We often don’t realize how captivated we are by images from great works of art, how much we correlate our behavior with what we’ve read, watched, and listened to. This is especially true in Russia, where there’s a kind of cult of classical literature. Its authors form a pantheon of “literary gods” who are traditionally regarded with awe. This is deserved, however, as the heroes of these works are fully-fledged citizens of our country, with whom we interact, whom we look up to, whom we fall in love with, hate, or despise.
And so it happens that among these heroes, there isn’t a single image of a successful entrepreneur who is honest, kind, and open, who sees their work not as a matter of mere commercial gain, but as a creative force, changing the world for the better. Such examples can be found in European classics, but Russia still awaits a writer capable of portraying such a complex and engaging character.
We discussed this during the recording of our video podcast “Post-Innovative Economics” with the remarkable Russian philologists Andrei Stepanov from St. Petersburg State University and Arseniy Dezhurov from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. The episodes will soon be available on my channel, but these conversations also served as the basis for a new column in Forbes: Education, in which I tried to explain how the artistic images we learned in school continue to influence our attitudes toward business, wealth, and success throughout our lives.