Russian culture is usually considered as the experience accumulated by Russian people from the times of ancient Rus’ through the Russian Empire and up until now. Russian culture is very rich, mostly by its diversity, as there were a lot of different nations living in one country and affecting each other. Also, Russian culture has always been quite open for other cultures and throughout history it’s been affected by Greek, Dutch, French and many other cultures.
However, some part of real Russian Slavic culture from Rus’ has remined. Rus’, which is nowadays the European part of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, as well as Siberia, has always had an abundance of different types of herbs. So that Slavic people who inhabited Rus’ and indigenous peoples of Siberia developed a huge number of different medical practices using herbs, potions and even words.
These practices have always been used by all the generations of Russian people and are still used nowadays. In a largely globalized Russia the practice of traditional medicine maintains a connection to traditional Russian society and Russian culture. Health in Rus’ was a big part of life, so ancient Russians developed a big knowledge of different types of natural medicine practices, which have always been used by Russian peoples and played a big role in Russian culture.
Russian treatment methods are very diverse due to the big variety of different ethnicities that inhabit the country. Although most of Russian people live in urban areas in the Western part of Russia, a lot of cultural minorities live throughout the rest of the country and have been there throughout the entire human history. This range of territories and variety of different cultures in what is now Russia experienced a significant disparity in climate and environment.
Ill people of different regions required specific care that would fit to the conditions in which they lived. These different groups developed a big variety of natural remedies by systematic experiments with the healing properties of plants, which were available due to the abundance of different plant species in Russia. These “researches” began to yield beneficial results, which were the foundation of folk medicine that was passed throughout the generations. (Gerhart, Genevra) Traditional medicine was gradually changing step by step. And at each step of traditional medicine in history there were different combinations and methods of healing.
First it was Shamanism, people used different pagan rites of “purification”. For each rite, in addition to magic, Shamans used different herbs and potions. All diseases and injuries were considered as the breaking of rules of behavior. Then during the times of Sorcery disturbances in the human organism were considered as the conflict of Gods. For each deity there were special herbs and special methods. In the practice of sorcery healing potions and pagan rites became equivalent.
The times of Healers were different by including the classification of disturbances in the reactions of an organism, using the symptoms and appropriate methods of healing. Watching the animals allowed people to use herbs and minerals, and for their complete efficiency it was needed to study the functions of human body, its functions and structure. Accumulated experience of use of herbs and minerals became one of the traditions of Russian culture. The use of the flame of fire, water vapor, heated rocks also gave the rise to a set of traditional healing practices such as cauterization, healing baths, Russian banyas (saunas). (Баландин К. )
Russian healers also practiced the methods with live water and dead water. The first thing Russians did in the morning was to wash their hands, face, head, armpits, belly and legs with cold water, no matter what the temperature was. Russians also bathed in dew in the morning before sunrise. Russian treatment by traditional medicine was always done with live water and dead water. They prepared herbal hydro-alcoholic extracts and by these extracts they treated every disease of the human body. Russian traditional medicine has many descriptions for the treatment of any disease, which can be even found in Russian fairy tales that are told to their children.
The presence of Russian traditional medicine in fairy tails shows how important it was in Russian culture. This is only a part of Russian traditional medicine, the one with the live water and the dead water, but the Russian traditional medicine also includes the treatment by honey, by substance secreted by the ants, the spheres arranged in a certain way etc. (Codrut Tutu MD Acupuncture and Apyphytotherapy Specialist).
Nowadays traditional medicine in Russia is practiced less than before because of the industrialization, urbanization and globalization, also depending on the age of people, as old people tend to practice it more than young, while young people don’t like to be treated at all.
Traditional medicine started to decrease in popularity during the reign of Peter the Great (1682-1725). The new order of things began with his reign. He may be regarded as the creator of Russian professional medicine, as he attempted to “Europeanize” Russia. He built the first hospital (1706) and medical school (1707) in Russia. He gave his army a medical service. During his trips to Europe, he “picked up all the training he could get on medicine and surgery”.
Medical provision was increasing each decade, and right before Revolution there already were some hospitals in the biggest cities, and a limited amount of medical aid was even accessible to the poor. Rich people had an access to the medical aid of a high standard, and they were provided with man sanatoria and hospitals. (Garrison) After Peter the Great, Russia gradually started to value its own culture again. Special educational institutions then existed in the USSR until the beginning of the 20th century. There were schools of midwifery where people were taught the basics.
The USSR was quite closed from the rest of the world and there wasn’t so much influence from the west. It also wasn’t very urbanized, especially in the beginning of the 20th century, and a lot of people lived in the villages where people used to practice traditional medicine quite a lot. When the USSR collapsed people started to take everything from the West and neglected Russian culture. However in the past 10 years Russian population started to come back to its roots.
Lots of herbalists and sorcerers started to appear today. Moreover, they experience a great success in modern Russia, especially among the elderly. Healing by herbs has steadily become a business industry in Russia, in which phytotherapists are earning big money. And recently herbal centers have appeared in many Russian cities. (Russia Beyond the Headlines) A telephone survey that was conducted in St. Petersburg found that 23% of respondents prefer self-treatment rather than professional medical treatment (Baranov, Sklyar 2004).
The study by the N. A. Semashko Institute for Social Hygiene, Economics and Management of Healthcare showed that 8% of the population prefers alternative to professional medicine. Russian journalist Konstantin Krylov in his blog commented on this: “The Russian people have some kind of a special mentality when it comes to their health: they hate to be medically treated. Actually, there are plenty of people who love self-healing, but nobody is seeking professional help.
Well, they do seek help when they are nearly dying, that is when they call for an ambulance. But usually everybody is waiting till the last minute, hoping that “it will be ok”…” () After the fall of the USSR, people in Russia became free to make business, which allowed traditional medicine to become legalized and expand in Russian society, also supported by the governmental acceptance. Russia’s prevalent use of traditional medicine has been particularly helpful after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The country had always taken healthcare very seriously and the health care was free for everybody. However, after the fall of the USSR it was underfunded and unable to maintain supplies. As a result, many hospitals were very badly equipped and lacked basic necessities. (U. S. Library of Congress) Russian citizens started to take care of their health through traditional medicine, and even grew their own remedies in the gardens at their dachas (country house).
The Russian government legalized the use of traditional treatment methods, and the Ministry of Health and Social Development recognized a few of these techniques as legitimate medical practices. Not all forms of traditional medicine were recognized, however, because traditional medicine is very individual, in terms of both the patient and the practitioner and can’t be standardized. The two medical philosophies are practiced equivalently in Russia, which has one of the highest numbers of practicing traditional medicine doctors in the world.
(Gerhart, Genevra) “The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 80 % of people in developing countries rely on alternative medicines, as Western medicine is not always available and is often too expensive. ” (World Health Organization) Nowadays in Russia Traditional medicine is considered as traditional knowledge – a part of the national cultures. In recent years we witnessed tons of “healers”, “sorcerers”, “magicians”, “Shamans” and “Psychics”. The professional medicine has not yet become an exact science and that’s why it weakened against traditional medicine.
Nowadays we can emphasize four problems of the development of traditional medicine. That’s legal recognition of it, the idea in society that traditional medicine is behind our time, the systematization of accumulated knowledge and the formation of the independent scientific branch, the search for the same point of view on the functioning of the organism with modern medicine. Even though there are some problems it is all set now for the traditional medicine to form an independent scientific branch.
(Соколов И. И, Степанов В. В. ) Russia is very globalized now, but the practice of traditional medicine makes people not forget about their own culture. Traditional medicine popularity is growing day by day. Government is trying to make it somewhat legal, so it becomes more common in Russia and people turn to their roots. People are actually starting to understand the value of their own culture.
There are some things you can’t just suppress in people’s minds and it’s people’s cultural identity, that’s what lives in every human being, that’s what makes us who we are. Culture consists of different parts: from character and preferences to music and clothing.
And when some people try to impose their culture on another, it bounces back, as people don’t like when others are trying to take their own culture away from them. And in order not to let other cultures to affect your own, you need to develop your culture. And, I think, the development and expansion of Russian culture, especially traditional medicine, will lead to the resurrection of the Russian culture in the hearts of Russian people.
WORKS CITED: 1)Баландин К. Народная медицина этническое целительство: [Электронный ресурс] / Баландин К. . – Электрон. ст. – Режим доступа к ст.: http//www. prosa. ru 2)U. S. Library of Congress 3) Соколов И. И, Степанов В. В. Народная медицина и наука (выдержки из брошуры) [Электронный ресурс] / Веб – Центр «Омега» http://prostotitunet. ru/narodnaya_med/sokolov_stepanov/problemy. html. 4) Gerhart, Genevra. The Russian’s World: Life and Language, 2nd ed. 1994. 5) (Codrut Tutu MD Acupuncture and Apyphytotherapy Specialist) 6) http://krylov. livejournal. com/1335666. html 7) Baranov I. N. , Skliar T. M. (2004).
Rol’ strakhovykh meditsinskikh organizatsii v uluchshenii kachestva meditsinskogo obsluzhivaniia i uvelichenie ravenstva dostupnosti uslug zdravookhraneniia (na primere Sankt-Peterburga) // Sotsial’naia politika: realii XXI veka.
Vyp 2. Moscow: Nezavisimyi institut sotsial’noi politiki. P. 380-410. 8) Russia Beyond the Headlines, http://rbth. co. uk/arts/2013/08/22/why_russians_prefer_alternative_medicine_ 29141. html 9) “WHO launches the first global strategy on traditional and alternative medicine. ” World Health Organization. 10) Colonel F. H. Garrison’s “Russian Medicine Under the Old Regime” in the Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, September, 1931.