In discussions on the topic of what patriotism is, different people express their ideas about it. When Leo Tolstoy said that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel (by the way, a similar idea was expressed both before and after him), he had in mind not patriotism as such, but nationalism. Many thinkers call patriotism a defensive feeling, and nationalism an aggressive feeling, so those who attack people of another nationality cannot be called patriots. The militarization of the school has nothing to do with education. Military-patriotic education makes sense outside of school. For example, military-patriotic, military-historical clubs, but even here their leaders should exercise caution, avoid manifestations of any kind of nationalism. Children can be brought up in the spirit of love for their country, and not in the spirit of hatred for enemies who are unknown and who still have to be sought. As Nikolai Karamzin said: “Patriotism should not blind us; love for the fatherland is an act of clear reason, and not a blind passion.
Today in our "Discussion Club" we will talk about patriotism. The discussion can be continued if you, our readers, send us your thoughts on this topic, objections to the opinions expressed today.
"Life-Giving Shrine"
I turn to the dictionaries of the Russian language to clarify the concept. V. Dahl: patriotism - love for the motherland; S. Ozhegov has devotion and love for his fatherland, for his people. According to A. Pushkin, these feelings are important for a person:
Two feelings are wonderfully close to us,
In them the heart finds food -
Love for native land
Love for father's coffins.
A life-giving shrine, the Earth would be dead without them...
Is it possible to talk about the devotion to their fatherland of the millions who emigrated during the perestroika period? And what fuels the love for the motherland among millions of disadvantaged Russians who continue their lives in the Russian expanses? In what and how do they manifest themselves - this devotion and love for the motherland?
I do not condemn talented and highly qualified compatriots who have gone abroad, but I am proud that they - pupils of the Soviet school: scientific, musical, sports - find work in highly developed countries. May God grant them creative success and prosperity. Their accomplishments will be included in the global treasury of human achievements, and over time we will also be able to use them. But I am sad for my country, which does nothing to use their talents. My sense of patriotism responds to reviews of my country. It pains me when I hear a European say that the West can do without Russia, but Russia is unlikely to do without the West (culturally). I am overwhelmed with pride when they report on the triumphant performances of our artists abroad, on the prize-winning places of our students at Olympiads in Physics and Mathematics, on the gold medals of our athletes. Is there really no healthy spirit in the country to cope with the problems that have accumulated in society - corruption in the bureaucratic environment, hazing in the army, destitute old people and homeless children?
We were led astray by the golden calf. For most Russians, this incentive has never been inspiring, and during the years of perestroika, a virtual financial bubble has emerged and distracted society from real life. But another symbol known to us since childhood - the golden cockerel, is also not good. This is how we live: a small part of society prays for the golden calf, and a large part for the golden cockerel, at the signal of which the authorities activate the troops, so that later they howl over the victims. Having mourned, he continues to reign, lying on his side, along with his people. In those fabulous times, the king paid with his life for his indiscretion. Now people are paying with their lives. How long will we stay "lying on our side"? I think, until the Russian public is concerned about the situation in the real economy of their own country.
The four national projects proposed by the government - on education, on health care, on housing, on agriculture, inspire hope for a turn towards concrete action. The opposition claims that these projects are a myth, another PR stunt. Perhaps they are right. But, apart from criticism, no more constructive proposals are heard from her.
Finally, some concrete things need to be started. Words do not give birth to civil society. Fifteen years the people, not engaged in business, physically disappears. Why does this not bother the democratic opposition, the defenders of human rights in our country? From their point of view, the term patriot allegedly acquired a nationalist connotation in our country. In this case, showing complete indifference to the fate of the Russians, their activities have an anti-national connotation.
But the patriotic intelligentsia found a nerve in modern society. The overcrowded cinema halls and the number of TV viewers watching domestic films testify to the enthusiasm that has accumulated in the country for the revival of Russia. Find now a real deal for those who do not have access to large format halls!
Tamara BELOVA
This is the energy of creation.
What is the main secret of patriotic education? Talk less about patriotism, create more situations for the child to empathize with the problems of their small homeland. First, a child learns to love his mother, his family, his home, his friends. It is impossible to love your big Motherland while you can do without a small one. I really appreciate the rare conversations with Boris Vasiliev, on whose books and films I was brought up in my youth. “The dawns here are quiet”, “I was not on the lists” - in these immortal works there is not a word of lectures on how to love your country. You just can’t help but love her if tears of empathy for the heroes of Boris Vasiliev appeared in your eyes. Therefore, the essence of patriotic education is not in edifying conversations about patriotism, but in the education of inner love for the Fatherland.
Our lyceum students gave regular concerts to wounded soldiers-border guards in the Golitsyn hospital of the border troops. Everyone needed these concerts - both children and wounded soldiers, who understood that in front of them were the children of those who remained on the battlefield. I am convinced that the energy of patriotism is the main resource for Russia's development. Only a patriot can convey this energy. “What goes from the heart to the heart will reach,” our ancestors taught. How to convey to a child the motive of patriotic service to Russia? This is what Russian educators should be concerned about.
Today, a patriotic teacher is having a hard time. Someone very skillfully put an equal sign between the concepts of "nationalism" and "patriotism" in the public consciousness. A person who preaches patriotic values has become almost an outcast. Patriot? So chauvinist. I spent a long time discussing how to reveal this deception to teenagers, how to protect them from the ideologists of Russo-fascism, skinheads, fans, "fans" and other aggressive groups recruiting their supporters on the basis of adrenaline of destruction.
Patriotism is the energy of creation. If you are a patriot, then you will direct all your energy to ensure that your country, your family, your loved ones begin to live better. Nationalism is the energy of destruction. The nationalist spends all his strength on "drenching" foreigners, non-believers and other fictitious enemies of Russia. Nationalism is the ideology of a helpless consciousness. Forgetting about patriotic education, social education of children, we are losing to crime, which, no doubt, will find a way to use youthful energy in the right direction for itself. From love to hate one step. From blindfolded patriotism to nationalism, even less so.
Teenagers often ask me what is the main thing in the character of a special forces officer, while mentioning the images from the films of Steven Seagal and Sylvester Stallone. I don't know what to call this feature. But this “something” is sacredly kept in completely different films, such as “Only old men go into battle”, “Battalions ask for fire”, “Belorussky railway station”, “Ships storm the bastions”.
Anatoly YERMOLIN, Deputy of the State Duma
Everyone's natural feeling
Citizenship is a kind of spiritual state of a person. Patriotism is one of its components, and to single out this concept, I think, is unproductive today from the point of view of the comprehensive upbringing of the child. If, however, to intensify patriotic work, forgetting about other sides, then one can go to extremes. To raise a man with a weapon who is ready to do anything. We don't need militant patriots.
Patriotism must be inside every citizen. For him, love for the Motherland is a natural state, it is inherent in him to be proud of his country, to strive to do something for it.
My understanding of patriotism is, first of all, the constant desire to do something yourself to improve life in your country, to honestly do the work that you are doing. Worry about her future, about her prestige. If necessary, then with weapons to defend their Fatherland, this is natural.
Times change. If once patriotism was brought up on the example of Pavka Korchagin, the Young Guards, now such guidelines are not suitable. That was a different country. There were other examples with whom young people made their lives. In a united Europe, people feel like citizens, as well as patriots of the European Union, but at the same time they remember the interests of their country. The concept of "citizenship" is much broader, it includes both patriotism and democratic values, tolerance, the ability to respect the interests and rights of others.
Today, the cultural situation is different, which is difficult for many representatives of the older generation to perceive. The world is changing very rapidly nowadays, and children know about it. They communicate with each other on the Internet, with peers from other countries. It never occurs to them that they need to fight each other. They are just friends, sharing information.
In our international camp, created under the "New Civilization" program, guys from different countries created a playful state, where the patriotic feeling was really clearly manifested. The guys proudly represented their country. Then a boy from America was elected president, and a boy from Russia became prime minister. The guys very quickly found compromises, and there were no conflicts. Children, as citizens of the future, are free from the myths that adult people have.
Patriotism is an inner feeling of everyone, it is like love for a mother, for a child. This is the natural feeling of every person. Live with the feeling that this is my country, no matter what happens to it, no matter the difficulties, no matter how other states treat it. The child intuitively senses this. It is even unnatural for him when we defiantly try to teach him love for Russia. It follows from his entire worldview of the Motherland.
Alexander PRUTCHENKOV, Doctor of Historical Sciences
Memory of the native land
Unfortunately, the crisis of patriotism is being talked about in many countries today. I talked on this subject with a significant number of Europeans, including those who are related to the education of young people, and they all state that teenagers and young people are no longer so proud of their homeland, they do not love it so warmly and wholeheartedly. And our political parties are concerned that the level of patriotism is declining. I heard that teachers in Russia and the public are also expressing concern. Perhaps we adults do not quite understand the young.
I think that in our time the very concept of “patriotism” is changing everywhere. After all, what is patriotism? Or is it some purely national motives associated with a particular nationality. You are devoted to her, you are concerned about her future fate, the preservation of traditions, language, culture, position among other peoples. Or patriotism contains some democratic values. This is the adoption of a democratic way of life, freedom, including freedom of movement around the world, freedom to live where it is convenient for you.
It just changes the essence of the concept. Therefore, some kind of contradiction arises, a discrepancy between the usual views on this feeling and the new ones, due to modern trends, the globalization of our life. People belonging to the older generation often say to a young man or girl who, say, wants to go abroad to study or work: “You are no longer a patriot.” I think this is an outdated understanding.
And young people believe that something new has appeared inside the concept of “patriotism”. To the question, if, God forbid, the country is attacked from outside, will you defend it? Everyone answers without hesitation: of course, without hesitation. Therefore, I do not at all consider those who leave to work, say, in Germany, France, the USA, as non-patriots of Lithuania, they go for material reasons or in order to get a more thorough education. Or because there are more opportunities to reveal your abilities. There the labor market is more liberal. When we in Lithuania achieve the same conditions for work, study, all-round development of a person, then, naturally, most of those who leave will want to stay in their homeland. Well, those who are still called to their place by other gave, please, a happy journey and prosperity in a foreign land. But I am sure that for many of them, the native land where they were born, where your roots are, remains forever in their souls.
Richardas TOTORAITIS, Specialist of the Department of Education of the Ministry of Education and Science of Lithuania
We are being tested
The image of Russia, our Motherland... It is probably completely different for people of the young and older generations. To remain faithful to one's long-suffering Motherland is not only patriotism, but also great trials and difficulties, if a person, in essence, and most importantly, in his deeds, proves daily, hourly his devotion to the country in which he lives. We are all now being tested by temptation: someone with easy money, fame, all available and inaccessible “pleasures”. We are forced to displace our traditions, culture, our roots in order to create such an Ivan who does not remember kinship, they destroy our Orthodoxy. Most recently we celebrated St. Valentine's Day, the commercial project of which continues to be successfully promoted in our Orthodox state. No one pays attention to the fact that the holiday is Catholic, that in the III century AD, when St. Valentine lived, the church wedding ceremony did not yet exist. True, in some places publications began to slip in the press that it would be nice to approve your holiday of love and harmony and celebrate it on the day of Saints Peter and Fevronia of Murom, July 8th. These were quite real princes and peasant women who lived in the 13th century in Murom. Moreover, it would be necessary to pay close attention to the demographic situation in the country, which is becoming simply catastrophic for Russians. D. Mendeleev, who not only discovered his famous Periodic Table, but also wrote a treatise on the population of Russia, calculated that by the year 2000 470 million people should live in our country. Nearly half a billion. But Dmitry Ivanovich made his conclusions based on the growth rate of the population of tsarist Russia. He could not know that there would be terrible wars, famine, repressions, rivers of Russian blood would flow, the gene pool of the Russian nation would be systematically destroyed ... The count about nationality disappeared from the passport, they say, they wanted to remove the patronymic, all according to the Western model? And the very word "Russian" is gradually being replaced. We were all made Russians and Russians.
I have always called and will call myself Russian, I have never been and will never be a nationalist and chauvinist, although they are always ready to stick this label on me if I say that I am Russian, if only to kill this very feeling of Russianness in my soul. And this primarily concerns our Orthodox faith. Who just does not work against Orthodoxy in Russia: sectarians, various emissaries of movements, religions? History often repeats itself. Everyone to some extent knows about the Mongol-Tatar invasion. But very few people know about such an important event that happened at that time. In addition to the Mongol-Tatars, the Teutonic Order went to Holy Rus'. And then Prince Alexander Nevsky in Veliky Novgorod said this: “Rusichi! Orthodox! The East takes our body. The West takes our soul. Let's protect our souls! And we will agree with the body! And thanks to the wisdom of the young prince, we saved Rus', our faith, we saved ourselves.
And now there is a struggle for the soul of great Russia. It is beneficial for someone to accuse the Russian people of laziness, drunkenness, theft, cruelty. See what our numerous channels of television are filled with! They perfectly work off the money that the West has invested: they are corrupting our youth. It is already becoming an act not to support what is foreign, or rather what is alien, so as not to plunge into the darkness of national unconsciousness.
And I want to repeat the answer of the Russian writer Vladimir Krupin to the question of a foreign colleague whether the Russian people will leave the history of mankind. It will only go with history.
Elizabeth Markova
What is true patriotism? It is impossible to consider formal, albeit expressed in the most beautiful words, love for the motherland as patriotism. True patriotism is expressed not in words, but in deeds. V. Belinsky said this beautifully: “Patriotism, no matter who it is, is proved not by word, but by deed ... Patriotism does not consist in magnificent exclamations and commonplaces, but in an ardent feeling of love for the motherland, which can express itself without exclamations and manifests itself not only in delight from the good, but also in a painful hostility to the bad, which inevitably happens in every land, therefore, in every fatherland.
True patriotism is not selfish, but, on the contrary, requires selfless selflessness, sacrifice for the sake of the motherland. “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” said John F. Kennedy. Moreover, we are talking not only about the momentary sacrifice of a feat, but also about long-term selfless work for the good of the motherland. “It is important that you are ready to die for your country; but more importantly, that you be ready to live life for her,” wrote Theodore Roosevelt.
True patriotism is peaceful. It does not consist in unbridled praise of one's country and exaltation of it over all other countries, especially in inciting enmity and hatred towards them. Nikolai Aleksandrovich Dobrolyubov noted: “Patriotism is alive, active, and it is precisely distinguished by the fact that it excludes all international enmity, and a person animated by such patriotism is ready to work for all mankind, if he can only be useful to him.”
Real patriotism is humanistic. “In a decent person, patriotism is nothing more than a desire to work for the benefit of one’s country, and it comes from nothing else than the desire to do good, as much as possible and as much as possible better,” writes Dobrolyubov N. A. Further, he continues: “Love for the fatherland lies, first of all, in a deep, passionate desire for good and enlightenment for it, in a readiness to bring property and life itself to the altar; in ardent sympathy for everything good in him and in noble indignation against that which slows down the path to perfection ... ".
An important side of the humanism of patriotism is its sincerity and criticality. P. Chaadaev was one of the first to emphasize this feature of patriotism: “More than any of you, believe me, I love my country, I wish it glory, I can appreciate the high qualities of my people; but it is also true that the patriotic feeling that inspires me is not quite like the one whose cries disturbed my peaceful existence and again threw my boat, which had landed at the foot of the cross, into the ocean of human unrest. I have not learned to love my homeland with my eyes closed, with my head bowed, with my mouth shut. I find that a man can only be useful to his country if he sees it clearly; I think that the time of blind love has passed, that now we are primarily indebted to our homeland for the truth. I love my fatherland, as Peter the Great taught me to love it. I confess that this blissful patriotism of laziness is alien to me, which adapts itself to seeing everything in a rosy light and rushes about with its illusions, and which, unfortunately, many efficient minds are now suffering among us. I believe that we came after others in order to do better than them, so as not to fall into their mistakes, into their delusions and superstitions.
True patriotism is reasonable. It manifests itself not only at the level of feelings, but also at the level of self-consciousness and is based on deep knowledge and a high culture of thought. “Patriotism should not blind us; love for the fatherland is an action of a clear mind, and not a blind passion, ”said Karamzin N.M.
Patriotism is a deep feeling in unity with thought and deed, it is a real merging of a citizen with the history and life of his native country. A.N. Tolstoy wrote: “Patriotism does not mean only one love for one's homeland. It is much more ... It is the consciousness of one's inalienability from the motherland and the inalienable experience with her of her happy and unhappy days.
In the era of the rule of the liquidators of Russia and its people, real patriotism has nothing in common with loyal obedience to an unjust government. It requires a fight against the pernicious social SYSTEM and its offspring - a clan of corrupt officials, oligarchs and corrupt officials, i.e. struggle for social justice and democracy, the struggle for socialism.
To be a patriot today is to fight and not be afraid, not to change and not to retreat, not to bend before the intimidation of the authorities and not to succumb to its lies. Only such patriotism, and not senseless nationalism, is needed today in Russia.
RUSSIANS
A. Pushkin:
Of course, I despise my fatherland from head to toe - but I am annoyed if a foreigner shares this feeling with me.
P. Chaadaev:
I prefer to scourge my country, I prefer to grieve it, I prefer to humiliate it, if only not to deceive it.
Love for one's country is a beautiful thing, but there is something even more beautiful - it is love for truth.
It is permissible, I think, in the face of our disasters, not to share the aspirations of unbridled patriotism, which has brought the country to the edge of the abyss, which thinks to extricate itself, persisting in its illusions, not wanting to recognize the desperate situation it has created.
P. Vyazemsky:
We are all exiles and in our homeland.
Many recognize unconditional praise for everything that is their own as patriotism. Turgot called this lackey patriotism. We could call it leavened patriotism.
N. Karamzin:
Patriotism should not blind us; love for the fatherland is an act of clear reason, and not a blind passion.
F. Tyutchev:
I do not have homesickness, but longing for a foreign land.
N. Gogol:
Love for the fatherland has turned into sugary boasting. Proof of this, our so-called leavened patriots: after their inappropriate praises, one only wants to spit on Russia ...
And here are all the bureaucratic fathers ... these are all that huddle in all directions and climb into the courtyard and say that they are patriots and this and that: these patriots want rent! Mother, father, God will be sold for money, ambitious, Christ-sellers!
N. Dobrolyubov:
In recent times, patriotism consisted in praising everything that is good in the fatherland, now this is no longer enough to be a patriot. Now, in addition to the praise of everything good, there has been added an inexorable censure and persecution of everything bad that we still have.
A person who hates another nation does not love his own.
A. Herzen:
Patriotism is a ferocious virtue, for which ten times more blood has been shed than for all vices combined.
The whole of Russia was seized by the syphilis of patriotism!
G. Alexandrov:
Sometimes, love for the Motherland is instilled in us by people who do not care about everything.
E.Albats:
When we are taught to love our homeland by people who for a decade, out of great love for Russia, shot at soldiers of the federal army, this is beyond good and evil.
V.Andreev:
"A spark will ignite a flame":
They passionately kiss even the banner!
Leavened patriotism intoxicates us no less:
Everyone on the podium will explain this to you!
B. Artamonov:
"Motherland" is an idol invented by the Kremlin demagogues back in Stalin's time to justify their crimes. "Motherland" is an association of fat-assed, well-fed officials who do not respect their people and do not consider them to be people. Disrespect for the individual is one of the most typical features of Soviet and post-Soviet reality ... The idol of "Motherland" for the first time in history was adopted by that stratum of the people who hate freedom, who wants to return back to Soviet slavery ... Now a person who from the bottom of his heart pronounces the word " Motherland" can be safely ranked among the supporters of the strangulation of all rights and freedoms and the restoration of the Soviet or similar system, where the primacy of society over the individual is practiced, the individual becomes dependent and ceases to be a person, becoming a miserable unit of human cattle or a cog in the system, as you please.
In England, there is no concept of "Motherland" at all, which was once clearly and clearly added on BBC radio. And if the British and Americans love their countries, then they have something to love them for. If any of them loses his country, he will lose his freedom, lose the law that protects him, lose the opportunity to use his abilities for the benefit of others (and at the same time for the benefit of himself and his family) - in a word, he will lose everything. If a Russian loses his country, what will he lose? Breeding mediocre officials, whom he feeds? Employers who do not pay wages on time with impunity? The cops, who in most cases do not protect him, and not today or tomorrow, can be accused of a crime that he did not commit? Scoundrels who, not today or tomorrow, will secretly blow up or openly bomb his house for reasons of political adventurism? Or those scoundrels who forcibly send his son to "pacify the Caucasus", and in fact commit genocide, sow death and crime, and in the end pay for it with their lives? But in order to become a free, self-respecting person, he only needs very little: to realize that the persons listed above are real enemies, invaders who destroyed his real country in 1917 and are fattening on its decayed corpse, and "Motherland ”, which they are trying to force to love from under the stick - this is just their satanic idol, with which these non-humans are trying to justify any of their crimes, and this idol has nothing to do with the homeland to which the poet Yesenin once dedicated his poem. It would not be superfluous to recall that Hitler also forced to love Rodina.
And Western patriotism is different in that they have a state for a person, and not a person for the state, as Soviet or post-Soviet ideological workers or patriotic educators are trying to impose. Try to convince some American that as soon as he was born, he is in an unrequited debt to America, and no matter what he does, he will never pay this debt, but will remain an eternal debtor. I guess he'll just think you're starting to go crazy. To love your country is nothing seditious in this, if there is something to love it for. But to sing praises to the state that mocks you is a glorification of the slave of this state and a clear indicator of the slave mentality.
The same thing happened with the word “motherland” [in Russia] that happened with the swastika [in Germany]. After all, this sign was harmless, no more suspicious than a pentagram and meant only "perpetual motion." But, having been in use by the Nazis, he lost, and for a very long time, all the light that was originally invested in him.
S. Alexandria:
Patriotic priapism can end in gangrene.
V. Astafiev:
Of all the speculations, the most accessible and therefore the most widespread is speculation with patriotism; love for the motherland is most sold out - this commodity is in great demand at all times.
A. Bagmet:
Our native country is the most terrible foreign land for us.
I love my homeland, but I hate the state that occupied it.
Only those who have nothing else to be proud of are proud of their nationality.
M. Belenky:
Only there, at home, was real happiness possible - to get a kilo of cheese or a light bulb, or to hear with relief that the pogrom, scheduled for May 5, was postponed to May 6.
And that the Jew, if you take a closer look, has a small tail behind him. Well, again, about matzah with blood… Who among them admits this…
But let it remain in the memories.
S. Belkovsky:
Putin said that for a Russian person, unlike a Western one, death is red in the world, and a Russian person will not hold on to some kind of ephemeral material well-being if there is an opportunity to die for the motherland, and especially for a leader who personifies and embodies this very motherland .
M. Berg:
Loving and believing in Russia is a profitable profession. And most importantly - long-playing, suitable for any government.
E. Bernhard:
You can love the motherland, but it will not reciprocate.
Faced with the jingoists, you are convinced that Darwin was right.
Adoration of power - patriotism in Russian.
Unhappy are the people whose patriots are boors, criminals and sadists.
S. Beschastny:
I wonder if dual citizenship makes people twice patriots?
P. Bilyk:
Stop publicly jerking off your patriotism!
V.Borisov:
A patriotic majority is always needed by a minority.
Russia through the eyes of some patriots:
- Oh, give-give me Tirana!!!
Patriotic culture always shouts to the "cult of power": "Hurrah!!!"
People who have expensive imported cars, wear expensive imported accessories, jewelry and clothes, love expensive imported equipment and love to trade in large volumes of confiscated goods and Chinese goods for poorer citizens - for some reason, they are usually the first to call for patriotism of poorer citizens. At the same time, if you notice, they themselves set an example completely opposite.
K. Borovoy:
Has anyone thought about unemployment at 30%? I can imagine how large the number of rallies in support of getting up from your knees will now be, if this is the only income for the leavened unemployed patriots.
E.Brown:
The state of active patriotism cannot be interpreted otherwise than as a religious psychosis, which it is, and a human being cannot in any way be responsible for this mental attack, since devotion to the pack is embedded in the genetic code ...
G. Burkov:
I have no homeland, because a slave cannot have it.
D. Bykov:
Patriotic frenzy is not a manifestation of sincere faith.
Fools can be arbitrarily patriotic, but this is of zero benefit to the Motherland.
Patriotism today is not a desire to defend the Motherland, but the desire to receive 300 rubles and a glass of cognac for participating in a rally ...
Patriotism is not to shout the loudest that our mother has no vices, our mother is the mother of all mothers. Patriotism consists in working for the good of the motherland, so that it would be comfortable to live in the motherland.
We all love the Motherland, but we are all ready to exterminate the one who loves the Motherland not in our way, otherwise.
In general, I am in favor of calling the country with which you coincide in views the homeland.
The scum who call themselves patriots and the scum who call themselves statesmen, unlike real patriots and statesmen, no longer have a monopoly on the truth, no one listens to them anymore, they are mocked.
N. Varsegov:
The whole Russian patriotic fuse goes into chatter about holy origins, about the insidiousness of foreigners ... And at the entrance to any Russian city - mountains of garbage and stinking rot.
A. Wasserman:
The course of "patriotic education" in schools can cause hatred for the motherland even in the most healthy child.
M. Weller:
Attempts to whip up a patriotic frenzy will not do good.
When the "whites", "reds" and "greens" slaughtered each other, both those and others and thirds loved their country, their land, were connected with it by indissoluble bonds, emotional, blood and whatever. And, each of the other two was accused of being not patriots, but bastards and foreign hirelings, damned bars and so on. These guys, instead of calmly working, building something and doing something, continue to invent a definition of patriotism without looking up from theft.
A. Weng:
I am a patriot of my native land: planets
Under the strict proud name of Earth.
There is no more beautiful in the whole universe
You will spend all the words praising her.
I love her, my native land,
The expanse of Russia and Europe shine,
Siberian sullenness icy
And Mediterranean noisy splashing.
After all, this is all mine, everything is expensive:
And the river and the path and the woods.
Completely mine! Not anyone else!
Chilean cactus, Russian spikelet...
Vereshchagin (film character):
Shame on the state.
A. Vigushin:
Which country should I be a patriot of? The one where he was conceived, where he was born, where he spent his childhood, studied, worked, or do I live now?
Hunger and patriotism are as immiscible as oil and water. There are no hungry patriots.
S.Vorkachev:
The patriotism of the cattle is, as a rule, “cheerful patriotism” and “leavened patriotism”: ours is the best already because it is ours; it does not involve criticism and allows love for the motherland “with closed eyes” (Chadaev).
V. Vrubel:
Potentially, any of the millions of Russian citizens living abroad is a Russophobe, because he is torn away from his native land, and instead of thinking, as he is told, falling out of the sphere of influence of his native central television channels, he begins to think independently, with his own head.
P. Vyazemsky:
Many recognize unconditional praise for everything that is their own as patriotism. Turgot called this lackey patriotism, du patriotisme d "antichambre. We could call it leavened patriotism. I believe that love for the fatherland should be blind in donations to it, but not in conceited complacency; this love can also include hatred. What a patriot, no matter what nation he belongs to, would not like to tear out a few pages from the history of the country, and did not seethe with indignation, seeing the prejudices and vices inherent in his fellow citizens?True love is jealous and exacting.
V.Galashev:
Patriotism is a worthwhile thing ... and a lot.
A sense of pride for the country inevitably turns into a sense of shame.
I love my country, but with a strange love. She won't corrupt my mind...
I. Garin:
Motherland is motherland, and living like a beast is so disgusting ...
War and patriots are twin brothers.
The logic of Russian patriotism: if you are not like me, then you are not a patriot.
Necrophiles and leavened patriots perceive the smell of decay as a fragrance...
To the problem of patriotism: if a country does not respect its citizens, should citizens respect such a country?
When intoxication with leavened patriotism is added to the unwillingness to know the truth, then they get betrayal, coupled with "patriotism" - patriotic betrayal.
If the authorities talk a lot about selfless love for the motherland, then this means that the incomes of the population will drop significantly. However, why not starve for patriotic reasons? ..
Racists, chauvinists and xenophobes of all stripes, freed from personal responsibility and dressed in the guise of "patriots", with incredible ease and at all times, give vent to their sadism, and this is largely facilitated by the anonymous "era of crowds".
Patriotism as a manifestation of the herd instinct is the main driver of most wars and atrocities in the world.
Motherland is when your killers are scoundrels, and our killers are great.
In some countries, it is thanks to the "patriots" that the country moves from one bloody regime to another.
The world has entered an era of inverted concepts: dense xenophobic Black Hundreds are actively fighting fascism with weapons in their hands, notorious scoundrels-liars are broadcasting the "truth" day and night, half-wits and idiots "enlighten" Professors Preobrazhensky, swearing bastards pass verdicts on dissidents, and destroyers and thieves are declared the main patriots ... There is a new kind of patriotism - pathos destruction of the country ...
The delirium of sovereign greatness among the gopniks invariably ends in disintegration.
Patriotism so often develops into Nazi frenzy that the question arises, do we need 1945?
I am a patriot to all patriots! Dear President, beloved boss, just hear me for God's sake!
Patriotism, like earlier membership in the CPSU, is the most reliable way to make a career.
Russian patriotism begins with hatred for everything foreign.
All my life experience shows that under totalitarianism patriotism can be very counterproductive.
The doses of patriotism imposed from above in Russia can compete only with the doses of consumed drugs, although, by the way, one differs little from the other.
If I understand correctly, then the Motherland is a parent, protector, savior, helper, but is it possible to call it the cause of pain, violence, despair, longing, hopelessness?
The main feature of the “defender of power” psychotype is what he himself calls “patriotism” and which in fact is servility, faithful service to scoundrels. This type organically does not tolerate and does not tolerate freedom and easily changes it to a “vertical of power”, to “wet in the toilet”, to “stability, greatness, portraits of Stalin and our Crimea”.
E. Hasanov:
If your mother gave birth to you on a ship, would you try to stay at sea forever?
G.Gasilov:
Totalitarian propaganda, under the pretext of "educating patriotism," usually imposes militarism and love for the bosses on citizens.
A. Genis:
The homeland is not chosen, but collected, as the Habsburgs did in Austria (and the Romanovs in Russia): from everything that lies badly.
V. Glickman:
Motherland, Motherland, but you want to live normally ...
B. Grebenshchikov:
"Patriotism" simply means "kill the infidel."
A. Grinevskaya:
The more delicious you call names, the more patriotism you have.
The jingoistic patriots will not rest until they finish off Russia as well, in order to have an absolute and indisputable - for all eternity - reason to hate the enemy.
A dead end path that has only one way out - the collapse of the Russian Federation. But when did common sense or a sense of self-preservation stop our patriots?
V. Gubarev:
For the sake of the Fatherland, patriots sacrifice everything, and rulers sacrifice everything.
I. Huberman:
Patriotism is an amazing feeling that does not exist in people who pronounce this word aloud.
We have love for the motherland in abundance
warm in everyone's chest,
we'd better drink it to the skin,
but we will not let the enemy offend.
D. Gubin:
A patriot is not the one who does good for the motherland and wishes good for the motherland, today we have a patriot who mocks and jokes and humiliates everything that is not our homeland.
I. Davydov:
The whole homeland was spat upon, so much so that it became embarrassing to talk about it. Their patriotism is the obligatory approval of any actions of the state, including the most heinous ones. Mandatory servility to superiors. Mandatory tenderness in front of military power, perhaps imaginary, and a demonstration of the readiness of one's own and other people to destroy for the sake of demonstrating this power.
One has only to say that you are a patriot and your country is not indifferent to you, as you will immediately find yourself among others, salivating with indescribable delight and ready to polish the master's boot with their tongues.
It is not such an easy task to clear the word "patriotism" from the spitting of people who are permanently in a state of indescribable delight.
D.Dan:
When there is nothing to boast about, but you want to, patriotism comes to the rescue.
S. Demura:
When there is such a shit in the country, it means that we need to talk about patriotism, that we are great, that we get up from our knees, and, of course, while there is bread and circuses, we need to throw another spectacle to the people.
A. Dreamvendor:
Although we live in Russia, there is no Russia around us at all. And patriots drive Bentleys, dress in Adidas, eat sushi, and use Russian only for strong expressions.
V. Dyachenko:
Patriotism for a CHRISTIAN is absurd, since he is a wanderer on this earth and his HOMELAND is in heaven.
And now imagine two Orthodox, Russian and Ukrainian, during the conflict between our countries, that, each defending their homeland, following this logic, they should shoot at each other?
Egorov:
I want to not be ashamed to be proud of you, beloved Motherland.
Motherland comes to a citizen's house either with a summons from the military enlistment office or with a search warrant.
In our time, only quilted jackets can love the Motherland. Everyone who does not blow into the common tune of the one and the indivisible is a Russophobe and an enemy.
Ven. Erofeev:
Patriotism is born only when the state begins to love you.
Well, I love Russia too. It occupies a sixth of my soul.
V. Erofeev:
We love our motherland, but she never loved us.
Militarism and leavened patriotism kindle or flood the brain faster and more actively than all other means.
Patriotism turns out to be a reflection of the idea of the exclusivity of the motherland, followed by the idea that for the sake of this exclusivity one can sacrifice everything, including one's own life.
E. Zhiroukhov:
"Patriot" to a large extent means "conservative and reactionary."
D. Zimin:
In general, I am ashamed of my country quite often. That's why I'm a patriot.
R. Ziyadullayev:
The inscription on the car "Obama schmuck" in Russian is a sign of patriotism.
A. Ivanov:
Patriotism is about leaving hope, not spreading lies.
Yu.Izdryk:
Patriotism is a very zoological thing.
I. Ilyin:
The measure of devotion to the Motherland is in informing the special services.
A measure of groveling before the authorities is like a measure of devotion to the country.
"Soviet patriotism" is something perverted and absurd. This is patriotism of the state form. The "Soviet patriot" is not devoted to his real Fatherland (Russia) and not to his people (the Russian people). He is devoted to that Soviet form in which Russia has been suffering and humiliated for thirty years now; he is devoted to that party-communist "Sovetchina" that oppresses and blackmails the Russian people from the very beginning of the revolution.
What do the words "I am a Soviet patriot" mean? They mean that I am devoted to the Soviet region - the Soviet state, the Soviet government, the Soviet system - no matter what is hidden behind all this and whatever policy is pursued: Russian, non-Russian or anti-state, perhaps disastrous for Russia, bringing enslavement to the Russian people and extinction, famine and terror.
The "Soviet patriot" is devoted to the authorities, not to the motherland; the regime, not the people; party, not the country. He is devoted to an international dictatorship that has enslaved his people with fear and hunger, openly abolished their true Russianness and forbade the people to be called by their glorious historical name. For Russia has long been gone from the Soviet Union, her name has been officially erased from history by the communists, and their state itself is called internationally and anti-nationally: "The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."
The Soviet patriot by his very name renounces Russia and the Russian people and declares his commitment and loyalty - not to him. He is a patriot of the international party: he serves it, he fights for it, he pledges obedience to it. Its very name contains an open, public renunciation of Russia and the voluntary self-enslavement of its non-Russian and anti-Russian dictatorship. If this is "love", then love is not for Russia, but for international communism; if this is a struggle, then the struggle for the consolidation of Soviet slavery in Russia is a struggle for the destruction of the Russian people in the name of the international communist revolution; if this is "loyalty", then loyalty to the Soviet and betrayal of national Russia!
L. Imyanitov:
"Patriotism", brought to its logical limit with German accuracy, is Nazism. German "patriotic education" led the country to collapse. They also wanted “what is best” for the nation.
"Nashism" contains not only "patriotic" dislike of the Americans, the Chinese, or liberal Democrats. This is the cultivation of communal malice in general with the help of young "zombies".
"Patriotism" often arises from servility, from the habit of being imbued with the needs and interests of the authorities. Yes, and the government itself cultivates "patriotism" as an excuse for bureaucratic arbitrariness.
No matter how opportunistic and scoundrel you are, if you are recognized as a "patriot" - you will be forgiven everything.
"Patriotic education" can be considered one of the significant reasons for the collapse of the USSR.
Today, this "patriotic education" leads to an increase in Nazi sentiment among some of the youth.
"Patriotism" is the last refuge of mediocrity.
Patriotism, like any personal feeling of love in general, is false from loud publicity and attempts to make money on it.
We have already reached such a technical level when, carried away by communal patriotism, we can self-destruct "in the struggle."
M. Zhvanetsky:
When the state loves us, then it will be the motherland.
Patriotism is a clear, clear, well-argued explanation of why we should live worse than others.
Gloomy and serious - this is what they [patriots] call their homeland.
N. Zinoviev:
Lord, solve my question,
It causes concern:
What if the salvation of the Motherland -
To save your own soul?
And I sin, even though I repent
But in such a scenario
Am I not, Lord,
Fatherland's own enemy?!
A. Kabak:
You can’t sell such a homeland with all your desire ...
V.Kazanzhants:
Feeding only on pride and glory, we wither along with our own power
Citizens are walking back under the flag with a rather vigorous step.
Russia is being ruined by unfortunate patriots, who only give machine guns.
Today, only idiots believe that we are controlled by... patriots.
Feeding only on pride and glory, we wither along with our own power.
Patriotism in Russian is pride in the rabble, which is elected by the people.
V.Karinberg:
Talk about the sanctity of the Fatherland, the nation - these are illusions akin to drug delirium, because nationality is the same as for a drug addict - opium or alcohol, with its "high word" and its obsessive arch-myths.
I. Karpov:
Loving your country is easy. It is difficult to achieve reciprocity.
This is how you need to love your country in order to engage in patriotism with it.
It's easy to die for one's country. But you kill for the Motherland, steal for the Motherland, commit adultery for the Motherland... Prove to everyone how much you love the Motherland!
While the patriots are dying for their Motherland, the cosmopolitans will inherit the Earth.
I.Kenigshtein:
For me, true patriotism is not at all a love for politicians-simplists and for a backward oligarchic economy, but a deep sense of attachment to the city in which I was born, the city in which I live, the people who inhabit these cities, and pride in those moments when these people achieve their own or common victories. I have not kissed the earth and do not plan to.
V. Kiselev:
A real patriot is not the one who sits in his shit and grunts with pleasure, but the one who wants the shit in his native country to become less.
N. Kovaleva:
Paradoxical patriotism... My great love for the country remained at the bottom of my soul. But this strange feeling is on the verge of despair. And I'm ashamed of the word "patriot". So they dragged him...
V.Konnov:
A patriot is one who is ashamed of the crimes and mistakes of the authorities.
A.Konopatsky:
Bloch considered herself a patriot, and her homeland was a fox terrier.
A. Konchalovsky:
I am Russian, I miss my Motherland, but I “don’t see” it! I don't see a country that I want to be proud of. I see crowds of disgruntled irritated faces and strangers who are afraid of each other! I want to be proud of my Motherland, but I'm ashamed of it!
V.Korolenko:
... And there are ultra-Russian, purely Russian, "truly Russian" patriots who carry the ark of their patriotism, like a bracer carries the ark of his honor - tendentiously, deliberately looking around and defiant ... This kind of bulging, hypertrophied and unhealthy patriotism is called recently "nationalism" in its special modern meaning. This is how natural evolution takes place along the path ... not of patriotism, of course, but only its surrogate - nationalism, which is very strong in our time ...
B. Krieger:
Patriotism is the best excuse for people's rudeness.
M. Lashkov:
In Russia, to pass for an extremist is enough to tell the truth.
K.Leontiev:
I do not understand the French, who know how to love any France, and serve any France ... I wish that my fatherland was worthy of my respect, and I can only endure any Russia under duress.
God, am I a patriot? Do I despise or honor my homeland? And I’m afraid to say: it seems to me that I love her like a mother, and at the same time despise her like a drunken, spineless fool to the point of baseness ...
A. Lesnik:
Motherland is the one in which you are sure! Patriotism must be mutual!
E.Letov:
The further I live, the more I am convinced that nothing is changing in our country and will never change. For as long as I can remember, there have always been mass so-called "patriotic" movements that unite selected militant bastards. Previously, these were Komsomol members, Lubera, then various popular patriotic movements such as the Memory Society. Now it's skinheads, all kinds of "Walking Together"...
D. Likhachev:
Our love for the Motherland was least of all like pride in the Motherland, its victories and conquests.
A. Lunacharsky:
Of course, the idea of patriotism is a false idea through and through. Teaching history in the direction of creating national pride, national feeling, etc. must be discarded ... We must fight this habit of preferring the Russian word, Russian face, Russian thought ...
O.Malashenko:
So maybe, speaking of love for the motherland, it is necessary to clarify in what boundaries it is meant?
G. Malkin:
A patriot doesn't so much want to die for something as he wants to kill someone.
M. Mamchich:
We must love our country, no matter how the state interferes with this.
V.Matov:
Zolotov's grandson rests in Courchevel in the winter, in the UAE in the spring, in Sardinia in the summer, and lives and studies at a prestigious school in England. For this, these patriots, not only from Navalny, can make a juicy chop. For this, they will fight to the last Russian.
O. Mglin:
They need to pull the image of the cold war out of the closet to show their patriotism.
A. Minkin:
Even our patriots want to leave. At first glance, this seems crazy. But there is also a reasonable explanation. Many people consider themselves patriots of Russia, the country, but without love they treat the Russian Federation, the state.
N.Mironov:
A patriot is one who stands for the development of the country and its victory in world competition. And not the one who believes that the greatness of Russia lies in the rudeness of its representatives at international summits and in caricatures of "Pindos" and "ukrovs" in social networks.
A.Muzhdabaev:
Patriotism is an incredibly profitable enterprise. Love for the motherland is good, but the material support of love is much more important.
Under our rule, it is dangerous to have so many people overwhelmed by the patriotic idea.
D. Muratov:
Our villains are those who are against the war. And good people and patriots are those who are in favor of sending soldiers to die.
The rascals become patriots, the rascals who are out for blood. And people who want to avoid war become traitors.
Patriotism is now understood in a terribly archaic way, as the patriotism of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Then patriotism was the desire to be at enmity and fight.
V. Nabokov:
Russia must be loved. Without our emigrant love, Russia is a cover. Nobody loves her there.
A. Nevzorov:
All those who died “for their homeland” gave their lives for the stupidities, mistakes or whims of the regime. To do this is not easy, but very simple. To do this, the regime only needs to be able to pretend to be a “homeland”. It takes effort on the part of the regime to keep the patriotic web strong, sticky, and poisonous.
The word "patriot" and the word "thief" has become almost a symbol, because the more he steals, the louder he yells about patriotism.
Strictly speaking, the beautiful concept of "homeland" is a pure swindle. No "homeland" has ever existed for anyone. There was only a succession of regimes that disposed of the population for their own benefit. In order to "live happily ever after," the regimes weaved the mythology they needed and impregnated it with the poison of patriotic romance. This web was wrapped around generation after generation.
Note that the "motherlands" do not wage wars and do not arrange repressions. They are incorporeal and exist only in the imagination. Wars and repressions are always the fun of regimes.
There is nothing wrong with all this. This is the usual, all arranging order of things. The dead, as a rule, are satisfied, and the mutilated are at least satisfied. Not only does the substitution trick work flawlessly, the war itself is a rare and pleasant opportunity for the population to get in touch with the greatness of historical processes, heroism, holiness, sacrifice and other rubbish.
For a long time, the regimes concentrated the memory of their military greatness in the ceremonial portraits and monuments of the rulers. The little ones that survived the battles were left to rot in poverty and oblivion. Then came the realization that the cult of old soldiers hung with trinkets, who gave their eyes or legs for the regime, could work for him more productively than any portraits and triumphal arches.
We know that there are regimes, even to die for which is a crime. Those that turn countries into prisons and soak everything with slavery, denunciations and death. Those who kill and rot millions of their own citizens, and humiliate and rape the unfinished and underprisoned.
But if an external threat arises, then the old trick called "homeland" comes into play. And it works again. Millions are built and with songs go to die for the opportunity to continue to live in death.
And having defended the regime and returned, the winners dutifully climb back into their shackles and cages. And then for a long time they remember how they saved the "fatherland", although in fact, they only defended the right to beg, scribble denunciations against each other and die in execution ditches.
The regime can be arbitrarily stupid, vicious and destructive. He can splash in the "blood and pus of the people", rape, humiliate and kill millions of his subjects. But if he knows how to show a single trick, then the killed and raped population will always be grateful to him.
The cause of patriotism is in safe hands. If it fell into the clutches of deputies and officials, they would turn their necks to this patriotism. That is, they will do it with a delay, juicy and special sadism. They will instill a very persistent aversion to both patriotism and the so-called national idea, when this pragmatic generation, having looked around at the walls of that Berendey hut in which they are forced to live, it will spit on the floor of this Berendey hut and understand that, in general, alas, and patriotism and emigration, and motherland are, in general, extremely outdated concepts. And not having a homeland is quite convenient.
Probably in many people, I heard from many, there is a feeling of monstrous shame for today's Russia. Desire to tear up the passport, renounce citizenship. Here to have nothing to do with this whole nightmare and insanity.
Here are the cries of the patriots, they love the wording about flying time. There is such a spell - flight time, NATO bases, missiles. And why Switzerland is not worried about some flying time. Here they are supposed to have something to rob, unlike us.
They offer Prince Alexander Nevsky as an example of patriotism, who stupidly collected tribute from Russian cities for the Horde, Tatars, gouging out the eyes of those Russians who refused to pay and burning cities that tried to evade the Tatar census.
An epidemic of malice is one of the outward manifestations of inspired primitive patriotism.
We have patriotism ... with an eye on the authorities.
I peer into the physiognomy of modern Russia, I see to what extent it is covered with furuncles of Mizulina, Milonov, Medina, Dugin, I see Poplars sticking out of the ears and mouth, I see that all this is still covered with Kobzon's wig. I do not see any familiar and sympathetic features in the face of this creature.
E. Unknown:
The motherland loves us and protects our political morality and loyalty to the ideals of a rotten state. Cherishes our denseness and lack of education.
Neuah:
Hurray-patriot only praises everything - the patriot points out the shortcomings.
Hurray-patriotism drives power to the people - and itself "mows" to the West.
The biggest patriots of the Motherland - who have nothing to sell.
Patriots go to those who do not have enough money to emigrate.
Everyone who could run away - there were cheers - and not "able" false patriots.
Migrants are more patriotic than Russians - Russians also become patriots of the United States, having moved there.
The authorities are a good patriot - they sell their homeland for their own benefit.
If you don't know the history of your country, don't talk about patriotism.
The authorities are full of idiocy - they expect patriotism from us.
A. Nikitenko:
Isn't everything that is said about popular patriotism false? Isn't this a lie, so familiar to our servile spirit?
Now patriotism is in fashion, rejecting everything European and assuring that Russia will live by Orthodoxy alone without science and art ... They don’t know for sure what stink Byzantium smelled of, although science and art were in complete decline in it ... It can be seen from everything that the work of Peter the Great even now it has enemies no less than in the days of the schismatic and archery riots. Only before they did not dare to crawl out of their dark holes ... Now all the reptiles have crawled out.
Y.Nesterenko:
What is "homeland"? Just the territory where you and I managed to be born. Is one born in a slave barrack obliged to love this barrack?
Loving and strengthening your prison barracks is a pure clinic.
Patriotism is a relic of the tribal system.
In general, a logical problem for patriots: what is worse for a resident of a particular village - the arrival of invaders who will leave him to live in his house, or the actions of his native government, which will throw him out of his house for the sake of some kind of their Olympic project?
Why is the homeland not a maternity hospital, not the street on which it was located, not a city - or, on the contrary, not the whole planet?
What is "duty to the motherland"? What is debt and where does it come from?
It is not the citizen who has a debt to the motherland, but the motherland - to the citizen, whose labor and whose taxes it exists.
B. Okudzhava:
I love my Motherland, but I hate the state.
Patriotism is a simple feeling, and a cat also has it.
It’s a pity that the motherland has faded, no matter what they sing about it.
A. Oreh:
Now we will ban foreign medicine, and we will slowly get sick and die as true patriots.
V.Pavlenko:
Patriotism is the first link in a chain consisting of three links: patriotism, nationalism, fascism. Proof? - Not all patriots are fascists, but all fascists are patriots.
V. Panyushkin:
The Russian patriot does not have the instinct of procreation and the instinct of self-preservation, but there is an instinct for the senseless destruction of strangers with significant losses for himself.
V. Pelevin:
Patriotism and love for Russia are alive in the Russian soul and often wake up, but immediately fall into the void, because it becomes clear that there is nothing to apply them to - it's like an attempt to kiss Marie Antoinette after the forces of progress cut off her head ...
V. Pikul:
How many of the greatest minds of the past called the peoples to peace, harmony and equality. But history does not care about these calls, it follows its own path - robbery, violence and stupidity of peoples with a false sense of foolish patriotism.
O. Pokalchuk:
Patriotic values have become the property of the society, but by no means of the authorities.
E. Ponasenkov:
Our professional patriots are those who cut the Russian budget and live in villas in Nice, Antibes, etc.
The royal bureaucrats who lived throughout Europe began to masterfully use the word "patriotism", fooling the slaves, sending them to their death and depriving them of their rights and means. Two hundred years have passed - how much has changed?
Patriotism is telling the truth to the people.
The fundamental difference between real, authentic patriots and aggressive insanity, which I would call "Russian professional patriotism", is that the former see the problems of their country, talk about them and improve the situation, the latter pass off gloom, delirium and weakness as something beautiful and ready to kill those who simply tell the truth about the real state of affairs.
It is these scoundrels that CONSERVE my homeland's lagging behind the civilized countries, it is they who are the main enemy of Russia ... These boobies were deceived by cheaters who inserted two or three degenerate slogans into their zombified head, handed over banners and drove, like a herd, to rejoice at any nightmare arranged by the authorities: from serfdom - to the Gulag, and further - to the current restoration of the "empire and evil."
A patriot with us is one who is satisfied that our country is in * Aries.
L. Puzin:
Patriotic education is understood in Russia as the education of slaves who are ready to defend the interests of their masters without sparing their lives.
Being a patriot means loving your boss.
Be a patriot - love your rulers, that is: do not stop them from stealing further.
If a slave does not love the slave owner, then he is not a patriot.
A patriot in Russia is only one who seeks a change in the ruling regime.
A weather vane cannot be a patriot.
Of course, I am a patriot, but not enough to buy a domestic car.
It's easy to be a patriot in America, but try it in Russia.
The most dangerous kind of maniacs is the ideological maniac.
The more proud you are of your nationality, the less human you are.
I. Ratushinskaya:
Motherland is everything that is within the boundaries of the Soviet Union, this is what we are obliged to love to the point of madness, to tears. And if you chop off a piece of territory from Finland or Poland, then this will also be the Motherland, which you also need to love ...
K. Remchukov:
We don't have patriotism without xenophobia.
Due to the fact that historically our thinking tends to talk about specific problems in high terms of patriotism, love for the motherland, the index of trust in our country is extremely low, because behind these general beautiful phrases people (they are not fools) see a lot of demagoguery .
V. Rozanov:
A happy and great homeland is not a great thing to love. We must love her precisely when she is weak, small, humiliated, finally, stupid, finally, even vicious. Precisely, precisely when our “mother” is drunk, lying, and all entangled in sin, we must not leave her...
L. Rubinstein:
A patriot is a peasant who lives in a hut with a thatched roof, but is devoutly proud that his master has the highest house in the whole volost.
G.Rusina:
The ground for the emergence of extremism of the so-called patriots is visible to the naked eye.
Our "patriots" with all their pseudo-historical, hysterical digressions and quotations from the Internet look like children in trousers with a shoulder strap. Unable to see a little further than their nose. Well, let them frolic. Their squeals are equal to the barking of a pug at the elephant of reality. Who will hear them seriously?
These "patriots" are very active and aggressive. In fact, it is a concentrated evil that tries to spread as widely as possible.
A. Rukhvarov:
Don't judge him too harshly - he's a patriot...
Patriots have a lot of work to do: first hang opponents, then build supporters.
Only the patriots succeeded in revealing the great secret of history: the Jewish Masonic imperialist conspiracy.
N. Svanidze:
Hooray-patriotism got ...
And last year there was so much talk about patriotism, and so much of this militaristic-patriotic propaganda, that the people don’t even analyze, they feel: yeah, we need to buy buckwheat as soon as possible.
The country is stable and people do not want to leave the country when they feel good in this country.
V. Sidorov:
There is such a profession in the Russian Duma - to plunder the homeland, while cynically hiding behind patriotism.
E. Sosnin:
Kvass and vodka patriotism. Creepy couple.
V. Spitsin:
The talking shop is just another smoke screen for idiotic "patriots" or "patriotic" idiots who are always ready to pray to the TV.
L. Storch:
In Russia, "love for the Motherland" is often confused with "hatred for other countries."
V. Sumbatov:
There are no prophets in their Fatherland - only patriots of the Motherland.
L. Sukhorukov:
A neo-patriot is someone who loves his country so much that he is ready to take it all into his own hands. Neo-patriots adore the country so much that they are ready to privatize it with giblets.
Patriotism that knows no boundaries is behind every hillock.
Patriots are not only the symbols of the nation, but also the support of its leaders.
I.Telok:
The Russian is filled with vicious poisonous patriotism to the brim, so it is dangerous to approach him close - it will spill. And his patriotism is very hot, with tears, fusel alcohol and hatred for Jews and Caucasians, with death wishes for the neighbor's cow, the Americans, the dollar, NATO, black, yellow, and in general all "this". The whole world consists of Cheryomushki and the rest of the damned world, let it die!
According to the UN, the level of patriotism in Russia is the highest in the world, leaving far behind the Ngomo tribe from South Sudan, which also claims to be the navel of the Earth.
Patriotism - booty chew.
T. Tolstaya:
For me, Russian patriotism is terrible, and not only for the obvious reason that it smells deadly and unmistakably of fascism, but mainly because its idea and goal is to close the Russian world to itself, to plug all the cracks, holes and pores, all the windows from which the merry wind of foreign cultures comes through, and leave the Russians alone with each other.
L. Tolstoy:
“Patriotism” is an immoral feeling because, instead of recognizing oneself as the son of God, as Christianity teaches us, or at least as a free man guided by his own reason, every person, under the influence of patriotism, recognizes himself as the son of his fatherland, the slave of his government and commits actions contrary to their reason and conscience.
Patriotism in its simplest, clearest and most undoubted meaning is nothing else for the rulers, as a tool for achieving power-hungry and selfish goals, and for the ruled - the renunciation of human dignity, reason, conscience and the slavish submission of oneself to those who are in power. This is how it is preached wherever patriotism is preached. Patriotism is slavery.
Say that patriotism is bad, and most people will agree to this, but with a small caveat. - Yes, bad patriotism is bad, but there is another patriotism, the one we hold on to. - But what is this good patriotism, no one explains.
M.Uzdina:
A man has only one homeland. This is the place where you said your first words; where for the first time you were pushed out of the queue for a stinky sausage with a cry: “The Jews ate our meat!”.
Homeland is where you first got a fat deuce in the entrance exams, although you answered best of all.
The homeland is where the word "Jew" was indecent, and talking in Yiddish was equated with obscene language.
Where, if not at home, a simple collective farmer will honestly tell you that the Jews bought milk, bathed their wives in it, and then sold this milk.
Where else would we hear a heart-warming compliment: "You are a good Jew, and everyone else needs to be killed."
Homeland - homeland, but I want to live like a human being.
S. Fedin:
How many patriots suffocated in the smoke of the Fatherland!
Leavened patriotism is also sour.
Leavened patriotism is the result of fermentation of minds.
S.Fursa:
Patriotism is good. But militant ignorance under the guise of patriotism can destroy the country. And will lose. If people don't learn to think.
P. Chaadaev:
Love for one's country is a beautiful thing, but there is something even more beautiful - it is love for truth. Not through the homeland, but through the truth leads the way to heaven...
V. Chernitsyn:
It is difficult to live in our country of your own free will, you have to hide behind patriotism.
V. Shapovalov:
The extent to which some hopeless patriots zealously seek to consume domestic products may indicate the degree of their suicidal tendencies.
There are more lies in the silence of a patriot than in the cries of all dissidents.
I am such a patriot of my homeland that I wish a speedy collapse of the country built on top of it.
L. Shevtsova:
"Historical patriotism" calls for pride in a selective past, which allows you not to think about the present and future.
Y.Shevchuk:
Calm down demons, fucking armchair and kitchen pseudo-patriots, militant radicals on both sides, whose introduction of troops will finally untie their hands. Again, they wanted the blood of the brothers, this Viagra, so that everything would continue to stand for you ...
V. Shenderovich:
Whoever is against America is a patriot.
These guys are doing everything so that "patriots" and "idiots" continue to rhyme.
The homeland for a Jew is the place where he was first called a Jew.
The chained dog remains faithful only to the kennel.
Unfortunately, this is home...
Feverish patriotism is associated, as a rule, with opposition to the outside world. And a complete loss of relevance. That is, not the patriotism of Chekhov, who raised a white flag over the estate so that the peasants could receive free medical care. Not the patriotism of a scientist, not the patriotism of a soldier, but patriotism like this - nervous, feverish patriotism. And we see apathy, of course. We see the flight of people with intelligence, with dignity. Mass exodus. We see the degradation quite obvious.
They [the deputies] quite sincerely believe that they are the motherland, that they have the right to speak on behalf of Russia. Who told them this, this group of impostors?
Their love for the motherland is expressed in the cut of budgets. Now another budget will be allocated - and those who manage to break through will be the main patriots. This is how we define patriotism. Who broke through to the feeder - he is a patriot.
For a person to want to return to their homeland ... there must be less leading crap in the homeland.
Our nomenklatura patriotism remembers the Great Patriotic War only when it is necessary to infringe on someone.
The producers of our political Zhiguli, the eternal holders of a controlling stake, have been insisting for centuries that a patriot in Russia is the one who shouts the loudest that our Zhiguli is the best, and the Mercedes is shit. Manufacturers have achieved significant success precisely in the production of such "patriots" - and through centuries of negative selection, they have brought out for their needs a very convenient experimental population that is easily hysterical. For this, called patriotism, hysteria (and not for the modernization of a hopelessly outdated Asian machine) is allocated outrageous funding. The bawlers are becoming the elite, which is already a generation. Timid attempts by individual engineers to establish an exchange of experience are recognized as a national betrayal. Hands growing out of the ass, but now - with outstretched fingers, take on the outlines of a national symbol ...
Of course, neither Brodsky nor Nabokov can fit into our "patriotism" in quotation marks... This is what we call "patriotism", I repeat, in bold quotation marks, which means, first of all, the readiness not to reason, the readiness to love the authorities, which there is, and a natural suspicion of a free intellect.
The imperial theme is almost certainly sewn into the lining of Russian state patriotism. “To love Russia” here means to desire the conquest of neighboring peoples and not to love those of them who want to get out from under the imperial influence of “mother”.
Write on the car OBAMA schmuck, joke about Psaki - here you are a patriot. An attempt to practice here some other kind of patriotism (combined, for example, with love for the surrounding humanity) is immediately covered with suspicion and leads to deportation or scuffle.
When the Motherland is loved for a long time in a megaphone, it becomes foolish.
A.Shinkin:
Scoundrels taught us patriotism, locking us from the free world either with an "iron curtain", or with a "castle on the border."
I am a symbol of the new time, where the traitor and the sold are considered heroes, where theft and lies have risen to the rank of virtue, and the words "Patriotism" and "Motherland" have become curse words.
M. Shishkin:
The political development of Russia, especially the events of the past year, have created a situation in the country that is absolutely unacceptable and humiliating for its people and for its great culture. What is happening in my country makes me feel ashamed as a Russian person and citizen of Russia. A country where a criminal corrupt regime has seized power, where the state is a pyramid of thieves, where elections have been turned into a farce, where courts serve the authorities, not the law, where there are political prisoners, where GosTV has been turned into a prostitute, where impostors pass insane laws in batches, returning everyone to Middle Ages, such a country cannot be my Russia.
V. Shulgin:
Love your homeland "as yourself", but do not make it a god, ... do not become an idolater.
A.Yurkin:
Nothing contributes more to the growth of patriotism than the blunders of politicians.
S. Yankovsky:
We now have everything market - and nationalism, when we do not love strangers, who sell everything for us, and patriotism, when we love our own, who sell us all.
I love my homeland when there are no wars, rudeness, queues, hunger, dirt and me ...
Russian patriotism is pure...
We are disfigured by patriotic education ("People's Radio").
The herd has no country.
And when the "patriots" have milked Russia to the end, they will fade away to "where there are no Russians."
Screaming "I'm a patriot!" can be anyone but a patriot.
Patriotism in Russia is understood exclusively as hushing up everything bad and highlighting only the good.
Love for one's homeland is like a dog's love for its owner - don't feed it for a week and it will start biting you, throw a piece of meat at it - and it will lick your heels.
A true patriot will not sell his homeland at exorbitant prices.
About the May parades: these are not awards sparkling on the chests of veterans, these are fragments of their dreams.
It turns out that the fifth column consists of patriots.
No one will ever bring Russians to their knees. We lay, we lie and we will lie further!
Our patriotism is not leavened, we have vodka patriotism.
Patriotism is an important weapon in the hands of demon-possessed politicians.
A patriot is someone who defends his country from the government.
To be a patriot in Russia one must be able to steal, take bribes and lie, lie, lie.
Under Putin, the word "patriot" has acquired the meaning of a curse.
FOREIGNERS
Aristophanes:
Where it is good, there is the homeland.
A. Babbage:
There is only one thing that I hate even more
than piety: it is patriotism.
A.Beers:
In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary, patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. We take the liberty of naming this refuge first.
Patriot. A person to whom the interests of the part are presented above the interests of the whole. A toy in the hands of statesmen and a tool in the hands of conquerors.
Patriotism is flammable rubbish, ready to burst into flames from the torch of an ambitious man to glorify his name.
E. Brun:
A true patriot is not the one who praises the Motherland at every corner, but the one who always speaks honestly and fairly about its problems and opportunities.
Voltaire:
It is regrettable that a true patriot must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.
S. Johnson:
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
D. Diderot:
M. Gandhi:
My patriotism is not a closure to one nation; it is all-encompassing, and I am ready to renounce that kind of patriotism that builds the well-being of one nation on the exploitation of others.
G. Heine:
Strange affair! At all times, scoundrels tried to disguise their vile deeds with devotion to the interests of religion, morality and love for the fatherland.
We were prescribed patriotism, and we become patriots, for we do everything that our sovereigns order us to do.
J.W. Goethe:
There can be neither patriotic art nor patriotic science.
Patriotism spoils world history.
T.Ginen:
A politician is a person who will sacrifice your life for his country.
D. Galsworthy:
We are all Mr. Levenders - of meek disposition and modest means - whose mind is somewhat clouded from excessive reading of the speeches of public figures about the atrocities of the "Huns" and the high duty of the Country, which, in the name of philanthropy, is obliged to exterminate this harmful tribe with fire and sword. Enemies of violence, we will use every means to silence the cowardly whispers of those disoriented individuals whose so-called principles impel them to claim the right to have an opinion.
Darius:
"Duty to the motherland" allows you to exploit the people as slaves.
T.Jefferson:
From time to time the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.
D. Diderot:
You can't love a country that doesn't love you...
F. Dürrenmatt:
When the state starts killing, it always calls itself the Motherland.
D. Karlin:
I could never understand national pride. As for me, pride should refer to something that you yourself have achieved, and not something that happened by chance. Being Irish is not a skill, but a strange accident. You wouldn't say, "I'm proud to be born on May 16" or "I'm proud to be prone to colon cancer." So what the **** are you proud of being American, Irish or whatever?
D. Kennedy:
Don't ask what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.
A. de Custine:
In Russia, you will not be allowed to live without sacrificing everything for the love of the earthly fatherland, sanctified by faith in the heavenly fatherland.
Dace:
Love for the motherland knows no other borders.
Perhaps I would not have believed so firmly in the boundless vitality of patriotism if I had not known how inexhaustible the deposits of xenophobia are.
Lee Kuan Yew:
If the country is not run correctly, all smart people will leave.
D. Mazzini:
The motherland is the home of a man, not the home of a slave.
G. Menken:
Samuel Johnson called patriotism the last refuge of a scoundrel. This is true, but it is not the whole truth. In fact, patriotism is a huge nursery of scoundrels.
A. Michnik:
Patriotism is defined as the measure of shame a person feels for crimes committed on behalf of his people.
D. Orwell:
There are no patriots when it comes to taxes.
D. Osborne:
People of our generation can no longer die for the sake of high ideals. These ideals collapsed... If a grandiose war starts and we die, we will give our lives not at all in the name of some ideals, beautiful, but - alas! - obsolete. We will die for no reason. And again the killed brave men will be politely thanked. It will be as pointless and inglorious as stepping onto the road and standing in front of a speeding bus.
T. Payne:
My homeland is the universe, the whole human race is my brothers, my religion is to do good.
The duty of a patriot is to defend his country from its government.
J. Petan:
Others praise their country so much as if they dream of selling it.
B. Russell:
Instead of killing your neighbor, even if deeply hated, you should, with the help of propaganda, transfer hatred towards him to hatred towards some neighboring power - and then your criminal motives, as if by magic, will turn into the heroism of a patriot.
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for the most trivial reasons.
R. Rollan:
Don't be deceived!.. The only way to free yourself is to free yourself from the idea of homeland: whoever wants to save a threatened human culture must inevitably come to this cruel but necessary act.
E. Rotterdam:
My home is where my library is.
T. Roosevelt:
It is important that you are ready to die for your country; but more importantly, you must be willing to live your life for her.
K.Saimak:
What if true patriotism is just wild nonsense?
D. Santayana:
It seems to me a terrible humiliation to have a soul controlled by geography.
G. Spencer:
Honoring one's society is a reflex of self-esteem.
M. Steinbeck:
Do not ask what you can do for your homeland - you will be reminded of it anyway.
M. Twain:
The soul and essence of what is usually understood by patriotism is and always has been moral cowardice.
I will not go to fight for our country, as well as for any other, if, in my opinion, this country turns out to be wrong ... If I refuse to volunteer, they will call me a traitor, I know that, a traitor, but this will not make me a traitor yet.
Even the unanimous reproach of all sixty million will not make me a traitor. I will still remain a patriot, and, in my opinion, the only one in the whole country.
To be a patriot, one had to say and repeat: “this is our country, whether it is right or not,” and call for a small war. Is it not clear that this phrase is an insult to the nation?
S. Fry:
Patriotism that turns a blind eye to shortcomings and is deaf to criticism is not patriotism at all.
A. France:
Only a free citizen has a fatherland; a slave, a serf, a subject of a despot have only a homeland.
O. Huxley:
The advantage of patriotism is that under its cover we can deceive, rob, and kill with impunity. It is not enough to say, with impunity - with a sense of one's own rightness.
F. Hummel:
We will be branded as traitors. Our actions are punishable by death. A couple of hundred years ago, the renegades of Washington, Jefferson and Adams were called traitors by the British. Now they are called patriots. It will be the same with us.
D. Chapman:
Cohesion is organized hatred.
W. Churchill:
I never criticize the government of my country while abroad, but I more than make up for it when I return.
O. Wilde:
Patriotism is a great frenzy.
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
Patriotism is inherently aggressive, and patriots, as a rule, are evil people.
G. Wells:
I believe that the time will come when the last patriots rattling their weapons will be persecuted like brigands.
A. Schweitzer:
The cult of patriotism, as such, must be considered a manifestation of barbarism, for it reveals itself as such in the senseless wars that it inevitably entails.
The idea of a nation's greatness is being propagated by its enemies, who are leading "great nations" to disaster.
Coalitions, based on the selfish interests of the struggle of some peoples against others, were presented as commonwealths dictated by the ancestral kinship of bonds and destinies, and reinforced by references to the past, even if history gave more an example of mortal enmity than manifestations of internal kinship.
A. Schopenhauer:
A wretched little man, having nothing to be proud of, grabs at the only thing possible and is proud of the nation to which he belongs.
There are few good features in the national character: after all, the crowd is its subject.
The cheapest pride is national pride.
B. Show:
Patriotism is a destructive, psychopathic form of idiocy.
Patriotism is when you think that this country is better than all others because you were born here. You will never live in a peaceful world until you beat patriotism out of the human race.
As soon as the angel of death blows his trumpet, patriotism, boasting of its culture, begins to expel enemy music, poetry, philosophy, and even jewish science, as some kind of malicious abominations that oppose national culture. Whether recruiters or journalists do this, one could still understand, but this responsible function is entrusted to precisely those university and conservatory professors who are entrusted with the protection of culture. And yesterday's cosmopolitans, with uncharacteristic zeal, justify their own political structure and their own militarism, thereby demonstrating that their respect for science and education is just a pose behind which lies nothing but savagery.
E. Abbey:
A true patriot must always be ready to defend his country from his government.
A. Einstein:
Heroism on command, senseless cruelty and disgusting senselessness called patriotism - how much I hate all this, how low and vile war is.
Those who joyfully march in formation to the music ... received a brain by mistake: for them, a spinal cord would be enough. I so detest heroism on command, senseless cruelty and all the disgusting nonsense of what is grouped under the word "patriotism", as well as I despise vile war, that I would rather let myself be torn to pieces than be part of such actions.
By Decree of the President of the Russian Federation, 2016 was declared the year of Karamzin. The largest Russian writer of the era of sentimentalism and the father of Russian history (or its first falsifier, as some believe) was born on December 12, 1766. By the way, “the first historian and the last chronicler” did not call him anyone, but Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. And he showed the perspicacity characteristic of a great poet: Karamzin's works, although they were historical studies in form, were essentially annalistic in nature. But first things first.
Karamzin's childhood and youth are not particularly remarkable. Born either in Simbirsk itself, or somewhere nearby, he was brought up on the estate of his father, a retired captain from an ancient noble family. On his instructions, in 1783 Karamzin entered the service of the Preobrazhensky Guards Regiment, but did not last long there. Army days were not to his liking. Father's death Mikhail Egorovich Karamzin died in the same year) gave the young lieutenant the opportunity to retire and return home. Here he also did not stay long - he received an inheritance and soon left for Moscow. But it is in Simbirsk that a significant event in his biography takes place: Karamzin joins the Masonic lodge of the Golden Crown. It is difficult to say what this organization was like. Masonic lodges for the province at that time were generally very rare. But in Simbirsk, the Freemasons distinguished themselves in a very special way: they built a temple specifically for their meetings. No services were held there - only meetings of members of the Golden Crown lodge. However, meetings were held infrequently, and the lodge was, apparently, not numerous. In 1792, it actually ceased to exist. Karamzin had already lived in Moscow for a long time, but his ties with the Masons after leaving Simbirsk did not break off. In 1785 he became a member of the Friendly Learned Society, a mysterious organization founded by Freemasons. Ivan Schwartz And Nikolai Novikov. By the way, Schwartz appears in Karamzin's biography even earlier: in 1781-1782, Karamzin attended his lectures at the Imperial Moscow University.
The declared goal of the "Friendly Scientific Society" was to spread enlightenment in Russia by publishing useful books, educating Russian teachers and inviting talented teachers from abroad. One of its members Ivan Lopukhin, defined the tasks of the society as follows: “... to publish spiritual books and instructing in morality and the truth of the Gospel, translating the deepest writers about this in foreign languages, and to promote good education, helping those who were especially preparing to preach the Word of God ... For him, we brought up more than 50 seminarians which were given from the diocesan bishops themselves with great gratitude. The position of society was strengthened by representatives of many noble noble families ( Trubetskoy, Vyazemsky, Cherkassky, Tatishchev), who made large donations in his favor. But this did not save the organization from problems. After the death of Schwartz in 1784, members of the society began to be attacked, which especially intensified after the start of the French Revolution. In 1791, the "Friendly Learned Society" (or rather, the "Printing Company", as it eventually began to be called) ceases to exist.
Karamzin's connections with the Freemasons are fertile ground for various conspiracy theories. The most radical branch of his haters even ascribes to the "first historian" the desire to undermine the foundations of Russian statehood. Version from the category of "nothing is impossible." But there is no smoke without fire. Some facts of Karamzin's biography do raise legitimate questions. Especially when it comes to his European tour of 1789-1790. In total, the journey lasted 14 months. Karamzin visited many European countries, met with Immanuel Kant, personally observed the Great French Revolution in Paris, and upon his return to Moscow wrote his famous Letters of a Russian Traveler, which brought the author great literary fame. The question remains open: what prompted the novice writer Karamzin to break off ties with Novikov and go wandering around Europe? Why did he not correspond with his family and friends during the trip? But the most important thing: where did the poor retired lieutenant get the money for this?
And the version seems quite logical that no break with the Masonic "Printing Company" actually happened, and Nikolai Novikov himself allocated money for the trip to the talented ward. Karamzin's biographer writes about this Albert Starchevsky: according to him, Karamzin received not only money from Novikov, but also detailed instructions from a famous freemason Gamaleya seeds(Copies with these instructions allegedly belonged to many lovers of Russian antiquity in Moscow).
Today, one can only guess about the circumstances of this trip. On the other hand, one can speak with confidence about the changes that Karamzin's political views underwent upon his return to Moscow. Being one of the first "Russian Europeans", Karamzin ardently supported the slogans of the French Revolution. But the bright ideals of freedom, equality and fraternity before his eyes turned into a bloody terror. Karamzin took this lesson of history hard, but he was brave enough to learn it. Now he knew that pernicious passions were fatal to the people, and that firm autocratic power was virtuous, unless it became despotic. Karamzin's position on this issue was unchanged. By the end of his life, he turned into a firm supporter of absolute monarchy, although he always remained a republican at heart (paradoxically, but true).
With liberal moralism, Karamzin also approached the study of history. Or rather, not to study, but to writing. It was he who wrote Russian history, giving the historical study the features of a work of art. Or even vice versa. Connoisseurs are still arguing what is more in the works of Karamzin: artistic or historical? In the 19th century, the “History of the Russian State” was read more like a literary work, but under its influence a holistic view of the people about their past was formed. However, not only then. Often, we unconsciously fall under the influence of Karamzin. This happens whenever the prince Yaroslav we call him wise (this epithet was given to him by Karamzin). And what image does our imagination draw when we hear about Ivan the Terrible? The view of the first Russian tsar as a torturer and murderer triumphed in the historical memory of the people under the influence of Karamzin. But this is a special topic.
Somehow weak with the arguments of those who consider Karamzin an insidious enemy of the Russian people. Domestic history in his interpretation is depicted as ambiguous, but by no means negative. Yes, Karamzin admires the achievements of European civilization and regrets that we moved towards enlightenment much more slowly. But Russia for him is an equal part of Europe, and not its appendage. Karamzin states with pride: "Russia, oppressed, crushed by all sorts of disasters, survived and rose in a new greatness, so that history hardly presents us with two examples of this kind." How, for example, to explain the fact that PetraI, one of the most unloved Russian rulers in the West, Karamzin praises without hesitation even in Letters from a Russian Traveler? Comparing LouisXIV and Peter, Karamzin writes: “... These two heroes were very unequal in the greatness of their spirit and deeds. The subjects glorified Louis, Peter glorified his subjects, (...) I respect the first as a strong king; I revere the second as a great man, as a hero, as a benefactor of mankind, as my own benefactor.
But with Ivan the Terrible, Karamzin did not have a relationship. Volumes dedicated to the first king were more popular among the people than others, they were read with special interest. This is not surprising: the image of a despot, a tyrant and simply an immoral person is created in an artistic and picturesque way. Ivan the Terrible, the author, as they say, “did not digest” (as he “did not digest” Ivan Kalitu another great Russian historian - Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky). Let's not argue about the objectivity of Karamzin's assessments. Another thing is important: the obvious hostility to any of the historical figures indicates that the author approaches the study of the issue with passion and enthusiasm.
Karamzin emphasizes the main feature of his multi-volume offspring in the preface to The History of the Russian State: “It was necessary either to say nothing, or to say everything about such and such a prince, so that he would live in our memory not with one dry name, but with some moral physiognomy.” Karamzin coped with the task set “excellently” (the skill of a talented fiction writer helped). This is his main merit and main fault. Merit, because any knowledge is the unity of word and image. A fault, because in the "market" of historical images Karamzin was and, by and large, continues to be a monopolist. In addition, is it reasonable to use the concepts of everyday morality, evaluating the actions of the arbiters of world history? Karamzin's problem is that the criterion of morality has become dominant and indisputable for him. He also used it to assess those times when the concept of morality in the modern sense of the word did not exist at all. For example, in the chapter on reigning Oleg Karamzin writes: “Ancient Russia is famous for more than one hero: none of them could compare with Oleg in the conquests that confirmed her mighty being. (…) But the blood Askold And dira remained a stain of his glory. Indeed, by the standards of the 19th century, the murder of Askold and Dir is an immoral, criminal and condemnable act. But is it appropriate to apply the terms "morality" and "crime" in relation to the time when the very word "rule" meant to fight and kill enemies?
The 250th anniversary of Karamzin's birth marked a new round of controversy in Russia about his personality. As usual, over the years these disputes become more and more unprincipled. It is already difficult to distinguish the real facts of his biography from fiction, just like the historical truth of his works from artistic interpretation. But Karamzin was right about one thing: “Patriotism should not blind us; love for the fatherland is an act of clear reason, and not a blind passion; and, pitying those people who look at things only from the bad side, never see the good and always complain, we do not want to fall into the other extreme; we do not want to assure ourselves that Russia is already at the highest level of goodness and perfection. The historical legacy of Karamzin will remind more than one generation of descendants of this.
“The advantage of patriotism is that under its cover we can deceive, rob, and kill with impunity. It is not enough to say, with impunity - with a sense of one's own rightness.
Aldous Huxley
“Patriotism should not blind us; love for the fatherland is an act of clear reason, and not a blind passion.
Nikolai Karamzin
"He who does not love his country cannot love anything."
GeorgeByron
The concept of patriotism has existed for tens of hundreds of years, but during all this time unity between thinkers, economists, statesmen and, finally, just people has not been achieved. Is patriotism good or bad? Is he a moral virtue or justification for hatred towards other people who speak a different language? The truth is very difficult to establish, therefore, disputes on the need of society for patriotism will stop only if a super-state is formed that unites all nations on planet Earth and sends the uniqueness and differences of the culture of each people into the past.
However, one cannot but admit that patriotism is a very bright, strong and violent feeling, which means it is an excellent lever for controlling the masses. The only question is how exactly and with what intentions this lever is used. If the intention is protection, unity, the desire to create something, then this is an extremely powerful tool that, like nothing else, can help a country cope with a crisis. But very often this spiritual light is distorted, perverted and takes absolutely disgusting forms, degenerating into malicious chauvinism and xenophobia, giving rise to hatred. And this hatred is used by those in power to achieve their own goals, far from the common good.
It doesn’t even matter what exactly a person experiences this unconditional love written in the subconscious - for a country, region, city or even his district. After all, the main feelings that help pull our strings are fear and love, and patriotism perfectly combines them - we devotedly love our Motherland (although different people put different meanings into this concept) and are desperately afraid that it is dear, familiar, beloved - will be trampled by some external threat. This is how the image of an external enemy is born. Although, if you understand yourself and your feelings, you can understand that, probably, nothing threatens you and what you love. No wonder there is such a famous phrase as "Home is where your heart is." And if the notorious symbol of the depth of feelings reaches out to people, and not to the area, then is it even possible to call you a patriot? Is it possible to be a patriot not of a country, not of a city, but, for example, of one's family? After all, we experience almost the same feelings for relatives - affection, love, devotion, respect, a feeling of happiness from belonging to a certain circle of people.
Quite interesting is the fact that the presence in a person of such a feeling as patriotism is easily explained by the simplest basic instincts, laid down so deeply and so long ago that it is impossible to resist them, it is only possible to translate rude animal impulses in the style of “beat-break-break, and then let’s figure out who and why” into more moral and ethical qualities. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, our ancient ancestor was few in number, had no special advantages, and could barely earn his living. A pitiful sight, isn't it? However, the situation changed radically when the strange upright semi-animals, which were threatened by the whole vast and hostile world, gathered in a kind of community, where each had his own function, where they helped the weak, together protected their relative in trouble and fought with a very unfriendly environment. . For example, what could a Neanderthal, not particularly brilliant in physical development, oppose to a large beast like a bear? Only a particularly spectacular loss of consciousness - however, it is unlikely that a predator would appreciate an artistic fainting. However, 10-15 individuals without any problems could repulse the aggressor. At the same time, such affection and a sense of community should have developed only in relation to the representatives of their own tribe, since representatives of another community were competitors in the struggle for vital resources - food, access to water, a place to live. Thus, a strange, unlike at that time, feeling of community, connectedness and desire to protect crystallized out - the first sign on the long and thorny path of the concept of "patriotism".
The events of recent months in Ukraine raise the issues of patriotism for the inhabitants of our country to a completely new level, because the relatively young state of Ukraine has not known such an increase in community, national identity, pride in their country and love for it in all two decades of its existence.
This rise is especially noticeable among young people:
«… love and appreciate your homeland, or your own abode. To have a sense of responsibility for what is happening in it, to feel like a part of it, and at the same time try to be a worthy representative of it”- this is how Dima Arestov answers my question “what does the term“ patriotism ”means to you - a 26-year-old architect, musician and book lover who, among other things, is fond of painting.
Student of the Faculty of Geology at the National University. T. G. Shevchenko, Sergey Svinarets - a tall young man with a charming smile - says that patriotism should be based on a critical approach, on identifying mistakes, irregularities and injustices in the activities of the state and trying to correct them. He does not recognize blind adoration, however, despite the fact that he has visited many European countries, Russia and even China, he admits that he loves his country and wants to build his future here.
Equally interesting are the views on patriotism expressed by residents of other countries:
« Patriotism for me is solidarity with my country, pride in it. When someone speaks badly about her, I will not remain indifferent and stand up for her.
I am proud of my homeland and nation - many great thinkers, writers, scientists and artists were Germans, I consider myself a patriot - but it also places a responsibility on me: I have to do something when my country or its leaders are wrong. This is the difference between nationalism and patriotism for me, because nationalism accepts any point of view and any act, blindly obeying the decisions of leaders or the public”- this is how a 30-year-old resident of Germany, a student and a responsible worker with the flowery name Florian and the typically German surname Richter, sees patriotism for himself.
A young Serb looks at the world in a completely different way - an artist, sculptor, musician and a person with an active civic position - Dusan Kzhnevic. He considers himself a disillusioned patriot, and says that he cannot be proud of his country - only some of its representatives, since the population is not united by anything other than a common territory, and national unity, in his opinion, is completely absent. During the conversation, he is keenly interested in what is happening in Ukraine and expresses his opinion that a positive outcome in the current situation is impossible - “ Ukraine will still be torn apart, as they did with Serbia, the only question is who exactly will do it and how soon».
Quite unexpected is the opinion of a resident of the small American town of Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Jean Ratelle (55) criticizes rather harshly the fatherland, the patriotism of whose inhabitants has long become the talk of the town all over the world. A man cannot call himself a patriot, because he admits that the population is basically indifferent to everything that happens around and cares only about itself, and the policy of the state is such that it is almost impossible to determine what positions and freedoms they defend. For him, patriotism is a cultural attachment to one's homeland, shown by the behavior and any social activity of a person. But the Motherland is rather a specific area where a person was born and grew up, therefore, the interviewee considers himself, rather, a patriot of his state or even a town, and not of a whole state.
His Ukrainian peer, a retired colonel who devoted three decades of his life to the armed forces, first of the Soviet Union and then of independent Ukraine, was born in Russia, changed a dozen places of residence, and had experience working in Canada, Germany, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates. This respectable man with a chuckle in his eyes continues to work in government structures. He speaks of patriotism with sadness and nostalgia - after all, like most people who grew up in the Union, he sincerely believed in loyalty to his country and made every effort for its flourishing. " Patriotism is not an unconditional feeling. You can love a person just like that, but you need to love a country for something. And not only for its nature - although this is also important - what kind of patriotism can there be on a scorched patch of desert? For its people, who must be creative, smart, honest and hardworking. For being the first in something. Let not in everything, but at least in some areas. For giving you hope for a better future. In general, this is an incomparable feeling, love for the Motherland - it inspires"- says Alex.
But a twenty-year-old student of the Kyiv Economic University with a beautiful and sonorous name Marina is visited by such thoughts: “ I cannot say that I am a patriot in the full sense of the word. I am very respectful of Ukrainian culture and history, I sincerely love many cities, especially in Western Ukraine - because everything there is literally saturated with love for their ethnic group, people are very kind and polite. And of course, there is no trace of any aggression towards Russian speakers - for example, I spoke very often in Russian and did not get any unpleasant experience. I also love to listen to the pure Ukrainian language, it is incredibly beautiful, if not crippled by Russianisms. But I perceive surzhik very badly, because I think that both languages are crippled in this way, and it is because of surzhik that some linguists have a delusional opinion that the Ukrainian language does not really exist, it is only a distortion of Russian. But I can't call myself a true patriot. Patriotism for me is not only a feeling, but also an action. Yes, I want to build my future in Ukraine, because it is beautiful. I want to create something new here, improve it, show the world how wonderful our country is, but so far these are only desires, which means I cannot be called a true patriot».
« I don't know what patriotism is anymore. Previously, it was obvious, understandable, but now it’s not ... Too often this feeling is manipulated”- the representative of the noblest profession on Earth sadly answers the pediatrician Victoria, a beautiful short woman of 54 years old.
« I realized that I was a patriot only after the beginning of the Maidan. Before that, I was very skeptical about my country, I did not believe that people could unite for the sake of something, everyone is too lazy or cowardly for this. But in the fall of 2013, I saw what I thought was impossible - unity. Of course, I didn’t really like the fact that my hometown became the center of events, because events could develop as you like. It was scary because of the stupid fanaticism sometimes shown by people. Let's say the phrase "Whoever does not jump, that Muscovite" is simply humiliating for real patriots. Patriotism is a creative feeling. To be a patriot does not mean to hate, it means to love. Do not oppose yourself to someone, do not beat, do not spit with rage at the notorious "Muscovites" - this is some kind of chauvinism and abomination. We need to create, unite. For example, the same posters "I am a drop in the sea" - they are very light. It is this kind of good energy that patriots should carry, and not evil and rage.”- the words of a student of the Kyiv Trade and Economic University.
In general, the opinions of people with whom brief interviews about patriotism were conducted are unanimous. The most important thing in this feeling for them is creation. They all want to build, not destroy, to be together, and to believe in the best. After all, fear, rigidity and violence will never lead to anything good, forming an endless circle of hatred and resentment.
Patriotism is a medicine for the country and the nation, it unites different people, reconciling their "otherness" to each other. The main thing to remember is that in a spoon there is medicine, and in a cup there is poison.
