DOI: 10.25136/2409-868X.2021.9.36320

Abstract: The interdisciplinary approach that takes into account various points of view allows revealing the representations of honor in mentality of the Russian landowners of the XVII century. These representations are analyzed both in the context of national mentality of the XVII century overall, and within the privileged class. The article examines different meanings of honor typical to Russia of the XVII century: ancestral, official, corporate, spiritual, as well as assumptions on the presence of personal honor. Plausible mental representations of the honor of county landowners of the XVII century are viewed from the social, legal, spiritual, moral, and military-professional perspectives. The author goes along with the concepts that attribute honor to the fundamental concepts of national mentality of the XVII century. There are several meanings of honor: the medieval ideal of honor as virtue prevalent in Moscow society, honor of the rank, although the complete dominance of the latter in mentality of the XVII century seems exaggerated. The entire privileged class of the Russian society attached great importance to the meaning of “homeland”, while the provincial landowners valued the length of service. The author believes that the idea of syncretism of honor expressed by the scholars about Middle Ages also pertains to the Moscow period. The honor of noblemen and children of court nobility on the ancestral, corporate and personal levels was an achievement based on “accumulative” principle. The resentment of duels by the Russian privileged ranks of the XVII century, who defended their honor in a lawful manner, deserves particular attention. The representations of honor of the county landowners was stressed by mass poverty and closeness to the lower social classes, which encouraged to stay in the privileged environment. This was accompanied by continuous struggle for retaining paternal, official, corporate, personal honor.

DOI: 10.25136/2409-868X.2019.12.31808

Abstract: At the core of this research is the mentality of government official of Polish order G. K. Kotoshihin. Leaning on interdisciplinary approach, the author generalizes and analyzes the works dedicated to Kotoshihin and his era. The key objectives of the article consist in determination of mentality traits of the representative of Russian service bureaucracy of the XVII century; assessment of whether or not it is fair to associate G. K. Kotoshihin with the Russian Europeans, representatives of intelligentsia of the XVII century, or early national Westernizers. Based on well-known studies, the author determines a number of crucial, invariant patterns of mentality of “classical” Westernism. Although some personalty traits of Kotoshihin correspond with neither “Europeanness” nor intelligentsia, comparison of the peculiarities of mentality of the fugitive government official with worldview orientations of the national Westernism of the XIX century brought positive result. Such attributes as high assessment of European achievements, pursuit of Western education, development of secular and personal mentality in its European version, tolerance to the “someone else’s”, critical attitude with regards to national tradition – are viewed by the author as the criteria for resembling “prototype”. The majority of characteristic to Westernism mental orientations are present in G. K. Kotoshihin to a greater or lesser degree, namely the respect to European culture, tolerance, as well as critical attitude towards the national religious tradition. It would seem that Kotoshihin belonged to the category of early Russian Westernizers, who fell to the “temptation” of the European culture and became its spiritual prisoner.