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Abstract. The purpose of this article is to analyse the stereotypes about Russia which are described in S. Sholl’s book «Russia with and without Soul». The writer describes her impressions of this country and the Russian people which she obtained during her long stay in Moscow as a journalist of ORF. The author tells the reader about her meetings with famous and common people; expresses her opinion about different events which took place in the life of her characters and in the political life of the country; writes about pleasant and unpleasant surprises she had; comments on the change of power and shifts in the balance of forces on the political Olympus of Russia. S. Sholl is struck by a cruel, tragic fate of her heroes who face life’s difficulties and show the strength of the Russian spirit. According to the author, Russia’s enigmatic soul is revealed through these people. But when it comes to politics and leading politicians, she is surprised by their callousness, bureaucracy and lack of democracy. The annotation of the book says that the author tried to describe the real life of Russia on the basis of everyday stories of ordinary people and memories of famous personalities. We do not always agree with the conclusions of the author, which makes it more interesting to discover how other nationalities see us. This is a heterostereotype of the Austrian writer about the Russian people and about Russia which differs from the autostereotype of the Russian reader.

Keywords: Russia, national character, Russian spirit, inscrutability, autostereotype, heterostereotype.

 

Author:

Olga V. Mihina, Associate Professor, Ph.D. in Pedagogy, Associate Professor at the Department of Romano-Germanic Philology and Translation, Institute for the Humanities, Nosov Magnitogorsk State Technical University (NMSTU), Magnitogorsk, Russia; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

References

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For citation

Mihina O. V. Heartful and Soulless russia in S. Sholl’s Book «Russia with and without Soul»(«Russland mit und ohne Seele»), Gumanitarno-pedagogicheskie issledovaniya [Humanitarian and pedagogical Research], 2018, vol. 2, no 4, pp. 56‑61.