Russian National Character And Values

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Pre-Reading 1. Read the quotations. Do you think the American poetess describes Russian nature or she speaks metaphorically? In what way does G.F. Kennan produce a particular effect on the reader when describing "the Russian "? An American poetess, greatly impressed by the trip to Russia, wrote in her diary more than 150 years ago, "it is like forest and steppe in summer, full of peace and grace and charm ... But it has also the strength and terror of steppe and forest; and under the winter of injustice and tyranny and cruelty, its impulses, its energies, its affections, become pitiless blasts and devouring wolves." Much later George F.Kennan, a key figure in the emergence of the Cold War, commented on Russia's identity in his Memoirs, "West and East, Pacific and Atlantic, Arctic and tropics, extreme cold and extreme heat prolonged sloth and sudden feats of energy, exaggerated cruelty and exaggerated kindness, ostentational wealth and dismal squalor, violent xenophobia and uncontrollable yearning for contact with the foreign world, vast power and the most abject slavery, simultaneous love and hate for the same objects ... the Russian does not reject these contradictions. He has learned to live with them, and in them. To him, they are the spice of life." 2. The word-combinations 'national character', 'ethnic identity', 'geopolitical factors' are essential for understanding the main idea of the text. Work with dictionaries or use other information sources to define their meanings. 3. The nouns listed below are used in the text. They are close in meaning. Match the words to their definitions. 1. value a. sth you consider likely to be true even though no one has told you directly or even though you have no proof 2. assumption b. a strong feeling that

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