Although a wide array of imported packaged products are now found in Russian cities, traditional foods and ingredients remain popular, including cabbage, potatoes, carrots, sour cream, and apples—the principal ingredients of borsch, the famous Russian soup made with beets. Those who had been inspired by the recent revolution and the subsequent Russian Civil War (1918–20) included Boris Pilnyak (The Naked Year [1922]), Isaak Babel (Red Cavalry [1926]), and Mikhail Sholokhov, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1965. Other minority languages include Tartar, Ukrainian, Chuvash, Bashir, Mordvin and Chechen. Cathedral of St. Traditionally, pashka, a mixture of sweetened curds, butter, and raisins, is served with the cake. The reign of Peter I (the Great; 1689–1725), The reign of Catherine II (the Great; 1762–96), Government administration under Catherine, Education and social change in the 18th century, The Civil War and War Communism (1918–21), The Gorbachev era: perestroika and glasnost, Ethnic relations and Russia’s “near-abroad”, Consolidation of power, Syria, and campaign against the West, An Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard. While Russian is the official language, many Russians also speak English as a second language. For women especially there is a lot of pressure to have kids while they are still young and fertile. Stay up to date on the coronavirus outbreak by signing up to our newsletter today. It is home to approximately 1,700 to 1,800 endemic plant and animal species," said Jennifer Castner of Pacific Environment's Russia program. He experienced a religious conversion during his imprisonment, and his novels of the 1860s and ’70s are suffused with messianic Orthodox ideas. The turn to prose was signaled in the work of Pushkin, whose Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin (1831), The Queen of Spades (1834), and The Captain’s Daughter (1836) all appeared before his death in 1837. 3. "It is a pure surprise for us. On a hot summer day, chilled kvass is used to make okroshka, a traditional cold soup laced with cucumbers, boiled eggs, sausages, and salamis. Russian poetry, notwithstanding the civic verse of Nikolay Nekrasov and the subtle lyrics of Afanasy Fet, had not played a central role in the literary process since the 1830s, and drama, despite the able work of Aleksandr Ostrovsky, was a marginal literary activity for most writers. Russia from Above: A Glimpse at a Vast Landscape, 20 percent of the world’s supply of fresh water, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Julian calendar used by the Russian Orthodox Church, The Canopy over the Holy Sepulchre: On the Origin of Onion-Shaped Domes, Passport to Trade: Business Meeting Protocol and Etiquette in Russia, These could be the funniest animal pictures ever, Scientists discover new organ in the throat, 1st-ever footage of giant pandas mating in the wild is not 'cute and cuddly', Black holes could become massive particle accelerators, 'Starman' just zipped past Mars in his rapidly-decaying Tesla Roadster. The eruption was a surprise and the plume of smoke could be seen from space. There are plains, taigas, steppes, plains and mountains. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow are emblematic of Russian architecture. Russian literature has also had a worldwide impact, with writers such as Leon Tolstoy ("Anna Karenina" and "War and Peace") and Fyodor Dostoevsky ("Crime and Punishment" and "The Brothers Karamazov") still being read around the world. Baked goods are ubiquitous on Easter, including round-shaped sweet bread and Easter cake. The rest of the population consists of 3.7 percent Tatar, 1.4 percent Ukrainian, 1.1 percent Bashkir, 1 percent Chuvash, 1 percent Chechen and 10.2 percent other, while 3.9 percent are unspecified. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. Marina Tsvetayeva, another great poetic experimenter, produced much of her major work outside the country but returned to the Soviet Union in 1939, only to commit suicide there two years later. Estimates of the size of the middle class vary (as do definitions of it), but it is generally assumed that it constitutes about one-fourth of Russian society, and much of that is concentrated in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other urban areas. This is a beet soup that is full of vegetables and meat and is typically served with a dollop of sour cream, a staple of many Russian dishes. By comparison, the United States comprises 3,794,100 square miles (9,826,675 square km). Astronomers claimed galaxy was 98% dark matter. Dostoyevsky, who was arrested in 1849 for his involvement in a socialist reading group, reentered the literary scene in the late 1850s. Built to commemorate the Russian capture of Kazar, the Tatar capital, St. Basil’s is a perfect example of the confluence of Byzantine and Asiatic cultural streams that characterizes Muscovite culture. In the early period the favoured method was the “physiological sketch,” which often depicted a typical member of the downtrodden classes; quintessential examples are found in Ivan Turgenev’s 1852 collection A Sportsman’s Sketches. The culture of Russia is very important to learn for it also affects the culture of the world. Future US, Inc. 11 West 42nd Street, 15th Floor, Boris Pasternak, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958, produced lyrics of great depth and power in this period, and Osip Mandelshtam created some of the most beautiful and haunting lyric poems in the Russian language. Russia’s middle class has adopted values that are distinctly different from Soviet practice. A lot of people still get married very young, and there is huge focus on delivering children as soon as possible. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. Hard-boiled eggs painted in bright colours also are staples of the Easter holiday. New York, They are commonplace in Russian architecture and are predominant atop church structures. Please deactivate your ad blocker in order to see our subscription offer. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. As a result, Russian cultural development in the Muscovite period was quite different from that of western Europe, which at this time was experiencing the secularization of society and the rediscovery of the classical cultural heritage that characterized the Renaissance. Finally, in the modern period (since the 18th century), the cultural heritage of western Europe was added to the Russian melting pot. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. His major novels—Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1868–69), The Possessed (1872), and The Brothers Karamazov (1879–80)—are filled with riveting, often unstable characters and dramatic scenes. In both War and Peace (1865–69) and Anna Karenina (1875–77), Tolstoy draws beautifully nuanced portraits filled with deep psychological and sociological insight. The rebirth of religion is another dimension of the changed lifestyles of new Russia. Basil the Blessed in Moscow, Russia. During the late 1920s and the ’30s, there appeared what became known as the classics of Socialist Realism, a literary method that in 1934 was declared to be the only acceptable one for Soviet writers. Also popular is kvass, a traditional beverage that can be made at home from stale black bread. Vasily Zhukovsky’s 1802 translation of Thomas Gray’s “An Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard” ushered in a vogue for the personal, elegiac mode that was soon amplified in the work of Konstantin Batyushkov, Prince Pyotr Vyazemsky, and the young Aleksandr Pushkin. The most popular is Dolgang, spoken by more than 5.3 percent of the country's population, according to the CIA. In the course of the century, Russian writers assimilated all the European genres; although much of their work was derivative, the comedies of Denis Fonvizin and the powerful, solemn odes of Gavrila Derzhavin were original and have remained part of the active Russian cultural heritage. The interiors of many of these churches were ornately decorated with frescoes and icons. Russia's capital city, Moscow is home to nearly 12 million inhabitants along with many important symbols of Russian culture, such as the Kremlin, Red Square, St. By the late 1920s the period of Soviet experimentation had ended. In the late 1730s poets Mikhail Lomonosov and Vasily Trediakovsky carried out reforms as far-reaching as those of Peter. In the first decade after the revolution, there were also advances in literary theory and criticism, which changed methods of literary study throughout the world. Practically the only decent writing published from the late 1960s through the early 1980s came from the “village prose” writers, who treated the clash of rural traditions with modern life in a realistic idiom. Russia’s unique and vibrant culture developed, as did the country itself, from a complicated interplay of native Slavic cultural material and borrowings from a wide variety of foreign cultures.In the Kievan period (c. 10th–13th century), the borrowings were primarily from Eastern Orthodox Byzantine culture. The reign of Peter I (the Great; 1689–1725), The reign of Catherine II (the Great; 1762–96), Government administration under Catherine, Education and social change in the 18th century, The Civil War and War Communism (1918–21), The Gorbachev era: perestroika and glasnost, Ethnic relations and Russia’s “near-abroad”, Consolidation of power, Syria, and campaign against the West, The Life of the Archpriest Avvakum, by Himself. The Moscow school of icon painting produced great masters, among them Dionisy and Andrey Rublyov (whose Old Testament Trinity, now in Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery, is among the most revered icons ever painted). A famous Russian saying is, "One is not a soldier in the battlefield." By the time Russian political and cultural life began to recover in the 14th century, a new centre had arisen: Muscovy (Moscow). The real masterpieces of this period, however, did not fit the canons of Socialist Realism and were not published until many years later. Early works of Russian realism include Ivan Goncharov’s antiromantic novel A Common Story (1847) and Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Poor Folk (1846). (They should not be confused with pierogis, which are Polish dumplings, boiled and then fried and stuffed with meat, cheese, potatoes or sauerkraut.). The Symbolists dominated the literary scene until 1910, when internal dissension led to the movement’s collapse. The power of an individual in Russia is much less than in the west and most deals are pushed through family, friends and acquaintances. The meal is accompanied by tea in the ever-present samovar (tea kettle) and is often washed down with vodka.