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(Date Posted:02/12/2007 15:51:12)
Greetings to all! I have no idea what was the last topic being discussed, LOL. Guess we'll start over. Recently I've been developing another Russian character for a new novel, and he's male and a competitive figure skater on the elite level. His parents were native Russians and he was born in Russia. He is still a Russian citizen but lives in the United States. He's in his mid-twenties, 27 to be exact. Now, my problem in all this is that I do not know any Russian males whose ears I can bend to find out how a real native, Russian male reacts to situations so that I can decide how my fictional Russian male character will react and respond to the situations I create for him. My current dilemma revolves around how his Russian character reacts in a situation where he must tell the few relatives, he's in close contact with back in the Motherland, that the woman he is intending to marry is involved in a less-than-acceptable profession by Russian cultural standards. The character's parents are both deceased. This woman is a 25-year old American, college educated, and who is an exotic dancer. My question is how will the news be accepted by his few relatives back in Russia that the he intends, eventually, to marry this woman? Will they be outraged, or will they say that it's his life to live as he chooses? After such a marriage would she be shunned by his relatives or would she be welcomed into the family? The basic question under all of this--is there a difference in how today's Russian adults (21-27 years old) view situations like this as opposed to adults (age 30 to 45, and 46 to 55, and over 56 years old) of older generations? Are their viewpoints based on religious-type leanings or rooted in the Soviet ideology or rooted still further in the ancient peasant ideology? A lot of this character is still in the development stages, even though I have begun the first draft of the novel. I'm trying to get a handle on what would be plausible in regard to how he would think, and from that, decide what to do based on his traditional Russian upbringing. The character is very much malable at this stage...he may change considerably before he's totally fleshed out, lol, and the novel really gets rolling. I'm looking for ideas and opinions about how he would think and how he would most likely react and behave based on a traditional upbringing. Mary C.
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