Then there has been the import of various ideologies from the West, which eventually resulted in the Soviet regime. And thirdly, there has been the idea of a cultured class, which Pasternak saw and propagated as the “normal” or “European” Russian future.

Those of us who try to understand Russia have long been aware that the great works of Russian literature – which depict the hearts and habits of the whole of humanity – at the same time also reveal much that is special to Russia, how Russians behave and think.

That fine scholar Ronald Hingley described all this, and outlines one aspect of it, much noted today: wherever we turn, we find descriptions, from Russian and Western observers alike, of a sense of Russian superi­ority, combined with a feeling that this superiority is not sufficiently recognised. This is found both in individuals and in the Russian state. And it is accompanied by the urge to find someone else to blame, without any real or even remotely plausible reason. A complementary trait is the fear that a Russian, or Russia, is being deceived or cheated – the sort of thing we see in Gogol’s Dead Souls (which reminds us of our huge debt to the great Russian humorists).

Today, Russia is run by a power group, a centralised but not monolithic elite and its dependent officials. The regime is neither capitalist nor socialist – nor even “state capitalist”. It recalls what over a century ago many saw, even then, as a “feudal” outlook and it has been described as a plutocracy embedded in an autocracy. Its methods are undemocratic, but not totalitarian. Its economy has vast resources – but is awkwardly concentrated on fuel, hampered by political and of course personal and factional disputes. The recent actions of the Kremlin regarding foreign investment revealed an ignorance of Russia’s real economic interests: even Lenin favoured foreign investment on occasion. The argument against it is, like much else in the country, isolationist and irrational. It is also worth noting that the military remains a powerful voice in the Kremlin. And that means the continuation of the unpopular practice of conscription.