The newlyweds were told about the best books for development of harmonious relations at a meeting of the Literature Club at the National Centre RUSSIA

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On the final day of the II All-Russian Wedding Festival, which became the birthplace of more than 200 new families, an extensive program was prepared for the newlyweds and guests of the event. Thousands of people attended themed public talks, gastronomic performances, workshops, expositions, and music concerts at the National Centre RUSSIA. One of the brightest events of the day was a meeting of the Literature Club "What would you like to read?!", which caused a great interest among the audience.

The main topic of the meeting was books about love, family and fidelity, about useful practices for the development of harmonious relationships. The discussion was held by: Alexander Akulinichev, editor-in-chief of Psychologies.ru, journalist, co-author of "Vulnerable Man" podcast; Natalia Ignatieva, head of trendwatching department at VTsIOM; Nikolai Zharinov, philologist, cultural critic, editor-in-chief and presenter of the Punk Monk project. A moderator was Alexey Chesnakov, head of the Research Board of the Center for Political Environment, Professor at the National Research University / Higher School of Economics, author of the telegram channel "Chesnakov. The library".

"Last year, an order was signed to establish the National Centre RUSSIA, and the whole culture of presentations, expositions, and meetings has already been shaped, including our Literature Club. Today's meeting is timed to coincide with the All-Russian Wedding Festival. We are talking about Russian literature, which forms our national consciousness, and in which a lot is connected with love, family, and fidelity. We also talk about how society perceives demographic problems, about the psychology of relationships — how to behave in a family and what you can read on this topic," said Alexey Chesnakov. 

The first block of the meeting was devoted to classical Russian literature. Russian literature has been one of the three wonders in the history of art since the 19th century, as Nikolai Zharinov noted, and this became possible due to the great attention paid by Russian authors to human feelings. At the same time, one of the defining elements for the classical authors was the ideal of a family, which helped readers to understand that their life was not just the current moment, that there was something more.

"All Russian literature of the 19th century is aimed at one thing: the main benefit is life in the family, the main task is procreation. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" ends with a wedding of Dunya, Raskolnikov's sister, and his friend Razumikhin. How does Leo Tolstoy's great novel "War and Peace" end? A total wedding: everyone has a family, everyone is happy, everything is fine. What should rushing youth do in Ivan Turgenev's novel "Fathers and Children"? That's right, to have a wedding. The only characters who end up being cut off from the world are deprived of their wives, and everyone else has happy families. And for all Russian literature of the 19th century, the family world is perceived as an ideal," the speaker explained.

"Knowledge of Russian literature gives rise to civilizational codes in us. We feel like we belong to a country not only because we see birch trees or bears. But also because we belong to a culture that has formed certain patterns and ideas about what is great through Russian literature. This culture through Russian literature has shaped, above all, certain ideas about love," Alexey Chesnakov added.

Natalia Ignatieva shared the results of VTSIOM's large research project "Futurological Congress-2036", which is also devoted to demographic trends. The next 12-15 years will be crucial not only for Russia, but also for many other countries. It needs to be determined how to maintain national strength in the face of a declining birth rate. According to the head of VTsIOM trendwatching department, as a result of demographic waves, there are not many women of fertile age in Russia now. There also a transformation of the family happened: the multigenerational patriarchal family has been replaced by a nuclear family with 1-2 children. Young people have a need for self-realization, but at the same time, as the survey results show, the desired and expected number of children is gradually growing among them. 

The problems were also discussed: 8 out of 10 marriages break up. According to research, the main reasons were financial problems, destructive behavior of a spouse, and misunderstandings. As Natalia Ignatieva emphasized, from the total number of responses, those ones that relate specifically to emotional connection or emotional alienation, have even more weight than economic ones.

During the third block of the Literature Club meeting experts discussed how to work on relationships. The editorial staff of the Psychologies.ru journal, together with an expert council, compiled a rating of the best Russian-language books on psychology, and Alexander Akulinichev recommended several books that look at family relations from different angles.

Valentina Paevskaya's book "Several children in a family" is devoted to the peculiarities of upbringing a large family, so that children do not accumulate resentments against their parents, brothers and sisters. Nikita Karpov's book "Damn teenagers. How to find a common language with an adult child?" will help to build harmonious relationships with the teens. An advice how to properly separate your child from you and build relationships with elderly parents can be found in Veronika Khlebova's book "Separation. How to stop depending on other people." Polina Gaverdovskaya in her book "I suffer, but I stay. A book about how to overcome addiction and get back to yourself" will tell you what to do if the relationship begins to destroy each one in the couple. Ilya Latypov's book "One on One with Life: a book that will help you find Meaning" will become a reliable guide in the process of finding yourself.

The attendees of the meeting asked speakers a lot of questions about love, reproductive health, and what measures would help to increase the birth rate. The authors of the best questions were presented with books.

"There are no ready-made recipes that would help any country dramatically increase the birth rate in recent years, and this would be a steady, long-term trend. This is a big problem. But discussing, forming your own recipes, and finding some original approaches is extremely important. And perhaps one of these ways is to publish the books we are talking about, because this will create a greater space for understanding what to do. Read books: it's incredibly interesting and allows your views, relationships, and feelings to develop," Alexey Chesnakov summed up.