Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...
n culture (russian: Культура России, Kul'tura Rossii) has been formed by the nation's history, its geographical location and its vast expanse, religious and social traditions, and
Western influence. Russian
writers and
philosophers have played an important role in the development of European thought. The Russians have also greatly influenced
classical music
Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" al ...
,
ballet
Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form ...
,
sport
Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...
,
painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and a ...
, and
cinema.
The nation has also made pioneering contributions to
science and technology and
space exploration.
History
Language and literature
Russia's 160 ethnic groups speak some 100 languages.
According to the 2002 census, 142.6 million people speak
Russian, followed by
Tatar
The Tatars ()[Tatar]
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different with 5.3 million and
Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
with 1.8 million speakers. Russian is the only official state language, but the Constitution gives the individual
republics the right to make their native language co-official next to Russian. Despite its wide dispersal, the Russian language is homogeneous throughout Russia. Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken
Slavic language.
Russian belongs to the
Indo-European language
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...
family and is one of the living members of the
East Slavic languages; the others being
Belarusian and
Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
(and possibly
Rusyn
Rusyn may refer to:
* Rusyn people, an East Slavic people
** Pannonian Rusyn people, a branch of Rusyn people
** Lemkos, a branch of Rusyn (or Ukrainian) people
** Boykos, a branch of Rusyn (or Ukrainian) people
* Rusyn language, an East Slavic l ...
). Written examples of
Old East Slavic (''Old Russian'') are attested from the 10th century onwards.
Over a quarter of the world's scientific literature is published in Russian. Russian is also applied as a means of coding and storage of universal knowledge—60–70% of all world information is published in the English and Russian languages.
The language is one of the six
official languages
An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...
of the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...
.
Folklore
Russian
folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, rangin ...
takes its roots in the
pagan
Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judaism. I ...
beliefs of ancient
Slavs, which is nowadays still represented in the
Russian folklore. Epic Russian
bylinas are also an important part of
Slavic mythology
Slavic mythology or Slavic religion is the religious beliefs, myths, and ritual practices of the Slavs before Christianisation, which occurred at various stages between the 8th and the 13th century. The South Slavs, who likely settled in the Bal ...
. The oldest bylinas of
Kiev
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe.
Ky ...
an cycle were recorded in the
Russian North
Russian North (russian: Русский Север) is an ethnocultural region situated in the northwestern part of Russia. It spans the regions of Arkhangelsk Oblast, the Republic of Karelia, Komi Republic, Vologda Oblast and Nenets Autonomous O ...
, especially in
Karelia
Karelia ( Karelian and fi, Karjala, ; rus, Каре́лия, links=y, r=Karélija, p=kɐˈrʲelʲɪjə, historically ''Korjela''; sv, Karelen), the land of the Karelian people, is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance fo ...
, where most of the
Finnish national epic
Kalevala
The ''Kalevala'' ( fi, Kalevala, ) is a 19th-century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology, telling an epic story about the Creation of the Earth, describing the controversies and ...
was recorded as well.
Many
Russian fairy tales and bylinas were adapted for
Russian animations, or for feature movies by famous directors like
Aleksandr Ptushko
Aleksandr Lukich Ptushko (russian: Александр Лукич Птушко, – 6 March 1973) was a Soviet animation and fantasy film director, and a People's Artist of the USSR (1969). Ptushko is frequently (and somewhat misleadingly) refer ...
(''
Ilya Muromets'', ''
Sadko'') and
Aleksandr Rou
Alexander Arturovich Rou (also, Rowe, from his Irish father's name) (russian: Александр Артурович Роу, – 28 December 1973) was a Soviet film director, and People's Artist of the RSFSR (1968). He directed a number of chi ...
(''
Morozko'', ''
Vasilisa the Beautiful''). Some Russian poets, including
Pyotr Yershov and
Leonid Filatov, created a number of well-known poetical interpretations of classical Russian fairy tales, and in some cases, like that of
Alexander Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...
, also created fully original fairy tale poems that became very popular.
Folklorists today consider the 1920s the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
's golden age of folklore. The struggling new government, which had to focus its efforts on establishing a new administrative system and building up the nation's backwards economy, could not be bothered with attempting to control literature, so studies of folklore thrived. There were two primary trends of folklore study during the decade: the
formalist and
Finnish schools. Formalism focused on the artistic form of ancient byliny and faerie tales, specifically their use of distinctive structures and poetic devices. The Finnish school was concerned with connections amongst related legends of various Eastern European regions. Finnish scholars collected comparable tales from multiple locales and analyzed their similarities and differences, hoping to trace these epic stories' migration paths.
[Oinas, "Folklore and Politics", 46.]
Once
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as Ge ...
came to power and put his
first five-year plan into motion in 1928, the Soviet government began to criticize and censor folklore studies. Stalin and the Soviet regime repressed folklore, believing that it supported the old tsarist system and a capitalist economy. They saw it as a reminder of the backward Russian society that the
Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
were working to surpass. To keep folklore studies in check and prevent "inappropriate" ideas from spreading amongst the masses, the government created the RAPP – the
Russian Association of Proletarian Writers. The RAPP specifically focused on censoring fairy tales and children's literature, believing that fantasies and "bourgeois nonsense" harmed the development of upstanding Soviet citizens. Fairy tales were removed from bookshelves and children were encouraged to read books focusing on nature and science. RAPP eventually increased its levels of censorship and became the
Union of Soviet Writers in 1932.
In order to continue researching and analyzing folklore, intellectuals needed to justify its worth to the Communist regime. Otherwise, collections of folklore, along with all other literature deemed useless for the purposes of Stalin's Five Year Plan, would be an unacceptable realm of study. In 1934,
Maksim Gorky gave a speech to the Union of Soviet Writers arguing that folklore could, in fact, be consciously used to promote Communist values. Apart from expounding on the artistic value of folklore, he stressed that traditional legends and fairy tales showed ideal, community-oriented characters, which exemplified the model Soviet citizen. Folklore, with many of its conflicts based on the struggles of a labor-oriented lifestyle, was relevant to Communism as it could not have existed without the direct contribution of the working classes. Also, Gorky explained that folklore characters expressed high levels of optimism, and therefore could encourage readers to maintain a positive mindset, especially as their lives changed with the further development of Communism.
Yuri Sokolov, the head of the folklore section of the Union of Soviet Writers also promoted the study of folklore by arguing that folklore had originally been the oral tradition of the working people, and consequently could be used to motivate and inspire collective projects amongst the present-day proletariat. Characters throughout traditional Russian folktales often found themselves on a journey of self-discovery, a process that led them to value themselves not as individuals, but rather as a necessary part of a common whole. The attitudes of such legendary characters paralleled the mindset that the Soviet government wished to instill in its citizens. He also pointed out the existence of many tales that showed members of the working class outsmarting their cruel masters, again working to prove folklore's value to Soviet ideology and the nation's society at large.
Convinced by Gorky and Sokolov's arguments, the Soviet government and the Union of Soviet Writers began collecting and evaluating folklore from across the country. The Union handpicked and recorded particular stories that, in their eyes, sufficiently promoted the collectivist spirit and showed the Soviet regime's benefits and progress. It then proceeded to redistribute copies of approved stories throughout the population. Meanwhile, local folklore centers arose in all major cities. Responsible for advocating a sense of Soviet nationalism, these organizations ensured that the media published appropriate versions of Russian folktales in a systematic fashion.
Apart from circulating government-approved fairy tales and byliny that already existed, during Stalin's rule authors parroting appropriate Soviet ideologies wrote Communist folktales and introduced them to the population. These contemporary folktales combined the structures and motifs of the old byliny with contemporary life in the Soviet Union. Called noviny, these new tales were considered the
renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...
of the Russian epic. Folklorists were called upon to teach modern folksingers the conventional style and structure of the traditional byliny. They also explained to the performers the appropriate types of Communist ideology that should be represented in the new stories and songs As the performers of the day were often poorly educated, they needed to obtain a thorough understanding of
Marxist
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...
ideology before they could be expected to impart folktales to the public in a manner that suited the Soviet government. Besides undergoing extensive education, many folk performers traveled throughout the nation in order to gain insight into the lives of the working class, and thus communicate their stories more effectively. Due to their crucial role in spreading Communist ideals throughout the Soviet Union, eventually some of these performers became highly valued members of Soviet society. A number of them, despite their illiteracy, were even elected as members of the Union of Soviet Writers.
These new Soviet fairy tales and folk songs primarily focused on the contrasts between a miserable life in old tsarist Russia and an improved one under Stalin's leadership. Their characters represented identities for which Soviet citizens should strive, exemplifying the traits of the "
New Soviet Man". The heroes of Soviet tales were meant to portray a transformed and improved version of the average citizen, giving the reader a clear goal for an ideal community-oriented self that the future he or she was meant to become. These new folktales replaced
magic with technology, and supernatural forces with Stalin. Instead of receiving essential advice from a mythical being, the protagonist would be given advice from omniscient Stalin. If the character followed Stalin's divine advice, he could be assured success in all his endeavors and a complete transformation into the "New Soviet Man". The villains of these contemporary fairy tales were the
Whites
White is a racialized classification of people and a skin color specifier, generally used for people of European origin, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, and point of view.
Description of populations as ...
and their leader Idolisce, "the most monstrous idol", who was the equivalent of the tsar. Descriptions of the Whites in noviny mirrored those of the
Tartars in byliny. In these new stories, the Whites were incompetent, stagnant capitalists, while the Soviet citizens became invincible heroes.
Once Stalin died in March 1953, folklorists of the period quickly abandoned the new folktales. Written by individual authors and performers, noviny did not come from the oral traditions of the working class. Consequently, today they are considered pseudo-folklore, rather than genuine Soviet (or Russian) folklore.
[Oinas, "Political Uses and Themes", 172.] Without any true connection to the masses, there was no reason noviny should be considered anything other than contemporary literature. Specialists decided that attempts to represent contemporary life through the structure and artistry of the ancient epics could not be considered genuine folklore. Stalin's name has been omitted from the few surviving pseudo-folktales of the period.
Instead of considering folklore under Stalin a renaissance of the traditional Russian epic, today it is generally regarded as a period of restraint and falsehood.
Literature
Russian literature is considered to be among the world's most influential and developed.
It can be traced to the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
, when epics and chronicles in
Old East Slavic were composed. By the
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
, literature had grown in importance, with works from
Mikhail Lomonosov,
Denis Fonvizin,
Gavrila Derzhavin, and
Nikolay Karamzin
Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin (russian: Николай Михайлович Карамзин, p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ kərɐmˈzʲin; ) was a Russian Empire, Russian Imperial historian, romantic writer, poet and critic. He is best ...
.
From the early 1830s, during the
Golden Age of Russian Poetry Golden Age of Russian Poetry (or ''Age of Pushkin'') is the name traditionally applied by philologists to the first half of the 19th century. The most significant Russian poet Pushkin (in Nabokov's words, the greatest poet this world was blessed wit ...
, literature underwent an astounding golden age in poetry, prose and drama.
Romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
permitted a flowering of poetic talent:
Vasily Zhukovsky and later his protégé
Alexander Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...
came to the fore. Following Pushkin's footsteps, a new generation of poets were born, including
Mikhail Lermontov
Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov (; russian: Михаи́л Ю́рьевич Ле́рмонтов, p=mʲɪxɐˈil ˈjurʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈlʲɛrməntəf; – ) was a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucas ...
,
Nikolay Nekrasov
Nikolay Alexeyevich Nekrasov ( rus, Никола́й Алексе́евич Некра́сов, p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɐlʲɪkˈsʲejɪvʲɪtɕ nʲɪˈkrasəf, a=Ru-Nikolay_Alexeyevich_Nekrasov.ogg, – ) was a Russian poet, writer, critic and publi ...
,
Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy,
Fyodor Tyutchev and
Afanasy Fet.
The first great Russian novelist was
Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol; uk, link=no, Мико́ла Васи́льович Го́голь, translit=Mykola Vasyliovych Hohol; (russian: Яновский; uk, Яновський, translit=Yanovskyi) ( – ) was a Russian novelist, ...
. Then came
Ivan Turgenev, who mastered both short stories and novels.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (, ; rus, Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский, Fyódor Mikháylovich Dostoyévskiy, p=ˈfʲɵdər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj, a=ru-Dostoevsky.ogg, links=yes; 11 November 18219 ...
and
Leo Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...
soon became internationally renowned.
Ivan Goncharov is remembered mainly for his novel
Oblomov.
Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote prose satire, while
Nikolai Leskov is best remembered for his shorter fiction. In the second half of the century
Anton Chekhov excelled in short stories and became a leading dramatist. Other important 19th-century developments included the fabulist
Ivan Krylov
Ivan Andreyevich Krylov (russian: Ива́н Андре́евич Крыло́в; 13 February 1769 – 21 November 1844) is Russia's best-known fabulist and probably the most epigrammatic of all Russian authors. Formerly a dramatist and journali ...
, non-fiction writers such as the critic
Vissarion Belinsky, and playwrights such as
Aleksandr Griboyedov
Alexander Sergeyevich Griboyedov (russian: Александр Сергеевич Грибоедов, ''Aleksandr Sergeevich Griboedov'' or ''Sergeevich Griboyedov''; 15 January 179511 February 1829), formerly romanized as Alexander Sergueevich Gri ...
and
Aleksandr Ostrovsky. The beginning of the 20th century ranks as the
Silver Age of Russian Poetry. This era had poets such as
Alexander Blok,
Anna Akhmatova,
Boris Pasternak,
Konstantin Balmont
Konstantin Dmitriyevich Balmont ( rus, Константи́н Дми́триевич Бальмо́нт, p=kənstɐnʲˈtʲin ˈdmʲitrʲɪjɪvʲɪdʑ bɐlʲˈmont, a=Konstantin Dmitriyevich Bal'mont.ru.vorb.oga; – 23 December 1942) was a Rus ...
,
Marina Tsvetaeva,
Vladimir Mayakovsky, and
Osip Mandelshtam. It also produced some first-rate novelists and short-story writers, such as
Aleksandr Kuprin
Aleksandr Ivanovich Kuprin (russian: link=no, Александр Иванович Куприн; – 25 August 1938) was a Russian writer best known for his novels ''The Duel'' (1905)Kuprin scholar Nicholas Luker, in his biography ''A ...
, Nobel Prize winner
Ivan Bunin,
Leonid Andreyev,
Yevgeny Zamyatin,
Dmitry Merezhkovsky and
Andrei Bely
Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev ( rus, Бори́с Никола́евич Буга́ев, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ bʊˈɡajɪf, a=Boris Nikolayevich Bugayev.ru.vorb.oga), better known by the pen name Andrei Bely or Biely ( rus, Андр� ...
.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Russian literature split into Soviet and
white émigré parts. In the 1930s,
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is ch ...
became the predominant trend in Russia. Its leading figure was
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (russian: link=no, Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (russian: Макси́м Го́рький, link=no), was a Russian writer and social ...
, who laid the foundations of this style.
Mikhail Bulgakov was one of the leading writers of the Soviet era.
Nikolay Ostrovsky
Nikolai Alexeevich Ostrovsky (russian: Никола́й Алексе́евич Остро́вский; uk, Мико́ла Олексі́йович Остро́вський; 29 September 1904 – 22 December 1936) was a Soviet socialist realist w ...
's novel
How the Steel Was Tempered has been among the most successful works of Russian literature. Influential émigré writers include
Vladimir Nabokov, and
Isaac Asimov
yi, יצחק אזימאװ
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Petrovichi, Russian SFSR
, spouse =
, relatives =
, children = 2
, death_date =
, death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
, nationality = Russian (1920–1922)Soviet (192 ...
; who was considered one of the "Big Three"
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
writers. Some writers dared to oppose Soviet ideology, such as Nobel Prize-winning novelist
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repr ...
, who wrote about life in the Gulag camps.
Philosophy
Some Russian writers, like
Tolstoy and
Dostoyevsky, are known also as philosophers, while many more authors are known primarily for their philosophical works.
Russian philosophy
Russian philosophy is a collective name for the philosophical heritage of Russian thinkers.
Historiography
In historiography, there is no consensus regarding the origins of Russian philosophy, its periodization and its cultural significance. Th ...
blossomed since the 19th century, when it was defined initially by the opposition of
Westernizers, advocating Russia's following the Western political and economical models, and
Slavophiles
Slavophilia (russian: Славянофильство) was an intellectual movement originating from the 19th century that wanted the Russian Empire to be developed on the basis of values and institutions derived from Russia's early history. Slavop ...
, insisting on developing Russia as a unique civilization. The latter group includes
Nikolai Danilevsky and
Konstantin Leontiev, the early founders of
eurasianism.
In its further developments, Russian philosophy was always marked by a deep connection to literature and interest in
creativity
Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and valuable is formed. The created item may be intangible (such as an idea, a scientific theory, a musical composition, or a joke) or a physical object (such as an invention, a printed lit ...
, society, politics and nationalism;
cosmos and religion were other primary subjects. Notable philosophers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries include
Vladimir Solovyov,
Sergei Bulgakov
Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov (; russian: Серге́й Никола́евич Булга́ков; – 13 July 1944) was a Russian Orthodox theologian, priest, philosopher, and economist.
Biography
Early life: 1871–1898
Sergei Nikolaevich B ...
,
Pavel Florensky,
Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev (; russian: Никола́й Алекса́ндрович Бердя́ев; – 24 March 1948) was a Russian philosopher, theologian, and Christian existentialist who emphasized the existential spiritual sig ...
,
Vladimir Lossky and
Vladimir Vernadsky. In the 20th century Russian philosophy became dominated by
Marxism
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
.
Humour
Russia owes much of its wit to the great flexibility and richness of the Russian language, allowing for puns and unexpected associations. As with any other nation, its vast scope ranges from lewd jokes and silly
word play
Word play or wordplay (also: play-on-words) is a literary technique and a form of wit in which words used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement. Examples of word play include puns, pho ...
to
political satire
Political satire is satire that specializes in gaining entertainment from politics; it has also been used with subversive intent where political speech and dissent are forbidden by a regime, as a method of advancing political arguments where s ...
.
Russian jokes
Russian jokes (russian: link=no, анекдоты, anekdoty, anecdotes) are short fictional stories or dialogs with a punch line, which commonly appear in Russian humor. Russian joke culture includes a series of categories with fixed settings and ...
, the most popular form of
Russian humour, are short fictional stories or dialogues with a
punch line. Russian joke culture features a series of categories with fixed and highly familiar settings and characters. Surprising effects are achieved by an endless variety of plots. Russians love jokes on topics found everywhere in the world, be it politics, spouse relations, or
mothers-in-law.
Chastushka
Chastushka ( rus, частушка, , tɕɪsˈtuʂkə) is a traditional type of short Russian or Ukrainian humorous folk song with high beat frequency, that consists of one four-lined couplet, full of humor, satire or irony. The term "chastushki" w ...
, a type of traditional
Russian poetry, is a single
quatrain in
trochaic tetrameter
In poetry, a tetrameter is a line of four metrical feet. The particular foot can vary, as follows:
* '' Anapestic tetrameter:''
** "And the ''sheen'' of their ''spears'' was like ''stars'' on the ''sea''" (Lord Byron, "The Destruction of Sennach ...
with an "abab" or "abcb"
rhyme scheme. Usually
humor
Humour (Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in ...
ous,
satirical
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or ...
, or ironic in nature, chastushkas are often put to music as well, usually with
balalaika or
accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a ree ...
accompaniment. The rigid, short structure (and to a lesser degree, the type of humor these use) parallels
limericks. The name originates from the Russian word ''части́ть'', meaning "to speak fast".
Visual arts
Russian visual artworks are similar in style with the ones from other eastern Slavic countries like
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...
or
Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...
.
As early as the 12th and 13th centuries Russia had its national masters who were free of all foreign influence, i. e. that of the Greeks on the one hand, and on the other hand that of the Lombard master-masons called in Andrei Georgievich to build the Uspensky (Assumption) Cathedral in the city of Vladimir. Russia's relations with the Greek world were hampered by the Mongol invasion, and it is to the isolation arising from this that we must attribute the originality of Slavo-Russian ornamentation, which has a character of its own, quite unlike the
Byzantine style and the
Romanesque.
Kremlin Tower Clock, 1913, House of Faberge, Russia, rhodonite, silver, enamel, emeralds, sapphires - Cleveland Museum of Art - DSC08964.JPG, Kremlin Tower Clock; 1913; rhodonite, silver, enamel, emeralds, sapphires; by House of Fabergé; Cleveland Museum of Art
Peter Carl Fabergé - Tea Set - 1966.500 - Cleveland Museum of Art.tif, Russian tea set; by Peter Carl Fabergé; made before 1896; silver gilt and opaque cloisonne enamel; Cleveland Museum of Art (USA)
Fedor I. Rückert - Kovsh (Wine Vessel) - 1966.497 - Cleveland Museum of Art.tif, Kovsh (wine vessel); by Fedor I. Rückert; 1896–1906; overall: 8.3 x 20.4 x 12.7 cm; Cleveland Museum of Art
Museum IMG 4286 St. Petersburg, Russia (39036215272).jpg, '' Lilies of the Valley'', a Fabergé egg; by Peter Carl Fabergé; 1898; enamel, gold, diamonds, rubies & pearls; 15.1 cm (5.9 in) when is closed; Fabergé Museum
The Fabergé Museum is a privately owned museum located in the German spa city of Baden-Baden, dedicated to items made by the Russian jewellery firm Fabergé. It was opened by Russian art collector Alexander Ivanov on 9 May 2009. It is owned by ...
(Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, Russia)
Architecture
The history of
Russian architecture
The architecture of Russia refers to the architecture of modern Russia as well as the architecture of both the original Kievan Rus’ state, the Russian principalities, and Imperial Russia. Due to the geographical size of modern and imperial ...
begins with early woodcraft buildings of ancient Slavs, and the
church architecture of Kievan Rus'. Following the
Christianization of Kievan Rus', for several centuries it was influenced predominantly by the
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
.
Aristotle Fioravanti
Ridolfo "Aristotele" Fioravanti (c. 1415 or 1420 in Bologna – c. 1486 in Tsardom of Russia) was an Italian Renaissance architect and engineer, active in Muscovy from 1475, where he designed the Dormition Cathedral, Moscow during 1475–1479.
Hi ...
and other Italian architects brought
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...
trends into Russia. The 16th-century saw the development of the unique
tent-like churches; and the
onion dome design, which is a distinctive feature of Russian architecture. In the 17th-century, the "fiery style" of ornamentation flourished in Moscow and
Yaroslavl
Yaroslavl ( rus, Ярослáвль, p=jɪrɐˈsɫavlʲ) is a city and the administrative center of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located northeast of Moscow. The historic part of the city is a World Heritage Site, and is located at the confluenc ...
, gradually paving the way for the
Naryshkin baroque of the 1690s.
After the reforms of Peter the Great, Russia's architecture became influenced by Western European styles. The 18th-century taste for
Rococo
Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...
architecture led to the
splendid works of
Bartolomeo Rastrelli
Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli (russian: Франче́ско Бартоломе́о (Варфоломе́й Варфоломе́евич) Растре́лли; 1700 in Paris, Kingdom of France – 29 April 1771 in Saint Petersburg, Russian Em ...
and his followers. The most influential Russian architects of the eighteenth century;
Vasily Bazhenov,
Matvey Kazakov, and
Ivan Starov, created lasting monuments in Moscow and Saint Petersburg and established a base for the more Russian forms that followed.
During the reign of Catherine the Great, Saint Petersburg was transformed into an outdoor museum of
Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing sty ...
. During
Alexander I Alexander I may refer to:
* Alexander I of Macedon, king of Macedon 495–454 BC
* Alexander I of Epirus (370–331 BC), king of Epirus
* Pope Alexander I (died 115), early bishop of Rome
* Pope Alexander I of Alexandria (died 320s), patriarch of A ...
's rule,
Empire style became the ''de facto'' architectural style, and
Nicholas I opened the gate of
Eclecticism
Eclecticism is a conceptual approach that does not hold rigidly to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draws upon multiple theories, styles, or ideas to gain complementary insights into a subject, or applies different theories i ...
to Russia. The second half of the 19th-century was dominated by the
Neo-Byzantine and
Russian Revival style. In early 20th-century,
Russian neoclassical revival became a trend. Prevalent styles of the late 20th-century were the
Art Nouveau,
Constructivism, and
Socialist Classicism
Stalinist architecture, mostly known in the former Eastern Bloc as Stalinist style () or Socialist Classicism, is the architecture of the Soviet Union under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, between 1933 (when Boris Iofan's draft for the Palace o ...
.
Some notable Russian buildings include:
*
Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod
The Cathedral of Holy Wisdom (the Holy Wisdom of God) in Veliky Novgorod is the cathedral church of the Metropolitan of Novgorod and the mother church of the Novgorodian Eparchy.
History
The 38-metre-high, five-domed, stone cathedral was built ...
,
Golden Gate (Vladimir) ,
Cathedral of Christ the Saviour
The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour ( rus, Храм Христа́ Спаси́теля, r=Khram Khristá Spasítelya, p=xram xrʲɪˈsta spɐˈsʲitʲɪlʲə) is a Russian Orthodox cathedral in Moscow, Russia, on the northern bank of the Moskv ...
,
Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir ,
Cathedral of the Annunciation ,
Cathedral of the Archangel ,
Cathedral of the Dormition ,
Church of the Savior on Blood
The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood (russian: Церковь Спаса на Крови, ''Tserkovʹ Spasa na Krovi'') is a Russian Orthodox church in Saint Petersburg, Russia which currently functions as a secular museum and church at th ...
,
Saint Basil's Cathedral ,
Kazan Kremlin ,
Saint Isaac's Cathedral
Saint Isaac's Cathedral or Isaakievskiy Sobor (russian: Исаа́киевский Собо́р) is a large architectural landmark cathedral that currently functions as a museum with occasional church services in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is ...
,
Kazan Cathedral ,
Peter and Paul Cathedral ,
Sukharev Tower ,
Menshikov Tower
Menshikov Tower (russian: Меншикова башня), also known as the Church of Archangel Gabriel, is a Baroque Russian Orthodox Church in Basmanny District of Moscow, within the Boulevard Ring. The church was initially built in 1707 to orde ...
,
Moscow Manege ,
Narva Triumphal Gate
The Narva Triumphal Arch (russian: На́рвские триумфа́льные ворота, lit. ''Narvskie Triumfal'nyye vorota'') was erected in the vast Stachek Square (prior to 1923 also known as the Narva Square), Saint Petersburg, in 1814 ...
,
Kolomenskoye ,
Peterhof Palace ,
Gatchina ,
Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra ,
Solovetsky Monastery ,
Kunstkamera ,
Russian Museum
The State Russian Museum (russian: Государственный Русский музей), formerly the Russian Museum of His Imperial Majesty Alexander III (russian: Русский Музей Императора Александра III), on ...
,
Catherine Palace
The Catherine Palace (russian: Екатерининский дворец, ) is a Rococo palace in Tsarskoye Selo (Pushkin), 30 km south of St. Petersburg, Russia. It was the summer residence of the Russian tsars. The Palace is part of th ...
,
Grand Kremlin Palace ,
Winter Palace ,
Simonov Monastery ,
Novodevichy Convent ,
Lenin's Mausoleum ,
Tatlin's Tower
Tatlinʼs Tower, or the project for the Monument to the Third International (1919–20), Honour, H. and Fleming, J. (2009) ''A World History of Art''. 7th edn. London: Laurence King Publishing, p. 819. was a design for a grand monumental buildin ...
,
Palace of the Soviets ,
Seven Sisters (Moscow)
The Seven Sisters (russian: links=no, Сталинские высотки, Stalinskie Vysotki, Stalin's high-rises) are a group of seven skyscrapers in Moscow designed in the Stalinist style. They were built from 1947 to 1953 in an elaborate ...
,
All-Soviet Exhibition Centre
Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy (russian: Выставка достижений народного хозяйства, ''Vystavka dostizheniy narodnogo khozyaystva'', abbreviated as VDNKh or VDNH, russian: ВДНХ, ) is a perman ...
,
Ostankino Tower
Ostankino Tower (russian: links=no, Останкинская телебашня, Ostankinskaya telebashnya) is a television and radio tower in Moscow, Russia, owned by the Moscow branch of unitary enterprise Russian TV and Radio Broadcasting Ne ...
,
Triumph-Palace ,
White House of Russia
The White House ( rus, Белый дом, r=Bely dom, p=ˈbʲɛlɨj ˈdom; officially The House of the Government of the Russian Federation, rus, Дом Правительства Российской Федерации, r=Dom pravitelstva Ross ...
Кронштадт. Никольский собор на Якорной площади.jpg, Kronstadt Naval Cathedral in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg, Cathedral of Christ the Saviour
The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour ( rus, Храм Христа́ Спаси́теля, r=Khram Khristá Spasítelya, p=xram xrʲɪˈsta spɐˈsʲitʲɪlʲə) is a Russian Orthodox cathedral in Moscow, Russia, on the northern bank of the Moskv ...
in Moscow
Dormition Cathedral, Moscow2019.jpg, Dormition Cathedral in Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
Vladimir bogolubovo 2.jpg, Church of the Intercession on the Nerl in Bogolyubovo Bogolyubovo (russian: Боголюбово, translated as "God-loving") is the name of several rural localities in Russia:
* Bogolyubovo, Perm Krai, a village in Kochyovsky District of Perm Krai
* Bogolyubovo, Smolensk Oblast, a '' selo'' in Bogdan ...
MozhayskKremlin 0919.jpg, Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Mozhaysk
Saint Isaac's Cathedral in SPB.jpeg, Saint Isaac's Cathedral
Saint Isaac's Cathedral or Isaakievskiy Sobor (russian: Исаа́киевский Собо́р) is a large architectural landmark cathedral that currently functions as a museum with occasional church services in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is ...
from Saint Petersburg
Kaliningrad 05-2017 img04 Kant Island.jpg, Königsberg Cathedral
, infobox_width =
, image = Kaliningrad 05-2017 img04 Kant Island.jpg
, image_size =
, alt =
, caption = Front (west side) of the cathedral
, map_type =
, map_ ...
in Kaliningrad
Kaliningrad ( ; rus, Калининград, p=kəlʲɪnʲɪnˈɡrat, links=y), until 1946 known as Königsberg (; rus, Кёнигсберг, Kyonigsberg, ˈkʲɵnʲɪɡzbɛrk; rus, Короле́вец, Korolevets), is the largest city and ...
Teatro Bolshói, Moscú, Rusia, 2016-10-03, DD 42-43 HDR.jpg, The Bolshoi Theatre
The Bolshoi Theatre ( rus, Большо́й теа́тр, r=Bol'shoy teatr, literally "Big Theater", p=bɐlʲˈʂoj tʲɪˈatər) is a historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, originally designed by architect Joseph Bové, which holds ballet and ope ...
in Moscow
Auferstehungskirche (Sankt Petersburg).JPG, Church of the Savior on Blood
The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood (russian: Церковь Спаса на Крови, ''Tserkovʹ Spasa na Krovi'') is a Russian Orthodox church in Saint Petersburg, Russia which currently functions as a secular museum and church at th ...
in Saint Petersburg
Winter Palace Panorama 4.jpg, The Winter Palace from Saint Petersburg
GUM department store in Red Square (19778541460).jpg, GUM in Moscow
Peter & Paul fortress in SPB 03.jpg, Peter and Paul Fortress
The Peter and Paul Fortress is the original citadel of St. Petersburg, Russia, founded by Peter the Great in 1703 and built to Domenico Trezzini's designs from 1706 to 1740 as a star fortress. Between the first half of the 1700s and early 1920 ...
in Saint Petersburg
Kazan Cathedral - panoramio (1).jpg, Kazan Cathedral in Saint Petersburg
Moscow State University crop.jpg, The main building of Moscow State University in Moscow
Western Military District buildings Saint Petersburg arch.jpg, General Staff Building
The General Staff Building (russian: Здание Главного штаба, ''Zdanie Glavnogo Shtaba'') is an edifice with a 580 m long bow-shaped facade, situated on Palace Square in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in front of the Winter Palace.
...
in Saint Petersburg
Moskovsky District, St Petersburg, Russia - panoramio (90).jpg, Moscow Triumphal Gate in Saint Petersburg
Kunstkamera SPB.jpg, Kunstkamera in Saint Petersburg
Handicraft
Matryoshka doll is a Russian nesting doll. A set of Matryoshka dolls consist of a wooden figure which can be pulled apart to reveal another figure of the same sort but somewhat smaller inside. It has in turn another somewhat smaller figure inside, and so on. The number of nested figures is usually six or more. The shape is mostly cylindrical, rounded at the top for the head and tapered towards the bottom, but little else. The dolls have no extremities, (except those that are painted). The true artistry is in the painting of each doll, which can be extremely elaborate. The theme is usually peasant girls in traditional dress, but can be almost anything; for instance, fairy tales or Soviet leaders.
Other forms of Russian handicraft include
khokhloma
Khokhloma (also Hohloma, russian: хохлома; ) or Khokhloma painting (, ''Khokhlomskaya rospis'') is the name of a Russian wood painting handicraft style and national ornament, known for its curved and vivid mostly flower, berry and leaf p ...
,
Dymkovo toy,
gzhel
Gzhel is a Russian style of blue and white ceramics which takes its name from the village of Gzhel and surrounding area, where it has been produced since 1802.
Overview
About thirty villages located southeast of Moscow produce pottery and sh ...
,
Zhostovo painting,
Filimonov toys,
pisanka,
Pavlovo Posad shawl,
Rushnyk
A rushnyk or rushnik (russian: рушник, ручник, uk, рушник, be, ручнік, ručnik, rue, ручник) is a decorative and ritual cloth. Made of linen or cotton it usually represents woven or embroidered designs, symbols ...
, and
palekh.
Азарова1.jpg, A Gzhel
Gzhel is a Russian style of blue and white ceramics which takes its name from the village of Gzhel and surrounding area, where it has been produced since 1802.
Overview
About thirty villages located southeast of Moscow produce pottery and sh ...
samovar
A samovar (russian: самовар, , literally "self-brewer") is a metal container traditionally used to heat and boil water. Although originating in Russia, the samovar is well known outside of Russia and has spread through Russian culture t ...
File:Poupées russes.JPG, Matryoshka dolls in a market
File:Russian-Matroshka.jpg, Matryoshka doll
Хохломская роспись на доске.jpg, A Khokhloma painting on a cutting board
File:Дымковская игрушка в магазине г. Киров (Кировская область).JPG, Dymkovo toys
Dymkovo toys, also known as the Vyatka toys or Kirov toys ( in Russian) are moulded painted clay figures of people and animals (sometimes in the form of a pennywhistle). It is one of the old Russian folk art handicrafts, which still exists in the ...
in a store
File:Podnos.jpg, A Zhostovo painting
File:Toy of Filimonovo 02.jpg, Some Filimonovo toys
File:Pyssanka1.jpg, Pysankas
File:Russian lacquered box - Suzdal.png, Lacquered box with a Kholuy miniature
A Kholuy miniature is a Russian folk handicraft of miniature painting, made with tempera on a varnished box of papier-mâché. This form of Russian lacquer art is produced exclusively by students of the Kholuy school.
The Kholuy school of icon ...
, depicting the town of Suzdal
Suzdal ( rus, Суздаль, p=ˈsuzdəlʲ) is a town that serves as the administrative center of Suzdalsky District in Vladimir Oblast, Russia, which is located on the Kamenka River, north of the city of Vladimir. Vladimir is the a ...
Пермогорская роспись.jpg, A Permogorsk painting on wood
File:Белгородские рушники.jpg, Rushnyk
A rushnyk or rushnik (russian: рушник, ручник, uk, рушник, be, ручнік, ručnik, rue, ручник) is a decorative and ritual cloth. Made of linen or cotton it usually represents woven or embroidered designs, symbols ...
, old traditional Russian weaving style. The patterns vary between regions, and can be found across Russian history in textiles and Russian architecture
The architecture of Russia refers to the architecture of modern Russia as well as the architecture of both the original Kievan Rus’ state, the Russian principalities, and Imperial Russia. Due to the geographical size of modern and imperial ...
Icon painting
Russian icons are typically paintings on wood, often small, though some in churches and monasteries may be as large as a table top. Many religious homes in Russia have icons hanging on the wall in the ''krasny ugol'', the "red" or "beautiful" corner (see
Icon Corner). There is a rich history and elaborate
religious symbolism associated with icons. In Russian churches, the
nave
The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-typ ...
is typically separated from the
sanctuary
A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred place, such as a shrine. By the use of such places as a haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This secondary use can be categorized into human sanctuary, a sa ...
by an ''
iconostasis
In Eastern Christianity, an iconostasis ( gr, εἰκονοστάσιον) is a wall of icons and religious paintings, separating the nave from the sanctuary in a church. ''Iconostasis'' also refers to a portable icon stand that can be placed a ...
'' (Russian ''ikonostás'') a wall of icons. Icon paintings in Russia attempted to help people with their prayers without idolizing the figure in the painting. The most comprehensive collection of Icon art is found at the
Tretyakov Gallery.
The use and making of icons entered
Kievan Rus'
Kievan Rusʹ, also known as Kyivan Rusʹ ( orv, , Rusĭ, or , , ; Old Norse: ''Garðaríki''), was a state in Eastern and Northern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century.John Channon & Robert Hudson, ''Penguin Historical Atlas o ...
following its conversion to
Orthodox Christianity
Orthodoxy (from Greek: ) is adherence to correct or accepted creeds, especially in religion.
Orthodoxy within Christianity refers to acceptance of the doctrines defined by various creeds and ecumenical councils in Antiquity, but different Chu ...
from the Eastern Roman (
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
) Empire in 988 AD. As a general rule, these icons strictly followed models and formulas hallowed by usage, some of which had originated in Constantinople. As time passed, the Russians—notably
Andrei Rublev
Andrei Rublev ( rus, Андре́й Рублёв, p=ɐnˈdrʲej rʊˈblʲɵf , also transliterated as ''Andrey Rublyov'') was a Muscovite icon painter born in the 1360s who died between 1427 and 1430 in Moscow. He is considered to be one of th ...
and
Dionisius
Dionisius (russian: Диони́сий, variously transliterated as ''Dionisy'' or ''Dionysiy''; also Dionisius the Wise; c. 1440 – 1502) was acknowledged as a head of the Moscow school of icon painters at the turn of the 15th and 16th ...
—widened the vocabulary of iconic types and styles far beyond anything found elsewhere. The personal, improvisatory and creative traditions of Western European religious art are largely lacking in Russia before the seventeenth century, when
Simon Ushakov's painting became strongly influenced by religious paintings and engravings from Protestant as well as Catholic Europe.
In the mid-seventeenth century, changes in liturgy and practice instituted by
Patriarch Nikon
Nikon ( ru , Ни́кон, Old Russian: ''Нїконъ''), born Nikita Minin (''Никита Минин''; 7 May 1605 – 17 August 1681) was the seventh Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus' of the Russian Orthodox Church, serving officially fro ...
resulted in a split in the Russian Orthodox Church. The traditionalists, the persecuted "Old Ritualists" or "
Old Believers
Old Believers or Old Ritualists, ''starovery'' or ''staroobryadtsy'' are Eastern Orthodox Christians who maintain the liturgical and ritual practices of the Russian Orthodox Church as they were before the reforms of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow b ...
", continued the traditional stylization of icons, while the State Church modified its practice. From that time icons began to be painted not only in the traditional stylized and nonrealistic mode, but also in a mixture of Russian stylization and Western European realism, and in a Western European manner very much like that of Catholic religious art of the time. The
Stroganov movement and the icons from
Nevyansk rank among the last important schools of Russian icon-painting.
Meister der Schule von Nowgorod 002.jpg, Icon of the Crucifixion
Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the victim is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross or beam and left to hang until eventual death from exhaustion and asphyxiation. It was used as a punishment by the Persians, Carthagi ...
; circa 1360; by the Novgorod School; Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the '' Venus de Milo''. A central ...
(Paris)
File:Angelsatmamre-trinity-rublev-1410.jpg, '' Holy Trinity, Hospitality of Abraham''; by Andrei Rublev
Andrei Rublev ( rus, Андре́й Рублёв, p=ɐnˈdrʲej rʊˈblʲɵf , also transliterated as ''Andrey Rublyov'') was a Muscovite icon painter born in the 1360s who died between 1427 and 1430 in Moscow. He is considered to be one of th ...
; c. 1411; tempera on panel; 1.1 x 1.4 m (4 ft 8 in x 3 ft 8 in); Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow)
Складень трехстворчатый c изображением «Благовещения», «Троицы» и «Сретения»..jpg, A three-leaved fold with the image of the "Annunciation", "Trinity" and "Presentation"; the end of the 17th century; temperaon wood; 13 x 7.3 cm; National Art Museum of Azerbaijan (Baku
Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world an ...
)
Икона «Святитель Николай Чудотворец (Дворищенский)". Первая треть XVIII века, Новгород. Дерево, левкас, темпера..jpg, Icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker (Dvorischensky); 18th century; wood, gesso & tempera; Ryabushinsky Museum of Icons and Paintings (Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
)
Lubok
A lubok (plural ''Lubki'',
Cyrillic
The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...
: russian: лубо́к, лубо́чная картинка) is a Russian
popular print, characterized by simple
graphics
Graphics () are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of data, as in design and manufacture, ...
and
narrative
A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional ( memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional ( fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller, novel, etc ...
s derived from literature, religious stories and popular tales. Lubki prints were used as decoration in houses and inns. Early examples from the late 17th and early 18th centuries were
woodcut
Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas tha ...
s, then
engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...
s or
etchings were typical, and from the mid-19th century
lithography
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
. They sometimes appeared in series, which might be regarded as predecessors of the modern
comic strip
A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics ter ...
. Cheap and simple books, similar to
chapbook
A chapbook is a small publication of up to about 40 pages, sometimes bound with a saddle stitch.
In early modern Europe a chapbook was a type of printed street literature. Produced cheaply, chapbooks were commonly small, paper-covered bookle ...
s, which mostly consisted of pictures, are called lubok literature or (
Cyrillic
The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...
: russian: лубочная литература). Both pictures and literature are commonly referred to simply as ''lubki''. The Russian word ''lubok'' derives from ''lub'' – a special type of board that pictures were printed on.
File:Babayaga lubok.jpg, ''Baba Yaga riding a pig and fighting the infernal Crocodile''; 17th century
File:Lubok zodiac.jpg, The sun, moon, seasons and 12 months in the form of signs of the zodiac; the end of the 17th-early 18th century
File:Mice-burying-the-cat.jpg, ''The Mice are burying the Cat''; 18th century
File:Farnos.jpg, ''Farnos the Red Nose'' (lubok depicting a pig-riding jester); 18th century
Classical painting
The
Russian Academy of Arts was created in 1757 with the aim of giving Russian artists an international role and status. Notable portrait painters from the Academy include
Ivan Argunov,
Fyodor Rokotov,
Dmitry Levitzky, and
Vladimir Borovikovsky
Vladimir Lukich Borovikovsky (russian: Влади́мир Луки́ч Боровико́вский, ukr, Володи́мир Лýкич Боровикóвський, ; July 24 O.S. (August 4, N.S.) 1757, Mirgorod – April 6 O.S. (April 18, N. ...
.
In the early 19th century, when
neoclassicism
Neoclassicism (also spelled Neo-classicism) was a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassicism ...
and
romantism flourished, famous academic artists focused on mythological and Biblical themes, like
Karl Briullov and
Alexander Ivanov.
Realist painting
Realism
Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to:
In the arts
*Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts
Arts movements related to realism include:
* Classical Realism
*Literary realism, a mov ...
came into dominance in the 19th century. The realists captured Russian identity in landscapes of wide rivers, forests, and
birch
A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech- oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' cont ...
clearings, as well as vigorous genre scenes and robust portraits of their contemporaries. Other artists focused on
social criticism, showing the conditions of the poor and caricaturing authority;
critical realism flourished under the reign of
Alexander II, with some artists making the circle of human suffering their main theme. Others focused on depicting dramatic moments in Russian history. The ''
Peredvizhniki'' (''wanderers'') group of artists broke with Russian Academy and initiated a school of art liberated from Academic restrictions. Leading realists include
Ivan Shishkin
Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin (russian: Ива́н Ива́нович Ши́шкин; 25 January 1832 – 20 March 1898) was a Russian landscape painter closely associated with the Peredvizhniki movement.
Biography
Shishkin was born to a Russian m ...
,
Arkhip Kuindzhi,
Ivan Kramskoi
Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoi (russian: Ива́н Никола́евич Крамско́й; June 8 (O.S. May 27), 1837, Ostrogozhsk – April 6 (O.S. March 24), 1887, Saint Petersburg) was a Russian painter and art critic. He was an intellectual ...
,
Vasily Polenov
Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov (Russian: Васи́лий Дми́триевич Поле́нов; 1 June 1844 – 18 July 1927) was a Russian landscape painter associated with the Peredvizhniki movement of realist artists. His contemporaries would c ...
,
Isaac Levitan,
Vasily Surikov,
Viktor Vasnetsov and
Ilya Repin
Ilya Yefimovich Repin (russian: Илья Ефимович Репин, translit=Il'ya Yefimovich Repin, p=ˈrʲepʲɪn); fi, Ilja Jefimovitš Repin ( – 29 September 1930) was a Russian painter, born in what is now Ukraine. He became one of the ...
.
By the turn of the 20th century and on, many Russian artists developed their own unique styles, neither realist nor avant-garde. These include
Boris Kustodiev,
Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin,
Mikhail Vrubel and
Nicholas Roerich. Many works by the
Peredvizhniki group of artists have been highly sought after by collectors in recent years. Russian art auctions during
Russian Art Week
Russian Art Week was a major international art fair in London, UK, which takes places bi-annually every June and November. During the week the UK's four major auction houses Christie's, Sotheby's, MacDougall's and Bonhams present a programme o ...
in London have increased in demand and works have been sold for record breaking prices.
Russian avant-garde
The
Russian avant-garde is an umbrella term used to define the large, influential wave of
modernist art that flourished in Russia from approximately 1890 to 1930. The term covers many separate, but inextricably related, art movements that occurred at the time; namely
neo-primitivism
Primitivism is a mode of aesthetic idealization that either emulates or aspires to recreate a "primitive" experience. It is also defined as a philosophical doctrine that considers "primitive" peoples as nobler than civilized peoples and was an o ...
,
suprematism,
constructivism,
rayonism, and
futurism. Notable artists from this era include
El Lissitzky
Lazar Markovich Lissitzky (russian: link=no, Ла́зарь Ма́ркович Лиси́цкий, ; – 30 December 1941), better known as El Lissitzky (russian: link=no, Эль Лиси́цкий; yi, על ליסיצקי), was a Russian artist ...
,
Kazimir Malevich,
Wassily Kandinsky,
Vladimir Tatlin
Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin ( – 31 May 1953) was a Russian and Soviet painter, architect and stage-designer. Tatlin achieved fame as the architect who designed The Monument to the Third International, more commonly known as Tatlin's Tower, wh ...
,
Alexander Rodchenko
Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko (russian: link=no, Алекса́ндр Миха́йлович Ро́дченко; – 3 December 1956) was a Russian and Soviet artist, sculptor, photographer, and graphic designer. He was one of the founders ...
,
Pavel Filonov and
Marc Chagall. The Russian avant-garde reached its creative and popular height in the period between the
Russian Revolution of 1917 and 1932, at which point the revolutionary ideas of the
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretica ...
clashed with the newly emerged conservative direction of
socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is ch ...
.
In the 20th century many Russian artists made their careers in Western Europe, forced to emigrate by the Revolution.
Wassily Kandinsky,
Marc Chagall,
Naum Gabo and others spread their work, ideas, and the impact of Russian art globally.
Glass (Larionov, 1912).jpg, ''The glass''; by Mikhail Larionov
Mikhail Fyodorovich Larionov (Russian: Михаи́л Фёдорович Ларио́нов; June 3, 1881 – May 10, 1964) was a Russian avant-garde painter who worked with radical exhibitors and pioneered the first approach to abstract Rus ...
; 1912; oil on canvas; 104 × 97 cm (40.9 × 38.1 in.); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
(New York City)
Vassily Kandinsky, 1913 - Color Study, Squares with Concentric Circles.jpg, ''Squares with Concentric Circles''; by Wassily Kandinsky; 1913; watercolor
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to ...
, gouache
Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouache ...
and crayon
A crayon (or wax pastel) is a stick of pigmented wax used for writing or drawing. Wax crayons differ from pastels, in which the pigment is mixed with a dry binder such as gum arabic, and from oil pastels, where the binder is a mixture of w ...
on paper; height: 23.9 cm (9.4 in.), width: 31.6 cm (12.4 in.); Lenbachhaus (Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...
, Germany)
Cyclist (Goncharova, 1913).jpg, '' Cyclist''; by Natalia Goncharova; 1913; oil on canvas; height: 78 cm (30.7 in.), width: 105 cm (41.3 in.); the Russian State Museum
The State Russian Museum (russian: Государственный Русский музей), formerly the Russian Museum of His Imperial Majesty Alexander III (russian: Русский Музей Императора Александра III), on ...
(Saint Petersburg)
Klinom Krasnim by El Lisitskiy (1920).jpg, ''Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge
Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (russian: Клином красным бей белых!, ) is a 1919 lithographic Bolshevik propaganda poster by artist El Lissitzky, "the man through whose exertions the new Russian ideas became generally under ...
''; by El Lissitzky
Lazar Markovich Lissitzky (russian: link=no, Ла́зарь Ма́ркович Лиси́цкий, ; – 30 December 1941), better known as El Lissitzky (russian: link=no, Эль Лиси́цкий; yi, על ליסיצקי), was a Russian artist ...
; 1919; poster (lithography
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
)
Soviet art
During the
Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...
a movement was initiated to put all arts to service of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The instrument for this was created just days before the October Revolution, known as Proletkult, an abbreviation for "Proletarskie kulturno-prosvetitelnye organizatsii" (Proletarian Cultural and Enlightenment Organizations). A prominent theorist of this movement was
Alexander Bogdanov
Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov (russian: Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Богда́нов; – 7 April 1928), born Alexander Malinovsky, was a Russian and later Soviet physician, philosopher, science fiction writer, and ...
. Initially,
Narkompros (ministry of education), which was also in charge of the arts, supported Proletkult. Although Marxist in character, the Proletkult gained the disfavor of many party leaders, and by 1922 it had declined considerably. It was eventually disbanded by Stalin in 1932. ''De facto'' restrictions on what artists could paint were abandoned by the late 1980s.
However, in the late Soviet era many artists combined innovation with
socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is ch ...
including
Ernst Neizvestny,
Ilya Kabakov,
Mikhail Shemyakin
Mihail Mikhailovich Chemiakin (or Shemyakin, russian: Михаил Михайлович Шемякин, born 4 May 1943) is a Russian painter, stage designer, sculptor and publisher, and a controversial representative of the nonconformist a ...
,
Igor Novikov Igor Novikov may refer to:
*Igor Novikov (painter) (born 1961), Russian painter living in Switzerland
*Igor Novikov (pentathlete) (1929–2007), Soviet Olympic modern pentathlete
*Igor Novikov (chess player) (born 1962), Ukrainian then U.S. chess ...
,
Erik Bulatov, and
Vera Mukhina. They employed techniques as varied as
primitivism
Primitivism is a mode of aesthetic idealization that either emulates or aspires to recreate a "primitive" experience. It is also defined as a philosophical doctrine that considers "primitive" peoples as nobler than civilized peoples and was an o ...
,
hyperrealism
Jean Baudrillard ( , , ; 27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as ...
,
grotesque, and
abstraction
Abstraction in its main sense is a conceptual process wherein general rules and concepts are derived from the usage and classification of specific examples, literal ("real" or " concrete") signifiers, first principles, or other methods.
"An abst ...
. Soviet artists produced works that were furiously patriotic and
anti-fascist
Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers wer ...
in the 1940s. After the
Great Patriotic War
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers against the Soviet Union (USSR), Poland and other Allies, which encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northeast Europe (Baltics), an ...
Soviet sculptors made multiple monuments to the war dead, marked by a great restrained solemnity.
Performance arts
Russian folk music
Russians have distinctive traditions of
folk music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has ...
. Typical ethnic Russian musical instruments are
gusli,
balalaika,
zhaleika, balalaika contrabass,
bayan
Bayan may refer to:
Eduational Institutions
* Bayan Islamic Graduate School, Chicago, IL
Places
*Bayan-Aul, Pavlodar, Kazakhstan
*Bayan Mountain, an ancient mountain name for part of Tarbagatai Mountains at Kazakhstan in Qing Dynasty period
* ...
accordion, Gypsy guitar and
garmoshka. Folk music had great influence on the Russian classical composers, and in modern times it is a source of inspiration for a number of popular
folk bands, most prominent being
Golden Ring,
Ural's Nation Choir,
Lyudmila Zykina
Lyudmila Georgievna Zykina (russian: link=no, Людми́ла Гео́ргиевна Зы́кина; 10 June 1929 – 1 July 2009) was a national folk singer of Russia.
She was born in Moscow and joined the Pyatnitsky Choir in 1947. Her surn ...
.
Russian folk songs, as well as patriotic songs of the
Soviet era, constitute the bulk of repertoire of the world-renowned
Red Army choir and other popular Russian ensembles.
Russian folk dance
Russian folk dance (
Russian: Русский Народный Танец ) can generally be broken up into two main types of dances
Khorovod
The khorovod or horovod ( rus, хорово́д, p=xərɐˈvot, uk, хоровод, translit=khorovod or uk, коло, translit=kolo, label=none, be, карагод , bg, хоро, pl, korowód) is an East Slavic and pagan art form and on ...
(
Russian: Хоровод), a circular game type dance where the participants hold hands, sing, and the action generally happens in the middle of circle, and Plyaska (
Russian: Пляска or Плясовый), a circular dance for men and women that increases in diversity and tempo, according to Bob Renfield, considered to be the preeminent scholar on the topic. Other forms of Russian Folk Dance include Pereplyas (
Russian: Перепляс), an all-male competitive dance, Mass Dance (
Russian: Массовый пляс), an unpaired stage dance without restrictions on age or number of participants, Group Dance (
Russian: Групповая пляска) a type of mass dance employs simple round-dance passages, and improvisation, and types of Quadrilles (
Russian: Кадриль), originally a French dance brought to
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...
in the 18th century.
Ethnic Russian dances include
khorovod
The khorovod or horovod ( rus, хорово́д, p=xərɐˈvot, uk, хоровод, translit=khorovod or uk, коло, translit=kolo, label=none, be, карагод , bg, хоро, pl, korowód) is an East Slavic and pagan art form and on ...
(
Russian: Хоровод),
barynya (
Russian: Барыня),
kamarinskaya (
Russian: Камаринская),
kazachok (
Russian: Казачок) and chechotka (
Russian: Чечётка) (a
tap dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm (jazz) tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses on dance; it is widely perf ...
in
bast shoes and with a bayan).
Troika (
Russian: Тройка) A dance with one man and two women, named after the traditional Russian carriage which is led by three horses. Bear Dance or dancing with bears (
Russian: Танец С Медведем) Dates back to 907 when Great Russian Prince Oleg, in celebration of his victory over the Greeks in Kiev, had as entertainment, 16 male dancers dress as bears and four bears dress as dancers . Dances with dancers dressed as bears are a recurring theme, as seen a recording of the Omsk Russian Folk Chorus. One of the main characteristics of Russian furious dances is the
Russian squat dance elements.
Classical music
Until the 18th-century, music in Russia consisted mainly of church music and folk songs and dances.
[Excerpted from ] In the 19th-century, it was defined by the tension between classical composer
Mikhail Glinka
Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka ( rus, link=no, Михаил Иванович Глинка, Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka., mʲɪxɐˈil ɪˈvanəvʲɪdʑ ˈɡlʲinkə, Ru-Mikhail-Ivanovich-Glinka.ogg; ) was the first Russian composer to gain wide recogni ...
along with other members of
The Mighty Handful
The Five ( rus, link=no, Могучая кучка, lit. ''Mighty Bunch''), also known as the Mighty Handful, The Mighty Five, and the New Russian School, were five prominent 19th-century Russian composers who worked together to create a distinct ...
, and the
Russian Musical Society led by composers
Anton and
Nikolay Rubinstein.
The later tradition of
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...
, one of the greatest composers of the
Romantic era
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
, was continued into the 20th century by
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one o ...
, one of the last great champions of the Romantic style of European classical music. World-renowned composers of the 20th century include
Alexander Scriabin
Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (; russian: Александр Николаевич Скрябин ; – ) was a Russian composer and virtuoso pianist. Before 1903, Scriabin was greatly influenced by the music of Frédéric Chopin and composed ...
,
Alexander Glazunov,
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...
,
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev; alternative transliterations of his name include ''Sergey'' or ''Serge'', and ''Prokofief'', ''Prokofieff'', or ''Prokofyev''., group=n (27 April .S. 15 April1891 – 5 March 1953) was a Russian composer, ...
,
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, , group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his First Symphony in 1926 and was regarded throughout his life as a major compo ...
,
Georgy Sviridov and
Alfred Schnittke.
Soviet and Russian conservatories have turned out generations of world-renowned soloists. Among the best known are violinists
David Oistrakh and
Gidon Kremer, cellist
Mstislav Rostropovich
Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich, (27 March 192727 April 2007) was a Russian cellist and conductor. He is considered by many to be the greatest cellist of the 20th century. In addition to his interpretations and technique, he was well ...
, pianists
Vladimir Horowitz,
Sviatoslav Richter, and
Emil Gilels, and vocalist
Galina Vishnevskaya.
Ballet
The original purpose of the ballet in Russia was to entertain the imperial court. The first ballet company was the Imperial School of Ballet in St. Petersburg in the 1740s. The
Ballets Russes
The Ballets Russes () was an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society. ...
was a ballet company founded in the 1909 by
Sergey Diaghilev, an enormously important figure in the Russian ballet scene. Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes' travels abroad profoundly influenced the development of dance worldwide.
The headquarters of his ballet company was located in Paris, France. A protégé of Diaghilev,
George Balanchine, founded the New York City Ballet Company in 1948.
During the early 20th century, Russian ballet dancers
Anna Pavlova
Anna Pavlovna Pavlova ( , rus, Анна Павловна Павлова ), born Anna Matveyevna Pavlova ( rus, Анна Матвеевна Павлова; – 23 January 1931), was a Russian prima ballerina of the late 19th and the early 20t ...
and
Vaslav Nijinsky rose to fame. Soviet ballet preserved the perfected 19th century traditions, and the Soviet Union's choreography schools produced one internationally famous star after another, including
Maya Plisetskaya,
Rudolf Nureyev
Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev ( ; Tatar/ Bashkir: Рудольф Хәмит улы Нуриев; rus, Рудо́льф Хаме́тович Нуре́ев, p=rʊˈdolʲf xɐˈmʲetəvʲɪtɕ nʊˈrʲejɪf; 17 March 19386 January 1993) was a Soviet ...
, and
Mikhail Baryshnikov. The
Bolshoi Ballet
The Bolshoi Ballet is an internationally renowned classical ballet company based at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia. Founded in 1776, the Bolshoi is among the world's oldest ballet companies. In the early 20th century, it came to internat ...
in Moscow and the
Mariinsky in Saint Petersburg remain famous throughout the world. ballet from then on spead world wide.
Opera
The first known opera made in Russia was ''
A Life for the Tsar
''A Life for the Tsar'' ( rus, "Жизнь за царя", italic=yes, Zhizn za tsarya ) is a "patriotic-heroic tragic opera" in four acts with an epilogue by Mikhail Glinka. During the Soviet era the opera was known under the name ''Ivan Susanin'' ...
'' by
Mikhail Glinka
Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka ( rus, link=no, Михаил Иванович Глинка, Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka., mʲɪxɐˈil ɪˈvanəvʲɪdʑ ˈɡlʲinkə, Ru-Mikhail-Ivanovich-Glinka.ogg; ) was the first Russian composer to gain wide recogni ...
in 1836. This was followed by several operas such as ''
Ruslan and Lyudmila'' in 1842. Russian opera was originally a combination of Russian folk music and
Italian opera
Italian opera is both the art of opera in Italy and opera in the Italian language. Opera was born in Italy around the year 1600 and Italian opera has continued to play a dominant role in the history of the form until the present day. Many famous ...
. After the
October revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mom ...
many opera composers left Russia. Russia's most popular operas include ''
Boris Godunov
Borís Fyodorovich Godunóv (; russian: Борис Фёдорович Годунов; 1552 ) ruled the Tsardom of Russia as ''de facto'' regent from c. 1585 to 1598 and then as the first non-Rurikid tsar from 1598 to 1605. After the end of his ...
'', ''
Eugene Onegin'', ''
The Golden Cockerel'', ''
Prince Igor'', and ''
The Queen of Spades''.
Modern music
During the Soviet times,
popular music
Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fu ...
also produced a number of renowned figures, such as the two
balladeers—
Vladimir Vysotsky
Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky ( rus, links=no, Владимир Семёнович Высоцкий, p=vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr sʲɪˈmʲɵnəvʲɪtɕ vɨˈsotskʲɪj; 25 January 1938 – 25 July 1980), was a Soviet singer-songwriter, poet, and actor ...
and
Bulat Okudzhava,
and performers such as
Alla Pugacheva.
Jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
, even with sanctions from Soviet authorities, flourished and evolved into one of the country's most popular musical forms.
The
Ganelin Trio have been described by critics as the greatest ensemble of free-jazz in
continental Europe
Continental Europe or mainland Europe is the contiguous continent of Europe, excluding its surrounding islands. It can also be referred to ambiguously as the European continent, – which can conversely mean the whole of Europe – and, by ...
. By the 1980s,
rock music
Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States a ...
became popular across Russia, and produced bands such as
Aria
In music, an aria ( Italian: ; plural: ''arie'' , or ''arias'' in common usage, diminutive form arietta , plural ariette, or in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompa ...
,
Aquarium
An aquarium (plural: ''aquariums'' or ''aquaria'') is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aq ...
,
DDT, and
Kino
Kino may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasters
* KINO, a radio station in Arizona, U.S.
* Kino FM (98.0 FM – Moscow), a Russian music radio station
* KinoTV, now Ruutu+ Leffat ja Sarjat, a Finnish TV channel
Fictional entiti ...
.
Pop music
Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms ''popular music'' and ''pop music'' are often used interchangeably, although the former descri ...
in Russia has continued to flourish since the 1960s, with globally famous acts such as
t.A.T.u. In the recent times,
Little Big, a
rave
A rave (from the verb: '' to rave'') is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance mu ...
band, has gained popularity in Russia and across Europe. Other modern music can be found in the media, such as
Youtube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
. For example, the song
Moscow, Moscow" is extremely popular among memes and other means of entertainment.
Cinema
Russian and later
Soviet cinema was a hotbed of invention, resulting in world-renowned films such as ''
The Battleship Potemkin''. Soviet-era filmmakers, most notably
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ ɪjzʲɪnˈʂtʲejn, 2=Sergey Mikhaylovich Eyzenshteyn; 11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director, scree ...
and
Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky ( rus, Андрей Арсеньевич Тарковский, p=ɐnˈdrʲej ɐrˈsʲenʲjɪvʲɪtɕ tɐrˈkofskʲɪj; 4 April 1932 – 29 December 1986) was a Russian filmmaker. Widely considered one of the greates ...
, would go on to become among of the world's most innovative and influential directors. Eisenstein was a student of
Lev Kuleshov, who developed the groundbreaking
Soviet montage theory
Soviet montage theory is an approach to understanding and creating cinema that relies heavily upon editing ('' montage'' is French for "assembly" or "editing"). It is the principal contribution of Soviet film theorists to global cinema, and bro ...
of film editing at the world's first
film school, the
All-Union Institute of Cinematography.
Dziga Vertov's "
Kino-Eye
Kino-Eye (Anglophonic: Cine-Eye) is a film technique developed in Soviet Russia by Dziga Vertov. It was also the name of the movement and group that was defined by this technique. Kino-Eye was Vertov's means of capturing what he believed to be "i ...
" theory had a huge impact on the development of documentary filmmaking and cinema realism. Many Soviet socialist realism films were artistically successful, including ''
Chapaev
Vasily Ivanovich Chapayev or Chapaev (russian: link=no, Василий Иванович Чапаев; 5 September 1919) was a Russian soldier and Red Army commander during the Russian Civil War.
Biography
Chapayev was born into a poor peasan ...
'', ''
The Cranes Are Flying
''The Cranes Are Flying'' (russian: Летят журавли, translit. ''Letyat zhuravli'') is a 1957 Soviet film about the Second World War. It depicts the cruelty of war and the damage done to the Soviet psyche as a result of war, which ...
'', and ''
Ballad of a Soldier
''Ballad of a Soldier'' (russian: Баллада о солдате, ''Ballada o soldate''), is a 1959 Soviet film directed by Grigory Chukhray and starring Vladimir Ivashov and Zhanna Prokhorenko. While set during World War II, ''Ballad of a ...
''.
The 1960s and 1970s saw a greater variety of artistic styles in Soviet cinema. The comedies of
Eldar Ryazanov and
Leonid Gaidai of that time were immensely popular, with many of the catchphrases still in use today. In 1961–68
Sergey Bondarchuk
Sergei Fyodorovich Bondarchuk (russian: Сергей Фёдорович Бондарчук, ; uk, Сергі́й Федорович Бондарчук, Serhíj Fédorovych Bondarchúk; 25 September 192020 October 1994) was a Soviet and Russian ...
directed an
Oscar-winning
film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's epic ''
War and Peace'', which was
the most expensive film made in the Soviet Union. In 1969,
Vladimir Motyl's ''
White Sun of the Desert'' was released, a very popular film in a genre of
ostern
The Ostern (Eastern; , ''Istern''; or остерн) or Red Western was a film genre created in the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc as a variation of the Western films that originated in the United States. The word "Ostern" is a portmanteau derived ...
; the film is traditionally watched by
cosmonauts
An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally ...
before any trip into space. In 2002, ''
Russian Ark'' was the first feature film ever to be shot in a single take. Today, the Russian cinema industry continues to expand.
Animation
Russia also has a long and rich
tradition of animation, which started already in the late
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War ...
times. Most of Russia's cartoon production for cinema and television was created during Soviet times, when
Soyuzmultfilm studio was the largest animation producer. Soviet animators developed a great and unmatched variety of pioneering techniques and
aesthetic
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...
styles, with prominent directors including
Ivan Ivanov-Vano,
Fyodor Khitruk and
Aleksandr Tatarskiy
Alexander Mikhailovich Tatarsky (russian: Александр Михайлович Татарский; December 11, 1950 – July 22, 2007) was a Soviet and Russian animation director, screenwriter, animator, producer, artist, co-founder and ar ...
. Soviet cartoons are still a source for many popular catch phrases, while such cartoon heroes as Russian-style
Winnie-the-Pooh
Winnie-the-Pooh, also called Pooh Bear and Pooh, is a fictional anthropomorphic teddy bear created by English author A. A. Milne and English illustrator E. H. Shepard.
The first collection of stories about the character was the book ''Win ...
, cute little
Cheburashka, Wolf and Hare from ''
Nu, Pogodi!'' being iconic images in Russia and many surrounding countries. The traditions of Soviet animation were developed in the past decade by such directors as
Aleksandr Petrov and studios like
Melnitsa, along with
Ivan Maximov
;
, image = Иван Максимов на кинофестивале во Владивостоке.jpg
, caption =
, birth_name = Ivan Leonidovich Maksimov
, birth_date =
, birth_ ...
.
Science and technology
Radio and TV
Russia has almost 37 thousand media outlets, over 35 thousand newspapers,
and 12 thousand magazines.
The largest internationally operating news agencies in Russia are
TASS
The Russian News Agency TASS (russian: Информацио́нное аге́нтство Росси́и ТАСС, translit=Informatsionnoye agentstvo Rossii, or Information agency of Russia), abbreviated TASS (russian: ТАСС, label=none) ...
,
RIA Novosti, and
Interfax.
Television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
is the most popular media in Russia, as 99% of the Russian population receives at least one television channel,
and roughly 60% of Russians watch television on a daily basis. The most watched TV channels in Russia include the state-owned
Russia-1,
Channel One Russia,
NTV,
REN TV
REN TV (russian: РЕН ТВ) is a Russian free-to-air television network, was founded on 1 January 1997 by Irena Lesnevskaya and her son, Dmitry Lesnevsky, who had been running REN TV as a production house for other national Russian television ...
, and
Russia Today
RT (formerly Russia Today or Rossiya Segodnya (russian: Россия Сегодня) is a Russian state-controlled international news television network funded by the Russian government. It operates pay television and free-to-air channe ...
.
Popular nationwide radio stations in Russia include
Radio Rossii,
Echo of Moscow,
Radio Mayak,
Radio Yunost, and
Russkoye Radio
''Russkoye Radio'' (russian: Русское радио, in English: Russian Radio) is a Russian radio station, broadcasting in some CIS countries. It differs from other similar stations since it broadcasts songs almost exclusively in Russian.
I ...
.
Internet
Originating from Russian
scientific community
The scientific community is a diverse network of interacting scientists. It includes many " sub-communities" working on particular scientific fields, and within particular institutions; interdisciplinary and cross-institutional activities are als ...
and
telecommunication industries, a specific Russian culture of using the Internet has been established since the early 1990s. In the second half of the 1990s, the term ''
Runet
Runet (russian: Рунет), a portmanteau of ru (code for both the Russian language and Russia's top-level domain) and net/network, is the Russian-language community on the Internet and websites. The term Runet was coined in Israel in th ...
'' was coined to call the segment of Internet written or understood in the Russian language. Whereas the Internet "has no boundaries", "Russian Internet" (online communications in the
Russian language
Russian (russian: русский язык, russkij jazyk, link=no, ) is an East Slavic language mainly spoken in Russia. It is the native language of the Russians, and belongs to the Indo-European language family. It is one of four living E ...
) can not be localized solely to the users residing in the Russian Federation as it includes Russian-speaking people from all around the world. This segment includes millions of users in other
ex-USSR countries, Israel and others abroad
diaspora
A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. Historically, the word was used first in reference to the dispersion of Greeks in the Hellenic world, and later Jews after ...
s.
With the introduction of
the Web
The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet.
Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through we ...
, many social and cultural events found reflections within the Russian Internet society. Various
online communities formed, and the most popular one grew out of the Russian-speaking users of the California-based blogging platform
LiveJournal (which was completely bought out in December 2007 by Russian firm
SUP Fabrik). In January 2008 a LiveJournal blog of the "3rd statesman"
Sergey Mironov had appeared and he was shortly followed by the new President
Dmitry Medvedev
Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev ( rus, links=no, Дмитрий Анатольевич Медведев, p=ˈdmʲitrʲɪj ɐnɐˈtolʲjɪvʲɪtɕ mʲɪdˈvʲedʲɪf; born 14 September 1965) is a Russian politician who has been serving as the dep ...
who opened a personal video blog which was later also expanded with a LiveJournal version.
As of late, there are scores of websites offering Russian language content including mass media, e-commerce, search engines and so on. Particularly notorious are the "Russian
Hackers". Russian web design studios, software and web-hosting enterprises offer a variety of services, and the results form a sort of national digital culture. E-commerce giants such as
Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
and
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
have their Russian branches. In September 2007, the national domain
.ru
.ru is the Latin alphabet Internet country code top-level domain ( ccTLD) for Russia introduced on 7 April 1994. The Russian alphabet internationalized country code is .рф.
Control of .ru is assigned to the Coordination Center for TLD ...
passed the milestone of a million domain names. By the end of the 2000s,
VKontakte social network became the most populated in the Runet.
Science and innovation
Russia's
research and development
Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in Europe as research and technological development (RTD), is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products, and improving existi ...
budget is the world's
ninth-highest, with an expenditure of approximately 422 billion rubles on domestic research and development. In 2019, Russia was ranked tenth worldwide in the number of scientific publications. Russia ranked 45th in the
Global Innovation Index
The Global Innovation Index is an annual ranking of countries by their capacity for, and success in, innovation, published by the World Intellectual Property Organization. It was started in 2007 by INSEAD and ''World Business'', a British m ...
in 2021. Since 1904,
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
were awarded to twenty-six Soviets and Russians in
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which ...
,
chemistry
Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the elements that make up matter to the compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions: their composition, structure, proper ...
,
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...
,
economy
An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with th ...
,
literature
Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...
and
peace
Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. ...
.
Mikhail Lomonosov proposed the
conservation of mass in
chemical reactions
A chemical reaction is a process that leads to the chemical transformation of one set of chemical substances to another. Classically, chemical reactions encompass changes that only involve the positions of electrons in the forming and breaking ...
, discovered the
atmosphere of Venus
The atmosphere of Venus is the layer of gases surrounding Venus. It is composed primarily of supercritical carbon dioxide and is much denser and hotter than that of Earth. The temperature at the surface is 740 K (467 °C, 872 ...
, and founded modern
geology
Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other Astronomical object, astronomical objects, the features or rock (geology), rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology ...
. Since the times of
Nikolay Lobachevsky, who pioneered the
non-Euclidean geometry, and a prominent tutor
Pafnuty Chebyshev
Pafnuty Lvovich Chebyshev ( rus, Пафну́тий Льво́вич Чебышёв, p=pɐfˈnutʲɪj ˈlʲvovʲɪtɕ tɕɪbɨˈʂof) ( – ) was a Russian mathematician and considered to be the founding father of Russian mathematics.
Chebysh ...
, Russian
mathematicians became among the world's most influential.
Dmitry Mendeleev invented the
Periodic table
The periodic table, also known as the periodic table of the (chemical) elements, is a rows and columns arrangement of the chemical elements. It is widely used in chemistry, physics, and other sciences, and is generally seen as an icon of ch ...
, the main framework of modern
chemistry
Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the elements that make up matter to the compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions: their composition, structure, proper ...
.
Sofya Kovalevskaya
Sofya Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya (russian: link=no, Софья Васильевна Ковалевская), born Korvin-Krukovskaya ( – 10 February 1891), was a Russian mathematician who made noteworthy contributions to analysis, partial differen ...
was a pioneer among
women in mathematics in the 19th century. Nine Soviet/Russian mathematicians have been awarded with the
Fields Medal
The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place every four years. The name of the award h ...
.
Grigori Perelman was offered the first ever Clay
Millennium Prize Problems Award for his final proof of the
Poincaré conjecture
In the mathematical field of geometric topology, the Poincaré conjecture (, , ) is a theorem about the characterization of the 3-sphere, which is the hypersphere that bounds the unit ball in four-dimensional space.
Originally conjectured ...
in 2002, as well as the Fields Medal in 2006, both of which he infamously declined.
Alexander Popov was among the
inventors of radio, while
Nikolai Basov and
Alexander Prokhorov
Alexander Mikhailovich Prokhorov (born Alexander Michael Prochoroff, russian: Алекса́ндр Миха́йлович Про́хоров; 11 July 1916 – 8 January 2002) was an Australian-born Soviet-Russian physicist known ...
were co-inventors of
laser
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The ...
and
maser
A maser (, an acronym for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) is a device that produces coherent electromagnetic waves through amplification by stimulated emission. The first maser was built by Charles H. Townes, James ...
.
Zhores Alferov contributed significantly to the creation of
modern heterostructure physics and electronics.
Oleg Losev made crucial contributions in the field of
semiconductor junction
A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way. ...
s, and discovered
light-emitting diode
A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor Electronics, device that Light#Light sources, emits light when Electric current, current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy i ...
s.
Vladimir Vernadsky is considered one of the founders of
geochemistry
Geochemistry is the science that uses the tools and principles of chemistry to explain the mechanisms behind major geological systems such as the Earth's crust and its oceans. The realm of geochemistry extends beyond the Earth, encompassing th ...
,
biogeochemistry
Biogeochemistry is the scientific discipline that involves the study of the chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes and reactions that govern the composition of the natural environment (including the biosphere, the cryosphere ...
, and
radiogeology.
Élie Metchnikoff
Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov (russian: Илья Ильич Мечников; – 15 July 1916), also spelled Élie Metchnikoff, was a Russian zoologist best known for his pioneering research in immunology. Belkin, a Russian science historian, explain ...
is known for his groundbreaking research in
immunology
Immunology is a branch of medicineImmunology for Medical Students, Roderick Nairn, Matthew Helbert, Mosby, 2007 and biology that covers the medical study of immune systems in humans, animals, plants and sapient species. In such we can see ther ...
.
Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov ( rus, Ива́н Петро́вич Па́влов, , p=ɪˈvan pʲɪˈtrovʲɪtɕ ˈpavləf, a=Ru-Ivan_Petrovich_Pavlov.ogg; 27 February 1936), was a Russian and Soviet experimental neurologist, psychologist and physio ...
is known chiefly for his work in
classical conditioning
Classical conditioning (also known as Pavlovian or respondent conditioning) is a behavioral procedure in which a biologically potent stimulus (e.g. food) is paired with a previously neutral stimulus (e.g. a triangle). It also refers to the lear ...
.
Lev Landau made fundamental contributions to many areas of
theoretical physics
Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...
.
Nikolai Vavilov was best known for having identified the
centers of origin of
cultivated plants.
Trofim Lysenko was known mainly for
Lysenkoism. Many famous Russian scientists and inventors were
émigrés.
Igor Sikorsky
Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky (russian: И́горь Ива́нович Сико́рский, p=ˈiɡərʲ ɪˈvanəvitʃ sʲɪˈkorskʲɪj, a=Ru-Igor Sikorsky.ogg, tr. ''Ígor' Ivánovich Sikórskiy''; May 25, 1889 – October 26, 1972)Fortie ...
was an
aviation pioneer.
Vladimir Zworykin
Vladimir Kosma Zworykin; or with the patronymic as ''Kosmich''; or russian: Кузьмич, translit=Kuz'mich, label=none. Zworykin anglicized his name to ''Vladimir Kosma Zworykin'', replacing the patronymic with the name ''Kosma'' as a middle ...
was the inventor of the
iconoscope and
kinescope
Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program on motion picture film, directly through a lens focused on the screen of a video monitor. The process was pioneered during the 194 ...
television systems.
Theodosius Dobzhansky
Theodosius Grigorievich Dobzhansky (russian: Феодо́сий Григо́рьевич Добржа́нский; uk, Теодо́сій Григо́рович Добржа́нський; January 25, 1900 – December 18, 1975) was a prominent ...
was the central figure in the field of
evolutionary biology
Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life ...
for his work in shaping the
modern synthesis
Modern synthesis or modern evolutionary synthesis refers to several perspectives on evolutionary biology, namely:
* Modern synthesis (20th century), the term coined by Julian Huxley in 1942 to denote the synthesis between Mendelian genetics and ...
.
George Gamow
George Gamow (March 4, 1904 – August 19, 1968), born Georgiy Antonovich Gamov ( uk, Георгій Антонович Гамов, russian: Георгий Антонович Гамов), was a Russian-born Soviet and American polymath, theoret ...
was one of the foremost advocates of the
Big Bang theory. Many foreign scientists lived and worked in Russia for a long period, such as
Leonard Euler
Leonhard Euler ( , ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, astronomer, geographer, logician and engineer who founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made pioneering and influential discoveries ...
and
Alfred Nobel.
Space exploration
Roscosmos is Russia's national space agency. The country's achievements in the field of
space technology
Space technology is technology for use in outer space, in travel (''astronautics'') or other activities beyond Earth's atmosphere, for purposes such as spaceflight, space exploration, and Earth observation. Space technology includes space vehicles ...
and
space exploration can be traced back to
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the father of theoretical
astronautics, whose works had inspired leading Soviet rocket engineers, such as
Sergey Korolyov,
Valentin Glushko
Valentin Petrovich Glushko (russian: Валенти́н Петро́вич Глушко́; uk, Валентин Петрович Глушко, Valentyn Petrovych Hlushko; born 2 September 1908 – 10 January 1989) was a Soviet engineer and the m ...
, and many others who contributed to the success of the
Soviet space program in the early stages of the
Space Race
The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the t ...
and beyond.
In 1957, the first Earth-orbiting artificial
satellite
A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioiso ...
, ''
Sputnik 1'', was launched. In 1961, the first human trip into space was successfully made by
Yuri Gagarin. Many other Soviet and Russian
space exploration records
This is a timeline of space exploration including notable achievements and first accomplishments or major events in humanity's exploration of outer space.
Pre-20th century
1900–1956
1957–1959
1960–1969
1970–1980
1981–1999
...
ensued. In 1963,
Valentina Tereshkova became the first and youngest
woman in space, having flown a solo mission on
Vostok 6. In 1965,
Alexei Leonov
Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov. (30 May 1934 – 11 October 2019) was a Soviet and Russian cosmonaut, Air Force major general, writer, and artist. On 18 March 1965, he became the first person to conduct a spacewalk, exiting the capsule during t ...
became the first human to conduct a
spacewalk, exiting the
space capsule
A space capsule is an often-crewed spacecraft that uses a blunt-body reentry capsule to reenter the Earth's atmosphere without wings. Capsules are distinguished from other satellites primarily by the ability to survive reentry and return a payl ...
during
Voskhod 2.
In 1957,
Laika, a
Soviet space dog, became the first animal to orbit the Earth, aboard
Sputnik 2. In 1966,
Luna 9 became the first spacecraft to achieve a survivable landing on a
celestial body
An astronomical object, celestial object, stellar object or heavenly body is a naturally occurring physical entity, association, or structure that exists in the observable universe. In astronomy, the terms ''object'' and ''body'' are often us ...
, the
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
. In 1968,
Zond 5 brought the first Earthlings (two tortoises and other life forms) to circumnavigate the Moon. In 1970,
Venera 7 became the first spacecraft to land on another planet,
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...
. In 1971,
Mars 3 became the first spacecraft to land on
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...
. During the same period, ''
Lunokhod 1'' became the first
space exploration rover, while ''
Salyut 1'' became the world's first
space station
A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a human crew in orbit for an extended period of time, and is therefore a type of space habitat. It lacks major propulsion or landing systems. An orbital station or an orbital space station ...
. Russia had 176 active satellites in space in 2021, the world's third-highest.
Lifestyle
Ethnic dress of Russian people
Not only the minorities in Russia but the Russian culture as a whole has in the different regions of the country like in Northwest Russia, Central Russia, Southern Russia, Siberian Russia, Volga Russia, Ural Russia, Far East Russia and the Russian North Caucasus and their Oblasts own local traditions and characteristics which were developed over a long period of time through strong ethno-cultural interactions within the various groups and communities, like Slavs, Tatars and Finno-Ugrics.
Traditional
Russian clothes include
kaftan, a cloth which Old Russia had in common with similar robes in the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University ...
,
Scandinavia
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and S ...
and
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
.
Kosovorotka, which was over a long time of period a traditional holidays blouse worn by men.
Ushanka for men, which design was influenced in 17th century when in
central
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Directions and generalised locations
* Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known a ...
and
northern
Northern may refer to the following:
Geography
* North, a point in direction
* Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe
* Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States
* Northern Province, Sri Lanka
* Northern Range, a r ...
Russia a hat with earflaps called treukh was worn.
Sarafan which is connected to the
Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
region and were worn in Central- and Northern regions of Old Russia. In Southern Russia burka and papaha are connected to the
Cossacks
The Cossacks , es, cosaco , et, Kasakad, cazacii , fi, Kasakat, cazacii , french: cosaques , hu, kozákok, cazacii , it, cosacchi , orv, коза́ки, pl, Kozacy , pt, cossacos , ro, cazaci , russian: казаки́ or ...
which, in turn, is culturally connected to the people of the
Northern Caucaus.
Kokoshnik
The kokoshnik ( rus, коко́шник, p=kɐˈkoʂnʲɪk) is a traditional Russian headdress worn by women and girls to accompany the sarafan. The kokoshnik tradition has existed since the 10th century in the ancient Russian city Veliky No ...
for women was primarily worn in the northern regions of Russia in the 16th to 19th centuries.
Lapti and similar shoes were mostly worn by poorer members in Old Russia and northern regions where
Slavic,
Baltic
Baltic may refer to:
Peoples and languages
*Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian
*Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originatin ...
and
Finno-Ugric people lived. Valenki are traditional Russian shoes from 18th century designs which originally originated in the Great steppe, from Asian nomads. Russian traditional cloths and its elements still have a high priority in today's Russia, especially in pagan Slavic communities, folk festivals, Cossack communities, in modern fashion and Russian music ensembles.
Cuisine
Russian cuisine has been formed by climate, cultural and religious traditions, and the vast geography of the nation; and it shares similarities with the cuisines of its neighbouring countries. Crops of
rye, wheat,
barley
Barley (''Hordeum vulgare''), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago. Globally 70% of barley p ...
, and
millet
Millets () are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most species generally referred to as millets belong to the tribe Paniceae, but some millets a ...
provide the ingredients for various breads,
pancake
A pancake (or hotcake, griddlecake, or flapjack) is a flat cake, often thin and round, prepared from a starch-based batter that may contain eggs, milk and butter and cooked on a hot surface such as a griddle or frying pan, often frying w ...
s and cereals, as well as for many drinks.
Bread
Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour (usually wheat) and water, usually by baking. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cultures' diet. It is one of the oldest human-made f ...
, of many varieties, is very popular across Russia. Flavourful soups and stews include
shchi,
borsch,
ukha
Ukha ( rus, уха) is a clear Russian soup, made from various types of fish such as bream, wels catfish, northern pike, or even ruffe. It usually contains root vegetables, parsley root, leek, potato, bay leaf, dill, tarragon, and green par ...
,
solyanka, and
okroshka.
Smetana (a heavy
sour cream
Sour cream (in North American English, Australian English and New Zealand English) or soured cream (British English) is a dairy product obtained by fermenting regular cream with certain kinds of lactic acid bacteria. The bacterial cultu ...
) and
mayonnaise are often added to soups and salads.
Pirozhki,
blini, and
syrniki are native types of pancakes.
Beef Stroganoff,
Chicken Kiev
Chicken Kiev (russian: котлета по-киевски, translit=kotleta po-kiyevski; uk, котлета по-київськи, translit=kotleta po-kyivsky),The common English name for the dish uses the transliteration "Kiev", derived from ...
,
pelmeni, and
shashlyk
Shashlik, or shashlick (russian: шашлык ''shashlyk''), is a dish of skewered and grilled cubes of meat, similar to or synonymous with shish kebab. It is known traditionally by various other names in Iran, the Caucasus, Eastern Europe and ...
are popular meat dishes. Other meat dishes include stuffed cabbage rolls ''(
golubtsy)'' usually filled with meat. Salads include
Olivier salad,
vinegret, and
dressed herring.
Russia's
national non-alcoholic drink is
kvass, and the national alcoholic drink is
vodka
Vodka ( pl, wódka , russian: водка , sv, vodka ) is a clear distilled alcoholic beverage. Different varieties originated in Poland, Russia, and Sweden. Vodka is composed mainly of water and ethanol but sometimes with traces of impuriti ...
, which was created in the nation in the 14th century. The country has the world's highest vodka consumption, while
beer
Beer is one of the oldest and the most widely consumed type of alcoholic drink in the world, and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from ce ...
is the most popular alcoholic beverage.
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented grapes. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different ...
has become increasingly popular in Russia in the 21st century.
Tea has also been a historically popular beverage in Russia.
Traditions
Holidays
Russia has eight, diverse—public, patriotic, and religious—official holidays. The year starts with
New Year's Day
New Year's Day is a festival observed in most of the world on 1 January, the first day of the year in the modern Gregorian calendar. 1 January is also New Year's Day on the Julian calendar, but this is not the same day as the Gregorian one. Whi ...
on January 1, soon followed by
Russian Orthodox Christmas on January 7; the two are the country's most popular holidays.
Defender of the Fatherland Day
Defender of the Fatherland Day (russian: День защитника Отечества ''Den' zashchitnika Otechestva''; kk, Отан қорғаушы күні; tg, Рӯзи Дорандаи Ватан; ky, Мекенди коргоочула ...
, dedicated to men, is celebrated on February 23;
International Women's Day, dedicated to women, on March 8; and
Spring and Labor Day, originally a Soviet era holiday dedicated to workers; on May 1.
Victory Day, which honors Soviet victory over Nazi Germany and the
End of World War II in Europe
The final battle of the European Theatre of World War II continued after the definitive overall surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allies, signed by Field marshal Wilhelm Keitel on 8 May 1945 in Karlshorst, Berlin. After German dictator Adolf ...
, is celebrated as an annual
large parade in Moscow's Red Square; and marks the famous
Immortal Regiment
The Immortal Regiment () is a massive civil event in major cities in Russia and around the world every 9 May during the Victory Day celebrations. It is also a public non-profit organization, created in Russia on a voluntary basis with the aim of ...
civil event. Other patriotic holidays include
Russia Day on June 12, celebrated to commemorate Russia's
declaration of sovereignty from the collapsing Soviet Union; and
Unity Day on November 4, commemorating the uprising which marked the end of the Polish–Lithuanian occupation of Moscow.
Popular non-public holidays include
Old New Year
The Old New Year or the Orthodox New Year is an informal traditional holiday, celebrated as the start of the New Year by the Julian calendar. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the Old New Year falls on January 14 in the Gregorian calendar.
This tra ...
on 14 January;
Tatiana Day on 25 January, dedicated to students;
Maslenitsa, an ancient and popular East Slavic folk holiday;
Cosmonautics Day
Cosmonautics Day (russian: День Космона́втики, ''Den Kosmonavtiki'') is an anniversary celebrated in Russia and some other former Soviet Union countries on 12 April. on 12 April, in tribute to the first human trip into space;
Kupala Night on 6–7 July, a traditional Slavic holiday; and
Peter and Fevronia Day. Two major Christian holidays are
Easter
Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the '' Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samue ...
and
Trinity Sunday. The
Scarlet Sails is a famous public event held annually during the
White Nights Festival in Saint Petersburg.
Religion
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global popula ...
,
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ...
,
Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
, and Judaism are Russia's traditional religions, deemed part of Russia's "historical heritage" in a law passed in 1997.
Estimates of believers widely fluctuate among sources, and some reports put the number of non-believers in Russia as high as 48-67% of the population.
Russian Orthodoxy is the dominant religion in Russia.
95% of the registered Orthodox parishes belong to the
Russian Orthodox Church
, native_name_lang = ru
, image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg
, imagewidth =
, alt =
, caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia
, abbreviation = ROC
, type ...
while there are a number of
smaller Orthodox Churches. However, the vast majority of Orthodox believers do not attend church on a regular basis. Nonetheless, the church is widely respected by both believers and nonbelievers, who see it as a symbol of Russian heritage and culture.
Smaller Christian denominations such as Roman Catholics,
Armenian Gregorians, and various
Protestants
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
exist.
The ancestors of many of today's Russians
adopted Orthodox Christianity in the 10th century.
[ The 2007 International Religious Freedom Report published by the US Department of State said that approximately 100 million citizens consider themselves Russian Orthodox Christians. According to a poll by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center, 63% of respondents considered themselves Russian Orthodox, 6% of respondents considered themselves Muslim and less than 1% considered themselves either Buddhist, Catholic, Protestant or Jewish. Another 12% said they believe in God, but did not practice any religion, and 16% said they are non-believers.]
Cossack culture in Russia
The steppe culture of the Russian Cossacks
The Cossacks , es, cosaco , et, Kasakad, cazacii , fi, Kasakat, cazacii , french: cosaques , hu, kozákok, cazacii , it, cosacchi , orv, коза́ки, pl, Kozacy , pt, cossacos , ro, cazaci , russian: казаки́ or ...
originated from nomadic steppe people which merged with Eastern Slavic people groups into large communities. The early Cossack communities emerged in the 14th century, the first, among others, were the Don Cossacks. Other Cossack communities that have played an important role in Russia's history and culture are the Ural Cossacks, Terek Cossacks, Kuban Cossacks
Kuban Cossacks (russian: кубанские казаки, ''kubanskiye kаzaki''; uk, кубанські козаки, ''kubanski kozaky''), or Kubanians (russian: кубанцы, ; uk, кубанці, ), are Cossacks who live in the Kuban r ...
, Orenburg Cossacks
The Orenburg Cossack Host (russian: Оренбургское казачье войско) was a part of the Cossack population in pre- revolutionary Russia, located in the Orenburg province (today's Orenburg Oblast, part of the Chelyabinsk O ...
, Volga Cossacks
The Povolzyhe Cossacks or Volga Cossacks (russian: Волжские казаки) were free Cossack communities in Russia which were recorded in sources from the 16th century on. They inhabited the areas along the Volga River.
The Volga Cossack ...
, Astrakhan Cossacks, Siberian Cossacks
Siberian Cossacks were Cossacks who settled in the Siberian region of Russia from the end of the 16th century, following Yermak Timofeyevich's conquest of Siberia. In early periods, practically the whole Russian population in Siberia, especially t ...
, Transbaikal Cossacks, Amur Cossacks, Ussuri Cossacks
Ussuri Cossack Host (russian: Уссури́йское каза́чье во́йско) was a Cossack Host in Imperial Russia, located in Primorye south of Khabarovsk along the Ussuri River, the Sungari River, and around the Khanka Lake.
...
. Cossacks defended the Russian borders and expanded Russia's territory. The regions of the large Cossack communities enjoyed many freedoms in Tsarist Russia. The culture of the Cossacks became an important part of Russian culture, many Russian songs and various elements in dances and Russia's culture in general were much shaped by the Cossack communities.
Russian forest culture
The forest plays a very important role in Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...
's culture and history. The forest had a great influence on the characteristics of Russian people and their cultural creations. Many myths of Russian culture are closely intertwined with the forest. Various of the early Slavic and other tribes built their houses out of wood so that the forest influenced the style of Russian architecture significantly. The handcraft Hohloma which originated in the Volga region is made out of wood and depicts numerous plants of the forest, like the berry Viburnum opulus (Russian: Калина, Kalina), flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechanis ...
s and leaves. Many Russian fairy tales play in the forest and fictional characters like Baba Yaga are strongly connected to Russian wood culture. The forest is also an important subject of many Russian folk songs.
More elements of Russian society and culture
Russian walking culture
Strolling or walking ( Russian: гулять, ''gulyat''') is very common in the Russian society. In contrast to many western countries strolling is very common among young people in Russia. Young people often arrange just to go for a walk. Besides the verb, the experience itself, which describes the time span of the walk, is called ''progulka'' (Russian: прогулка). Walking is so important in Russian culture that ''gulyat''' is also a synonym for "to party".
Mushroom hunting and berry picking
Activities in the forest where people pick mushrooms and berries are very common in Russia.
Mushrooms (Russian: грибы, ''griby)'' have been an important part of Russian folk culture at least since the 10th century and an essential part of Russian meals. There are more than 200 kinds of edible mushrooms in Russia. Mushrooms were always considered magical and so they play a prominent role in Russian fairy tales. The ability to identify and prepare edible mushrooms is often passed on from generation to generation. The mushroom hunting tradition is especially common in Slavic-speaking and Baltic
Baltic may refer to:
Peoples and languages
*Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian
*Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originatin ...
countries. The berry
A berry is a small, pulpy, and often edible fruit. Typically, berries are juicy, rounded, brightly colored, sweet, sour or tart, and do not have a stone or pit, although many pips or seeds may be present. Common examples are strawberries, rasp ...
(Russian: ягода, ''yagoda'') also plays an important role in Russian folk culture and is often part of Russian craftsmanship, folk songs and national costumes. The cranberry was known in Europe for centuries as the "Russian berry". To pick mushrooms and berries in forests is a kind of meditation in Russia.
Sports
Historically, Russian athletes have been one of the most successful contenders in the Olympic Games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a multi ...
, ranking second in an all-time Olympic Games medal count. Russia is the leading nation in rhythmic gymnastics
Rhythmic gymnastics is a sport in which gymnasts perform on a floor with an apparatus: hoop, ball, clubs, ribbon. The sport combines elements of gymnastics, dance and calisthenics; gymnasts must be strong, flexible, agile, dexterous and coord ...
; and Russian synchronized swimming is considered to be the world's best. Figure skating
Figure skating is a sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform on figure skates on ice. It was the first winter sport to be included in the Olympic Games, when contested at the 1908 Olympics in London. The Olympic disciplines are me ...
is another popular sport in Russia, especially pair skating
Pair skating is a figure skating discipline defined by the International Skating Union (ISU) as "the skating of two persons in unison who perform their movements in such harmony with each other as to give the impression of genuine Pair Skating a ...
and ice dancing. Russia has produced a number of famous tennis
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball cov ...
players. Chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...
is also a widely popular pastime in the nation, with many of the world's top chess players being Russian for decades. The 1980 Summer Olympic Games
The 1980 Summer Olympics (russian: Летние Олимпийские игры 1980, Letniye Olimpiyskiye igry 1980), officially known as the Games of the XXII Olympiad (russian: Игры XXII Олимпиады, Igry XXII Olimpiady) and commo ...
were held in Moscow, and the 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2014 Winter Paralympics were hosted in Sochi.
Basketball
As the Soviet Union, Russia was traditionally very strong in basketball, winning Olympic tournaments, World Championships and Eurobasket
EuroBasket, also commonly referred to as the European Basketball Championship, is the main international basketball competition that is contested quadrennially, by the senior men's national teams that are governed by FIBA Europe, which is the ...
. As of 2009 they have various players in the NBA, notably Utah Jazz forward Andrei Kirilenko, and are considered as a worldwide basketball force. In 2007, Russia defeated world champions Spain to win Eurobasket 2007
The 2007 FIBA European Championship, commonly called FIBA EuroBasket 2007, was the 35th FIBA EuroBasket regional basketball championship held by FIBA Europe, which also served as Europe qualifier for the 2008 Summer Olympics, giving a berth to th ...
. Russian basketball clubs such as PBC CSKA Moscow (numerous Euroleague Champions) have also had great success in European competitions such as the Euroleague and the ULEB Cup.
Ice hockey
Although ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice ...
was only introduced during the Soviet era, the national team soon dominated the sport internationally, winning gold at seven of the nine Olympics
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...
and 19 of the 30 World Championships they contested between 1954 and 1991. Russian players Valeri Kharlamov
The French name Valery () is a male given name or surname of Germanic origin ''Walaric'' (see Walric of Leuconay), that has often been confused in modern times with the Latin name '' Valerius''—that explains the variant spelling Valéry (). The ...
, Sergei Makarov, Viacheslav Fetisov and Vladislav Tretiak hold four of the six positions on the IIHF Team of the Century. As with some other sports, the Russian ice hockey programme suffered after the breakup of the Soviet Union, with Russia enduring a 15-year gold medal drought. At that time many prominent Russian players made their careers in the National Hockey League
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey sports league, league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranke ...
(NHL). In recent years Russia has reemerged as a hockey power, winning back to back gold medals in the 2008
File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...
and 2009
File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; Protests ...
World Championships, and overtaking Team Canada as the top ranked ice hockey team in the world, but then lost to Canada in the quarter-finals of the 2010 Olympics and 2010 World Junior Championship. The Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) was founded in 2008 as a rival of the NHL.
Bandy
Bandy, known in Russian as "hockey with a ball" and sometimes informally as "Russian hockey" (as opposed to "Canadian hockey", an informal name for ice hockey), is another traditionally popular ice sport, with national league games averaging around 3,500 spectators. It's considered a national sport. The Soviet Union national bandy team won all the Bandy World Championships from 1957 to 1979. Russia national bandy team, The Russian team is the reigning world champion since 2014 Bandy World Championship, the 2014 tournament, having defended the title in 2015 Bandy World Championship, 2015.
Football
Association football, Football is the most popular sport in Russia. The Soviet Union national football team became the first European champions by winning Euro 1960, and reached the finals of Euro 1988. In 1956 and 1988, the Soviet Union won gold at the Football at the Summer Olympics#Results, Olympic football tournament. Russian clubs PFC CSKA Moscow, CSKA Moscow and Zenit Saint Petersburg won the UEFA Cup in 2005 and 2008. The Russian national football team reached the semi-finals of Euro 2008. Russia was the host nation for the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup, and the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
Martial arts
Russia has an extensive history of martial arts. Some of its best-known forms include the Russian fist fighting, fistfight, Sambo(martial art), Sambo, and Systema with its derivatives Ryabko's Systema and Retuinskih's System ROSS. Undefeated lightweight UFC champion Khabib Nurmagomedov is from Makhachkala and was called by President Vladimir Putin following his victory over Conor McGregor.
National symbols
State symbols
State symbols of Russia include the Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
double-headed eagle, combined with Coat of arms of Moscow, St. George of Moscow in the Russian coat of arms; these symbols date from the time of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. The Russian flag appeared in the late Tsardom of Russia period and became widely used during the era of the Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War ...
. The current Russian national anthem shares its music with the Soviet Anthem, though not the lyrics (many Russians of older generations don't know the new lyrics and sing the old ones). The Russian Empire, Russian imperial motto ''God is with us'' and the Soviet Union, Soviet motto ''Proletarians of all countries, unite!'' are now obsolete and no new motto has been officially introduced to replace them. The Hammer and sickle and the full Soviet coat of arms are still widely seen in Russian cities as a part of old architectural decorations. Soviet Red Stars are also encountered, often on military equipment and war memorials. The Soviet Red Banner is still honored, especially the Banner of Victory of 1945.
Unofficial symbols
The Matryoshka doll is a recognizable symbol of Russia, while the towers of Moscow Kremlin and Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow are main Russia's architectural symbols. Cheburashka is a mascot of Russia at the Olympics, Russian national Olympic team. Saint Mary, Mary, Saint Nicholas, Saint Andrew, Saint George, Saint Alexander Nevsky, Saint Sergius of Radonezh, Saint Seraphim of Sarov are Russia's patron saints. Chamomile is a flower that Russians often associate with their Motherland, while birch
A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech- oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' cont ...
is a national tree. The Russian bear is an animal often associated with Russia, though this image has Western origins and Russians themselves do not consider it as a special symbol. The native Russian national personification is "Родина мать" Mother Motherland (the statue of it located on the Mamay hill "Мамаев курган" in Volgograd /former Stalingrad/), called Mother Russia at the West.
Tourism
Tourism in Russia has seen rapid growth since the late Soviet times, first inner tourism and then international tourism as well. Rich cultural heritage and great natural variety place Russia among the World Tourism rankings, most popular tourist destinations in the world. The country List of World Heritage Sites in Russia, contains 29 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, while many more are on UNESCO's tentative lists. Major tourist routes in Russia include a travel around the Golden Ring of ancient cities, cruises on the big rivers like Volga, and long journeys on the famous Trans-Siberian Railway. Diverse regions and ethnic cultures of Russia offer many different food and souvenirs, and show a great variety of traditions, like Russian banya (sauna), banya, Tatar Sabantuy, or Siberian shamanist rituals.
Cultural tourism
Most popular tourist destinations in Russia are Moscow and Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, the current and the former capitals of the country and great cultural centers, recognized as World Cities. Moscow and Saint Petersburg feature such world-renowned museums as Tretyakov Gallery and Hermitage Museum, Hermitage, famous theaters like Bolshoi Theater, Bolshoi and Mariinsky Theater, Mariinsky, ornate churches like Saint Basil's Cathedral, Cathedral of Christ the Saviour
The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour ( rus, Храм Христа́ Спаси́теля, r=Khram Khristá Spasítelya, p=xram xrʲɪˈsta spɐˈsʲitʲɪlʲə) is a Russian Orthodox cathedral in Moscow, Russia, on the northern bank of the Moskv ...
, Saint Isaac's Cathedral
Saint Isaac's Cathedral or Isaakievskiy Sobor (russian: Исаа́киевский Собо́р) is a large architectural landmark cathedral that currently functions as a museum with occasional church services in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is ...
and Church of the Savior on Blood
The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood (russian: Церковь Спаса на Крови, ''Tserkovʹ Spasa na Krovi'') is a Russian Orthodox church in Saint Petersburg, Russia which currently functions as a secular museum and church at th ...
, impressive fortifications like Moscow Kremlin and Peter and Paul Fortress
The Peter and Paul Fortress is the original citadel of St. Petersburg, Russia, founded by Peter the Great in 1703 and built to Domenico Trezzini's designs from 1706 to 1740 as a star fortress. Between the first half of the 1700s and early 1920 ...
, beautiful squares like Red Square and Palace Square, and streets like Tverskaya Street, Tverskaya and Nevsky Prospect. Rich palaces and parks of extreme beauty are found in the former Template:Imperial palaces in Russia, imperial residences in suburbs of Moscow ( Kolomenskoye, Tsaritsyno Park, Tsaritsyno) and Saint Petersburg (Petergof, Peterhof, Strelna, Oranienbaum, Russia, Oranienbaum, Gatchina Palace, Gatchina, Pavlovsk Palace, Tsarskoye Selo). Moscow contains a great variety of impressive Soviet-era buildings along with Moscow International Business Center, modern skyscrapers, while Saint Petersburg, nicknamed ''Venice of the North'', boasts of its classical architecture, many rivers, channels and Bridges in Saint Petersburg, bridges.
Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, shows a unique mix of Christian Russian and Muslim Tatars, Tatar cultures. The city has registered a brand ''The Third Capital of Russia'', though a number of other major Russian cities compete for this status, like Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg and Nizhny Novgorod, all being major cultural centers with rich history and prominent architecture. Veliky Novgorod, Pskov and the cities of Golden Ring (Vladimir (city), Vladimir, Yaroslavl
Yaroslavl ( rus, Ярослáвль, p=jɪrɐˈsɫavlʲ) is a city and the administrative center of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located northeast of Moscow. The historic part of the city is a World Heritage Site, and is located at the confluenc ...
, Kostroma and others) have at best preserved the architecture and the spirit of ancient and medieval Rus (name), Rus', and also are among the main tourist destinations. Many List of castles in Russia, old fortifications (typically Kremlins), List of Russian Orthodox monasteries, monasteries and Russian Orthodox Church, churches are scattered throughout Russia, forming its unique cultural landscape both in big cities and in remote areas.
Resorts and nature tourism
The warm subtropical Black Sea coast of Russia is the site for a number of popular sea resorts, like Sochi, known for its beaches and wonderful nature. At the same time Sochi can boast a number of major ski resorts, like Krasnaya Polyana; the city is the host of 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2014 Winter Paralympics. The mountains of the Northern Caucasus contain many other popular ski resorts, like Dombay, Karachay–Cherkess Republic, Dombay in Karachay–Cherkessia.
The most famous natural tourist destination in Russia is Lake Baikal, named ''the Blue Eye of Siberia''. This unique lake, oldest and deepest in the world, has crystal-clean waters and is surrounded by taiga-covered mountains.
Other popular natural destinations include Kamchatka with its volcanoes and geysers, Karelia
Karelia ( Karelian and fi, Karjala, ; rus, Каре́лия, links=y, r=Karélija, p=kɐˈrʲelʲɪjə, historically ''Korjela''; sv, Karelen), the land of the Karelian people, is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance fo ...
with its many lakes and granite rocks, Altai Mountains, Altai with its snowy mountains and Tyva with its wild steppes.
See also
* Slavs: East Slavs
* Material culture in Russia
* List of Russian people
* List of museums in Russia
* List of Russian-language poets
* List of Russian-language novelists
* List of Russian-language playwrights
* Culture of the Soviet Union
* Culture of Tatarstan
* Culture of the Russian Armed Forces
References
External links
Russian Film Hub
{{Culture of Europe
Russian culture,
Slavic culture