What is it about the Russians that makes their literature so good?

could be true. maybe that's why Germany doesn't put out Mozarts and Beethovens anymore

german art has always been overrated

nah in music it's actually underrated. And Beethoven's music (esp his piano sonatas) are not only the peak of music but also the product of the first real artist personality in history

>Humans who evolved in environments with scarce resources developed very high IQs on average
indeed, just like in Africa

it actually isn't with scarce ressources

>Africa
>scarce in resources

Are you fucking retarded

Because it's so damn depressing all the time.

Russian literature was only good from 1840's to 1930.

Ya explains why almost every russian author was well educated and from a good to do family.

Scarce my ass. There's good authors from literally every country, some countries just are more of hotbeds for certain types of activity

>Africa
>scarce resources

Africa is the most resource rich continent on the entire fucking planet. Why the fuck do you think the scramble for Africa happened at all?

those is some good times

better than shakespeare

Russians are pretty eccentric people

Пpивeт.
Serious answer from an actual Russian: literature in Russia has always served as the only method of self-expression that could bypass censorship and opression from the state(be it the Czar, the Empreror or the Soviets). Literature was used to discuss all sorts of ideas and influence intellectual forces of the country. A single book could actually have a real impact on society. This placed a greater burden on the author and probably inspired them to create great works of literature.

Because of this

I hate this show so much. Especially their trivialization of Dazai, even if it's just a nip thing it's clear that famous authors are just name-dropped and hold little to no relevance anytime else

>Ruskies
>high IQ geniuses

I'm Russian myself but that's just wrong

>hey had a dozen or so literary masters that were prominent for less than a century

And most of them weren't even ethnic Russians. Tolstoy had German and Swedish roots, Dostoyevsky had Polish and Lithuanian roots, Turgenev had Tatar roots, Gogol was a Ukrainian, Brodsky, Pasternak and Mandelstam were Jews etc.

Not to mention Pushkin, the grandfather of Russian literature, was part African and Scandinavian

Tbh I would commit suicide too if I knew my country would head in that direction.

the power and control of resources was never that of the indigenous, at least not in any meaningful way during the postcolonial era. im not agreeing with the post youre quoting btw.

Because we only see their best writers, we arent inundated with authors like we are in English

Being on the fringes of Europe, Russia's encounter with high art happened relatively later than others and so their first flowering of vernacular literature attempting to build a native literary tradition, unencumbered by the weight of past greatness limiting its scope, happened in the middle of the 19th century when literature had become a mass artform through the maturation of the novel, creating a vehicle for the expression of something both instantly relatable to the popular public and at the same time capable of high seriousness.

The canon of Russian literature popular in the west is not intrinsically superior to e.g. the Italian of Dante and Boccacio, or the German of Goethe and Schiller: it is, however, both much easier to translate and also much closer to our time in period, form, subject-matter, worldview.

Suffering

What I mean is, Russian literature isn't really.that remarkable when stacked against the big four of western European literature (England, France, Germany, Italy). It just happened to be integrated into European culture relatively late so their great writers are more modernist in sensibility.

I don't get this meme. Yeah Dostoyevsky is great and would have been even greater if not for the constant Christian preaching. Maybe that's why you Americans love him so much, you all being religious nuts. Our literature is OK but I can't say it's superior. I get a lot of Russian feels from it, if you know what I mean, and perhaps it's the main reason I enjoy it, it makes me understand the reality of my country better, so to speak. I find it curious that you people like it too.
t. Russian

wouldn't you say that contemporary music is situated such that there will never be another mozart or beethoven?

fatalism

But Dostoevsky is my favorite author and I'm not religious :(

Law of probability.

Russia's such a large country, and its population so vast with a variety of different potential upbringings and backgrounds that it becomes an almost certainty that they'll eventually produce more literature geniuses.

Russians don't have high IQs

how did you acquire this picture from 2179?

>Dosty even says it, and yet you still ask

"We Russians, generally speaking, have never had any stupid, translunary German, and more especially French, romantics, who are not affected by anything; let the earth crumble under them, let the whole of France perish on the barricades - they are what they are, they won't change even for the sake of decency, and they'll go on singing their translunary songs till their dying day, so to speak, because they're fools. But we, in our Russian land, have no fools; that is a known fact; that's what makes us different from all those other German lands."

Maybe you just get less irritated by his religious agenda. Or maybe you don't always see it because it's quite subtle, though it's everywhere in his work, maybe it has something to do with your translation. It's not just my opinion, it is a common knowledge here that most philosophical and literary works made in XIX century Russia are deeply permeated with orthodox Christian world view. One philologist acquaintance of mine doesn't like Dostoyevsky because his novels are "basically long Christian parables". I'd love to provide more proofs, but I'm not very familiar with Dostoyevsky's critique, especially in English.

Itt the japs are still butthurt over the russio jap war and are destroying russkia culture on the yankee tube series.

Not who you are replying to, but I don't consider myself to be religious, spiritual perhaps, but not religious. I was raised in a christian household with a religious upbringing but I also as a teenager came to understand that the bible was meant to be taken metaphorically and even though I don't like the idea of organized religion, I have no problem with the use of parables as a guide for some as to how best to live their lives. So long as they are followed.

I also hold no ill wishes towards Christianity or religion, though I do think many have it all wrong and have forgotten that the message of Christianity is to be christ-like in mind and in action towards one's self and to others, not to proselytize and shun.

For Dostoyevsky the belief in God is essential though.
Here's what he said on "Notes from the underground":
>The censor pigs have passed everything where I scoffed at everything and, on the face of it, was sometimes even blasphemous, but have forbidden the parts where I demonstrated the need for belief in Christ from all this

It's actually not that especially good. It's more that they write about shit fedoras obsess over, so the subject matter appeals.

Mock execution and gulag really changes people.

No, no I get that. I suppose I believe in a God, just not necessarily in the same way as Dostoyevsky or as other religions preach. But to me, that doesn't take away from Dosty's work just because I hold a different spiritual belief. I have no problems with Christianity or any religion even if I don't believe. I find them fascinating and think that have all misunderstood the nature of a higher power, but that's okay.

OK, I see. It's just that for us, fedoras, being repeatedly hinted towards the idea that we should believe in God can feel quite irritating.

similar to why there's some good Irish authors

isolated from the rest of Europe, pretty poor and oppressed - have a chip on their shoulders, constantly drunk

I understand. I certainly believe in a higher power but I think we as humans will never fully understand it, so long as we are mortals stuck on earth cursed as primates.

While I do believe in a higher power, I don't think it is an eye in the sky watching our every move or that we are the center of "God's" universe or perhaps even his most beloved creation. I don't like proselytizing as much as you, either.

Dosto is loved by everyone, everywhere. Religion has nothing to do with that. I, my cousin and my aunt are all atheists (aunt is the biggest fedora tipper I know, in fact) and we all love Dosto's books. His intention and purpose is clear to anyone, but when the book is good enough nobody cares.

slav tekhnology

>Dosto is loved by everyon

Underrated

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_soul

It doesn't actually exist, Dostoevsky memed it into existence when he conned everyone into thinking he had a profound understanding of the human.

it is real

no food that clouds their mind

>Africa
>scarce in resources

wut

Different user here, just think it's interesting I share all your exact views user. 100% agree with all your thoughts

Why do they squat?

It's the fucking horn of plenty. You could flick a booger on the ground, wait three days, and have a field of maize.

German Books are overrated.
On the other hand, any who dares to critices their advancements in music should be hanged.

Squad on the loo.