Ronald Hingley: The Russian Mind. London, Sydney, Toronto. The Bodley Head. 1978, pp. 248. £ 5.50.

In his research study Hingley maps many problems of the notoriously enigmatic Russian mind and tries to supply in some fields fresh insights. He trics to analyse the national brand of leg-pull, to define the Prestige Project, to spotlight the Russian's adroitness in awarding to himself implied credit marks as part of his conversiational technique. He asks whether the Russians are life-enhancers or life-deniers. How do their emotions and their reasoning faculties interrelate, how do they act in different circumstances. What is their attitude towards country, state, religion and tradition. What is the interrelation between the continuity and change. How do the Soviet and Russian mentalities mix.

This ambitious intention might be only partly estimated as succesful. Only the chapter II "The communication system" in which the author shows the way of Russian's acting in various situations deserves to be appreciated as an original part of his book. But even so, the thesis cannot be accepted without reservation because the author does not bring out the differences between social groups and has a tendency to treat them ahistorically. In the interpretation of the historical background of Russian mind the work does not contribute new ideas and repeats the thesis several times promulgated by many authors. The author quotes memoirs commonly known, sometimes second hånd. (Gustine - !). He does not use a lot of outstanding books very close to the subject of his interest. (The Spirit of Russia by T. G. Masaryk or The Origin of Modern Russia by J. Kucharzewski). Hingley has left out of account the faet that Russian political thought concerning nationalism has never been original and Russian nationalism has always copied foreign models. Even those things which the Russian wanted to present as possessing an original national character appear after doser investigation as having been copied from abroad. Early South Slav nationalism was a model for Moscow, in the same way as later Moscow Slavophilism garbed in national costume was a copy of German nationalistic theories. The theory of the Third Rome was conceived in Bulgaria in the 14th c. and according to this theory Timovo was to be a new Gonstantinople. Hingley is also mistaken in asserting that the Bolsheviks used only in the 1930'ies nationalistic ideas for propaganda reasons. A shrewed observer B. Russel who vished Russia three years after the revolution was right when he wrote "Throughout the Polish war the Bolsheviks have acquircd the support of national feeling and their position in the country has been immensly strengthened". (The Practise and Theory of Bolshevism. London 1921, pp. 33-34.)

In the evaluation of the Russian revolutionary movement Hingley follows the point of view expressed by T. Szamuely in The Russian Tradition, London, 1974. Finally the comparison between the Russian attitude towards such important problems as patriotism,the attitude towards the State and authorities, before and after the October Revolution,seems

tion,seemsto be not convincing because the author does not pay enough attention to the enormous social changes from 1917 and to the omnipotence of the Soviet State. As a result of this he compares for example the Table of Ranks by Peter the Great with the bureaucratic system and practices during the ensuing sixty years and the last problem he treats as a specific continuation of the previous one.

As a whole there is a gap between the author's intention and the results of his work.