Russian Culture Essays Examples

Russia, a country with its geographical varieties and broad vastness, is an example of originality of one culture and presents a mixture of different cultural impacts that Russia has endured in its long history. When discussing literature, architecture or science one cannot but mention one significant figure from Russia that gave his contribution to the world. Russian people nurture family life and are a collective society. Their architecture is widely recognizable and presents Russia as a one of the world powers that proudly defends the line between Europe and Asia.
Russia can be seen as a border between Asia and Europe, a part of the world that conjoined all the best things that Europe had to offer and incorporated them in its culture. As a country that was for long time a monarchy, Russia gave emphasis of Orthodox Christianity and after the fall of Constantinople (1453), as fence of Orthodox Christianity, Russia become the most important milestone of Orthodox Christianity. The recognizable Kremlin stands proudly in Moscow and depicts Russian architecture. Buildings of Kremlin were an important task and Moscow's price ensured that every talented European architect would be engaged in this task. "Spurred by Sophia, Ivan sent a mission to Italy to recruit the best architectural talent to be found" (Massie, p. 44). The beauty of this architectural building lies in the fact that the architects did not copy the Italian style, but felt Russian culture and described it with their buildings. One might imagine when looking at cupolas of Kremlin Russian fairytales, images of windy and snowy landscapes that describe Russia.
Another important aspect of Russian culture is a strong collective spirit. Unlike European individuality, Russians are turned towards their community and share among each other everything. In the core of collectivism lies Christianity- harmonic unity of religion, agreement of brotherly love towards each other that is not revealed only in church but in a broader family relationship. The sense of belonging explains Russian unity in the difficult times. The "Russian soul" is emotive and feels all the wrongdoings that have been conducted on its people. The best way to understand Russian culture is through their writers like Pushkin or Tolstoy. In their novels, they describe all the invisible connections that Russians develop among each other, the big distances between the towns, and the diversity of nature that exist in Russia.
One might think that Russian culture is a secluded culture, but it is not the case. Even though in Russian culture everything is unique and depicts Russian originality, there are many things that are incorporated from the West and East. In the description of the Zoe, later Sophie, one might notice that she came from Rome with the knowledge of native Greek, Latin and Italian languages. Russians followed trends despite their geographically conditioned distances.
Finally, I agree with the author that Moscow is The Third Rome and that churches describe the beauty of Russian culture. The recognizable image of Kremlin associates to the glorious past that Russia had in the map of the world history, the greatness of their culture, and unity in people when needed. The topic of building of churches is important for understanding Russian architecture and the mission of glorifying Christianity as a religion where love and collective spirit prevails.

Cited work:

Massie, Susanne, Land of the Firebird: The Beauty of Old Russia. HeartThree Press 1980. Print.