You Just Don't Understand

Reading the Russians:

That Russians elude understanding -- because they are too different, too deep or too irrational -- is an image promoted by both Russians themselves and foreigners. Winston Churchill called Russia "a riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." Fyodor Tyutchev, the 19th-century Slavophile poet and diplomat, wrote that Russia's essence was invisible to the "foreigner's haughty eye." And 20th-century philosopher Nikolai Berdayev went as far as to say that the Russian psyche was structured differently from the European; the Russians had their unconscious where the Europeans had their consciousness and vice versa. But it is Dostoevsky's characters who best embody the Russian people's unique and irrational elements. The rationalistic, moralistic self-interest of the bourgeoisie was alien to the Russian, whose soul was as broad and open as his native land. The Russian needs to be swept up by something greater--a cause, a faith, an idea.

There's something to all this epic mystic booziness, of course -- Russia did come up with Stalin and Rasputin in the same century. But the real purpose behind Surkov's statement was to deflect criticism from Russia's obvious return to centralized authoritarian government. You can't criticize us because you can't understand us. Read Dostoevsky to understand Russian contradictions. (When the opposition political parties recently complained they weren't being given proportionate media coverage, Putin spoke out on their behalf and they were soon being lambasted at length in prime time.)

Mmmm...epic mystic booziness...