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Pavlovskaya A. V. Influence of Russian Orthodoxy on national character

The article focuses on some features of the Russian national character, which have developed under the centuries-lasting influence of orthodoxy. The main features are humility (the opposite of pride), obedience (to God, circumstances, fate, government, perceived as the opposite of rebellion), submission, humbleness, compassion.

Russian passion, wildness, breadth and scope in conjunction with Orthodox humility led to such mutually exclusive features as: despair and submission, suspicion and naiveté, passion and passivity.

Russian religiosity is cause and consequence of Russian man’s commitment to an idea — religious, revolutionary, communist — taken to the extreme. Nowadays, love for ideas, mystery and thirst to understand the unattainable manifest in astrology, horoscopes, fortune telling, etc. Russian religiosity is also characterized by harmonious coexistence of Orthodox consciousness and paganism (manifests in superstition and fear of the evil eye). Traditionalism, dislike of innovations, interest in rites, tradition observance (even if people do not know their meaning), veneration of holy shrines, following the habits are the basis of Russian life.

Keywords: Orthodoxy, Paganism, anachronisms, the Russian national character, traditionalism.

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