Foundations of Russian Culture

Description

A culture that demands only freedom from politics, while rejecting
and shunning politics itself, remains inadequate, lifeless, and is ultimately
doomed. In its turn, politics that rejects the spiritual oversight of culture
inevitably degenerates into tyranny or anarchy, into corruption and
mediocrity.

Inside this deceptively
modest volume will be found a remarkably prescient collection of broadcasts,
that are perhaps even more pertinent to the contemporary culture and politics of
Russia than they were to the audience within the Soviet Union to whom they were
originally addressed.  Schmemann presents the complex history of Russia and
analyzes trends and tendencies within its culture concisely and simply: showing
them to be frequently contradictory and even mutually exclusive. He clarifies
the multilayered meaning of “foundations”—its  underlying building blocks, the
spiritual, the political, the historical, as well as the cultural assets in
literature, art, science, and philosophy. In these elements he shows what Russia
is grappling with in its struggle to find a synthesis that draws both from its
own unique elements and its historical and ongoing interconnectedness with the
“West” and the “East.”