Hello from Gary;

Well I’ll be honest here: If I had not committed in previous posts to write about “Mother Russia“, I might have “bailed” on this and not taken it on. This was a tough subject for me to deal with. I’m a retired programmer, not an academic type or social scientist.

But it is an important topic and addresses an important issue, namely, Russian women’s family values. So I dug into it with the hope of providing some insight for you.

While researching this, I found myself deeply involved in the often perplexing subject of Russian culture and ended up probing into such fields as mythology, anthropology, sociology, archeology and a host of related sub-topics.

It was Winston Churchill who described Russia as a “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” And certainly to the Western mind this is an apt description.

Suffice it to say, I quickly realized I was in way over my head. Even with Alla’s help I had (have) difficulty in grasping the real essence and totality of “Mother Russia.”

But I persevered. Why? To provide some insight as I said, plus two other reasons.

Reason # 1. Just plain old curiosity.

When I first heard a Russian person refer to their homeland as “Mother Russia”, I was dumbstruck.

Here’s this huge sprawling country. As a nuclear armed superpower it’s the largest country on the planet covering 9 time zones and 1/8 of the earth’s inhabited land area. It has a history, both recent and from old days, of macho, tough guy rulers. And yet it’s referred to by its people in the feminine?

I remember Joseph Stalin from radio and early television. And I’ve read about Ivan The Terrible and Peter The Great. And too, I remember watching news broadcasts of Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschchev aggressively making his statements of “We will bury you.” (transliterated). And Boris Yeltsin was no “pussy-cat” either.

We’re not talking about feminine stuff here. So where does “Mother Russia” fit into the picture?

And naturally, being married to a Russian woman, I wanted to pursue this issue.

Reason # 2. It occurs to me that somewhere deep within the Russian context of the term “Mother Russia” there may be found some understanding of the source and depth of Russian women’s family values.

So I’ll start from there but I ask your forbearance. This will in no way be a scholastic treatise. Rather it will be a rough sampling of things I’ve come across while researching the subject “Mother Russia.”

And I’ll state right up front that my focus of research was to ascertain whether or not the term carried significance in regards to my reason # 2. In other words, is the term “Mother Russia” relevant to understanding the source and depth of Russian women’s strength of family values.

I’ll cut right to the “quick” here and get to the bottom line. The answer is YES. From my perspective, both as a student and as one who is “being there, doing that”,  “Mother Russia” is absolutely a major contributing factor to the depth and strength of Russian women’s family values. 

And here’s what I base my conclusion on:

When I asked Alla for her opinion of why Russia is referred to as “Mother Russia”, she told me “it’s because there is only one Russia and she is like your mother from whom you get everything. She is the source of all.” She also said that it’s not a term that Russian people obsess over - it’s just something people understand. They live by it and with it.

The source of the term is very ancient going back way before the Christian era. It is derived from an agrarian culture where “Mother Earth” was the provider of both spiritual and physical sustenance. Archeological research has discovered strong evidence of goddess worship in ancient Russian living sites. Goddess worship symbols represented both nurture and fertility.

As society emerged from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to an agrarian lifestyle, the woman’s role in society rose to a very high level. While the man worked the land for sustenance, the woman was the hearth-keeper, the child bearer and child nurturer. Through her the culture and traditions were transmitted across generations.

A huge part of culture in any society is about family and the roles of men and women within the family. In an agrarian society, raw survival depended on everybody fulfilling their role. For such a society nature can be pretty tough to go up against to make a living. And in Russia, nature can indeed be cruel. But it’s a lot easier for a man to deal with nature if he’s got a strong base to work from. The woman provided that strong base, the solid core of holding, through love and nurture, the family in her hands and heart. 
 

Well so what you ask? Most countries went through an agrarian age and some are still there.

Yes, but Russia is different.

For one thing, as European societies progressed through the age of enlightenment into the the early industrial revolution, Russia lagged behind. Even with the reforms of Peter The Great and Catherine The Great, attempts to integrate Russia into the mainstream of European methods took place only haphazardly and slowly. This was no doubt partly because of Russia’s huge size and the vast distances between the centers of power and the general populace. And too it was partly due to the firmly entrenched nobility/peasant socio-economic order that developed in Russia.

Thus, primary elements of agrarian culture were carried forward. So deeply was an agrarian cultural imperative embedded within the Russian psyche that even as industrialism progressed, the role of women remained fixed as the hearth keepers, nurturers, and cultural vessels.

And even today, in an age of technology and industrial “magic”, this ancient definition of gender role for Russian women, this deeply ingrained imperative to create and nurture family lives on and is passed from mother to daughter across generations. 

So we’ve explored here, as in a news report, the where, what, why, how, and when of “Mother Russia.” All that remains is the who, and the answer is pretty obvious. The who of “Mother Russia” is Any Russian woman you’re looking at, because she is both a creation of and the embodiment of “Mother Russia”.

So now you ask “does this mean that Russian women are only good as wives for farmers”?

Ha, Ha. I can’t believe I wrote that. But then again I know that some men might ask that because of what I’ve laid out here. So I’ll answer the question.

Russian women will be great wives for farmers! And too they are great wives for technologists, educators, scientists, businessmen, physicians, and ordinary “Joe-blows”. The Russian woman’s imperative is not tied to the land or to the outside source of provender; her imperative is tied to the family.

So she’ll make a great wife for any man who’s willing to fulfill his role as protector and provider.

I’m going to include here my own personal testimonial in praise of Russian women and how they represent the very highest ideals of family values.

However you personally define “the weather”, be it by the actual weather itself as a man committed to the land, or as the blow by blow, give and take of business or politics, or by the seemingly ever receding completion of some personal goal, or, as in my own case, by the tumultuous swings of market prices as an investor, if you are married to a Russian woman, when the weather turns bitter cold or scorching hot, she will create for you an environment of balmy health and rejuvenation whereby you can carry on and achieve your goals!!! 
 

Perhaps in some future post I’ll relate more detail of how Alla, my Beloved Russian Wife, used her Russian woman family values to change the weather in my life from a sub-zero blizzard to to a tropical breeze.
 

The following Russian women are just 5 of more than 19.000 Russian women on A Foreign Affair’s site that are available to enrich your life with their love, beauty, brains and an incredible reality of family values.

Whew! I made it. I hope. 

Until next time, may all your dreams come true.

Gary.

P.S., “Control freaks”, playboys, “Joe-sixpack” (heavy drinker) types, and lazy-asses should not apply for a position as husband to a Russian woman. To a Russian woman, those types of men are anti-family and she will not tolerate anything or anybody that threatens family.  

P.P.S. I’ve created a new category for this post. It’s called “Russian Culture.” I don’t know why I didn’t do this long ago since there are many culture related posts here. But it’s there now and as time permits I’ll go back an re-categorize older posts into the new category.

P.P.P.S. I know there are Russian people reading our blog here and I would very much appreciate your comments on what I’ve written about “Mother Russia.” Did I do an o.k. job or did I totally miss the mark? Let me know with your comments. Just remember that to comment on our blog do not use “.com” anywhere in your comment (including in your email address). Thanks.