Russians
Template:Short description Template:About Template:Pp Template:More citations needed Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox ethnic group
Russians (Template:Langx Template:IPA) are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe. Their mother tongue is Russian, the most spoken Slavic language. The majority of Russians adhere to Orthodox Christianity, ever since the Middle Ages. By total numbers, they compose the largest Slavic and European nation.Template:Sfn
Genetic studies show that Russians are closely related to Poles, Belarusians, Ukrainians, as well as Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Finns.<ref name="2008ydna" />Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn They were formed from East Slavic tribes, and their cultural ancestry is based in Kievan Rus'. The Russian word for the Russians is derived from the people of Rus' and the territory of Rus'. Russians share many historical and cultural traits with other European peoples, and especially with other East Slavic ethnic groups, specifically Belarusians and Ukrainians.
The vast majority of Russians live in native Russia,Template:Sfn but notable minorities are scattered throughout other post-Soviet states such as Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Ukraine, and the Baltic states. A large Russian diaspora (sometimes including Russian-speaking non-Russians), estimated at 25 million people,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> has developed all over the world, with notable numbers in the United States, Germany, Brazil, and Canada.
Ethnonym
[edit]There are two Russian words which are commonly translated into English as "Russians". One is Template:Lang (russkiye), which in modern Russia most often means "ethnic Russians". The other one is Template:Lang (rossiyane), derived from Template:Lang (Rossiya, Russia), which denotes "people of Russia", regardless of ethnicity or religious affiliation.Template:Sfn In daily usage, those terms are often mixed up, and since Vladimir Putin became president, the ethnic term русские has supplanted the non-ethnic term.<ref name="KappelerBrothers">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp
The name of the Russians derives from the early medieval Rus' people, a group of Norse merchants and warriors who relocated from across the Baltic Sea and played an important part in the foundation of the first East Slavic state that later became the Kievan Rus'.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The idea of a single "all-Russian nation" encompassing the East Slavic peoples, or a "triune nation" of three brotherly "Great Russian", "Little Russian" (i.e. Ukrainian), and "White Russian" (i.e. Belarusian) peoples became the official doctrine of the Russian Empire from the beginning of the 19th century onwards.<ref name="KappelerBrothers" />Template:Rp
History
[edit]Ancient history
[edit]
The ancestors of modern Russians are the Slavic tribes, whose original home is thought by some scholars to have been the wooded areas of the Pinsk Marshes, one of the largest wetlands in Europe.<ref>For a discussion of the origins of Slavs, see Template:Cite book</ref> The East Slavs gradually settled Western Russia with Moscow included in two waves: one moving from Kiev toward present-day Suzdal and Murom and another from Polotsk toward Novgorod and Rostov.<ref name="Christian">Template:Cite book</ref> Prior to the Slavic migration in the 6-7th centuries, the Suzdal-Murom and Novgorod-Rostov areas were populated by Finnic peoples,<ref name="backus">Template:Cite journal</ref> including the Merya,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> the Muromians,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and the Meshchera.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
From the 7th century onwards, the East Slavs slowly assimilated the native Finnic peoples,<ref>Ed. Timothy Reuter, The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume 3, Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 494-497. Template:ISBN.</ref> so that by year 1100, the majority of the population in Western Russia was Slavic-speaking.<ref name="Christian"/><ref name="backus"/> Recent genetic studies confirm the presence of a Finnic substrate in modern Russian population.<ref> Interactions between gene pools of Russian and Finnish-speaking populations from tver region: Analysis of 4 million snp markers. 2020. Bull Russ State Med Univ. 6, 15-22. O.P. Balanovsky, I.O. Gorin, Y.S. Zapisetskaya, A.A. Golubeva, E.V. Kostryukova, E.V. Balanovska. doi: 10.24075/BRSMU.2020.072.</ref>
Outside archaeological remains, little is known about the predecessors to Russians in general prior to 859 AD, when the Primary Chronicle starts its records.<ref>The Primary Chronicle is a history of the Ancient Rus' from around 850 to 1110, originally compiled in Kiev about 1113.</ref> By 600 AD, the Slavs are believed to have split linguistically into southern, western, and eastern branches.Template:Citation needed
Medieval history
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The Rus' state was established in northern Russia in the year 862,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> which was ruled by the Varangians.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Staraya Ladoga and Novgorod became the first major cities of the new union of immigrants from Scandinavia with the Slavs and Finns.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 882, the prince Oleg seized Kiev, thereby uniting the northern and southern lands of the East Slavs under one authority.Template:Sfn The state adopted Christianity from the Byzantine Empire in 988. Kievan Rus' ultimately disintegrated as a state as a result of in-fighting between members of the princely family that ruled it collectively.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
After the 13th century, Moscow became a political and cultural center. Moscow has become a center for the unification of Russian lands.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> By the end of the 15th century, Moscow united the northeastern and northwestern Russian principalities, overthrew the "Mongol yoke" in 1480,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and would be transformed into the Tsardom of Russia after Ivan IV was crowned tsar in 1547.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Modern history
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In 1721, Tsar Peter the Great renamed his state as the Russian Empire, hoping to associate it with historical and cultural achievements of ancient Rus' – in contrast to his policies oriented towards Western Europe. The state now extended from the eastern borders of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to the Pacific Ocean, and became a great power; and one of the most powerful states in Europe after the victory over Napoleon. Peasant revolts were common, and all were fiercely suppressed. The Emperor Alexander II abolished Russian serfdom in 1861, but the peasants fared poorly and revolutionary pressures grew. In the following decades, reform efforts such as the Stolypin reforms of 1906–1914, the constitution of 1906, and the State Duma (1906–1917) attempted to open and liberalize the economy and political system, but the Emperors refused to relinquish autocratic rule and resisted sharing their power.
A combination of economic breakdown, war-weariness, and discontent with the autocratic system of government triggered revolution in Russia in 1917. The overthrow of the monarchy initially brought into office a coalition of liberals and moderate socialists, but their failed policies led to seizure of power by the communist Bolsheviks on 25 October 1917 (7 November New Style). In 1922, Soviet Russia, along with Soviet Ukraine, Soviet Belarus, and the Transcaucasian SFSR signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, officially merging all four republics to form the Soviet Union as a country. Between 1922 and 1991, the history of Russia became essentially the history of the Soviet Union, effectively an ideologically based state roughly conterminous with the Russian Empire before the 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. From its first years, government in the Soviet Union based itself on the one-party rule of the Communists, as the Bolsheviks called themselves, beginning in March 1918. The approach to the building of socialism, however, varied over different periods in Soviet history: from the mixed economy and diverse society and culture of the 1920s through the command economy and repressions of the Joseph Stalin era to the "era of stagnation" from the 1960s to the 1980s. The actions of the Soviet government caused the death of millions of citizens in the famine of 1930–1933 and the Great Purge. The attack by Nazi Germany and the ensuing war, together with the Holocaust, again claimed millions of lives. Millions of Russian civilians and prisoners of war were killed or starved to death during Nazi Germany's genocidal policies called the Hunger Plan and the Generalplan Ost, including one million civilian casualties during the Siege of Leningrad. After the victory of the Soviet Union and the Western Allies, the Soviet Union became a superpower opposing Western countries during the Cold War.
By the mid-1980s, with Soviet economic and political weaknesses becoming acute, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev embarked on major reforms; these culminated in the dissolution of the Soviet Union, leaving Russia again alone and marking the beginning of the post-Soviet Russian period. The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic renamed itself the Russian Federation and became the successor state to the Soviet Union. One of the negative consequences of the collapse of the Soviet Union was the problem of discrimination against the 25 million ethnic Russians living in a number of post-Soviet states.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Geographic distribution
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Ethnic Russians historically migrated within the areas of the former Russian Empire and Soviet Union, though they were sometimes encouraged to re-settle in borderland areas by the Tsarist and later Soviet government.<ref>Russians left behind in Central Asia Template:Webarchive. BBC News. 23 November 2005.</ref> Sometimes ethnic Russian communities, such as the Lipovans who settled in the Danube delta or the Doukhobors in Canada, emigrated as religious dissidents fleeing the central authority.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
There are also small Russian communities in the Balkans — including Lipovans in the Danube delta<ref>"Saving the souls of Russia's exiled Lipovans Template:Webarchive". The Daily Telegraph. 9 April 2013.</ref> — Central European nations such as Germany and Poland, as well as Russians settled in China, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Australia. These communities identify themselves to varying degrees as Russians, citizens of these countries, or both.Template:Citation needed
Significant numbers of Russians emigrated to Canada, Australia and the United States. Brighton Beach, Brooklyn and South Beach, Staten Island in New York City are examples of large communities of recent Russian and Russian-Jewish immigrants. Other examples are Sunny Isles Beach, a northern suburb of Miami, and West Hollywood of the Los Angeles area.Template:Citation needed
After the Russian Revolution in 1917, many Russians who were identified with the White army moved to China — most of them settling in Harbin and Shanghai.<ref>"The Ghosts of Russia That Haunt Shanghai Template:Webarchive". The New York Times. 21 September 1999.</ref> By the 1930s, Harbin had 100,000 Russians. Many of these Russians moved back to the Soviet Union after World War II. Today, a large group in northern China still speak Russian as a second language. Russians (eluosizu) are one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China (as the Russ); there are approximately 15,600 Russian Chinese living mostly in northern Xinjiang, and also in Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang.Template:Citation needed
According to the 2021 Russian census, the number of ethnic Russians in the Russian Federation decreased by nearly 5.43 million, from roughly 111 million people in 2010 to approximately 105.5 million in 2021.<ref>* Template:Cite news
Ethnographic groups
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Among Russians, a number of ethnographic groups stand out, such as: the Northern Russians, the Southern Russians, the Cossacks, the Goryuns, the Kamchadals, the Polekhs, the Pomors, the Russian Chinese, the Siberians (Siberiaks), Starozhily, some groupings of Old Believers (Kamenschiks, Lipovans, Semeiskie), and others.Template:Sfn
The main ones are the Northern and Southern Russian groups. At the same time, the proposal of the ethnographer Dmitry Zelenin in his major work of 1927 Russian (East Slavic) Ethnography to consider them as separate East Slavic peoplesTemplate:Sfn did not find support in scientific circles.Template:Sfn
Russia's Arctic coastline had been explored and settled by Pomors, Russian settlers from Novgorod.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>
Cossacks inhabited sparsely populated areas in the Don, Terek, and Ural river basins, and played an important role in the historical and cultural development of parts of Russia.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Genetics
[edit]Template:MainTemplate:See also In accordance with the 2008 research results of Russian and Estonian geneticists, two groups of Russians are distinguished: the northern and southern populations.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Central and Southern Russians, to which the majority of Russian populations belong, according to Y chromosome R1a, are included in the general "East European" gene cluster with the rest East and West Slavs (Poles, Czechs and Slovaks), as well as the non-Slavic Hungarians and Aromanians.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Genetically, East Slavs are quite similar to West Slavs; such genetic similarity is somewhat unusual for genetics with such a wide settlement of the Slavs, especially Russians.Template:Sfn The high unity of the autosomal markers of the East Slavic populations and their significant differences from the neighboring Finnic, Turkic and Caucasian peoples were revealed.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Northern Russians, according to mtDNA, Y chromosome and autosomal marker CCR5de132, are included in the "North European" gene cluster (the Poles, the Balts, Germanic and Baltic Finnic peoples).Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Consequently, the already existing biologo-genetic studies have made all hypotheses about the mixing of the Russians with non-Slavic ethnic groups or their "non-Slavism" obsolete or pseudoscientific. At the same time, the long-standing identification of the Northern Russian and Southern Russian ethnographic groups by ethnologists was confirmed. The previous conclusions of physical anthropologists,Template:Sfn historians and linguists (see, in particular, the works of the academician Valentin Yanin) about the proximity of the ancient Novgorod Slavs and their language not to the East, but to west Baltic Slavs. As can be seen from genetic resources, the contemporary Northern Russians also are genetically close of all Slavic peoples only to the Poles and similar to the Balts. However, this does not mean the northern Russians origin from the Balts or the Poles, more likely, that all the peoples of the Nordic gene pool are descendants of Paleo-European population, which has remained around Baltic Sea.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
At the same time, according to other scholars, the Russians have close genetic affinities to surrounding Northeast and Eastern European populations. They also display evidence for multiple genetic ancestries and admixture events, and high identity-by-descent sharing with the Finnic peoples.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
While modern European populations derive most of their ancestry from three major sources: Western hunter-gatherers, Early European Farmers, and Western Steppe Herders (Yamnaya), this three-way model is insufficient to explain the ethnogenesis of northeastern Europeans such as Saami, Russians, Mordovians, Chuvash, Estonians, Hungarians, and Finns. They carry an additional Siberian/Nganasan-related genetic component and increased allele sharing with modern East Asians.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
The most common human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup is haplogroup R1a (c. 46,7%), followed by haplogroup N-M231 (c. 21,6%), haplogroup I-M170 (c. 17,6%), and haplogroup R1b (c. 5,8%). The remainder (c. 8,3%) are other less frequent haplogroups (E3b, J2, etc.).<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Assimilation and immigration
[edit]Template:Sectstub Russians have sometimes found it useful to emphasize their self-perceived ability to assimilate other people to the Russian ethnicity - and as a historic great power with imperial expansionist tendencies the Russian state has sometimes encouraged Russian-centred monoculturalism. Steppe peoples, Tatars, Baltic Germans, Lithuanians and native Siberians in Rus', Muscovy or the Russian Empire could in theory become "Russians" (Template:Langx) simply by accepting Russian Orthodoxy as their faith.<ref> Template:Cite book </ref><ref> Template:Cite book </ref> The attitude of ready inclusivity is summed up in the popular phrase (sometimes attributed to Emperor Alexander III of Russia) - Хочешь быть русским - будь им! (Template:Translation).<ref> For example: Template:Cite book </ref>
Language
[edit]Template:Main Russian is the official and the predominantly spoken language in Russia.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It is the most-spoken native language in Europe,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia,<ref name="language">Template:Cite web</ref> as well as the world's most widely spoken Slavic language.<ref name="language"/> Russian is the third-most used language on the Internet after English and Spanish,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> as well as one of the six official languages of the United Nations.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Culture
[edit]Literature
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Russian literature is considered to be among the world's most influential and developed.Template:Sfn It can be traced to the Middle Ages, when epics and chronicles in vernacular Old East Slavic were composed.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> By the Age of Enlightenment, literature had grown in importance, with works from Mikhail Lomonosov, Denis Fonvizin, Gavrila Derzhavin, and the Sentimentalist Nikolay Karamzin.Template:Sfn From the early 1830s, during the Golden Age of Russian Poetry, literature underwent an astounding golden age in poetry, prose and drama.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Romantic literature permitted a flowering of poetic talent: Vasily Zhukovsky and later his protégé Alexander Pushkin came to the fore.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Following Pushkin's footsteps, a new generation of poets were born, including Mikhail Lermontov, Nikolay Nekrasov, Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, Fyodor Tyutchev and Afanasy Fet.Template:Sfn
The first great Russian novelist was Nikolai Gogol.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Sfn Then, during the Age of Realism, came Ivan Turgenev, who mastered both short stories and novels.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy soon became internationally renowned.Template:Sfn Ivan Goncharov is remembered mainly for his novel Oblomov.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote prose satire,Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> while Nikolai Leskov is best remembered for his shorter fiction.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> In the second half of the century Anton Chekhov excelled in short stories and became a leading dramatist.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Other important 19th-century developments included the fabulist Ivan Krylov,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> non-fiction writers such as the critic Vissarion Belinsky,Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and playwrights such as Aleksandr Griboyedov and Aleksandr Ostrovsky.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> 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,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Marina Tsvetaeva, Vladimir Mayakovsky, and Osip Mandelstam.Template:Sfn It also produced some first-rate novelists and short-story writers, such as Aleksandr Kuprin, Nobel Prize winner Ivan Bunin, Leonid Andreyev, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Andrei Bely.Template:Sfn
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Russian literature split into Soviet and white émigré parts. In the 1930s, Socialist realism became the predominant trend in Russia. Its leading figure was Maxim Gorky, who laid the foundations of this style.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Mikhail Bulgakov was one of the leading writers of the Soviet era.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Nikolay Ostrovsky's novel How the Steel Was Tempered has been among the most successful works of Russian literature. Influential émigré writers include Vladimir Nabokov.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Some writers dared to oppose Soviet ideology, such as Nobel Prize-winning novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who wrote about life in the Gulag camps.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
During the post-Soviet 1990s writers are already not recognised as very special guides by most Russians.Template:Sfn At the beginning of the 21st century, the most discussed figures, postmodernists Victor Pelevin and Vladimir Sorokin remained the leading Russian writers.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Philosophy
[edit]Template:Main Russian philosophy has been greatly influential. Religious and spiritual philosophy is represented by works of Vladimir Solovyov, Nikolai Berdyaev, Pavel Florensky, Semyon Frank, Nikolay Lossky, Vasily Rozanov, and others.Template:Sfn Helena Blavatsky gained international following as the leading theoretician of Theosophy, and co-founded the Theosophical Society.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Social and political philosophy is also remarkable. Alexander Herzen is known as one of the fathers of agrarian populism.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Mikhail Bakunin is referred to as the father of anarchism.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Peter Kropotkin was the most important theorist of anarcho-communism.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Mikhail Bakhtin's writings have significantly inspired scholars.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Vladimir Lenin, a major revolutionary, developed a variant of communism known as Leninism. Leon Trotsky, on the other hand, founded Trotskyism. Alexander Zinoviev was a prominent philosopher and writer in the second half of the 20th century.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Aleksandr Dugin, known for his fascist views, has been regarded as the "guru of geopolitics".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Science
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Template:See also Mikhail Lomonosov proposed the conservation of mass in chemical reactions, discovered the atmosphere of Venus, and founded modern geology.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Since the times of Nikolay Lobachevsky, who pioneered the non-Euclidean geometry, and a prominent tutor Pafnuty Chebyshev, Russian mathematicians became among the world's most influential.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Dmitry Mendeleev invented the Periodic table, the main framework of modern chemistry.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Sofya Kovalevskaya was a pioneer among women in mathematics in the 19th century.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Grigori Perelman was offered the first ever Clay Millennium Prize Problems Award for his final proof of the Poincaré conjecture in 2002, as well as the Fields Medal in 2006, both of which he declined.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Alexander Popov was among the inventors of radio,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> while Nikolai Basov and Alexander Prokhorov were co-inventors of laser and maser.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Zhores Alferov contributed significantly to the creation of modern heterostructure physics and electronics.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Oleg Losev made crucial contributions in the field of semiconductor junctions, and discovered light-emitting diodes.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Vladimir Vernadsky is considered one of the founders of geochemistry, biogeochemistry, and radiogeology.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Élie Metchnikoff is known for his groundbreaking research in immunology.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Ivan Pavlov is known chiefly for his work in classical conditioning.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Lev Landau made fundamental contributions to many areas of theoretical physics.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Nikolai Vavilov was best known for having identified the centers of origin of cultivated plants.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Many famous Russian scientists and inventors were émigrés. Igor Sikorsky was an aviation pioneer.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Vladimir Zworykin was the inventor of the iconoscope and kinescope television systems.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Theodosius Dobzhansky was the central figure in the field of evolutionary biology for his work in shaping the modern synthesis.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> George Gamow was one of the foremost advocates of the Big Bang theory.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Konstantin Tsiolkovsky is called the father of theoretical astronautics, whose works had inspired leading Soviet rocket engineers, such as Valentin Glushko, and many others.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp
In 1961, the first human trip into space was successfully made by Yuri Gagarin. In 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first and youngest woman in space, having flown a solo mission on Vostok 6.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1965, Alexei Leonov became the first human to conduct a spacewalk, exiting the space capsule during Voskhod 2.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Painting
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Early Russian painting is represented in icons and vibrant frescos. In the early 15th century, the master icon painter Andrei Rublev created some of Russia's most treasured religious art.Template:Sfn The Russian Academy of Arts, which was established in 1757, to train Russian artists, brought Western techniques of secular painting to Russia.Template:Sfn In the 18th century, academicians Ivan Argunov, Dmitry Levitzky, Vladimir Borovikovsky became influential.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The early 19th century saw many prominent paintings by Karl Briullov and Alexander Ivanov, both of whom were known for Romantic historical canvases.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Ivan Aivazovsky, another Romantic painter, is considered one of the greatest masters of marine art.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
In the 1860s, a group of critical realists (Peredvizhniki), led by Ivan Kramskoy, Ilya Repin and Vasiliy Perov broke with the academy, and portrayed the many-sided aspects of social life in paintings.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Brunson, M. (2016). Russian Realisms: Literature and Painting, 1840–1890. NIU Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. DeKalb, Il: Northern Illinois University Press.</ref> The turn of the 20th century saw the rise of symbolism; represented by Mikhail Vrubel and Nicholas Roerich.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The Russian avant-garde flourished from approximately 1890 to 1930; and globally influential artists from this era were El Lissitzky,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Kazimir Malevich, Natalia Goncharova, Wassily Kandinsky, and Marc Chagall.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Music
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Until the 18th century, music in Russia consisted mainly of church music and folk songs and dances.Template:Sfn In the 19th century, it was defined by the tension between classical composer Mikhail Glinka along with other members of The Mighty Handful, and the Russian Musical Society led by composers Anton and Nikolay Rubinstein.Template:Sfn The later tradition of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era, was continued into the 20th century by Sergei Rachmaninoff, one of the last great champions of the Romantic style of European classical music.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> World-renowned composers of the 20th century include Alexander Scriabin, Alexander Glazunov, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich, Georgy Sviridov and Alfred Schnittke.Template:Sfn
Soviet and Russian conservatories have turned out generations of world-renowned soloists. Among the best known are violinists David Oistrakh and Gidon Kremer,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> cellist Mstislav Rostropovich,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> pianists Vladimir Horowitz,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Sviatoslav Richter,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and Emil Gilels,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and vocalist Galina Vishnevskaya.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
During the Soviet times, popular music also produced a number of renowned figures, such as the two balladeers—Vladimir Vysotsky and Bulat Okudzhava,<ref name="music2">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> and performers such as Alla Pugacheva.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Jazz, even with sanctions from Soviet authorities, flourished and evolved into one of the country's most popular musical forms.<ref name="music2"/> The Ganelin Trio have been described by critics as the greatest ensemble of free-jazz in continental Europe.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> By the 1980s, rock music became popular across Russia, and produced bands such as Aria, Aquarium,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> DDT,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and Kino.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Pop music in Russia has continued to flourish since the 1960s, with globally famous acts such as t.A.T.u.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In the recent times, Little Big, a rave band, has gained popularity in Russia and across Europe.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Cinema
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Russian and later Soviet cinema was a hotbed of invention, resulting in world-renowned films such as The Battleship Potemkin.<ref>Miller, Jamie. "Soviet Cinema, 1929–41: The Development of Industry and Infrastructure Template:Webarchive" Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 58, no. 1, 2006, pp. 103–124. JSTOR. Retrieved 26 May 2021.</ref> Soviet-era filmmakers, most notably Sergei Eisenstein and Andrei Tarkovsky, would go on to become among of the world's most innovative and influential directors.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Eisenstein was a student of Lev Kuleshov, who developed the groundbreaking Soviet montage theory of film editing at the world's first film school, the All-Union Institute of Cinematography.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> Dziga Vertov's "Kino-Eye" theory had a huge impact on the development of documentary filmmaking and cinema realism.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Many Soviet socialist realism films were artistically successful, including Chapaev, The Cranes Are Flying, and Ballad of a Soldier.Template:Citation needed
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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Prokhorova, Elena, "The Man Who Made Them Laugh: Leonid Gaidai, the King of Soviet Comedy", in Beumers, Birgit (2008) A History of Russian Cinema, Berg Publishers, Template:ISBN, pp. 519–542</ref> In 1961–68 Sergey Bondarchuk 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.<ref>Birgit Beumers. A History of Russian Cinema. Berg Publishers (2009). Template:ISBN. p. 143.</ref> In 1969, Vladimir Motyl's White Sun of the Desert was released, a very popular film in a genre of ostern; the film is traditionally watched by cosmonauts before any trip into space.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2002, Russian Ark was the first feature film ever to be shot in a single take.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Today, the Russian cinema industry continues to expand.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Architecture
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The history of Russian architecture begins with early woodcraft buildings of ancient Slavs,Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and the architecture of Kievan Rus'.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Following the Christianization of Kievan Rus', for several centuries it was influenced predominantly by the Byzantine Empire.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Due to Mongol occupation cut ties with the Byzantine Empire Russian architecture inreached some original innovations, among them the church altar screen dividing iconostasis.Template:Sfn Aristotle Fioravanti and other Italian architects brought Renaissance trends into Russia, especially in reconstruction of Kremlin.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> In the 17th century, the "fiery style" of ornamentation flourished in Moscow and Yaroslavl, 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.Template:Sfn<ref name="Shvidkovsky">Template:Cite book</ref> The 18th-century taste for Rococo architecture led to the splendid works of Bartolomeo Rastrelli and his followers.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> During the reign of Catherine the Great, Saint Petersburg was transformed into an outdoor museum of Neoclassical architecture.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> During Alexander I's rule, Empire style became the de facto architectural style, and Nicholas I opened the gate of Eclecticism to Russia. The second half of the 19th-century was dominated by the Neo-Byzantine and Russian Revival style.Template:Sfn In early 20th-century, Russian neoclassical revival became a trend.<ref name="Shvidkovsky"/> Prevalent styles of the late 20th-century were the Art Nouveau, Constructivism,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and Socialist Classicism.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Religion
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Most religious Russians are Eastern Orthodox Christians.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn According to differing sociological surveys on religious adherence, between 41% to over 80% of the total population of Russia adhere to the Russian Orthodox Church.Template:Sfn<ref name="ArenaAtlas2012">There is no official census of religion in Russia, and estimates are based on surveys only. In August 2012, ARENA Template:Webarchive determined that about 46.8% of Russians are Christians (including Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, and non-denominational), which is slightly less than an absolute 50%+ majority. However, later that year the Levada Center Template:Webarchive determined that 76% of Russians are Christians, and in June 2013 the Public Opinion Foundation Template:Webarchive determined that 65% of Russians are Christians. These findings are in line with Pew Template:Webarchive's 2010 survey, which determined that 73.3% of Russians are Christians, with VTSIOM Template:Webarchive's 2010 survey (~77% Christian), and with Ipsos MORI Template:Webarchive's 2011 survey (69%).</ref><ref name="Ogonek">Верю — не верю Template:Webarchive. "Ogonek", № 34 (5243), 27 August 2012. Retrieved 24 September 2012.</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Non-religious Russians may associate themselves with the Orthodox faith for cultural reasons. Some Russian people are Old Believers: a relatively small schismatic group of the Russian Orthodoxy that rejected the liturgical reforms introduced in the 17th century. Other schisms from Orthodoxy include Spiritual Christianity, namely Doukhobors which in the 18th century rejected secular government, the Russian Orthodox priests, icons, all church ritual, the Bible as the supreme source of divine revelation and the divinity of Jesus, and later emigrated into Canada. Another Spiritual Christian mivement were Molokans which formed in the 19th century and rejected Czar's divine right to rule, icons, the Trinity as outlined by the Nicene Creed, Orthodox fasts, military service, and practices including water baptism.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Other world religions have negligible representation among ethnic Russians. The largest of these groups are Islam with over 100,000 followers from national minorities,<ref name="ArenaAtlas">Template:Cite web</ref> and Baptists with over 85,000 Russian adherents.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Others are mostly Pentecostals, Evangelicals, Seventh-day Adventists, Lutherans, The Salvation Army, and Jehovah's Witnesses.Template:Sfn
Since the fall of the Soviet Union various new religious movements have sprung up and gathered a following among ethnic Russians. The most prominent of these are Rodnovery, the revival of the Slavic native religion also common to other Slavic nations.<ref>Shnirelman, Victor (2002). "Christians! Go home": A Revival of Neo-Paganism between the Baltic Sea and Transcaucasia Template:Webarchive. Journal of Contemporary Religion, Vol. 17, No. 2.</ref>
Sports
[edit]Template:Main Football is the most popular sport in Russia.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The Soviet Union national football team became the first European champions by winning Euro 1960,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and reached the finals of Euro 1988.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1956 and 1988, the Soviet Union won gold at the Olympic football tournament. Russian clubs CSKA Moscow and Zenit Saint Petersburg won the UEFA Cup in 2005 and 2008.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Russian national football team reached the semi-finals of Euro 2008.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Russia was the host nation for the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and the 2018 FIFA World Cup.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Ice hockey is very popular in Russia.<ref name="hockey">Template:Cite web</ref> The Soviet Union men's national ice hockey team dominated the sport internationally throughout its existence,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and the modern-day Russia men's national ice hockey team is among the most successful teams in the sport.<ref name="hockey"/> Bandy is Russia's national sport, and it has historically been the highest-achieving country in the sport.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Russian national basketball team won the EuroBasket 2007,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and the Russian basketball club PBC CSKA Moscow is among the most successful European basketball teams. The annual Formula One Russian Grand Prix is held at the Sochi Autodrom in the Sochi Olympic Park.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Russia is the leading nation in rhythmic gymnastics; and Russian synchronized swimming is considered to be the world's best.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Figure skating is another popular sport in Russia, especially pair skating and ice dancing.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Russia has produced a number of famous tennis players,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> such as Maria Sharapova and Daniil Medvedev. Chess is also a widely popular pastime in the nation, with many of the world's top chess players being Russian for decades.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The 1980 Summer Olympic Games were held in Moscow,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and the 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2014 Winter Paralympics were hosted in Sochi.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
See also
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