Russian Soul

The term Russian soul (Russian: Русская душа; also great Russian soul, mystifying Russian soul) has been used in literature to describe Russian spirituality. The writings of many Russian writers such as Nikolai Gogol, Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky offer descriptions of the Russian soul.

The Russian word "душа" (dushá), is most closely translated into the word soul. The Russian soul can be described as a cultural tendency of Russians to describe life and events from a religious and philosophically symbolic perspective. This word's widespread use and the flexibility of its use in everyday speaking is one way in which the Russian soul manifests itself in Russian culture. In Russia a person's soul or dusha is the key to a person's identity and behavior and this cultural understanding that equates the person with his soul is what is described as the Russian soul. Depth, strength, and compassion are general characteristics of the Russian soul. According to Dostoevsky, "the most basic, most rudimentary spiritual need of the Russian people is the need for suffering, ever-present and unquenchable, everywhere and in everything". Dostoevsky's ideas about Russian soul are closely connected with Eastern Orthodox Christianity, its ideal of Christ, his suffering for others, his will to die for others and his quiet humility about it.

In the second edition of the story Taras Bulba, Gogol provides one of the early characterizations of what came to be known as the Russian soul when Taras exhorted his fellow Cossacks, saying: "There have been brotherhoods in other lands, but never any such brotherhoods as on our Russian soil. It has happened to many of you to be in foreign lands. You look: there are people there also, God's creatures, too; and you talk with them as with the men of your own country. But when it comes to saying a hearty word--you will see. No! They are sensible people, but not the same; the same kind of people, and yet not the same! No, brothers, to love as the Russian soul loves, is to love not with the mind or anything else, but with all that God has given, all that is within you."