Russian Cultural Slideshow
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Additional Resources
This is a link to LiveScience's webpage on Russian culture. It has brief synopses of many different aspects of the culture of Russia, everything from the languages, to religion, to art and folklore.
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This is a timeline by PBS showing different milestones in Russian culture and when they were developed. It shows landmark dates, such as the invention of the Cyrillic Alphabet in 860 CE, and when Populism started gaining ground with the intellectual elite by 1869 CE.
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Cultural Map
This map shows the Russian language distribution over the planet. As you can see, it is still a primary language in many of the Soviet Era splinter countries like Kazakhstan and Belarus. Further than that, you can see the areas of the world that Russians have immigrated to in significant amounts.
Retrieved on February 22nd, 2016 from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Russian-Language-Map.png
Retrieved on February 22nd, 2016 from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Russian-Language-Map.png
Comparison of Population Statistics using Gapminder.org
Figure 1. This chart shows the birth rate of Russia from 1860 to 1970, as portrayed by gapminder.org.
Figure 3. This chart shows the child mortality rate of Russia from 1860 to 1970, as portrayed by gapminder.org.
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Figure 2. This is a chart of the income per person in Russia from 1860 to 1969, as portrayed by gapminder.org.
Note: Gapminder had no data for 1970, so it was not included. Figure 4. This chart shows the life expectancy of the population of Russia from 1860 to 1970, as portrayed by gapminder.org.
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In all four figures above, you can see the same general trends from 1860 until around the 1920s, a couple years after the end of World War I. Figure 1 shows the high birth rate common in rural societies with Russians being at around seven children per woman. Figure 2 shows almost a stagnant income rate with the inflation adjusted average income being at $1,896 in 1860 and just $2,115 sixty years later in 1910. Figure 3 shows the child mortality rate being between forty and fifty percent and Figure 4 shows the average life expectancy to only be thirty years during that same time frame. It wasn’t until after the two World Wars when we see a dramatic shift in the lives of Russians. By 1950, average income is up to $7,514 (Figure 2), over a 350% increase, and with that we see a dramatic decline in infant mortality, down to fewer than 100 per 1000 seen in Figure 3, and a jump in overall life expectancy from thirty to fifty years old as seen in Figure 4. As a result, we see birth rates drop, as there is less of a need to pop out as many children as possible, to less than three kids per woman, shown in Figure 1. As income increases, access to healthcare and other quality of life services increases as well which allows for a longer living society.
Religion in Russia
There are three predominant religions in Russia, the largest of which is the Russian Orthodoxy (41%), followed by non-practicing Orthodox/general spirituality (25%), and Atheism (13%) (Sreda, 2012). This author is of the Russian Orthodox faith, and some of the information here will come from personal reflection in addition to sourced research. Traditionally, it is believed that the Russian Orthodoxy was founded by Saint Andrew (one of the twelve disciples of Jesus Christ) who travelled along the Black Sea to Kiev and preached the word of God. More recent academic research points to evidence that Constantinople sent missionaries to the Rus in the 9th century to spread the word of God. After the Mongolian invasion, the center of the Orthodox Church was moved to Moscow, and eventually founding the first Monastery in the modern day city of Sergiev Posad, just north of Moscow. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Russian Orthodox Church became independent for the first time, and began separating itself from the traditional Byzantine Christianity (Voskresensky, 1997).
Aside from sharing many of the same holy sites as other Abrahamic religions, the Monastery of the Holy Trinity, located in the city of Sergiev Posad, is considered one of the most sacred sites of the Russian Orthodoxy. This author was able to take the pilgrimage in 2005. The monastery was constructed by Saint Sergius of Radonezh in the 1300s. After taking his vows and originally wanting to live alone in the forests north of Moscow, other monks joined him and founded the city that would later take his name. Then Sergius and his brother eventually built the small church that would grow into the Monastery of the Holy Trinity. He preached that salvation from the Mongolians could only come from a unified Russia under the leadership of Moscow, and was one of the first major public voices for expelling the Mongolians. Sergius is also well known for his blessing of Prince Dmitri of Moscow, who successfully led a united Russian army against the Mongolians, handing them a major defeat at the Battle of Kulikovo (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2016). This battle would show the Russian people that they could overthrow their oppressors, and over the next 100 years, would do just that. Sergius of Radonezh was canonized as he was a major force in providing the people of Russia the spiritual guidance needed to unite and force out the Mongolians. During the Soviet era, religion and the religious were persecuted. After the fall of communist rule, religion is on the rise, with one population survey reporting that while just over 30% of the population was religious in 1991, by 2010 that number climbed to over 70% (Levada, 2011). There is a clean separation of church and state in Russia, with church officials noting that “only an independent church can preach successfully” (Russia Today, 2013). Religion is on the rise in modern Russia. With increased spirituality, and the abandonment of a Godless Soviet Union, the relevance of religion in the culture of Russia seems very similar to religion on America to this author. In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, in the United States just over 70% is some form of Christian with over 22% of the population considered “unaffiliated” (Pew Research Center, 2016). It will be interesting to see in the coming decades how religion shapes the country of Russia and if it continues to come close to mirroring the United States. Resources: Sreda, (2012). Atlas of Religions and Nationalities of the Russian. Retrieved from: http://sreda.org/maps/arena_russia_main/arena_statistic_en.xls Voskresensky, O., (1997) Russian Orthodox church: early history and art. Retrieved from: http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~mes/russia/moscow/history.html Encyclopedia Britannica, (2016). Battle of Kulikovo. Retrieved from: http://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Kulikovo Levada, Y., (2011). The religious belief in Russia. Retrieved from: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&u=http://www.levada.ru/2011/09/26/religioznaya-vera-v-rossii/ Pew Research Center, (2016). Religious Landscape Study. Retrieved from: http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/ Russia Today, (2013). Separation of Church & state to remain intact – Russian Patriarch. Retrieved from: https://www.rt.com/politics/patriarch-church-merger-russia-256/ |
The three barred cross of the Russian Orthodoxy.
Retrieved from: http://www.synaxis.info/old-rite/images/cross_lg.jpg Monastery of the Holy Trinity of St. Sergius.
Retrieved from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trinitylavra.jpg Inside a Russian Orthodox church.
Retrieved from: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/b5/cb/7e/b5cb7e45c4cfaf5cc0dd0c8e8e1ec727.jpg |
Russian Orthodoxy Infograph Map
This is an infograph showing some facts and figures for religion in Russia. Information is sourced from the Sreda Research Group.
Retrieved from reddit.com user /u/gitarg at: http://i.imgur.com/K8LJcYh.jpg
Retrieved from reddit.com user /u/gitarg at: http://i.imgur.com/K8LJcYh.jpg
Cultural Identity
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