Excuse my ramblings here.

So I'm not really working towards anything specific here, but just a bit of dabbling around as a way to analyze things we're currently learning.

To me, suffering isn't as big of a theme Russian culture, literature, art, etc. as much as brotherhood. In all three of our sources thus far, brotherhood under Mother Russia has been a huge theme. And perhaps it's this sense of brotherhood that brings about suffering, for one must give up a few things to gain in a social contract. It just seems that the Russians give up so much more than say, us Americans, because they value the community so much because of this clan sense dating back to the Slavs. All in all, being Russian is a big deal, and it's a big no-no when one goes against their fellow Russians.

In How Much Land Does a Man Need, the farmer's greed begins to spark only as he feels it's necessary to aquire more land than that which was to be divided up by all the peasants. The farmer goes against his fellow Russian brothers to gain things for himself. He keeps trying to work his way up the scale, gaining more and more land, until he must pay the ultimate price for his actions, his life. This story is about suppressing the individual because that's what one must do to be virtuous, when working for the good of the fellow Russians.

True, all war films have a theme of virtue, a theme of patriotism, and Alexander Nevsky is certainly no exception. It pushed about every button that would make one want to fight for Mother Russia. I mean, it's all about how the citizens of Novgorod were going to fight what was left of Russia, Nevsky leading them. I think the scene that best describes Russia's brotherhood mentality is at the very end when Nevsky allows the citizens to decide the fate of the people who were to be dealt with for what they'd done against Russia. It was not the Germans, the enemies of Russia who fared the worst fate, but the traitor. To them, it was worse to be Russian and go against Russia, their homeland and Mother, as opposed to fighting against them and not knowing any better.

Russian Orthodox Christianity helped this sense of brotherhood as well, because it gave them a sense of community. "The whole Russian people once thought of themselves idealistically as a single, immense family, with the tsar as a father. Russian peasants, down through the centuries, addressed everyone, even strangers in terms of kinship- father, mother, brother, sister. The individual life was only a fleeting moment in the life of this great clan." This quote basically defines how Russians see themselves, from their individualistic lives, to their lives in the community as a whole.

As Russian, you must suffer, but to the Russians, suffering for the community is every worth every moment.