "effective state". Even without other aggravating circumstances (the collapse of the 90s, the bastard elite, a “society” cut off from the people), this would not have worked.

We need to search for a new economic structure that takes into account all the achievements of the Soviet experience, national ideals of labor and economy. A fair non-capitalist system with strong local self-government and a strong supreme power is what the Russian people will accept. Without games of presidential or parliamentary republics, without all this party frills, without oligarchs, without the cult of profit and consumption, without kowtowing and monkeying with the West. Three centuries of imitation of the West are coming to an end - as, by the way, is the West itself.

So what must happen for the authorities to formulate the Russian future? Maybe a civil protest is just what will be able to move her to change? Or should it be removed altogether? Doesn't she have faith?

And what does a Russian person believe in today?

What and who can be a guide for a normal Russian person living in 2011? Which star to check the path, who to look up to? Or, in the absence of common guidelines, is everyone free to choose for themselves?

Putin? Human rights? Bulk? West? Faith? Stalin? Justice? Money? Russian people? Legality? Consumption? Pleasure? Career? Order? Globalization? Self management? Autocracy? Will?

What unites the people - Stalin, justice, faith, the Russian people, order, will, Putin - infuriates society.

What unites society, what it worships - human rights, the West, consumption, globalization, money, career, pleasure - makes the Russian people sick.

And no one believes the spells of the authorities about the rule of law and modernization - because the people just want a hard restoration of order, and society wants control over the authorities, or rather, the authorities themselves.

This is where the temptation for a normal Russian person begins - how to defend national values, if the authorities, by their inaction, lead to the fact that they will be scolded and replaced with globalist dummies? So you need to demand a change of this power?

And since liberals demand Putin's resignation louder than anyone else, is it not a sin to unite with them on this point? Let us have different goals, but if we remove the corrupt regime, and then we will deal with the liberals, since their cat has wept, and no West will help them. And behind us - all the people and the truth of their ancestors. Is it logical?

No - because there will be no "later". Putin really hangs Russia - what it is now. Removing it, we get the second series of chaos, civil unrest and the collapse of the country.

And without removing it - decay and the gradual destruction of the people and Russia?

No - because Putin must change and change the elite. Make a revolution from above. He cannot fail to do so.

Because the continuation of the current course will lead to an explosion of social and national contradictions and revolution. Or to a liberal revenge, an intra-elite coup, the acceleration of the globalization of Russia - with the same subsequent revolt of the indignant people. So if you don't change, you won't be saved. Neither Putin nor Russia.

The official Russian religion is Christianity. A religion in which there is not a word about the Slavs. Some Jews. While the Jews themselves adhere to a different religion. Paradox?

To see why it happened, you need to figure out how Rus' was baptized. But, only without Jewish interpretations.

Patriarch Alexy II is a Jew; Surname Riediger.

Speech of Patriarch Alexy II in the Central Synagogue of New York to the Jewish rabbis of the USA on November 13, 1991

“Dear brothers, sholom to you in the name of the God of love and peace! The God of our fathers, who revealed Himself to His saint Moses in the burning Bush, in the flame of a burning thorn bush, and said: “I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.” He who is, the God and Father of all, and we are all brothers, for we are all the children of his Old Testament at Sinai, which in the New Testament, as we Christians believe, is renewed by Christ. These two testaments are two stages of the same divine-human religion, two moments of the same divine-human process. In this process of becoming the Covenant of God with man, Israel became the chosen people of God, entrusted with laws and prophets. And through him the incarnated Son of God assumed His “humanity” from the Most Pure Virgin Mary. “This blood relationship is not interrupted and does not stop after the Nativity of Christ ... And therefore, we Christians must feel and experience this relationship as a touch on the incomprehensible mystery of God’s seeing” ...
“On the iconostasis of our Russian church in Jerusalem, the words of the psalmist are inscribed: “Ask for peace in Jerusalem.” This is now what we all need - both yours and our people, all other peoples, for as our God is one Father, one and indivisible for all His children.

What is the conclusion? Judeo-Christians worship the Jewish god Yahweh (Jehovah). That is, Judaism brings up slave owners, and Christianity brings up slaves. One cannot exist without the other!

Christianity is a branch of Judaism!

It is enough to find out that Kirill (surname Gundyaev) who replaced him is a Mordvinian, and one can understand with what pleasure he said what he himself does not believe in, that the Slavs before Christianity were wild, almost beasts.

Before Christianity in Rus' there was the Old Faith - Orthodoxy. Our ancestors were Orthodox, because. They praised the right.

According to the Vedic scriptures there are:
Reality - tangible world
Nav - the world of Spirits and Ancestors,
rule - the world of the gods.

In 988 AD Christianity was brought from Byzantium to Rus'.
The Kiev ruler, Khagan Vladimir, baptized Rus' according to Greek law. The goal is to replace Old Faith on, closer to Vladimir, the Christian religion.

Vladimir is the son of the housekeeper Malka, the daughter of a rabbi.
Since, according to Jewish tradition, nationality is transmitted through the mother, it turns out that Rus' was baptized by a Jew.

Not everyone converted to Christianity. And now in Rus' there is dual faith: the ancient pre-Christian faith - Orthodoxy and Christian Orthodoxy.

The persecution and extermination of the Slavs began. Jews began to destroy Slavic churches.

The Sofia chronicle (under the year 991) testifies that Archbishop Yakim did this in Novgorod; in the Rostov region (according to the Paterik of Kyiv) this was done by Isaiah the Wonderworker; in Rostov - Abraham of Rostov; in Kyiv - Jew Vladimir.

In 1650-1660, the Moscow Patriarch Nikon, by decree of Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov, carried out a reform of the Christian church. The main goal, which is not a change in rituals, as is commonly believed, (a three-fingered sign, instead of a two-fingered one and a procession in the other direction), but the destruction of dual faith. It was decided to eradicate the Old Faith, because. the Old Believers lived by their own principles and did not recognize any authority, and to impose a slave Christian religion on everyone.

The fact of substitution can be seen by looking at the "Word of Law and Grace", the most accessible of the ancient writings, both in electronic and printed form. "The Word of Law and Grace" - written around 1037-1050. the first Russian Metropolitan Hilarion. In it, the term "Orthodoxy" is found only in a modern translation, and in the original text the term "Orthodox" is used.

A modern philosophical dictionary in general, the Russian word “orthodoxy” is interpreted in foreign words: “orthodoxy is the Slavic equivalent (lat.) of orthodoxy (Greek ortodoxsia - correct knowledge)”.

The fight against the Old Believers had a side effect. The reform caused popular indignation. And the Christian Church split into two warring parts. Those who accepted the innovations were called Nikonians, and the Old Believers were called schismatics. Thus, Patriarch Nikon's attempt to replace "Orthodoxy" with "Orthodoxy" in liturgical books led to a split in the Christian Church. Riots engulfed the entire country. There were also armed clashes.

The Jews managed to split the Russian people once again. Now in Rus' there are Old Believers, Old Believer Christians (schismatics) and Christians of a new kind (Nikonians).

The churchmen who did not accept the new church remained Old Believers, and to this day they continue to serve abroad in the Orthodox Church, which is called the Russian Greek Catholic Church or the Russian Orthodox Church of the Greek Rite.

Disputes about the substitution of concepts did not subside for a long time. And even under Peter I, in order to prevent a civil war, in relation to Christian religion the word "orthodoxy" was officially used. These disputes ended only under Soviet rule, when a Christian church was formed under the name Russian Orthodox Church(ROC).

The Russian Orthodox Church is still pursuing a policy of suppression and subjugation of the Slavs. She forbids mentioning native Russian names in prayers. Of the 210 names, less than two dozen are Russian, the rest are Jewish, Greek and Latin.

Today in Russia a situation has arisen in which the Russian religious idea is gaining more and more space in the political life of our country.

The “pussy-riot” case, which in any European country could have passed unnoticed, has acquired in Russia scales unimaginable for a modern European, which can only be compared with the reaction of Muslim countries to attempts by “gentiles” to violate the inviolability of the Koran or the Prophet. The reaction of the state and believers to what happened in the XXC exposed a hidden, but latently growing confrontation, touched the central painful nerve of Russian society. A conflict was exposed between the very violent, militant assertion that "God exists" and the no less militant assertion that "There is no God." These two extremes in Russia have always been and still are in heated confrontation. IN modern world such intensity can be observed exclusively in Muslim society. We will not see anything similar in other Christian countries, even in Orthodox ones - Greece or Bulgaria.

This irrational reaction of Russian society to the blasphemy of punk girls made me think that our civilization is in some way closer to Islamic than to Christian. And then I thought about what the Russian people know about God.

Remember the huge queues in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior - to the belt of the Virgin. Remember a separate entrance for VIPs, to which limousines drove up, and European-dressed officials, in the recent past, active communists, with a concentrated look, dived under a sacred relic, bypassing the general queue ... Personally, I see something very ancient, - most likely, paganism, which has been preserved in Russian Orthodoxy and has not yet been outlived.

What is it expressed in?

After the adoption of Christianity, instead of pagan talismans and amulets, icons and crosses began to be made according to Byzantine patterns, which would protect against disasters and diseases. For the Russian Orthodox, any object related to faith, an artifact - a cross, an amulet, a belt - are sacred, they are, as it were, the materialization of God. This comes from paganism, because the god of the pagan is OUTSIDE HIS PERSON, he is a powerful neighbor - in the sky or in the water or in the forest. It was difficult for an ancient, archaic person to imagine a deity without its material embodiment, a totem.

This incarnation can be made of marble, wood or clay, but, most importantly, you can feel it, hang it around your neck, or even carve it! Leo Tolstoy, in his reflections on Russian religiosity, noted that the pagan belief in the spirituality of the subject passed into Russian Orthodoxy and was not eradicated.

Why was paganism never outlived in Russia? Probably because the Russian religious consciousness has historically been deprived of the process of mental comprehension of God - intellectualization religious consciousness, - through which other Christian denominations passed. That is why the comprehension of one's attitude to faith and to Christ, the search for God in one's soul, led Leo Tolstoy to very radical conclusions. In a letter to the Synod, he wrote: “If He (Christ) came now and saw what is being done in his name in the church, then he ... would probably throw away all these terrible ... crosses, and bowls, and candles, and icons , and all that by means of which they, conjuring, hide God and his teachings from people ... ". (L.N. Tolstoy "Answer to the Synod", 1901)

The phenomenon of thousands of queues to the belt of the Virgin, characteristic of today's Russia, is infinitely far from modernity, I would say, separated by centuries. And if such a pilgrimage can still be imagined in peasant southern Italy, then in Northern Europe it is simply unthinkable. How to explain such a difference?

The fact is that since the advent of Christianity in Europe, theological disputes have never stopped. Free thought for thousands of years was not afraid to question any theses and rites of Christianity. Russian religious culture excluded this right and was based only on faith - religious thought did not exist in Russia until the middle of the 19th century. The Russian man, instead of the right to think about God, had the duty to faithfully believe.

Vasily Klyuchevsky wrote in 1898 that "... Along with the great benefits that Byzantine influence brought us, we also took out one big drawback from it. The source of this shortcoming was one thing - the excess of influence itself. Whole centuries of Greek, and after them Russian pastors and books taught us to believe, to believe in everything and to believe in everything. This was very good, because at the age that we lived through in those centuries, faith is the only force that could create a tolerable moral community. But it was not good that at the same time, we were forbidden to think, and this was not good, most of all, because we then did not have a desire for this occupation. We were pointed out to the temptations of thought before it knew how to use it ... We were told: believe, but do not think. We began to fear thought as a sin, an inquisitive mind, thought, we took it on faith. It turned out that scientific truths we turned into dogmas, scientific authorities became fetishes for us, the temple of sciences became for us the temple of scientific superstitions and prejudices. We were free-thinking in the Old Believer way, Voltairianism in the Habakkuk way. Just as the Old Believers broke with the church because of a church rite, so we, because of an incomprehensible scientific thesis, were ready to break with science. The content of thought changed, but the method of thinking remained the same. Under Byzantine influence we were serfs of a foreign faith, under Western European influence we became serfs of someone else's thought. (Thought without morality is thoughtlessness; morality without thought is fanaticism) (V.O. Klyuchevsky "Unpublished works. Belief and thinking", 1898)

Klyuchevsky's thought is the deepest insight into the essence of not only Russian thinking, but also the way of life of a Russian person. Russian culture was determined, of course, by many factors, but

the method of thinking was introduced by a special form of Orthodoxy, in which this religion came to Rus'.

But, pointing to the positive and negative consequences of the adoption of Orthodoxy by Russia, Klyuchevsky did not answer the question why the thinking of an Orthodox Russian person was deprived of the right to doubt. Let's try to find the answers ourselves.

The division of Christianity into two branches began somewhere in the IV-V century. It arose quite naturally, because the two great ancient civilizations - Greek and Latin - with all the cardinal differences continued to coexist. These two great cultures led to the emergence of two religious and political centers: the eastern one - Byzantium and the western one - Rome. But the method of thinking in both civilizations remained European. This is easily seen if one looks at the works of the patristic philosophers. The Holy Fathers of both the Eastern and Western churches were exceptionally educated, they spoke three languages ​​- Greek, Jewish and Latin. That is, they operated with common tools of logic and sophistry. The art of eloquence and polemic was a means of finding the truth and the cause of the development of European theology, including Byzantine. Theologians competed in eloquence and logic even in the Byzantine bazaars!

But, unfortunately, the philosopher Chaadaev was right - "the time of great motives, great accomplishments, great passions" did not touch Rus': "First, wild barbarism, then gross superstition, then foreign domination, cruel and humiliating ..." (P.Ya. Chaadaev "Philosophical Letters", 1836). When the Vikings came to Rus' in the 8th-9th centuries, the East European plain was inhabited by scattered wild, barbarian tribes of Slavs and Finns. The tribes were at an extremely low civilizational level with deeply rooted paganism and a communal-tribal system. The Slavs had no idea about the market and trade. They did not have their own written language, not to mention the science of philosophy. The Vikings colonized these completely barbarian territories and lived in them as Christian communities in closed enclaves, without mixing with the natives. The enslaved pagans were called "smerds".

In 863 Cyril and Methodius translated the Gospel into Church Slavonic. First they brought their labor to Bulgaria, and then to Rus'. The work of Cyril and Methodius led to an incredible democratization of Christian doctrine itself. And that is great. But, on the other hand, being translated into Old Slavonic, it interrupted the connection of the teaching itself with its philosophical justification, with the cultural roots of ancient European civilization. We received Orthodoxy as a guide to unquestioning adherence without the possibility of its logical analysis, since deprived of the Greek and Latin languages, we did not have the opportunity to know ancient philosophy or sophistry. Our virgin pagan consciousness never knew what the culture of discussion is. As a result, we began to perceive any attempt at a critical understanding of religion with pagan awe, as a mortal sin.

Therefore, if in Western Europe the development of universities began in monasteries and religious centers, in Rus' monasteries became guard outposts of the only and infallible truth. It is not surprising that in Russia the university as an independent institution arose six centuries later, because the university is a dispute. It is also not surprising that it immediately became a hotbed of sedition and freedom and subsequently existed under the vigilant eye of the tsarist Okhrana and under the constant threat of closure.
It can be said that for almost nine hundred years a critical reflection on the Christian faith had no right to exist in Russia and was mercilessly punished.

At a time when the edifice of modern civilization was being erected in the West, Orthodox Rus' was fighting against paganism. Studying the history of the baptism of Rus', I was surprised by the cruelty with which the eradication of paganism was carried out. It was a bloody process. And yet, paganism is still alive in our culture. So you can even now observe a kind of "dual faith".

But not everyone knows that at a certain period in the Moscow land there was even a "tribelief"! Quite such a "mixture" of Christian saints, pagan gods and Allah. The religion common to Muscovy and the Horde was a strange symbiosis of Islam and Arian Christianity (in which Jesus and Mahomet are equal!), and the division of faith happened in 1589, when Kazan adopted pure Islam.

The Russian philosopher G.P. Fedotov wrote: "There is one area medieval Rus', where the influence of the Tatars is felt more strongly - at first almost a point, then a blurring spot that covers the entire eastern Rus' for two centuries. This is Moscow - the "collector" of the Russian land. Owing its rise primarily to the Tatarophile and treacherous policy of its first princes, Moscow, thanks to this policy, ensures peace and security of its territory ... Tatar orders are introduced in Moscow land in administration, court, and collection of tribute. (In Muscovy then they wore Islamic clothes, women wore a veil and sat closed in towers, when they met Muscovites said to each other "Salom"). Not only from the outside, but from the inside, the Tatar element took possession of the soul of Rus', penetrated into the flesh and blood ... "(G.P. Fedotov" Russia and Freedom ", 1945)

In the Horde period, the Turkic language had a radical influence on the language of Rus'. For example, Athanasius Nikitin’s “Journey Beyond the Three Seas”, known to all of you, begins with a Turkic-Arabic prayer from the Koran, written in Slavonic: “... By the grace of God, the three seas passed away. akbir, akshi Khudo, ilello aksh Khodo. Isa ruhoalo, aaliksolom. Ollo akber ... "Can you imagine?!

Such an exotic symbiosis of several faiths, "three beliefs", could not but be reflected in the formation of Russian religious consciousness.

And at that time in Europe, in the sphere of influence of the Catholic Church, there was a rapid development of cities, the bourgeoisie grew stronger, civic consciousness arose, and the concept of Personality took shape.
What does "urban consciousness" mean? This is not a place of residence or work in the city. It is a complex of ideas and awareness of one's duties and rights. This is the consciousness of a person who earns money not using someone else's land, but with his own knowledge, skill, specialty, and freely sells the fruits of his labor. When such a person has economic independence, he begins to demand political freedoms. As soon as a person demanded political freedoms for himself, he became a person, a citizen. The emergence of the bourgeoisie led in Europe to the evolution of religious consciousness.

In Rus', due to political and economic reasons, cities never arose, according to the Western model - political entities with independent self-government, with market relations, with a right legally fixed, which is called the Magdeburg Law.

In Muscovy there was not a single, I emphasize - not a single (!) - city with Magdeburg rights. In Ukraine, about 60 cities used the Magdeburg Law, in Belarus - about 40, and in Russia - not a single one! True, Novgorod and Pskov had self-government, trade and crafts developed in them. But where did they end up? Muscovy destroyed them. All rulers tried to destroy them, starting with Alexander Nevsky.

Novgorod and Pskov resisted Moscow totalitarianism for three centuries, until Ivan the Terrible drowned everything in blood.

Therefore, in Russia, the peasant communal-tribal consciousness remained untouched, since the national bourgeoisie did not arise.

I cannot but digress from the topic and say a few words about Alexander Nevsky. The confrontation between this prince and the freedom-loving Novgorodians - let's say, is not very convenient for the apologist-historians of Alexander Nevsky. When the Novgorodians rebelled and drove out his son Vasily, Alexander rushed to the Horde and set the Tatars against the recalcitrant Republicans. For two decades, Novgorod and Pskov were subjected to the most severe terror of Alexander and the Horde, but they did not give up.

It seems to me that as long as the official history of our country remains distorted for ideological reasons, we will not be able to understand the causal relationships that explain why we are like this.

What happened to European religious thought in the 15th-16th centuries?

The emerging bourgeoisie wanted to consciously comprehend their relationship with God. When a person felt like a person, felt that his success depended on him personally, and not on the priest, as the vicar of God on earth, a protest movement arose against self-interest and lust for power. catholic church who always tried to subdue secular power. In Protestantism there are no totems, in it the only sacred thing is the Bible. Read and live by it. And if someone wears a cross, then for him this cross is just a symbol of his belonging to a religion, and not a magical object that protects from evil, like a bear fang for a Tungus or feathers for an Indian. For a Catholic, and even more so for a Protestant, dependence on miraculous relics is gone. There was a realization that God is your constant and strict Judge, whose presence in your soul and consciousness just requires you to take personal responsibility. And not only before God, but before brothers, before children and parents.

This personal individual, and, most importantly, ANONYMOUS responsibility of a person before God is the basis modern society- conscientious work, paying taxes, a strong family, the absence of street children on the streets. Personal anonymous responsibility is the cornerstone of the modern state and society.

I am convinced that the archaic consciousness has survived in Russia to this day, and most of the population of our country still lives in a "pre-bourgeois" society. In this sense, our state has more in common with African states than with European ones. This explains the absence of civil society in Russia: there are no citizens, there is a population.
Peter the Great made a radical attempt to return Russia to Europe. Peter's reforms marked the beginning of a new type of Russians. It can be said that these reforms gave birth to another people - Russian Europeans, who, according to their convictions, have nothing in common with the huge mass of Russian people living in a semi-pagan state.

This small people is a "small people", the Slavophil Khomyakov compared it with a European settlement abandoned in the country of savages ("big people"), and in two hundred years, developing and multiplying, it created the entire culture that Russia is proud of today. We say: "our ballet, our Tchaikovsky, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Pushkin." Everything that has been created in just two hundred years, everything that has influenced and enriched world culture, was created by a "small" nation of Russian Europeans.

If there were no Peter the Great in history, what would we know? What would we influence?

Russia, as a great cultural country, entered the world stage only after Peter the Great. But the existence of two peoples, directly opposite in their ideals and beliefs, could not but lead to disaster. And it happened: in 1918, the tsar - "the only European" (in the words of Pushkin) was shot in the Ipatiev House, and then the rest of the representatives of European Russia began to be driven through the streets, sent away on "philosophical ships" and simply shot. Lenin openly admitted: "We do not shoot for crimes, we shoot for belonging to a class." And this class was the class of "white" Russians. But by 1940 European Russia was over. Remained Rus', Muscovy. We live in it to this day!

I have been studying the relationship between the culture of a nation and its economic development for twenty years. I am interested in how much the "national characteristics" of the people influence the political system of their country. The Argentine sociologist Grondona and the American culturologist Harrison devoted their lives to precisely these questions. Both of them came to the conclusion that there are dynamic cultures, i.e. easily perceiving change, and "inert" cultures that resist any change and are hostile to attempts at modernization. Grondona came to the conclusion that the worldview of an Argentinean person is difficult to change, say, in contrast to the mentality of a Brazilian. He explained this by the fact that cultural codes, these unwritten laws that determine a person's daily behavior, his relationship with his family, his work ethic, his ability to organize his life, are formed under the influence of many factors - climate, geography, history, etc. d.

Harrison discovered that religion is an essential, culture-forming factor. And when he systematized countries by religion, he came to an irrefutable conclusion: countries with different dominant religions have different economic performance. (L. Harrison "Who prospers", 1993).

According to the so-called UN Human Development Index, in which the most developed country ranks first, and the most backward - 162nd. Christian countries, according to the 2001 United Nations Human Development Index report, are ranked as follows:

Protestant countries - 9.2

Catholic - 58.3

Orthodox - 58.9

This fact struck me, and it seems to me that in Russia it is simply ignored! But it requires serious study and analysis in Russia with the participation of historians, sociologists, theosophists, culturologists and politicians. Look at the chaos in the most European Orthodox country - Greece. This is not Protestant Estonia, in which there is nothing at all except granite and herring, but there was and is order. And in Greece, not a single reform is taking place. Or Cyprus, where all the money that was pumped into the EU went into someone's pockets. This only confirms that in Orthodox countries the attitude towards the law is very free, because the ethical code itself is soft and vague. Especially in Russia.

If you ask a Russian person what kind of God he believes in, most likely he will answer that in a God who will forgive everything. Maybe that's why today, in addition to many simple and sincerely believing people, all the hoes and brothers go to church? The all-forgiving Russian God gives the notorious criminals an unsophisticated hope that a visit to the church and an icon in a jeep will provide him with atonement for all his mortal sins, and also protect him from death on the next "arrow". Only this can explain the universal churching of criminals.

I will now return to the name that I proposed: in what kind of god does the Russian person believe. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov in 1897 made a note: “Between“ there is God ”and“ there is no God ”is a huge whole field that a true sage passes with great difficulty. A Russian person knows any one of these two extremes, but the middle between them is not interested him, and therefore he usually knows nothing, or very little."

I will give here an analysis of Chekhov's thoughts, made by the remarkable Slavist Alexander Chudakov. Here is his reasoning:

First. "There is a God" and "there is no God" - these two concepts, Anton Pavlovich believes, individually either do not mean anything, or mean very little. They take on meaning only when there is a field between them through which only the sage passes.

Second. Anyone who is not interested in this field is simply not accustomed to think. A Russian person is only interested in the assertion of either one or the other. He is not interested in the middle, the "field" - the intellectual, spiritual path, which only a sage can go through.

Third: Chekhov did not indicate the vector: from "God does not exist" to "God exists" or vice versa, it does not matter to him. The path is important. It is not for nothing that Chekhov very often says in his works: the point is not in God, but in the search for him. Real religion is in search of God.

And when Tolstoy wrote in the same letter to the Synod - "I believe in God, whom I understand as spirit, as love, as the beginning of everything. I believe that he is in me and I am in him ..." - he meant exactly that he searched for God and found him! I found in my soul, that is, I passed with great difficulty that “field” that a wise man must pass. And now tell me, how many people in Russia go through this "field" and do this mental work? A negligible number! That's why Chekhov said that Russian people know nothing about God, or very little!

Why is a Russian person not interested in the middle? Because his archaic, "pre-bourgeois" culture did not teach him to think, and as a pagan, it is enough for him to touch the material embodiment of God - an icon, a cross, holy relics, in order to feel bodily closeness to the divine and get peace. There is no room for doubt in such a worldview! Hence it turns out that, as Aksakov said, a Russian person is either a saint or a beast. There is no middle.

This pagan "passionarity" of the Russian people was especially clearly manifested in October 1917. The "big" Russian people entered the historical stage and immediately demonstrated a return to barbarian civilization, destroying the incomprehensible and hostile world of the "other" European Russia. Actually, Bolshevism flourished as a revenge, as a revenge of the Russian "big" people - a pagan who escaped from the age-old oppression of Russian-Europeans and the institution of the church. How else can one explain that the majority of the Christian population huge country so willingly succumbed to atheistic, Marxist propaganda and began to mock religious temples and shrines, destroy the clergy and, with blood-chilling inspiration, participate in the destruction of brethren...

Alexander Chudakov emphasizes Chekhov's conviction that a truly religious person is free to choose between one extreme and the other. European humanism as an idea appeared precisely when a person "between the saint and the beast" began to search for himself. It was then that the "pre-bourgeois" society gave way to a new formation. Russia has yet to go through this difficult path of self-knowledge.
The phenomenon of Russia lies in the fact that with its gigantic territory, the most powerful human resource, an inexhaustible source of talent that supplies the whole world with scientists, musicians, athletes, dancers, with all this, Russian culture cannot and should not be self-sufficient, like Indian or Chinese, - no matter how we claim a "special path", pursuing our economic and political interests. It is time to cast aside false shame and admit that, from a historical point of view, Russia arose on the periphery of the Christian world, in the deepest province of Europe. And the beginnings of European thinking, not having time to develop, were mangled by the Mongol-Tatar invasion. This incompleteness of the civilizational process, interrupted by another archaic civilization that came from the East, has made us today uncertain, not knowing which way to move, afraid to admit our backwardness and open ourselves to the cruel "winds" that blow in the modern world.

I ask myself: has the current leadership ruined Russia, or has Russia "ruined" it? After all, many people, including the opposition, have a firm conviction that the government has ruined Russia. But this is nothing more than an illusion, and a very Russian one at that - the need to find someone to blame, removing personal responsibility.

And if Peter created the army, navy, courts and ministries, a semblance of European statehood, then Peter failed to overcome the Russian method of thinking, about which Klyuchevsky wrote, and create a single European people. It is clear that modern leaders will not succeed either. Muscovy is a powerful mental block that they have not been able to move aside or even crush. I have no doubt that if at first they had hopes of being able to push society towards the development of private initiative on the ground under the strict control of the state, then subsequent years showed that the local authorities instantly adopted feudal habits traditional for Rus' and merged with criminal (read - feudal) consciousness of the most enterprising people. In a pre-bourgeois society, the only form of initiative can only be lawlessness.

I am convinced that the most important thing for us is to understand what and why is hindering us. And how can the prerequisites be created in Russia for the withdrawal of the "big" Russian people from the "pre-bourgeois" state. To create conditions under which the Russian European will become the majority. Only then will we have a free religious thought, the ROC will open up for an open dialogue with other Christian denominations, and people who are not afraid to doubt will be able to build a modern state.

The question of what kind of people will be created in Russia - Asian or European - will become the main historical choice of the future government.

Target: formation of a respectful attitude to the traditions of Russian people.

Tasks:

- to expand the initial ideas about people's faith in natural, earthly and unearthly forces, cult attributes (temple, icon, cross, sacred books);

- to cultivate a cognitive interest in the culture of their people;

- to form the skills of practical application of information in gaming activities.

Equipment: a letter, a pre-designed cover and sheets for a home-made children's book “What the Russian people believed in”, a painting by V. Vasnetsov “The Bogatyrskaya Outpost”, an audio recording of music by M. Mussorgsky “The Bogatyr Gates” from the series “Pictures from an Exhibition”, small-sized pictures - coloring pages with a contour image of Russian heroes, colored pencils and felt-tip pens, an audio player.

Lesson progress

caregiver. Guys, we received a letter from a teacher from the Tatar kindergarten. In her letter, she said that in their group there are many different books about the life of Russian people, but there is no one that tells what the Russian people believed. Whomever the teacher turned to with a request to help her find a book that would have a lot of pictures and games on this topic. After all, small children love to look at pictures and play different games so much! But, unfortunately, she could not find it anywhere. At her request, parents of children from a Tatar kindergarten even went to Perm to look for her in bookstores, but there is no such book anywhere. Suddenly she found out that there are guys who were told and read a lot about what Russian people believed in, that you can make interesting books yourself, so she decided to ask you to make such a book for the children of her group. Guys, do you agree to make a book for children from a Tatar kindergarten?

Children. Yes.

caregiver. And to make the book interesting, I suggest today in class to remember everything you know about what the Russian people believed in. Previously, people believed in various unearthly forces. In which?

Children. In the brownie, goblin, water.

Educator. Guys, who is this brownie?

Children. This is a good spirit, he lives in the house.

caregiver. Yes, Russian people believed that in every house in the attic or behind the stove there lives a kind spirit - a brownie. Guys, why did our ancestors consider him kind?

Children. He kept order, cared for animals, warned of a fire.

caregiver. Russian people believed that if you support with a brownie a good relationship(address him with an affectionate word, leave some tasty food), he will pay good for good (take care of cattle, help keep the house in order, warn of impending misfortune). They believed that he takes care of the children, loves to play with them, play pranks. Russian people have always respected the brownie. How affectionately did they call him?

Children."Grandfather-neighbor", "master-master." Many songs, fairy tales, games were invented about the brownie. I suggest you play one of these games.

Game "Ayushki"

A child is chosen for the role of Kuzi by a counting rhyme.

Children. Kuzya!

Kuzya. Ayushki!

Children. Where have you been?

Kuzya. At the hostess.

Children. What did you bring?

Kuzya. Pancakes.

Children. Where are they?

Kuzya. Under the bench.

Children. Here's the weirdo! We would put pancakes on the table and eat. Kuzya!

Kuzya. Ayushki!

Kuzya looks out.

Children. Where have you been?

Kuzya. At the hostess.

Children. What did you bring?

Kuzya. Boots.

Children. Where are they?

Kuzya. And I put it on the table and ate it, as you ordered.

Children laugh.

The game can be repeated 2-3 times, changing the words.

Educator. Guys, who are we going to talk about on the first page of our book?

Children. About the brownie.

Educator. What can we put here?

Children. Our drawings and portraits of the brownie, stories about him, a description of the game "Ayushki", a song about Kuzya.

caregiver. What can we tell about on the second page of the book?

Children. Oh gosh.

Educator. Who is the goblin?

Children. People thought that he lived in the forest, that he was in charge there.

caregiver. Yes, Russian people believed that the goblin lives in the forest, that he is in charge there, commands the birds and animals. How did the Russian people treat the goblin?

Children. They left treats on the stumps, thanked him for the mushrooms and berries.

caregiver. Yes, our ancestors believed that the goblin could not only “get lost” in the forest, play pranks, scare people, but often help a person, especially if he respected him with something.

Therefore, they left treats on the stumps, thanked him for mushrooms, berries, asked permission to pick them. Listen to the fairy tale about the goblin, which was invented by Russian people. On a rainy night, a stranger asked to come into the hut, cold and wet. The peasant let him in, fed him and put him to bed, but the next morning, when he began to give him money for a lodging for the night, he did not take it, he refused. Saying goodbye, a passer-by told him: "Let the cows go to my forest without a shepherd, not a single animal will offend."

What do you guys think, who asked to spend the night with a man?

Children. Goblin.

Educator. How did the goblin thank the man?

Children. He began to graze cows in the forest.

Educator. How do you think the goblin was evil or good?

Children. Kind.

Physical education "One - a fungus, two - a fungus"

The goblin walked along the path,

I found a mushroom in a clearing.

(Children walk in place.)

One is a fungus, two is a fungus,

Here is the complete box.

(They sit down.)

Leshy groans - tired,

Because he attended.

Leshy stretched sweetly,

(They stretch.)

And then leaned back

And then leaned forward

And reached the floor

(Bend over.)

And turned left and right.

(Make body turns.)

Leshy performed a warm-up

And sat down on the path.

(They sit down.)

caregiver. What will we put on the second page of our book?

Children. We can draw drawings for a fairy tale, a portrait of a goblin.

caregiver. Guys, what other unearthly power, besides the brownie and the goblin, did the Russian people believe in?

Children. In the water.

Educator. What can be told in our book about the merman?

Children. He was a kind spirit, lived in the water.

Educator. Russian people believed that if the water man was treated kindly (thank you, talk to him affectionately, leave him treats), he would not break the nets, he would not be pulled under water. Our ancestors respected the water; many songs, fairy tales, games were invented about him. I suggest you play one of them.

Russian folk game "Water"

The players, holding hands, form a circle. The driver is chosen - "water". He closes his eyes and squats down in the center of the circle. The players walk in a circle and say:

grandfather-water,

What are you standing under water?

Come out for an hour

And catch one of us!

Then they say: "Night!" and crouch, and the "merman" with his eyes closed goes in any direction, trying to catch someone. Having caught the player, the "merman" tries to find out who he grabbed: he feels his head, clothes. If he recognizes the one he has caught, the latter becomes "merman".

caregiver. Guys, can we talk about this game in our book?

The children answer.

I think everyone will like it.

In addition to unearthly forces, the Slavs highly valued earthly forces. What earthly powers did they believe in?

Children. By virtue of Russian heroes who defended their native land from enemies.

caregiver. What Russian heroes do you know?

Children. Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich.

caregiver. Songs and epics were composed about them. What are epics?

Children. These are stories about the exploits of heroes.

caregiver. Yes, epics are stories about the battles of heroes, about the feats that they performed while defending their native land. Before there was no television, how were songs and epics transmitted from one person to another?

Children. Guslars.

Educator. Yes, guys, songs and epics were passed down from generation to generation by special songwriters - guslars. How did they do it?

Children. They walked from one city or village to another.

caregiver. That's right, they went from city to city, from village to village. To the sounds of the harp, the songwriters told people about the military battles of Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich, the strength and glory of mother Russia, the love and loyalty of Russian people.

The picture of V. Vasnetsov "Bogatyrskaya outpost" is hung out. Sounds! music by M. Mussorgsky "The Bogatyr Gates" from the cycle "Pictures from | Exhibitions".

Listen to an excerpt from the epic "Russian heroes".

Here are all the heroes, all the Holy Russians,

They sat on good horses,

And we drove off through a clear field ...

And from that mountain and from high

I saw the old Cossack and Ilya Muromets,

And then the heroes go through an open field,

And then they ride on good horses,

And he set off from the high mountain,

And he drove up to the heroes of the Holy Russians,

He stood next to them.

Guys, I suggest you color the pictures with the image | heroes and beautifully place them on the next page of our book.

Children coloring small size coloring pictures with | contour image of the heroes and then combine them all on the page of the future book into one collage called “The Heroic Army”.

Guys, listen to the proverb about faith, which we will also write down in our book "Faith will move a mountain from its place." What does she mean?

Children. Faith helps a person.

caregiver. It means that faith gives strength. It is impossible to live without faith. All people believe in something. Who among you believes in what?

Children. In the sun, magic, squirrels, fairy tale, joy, Firebird.

caregiver. Each of you believes in something different, but everything that you believe in can be called in one word - “good”. Everything that the Russian people believed in can also be called this word. They believed that good is stronger than evil, that it always wins. This beautiful word“good” we will write on the last page of our book, and next to it we will place our drawings about what we believe in. Guys, let's once again look at the pages of our book about what the Russian people believed in.

The teacher examines the pages of the book together with the children.

Do you think the teacher and children from the Tatar kindergarten will like our book?

Children. Yes.

Educator. Why do you think so?

Children. There are a lot of pictures and games in the book, we came up with interesting stories.

caregiver. I also think that everyone will like our book very much.

Another god from the Vladimir pantheon is Stribog. He is usually considered the god of the winds, but in the "Word of Igor's Campaign" we read: "Here are the winds, Stribog's grandchildren, blow arrows from the sea on the brave regiments of Igor."

This allows us to speak of Stribog as a god of war. The first part of the name of this deity "stree" comes from the ancient "street" - to destroy. Hence Stribog - the destroyer of good, the god of destruction, or the god of war. Thus, Stribog is a destructive principle, as opposed to the good Dazhdbog. Another name for Stribog among the Slavs is Pozvizd.

Among the gods listed in the annals, whose idols stood on Starokievsky Hill, the essence of Simargl is not entirely clear.

Some researchers compare Simargl with the Iranian deity Simurgh (Senmurv), sacred winged dog, plant keeper. According to Boris Rybakov, Simargl in Rus' in the XII-XIII centuries was replaced by the god Pereplut, who had the same meaning as Simargl. Obviously, Simargl was the deity of some tribe, subject to the great Kyiv prince Vladimir.

The only woman in the Vladimir pantheon is Mokosh. According to various sources, she was revered as the goddess of water (the name "Mokosh" is associated with the common Slavic word "get wet"), as the goddess of fertility, fertility.

In a more everyday sense, Mokosh was also the goddess of sheep breeding, weaving and women's household.

Mokosh was revered for a long time after 988. This is indicated by at least one of the questionnaires of the XVI century; the clergyman at confession was obliged to ask the woman: “Have you gone to Mokosha?” Sheaves of flax and embroidered towels were sacrificed to the goddess Mokosha (later Paraskeva Pyatnitsa).

In the book of Ivanov and Toporov, the relationship between Perun and Veles goes back to the most ancient Indo-European myth about the duel between the Thunder God and the Serpent; in the East Slavic implementation of this myth, "the duel of the God-Thunderer with his opponent occurs because of the possession of lambing."

Volos, or Veles, appears in Russian chronicles usually as a "cattle god", as a god of wealth and trade. "Cattle" - money, file; "Cowgirl" - treasury, "cattleman" - tribute collector.

In Ancient Rus', especially in the North, the cult of Volos was very significant. In Novgorod, the memory of the pagan Volos was preserved in the stable name of Volosova Street.

The cult of Volos was also in Vladimir on the Klyazma. The suburban Nikolsky - Volosov Monastery is famous here, built according to legend on the site of the temple of Volos. There was also a pagan temple of Volos in Kyiv, down on Podil, near the trading piers of Pochaina.

Scientists Anichkov and Lavrov believed that the temple of Volos in Kyiv was located where the boats of the Novgorodians and Krivichi stopped. Therefore, Veles can be considered either the god of the "wider part of the population", or the "god of the Novgorod Slovenes."

Veles book

When talking about Russian paganism, one must always understand that this system of ideas is reconstructed according to the language, folklore, rituals and customs of the ancient Slavs. The key word here is "reconstructed".

Unfortunately, since the middle of the last century, increased interest in the topic Slavic paganism began to give rise to both unprovable near-scientific studies and outright fakes.

The most famous hoax is the so-called Veles book.

According to the memoirs of the scientist's son, Academician Boris Rybakov said in his last speech at the bureau of the department: “Historical science faces two dangers. Veles book. And - Fomenko. And sat down in his seat.

A lot of people still believe in the authenticity of the Book of Veles. This is not surprising: according to it, the history of the Russians begins in the 9th century. BC e. from the forefather Bohumir. In Ukraine, the study of the Book of Veles is even included in the school curriculum. This is, to put it mildly, striking, since the authenticity of this text is not recognized by the academic community even more than completely.

Firstly, there are many errors and inaccuracies in the chronology, and secondly, the discrepancy between the language and graphics of the declared era. Finally, the primary source (wooden tablets) is simply missing.

According to serious scientists, the Book of Veles is a hoax created by the supposedly Russian emigrant Yuri Mirolyubov, who in 1950 in San Francisco published its text from the tablets he had not shown.

The well-known philologist Anatoly Alekseev expressed the general point of view of science when he wrote: “The question of the authenticity of the Book of Veles is solved simply and unequivocally: it is a primitive fake. There is not a single argument in defense of its authenticity, many arguments are given against its authenticity.

Although, of course, it would be nice to have " Slavic Vedas”, but only genuine, and not written by forgers.