74  Russian soul

Abstract

You believe in the “mysterious Russian soul”? It is black, hollow and bloodthirsty. And fascist for centuries.

Myth

The “Russian soul” is mysterious, musical, drinks vodka and howls melancholically at the moon

Link zu Wikipedia

Truth

Talk of the “Russian soul” is dangerous kitsch; if it exists, it is black, hollow and bloodthirsty

Link zu Wikipedia

74.1 Dangerous kitsch

A year after the Russian annexation of Crimea, an Inna Hartwich (who studied in St. Petersburg) babbles in the Stuttgarter Nachrichten that the “Russian soul” is “ungraspable” and quotes an Ivan who claims that Russia is very soulful and soulless at the same time, that is the dilemma 1.

At the same time, one Svetlana Savickaya (who happens to have the same name as a former Soviet cosmonaut and is very famous in Russia) publishes a “book” entitled “The Russian soul - the secret”:

Perhaps there is no secret at all. Perhaps the Russian soul is just an illusion and Russia can be better understood with the mind. But accepting and loving Russia like a grace …? Like God’s grace, which is always there if you just reach out for it… The mystery of the author Svetlana Savickaya is just as difficult to grasp as the mystery of the Russian soul in general. Like one matryoshka inside another, the meaning of her works is intertwined.2

Notice what? Exactly: Russian drivel is meant to muddy your thinking. The “Russian soul” is a dangerous, kitschy construct of Russian propaganda, which has the aim of transfiguring the image of Russia abroad and in Germany in particular, and scattering sand in the brains of those affected 3 4 5.

74.2 Dance and music?

The Russian soul is musical 6 7. We had already debunked the “Great Russian Culture” as a propaganda lie based on appropriating or murdering the culture in the Russian colonies, see Chapter 12. Because culture is so beautiful, here is another example of cultural appropriation:

Borscht must be sipped. Properly with noise. That’s why it’s called borscht. But first you have to cook it. You need heart and soul, patience and beet, about the same amount of each. At the end you add sour cream. You toss it, spin it, smash it properly into the soup bowl. That’s why it’s called sour cream 8.

In reality, borscht is a Ukrainian cultural heritage protected by Unesco, see Chapter 13. On to the next disinformation.

74.3 Vodka!

I sit and drink because I’m sad. I’m sad because it’s a cliché that Russians drink. So I decide to drink as an individual and drink against the stereotype 9.

Too bad that vodka is not a cliché about Russians, but alcoholism is a tangible social problem in Russia: alcohol is the number one cause of death in Russia, especially among men. This is practical for the rulers in Russia: because a drunk people do not rise up against their exploiters:

Vladimir Putin, in his correct assessment of how vodka can stabilize not only the state finances but also his power, adheres to the maxim of Catherine the Great: “A drunken people is easier to rule.” So in 2015, he did not raise the alcohol tax, but lowered it10.

Wikimedia: Preferred alcohol in Europe: yellow=beer, red=wine, blue=vodka

Russia has always drunk, and will always drink, because it is always at war:

  • Russia’s war against Ukraine has led to a surge in alcohol consumption in Russia, reaching 2.3 billion liters in 2023 and mirroring Soviet-era trends.
  • The spike in alcoholism correlates with an increase in violent crime across Russia, with over 589,000 felonies in 2023, the highest since 2011.
  • Growing alcoholism and crime, fueled by war-related stress and the return of pardoned criminals from Ukraine, contribute to a stagnant, apathetic society and poses risks to Russia’s stability.11

And what does that have to do with the Russian soul? It is numb and passive:

The “Alcoholics Anonymous” program requires people to work on themselves. But the Russians preferred to remain passive 12.

74.4 The wolf, the night, the moon

The most transfigured, supposedly melancholic, side of the Russian soul is supposed to hide the truth about the Russians and reveals it at the same time:

  • the moon is cold
  • the night is black
  • the wolf is bloodthirsty (and so is the bear)

In reality, the Russian soul is a black hole that devours all ideals, all hope and all life and transforms them into fear, hopelessness and violence. The Russian soul is mean to those who cannot defend themselves, but is always ready to feign melancholy and play the victim towards those who are stronger.

Russian culture. An old lady slips and falls on a crosswalk. No one passing by even stops to help. A car drives over the old lady. Even so, no one moves to help. Khabarovsk, Russia.13

We can get closer to the truth of the Russian soul by looking at historical facts:

  • Peter the Great used the word ‘soul’ to talk about tax units
  • In Nikolai Gogol’s 1842 work “The Dead Souls”, the landowner uses the same unit, ‘souls’, to count serfs he buys and sells
  • Fyodor Dostoevskii claims - practically for the rulers - the most essential spiritual need of the Russian people is need, to suffer always and incessantly, everywhere and in everything
  • Lev Tolstoy described the Russian soul as apathetic and irresponsible

For many Russians, acting out of independent political motives is obviously inconceivable … Opponents, whether in Russia itself or in Ukraine, are labeled fascists … Some observers go even further: they suspect that the regime is preparing the population for war in this way … This is accompanied by a promotion of denunciation, which many older people remember only too well (2017 assessment by journalist Thomas Franke)14

74.5 The fascist soul

Some academics claim that because of the lack of enthusiasm in fascist actions, one cannot speak of fascism in Russia, see Chapter 53. Yes, the Germans went into the First World War with “Hurray” and fanned the flames of hatred against Jews and disagreeable minorities with torchlight marches, but they died with less enthusiasm in the Second World War. The “Thousand Year Reich” only existed for twelve years, while totalitarian Russia lasted for 800 years without interruption. Enough time for enthusiasm to cool, for hope to be lost, for people to become accustomed to evil, to participate in evil. “Ruscism” or demobilized, chronic fascism is no less evil than enthusiastic, acute fascism. Quite the opposite. Viewing people as “control units” or as “dead souls” born to “suffer”, and at the same time as “superhumans”, is in any case fascist:

This view elevates the entire Russian people to the priestly status of God’s bringer - an attribute of Russia that is indeed widespread in Orthodox circles - and in this way propagates the belief in the global salvific significance of Russianness …
Such a subliminal dialectic, in which the Russians are imagined as both victims and saviors, promotes a fatalistic submission to fate and an almost sacral loyalty to the state: the individual has no value in and of itself and - merely a tiny grain between the heavy millstones of epochal processes - hardly any room for maneuver. It is not the individual who becomes a temple in the context of such perverted religiosity, but the homeland 15.

Educational camps and selection over 40 generations have perfected evil into a cold-blooded routine:

However, this obscures the basis for the construction of such a Russian world view, which apparently makes people susceptible to propaganda, agitation and nationalism. A mystical quality of soul with naturally malicious and mafia-like abysses is not responsible for all this. These abysses are to a large extent the product of unerring conditioning that has shaped socio-historical and individual maturation processes for centuries …
To this day, this pernicious effect can still be observed in domestic education … In the majority of cases in Russia, however, a superficially modernized disciplinary practice can be observed, which continues to follow the nexus of guilt and punishment - shouting at children and also physically chastising them is part of normality. 16.

Same author

So Russia has not only become a rogue state, but even more of a stooge state. It is ruled by armies of stooges recruited from the disenfranchised and frightened masses - just to keep them in line. The result is a circular cycle of rigid horror17

The education of young children for war is also reminiscent of the “Hitler Youth” or the “Bund deutscher Mädel”:

The Capitulation Museum in Berlin is intended to commemorate the horrors of the Second World War. However, a board member of the museum’s supporting association is conducting propaganda for Putin’s campaign against Ukraine … Russia’s Ministry of Defense sits on the supervisory board of a German museum … A boy of perhaps twelve solemnly reads out the oath, which reads, among other things: “Faithfully and selflessly I serve my fatherland! I swear to be an honest and loyal comrade” … Since the war in Ukraine, the Moscow Museum has become even more involved in Putin’s propaganda … While Putin declared at a large rally in a Moscow stadium that “there is no greater love than to give your soul for your friends”, the museum organized a so-called open class for Moscow cadets “in honour of the day of Crimea’s reunification with Russia” … Five days later, the museum hosted an event at which children handed over 5000 letters to Russian soldiers “fulfilling their duty in Ukraine” to the Ministry of Defense … The Armed Forces Museum also used the celebrations to mark the end of the Second World War 77 years ago to support the war in Ukraine. All proceeds from ticket sales on 8 May went to a charity foundation called “Zashita” (Defense), which aims to help Russian soldiers deployed in the neighbouring country.18

74.6 The emigrant soul

Under the cloak of critical literature, Russians in exile also write about the Russian soul. In 2021, the year before the invasion, Viktor Yerofeyev published an “Encyclopaedia of the Russian Soul”19 and Alexander Estis a “Dictionary of the Russian Soul”20. Coincidence? Both books are supposedly critical of Russia. Both books suggest the greatest possible claim to objectivity in their titles. Both books are fiction. Both books are confusing for readers.

Viktor Yerofeyev’s book is a novel about which one reviewer, stubbornly clinging to the Russian soul, writes:

It is precisely the craziest passages that come particularly close to reality. Such a merciless, heretical pamphlet, after reading which one only loves the Russians – eternal mystery of dialectics – even more.21

How can one review – eternal mystery of dialectics – and not realize that one is participating in Russian kitsch propaganda? The lady later, perhaps well-meaningly, also took part in an online event with the pro-Russian Prof. Mangott and tried to educate herself about Russian propaganda … but awkwardly quotes long passages of Russian propaganda22.

Another reviewer complains, dialectically from the opposite direction, that the book is full of “stereotypes about the Russians … flanked by lusty faecal language”.23 Faecal language is Russian reality, but contradicts the reviewer’s glorified image of Russia.

Alexander Estis, whose sometimes good texts we have already had to quote several times, writes in the cover text:

Why is Putin almost like Pushkin? And above all: Why is the Russian soul so broad? Anyone who has ever asked themselves these and similar questions, will find what they are looking for - but will not get any answers in Alexander Estis’ “Handbook of the Russian Soul”. The “Handwörterbuch” comprises heterogeneous miniatures that repeatedly undermine the expectations of a dictionary entry. Stereotype and truth, wit and seriousness, seriousness of meaning and absurdity, high culture and banality, German and Russian stand side by side - just like in reality 24.

Just like in reality? The work plays with the suspension of reality:

BREADTH OF SOUL. The German soul is constant in its dimensions. The Russian soul is quite different. The Russian soul is not always the same breadth. Often it simply depends on how it is positioned. Thus, contrary to all expectations, it can suddenly turn out to be extraordinarily wide or vice versa. That is the secret of its breadth 25.

The Russian soul does not like to commit itself, wants to deceive, wants to soften our brains. We know that from kitsch. We know this from Russian propaganda. One month after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Alexander Estis wants us to believe that the average Russian is neither extraordinarily evil nor unusually kind-hearted, but rather lazy. Nice try. And in addition to sanctions, “we should also support those Russians who are trying to shake the rigid state from within”, he says.26

Whoever believes it.

74.7 It can always get worse

The most extreme use of the Russian soul construct, however, can be found in these two works:

The Iranian-German neurologist, psychiatrist and psychotherapist Nossrat Peseschkian, honorary professor at the Bekhterev National Psychoneurological Research Institute in Saint Petersburg, lends scientific consecration to the propaganda term “Russian soul” in his habilitation thesis “The Russian Soul in the Mirror of Psychotherapy.”27 May we never fall into the hands of such psycho-gurus.

In the year before the annexation of Crimea, the author Igor Chramow appropriates the member of the White Rose, Alexander Schmorell, Russian mother, German father, raised in Germany, as “The Russian soul of the”White Rose“”28.

  1. Inna Hartwich (21.03.2015) Russische Seele. Nicht zu fassen! Stuttgarter Nachrichten. https://www.stuttgarter-nachrichten.de/inhalt.russische-seele-nicht-zu-fassen.966795d9-4fec-4105-9557-a58fb1bd2171.html↩︎

  2. Svetlana Savickaya (12. August 2016) Die russische Seele - das Geheimnis. Neopubli. https://www.amazon.de/dp/3741838047?tag=lovelybooks-rdetail-21↩︎

  3. Russische Seele und deutsches Gemüt (04.10.2012). Deutsche Welle. https://www.dw.com/de/russische-seele-und-deutsches-gem%C3%BCt/a-16285054↩︎

  4. Vladimir Vertlieb (04.07.2019) Perspektive: Die russische Seele. https://www.juedische-allgemeine.de/politik/die-russische-seele/↩︎

  5. Thomas Franke (06.07.2015) Vom Putinismus und der russischen Seele. https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/russland-vom-putinismus-und-der-russischen-seele-100.html↩︎

  6. Michaela Fridrich (31.07.2011) Die russische Seele und die Lust am Leiden. Deutschlandfunk. https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/die-russische-seele-und-die-lust-am-leiden-100.html↩︎

  7. Sergej Rachmaninow: Klingt so die russische Seele? (01.04.2023) Deutsche Welle. https://www.dw.com/de/sergej-rachmaninow-klingt-so-die-russische-seele/a-65191775↩︎

  8. Alexander Estis (2021) Handwörterbuch der russischen Seele. Für den täglichen Privatgebrauch in deutschen Haushalten. Parasitenpresse Köln. http://estis.ch/handwoerterbuch↩︎

  9. Alexander Estis (2021) Handwörterbuch der russischen Seele. Für den täglichen Privatgebrauch in deutschen Haushalten. Parasitenpresse Köln. http://estis.ch/handwoerterbuch↩︎

  10. Peter Dittmar (30.10.2024) So trank sich Russland regelmäßig in den Ruin. Welt. https://www.welt.de/geschichte/article214847372/Wodka-So-trank-sich-Russland-regelmaessig-in-den-Ruin.html↩︎

  11. Sergey Sukhankin (January 29, 2024 ) Russia Faces Spike in Crime and Alcoholism as War Nears Two-Year Mark. Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 21 Issue: 13. https://jamestown.org/program/russia-faces-spike-in-crime-and-alcoholism-as-war-nears-two-year-mark/↩︎

  12. Volker Queck (03. November 2016) Wodka - Das “Wässerchen” hat Russland im Griff. MDR. https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/welt/osteuropa/land-leute/russland-alkoholismus-102.html↩︎

  13. Special Kherson Cat (25. Februar 2025) Bluesky. https://bsky.app/profile/specialkhersoncat.bsky.social/post/3liyi4fmt7c2y↩︎

  14. Stefan Meister (2017-07-01) Vom Angstreflex zur russischen Seele. Vier Neuerscheinungen beleuchten Russlands innere Verhältnisse. Internationale Politik. https://internationalepolitik.de/de/vom-angstreflex-zur-russischen-seele↩︎

  15. Alexander Estis (23. August 2022) Russische Seele - das Ende eines Mythos. Südeutsche Zeitung. https://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/krieg-in-der-ukraine-putin-russische-seele-1.5643158↩︎

  16. Alexander Estis (23. August 2022) Russische Seele - das Ende eines Mythos. Südeutsche Zeitung. https://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/krieg-in-der-ukraine-putin-russische-seele-1.5643158↩︎

  17. Alexander Estis (16.03.2022) Russische Mentalität: Der Bär bleibt lieber in der Höhle. Deutschlandfunk Kultur. https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/alexander-estis-russische-seele-100.html↩︎

  18. Hubertus Knabe (2022-05-22) Kraft und Zuversicht für Putins Soldaten. https://hubertus-knabe.de/kraft-und-zuversicht-fuer-putins-soldaten/↩︎

  19. Viktor Jerofejew (2021) Enzyklopädie der russischen Seele. Matthes & Seitz Berlin. https://www.matthes-seitz-berlin.de/buch/enzyklopaedie-der-russischen-seele.html↩︎

  20. Alexander Estis (2021) Handwörterbuch der russischen Seele. Für den täglichen Privatgebrauch in deutschen Haushalten. Parasitenpresse Köln. http://estis.ch/handwoerterbuch↩︎

  21. Viktor Jerofejew (2021) Enzyklopädie der russischen Seele. Matthes & Seitz Berlin. https://www.matthes-seitz-berlin.de/buch/enzyklopaedie-der-russischen-seele.html↩︎

  22. Christine Hamel (15. März 2022) Webtalk mit Prof. Gerhard Mangott und Christine Hamel zum Krieg in der Ukraine. https://www.blz.bayern.de/krieg-in-europa-russland-die-ukraine-und-der-westen_a_38.html↩︎

  23. Olga Hochweis (29.06.2021) Taumeln durch ein brutales Russland. https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/viktor-jerofejew-enzyklopaedie-der-russischen-seele-taumeln-100.html↩︎

  24. Alexander Estis (2021) Handwörterbuch der russischen Seele. Für den täglichen Privatgebrauch in deutschen Haushalten. Parasitenpresse Köln. http://estis.ch/handwoerterbuch↩︎

  25. Alexander Estis (2021) Handwörterbuch der russischen Seele. Für den täglichen Privatgebrauch in deutschen Haushalten. Parasitenpresse Köln. http://estis.ch/handwoerterbuch↩︎

  26. Alexander Estis (16.03.2022) Russische Mentalität: Der Bär bleibt lieber in der Höhle. Deutschlandfunk Kultur. https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/alexander-estis-russische-seele-100.html↩︎

  27. Hamid Peseschkian (2002) Die russische Seele im Spiegel der Psychotherapie. Ein Beitrag zur Entwicklung einer transkulturellen Psychotherapie (Habilitationsschrift). Berlin: VWB Verlag. https://www.peseschkian.com/publikationen/die-russische-seele-im-spiegel-der-psychotherapie.html↩︎

  28. Igor Chramow (2013) Die russische Seele der „Weißen Rose“. Helios Verlag, Aachen. https://www.edition-hagia-sophia.de/p/igor-chramow-die-russische-seele-der-weissen-rose↩︎