Dialectics of violence and nonviolence in the eastern and Russian religious and ethic traditions

The article considers the dialectics of violence and nonviolence on the material of Eastern and Russian religious and ethical traditions. The approaches to the problem of violence and nonviolence in Hinduism, Jainism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Orthodoxy and other religions are compared. The author concludes that the dialectics of violence and nonviolence in these systems takes different forms. The Russian tradition is the most free from one-sided caricature interpretations of nonviolence, and thus this tradition may help in understanding dialectical relationship between violence and nonviolence in the modern world. The ethical ideal aimed at peaceful coexistence and decrease in violence is common for all the considered systems.