Characteristics of russian personality traits: comparative analysis of russian and western approacches

The notion of mentality is rather new and lies within various areas of research thus it is considered to be an interdisciplinary phenomenon. For this reason, different authors use specific terminology of their field of study (philosophy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, etc.) to define and describe the concept of mentality. This bachelor's degree thesis uses ideas proposed and discussed mostly by linguists who take into consideration the differences and special features of each field's approach to understanding the concept of mentality.

The notion of mentality was established in the intellectual life of the Western world as the deepest source of thinking, ideology, and faith which forms the basis for conscious and unconscious, logical and emotional. (Федюковская, 1999).

In the thinkers' works of the 18^th and 19^th centuries (Montesquieu, Herder, Locke) the origins of the concept “mentality” can be observed. In 1856 Emerson, an American philosopher was one of the first scientists to use the term “mentality”, however, without providing the world with the precise definition of the notion.

It is considered that the person who brought the term “mentality” into the science was Lucien Lйvy-Bruhl in 1922 (Samoylov, 2018). He analyzed the primitive tribes and contrasted their behaviour with people's behaviour of his times applying the term “mentality” to the special thinking of the tribes. Nevertheless, the systematic research on the problem started in the 1930s by the French scientists of the Annales School (Bloch, Febvre, Meyerson). They studied human history examining it not from a socio-economic point of view but from a cultural one. They analyzed the spiritual life of the society, its values, and value orientations.

As there was an increasing interest in the issue of mentality, more and more sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, etc. started to study this concept (Samoylov, 2018). The notion of mentality is often used to denote such phenomena as “national character” and “national spirit”. Samoylov (2018) explains it by saying that difficulties in defining the word “mentality” appear because there were no attempts to deepen into this phenomenon and to its structuring,

Many scientists who are studying mentality say that there is no ideal definition for this phenomenon. Duby (1991) points out that mentality is a very versatile notion, thus, it is hard to come up with one unambiguous translation of the original French term which means “mentality”, “mental attitude”, “collective representations”, “imagination”, “mindset”, and “the vision of the world” at the same time. He defines mentality as a system of representations proper to a certain social group which forms the image of the world for its members and which defines their place in this world.

Russian historian Gurevich (1988) believes that mentality is a way which helps to see the world; that it is the level of social consciousness at which emotions and thinking are not distracted from each other. In the Dictionary of the Russian Language (Ozhegov, Shvedova, 1999) the definition of mentality comprises the idea of understanding the world through the use of emotional and value-oriented attitudes which are closely connected with traditions, sentiment, and feeling. Another Russian researcher defines mentality is a factor which defines the ethno psychological characteristics of a personality (Fedyukovskaya, 1999).

Ter-Minasova (2000) defines mentality as “a degree of intellectual power” (p.146) of an individual or group which includes attitude, character, mind, and the way one perceives the world. Another opinion is that mentality is a system of interconnected universals embodied in culture that are used as a means of storage and communication of fundamental representations of the world (Khrolenko, 2004). Some authors support the theory of linguistic relativity and therefore emphasize the importance of language. As Ter-Minasova (2000) pinpoints, not only does language reflect the real world and its conditions that surround people, but also mentality, lifestyle, traditions, customs, value system, and attitude. Language is a powerful tool that forms nations through the transmission of culture, traditions, and social consciousness.

Language, especially various metaphors and phraseological units, is a great tool for understanding national mentality. It reflects the internal content of a community of people speaking a particular language (Fedyukovskaya, 1999). Afanasyev (1996) considers national (ethic) mentality to be a system of signs which holds people together.

In this bachelor's degree thesis mentality as a national way of thinking will be used. Kolesov (1991) defines it better by saying that mentality is the ethic picture of the world which studies in accordance with values and value orientations.

The analysis of the opinions given above suggests that the concept of mentality inevitably involves values as one way or another they are mentioned in terms of discussing mentality of a particular nation.

1.2 Interconnection between language and mentality

The questions of linguistic mentality and linguistic or language picture of the world are one of the most discussed issues among linguists, cultural scientists, philosophers, sociologists, and psychologists. As it has already been said language plays a great role in the understanding of a national mentality. Every language consists of distinctive features which help it differ from other languages and learn more about the mentality and culture of a country.

Linguistic mentality is the notion which describes the idea of people seeing the world around them through the prism of their language. This is not a new concept to discuss. The ideas about language significance in human thinking, the connection between language and mental and spiritual life of people and their culture belong to W. von Humboldt. He was the first person to study the ethnolinguistic picture of the world. The researcher highlighted that languages are used not to record various designations for the same object but to record different visions of it according to a particular country and its culture. He considered language to be the way the spirit of a nation expresses itself. According to Humboldt, everything in the language is a reincarnation and reflection of the national spirit (Petrova, 2017). The author was sure that even the fact that there are many different languages helps people to know more about the world. Humboldt (1984) writes “A person mostly lives among the objects as language present them. Every language draws a circle around the people who speak it - one is allowed to step out of this circle only when they enter another language's circle” (p.400).

Later, his theory started to be called “linguistic/ language picture of the world”. In the works that I've studied scientists call this concept both linguistic and language picture of the world. The person who introduced this concept to the scientific terminological system was L. Weisgerber in the 1930s. He points out (2002) that in the language of a particular community lives a spirit, a treasure of knowledge which can be called a picture of the world of a particular language.

However, the influence of linguistic aspect began to be widely discussed only after the introduction of the theory of linguistic relativity and determinism. His theory is the basis for another well-known theory which is called “Sapir-Whorf hypothesis”. Created by Sapir and expanded by Whorf, this theory implies that people's perception is related to a language that they speak, and that their world view is influenced by the structure of a language. There are two versions of this theory: the strong hypothesis (linguistic determinism) and the weak hypothesis (linguistic relativity). The strong version indicates that language determines people's thoughts and the way people perceive the world. Conversely, the weak hypothesis implies that language only influences in some ways our thoughts and actions, however, it does not absolutely determine people's behaviour and the way they think.

The linguistic picture of the world can be compared to a grid which is thrown on a person's perception influencing their assessment and vision of various situations and events through the prism of a language as well as the experience acquired with it which includes not only a huge number of units of nomination, but also the rules of their functioning and formation (Kubryakova, 1997). The linguistic picture of the world sets the standards for human behaviour and determines their attitude to the world (Pesina, 2005). According to Apresyan (1995), every language reflects the particular way of perceiving and organizing (conceptualizing) the world. He highlights (1995) that the values (подумать над словом) expressed in a language are formed into a certain unified system of views, a collective philosophy which is “imposed” as mandatory for all native speakers of that language.

Also, language may be a factor which can lead to some misunderstandings and conflicts. Thus, taking into consideration the special characteristics of the mentality of a country is crucial while selecting adequate language, for example, for slogans, advertising and commercials because it is important for people of a particular country and culture to fully understand the meaning of the presented piece of a text. Otherwise, some slogans or advertisement texts may be misunderstood by people causing them to be confused and disagree with what is written in the text. Besides, during negotiations ignoring the special features of mentality and characteristics of a language may lead to undesirable consequences. Talking about body language, for example, people from Japan may become offended if a person is staring in their eyes while talking to them; or pointing a finger is considered as a rude behaviour by Japanese people.

Considering all aforementioned, language seems to play a huge role when it comes to the topic of mentality. Every language consists of a distinctive system which influences people's perception of the world.

As it has already been mentioned, mentality and values are the notions that have a close connection. Both of them are part of such notion as culture and are used to define cultures of the countries. Thus, now it is important to give a definition to the word “value” and to understand what underlies this concept.

1.3 Exploring the concept of values

Human values have been being studied for many years by scientists from various fields of knowledge, for instance, psychology, sociology, cultural studies, philosophy, etc. This fact makes it a “borderline” notion (Garvanova & Garvanov, 2014, p.5) because, on the one hand, values can be understood as rules or regulations that help control people's behaviour in the society. On the other hand, the concept of values is a subjective ones regarding towards person's desires and wants.

At the first half of the 20^th century Allport and Venon (1931) were the first scientists who started to connect values to more usual things such as watching TV, reading newspaper, or voting. They were trying to give this notion a more concrete meaning. They came up with the new typology of values where they categorized “persons' stable preferences for all kinds of private and societal behaviours” (Debats, 1996). They designed their own way of measuring people's values which was one of the first theoretically valid measurement of people's values. Their work was named Study of Values (SOV) and it was first published in 1931. Later, in 1970 in was revised by Allport, Venon, and Lindzey. SOV was made measure people's desires according to six types of values: theoretical, economic, aesthetic, social, political, and religious. E. Spranger (1928) was the first to introduce these six ideal, as he stated, types of values. He related each type to a particular basic value: (1) Theoretical: truth; (2) Economic: usefulness; (3) Aesthetic: harmony and beauty; (4) Social: love for people; (5) Political: power and leadership; (6) Religious: unity or moral excellence (Spranger E., 1928). In 1970 SOV was the third most cited non-projective measure of values. However, in 1980s it started to become less and less popular due to the growing criticism: people were saying that it lacked religious inclusiveness, content and terminology used in the work became archaic and outdated, and various suggestions about different cultures turned to be incorrect.

Later, the typology where values were seen as something fixed and stable was left behind and the new approach emerged stating that every person has to be able to create its own hierarchy of values existing in their culture. Nowadays values are seemed as a phenomenon towards which people make their decisions and behave; which can be seen as some kind of guiding principles for living a life. Values can direct people and make them choose between things. The concept of value can bring together different interests that sciences which are somehow related to human behavior have (Rokeach, 1973).

The completely different way of thinking about the nature of values happened in 1973 when Milton Rokeach, Polish-American social psychologist, introduced his book to the world named “The Nature of Human Values”. He came up with his own way of measuring person's values. His value survey was named Rokeach Value Survey (RVS) and it has been widely used as an instrument of identifying people's values by various scientists in such spheres of science as psychology and sociology. The reason of this approach gaining its popularity and becoming a universal one at the end of the 20^th century was laying in the fact that his survey was more coherent and founded/ valid from the psychometrical point of view (Kelly, 1990). Despite the fact that since that time a lot of new ways of identifying human's values have appeared, RVS is still very popular amongst scientists related to psychological, social, and cross-cultural studies.

The survey differentiates two kinds of values: terminal and instrumental. The terminal values are seen as ultimate modes of living. The terminal values are some kind of goals that a person would be happy to achieve during their life. Rokeach says that the terminal values can be reached only through Instrumental values. The instrumental values are related to the characteristics of behvaiour that are seemed to be socially desirable or preferable. The respondents have to arrange 18 terminal values and, following them, 18 instrumental values in an order from the most important values to the least important ones.

The terminal values are: True Friendship, Mature Love, Self-Respect, Happiness, Inner Harmony, Equality, Freedom, Pleasure, Social Recognition, Wisdom, Salvation, Family Security, National Security, A Sense of Accomplishment, A World of Beauty, A World at Peace, A Comfortable Life, and An Exciting Life.

The instrumental values are: Cheerfulness, Ambition, Love, Cleanliness, Self-Control, Capability, Courage, Politeness, Honesty, Imagination, Independence, Intellect, Broad-Mindedness, Logic, Obedience, Helpfulness, Responsibility, and Forgiveness.

Rokeach (1973, 1989) believed that only by measuring values in accordance with each other, the most accurate results can be achieved. The most important question that the researcher was trying to find an answer on was how the value system is changing over time. He suggested that the main individual values are formed in childhood during the process of socialization and that it is unlikely for them to change in any direction in adulthood. He was interested to understand why such stable notion as “values” can have changes in a person's life. Rokeach was sure that person's values can change due to their self-satisfaction or dissatisfaction of their life and themselves. Changes in values happen when a person realizes that the two of their values contradict each other and it brings this dissatisfaction.

Another scientist who studies values is Ronald F. Inglehart. He is a director of World Value Survey (WVS) which is a global project that studies values of people, the social and political impact on values, and the changes that happen in them over time. It was first introduced in 1981 and since then scientists have carried out surveys as part of WVS in almost 100 countries. In 2000 Inglehart and Baker presented the idea of two dimensions demonstrating the differences that exist between cultures: Traditional vs. Secular-Rational and Survival vs. Self-Expression.

The Traditional vs. Secular-Rational dimension shows a difference that societies have in their view on religion; what is the importance of religion for people who live in these societies. Societies that are placed near the traditional pole value religion high; they also consider family relationships to be their main priority in life, especially relationships that exist between children and their parents, they are very respectful to people who have more authority, national pride is an essential part of such societies, and they care less about the environment and environmental problems that exist in the world. Comparatively, societies that lean toward Secular-Rational values give less significance to family ties and religion. People in such societies believe that it is more crucial to teach their child independence rather than be with them and to look after them for the rest of their lives. Secular-Rational values also emphasize that abortion, suicide, divorce, and euthanasia are considered to be acceptable in contrast to societies with Traditional values. Shearman (2008) states that Traditional values can be seen in agrarian societies, while in urban society Secular-Rational values predominate.

According to Inglehart and Baker (2000), the Survival vs. Self-Expression dimension shows a shift from industrial societies to postindustrial ones. Societies with survival values put their emphasis not on the personal security but on economic and physical one. In wealthier countries people can focus not on how to survive but on how to improve their well-being and quality of life, on their self-expression. Self-expression values prioritize tolerance of diversity, protection of the environment, and the involvement in decision-making

Inglehart and Welzel created the Inglehart-Welzel cultural map of the world using the results from WVS and the dimensions described before. Bottom left corner of the map shows a high score in traditional and survival values displaying poor countries, whereas right up corner is characterized by a high score in secular-rational and self-expression values illustrating rich countries.

The Theory of Basic Human values is a theory in a field of cross-cultural research, and it was introduced by Shalom H. Schwartz in 1992. He defines values similar to Rokeach (1973) and Kluckhohn (1951): values are desired, trans-situational goals the significance of which changes and which act as guidance in the lives of people or groups.

This theory emphasizes the six main features of values which the author highlights from the works conducted by many other theorists (Allport, 1961; Feather, 1995; Kluckhohn, 1951; Morris, 1956; Rokeach 1973.):

1. Values are beliefs that are closely connected with people's feelings. At the moment values activate, they start to be infused with feelings. For example, people for whom their independence is of the utmost importance may become very angry when their independence is threatened by something.

2. Values are linked with people's goals that motivate them to do something in order to reach them.

3. “Values transcend specific actions and situations” (Schwartz, 2012, p.4). Values are different from norms or attitudes because they do not connect with specific actions or objects.

4. Values are standards. Values act as guidance for people; they decide what is good or what is bad; what might be done or not be done, etc.

5. People order their values from the most important values to the least important ones and that is what describes them as individuals.

6. The importance of several values make people act. Any action or attitude is influenced by more than one value.

These are the features that belong to all values as Schwartz states. He says that the difference between them can be found in the type of motivation or goal that one value indicates. The author first came up with 10 basic human values and the main assumption of Schwartz's theory is that “the array of values represents a circular continuum of motivations” (Schwartz, Butenko, 2014, p.799). The researcher states that his work is an expansion of the previous study that was conducted in the sphere of cross-cultural communication which is Hofstede's cultural dimension theory. His theory recognizes 10 universal values. Each of the value exists on the basis of a particular motivational goal that serves as a guideline in people's lives. Schwartz believes that values are cognitive representation of three universal human living needs: people's needs as biological organisms, the need in coordinate social interaction, and the survival needs of groups

Each value can be typified according to its motivational goal:

“1.Self-Direction. Independent thought and action; choosing, creating, exploring.

2. Stimulation. Excitement, novelty, and challenge in life.

3. Hedonism. Pleasure and sensuous gratification for oneself.

4. Achievement. Personal success through demonstrating competence according to social standards.

5. Power. Social status and prestige, control or dominance over people and resources.

6. Security. Safety, harmony, and stability of society, of relationships, and of self.

7. Conformity. Restraint of actions, inclinations, and impulses likely to upset or harm others and violate social expectations or norms.

8. Tradition. Respect, commitment, and acceptance of the customs and ideas that traditional culture or religion provide the self.

9. Benevolence. Preserving and enhancing the welfare of those with whom one is in frequent personal contact (the `in-group').

10. Universalism. Understanding, appreciation, tolerance, and protection for the welfare of all people and for nature” (Schwartz, 2012, pp. 5-7)

It can be seen that power and achievement both concentrate on social esteem. However, social esteem in achievement values means that a person is zealous for showing a great performance in a concrete and particular situation, while power values are related to the idea of having dominance and keeping it “within the more general social system” (Schwartz, 2012, p.6). Also, it is seemed that benevolence and conformity both value supportive relations in the society. However, conformity values are concentrated on cooperation in order to prevent negative consequences for self, whereas benevolence values are connected with providing an internalized motivational base for such behaviour” (Schwartz, 2012, p.7). Last but not least, tradition values and conformity values. They are almost the same as both are related to the goal of subordination, however, the difference is hidden in the fact that conformity requires people being subordinated to their in-group while Tradition is about people caring and preserving customs and ideas of their culture,

The structure of the value theory is based on the dynamic relations that values have between each other. There exist social, psychological, or practical reasons for values to exist in conflict with each other. For instance, achievement values and benevolence values may be in contradiction with each other as achievement values mean that a person is zealous for the success for themselves while benevolence values focus on improving the welfare of other people in order to help them. Conversely, the pursuit of achievement values and the pursuit of power values are compatible with each other because in achievement values a person seeks for personal success and in power values a person is taking actions to have an authority which may help them gaining reputation and personal success. Conformity and tradition values are even situated in one wedge as they have almost the same motivational goal as it has already been stated above. Schwartz's value theory postulates that the associations amongst values can be best seen in the circular motivational continuum of values. This particular order of values indicates that there is the motivational conflict or compatibility among values (Schwartz, 1992). It means that the values that closer on the circle are values that have similar motivations; and the values that are more distant from each other are the ones that are in a motivational conflict.

Values in Schwartz's theory are arranged according to two bipolar dimensions. In the first dimension “openness to change” and “conservation” are opposed to each other. This dimension is related to the conflict between values that are connected with the freedom of thought, action, and feelings and willingness to change (self-direction, stimulation) and values that stand for traditions, maintenance and protection of the past, rules, self-restriction, and refusal of any change (security, conformity, tradition). In the second dimension exists contradictions between “self-enhancement” and “self-transcendence” values. This dimension shows the conflict between values connected with worrying about other people, helping them, and making their lives better (universalism, benevolence) and values that give priority to improving one's own life, interests and gaining success (power, achievement). Hedonism is a value that shares elements of two categories of dimensions: openness to change and self - enhancement.

Comparing Rokeach's and Schwartz's lists of values, a lot of similarities can be observed.

Schwartz's Self-Direction value is similar to Freedom and Independence that exist in Rokeach's theory. These values resemble Schwartz's one because they also reflect the idea of freedom in thought and action. Another value that parallels with Self-Direction is Imagination. The reason for that is the fact that Self-Direction implies people being zealous for creating new things and ideas which involves people using their imagination.

Talking about Schwartz's Stimulation value, it coincides with An Exciting Life that Rokeach uses as one of his terminal values because both of them display that people are enthusiastic about newness in their lives. Another value that corresponds with Stimulation is Courage. Courage means being brave and not being afraid of facing any challenges in life that may be faced on the way to the new heights.

Such values as Pleasure, A Comfortable Life, and An Exciting Life that Rokeach highlights are great equivalents of Schwartz's Hedonism value. As it has already been mentioned, Hedonism focuses on people thinking about their wishes and desires and people satisfying their own gratification. All three Rokeach's values carry the same message. Firstly, A Comfortable Life signifies that people care a lot about their feelings and are passionate about making their life enjoyable and relaxed by gratifying their needs and cravings. Besides, when people try to satisfy their wishes, they usually live An Exciting Life as they do things and live the way that they want. Another Rokeach's value that can perfectly coincide with Hedonism is Happiness. People become happy when they do and achieve things that they like, enjoy, and value, thus, Happiness is a perfect representation of this process. Last but not least, Pleasure is a synonym to “gratification” which is placed in the description of Schwartz's Hedonism, thus, such values as Hedonism and Pleasure perfectly match each other.

Achievement means gaining success while respecting the norms that exist in the society. A Sense of Accomplishment is Rokeach's terminal value that corresponds with the Schwartz's one. Both of them express the idea that a person wants to be successful in life and reach their goal. Of course, it is almost impossible to do it without being ambitious. That is why such value as Ambition coincides with Schwartz's Achievement. Also, it takes a lot of self-control in order to achieve goals that a person sets for themselves. That is why such Rokeach's value as Self-Control perfectly matches with Achievement. Intellect may also be added to the list of values that are close to Achievement. Being intelligent helps people when they try to succeed in life as they know where to apply all of the knowledge that they have already gained and where to look for more information if they need it.

Ambition, as well as Social Recognition and Self-Respect, perfectly reflects the idea of such Schwartz's value as Power. If a person put this value among the most important ones, it means that they are very cautious about their status and are excited about having dominance over other people. Ambition is a great part of it because only a person who has a desire to succeed will be able to control and manage others. People who highly value Power are afraid of losing their face in front of anyone as they are scared of being deprived of their position. Also, people who are concern about their status in the society do not like to show their weak sides because they may be used in the future by other people who are their detractors against them. Self-Respect may also correspond with such value as Power. It is because people who are status-cautious can also be considered narcissistic in some cases as they care only about themselves and how to reach their goals.

Salvation, Family Security and National Security are Rokeach's terminal values that reflect the same idea as Schwartz has in his Security value. All of them are about people wanting life being calm and stable and for everyone to be safe. However, there is one more side to the Security value which is about primary individual interests. It means that a person wants to be healthy and clean, thus, such Rokeach's value as Cleanliness equals the idea of people keeping the environment that they live in clean and protecting themselves from things that may harm them, their health, and people that they care about.

Conformity implies that people follow all rules that exist in the society and that they do nothing that can harm or offend others. Rokeach came up with such instrumental value as Politeness which is about people being very attentive and courteous to others and which is closely related to Conformity. Another value that matches it perfectly is Obedience which is even a synonym to the word “conformity” and signifies the same idea. Besides, sometimes some people do not want to be polite to someone as they know that this is not a very good person but they still show patience, do nothing, and avoid negative social consequences that may happen. Thus, it takes a lot of self-control and self-discipline for people to always follow all the rules and norms that exist in the society that they live in. For that reason, Rokeach's Self-Control value also coincides with Conformity.

Schwartz's Benevolence conveys the principle of people preserving and caring about the welfare of people with whom they are in a close relationship. Thus, such values as Family Security and A Comfortable Life can correspond with this Schwartz's value as well because they both indicate that people want the life of their close ones to be safe and healthy and for them to be happy. Also, such Rokeach's instrumental values as Helpfulness and Responsibility equal Benevolence. They do it in a way that people have a desire to be a part which helps their family members and their friends to maintain this welfare, thus, people feel responsible for their actions. Besides, this Schwartz's value can be interpreted as being kind, honest, and friendly to one another, showing love, and keeping great relationships with their loved ones. People with this value need affiliation, positive interaction, and maintenance of excellent connection with their in-group people. That is why such terminal values that Rokeach came up with as True Friendship and Mature Love and instrumental values as Love, Honesty, and Forgiveness are also related to Schwartz's Benevolence value. Last but not least, Salvation can also be compared to Benevolence as Salvation in some ways may be interpreted as protection of others.

Salvation can also be applied to Universalism as Universalism is almost the same as Benevolence. However, this Schwartz's value is more about being tolerant, desiring equality for others, maintaining the prosperity of all people and nature. Besides Salvation, such Rokeach's values as A World of Beauty, A World at Peace, and A Comfortable Life are related to Universalism because this value is about the appreciation of nature that is around us, its preservation and its protection. Also, a person has to be flexible and wise in order to understand that we are all the same and that being tolerant is a way for all people to live in peace with each other. Besides, it is a life wisdom that helps people understand that it is crucial to take care of the environment, nature, and resources that surround them as it is an essential part of their lives without which they cannot live. For this reason, Broad-Minded and Wisdom are Rokeach's values that are a perfect match to Universalism.

However, there are several values that Rokeach brought up in his theory that cannot be connected to Schwartz's ten basic values. Logic, Inner Harmony and Cheerfulness are the values that cannot be compared to the ones that Schwartz introduced in his theory. It can be seen that most of the values that these scientists proposed cover the same ideas, beliefs, and characteristics. Actually, Schwartz's values can be created if the right Rokeach's values are grouped together. However, Schwartz's theory is much better than Rokeach's one as it is more modern, more detailed and more complex as it takes into consideration people's motivational goals that are their principles in life and it provides the information about the connection of these values between each other and how some of them contrast with each other.

1.4 The image of Russian people in foreign cross-cultural studies

What is Russian culture? What are the main traits of Russian character? These might be the questions that a lot of cross-cultural scientists ask themselves as Russia is one of the biggest countries in the world not only territorially but also politically.

A great number of works related to Russia were written by cross-cultural scientists. One of them is Gerard Hendrik (Geert) Hofstede who is a Dutch social psychologist and a former IBM employee. He is mostly known for the creation of the cultural dimension theory which is one of the most important works in the area of cross-cultural communication. Besides, the scientist was published in many journals, for example, “International Journal of Cross Cultural Management”, “Online Readings in Psychology and Culture”, “Journal of International Consumer Marketing”, etc. In the year 1980 he became co-founder and the first Director of IRIC, Institute for Research on Intercultural Cooperation. Also, Hofstede had an honour of receiving the order by Her Majesty Beatrix, Queen of the Netherlands which is called “Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion”.

Hofstede came up with a model which has six dimensions named Power Distance, Individualism, Uncertainty Avoidance, Masculinity, Long Term Orientation, and Indulgence. Every dimension describes a certain aspect of culture. “Country comparison” is a special section on his personal website where the scientist puts the information about the cultures' difference found out with the help of his model.

Richard Lewis is another famous researcher, linguist and cross-cultural theorist who dedicated his life to the exploration of the phenomenon of various cultures. “When cultures collide” is one of his most famous works where he describes countries' cultures. The book was translated to 15 languages, and one million copies of it were sold all around the world. The scientist is famous for his cross-cultural communication model in which he distinguishes three types of culture which exist in our world: linear-active, multi-active, and reactive cultures. Lewis also elaborated his own trainings where his model is used in order to teach people how to act with others without having conflicts and misunderstandings.

Considering Lewis' model, Russia seems to have a “loquacious multi-active” culture (Lewis, 2006, p. 46). However, he points out that Russia also has some peculiarities of linear-active cultures due to the inhabitants that live in the northern part of Russia. He explains it by claiming that people in Russia had to work and come together in order to live through the conditions that they had been put into. Russia has such a vast territory and such different climate that definitely affected the formation of Russian people's values and beliefs. Nevertheless, these conditions made Russians not only learn how to survive together but also how to be “a hospitable nation” (Skvortova, 2019, p.6).

Some characteristics of Russian culture that Lewis mentions in his book are “Japanese politeness, French protocol, and Asian ambiguity”. The scientist also points out more peculiarities proving that Russian culture has characteristics of both types of culture: multi-active and linear-active. For example, he highlights that Russians very direct in their speech and do not like when people equivocate; he mentions the existence of massive thinking, multi-ethnicity of population, and messianic movements. Besides, he adds the information about one specific peculiarity that Russian people have during meetings and negotiations. Lewis notices that during negotiation process Russians almost always start using “tough talk” when they know that they are in a better position than people with whom they are negotiating.

In order to better understand the peculiarities that Russian culture has and its image in general, it is crucial to analyze Hofstede's and Lewis' theories together and to find out what are the similarities and differences between them. The results of the Hofstede's study can be seen in Figure 1.

Power Distance is the first dimension that Hofstede describes in his research. This dimension expresses the extent to which people who have less authority in the society can accept and expect inequalities that exist in their lives. PD dimension is about the fact that there is a great gap between people with authority and without it and that culture is also reflected towards the inequalities that exist in the society. If a number is low on this dimension, it means that the gap is not very wide. It can be seen from Hofstede's research that Russia's score on this dimension is 93. It means that the gap between the people with authority and their subordinates is huge. Lewis explains it by providing the fact that is related to Russian political structure. He highlights that 80% of all financial business is concentrated in Moscow which proves that Russia has a centralized power. After analyzing all the information that Hofstede had about Russia for this dimension, he came up with one fundamental conclusion about Russians on this dimension. The author claims that the importance of the status symbol builds up because of the fact that inconsistency of the society is very high. As a consequence, the author believes that the way in which people behave becomes the best method of showing one's social status during negotiation processes.

Lewis has similar ideas in his book towards Russian culture. He especially highlights the idea of Russia having a centralized power as it might be the reason for many conflicts to appear between people from Russian and from other countries. The example with which he illustrates this phenomenon is about a negotiation process between Americans or, for instance, Italians and Russians. While Russian people consider keeping discipline during meetings to be of the utmost importance and speaking with one voice is a rule for them, Americans and Italians have completely different views on this idea. Lewis claims that while negotiating people from Western cultures speak with several voices. This can be the reason for Russian people to be a little bit confused because they will not understand who the leader is and who has more power. That is why it is essential for people to consider peculiarities of all cultures who are participating in a meeting in order to avoid unnecessary conflicts.

The second dimension that Hofstede describes is Individualism. In the words of the author it is the dimension which analyzes “the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members” (Hofstede Insights, 2020, par. 5). In the simpler words, this dimension describes the extent to which cultures are more “I” or “We” - oriented. 39 is the score that Russia has on this dimension. It means that personal relationships are considered to be extremely crucial for Russians in every aspect of their life. In order for other people to have a successful meeting with people from Russia, these people have to establish sincere relationships with them.