ABOUT THE "SLAVE MENTALITY OF RUSSIANS"

I propose to remove the metaphysical doom and vulgar taste of Nazism from the concept of “national mentality” - and decipher it precisely as a norm: a norm that is constantly reproduced. For most of its political history, Russia was either a Horde vassal, or, in fact, a Horde (which successfully adopted management experience from its Tatar-Mongol comrades). Peter the Great brought from Europe many valuable ideas on fortification and ballistics, but he was not interested in parliament.
State pressure on a person and dominance over his rights, a kind of mystical “great” Russia that exists separately from a person and his dignity - all this, alas, is a norm that has been constantly reproduced over the centuries. That is why Putin succeeded so easily in his dirty deeds after several years of Gorbachev’s freedom and the transition to dictatorship of the “Yeltsin period” (and the transition began at least with the first Chechen war).
“Dominant”, but by no means the only gene of Russian history, in which there were the Decembrists, and the Zemstvo reform, and the Thaw of Khrushchev, and Academician Sakharov. A story that today includes Vladimir Kara-Murza.
The European path for Russian civilization certainly exists as a possibility: Children born in Russia today are not imperialists or liberals, they are just children. They are an equal opportunity for any path for the country. If they little by little begin to set Academician Sakharov as the desired political norm, they will turn out to be one Russia; if they start laying them out from the maternity hospital with the letter Z, they will turn out to be another.
Yes, after Putin’s military adventure, which triggered the bloody pre-collapse of the empire, Russian civilization most likely has very little chance of surviving within its current borders. Now I am talking about the preservation of this civilization. About whether it will survive its imperial period, as dozens of other civilizations survived it - or whether the cadaveric poison of the two-headed bird will bring it to its final grave.
Tens of millions of Russians, in Russia and abroad, are certainly ready for the country to return to the European path of development and perceive this as a desirable development of events.
And there is still be a chance. I hope so....