I love history. I do this: I write and publish articles and monographs. However, like any person associated with history, I cannot raise the question of its scientific nature, or rather, scientific character of the Russian mainstream of history .
This is unclear specifically studies history. Yes, the classic answer will come - the historical process. Wonderful, super. And what is it? Ah yes, human activity superimposed on a timeline. And here the first (and key) difficulty arises: There are a number of sciences that study human activity. The struggle for power - political science, behavioral aspects - psychology, management - economics, relations in the international arena - international relations, the struggle for power - political science. Each of these sciences has developed its own methodology, its own theories, and principles. And here it turns out that there is no place left for the classical historian, because a political scientist must scientifically judge the political struggle during the First World War in Russia (this is a perverted idea in Russia that every old woman and every drunkard under the fence can judge the struggle for power; in the West, political science has received scientific development: with a powerful theoretical and methodological base, with sometimes even hyper-attention to mathematical methods; with active borrowing from related disciplines; I am already silent about the fact that a number of political scientists have received Nobel Prizes in economics; economic foundations of serfdom - economist (or political economist), etc. In fact we can talk about history of something, about the overturning of modern sciences into the past. What should a historian do? doesn't own fully methods of none of these sciences ? The answer regarding synthesis and general evolution does not sound convincing: interdisciplinarity is not an easy thing, it also requires (!) a powerful philosophical base. And very often in reality it turns out that history in Russia turns into the work of “bespectacled men and women” who, armed with common sense, a historical approach, and a critical analysis of documents, began to judge the past. It’s especially funny when, not having the proper personal social experience (you can’t gain it in libraries and archives), they “cut down” such great figures of their eras as Peter I, Witte or Stolypin. Few people think about what they can learn and what they cannot; what theoretical premises should be used; what methods they use, what these methods allow you to see, and what they don’t; where there is research error, etc.
Of course, history has its own methodology. True, it is not adequate for conducting economic, sociological or political analysis. Moreover, it is not adequate for analyzing the development of the historical process as a whole. And in general: how many professional historians study namely the historical process? The vast majority concentrate on their favorite narrow topics, and how the historical process develops is sidelined.
All historical methods are good for only one thing: reconstruction events(Although Often It turns out that talking about methodology is one thing, but conducting specific research is another). In fact, history turns into a set of facts, excellent empirical basis for other sciences, no more. Yes, historians try to look for cause-and-effect relationships, but most do it within the framework unscientific narrative logic: what happened before is the cause, what happened later is the effect. Plus some of my thoughts on the topic. Nothing complicated: the scientific article (or monograph) is ready. If you write something interesting on the cover, you can make money.
Of course, not everyone does this. There are many works that are written with the actual application of methods of other sciences, which result in serious research. But there are only a few of them. By the way, I am impressed by the Soviet historical school, where history had a number of strong general theoretical and methodological foundations, which also had positive results. Unfortunately, the dominance of one methodology and its too skeletal understanding often produced works that were absurd in content....
And again: the point of science is to create new knowledge relevant to modern times . Of course, historians like to postulate that without knowledge of the past you cannot know the future. But they did not say how to explain the present or predict the future by looking into the past: how to develop a rigorous scientific methodology to make such transitions. The maximum that historians are capable of: conducting analogies(without asking the question: are they appropriate?). But this is not science. That's it for the arsenal traditional the domestic historian has been exhausted. After all, even intuitively it is clear to everyone, in order to understand the present one must first look closely currently(and many sciences operate in this field). I’m already silent, because in addition to complex theoretical constructions, you need to know both the past and the present (and the latter is the problem of many traditional historians). Of course, we all understand: knowing history is useful, it must explain something. But here's to install theoretically based Only a few have been able to make a connection (which rests on more than “I see it this way”) between the past and the present. And almost all of them are not classical historians at all. First of all, this is the brilliant Marx. Among others is our economist Kondratiev with his “long cycles”. Among historians, one can recall Toynbee. But all of these are brilliant (or very outstanding) people. The majority of historians are not capable of creating such intellectual products, and, apparently, do not strive for this ( although they are indignant about why they are not paid enough there - not a single good economist or sociologist will make such statements, which is significant).
As a result, we get:
a) historians approach history without special methods of analysis, thereby engaging in a mechanical reconstruction of events, rather than actual analysis (the analysis carried out must be questioned due to ignorance of the methodology of special disciplines), but this is very useful for other sciences;
b) the knowledge obtained by traditional historians is largely useless for us, because we have not yet answered the question: how can they be adequately applied to modern times (this question requires scientific and methodological development, and not a superficial answer).
P.S. Of course, not all historians correspond to what is described above. There are also pleasant exceptions. But we have few of them in Russia.
P.P.S Plus, history can also perform another important function for the country: ideological and instilling patriotism (and also form the basis of collective memory), but for this (by and large) serious and in-depth research is not needed (often they are dangerous) - myths are enough. Most historians do not agree with this.

From the editor: We thank the European University Press in St. Petersburg for the opportunity to publish a fragment from the book by historian Ivan Kurilla “History, or the Past in the Present” (St. Petersburg, 2017).

Let's now talk about historical science - how much does it suffer from violent storms in the historical consciousness of society?

History as a scientific discipline is experiencing overload from different sides: the state of historical consciousness of society is an external challenge, while the accumulated problems within science, calling into question the methodological foundations of the discipline and its institutional structure, represent internal pressure.

Plurality of subjects (“History in fragments”)

Already in the 19th century, history began to fragment according to the subject of study: in addition to political history, the history of culture and economics appeared, and later social history, the history of ideas and many directions studying various aspects of the past were added to them.

Finally, the most uncontrollable process was the fragmentation of history according to the subject of historical questioning. We can say that the process of fragmentation of history is driven by the identity politics described above. In Russia, the fragmentation of history by social and gender groups occurred more slowly than by ethnic and regional variants.

Coupled with the fragmentation of the methodology used by historians, this situation led to the fragmentation of not only historical consciousness as a whole, but also the field of historical science itself, which by the end of the century was, in the words of the Moscow historian M. Boytsov (in a sensational situation among the professional community in the 1990s article), a pile of “shards”. Historians have come to state the impossibility of unity not only of the historical narrative, but also of historical science.

The reader has already understood, of course, that the idea of the possibility of the only true historical narrative, the only correct and final version of history is contrary to the modern view of the essence of history. You can often hear questions addressed to historians: well, what was it really like, what is the truth? After all, if one historian writes about an event this way, and another writes differently, does that mean one of them is mistaken? Can they come to a compromise and understand how it “really was”? There is a demand for such a story about the past in society (the recent attempt of the popular writer Boris Akunin to become a “new Karamzin”, and, to some extent, the debate about a “single textbook” of history, are probably growing from such expectations). Society, as it were, demands that historians agree to finally write a single textbook in which “the whole truth” will be presented.

There are indeed problems in history in which it is possible to find a compromise, but there are also those in which this is impossible: this is, as a rule, a story told by “different voices”, associated with the identity of a particular social group. The history of an authoritarian state and the history of victims of some “great turn” are unlikely to ever create a “compromise option.” An analysis of the interests of the state will help to understand why certain decisions were made, and this will be a logical explanation. But his logic in no way “balances” the history of those people who, as a result of these decisions, lost their fortune, health, and sometimes life - and this story will also be true about the past. These two views on history can be presented in different chapters of the same textbook, but there are many more such points of view than two: it can be difficult, for example, to reconcile the history of different regions in a large multinational country. Moreover, the past provides historians with the opportunity to create multiple narratives, and bearers of different value systems (as well as different social groups) can write their own “history textbook” in which they can describe history from the point of view of nationalism or internationalism, statism or anarchy, liberalism or traditionalism. Each of these stories will be internally consistent (although, probably, each such story will contain silence about some aspects of the past that are important to other authors).

It is apparently impossible to create a single and consistent story about history that unites all points of view - and this is one of the most important axioms of historical science. If historians have given up on the “unity of history” quite a long time ago, then the awareness of the immanent inconsistency of history as a text is a relatively new phenomenon. It is associated with the above-mentioned disappearance of the gap between the present and the recent past, with the intervention of memory in the process of historical reflection of modern society.

Modern historians are faced with the problem of this multiplicity of narratives, the multiplicity of stories about the past that are produced by different social groups, different regions, ideologists and states. Some of these narratives are confrontational and potentially contain the germ of social conflicts, but the choice between them has to be made not on the basis of their scientific nature, but on the basis of ethical principles, thereby establishing a new connection between history and morality. One of the newest tasks of historical science is to work at the “seams” between these narratives. The modern idea of history as a whole seems less like a single stream and more like a blanket sewn from different scraps. We are doomed to live simultaneously with different interpretations and be able to establish a conversation about a common past, maintaining disagreements or, rather, polyphony.

Historical sources

Any historian will agree with the thesis formulated by the positivists that reliance on sources is the main feature of historical science. This remains true for modern historians as much as it was for Langlois and Seignobos. It is precisely the methods of searching and processing sources that students are taught in history departments. However, in just over a hundred years, the content of this concept has changed, and the basic professional practice of academic historians has been challenged.

To understand the difference in attitude towards the sources of historical science and the practice that preceded it, it must be recalled that what we call falsification of documents was a frequent occurrence in the Middle Ages and was not condemned at all. The entire culture was built on respect for authority, and if something was attributed to authority that was not said by them, but was certainly good, then there was no reason to question it. Thus, the main criterion for the truth of a document was the good that the document provided.

Lorenzo Valla, who was the first to prove the forgery of the “correct document,” did not dare to publish his “Reflection on the fictitious and false donation of Constantine” - the work was published only half a century after the author’s death, when the Reformation had already begun in Europe.

Over the course of several centuries, historians have developed increasingly subtle ways of determining the truth of a document, its authorship, and dating, in order to exclude the use of forgeries in their work.

“The past,” as we found out, is a problematic concept, but the texts of the sources are real, you can literally touch them with your hands, re-read them, check the logic of your predecessors. The questions formulated by historians are addressed precisely to these sources. The first sources were living people with their stories, and this type of source (bounded by time and space) is still important in working with recent and modern history: oral history projects of the 20th century have produced significant results.

The next type of sources were official documents remaining from the daily activities of various types of bureaucracies, including legislation and international treaties, but also numerous registration papers. Leopold von Ranke preferred diplomatic documents from state archives to other types of documents. Statistics - government and commercial - allows the use of quantitative methods in the analysis of the past. Personal recollections and memoirs traditionally attract readers and are also traditionally considered very unreliable: memoirists, for obvious reasons, tell their desired version of events. However, given the author's interest and comparison with other sources, these texts can provide much insight into events, motives, and details of the past. From the moment of its appearance, materials from periodicals began to be used by historians: no other source makes it possible to understand the synchronicity of different events, from politics and economics to culture and local news, as well as the pages of newspapers. Finally, the Annales school proved that any object that bears traces of human influence can become a source for a historian; a garden or park laid out according to a specific plan, or plant varieties and animal breeds bred by man, will not be left out. The accumulation of significant amounts of information and the development of mathematical methods for processing it promise great breakthroughs in the study of the past with the beginning of the use of Big Data processing tools by historians.

However, it is important to understand that in themselves, until they come into the historian’s field of interest, a text, information or material object is not a source. Only the question asked by the historian makes them so.

In the last third of the twentieth century, however, this practice was challenged. Having postulated the inaccessibility of the past, postmodernists reduced the work of historians to transforming one text into another. And in this situation, the question of the truth of this or that text faded into the background. Much greater importance began to be attached to the problem of what role the text plays in culture and society. The “Donation of Constantine” determined state-political relations in Europe for many centuries and was exposed only when it had already lost its real influence. So who cares if it was fake?

The professional practice of historians has also come into conflict with the instrumental approach to history that is spreading in society: if the past is not recognized as having independent value and the past must work for the present, then the sources are not important. Indicative is the conflict that broke out in the summer of 2015 between the director of the State Archive of the Russian Federation, Sergei Mironenko, who presented documentary evidence of the composition of the “feat of 28 Panfilov’s men” in the Battle of Moscow in 1941, and the Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Medinsky, who defended the “correct myth” from being verified by sources.

“Any historical event, when completed, becomes a myth - positive or negative. The same can be applied to historical figures. Our heads of state archives must conduct their research, but life is such that people operate not with archival information, but with myths. Information can strengthen these myths, destroy them, and turn them upside down. Well, public mass consciousness always operates with myths, including in relation to history, so you need to treat this with reverence, care, and prudence.”
Vladimir Medinsky

In fact, politicians not only express their claims to control history, but also deny the right of historians to expert judgment about the past, equating professional knowledge based on documents with “mass consciousness” based on myths. The conflict between the archivist and the minister could be considered a curiosity if it did not fit into the logic of the development of the historical consciousness of modern society, which led to the dominance of presentism.

Thus, having parted with positivism, we suddenly found ourselves faced with a new Middle Ages, in which a “good goal” justifies the falsification of sources (or their biased selection).

Laws of history

At the end of the 19th century, the debate about the scientific nature of history focused on its ability to discover the laws of human development. Over the course of the 20th century, the very concept of science evolved. Today, science is often defined as “a field of human activity aimed at developing and systematizing objective knowledge about reality” or as “description using concepts.” History certainly fits into these definitions. In addition, various sciences use the historical method or historical approach to phenomena. Finally, we must understand that this is a conversation about the relationship between concepts developed by European civilization itself, and these concepts are historical, i.e. change over time.

And yet - do historical laws, “laws of history” exist? If we talk about the laws of development of society, then this question must obviously be redirected to sociology, which studies the laws of human development. Laws for the development of human societies certainly exist. Some of them are statistical in nature, some allow us to see cause-and-effect relationships in a repeating sequence of historical events. It is these kinds of laws that are most often declared by supporters of the status of history as a “rigorous science” to be the “laws of history.”

However, these “laws of history” were most often developed (“discovered”) not by historians, but by scientists involved in related social sciences - sociologists and economists. Moreover, many researchers identify a separate field of knowledge - macrosociology and historical sociology, which consider such scientists as “their” classics such as Karl Marx (economist) and Max Weber (sociologist), Immanuel Wallerstein and Randall Collins (macrosociologists), Perry Anderson and even Fernand Braudel (only the last one from the list is also considered by historians to be their classic). In addition, historians themselves very rarely in their works offer formulas for the laws of history or somehow refer to such laws. At the same time, historians take great pleasure in asking questions posed within the framework of macrosociological, as well as economic, political science, philology and other social science and humanities disciplines of the past, thus transferring the theories of related sciences to the material of the past.

It's easier to talk about historical discoveries. Discoveries in history are of two types: the discovery of new sources, archives, memoirs, or the formulation of a new problem, question, approach, turning into sources what was not previously considered sources, or allowing one to find something new in old sources. Thus, a discovery in history may be not only a birch bark document discovered during excavations, but also a new research question posed.

Let's dwell on this point in a little more detail. Since the time of the Annales school, historians have begun their work by posing a research question - this requirement seems to be common to all sciences today. In the practice of historical research, however, there is constant repeated clarification and reformulation of the question in the process of working on it.

The historian, in accordance with the hermeneutic circle model, constantly refines his research question based on the data he receives from sources. The final formulation of the historian’s research question becomes a formula for the relationship of the present to the past, established by the scientist. It turns out that the research question itself is not only the starting point, but also one of the most important results of the study.

This description well illustrates the idea of history as a science about the interaction of modernity with the past: a correctly posed question determines the “difference of potentials,” maintaining tension and establishing a connection between modernity and the period under study (unlike those social sciences that seek to find an answer precisely to the originally posed question). question).

Examples of the laws of history can be the recurring patterns of the use of the past in modern debates (the selection in the past of subjects and problems that help in solving today's problems or in the struggle for a group vision of the future; the limitations of such selection, the influence of scientific works and journalism on the formation of the historical consciousness of society), and also ways of setting tasks and obtaining historical knowledge.

Notes

1. Cliometry is a direction in historical science that is based on the systematic application of quantitative methods. The heyday of cliometrics occurred in the 1960s and 70s. Published in 1974, Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery by Stanley Engerman and Robert Fogel ( Fogel R.W., Engerman S.L. Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery. Boston; Toronto: Little, Brown, and Company, 1974) caused heated controversy (findings about the economic efficiency of slavery in the southern United States were perceived by some critics as a justification for slavery) and showed the possibilities of cliometrics. In 1993, one of the book's authors, Robert Fogel, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, including for this research.

6. Monuments of cultural heritage - a strategic priority of Russia // Izvestia. 2016. 22 Nov.

7. The hermeneutic circle was described by G.-G. Gadamer: “We can understand something only thanks to pre-existing assumptions about it, and not when it is presented to us as something absolutely mysterious. The fact that anticipations can be a source of errors in interpretation and that prejudices that contribute to understanding can also lead to misunderstanding is only an indication of the finitude of such a being as a person, and the manifestation of this finitude.” Gadamer G.-G. About the circle of understanding // Relevance of beauty. M.: Art, 1991).

History studies the traces of human activity. The object is a person.

Functions of historical knowledge:

Scientific and educational

Prognostic

Educational

Social memory

The method (research method) shows how cognition occurs, on what methodological basis, on what scientific principles. A method is a way of research, a way of constructing and justifying knowledge. More than two thousand years ago, two main approaches to historical thought arose that still exist today: the idealistic and materialistic understanding of history.

Representatives of the idealistic concept in history believe that spirit and consciousness are primary and more important than matter and nature. Thus, they argue that the human soul and mind determine the pace and nature of historical development, and other processes, including in the economy, are secondary, derived from the spirit. Thus, idealists conclude that the basis of the historical process is the spiritual and moral improvement of people, and human society is developed by man himself, while man’s abilities are given by God.

Supporters of the materialist concept argued and maintain the opposite: since material life is primary in relation to the consciousness of people, it is economic structures, processes and phenomena in society that determine all spiritual development and other relationships between people.

An idealistic approach is more typical for Western historical science, while a materialistic one is more typical for domestic science. Modern historical science is based on the dialectical-materialist method, which considers social development as a natural historical process, which is determined by objective laws and at the same time is influenced by the subjective factor through the activities of the masses, classes, political parties, leaders, and leaders.

There are also special historical research methods:

chronological – provides for the presentation of historical material in chronological order;

synchronous – involves the simultaneous study of events occurring in society;

dichronic – periodization method;

historical modeling;

statistical method.

2. Methods of studying history and modern historical science.

Empirical and theoretical levels of knowledge.

Historical and logical

Abstraction and absolutization

Analysis and synthesis

Deduction and induction, etc.

1.Historical and genetic development

2.Historical-comparative

3.historical-typological classification

4.historical-systemic method (everything is in the system)

5. Biographical, problematic, chronological, problem-chronological.

Modern historical science differs from the historical science of all previous eras in that it develops in a new information space, borrowing its methods from it and itself influences its formation. Now the task of not just writing historical works on this or that topic is coming to the fore, but creating verified history, verified by large and reliable databases created by the efforts of creative teams.

Features of modern historical science.

1. Sociocultural development

2. Spiritual and mental foundations

3. Ethno-demographic features

4. Natural geographical features

5. Political and economic aspects

6. Providentialism (by the will of God)

7. Physiocrats (natural phenomena, not God, but man)

8. Geographical, public, social factors.

9. Interdisciplinary approaches (social anthropology, gender studies).

3. Humanity in the primitive era.

Primitive society (also prehistoric society) is a period in human history before the invention of writing, after which the possibility of historical research based on the study of written sources appears. In a broad sense, the word “prehistoric” is applicable to any period before the invention of writing, starting from the beginning of the Universe (about 14 billion years ago), but in a narrow sense - only to the prehistoric past of man.

Periods of development of primitive society

In the 40s of the 20th century, Soviet scientists Efimenko, Kosven, Pershits and others proposed systems for the periodization of primitive society, the criterion of which was the evolution of forms of ownership, the degree of division of labor, family relationships, etc. In a generalized form, such periodization can be presented as follows:

1. the era of the primitive herd;

2. the era of the tribal system;

3. the era of the decomposition of the communal-tribal system (the emergence of cattle breeding, plow farming and metal processing, the emergence of elements of exploitation and private property).

Stone Age

The Stone Age is the oldest period in human history, when the main tools and weapons were made mainly from stone, but wood and bone were also used. At the end of the Stone Age, the use of clay spread (dishes, brick buildings, sculpture).

Periodization of the Stone Age:

Paleolithic:

The Lower Paleolithic is the period of the emergence of the most ancient species of people and the widespread spread of Homo erectus.

The Middle Paleolithic is a period of displacement by evolutionarily more advanced species of people, including modern humans. Neanderthals dominated Europe throughout the Middle Paleolithic.

The Upper Paleolithic is the period of dominance of the modern species of people throughout the globe during the era of the last glaciation.

Mesolithic and Epipaleolithic; The period is characterized by the development of technology for the production of stone tools and general human culture. There is no ceramics.

Neolithic is the era of the emergence of agriculture. Tools and weapons are still made of stone, but their production is being brought to perfection, and ceramics are widely distributed.

Copper Age

The Copper Age, Copper-Stone Age, Chalcolithic or Chalcolithic is a period in the history of primitive society, a transitional period from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age. Approximately covers the period 4-3 thousand BC. e., but in some territories it exists longer, and in some it is absent altogether. Most often, the Chalcolithic is included in the Bronze Age, but is sometimes considered a separate period. During the Eneolithic, copper tools were common, but stone ones still predominated.

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is a period in the history of primitive society, characterized by the leading role of bronze products, which was associated with the improvement of the processing of metals such as copper and tin obtained from ore deposits, and the subsequent production of bronze from them. The Bronze Age is the second, later phase of the Early Metal Age, which replaced the Copper Age and preceded the Iron Age. In general, the chronological framework of the Bronze Age: 5-6 thousand years BC. e.

Iron Age

The Iron Age is a period in the history of primitive society, characterized by the spread of iron metallurgy and the manufacture of iron tools. Bronze Age civilizations go beyond the history of primitive society; other peoples' civilization takes shape during the Iron Age.

The term "Iron Age" is usually applied to the "barbarian" cultures of Europe that existed simultaneously with the great civilizations of antiquity (Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Parthia). The “barbarians” were distinguished from ancient cultures by the absence or rare use of writing, and therefore information about them has reached us either from archaeological data or from mentions in ancient sources. On the territory of Europe during the Iron Age, M. B. Shchukin identified six “barbarian worlds”:

Celts (La Tène culture);

Proto-Germans (mainly Jastorf culture + southern Scandinavia);

mostly Proto-Baltic cultures of the forest zone (possibly including Proto-Slavs);

proto-Finno-Ugric and proto-Sami cultures of the northern forest zone (mainly along rivers and lakes);

steppe Iranian-speaking cultures (Scythians, Sarmatians, etc.);

pastoral-agricultural cultures of the Thracians, Dacians and Getae.

Methods of studying history and modern historical science.

Empirical and theoretical levels of knowledge.

Historical and logical

Abstraction and absolutization

Analysis and synthesis

Deduction and induction, etc.

1.Historical and genetic development

2.Historical-comparative

3.historical-typological classification

4.historical-systemic method (everything is in the system)

5. Biographical, problematic, chronological, problem-chronological.

Features of modern historical science.

1. Sociocultural development

2. Spiritual and mental foundations

3. Ethno-demographic features

4. Natural geographical features

5. Political and economic aspects

6. Providentialism (by the will of God)

7. Physiocrats (natural phenomena, not God, but man)

8. Geographical, public, social factors.

9. Interdisciplinary approaches (social anthropology, gender studies).

Humanity in the era of primitiveness.

Periods of development of primitive society

1. the era of the primitive herd;

2. the era of the tribal system;

3. the era of the decomposition of the communal-tribal system (the emergence of cattle breeding, plow farming and metal processing, the emergence of elements of exploitation and private property).

Stone Age

Periodization of the Stone Age:

Paleolithic:

The Lower Paleolithic is the period of the emergence of the most ancient species of people and the widespread spread of Homo erectus.

The Middle Paleolithic is a period of displacement by evolutionarily more advanced species of people, including modern humans. Neanderthals dominated Europe throughout the Middle Paleolithic.

The Upper Paleolithic is the period of dominance of the modern species of people throughout the globe during the era of the last glaciation.

Mesolithic and Epipaleolithic; The period is characterized by the development of technology for the production of stone tools and general human culture. There is no ceramics.

Neolithic is the era of the emergence of agriculture. Tools and weapons are still made of stone, but their production is being brought to perfection, and ceramics are widely distributed.

Copper Age

Bronze Age

Iron Age

Celts (La Tène culture);

Proto-Germans (mainly Jastorf culture + southern Scandinavia);

mostly Proto-Baltic cultures of the forest zone (possibly including Proto-Slavs);

proto-Finno-Ugric and proto-Sami cultures of the northern forest zone (mainly along rivers and lakes);

steppe Iranian-speaking cultures (Scythians, Sarmatians, etc.);

pastoral-agricultural cultures of the Thracians, Dacians and Getae.

ORIGINS OF ROMAN CIVILIZATION

The Romans were proud that, unlike many other peoples, they knew the history of their country to ancient times, starting from the day when, according to legend, Rome was founded - April 21, 753 BC. e. In fact, the most ancient period of Roman history contains many mysteries, which to this day cause controversy among scientists.

Apennine Peninsula

Roman civilization, like ancient Greek, was maritime. The Apennine Peninsula, fenced off from the mainland by the Alps, is washed from the west by the Tyrrhenian Sea, and from the east by the Adriatic Sea, which are parts of the Mediterranean Sea. True, unlike Greece, the coastline of Italy is much less indented: there are not a large number of convenient harbors and islands that made life so easy for Greek sailors. But this did not stop Rome from becoming the largest maritime power. The most convenient bays were in the Gulf of Naples and at the mouth of the Tiber.

The climate in Italy is mild and warm, only in the north there are severe winters. The most fertile were the valleys of the Po, Tiber, and Arno rivers. Conditions for agriculture were not as favorable as, for example, in Egypt or Mesopotamia, although many ancient historians praised the abundant vegetation and other natural resources of Italy.

Let us outline the most important conditions due to which the Romans have now risen to such heights. The first of these conditions is that Italy, like an island, is surrounded, like a sure fence, by the seas, with the exception of only a few parts, which, in turn, are protected by impenetrable mountains. The second condition is that, although most of its coasts do not have harbors, the existing harbors are extensive and very convenient. One of them is especially advantageous for repelling invasions from outside; the other is useful for attacks on external enemies and for extensive trade.

Romans and their neighbors

In ancient times, the Apennine Peninsula was inhabited by many tribes: among them were the Ligures, Umbrians, Veneti, as well as the Latins who lived in the lower reaches of the Tiber. This region, separated from its neighbors by low mountains, was called Latium. It was here that the center of the future Roman civilization arose.

In the 8th century BC e., that is, in the era of the birth of Roman civilization, all these tribes had not yet completely emerged from the state of primitiveness. But other peoples who stood at a higher stage of development lived next to them - Greek, Carthaginian settlers and the Etruscan tribe.

In the VIII-VI centuries. BC e. Greek colonists settled along the shores of Southern and Central Italy, as well as in Sicily. Cities arose there, among them Naples and Syracuse - large trade and cultural centers. This played a big role in the development of the future Roman civilization. After all, in the colonial cities the same forms of government were established as in Greece itself, philosophy, literature and art flourished. Greek technology, mythology, alphabet, agricultural skills, political system - all this, to one degree or another, influenced the tribes that inhabited Italy.

The western part of Sicily was colonized by the Carthaginians. Carthage - in the future the main enemy of Rome - was the largest North African colony of the Phoenicians. It was located on the territory of modern Tunisia. Carthage, the most important center of intermediary trade, was actually independent and itself sent colonists along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The Carthaginians were formidable opponents of the Greeks: in the 7th-6th centuries. BC e. They fought a stubborn battle with them for Sicily and managed to conquer a significant part of the island.

There are many mysteries associated with the Etruscan tribe: its origin is unknown, although most historians believe that the Etruscans came to Italy from somewhere in the East. The Etruscans used the Greek alphabet, but their language has not yet been deciphered. And yet, enough of the Etruscan culture has survived to judge its high level. The Etruscans were the Romans' closest neighbors: they occupied an area called Etruria (in the area of modern Tuscany). Cities with a regular rectangular layout and stone houses and temples were erected there. The Etruscans were engaged in agriculture, trade, sea piracy, and crafts.

The Etruscans had a strong influence on the Romans: this was manifested in art, religion, city planning, and the special architecture of houses - with a courtyard. From the Etruscans, the Romans took signs of royal power - bundles of rods with hatchets embedded in them. Greek culture was adopted through the Etruscans. Connections with Etruria were strong: young men from noble families were sent there to study in the 6th century. BC e. the kings of the Etruscan dynasty ruled the Romans, and in Rome itself a special quarter even arose where immigrants from Etruria lived.

As the power of the Romans increased, the Etruscans lost their importance. By the middle of the 1st century. BC e., having suffered a series of defeats from the Romans, they no longer played any role in the history of ancient Italy, and their language was soon forgotten. A similar fate befell the Greek colonial cities: they began to lose power in the 5th-4th centuries. BC e. Among the neighbors of the Romans, the most formidable opponents until the middle of the 2nd century. BC e. only the Carthaginians remained.

So, not only natural conditions favored the formation of Rome: the Romans began their history surrounded by the Greeks, Carthaginians, and Etruscans, who stood at a higher level of culture. Communication with them made it possible to take advantage of “other people’s” achievements, and this accelerated the pace of development of Roman civilization.

THE PATH TO THE REPUBLIC

Patricians and plebeians

After the establishment of the republican system, conflicts in Roman society intensified. The main opposing forces were the patricians and plebeians. The position of the patricians after the overthrow of the monarchy improved significantly. From among them, consuls were chosen - the two highest officials in the state who performed the functions of the former kings. Only patricians could be elected to the Senate - the main body of the Roman Republic, which decided the most important issues of foreign and domestic policy. Only patricians could become priests. They knew all the intricacies of legal proceedings and held it in their hands. In addition, the patricians accumulated more and more land: they had the right to occupy plots from the land fund of their community - a fund that was constantly increasing as Rome won military victories. This is how the patricians acquired large land holdings.

The plebeians were deprived of this privilege, many of them went bankrupt and were even turned into slaves for debt. There was only one way to solve this problem - to equalize the rights with the patricians. In this case, the plebeians would also have access to government.

The outcome of the conflict largely depended on the characteristics of life in Rome. Rome spent the first centuries of its history in endless wars with its neighbors, suffering defeats or winning victories, and in the future it remained a militarized state. In the initial period of the history of this civilization, military campaigns were carried out every year, starting in March and ending in October. Each citizen was required to participate in 20 military campaigns in the infantry or 10 if he was in the cavalry. Avoiding military service meant being sold into slavery. It was impossible to assemble a strong army without the participation of the plebeians; the patricians thus found themselves dependent on the plebeians.

In 494 BC. e. The plebeians refused to go on a military campaign and left Rome fully armed, setting up camp on the Sacred Mountain, one of the hills neighboring Rome. This tactic worked - the patricians were forced to give in, and the plebeians won the right to have tribunes of the people - defenders of their interests. The personality of the tribune was considered inviolable. Subsequently, the plebeians more than once used the same method of pressure, and the patricians always made concessions.

One of the most important developments was the appearance of the first written laws in Rome. In 449 BC. e. the laws were written down on twelve copper tablets and put on public display in the Forum, the main square of Rome. This was the end of the arbitrariness of the patricians, who previously judged “according to custom.” But the struggle for political rights and land was not yet over. Only by the 3rd century. BC e. the plebeians eventually equalized their rights with the patricians. Marriages between patricians and plebeians were no longer prohibited; decisions made by assemblies of plebeians had the force of law; one of the consuls was necessarily chosen from the plebeians. Debt slavery was abolished, and the right to own public land was limited: now each citizen could receive a plot of no more than 125 hectares.

In the 3rd century. BC e. The civil community of Rome was finally formed. By this time, its internal life had also changed, and its composition expanded - the patrician community turned into a patrician-plebeian one.

Civic community of Rome

In the Roman community, as in the Greek, collective and private land ownership were combined; all citizens had equal rights and were not only farmers, but also warriors. The concepts of “good farmer”, “good warrior” and “good citizen” long merged into one whole in the minds of the Romans.

Farmers make the bravest men and the most enterprising warriors, and farming is the most pious and sustainable occupation...

Community life was organized in such a way as to maintain a balance between personal and social benefits. In Rome there were no taxes to support the state apparatus. People holding senior positions did not receive a salary and had to organize feasts, games, build temples, and provide poor citizens with plots of land at their own expense. The path to the top was open primarily to the nobility, which included patricians and the plebeian elite. On the other hand, the richer the citizen was, the more money he was obliged to spend for the common good.

Military service was a duty for citizens, but an honorable duty. A person could not become a statesman without military experience. Only in the 4th century. the soldiers began to be paid a salary: before that they were content with the fruits of their victories and had to take care of weapons and food themselves. When the war began, a loan was taken from citizens, which was returned after the victory. War booty became the property of the community, and all citizens enjoyed it. The taken land was added to the public land, and then divided between the soldiers and the landless. Precious metals and other tribute went to the community treasury. The rest was distributed among the soldiers, who were also given gifts by the generals.

Nobility - from the Latin word “nobilis” - “noble, noble”.

Religion was of great importance in the life of the Romans. The most ancient gods were the two-faced Janus - the creator of the Universe, Jupiter - the god of the sky, Mars - the god of war. The Romans revered Vesta - the guardian of the hearth and the state, Juno - the goddess of the moon and patroness of women, Minerva - the goddess of wisdom, patroness of crafts. There were many other gods, and their number was increasing all the time. The Romans willingly accepted “foreign” gods - Etruscan, Greek, and then eastern.

Religious rituals were a kind of public duty of citizens: members of the community had to participate in the rituals of their family, honoring the “family” gods, and in national rituals. Any business in Ancient Rome began with asking for the will of the gods.

Historians call the Roman religion rational and practical. Relations with the gods were, so to speak, of a business nature: one had to remain faithful to the gods, strictly follow rituals and various prohibitions, and in return one could count on their help.

The highest judgment of a person in Ancient Rome was carried out not by gods, but by society - fellow citizens assessed a person’s actions, expressed approval or disapproval. The best citizens were role models; people should be guided by their deeds performed for the common good.

Thus, the idea of “common benefit” determined both the order in the civil community and the behavior of each individual member. The obligations of a Roman citizen were clearly established: duty to society came first, duty to family came second, and concern for one's personal welfare came last.

Public assemblies played a large role in the public life of Rome. Resolutions of people's assemblies had the force of law. In addition, the tribunes had high powers: they had the right to impose a ban on the decisions of the court, the Senate and senior officials if these decisions infringed on the interests of the plebeians. The doors of the tribune's house had to remain open both day and night so that any plebeian could find protection there.

The most important governing body was the Senate, consisting of patricians and the top plebs: it was in charge of issues of domestic policy and determined foreign policy; finances and religious worship were under the control of the Senate. The Senate was an aristocratic body. Historians believe that, despite all the importance of popular assemblies, it was he who ultimately led the state. In this respect, Roman democracy differed from Athenian democracy.

In Republican Rome, traditions inherited from the monarchy were also preserved. The highest power belonged to two consuls. True, they were re-elected annually, but their powers were practically no different from those that the kings had previously had. After their election, consuls were even given symbols of royal power. Outside Rome, during wars, the power of the consuls was unquestioned, but in the city it was limited by the Senate and popular assemblies. Ancient historians were aware of the uniqueness of their statehood and considered it the most perfect.

I Republic - literally translated from Latin as “public matter”. A state in which power belongs to people chosen by society for a certain period of time.

The first of them was Polybius (201-120 BC), a Greek by birth, who lived in Rome for many years and became his enthusiastic admirer. Polybius created a theory that explained why the Romans were able to rise above many nations. In his opinion, Rome had the best form of government - a mixed one, combining democracy (people's assemblies), a monarchical principle (consuls), and an aristocratic principle (Senate). None of these principles of government suppressed the others, but taken together they formed a single harmonious whole.

Path to world domination

In the 4th century. BC e. The Romans took possession of the entire territory of Central Italy.

The Romans conquered almost the entire known world and raised their power to such a height that was unthinkable for their ancestors and will not be surpassed by their descendants.

The Romans declared most of the conquered Italian tribes as their allies. This meant that they had to pay a war tax to Rome and send troops to help the Roman army. Rome did not interfere in the internal affairs of the allies, but did not allow them to conclude treaties among themselves. Roman colonies began to appear throughout Italy. Thanks to them, two problems were solved: the poor Romans received land and, with the help of colonies, the local population was kept from speaking out against Rome.

Having conquered vast territories, Rome remained a relatively closed city-state: only a very small part of the Italian population had Roman citizenship.

BIII century BC e. it was the turn of Southern Italy, where there were rich Greek colonies, and then Sicily. Because of this fertile island, the Romans had to wage brutal wars with Carthage for decades. The Punic Wars (the Romans called the Carthaginians Punns), which began in the middle of the 3rd century. BC e., continued intermittently until the middle of the 2nd century. BC e.; Only in 146 the city of Carthage was captured and literally wiped off the face of the earth - burned to the ground.

2nd century BC e. marked by victory over Greece. Having crushed the two most serious opponents and rivals, Rome in the 2nd-1st centuries. BC e. became a world power covering the entire Mediterranean, and subsequently continued to expand its borders.

Military successes and expansion of territory caused global changes in various areas of Roman civilization. Victories over Carthage and Greece enriched Rome. Huge indemnities were collected from the conquered peoples, and a flow of slave power began to flow into the slave markets.

Conquered countries (outside Italy) became provinces of Rome and were taxed. Trade ties began to be quickly established with rich provinces.

Social and economic crisis of the community

The flourishing of trade and the direct robbery of new possessions gave an important result - commodity-money relations began to actively develop in Rome.

Commodity-money relations and a sharp increase in the number of slaves changed a lot in the life of the Roman peasantry. Until the 2nd century. BC e. in Italy there were a lot of small and medium-sized peasant farms, in which mainly family members (surnames) worked, providing for themselves. In the II-I centuries. BC e. such natural farms began to die and were replaced by other, larger ones, in which slave labor was used, and the products were partially sent to the market.

The new farms were called villas; from the stories of contemporaries we know what they were like. The outstanding politician of that era, Catan the Elder, described his own estate, which he considered exemplary. Cato had a complex farm: an olive grove, a vineyard, a pasture for livestock and a field of grain crops. To maintain such a villa, the labor of many people was required, mostly slaves: 13 people looked after the olives, and at least 16 people looked after the vineyard. Cato was very interested in the profitability of his villa and the opportunity to sell his products. “The owner should strive to buy less and sell more,” he wrote.

The small and middle peasantry went bankrupt or were simply forcibly deprived of their land, while slaves began to turn into the main producers, displacing the labor of the free. Ancient historians wrote with alarm and indignation that the old law was forgotten, according to which a citizen was supposed to have no more than 125 hectares of land. The Greek historian Plutarch reconstructed in detail the picture of this process: “The rich began to transfer the lease to themselves with the help of dummies and, in the end, openly secured most of the lands for themselves.”

Peasants deprived of land became tenants or farm laborers. However, the farm laborers could not secure a permanent income for themselves: their work was seasonal. And a huge mass of peasants poured into the cities, increasing the number of urban plebs. These new plebeians bore little resemblance to their predecessors, the free farmers who sought rights against the patricians. Some managed to find work as artisans or construction workers, others formed a special layer - the ancient lumpen proletariat - and existed due to state distributions of bread, money or the generosity of politicians who won votes.

The slaves, who in that era became a special class, were also not homogeneous. Their numbers have increased incredibly compared to former times, when slavery was domestic. On the island of Delos alone, one of the largest centers of the slave trade, about 10 thousand slaves were sometimes sold per day. Some of them became state slaves, but mostly they passed into the hands of private owners, also forming two groups - rural and urban.

The means of labor are divided into three parts: speaking tools, emitting inarticulate sounds, and dumb tools; Slaves are among those who speak, oxen are among those emitting inarticulate sounds, and carts are among those who make inarticulate sounds. Marcus Varro, Roman writer, 116-27. BC e.

Among the city slaves, who, of course, were in a more privileged position, there were many educated, qualified people. Through the learned Greek slaves, for whom, by the way, the Romans remained barbarians, Hellenistic culture penetrated into Rome. The “slave intelligentsia” created technical improvements: pipes through which steam flowed and heated the rooms, special polishing of marble, mirror tiles, etc.

Transformations also occurred in the upper strata of society. The Roman nobility began to be squeezed out by a new monetary aristocracy - the horsemen. The horsemen, as a rule, belonged to the ignorant but wealthy townspeople who became rich from trade or collecting taxes in the provinces.

Significant changes were taking place in society; its structure became more complex, and, consequently, the relationships between different layers became more complex. For example, rivalry arose between the nobility and the horsemen for the right to exploit the provinces. In addition, the horsemen strived for higher positions, practically unavailable to them at that time. Conflict grew between large and medium-sized, as well as small landowners. Already in the 2nd century. BC e. The first slave uprising occurred (in Sicily) - another important source of social tension opened up.

Serious problems were also associated with the provinces. Rome faced the question: how to manage them? A governor was appointed to the province, who for a year, until his term ended, had full power and virtually ruled there uncontrollably, as if it were his own fiefdom. The provincials were also ruined by tax collectors, who contributed the required amount to the treasury, and then robbed the population for their own benefit. In essence, governance came down to the robbery of the provinces, and this was unprofitable even from the point of view of the Romans themselves.

Residents of the provinces had other problems, and the main one was how to obtain citizenship rights? The population of the provinces, including the Roman colonists, had more or less reduced rights, or even none at all, and this, of course, was a source of discontent and conflict.

Having turned into a huge power, Rome could no longer remain a community. The first signs of the destruction of its traditional structure and norms of community life appeared in the 2nd century. BC e., and soon this process unfolded in full force.

Searching for a way out

The answer to the approaching crisis was the reform of Tiberius and Gaius the Greeks. A descendant of an ancient plebeian family that belonged to the Roman nobility, Tiberius Graiah, elected tribune of the people, in! 33g. Don. created a project for land ownership reform. He decided to resurrect the principle of equalization in the use of land. Therefore, the main point of his program was that only a strictly defined number of plots could be taken from everything else. A special commission was organized, which was supposed to take away the surplus from large landowners and distribute it among landless citizens.

This program met with strong opposition from members of the Senate. The atmosphere was tense, and during one of the popular meetings, an armed clash occurred between opponents and supporters of Gracchus, in which the tribune of the people was killed. For the first time in its history, a civil war broke out on the streets of Rome, albeit on a small scale - a formidable sign of trouble in society.

The reform of Tiberius Gracchus was to some extent implemented by his brother. Guy Gracchus resumed the activities of the commission, having managed to allocate land to 50-75 thousand families, but he, too, faced defeat. The struggle again reached an armed conflict, in which about 3 thousand people died, and Gracchus ordered his slave to kill himself.

The Gracchi brothers wanted to resurrect and preserve the old community, but it was impossible to do this through the “administrative” method (as, indeed, in any other way). Meanwhile, the conflict over land flared up, until finally a grandiose uprising of the Italian population broke out - the Allied War (90-88 BC). Rome was forced to make concessions: the Italian population received the rights of Roman citizens, and, consequently, the opportunity to participate in political life. However, equalization of rights did not mean a return to equalization in the use of land.

Result The allied war was very important: now Rome was no longer the only center in which full-fledged citizens were concentrated; its population lost its former privileges. Rome as a civil community ended its existence.

At the origins of imperial power

The last decades of the republic's existence were full of turmoil: Rome experienced the Allied War, unrest in the provinces, a grandiose slave uprising led by Spartacus, in battles with which the Roman legions suffered defeats for a long time, and finally, the struggle of political groups for power, which resulted in civil wars.

During these turbulent years, a new form of government began to emerge, destroying the principles of the republican system - the sole power of a dictator or emperor. Such titles existed in Rome before, but they were used only in extraordinary circumstances and for a short time (usually in case of war). In the 1st century BC e. The situation was repeated twice when they were given for life, without a term limit.

The first to achieve dictatorial power was the talented commander Sulla, the second was Caesar (100-44 BC), whose glory as a military leader and strategist survived centuries. Both relied primarily on the army, and this is no coincidence: the army in that era turned into the most reliable force, which was used not only to pacify the enemy, but also to resolve internal political disputes.

The dictatorship of Sulla and Caesar did not last long. But the transition to imperial rule was already inevitable.

Only with the help of a strong individual power was it possible to maintain the political unity of a huge and variegated empire, streamline the administration of the provinces, and satisfy the interests of various strata of society.

The imperial sole power was finally established in 27 BC. e., when Octavian, a relative of Caesar, received from the Senate the title of emperor for life, as well as the titles of Augustus, that is, “exalted by the deity,” and “son of god,” as was the case in the eastern despotisms.

What significance did the change in the system of government have for Roman civilization? A. Toynbee believed that the creation of an empire is the desire of an already dying civilization to avoid its fate. For Toynbee, imperial Rome is a civilization that the "creative spirit" has abandoned. But, paradoxically, to the people of that era, the empire and all the orders established in it seemed eternal and ideal; their “ephemeral nature” was invisible to contemporaries.

"Golden Age" of the Empire

The beginning of the imperial era was brilliant, especially in comparison with the previous turbulent, troubled time of internal conflicts. This was largely due to the personality of Octavian Augustus, who is rightfully considered one of the most prominent political figures in Rome.

Augustus received full power: he managed the treasury, negotiated with other states, resolved issues of war and peace, and nominated candidates for senior government positions. However, Augustus himself, who became the first person in the state and had enormous powers, used them very wisely. He called himself princeps, that is, the first person on the list of senators, thereby emphasizing respect for the Senate and the traditions of republican Rome (therefore, the era of the reign of Augustus and his successors is called “principate”). Moreover, Augustus and his supporters claimed to have restored the republic. In the minds of the Romans, the republic did not exclude individual rule, if this did not contradict the principle of “common benefit.” We believe that Jupiter, who throws thunder, reigns in the sky: here on earth Augustus is ranked among the gods...

Horace

To a certain extent, this principle underlay the activities of Octavian Augustus, who tried to stabilize relations between different layers of society. While strengthening centralized power, he at the same time made concessions that benefited everyone except the slaves to one degree or another.

The senators remained a privileged class, although they were obedient to the will of Augustus. At the same time, Octavian attracted new trade and monetary nobility, horsemen, to his side, appointing them to high positions. The popular assemblies also survived, despite the fact that they began to lose their importance even before the reign of Augustus. Poor citizens received free grain every month.

Augustus wanted to revive the ancient purity of morals and introduced laws to limit luxury; Severe punishments awaited all who were guilty of adultery. The emperor personally set an example of gentle, humane treatment of slaves.

Respecting the interests of society, Augustus did not forget about strengthening imperial power: he expanded the administrative apparatus, under his command there were special troops that maintained order in Rome and on the borders.

During this era, Roman civilization experienced a rise: a certain stability was achieved in society, Roman literature reached an unusually high flourishing, in which a whole galaxy of talented original poets appeared, combining both Greek and native Roman traditions (Ovid, Virgil, Horace, Tibullus). Augustus was the patron of art and science, under him a water supply system was laid in Rome, and the construction of magnificent temples that adorned the city began. Contemporaries perceived this era as a “golden age.”

Empire after Augustus

However, after the death of Augustus (14 AD), it quickly became obvious that the system of government he created was not so perfect. Sole power opened up opportunities for manifestations of despotism and arbitrariness and from time to time turned into tyranny, against which few dared to protest. A striking example of the violation of old republican traditions and legality is the attitude of the Senate towards Emperor Nero (reigned from 54 to 68), guilty of the murder of his wife and mother. Nero himself was surprised when the Senate, despite the atrocities committed by the emperor, welcomed him; According to legend, Nero exclaimed: “Until now, not a single princeps knew how far he could go!”

Of course, not all emperors followed in Nero's footsteps; and in imperial Rome the basis of power was considered to be legality. Many rulers became famous for their wisdom and humanism (for example, the emperors of the Antonine dynasty, Marcus Aurelius - “the philosopher on the throne”), and their activities again resurrected dreams of a “golden age”. During the imperial era, the position of slaves softened somewhat,

NON-STATE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION OF HIGHER PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

"MOSCOW ECONOMIC INSTITUTE"

Faculty of Design

ABSTRACT

In the discipline "History"

On the topic " History as a science. Russia in the world historical process»

Performed:

Anahit Arturovna Harutyunyan

Correspondence department

Moscow

2017

1. Preface

6. The history of Russia is an integral part of world history. general and specific in historical development

10. Literature

Preface

The word “history” came to us from the ancient Greek language, where it meant “investigation, establishment.” History was identified with the establishment of authenticity, the truth of events and facts, and meant any knowledge obtained through research, and not just historical knowledge itself in the modern sense. Currently, the term “history” has several meanings. On the one hand, history refers to any process of development in nature and society (for example, the history of species, the history of science, etc.), on the other hand, the concept of “history” refers to the past stored in the memory of people, as well as any story about it past. History, as a special humanitarian science, studies the past of human society in all its diversity. The past does not disappear - it lives in each of us, determining our destiny, our daily life, our vector of development, our path in life. Therefore, history always surrounds a person and is present in us, although it is sometimes very difficult to catch it with a glance, hearing or thought. It is this “look”, the turning inward of ourselves, that all the humanities are devoted to, among which historical knowledge occupies a special place.

The history of a country is, first of all, the history of its people, and every nation has the right to be proud of its history. Just as the life history of an individual person is embodied in the characteristics of his personality, in his knowledge, skills, character traits, so the past of an entire people is embodied in the achievements of our time. However, every person must remember not only the events of his life, but also know the history of his ancestors - only then will he be able to fully understand his place in the series of generations and better understand the meaning of his own existence. To understand yourself, to understand the life around you, to imagine the possible course of events - that’s what history is for.

Comprehension of history is not only the acquisition of a sum of knowledge about the past, but it is also always the development of historical thinking, which allows one to more clearly understand one’s position in society, clearly define one’s civic position and one’s attitude to current events and phenomena, to reveal and understand their essence and direction. True comprehension of historical knowledge is possible only with its personal comprehension, with independent search, selection and interpretation of facts.

History as a science: Auxiliary subjects and functions of history

History is the science of the past of human society and its present, of the patterns of development of social life in specific forms, in space-time dimensions. The content of history is the historical process, which is revealed in the phenomena of human life, information about which is preserved in historical monuments and sources. These phenomena are extremely diverse and relate to the development of the economy, the external and internal social life of the country, international relations, and the activities of historical figures.

The historical past is recreated by scientists using objects of material culture, written sources or some other basis. But since the heritage of the past is enormous, and human activities are very diverse, it is almost impossible to cover them entirely. Therefore, in historical science there is specialization according to several principles:

– in terms of time (chronological) coverage. In the historical process, the main eras are distinguished (traditionally: primitiveness, antiquity, the Middle Ages, modern / modern times) and their individual periods;

– by spatial (geographical) coverage. World history can be presented as the history of individual continents (history of Africa, Latin America), regions (Balkan studies, history of the Middle East), countries (Chinese studies), peoples or groups of peoples (Slavic studies);

– in various spheres of human activity (political, legal, economic, military, scientific, etc.).

In addition, historical science includes several special branches: archeology, which studies the past from material sources; ethnography, which studies living peoples and ethnic communities, their way of life and culture; source studies, which develops the theory and methodology of studying and using historical sources; historiography, which studies the formation and development of historical science (history of history). There are also a number of special (auxiliary) historical disciplines that study certain forms and types of historical sources:

§ Paleography – an auxiliary historical discipline (a special historical and philological discipline) that studies the history of writing, the patterns of development of its graphic forms, as well as monuments of ancient writing in order to read them, determine the author, time and place of creation. Paleography studies the evolution of the graphic forms of letters, written signs, the proportions of their constituent elements, the types and evolution of fonts, the system of abbreviations and their graphic designation, writing materials and tools. A special branch of paleography studies the graphics of secret writing systems (cryptography).

§ Diplomatics – an auxiliary historical discipline that studies historical acts (legal documents). She examines ancient documents of a diplomatic and legal nature: charters, acts and similar texts and their originals. One of its tasks is to distinguish forged acts from real ones.

§ Genealogy – an auxiliary historical discipline that deals with the study of family relationships of people, the history of clans, the origin of individuals, the establishment of family ties, the compilation of generational lists and family trees. Genealogy is related to heraldry, diplomacy and many other historical disciplines. Since the beginning of the 21st century, due to scientific progress, genetic genealogy, using human DNA analysis, has been gaining popularity.

§ Heraldry - a special historical discipline that deals with the study of coats of arms, as well as the tradition and practice of their use. It is part of emblems - a group of interrelated disciplines that study emblems. The difference between coats of arms and other emblems is that their structure, use and legal status comply with special, historically established rules. Heraldry precisely determines what and how can be applied to the state coat of arms, family coat of arms, and so on, and explains the meaning of certain figures.

§ Sphragistics – an auxiliary historical discipline that studies seals (matrices) and their impressions on various materials. Initially developed as a part of diplomacy, dealing with determining the authenticity of documents.

§ Historical metrology - an auxiliary historical discipline that studies the measures used in the past - length, area, volume, weight - in their historical development. Often units of measurement did not form the metric system; they are classified as traditional measurement systems. Historical metrology studies the history of the genesis and development of various measurement systems, the names of individual measures, their quantitative relationships, and establishes their real values, that is, their correspondence to modern metric systems. Metrology is closely related to numismatics, since many peoples in the past had measures of weight that coincided with monetary units and had the same name.

§ Numismatics – an auxiliary historical discipline that studies the history of coinage and monetary circulation.

§ Social functions of numismatics: identification of numismatic cultural monuments; the study of characteristic facts, connections and processes that contribute to a more in-depth understanding of history and fill gaps in historical science.

§ Chronology – an auxiliary historical discipline that establishes the dates of historical events and documents; sequence of historical events in time; a list of any events in their time sequence.

§ Historical geography – an auxiliary historical discipline that studies history through the “prism” of geography; It is also the geography of a territory at a certain historical stage of its development. At the moment, there are 8 sectors of historical geography: - historical physical geography (historical geography) - the most conservative branch, studies changes in the landscape; - historical political geography - studies changes in the political map, political system, routes of conquest; - historical geography of population – studies ethnographic and geographical features of population distribution in territories; - historical social geography – studies the relationships of society, the change of social layers;

§ - historical cultural geography – studies spiritual and material culture; - historical geography of interaction between society and nature - direct (human influence on nature) and reverse (nature on human); - historical economic geography – studies the development of production, industrial revolutions; historical and geographical regional studies. Archival studies

§ – a scientific discipline that studies and develops theoretical, methodological and organizational issues of archival science and its history. Archeology

§ - a historical discipline that studies the historical past of mankind from material sources. Ethnography

§ - part of historical science that studies ethnic peoples and other ethnic formations, their origin (ethnogenesis), composition, settlement, cultural and everyday characteristics, as well as their material and spiritual culture. Historiography

§ is an auxiliary historical discipline that studies the history of historical science. Historiography examines the correct application of the scientific method in writing a historical work, focusing on the author, his sources, the separation of facts from interpretation, as well as the style, author's preferences and the audience for which he wrote this work in the field of history. Historical computer science

– an auxiliary historical discipline that studies the methods of using information technologies in the study of the historical process, the publication of historical research and the teaching of historical disciplines, as well as in archival and museum affairs.

- descriptive (narrative) function, which boils down to recording what is happening and the primary systematization of information; cognitive (cognitive, explanatory) function, the essence of which is the understanding and explanation of historical processes and phenomena;

- prognostic (foreseeing the future) and practical-recommendatory (practical-political) functions. Both involve using the lessons of the past to improve the lives of human communities in the near and distant future;

- educational (cultural and ideological) function, function of social memory. These functions are responsible for the formation of historical consciousness, self-identification of society and the individual.

Principles and methods of historical science

The process of formation of historical science is inextricably linked with the improvement of the methodology of history, that is, the entire complex of principles and techniques within the framework of which historical research is carried out. The basic principles of scientific historical research include:

- the principle of objectivity, which implies the reconstruction of historical reality based on genuine facts and knowledge of the objective laws of historical development. Each phenomenon must be studied, taking into account both its positive and negative aspects, regardless of the subjective attitude towards it, without distorting or adjusting the existing facts to fit pre-developed schemes;

- the principle of determinism is a scientific approach, according to which all observed phenomena are not random, but have a cause, are determined by certain prerequisites, and all reality appears as a web of cause-and-effect relationships;

- the principle of historicism, which requires consideration of the phenomenon under study taking into account a specific chronological framework and a specific historical situation. In this case, it is necessary to consider the phenomenon in development, that is, take into account what causes gave rise to it, how it was formed and how it changed over time. It is also necessary to study each phenomenon in conjunction with other phenomena that existed in that period and developed over time, in their interrelation and interdependence (the principle of the unity of the historical process);

- the principle of the social approach, which implies the need to take into account the interests, traditions and psychology of certain classes, estates, social strata and groups, the correlation of class interests with universal human interests, the subjective moment in the practical activities of governments, parties, individuals;

- the principle of alternativeness, allowing for the possibility of multivariate historical development. Guided by it, the researcher creates models of alternative development by comparing them with similar phenomena in world history, and determines the degree of likelihood of a particular event occurring. Recognizing historical alternativeness allows us to see untapped opportunities and learn lessons for the future.

Methods used in historical research can be divided into two groups: general scientific and special (special scientific). Special historical methods include:

- a specific historical or ideographic method, the essence of which is to describe facts, phenomena and events, without which no research is possible;

- comparative historical method, which implies that a phenomenon is studied not in itself, but in the context of similar phenomena separated in time and space; comparison with them makes it possible to better understand the phenomenon under study;

- historical-genetic method, which is associated with tracing the genesis, i.e. the origin and development of the phenomenon being studied;

- the retrospective method consists of sequential penetration into the past in order to identify the causes of events; – the historical-typological method is associated with the classification of objects of knowledge according to a selected attribute(s) to facilitate their analysis;

- The chronological method involves presenting historical material in chronological order. In addition, historical research uses methods of other sciences that come to the aid of history within the framework of interdisciplinary interaction: linguistics, anthropology, biology, medicine, sociology, psychology, geography, geology, physics, chemistry, mathematics (statistics). A significant part of these methods is used through the mediation of source studies, in the process of expanding the source base.

The essence of the world historical process

The world historical process is an objective reality, the sphere of social existence in its historical dimension. In philosophy, historical life is understood as a coherent, ordered integrity, the movement of which has a certain direction. The philosophy of history has its own educational goals and objectives.

§ Knowledge of the logic of the historical process, i.e. its unity, integrity, general orientation. It is also necessary to establish the causes and factors of historical development, to discover the universal laws of history as a whole and its individual stages. Their discovery and knowledge is understood as comprehension of the main and essential things in history. History, in its concreteness, is always and everywhere a collection of infinitely diverse and unique historical biographies of individual countries and peoples. But this does not contradict the principle of unity and integrity of the world historical process. True, in this situation, an opposite view of historical life is possible: all phenomena are considered as unique and unrepeatable, patterns are denied, and, as a consequence, the unity of world history.

§ Carry out a chronological division of historical life - stages, eras, stages. The global process is presented as orderly, where each stage is determined by the past and has significance for the future. Periodization is an inevitable moment and the basis for explaining history. The main problem in this case is the choice of a basis that would help highlight the characteristics that separate some groups of societies from others. For example, such grounds can be economic factors (productive forces, production relations) or non-economic factors (religion, way of thinking, political organization).

§ Identify the general form of history. This problem arises as a search for relationships between the general content of history and specific, diverse historical phenomena. It also allows us to clarify the nature of the relationship between the past, present and future. This may be a linearly directed unfolding, in which times cannot repeat each other; it can be a circular or cyclical movement, which does not bring with it any fundamental novelty; this may be a spiral course of historical life, meaning a certain combination of linear and circular movement, etc.

§ Discover the meaning of the historical development of mankind. The meaning of history is seen in the implementation of certain principles, ideas, essences or values. Such factors build the historical life of society into an organized, orderly whole, transparent to philosophical understanding. This state is complemented by an anthropological thesis designed to express the purpose of human existence.

The variety of theories of the world historical process requires a certain systematization, within which several leading directions and approaches can be identified, for example, religious and secular, formational and civilizational.

Patterns and stages of the historical process.

To identify the patterns of the world-historical process, the concept of “type of civilizational or historical development” is used - a civilization or several civilizations with similar basic principles of economic management and organization of political power, a commonality of fundamental principles of mentality and historical destiny. The study of world history allows us to identify four types of historical development: development within the annual cycle or non-progressive type, eastern or cyclical type of development, western or progressive development type and mixed type of development.

The first in time of occurrence is development within the annual cycle (development in a circle), which is somewhat conventionally called the type of non-progressive development, which arose simultaneously with the appearance of modern humans approximately 40 thousand years ago. Currently, it is preserved among the Indians of America, the aborigines of Australia and New Zealand, a number of small peoples of Siberia and the Far North, and some tribes of Central Africa. The main occupations of the people were hunting and gathering, as well as beekeeping and fishing, then farming and cattle breeding. There was public ownership of the means of production and social equality. The main social unit was the clan community, headed by elders. Communities united into tribes. The consciousness of ancient people was mythological. It is characterized by the unity of the rudiments of religion, philosophy, science and art. The essence of this type of development is fully characterized by its name. Forms of human and social activity change depending on the time of year and are reproduced from generation to generation. If changes occur, they take place over thousands of years.

The second in time of occurrence is the eastern type or the type of cyclic development. It originated with the emergence of the first states in the Ancient East in 4-3 thousand BC. and also continues to exist today. This type of development includes a number of ancient civilizations (Sumerian, Akkadian, ancient Egyptian, Hittite, Assyrian, etc.), the civilizations of pre-Columbian America (Inca, Aztec, Maya, Zapotec, etc.), medieval Mongolian; modern eastern civilizations formed during the periods of the ancient world and the Middle Ages (Chinese-Confucian, Indo-Buddhist, Islamic).

The history of Russia is an integral part of world history. general and specific in historical development

It is impossible to study the history of one state and understand the deep meaning of the phenomena that took place in it without studying together the history of other states and the entire world historical process as a whole. The history of the Russian and foreign states “evolves” throughout the entire world historical process, i.e. selects the most sustainable forms of government that meet the needs (economic, spiritual, etc.) of people in a given specific historical period. Throughout the history of mankind, people have come up with a diverse number of forms of government, these include monarchies, parliamentary and presidential republics, mixed forms of government, etc. If we take the primitive society of any people, then we can observe that the evolution of forms of government in the early stages occurred along the same path, with some cultural and national characteristics inherent in a given people. But at a certain stage, some states remained at the same level, while others moved forward to forms of government that meet the needs of the people, their people. There are many reasons for this: the development of culture, science, social relations between people, the geographical location of a particular state, etc. As an example of evolution, we can show modern Western democratic society and the society of the peoples of central Africa with its inherent archaic features of the structure of the state and the living conditions of people. Russia, as a part of Europe, went through the development path from the tribal system to the feudal system (serfdom) and until the 20th century, Russia, like many countries of Western and Eastern Europe, did not know any other form of government other than monarchy - a form of government in which the supreme state power is partially or belongs entirely to one person - the monarch and, as a rule, is inherited.

World history studies and presents the entire long and difficult path traveled by humanity from ancient times to the present day. The history of Russia is part of world history. The object of study is the process of the emergence and development of the human community in the territories that were and are currently part of the Russian state. The history of Russia cannot but be at the same time Russian history or the history of the Russian people, who make up 80% of the population of the Russian Federation. The Russian man with his character, traditions, and mentality became the creator of a unique Russian civilization, the main figure of Russian life and history.

Development of historical science in Russia: classical and modern Russian historical science

The history of Russia as a science has its own history, and you need to know it. If history as a science is a systematic depiction of the development of societies over time, then a natural question arises: when did Russian history become a science. It turns out that not so long ago and not all at once. The transformation of Russian history into science occurred gradually.

The desire to describe the history of Russia, as S. F. Platonov showed well, was manifested first in the compilation of ancient chronicles, then - “chronographs”, “synopsis”. Features of chronicles and chronographs are the content of random information about events from traditions and legends. Then in the works of German scientists I. G. Bayer, G. F. Miller, A. L. Shletser, who worked in Russia under Peter and later, in the works of Russian scientists V. N. Tatishchev, M. P. Pogodin, M. M . Shcherbatova(XVIII)

However, the first comprehensive view of Russia’s historical past was presented only at the beginning of the 19th century. N. M. Karamzin in his 12-volume work “History of the Russian State.” In Russian history, he saw and illuminated the main process - the creation of national state power, to which Rus' was led by its talented leaders. Among them are two main ones: Ivan III and Peter the Great (XV and early XVIII centuries).

After Karamzin, famous historians were N.A. Polevoy, M.T. Kachenovsky, N.G. Ustryalov. But the strictly scientific integrity of historical views was first expressed in our country in the 40s of the 19th century. in the works of S. M. Solovyov and K. D. Kavelin, who laid the foundations of the historical and legal school in historical science in Russia, and historical science in Russia finally reached its maturity.

Scientists of the German historical school (XVIII - early XIX centuries) believed that human society develops as an organism, according to strict objective laws, which neither chance nor personality, no matter how brilliant, can reject. And the task of historians is to discover these laws and equip their society with knowledge. Hence the requirement for historians: conclusions must be substantiated by facts and follow from the facts. Without facts there is no science in history.

It was the German scientists who, with their strict demands, turned history from free stories, tales and fables into a strict science. And this tradition of theirs formed the basis of historical science in Russia. The beginning was made by historians of the 18th century. and representatives of the historical and legal school. Then this tradition was continued by supporters of the historical-economic school and the school of Soviet historians. Historians S. M. Solovyov and K. D. Kavelin, based on facts, considered Russian history as a natural replacement of some laws of society by others and studied the development of state forms of social life under the influence of nature and the characteristics of tribal life.

The historical and economic school was represented by V. O. Klyuchevsky (1841-1911). He considered the development of society as a result of the influence of socio-economic conditions, that is, not by the will of kings or other persons, but under the influence of objective conditions, first of all.

In the 20th century A school of Soviet historians emerged in Russia. They described history from the perspective of the ideology of Marxism-Leninism and a narrow class formational approach. In recent years, the desire of our historians to illuminate the past from the perspective of a civilizational approach has been noticeable. The following are distinguished: cultural-historical school and complex, multifactorial school.

Concepts for the development of historical science.

Knowing the characteristics of each school allows you to notice the positions of their authors when reading works. Knowledge of concepts plays the same role.

Stand out:

1. Christian;

2. Rationalistic;

3. Cultural-historical concept.

Supporters of the Christian concept correlate the history of mankind with the religious (Christian idea) of the creation of the world and man by God and present the course of history as a manifestation of God's will.

During Soviet times, history books written from the perspective of a Christian concept were not published. However, at the end of the 90s. such a book appeared. This is Budzilovich P.I. Russian history. In it, the preface is called: “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” here the history of Russia is divided into 4 periods:

1. Pagan (Before the Baptism of Rus');

2. From the Baptism of Rus' in 988 to the church schism in the 17th century. and Peter I. The Creation of Holy Rus';

3. From the schism of Peter I to February 1917 “Synodal period”;

The main idea of the textbook: “the Russian Orthodox monarchy, apparently, was the most perfect form of government for Russia.”

The rationalist concept is based on the ideas of the German philosophers Hegel and K. Marx. Its supporters view history as the result not of God's will, but of rational, i.e. conscious, independent activity of people, which is based on the actions of objective laws. The task of historians is to reveal their effect, to promote society’s understanding of them and take them into account in life. According to Hegel, the history of mankind is the embodiment in the activities of people of the creative power of the “world mind”, “world spirit”, “absolute idea”, which existed outside of man (like God). K. Marx - proposed a materialist understanding of history (materialist approach). That is, that the world is material, it consists of moving matter that takes various forms: chemical, physical, organic, social. Humanity, human society is one of the forms of ever-moving matter. The main meaning of history, according to Marx, is the production of material goods, during which classes with different, opposing interests are formed in society: ruling classes, exploiting, and classes of producers of material goods, exploited.

There is a constant struggle between them. The struggle between classes is the main driving force of history. And the task of historians is to reveal this class struggle.

Formational approach in historical science.

K. Marx developed the theory of socio-economic formations. The history of humanity is the history of formations:

1. Primitive communal system;

2. Slaveholding;

3. Feudal;

4. Capitalist;

5. Communist, to which humanity will come in the future.

They differ, each in their own way of producing material goods and forms of class struggle. Formations follow one after another in a linear plan as stages of development of society, from lower to higher. Based on the Marxist theory of formations, a formational approach in historical science has developed.

In Russia, Marx's theory was corrected by Lenin and Stalin and was called “Marxism-Leninism”. And Soviet historians were obliged to cover history only in strict accordance with the ideas of Marxism-Leninism. What Marx and Lenin said was not subject to criticism. The decisive role in society was recognized for the classes producing material goods, the poorest strata of society, and history was covered from the perspective of these classes and strata. This led to its distortion; spiritual culture was assigned a service role in the life of society, and the role of man was underestimated.

Civilization approach in historical science.

Based on the cultural-historical concept and theory of civilization, a civilizational approach has developed in historical science.

Until 1917, Russian historical science developed freely on the basis of all three concepts. After 1917, especially since the 1930s when the totalitarian system in the USSR completed its formation, the Christian concept was rejected as hostile, the cultural-historical one was banned as bourgeois, and the rationalist one was reduced to its Marxist-Leninist branch, on the basis of which a formational approach was developed in Soviet historical science. If in European democratic countries this concept was based on liberal democratic ideas stemming from the philosophy of Hegel, Marx and other thinkers, and contributed to the free development of historical science, then in our country this concept hindered the development of science.

In the mid-30s. “A Short Course in the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)” was published, edited by I.V. Stalin and providing examples of the formational approach, according to which later, after the 30s, the history of Russia and world history was rewritten, generations of Soviet people were brought up, including number of historians. All this must be taken into account when listening to people of older generations, reading works and history textbooks published before the 90s.

And - even from those published in the 90s. many bear the stamp of a formational approach.

Overcoming the negative meanings of the formational approach presupposes a refusal to absolutize its criteria, bringing to the center of attention of historians a person, people, society, culture in all its forms, recognition of the legitimacy, positive role and negative meanings of all types of property created by human society, and all historically emerged classes society, study and functional roles in the life of civilization; A civilizational approach is needed in the study of history.

A modern approach to the study of history is possible only by taking into account the ideas of the theory of civilizations. At the same time, students of history should not be confused by the word “theory.” The fact is that, when studying the theory of civilization, we actually consider the most general features and trends in the development of human society, i.e. the actual history of society only in the most general ideas about it. Therefore, the ideas of the theory of civilization are of methodological importance for the study of Russian history.

N. Ya. Danilevsky identified three stages in the development of societies into civilization:

1. ethnographic,

2. state,

3. civilizational.

There are theories of local civilizations - as large communities and their cultures that once arose and existed in time and space, and - a theory of universal civilization, which assumes that humanity arose united and developed accordingly.

According to Danilevsky, civilizations are “forms of the historical life of mankind,” distinguished by cultural and historical type, i.e., originality, originality of religious, social, everyday, industrial, political development.

Civilizations have existed for thousands of years and have reached a high degree of development. The founders gave them definitions in the light of their origin, development and differences from the pre-civilized state of societies. P. A. Sorokin gave them a more complete and profound definition. According to Sorokin, civilizations are large cultural systems or supersystems, supranational cultural communities. They largely determine the main manifestations of sociocultural life, the organization and functions of small groups and cultural systems, the mentality and behavior of individuals, the nature of events, trends and processes. Therefore, without studying and understanding civilizations, we will not be able to properly understand the nature and causes of changes in society.

The theory of universal human civilizations was reflected in the book of the American scientist O. Toffler “The Third Wave”. The essence of the theory: humanity is united and from a certain time, about 10 thousand years ago, began to acquire common features and trends and since then has represented a single civilization. In its development there are 3 stages, or civilizations:

The first stage is an agrarian-craft civilization, or traditional society. It appeared 10 thousand years ago. It was based on manual labor, traditions dominated, and development was slow.

The second stage is industrial society (civilization), caused by the industrial revolution of the 18th-19th centuries. Development is accelerating.

The third stage is information civilization, caused by the information and computer revolution. The developed capitalist countries of the West joined it in the 1960-1980s. The development is based on computers and personal computers, computerization. A new quality of culture emerges: it is based on information and technology, the intellectual, spiritual, moral potential of a person increases, on the basis of which a new, information civilization is formed. Manual labor is reduced to a minimum and will disappear in the future.

Modern discussions about Russia's place in the world historical process

The history of Russia is part of the world and cannot be considered outside its context. Let's look at the basic concepts.

According to the Marxist-Leninist point of view, ionic features do not matter. But since Marxism was a product of Western culture, its supporters and followers actually propose to consider Russia by analogy with societies belonging to Western civilization. The main thing comes down to the following: a change in socio-economic formations was taking place in the country, albeit with a lag behind Europe and with significant peculiarities. However, in the second half of the 19th century, supporters of this point of view argue, it sharply accelerated its development and, almost simultaneously with advanced European countries, moved to monopoly capitalism (imperialism) and, finally, earlier than other countries, approached the transition to the highest formation - communism ( its first stage is socialism).

It must be borne in mind that socialism is a social ideal and, like any ideal, it cannot be realized in practice. But even if we ignore this, in order to accept such a concept as the main one when considering the history of Russia, it is necessary to give convincing answers to at least two questions. Why did a country that lagged behind European countries and belonged to the second echelon end up being the first in the transition to socialism?

Why is none of the first-tier countries, i.e. developed, did not follow Russia into socialism? Despite the abundance of Marxist-Leninist literature, published in thousands of copies in Soviet times, there is no convincing answer to these questions, except for statements about the treachery of the world bourgeoisie and the betrayal of social democracy, which cannot be taken seriously. Nevertheless, supporters of this concept still exist in considerable numbers, especially among professional social scientists of the older generation. However, this is an a priori point of view: suitable historical facts are selected for a predetermined theoretical concept.

The next point of view is to a certain extent close to the first, since it proposes to consider Russia as part of Western civilization. Its supporters recognize only Western experience and apply only Western categories to Russia (while excluding the Marxist concept). They believe that Russia, although lagging behind, developed in line with Western civilization. On the eve of the First World War its development reached a high level. However, in a country weakened by the First World War, the Bolsheviks took power, relying on the illiterate, lumpen masses, and Russia left the civilizational highway. It established ochlocracy—the power of the crowd, which developed into totalitarianism (violence on a mass scale). Only now, according to supporters of this concept, have conditions emerged for a return to civilization, which is understood exclusively as Western. Thus, this position is occupied by those who advocate a rapid transition of Russia to a completely Western version of development. These are, as a rule, the most radical democrats from among economists, historians, and political scientists. The proposed concept is Bolshevism in reverse.

Supporters of another point of view classify Russia as an eastern type of country. They believe that attempts to include Russia in the European path of development: the adoption of Christianity, the reforms of Peter I - ended in failure. At first glance, it is very similar, especially about the tyrant - the party leader. At second glance, we can state the presence of obvious features of the Eastern type in pre-revolutionary and Soviet society. During the existence of the USSR, exclusively vertical connections functioned in society (through power structures). For example, until recently, two factories, separated only by a fence, could communicate with each other exclusively through the ministry. In the history of Russia, including the Soviet period, one can trace a cyclical pattern: a period of reforms was inevitably followed by a period of counter-reforms, a revolution was followed by a counter-revolution, etc. However, in pre-revolutionary Russia there was a secular state, private property, and market relations. Apparently, not everything is so simple.

R. Kipling once said: “The East is the East. But the West is the West, and they will never meet.” However, there is a point of view according to which East and West came together and they came together in Russia. The idea of a Eurasian, special essence of Russia has been present in the public consciousness and in theoretical developments for a long time - several centuries. P. Ya. Chaadaev wrote in 1836: “One of the saddest features of our unique civilization is that we are still discovering truths that have become hackneyed in other countries... The fact is that we have never gone along with other peoples, we do not belong to any of the known families of the human race, neither to the West nor to the East, and we have no traditions of either one or the other.” The sharp turn that the country made in 1917-1920 gave rise to a movement that spread among the young intelligentsia in exile: it was called “Eurasianism.” For the first time, Eurasianism loudly declared itself in the early 20s. Prince N.S. Trubetskoy, P.L. Savitsky, G.B. Frolovsky and others, first in Sofia, then in Berlin and Prague, published several collections in a row with characteristic titles. Later, several more representatives of the emigrant intelligentsia joined this trend: philosopher L. P. Karsavin, historian G. V. Vernadsky, lawyer N. N Alekseev and some others.

The main idea of Eurasianism: Russia is different from both the West and the East, it is a Special World - Eurasia. What arguments were given to support this thesis? The Russian nationality, formed under the strong influence of the Turkic and Finno-Ugric tribes, took the initiative to unite multilingual ethnic groups into a single multinational nation of Eurasians, which lives in a single state - Russia. The exclusivity and uniqueness of Russian culture, which is Eurasian-Russian, was emphasized: “The culture of Russia is neither a European culture, nor one of the Asian ones, nor a sum or mechanical combination of elements of both. It must be contrasted with the cultures of Europe and Asia as a middle, Eurasian culture . Much has been written about symphony, conciliarity, and the integrity of the Russian world. Thus, the ideological and religious basis of Russia was highlighted. Eurasians assigned a decisive role in this part to Orthodoxy and the Orthodox Church. Absolutizing the role of the Orthodox Church in spiritual life, they idealized the importance of the state in public life. The state acted in their concept as the supreme master of society, possessing strong power, but at the same time maintaining a connection with the people. Russia was viewed as a closed ocean-continent. It has everything. If the whole world collapses, Russia can exist alone in the whole world without losses, the Eurasians argued.

At the same time, Eurasians were sharply negative towards the West; Westernism was considered alien to Russia. Along with this, the special influence on the Russian (Russian) self-awareness of the eastern - “Turanian” factor was emphasized, without taking into account which, according to Eurasianists, it is impossible to understand the course of Russian history. From here came the opposition between Europe and Asia, and the connection between Russia and Asia was transmitted.

Passions were boiling around Eurasianism in the emigration. There were supporters, but more opponents, who saw in this hobby an attempt to justify Bolshevism. Most of those who began this research in the late 20s. moved away from Eurasianism. Agents were introduced into their ranks by the USSR security agencies. In 1928, with the money of the NKVD, the newspaper “Eurasia” was published in Paris, which led to the collapse and discredit of this trend. It finally died out with the beginning of the Second World War.

For Soviet people at that time, Eurasianism was a closed page. Nowadays, the works of Eurasianists are actively published, their ideas are commented on and developed, which were largely explained by the crisis of Western civilization, the decline in the prestige of Western values, as well as Russia’s sharp turn during the First World War away from European values. In the conditions of modern political struggle, the Eurasian concept was simplified and became a tool for the propaganda of Russian nationalism. We must agree that Russia cannot be reduced in its pure form to either the East or the West; it is necessary to really take into account the influence of the eastern factor on its development. But this, perhaps, is all that can be accepted from the Eurasians. The concept of Russian history cannot be based on these ideas, especially in their modern modifications.

Increasingly, regardless of different points of view on the essence of Russia, the category “civilization” is used. Communists, monarchists, and liberals easily included their ideas in this concept. We constantly come across the phrase “Russian civilization” or, more specifically, “Russian civilization”. Despite all the differences in positions, liberal, communist, and patriarchal-conservative ideas about Russian civilization are based on the characteristics of the Russian mentality, Russian culture, Russian Orthodoxy, since they view Russia as an integrity. Some politicians and cultural figures of a national-patriotic trend literally fall into a trance at the word Russia, and then the concept of “Russian civilization” sounds like a spell that appeals not to reason, but to faith or even superstition. All this is far from harmless. Here lies the danger of manipulating public consciousness, which lacks a clear historical understanding of the world - the old has collapsed, the new is emerging slowly and difficultly. It is argued that this civilization has a special spiritual basis - Orthodoxy, it is distinguished by a special form of community, collectivism - conciliarity, a special attitude to economic activity, which is characterized as “non-acquisitiveness” (i.e. lack of desire for profit). The creation of a powerful state is considered the greatest achievement of Russian civilization. Western civilization, in contrast to Russian, is characterized as mundane, devoid of spirituality, consumerist and even aggressively consumerist. O. And Platonov, the modern author of several books on this topic, writes. “Russian civilization rejected the Western European concept of development as predominantly scientific, technical, material progress, a constant increase in the mass of goods and services, the possession of more and more things, developing into a real race of consumption, “greed for things.” The Russian worldview contrasted this concept with the idea of improving the soul, transforming life through overcoming the sinful nature of man.”

The multitude of peoples with different civilizational orientations that were part of the state (sometimes more, sometimes less, but always many) turned Russia into a heterogeneous, segmented society. This means that there is not one (Russian) Russia, but many “Russias” in one state. At different times and to different extents, it included natural communities (the peoples of Siberia and Northern Europe), professing paganism, enclaves of Muslim civilization (Volga region, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, Crimea, a significant part of the Caucasus). As well as Buddhist regions (Kalmykia, Tuva, Buryatia, Khakassia), regions with a population belonging to European civilization (Finland, Poland, the Baltic states and some others). All these peoples profess values that are incapable of fusion, synthesis, or integration. They are not reducible to Russian. Muslim, Lamaist, Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, pagan and other values cannot be brought together and subordinated to Orthodoxy.

Russia does not have sociocultural unity or integrity. Because of this, it cannot be expressed within the framework of the “East-West” alternative (that is, the presence of eastern and western features); it is not an independent civilizational type (Eurasia, for example). For centuries, pre-revolutionary Russia preserved and increased sociocultural and spiritual pluralism. They tried to change the essence of Russia in Soviet times, but without success (this was shown by the collapse of the USSR). Russia remains a heterogeneous society in terms of civilization even now.

Russia - USSR cannot be considered as a single civilization. We can talk about the civilizational characteristics of certain segments and the forms of their coexistence and interaction within the state, as well as about a certain development paradigm (or paradigms) common to the entire country, which was not constant, but changed at different stages of its history. The analysis of the material is based on the following basic principles:

Russia is a civilizationally heterogeneous society. This is a special, historically established conglomerate of peoples belonging to different types of life activity, united by a powerful, centralized state with a Great Russian core.

The civilizational paradigm for the development of this complex, huge community changed at different stages of history . Russia is geopolitically located between two powerful centers of civilizational influence - East and West; it includes peoples developing both Western and Eastern variants. This inevitably affected the choice of development paths. With sharp turns, historical whirlwinds “moved” the country either closer to the West or closer to the East. Russia was a sort of “drifting society” at the crossroads of civilizational magnetic fields. In this regard, for our country, like no other, throughout history the problem of choosing alternatives has been extremely acute. Which way to develop?

Factors of originality of Russian history and culture.

In Russian historiography, there are four factors that determined the features (backwardness, delay, originality, originality) of Russian history:

1.Natural-climatic: the life of a peasant depended on the weather and soil fertility. Unfavorable conditions had a direct impact on the type. The ruling class created rigid levers of the state mechanism aimed at withdrawing surplus product. This is where the centuries-old tradition of despotic power of the autocracy comes from - serfdom. Low productivity and dependence on natural conditions have determined the stability of communal farming principles in Russia. The natural and climatic factor largely determined the features of the national character of Russians: a) extreme tension of forces for a relatively long period of time, b) collectivism, c) readiness to help, even to the point of self-sacrifice.

2. Geopolitical factor: a) vast, sparsely populated territory unprotected by natural barriers, b) a huge network of rivers, c) insecure borders, d) isolation from the seas. The geopolitical factor determined such features of the Russian people as national tolerance, lack of nationalism, and worldwide responsiveness.

3. Religious factor: Orthodoxy came from Byzantium. Orthodoxy is characterized by a movement for the better, ideas of social justice, Christianity is distinguished by great freedom of inner life, and collectivism is characteristic. Catholicism is from Rome, its values are the market, wealth, Catholics have the main features of power, dominance, discipline.

4. Factor of social organization: its main elements: a) the primary social and economic unit is a corporation (community, collective farm, etc.), and not a private entity as in the West, b) the state is not a superstructure over society as in the West, and the creator of society, c) the state either exists or it is not effective, d) the state, society, the individual are not separated, but integral, e) the state relies on the corporation. 3. Lappo-Danilevsky A.S. Methodology of history. ID Territory of the Future. 2006.

4. Moiseev V.V. Russian history. Volume 1. Belgorod State Technological University named after. V.G. Shukhova, EBS ASV. 2013.

5. Petrovskaya I.F. For the scientific study of Russian history! On the methods and techniques of historical research. Petropolis. 2009. Semennikova L.I. Russia in the world community of civilizations. Textbook for universities. - Bryansk, 1999.

9. Sakharov A.N. On new approaches to the history of Russia // Questions of history. 2002.

10. Shelkovnikova N.V. History of Russia for foreigners. Amur Humanitarian and Pedagogical State University. 2010.