Free religious development, which began after the February Revolution, was interrupted with the establishment of Soviet power. And if at first some non-Orthodox denominations felt an improvement in their situation and expansion of opportunities for preaching, then already from the late 1920s. no religious organizations were left free to function. On January 23 (February 5), 1918, the Soviet government adopted a decree “On the separation of church from state and school from church.” The norms of the decree were fully consistent with the constitutional foundations of secular states of that time. However, his last paragraph was fundamentally different from these norms and put the church in a powerless position. This paragraph deprived religious organizations of legal personality and prohibited them from owning property. The property of religious organizations was declared public property.
In the 1920s Real terror was launched against the Russian Orthodox Church (repressions fell on other religious organizations a little later). Millions of Orthodox people, clergy and laity, were shot, imprisoned or exiled. Thousands of clergy and monks were subjected to severe abuse. Many temples were destroyed or closed. A large number of icons and church books were burned.
In the first decade of Soviet power, when the state was focused on the fight against the Russian Orthodox Church, Baptists and other evangelical denominations found themselves relatively free in their activities and managed to convert quite a lot of new followers. In the early 1920s. There was also an increase in the number of followers of Pentecostalism. During this period, the Soviet government did not interfere with their propaganda.
However, at the end of the 1920s. the situation has changed. The repression extended to all religious organizations. The toughening of attitudes towards all religious organizations was enshrined in the resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR “On Religious Associations” adopted in 1929. It placed religion under strict state control and left virtually no place for it in Soviet society. The activities of religious organizations were limited only to liturgical practices. In the 1920-1930s. Almost all Catholic parishes were closed. By 1940, only two Catholic churches continued to operate in the RSFSR (in Moscow and Leningrad), officially registered as institutions of the French embassy. In the post-war period, they lost their status as embassy churches and were transferred to the jurisdiction of the Riga and Kaunas dioceses. In the 1930s The Lutheran Church actually ceased its official existence in the RSFSR. During Soviet times, some other Protestant denominations ceased to operate in Russia: Methodists, Quakers, the Salvation Army, etc. In the 1930s-1940s. Mennonites were subjected to repression.
The majority of Russian Muslims greeted the establishment of Soviet power with enthusiasm, hoping for an improvement in their situation under the new regime. And in fact, in the early 1920s. The position of the Muslims was very strong. Muslim primary schools continued to operate. Sharia courts operated in a number of places, and mosques had the right to own property. Representatives of the Muslim clergy could even be members of the Bolshevik Party. This continued until the mid-1920s, when the Soviet state changed its attitude towards Islam. Muslim religious life began to be suppressed. In the 1920-1930s. many mosques were closed.
The first years of Soviet power were relatively favorable for the religious life of Buddhists, although many representatives of the Kalmyk clergy still left Russia during the Civil War. Seeing how dramatically relations between the new authorities and the Russian Orthodox Church were developing, representatives of the reformist wing of the Buddhist Sangha hastened to declare their loyalty to the Soviet government. This gave them a chance to maintain their legal existence, but provoked internal conflicts between traditionalists and reformers.
In 1927, the All-Union Congress of Buddhists was held in Moscow, which elected the Representative Office of the Buddhist Clergy in the USSR (later renamed the All-Union Spiritual Administration of Buddhists). It was located in Leningrad in a Buddhist temple built in 1915 (it was the first Buddhist temple outside traditionally Buddhist regions). The position of Buddhists in the USSR worsened in 1929, when lamas were declared a capitalist element and deprived of civil rights. Religious Buddhist schools were closed.
Tuva declared independence in 1921. However, with the rise to power of the Communists in 1929, soon led by Moscow-educated Salchak Toka, Tuva came under the strong influence of the Soviet Union. And in 1944, Tuva officially joined the USSR. Salchak Toka pursued a tough policy towards Buddhist religious life, closing Buddhist temples and monasteries.
Restrictions on Judaism during the Soviet period began in 1919, when the teaching of Hebrew was prohibited. At the same time, in 1925, two new synagogues were opened in Moscow. Serious repressions against Jews began in the late 1920s, when many synagogues were closed, rabbis were arrested, and religious schools ceased to exist.
During the Great Patriotic War, the situation of some Russian denominations improved, and the state's attitude towards the Russian Orthodox Church also changed. From the first days of the war, the Church took a patriotic position. Hundreds of clergy, including those who served time in camps and prisons before the war, went to the front and fought in the army, defending their Motherland. The Soviet government, seeing the patriotic aspirations of the Church, having information about the increased religiosity of the population and striving to use the Church to raise the morale of the people, met it halfway. The church was officially recognized by the Soviet state.
At the same time, to establish connections between the government and the Moscow Patriarchate (as well as to exercise control over the activities of the Church), the Soviet leadership established the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church under the Government of the USSR. In 1965, the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church, together with the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults, created in 1944, which was in charge of other religious organizations, was transformed into the Council for Religious Affairs under the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
In the 1940s There have been changes in the religious sphere associated with the emergence of greater opportunities for the activities of religious organizations. In 1944, Baptists and Evangelical Christians in Russia united, forming Union of Evangelical Christian Baptists. In 1945-1947 it included part of the Pentecostals, and in 1965 - part of the Mennonites. In 1961, he broke away from the union Council of Evangelical Christian Baptist Churches, who criticized the Union of Evangelical Christian Baptists for being too loyal to the authorities. Unlike the union, the council operated illegally until 1988.
In the 1940s appeared in Russia Jehovah's Witnesses, one of the groups of so-called marginal Protestants. Communities of Jehovah's Witnesses existed in the territory of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus annexed to the USSR in 1939, and from there they spread to other regions of the country.
During the Great Patriotic War, there was some improvement in the situation of Russian Muslims. They were allowed to open mosques that were closed in the 1920s and 1930s. The Buddhists of Buryatia also felt some improvement in their situation. After the war in 1946, they were allowed to restore two monasteries: one in Buryatia and one in the Aginsky Buryat-Mongolian national region. The activities of the Central Spiritual Administration of Buddhists of the USSR (former All-Union Spiritual Administration of Buddhists), which was now located in Buryatia, were resumed. The Kalmyk Sangha ceased to exist after the deportation of Kalmyks in 1943. By the end of the 1940s. There is also not a single Buddhist temple or monastery left in Tuva.
During the Great Patriotic War, about two million Soviet Jews died at the hands of the Nazis, many of whom adhered to Judaism. In the territory not occupied by the Germans, the situation of Jews during the war years, on the contrary, improved somewhat due to the general change in the religious policy of the Soviet government. Some synagogues were allowed to reopen.
During the reign of N.S. Khrushchev, state policy towards religious organizations again tightened. A certain thaw in state-church relations was replaced by a new attack on religion. During the anti-religious campaign of the early 1960s. Many of the churches, mosques and synagogues that had been opened during the war were again closed.
In the early 1970s. A movement developed among Jewish believers in the Soviet Union, demanding that the Soviet government allow Jews to leave for Israel. The initial response to this demand was to intensify repression against Judaizers. However, under pressure from international organizations and Western governments, Jews began to be allowed to emigrate from the Soviet Union. By the end of the 1970s. the annual outflow of Jews amounted to about 600 thousand people. As a result of this emigration, there was a weakening of Jewish religious life in the USSR, since the majority of Jewish believers left the country. We must remember that at that time those who emigrated had no chance of returning, since they had to renounce Soviet citizenship.
Since the late 1980s. The Russian Orthodox Church began to return everywhere the churches that had been taken from it and that were destroyed. The activities of the Church began to go beyond the liturgical framework: the first steps were taken in the field of charity, the first Sunday schools were created. In 1991, the state declared Christmas a day off, i.e. the holiday became officially recognized.
Under M. S. Gorbachev, especially after his meeting in Malta in 1989 with Pope John Paul II, the restoration of Catholic parishes began. At the turn of the 1980s-1990s. There was also a revival of the activities of Catholic orders in Russia. Diplomatic relations were also established between the USSR and the Vatican.
At the end of the 1980s. The revival of the Lutheran Church also began. They began to act Evangelical Lutheran Church, uniting mainly Germans, and Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ingria, caring mainly for Finns.
During the period of perestroika, emigration opportunities changed, which affected the population dynamics of some denominations. So, since the late 1980s. many Russian Mennonites began to leave for Germany. Germans - Catholics and Lutherans, Finnish Lutherans - also began to emigrate from the country.
During the period of Gorbachev's reforms, Muslim activity increased sharply. Since the late 1980s. they began to build new mosques and open madrassas (Muslim religious schools), believers were able to make hajj (pilgrimage to holy places). In 1989, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan solemnly celebrated the 1100th anniversary of the adoption of Islam in Volga Bulgaria and the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Muslim Spiritual Assembly.
At the end of the 1980s. There is an intensification of Buddhist religious life in Buryatia and its official revival in Kalmykia and Tuva.
During the period of perestroika, Jewish emigration increased even more. However, a feature of this period was return migration, which allowed Jews of the Soviet Union to travel to Israel, visit religious centers and worship religious shrines. All this contributed to the strengthening of the religiosity of the traditionally Jewish population. In 1990, the All-Union Council of Jewish Religious Communities was created. Until this time, synagogues operating in the Soviet Union did not have a coordinating structure.
Summing up the Soviet period, it should be noted that during most of it, they tried to oust religion not only from the public sphere, but also from private life. Religion was not given a place in a socialist society; it was viewed as an alien ideology and a harmful relic. But as long as this relic still persisted, the state sought to bring religion under its control. Persecution and strict government regulation made it impossible for religious organizations to take an active position in social and political terms. They were faced with the task of surviving, not going into the catacombs, and surviving as official institutions.
The Soviet state sought to remove religious practice and ritual from life in order to erase religious identity. However, this task failed because religious practice remained part of the cultural tradition. However, although a certain religiosity remained in the Soviet period, as a result of Soviet anti-religious policies its character could not help but change. By the end of the Soviet period, most people had experience of anti-religious socialization, and there was no religious education at all. Religiosity was often hidden. It did not rely on knowledge of religious dogma and rituals, but originated in traditional culture and historical memory. This latent religiosity nevertheless contributed to the religious revival of the late 1980s and early 1990s. At the same time, the lack of religious knowledge and experience made the religious structure at the turn of the 1980s-1990s. mobile: converts often moved from one denomination to another, not really understanding the differences between them (the religious structure became more stable only in the mid-1990s).
Religion and the church perform a number of functions and play a certain role in society. The concepts of “function” and “role” are related, but not identical. Functions are the ways in which religion operates in society, the role is the overall result, the consequences of its functions.
The Church has the opposite effect on economic relations and other areas of public life. It sanctions certain views, activities, relationships, institutions, gives them an “halo of holiness” or declares them “ungodly”, “fallen away”, “immersed in evil”, “sinful”, contrary to the “law”, “Word of God”. The religious factor influences the economy, politics, the state, interethnic relations, the family, and the field of culture through the activities of religious individuals, groups, and organizations in these areas. There is an “overlay” of religious relations on other social relations.
The degree of influence of the church is related to its place in society, and this place is not given once and for all; it changes in the context of the processes of sacralization (Latin sacer - sacred) and secularization (Late Latin saecularis - worldly, secular). Sacralization means the involvement in the sphere of religious sanction of forms of public and individual consciousness, activity, relationships, behavior of people, institutions, and an increase in influence on various spheres of public and private life. Secularization, on the contrary, leads to a weakening of the influence of religion on public and individual consciousness. These processes are not unilinear, contradictory, and uneven in societies of different types, at successive stages of their development, in changing socio-political and cultural situations.
Conflict theorists argue that religion strengthens the position of dominant groups in society, which oppress less powerful groups. This is done through beliefs that offer the lower classes hope for a better life in another world. This takes their attention away from the problems of this world. As we know, according to Christian teaching, poverty is considered a virtue. In addition, Christians consider anger and aggressiveness to be sins.
a convincing explanation of religion from the point of view of conflict theory was proposed by Karl Marx; he considered religion to be an instrument of class domination. Like Freud, Marx considered religion an illusion, a myth that brings comfort when life does not inspire confidence. Marx believed that religion masks not only fear and anxiety, but also the injustice of exploitation under the class system. Functionalists seek to find out what social purposes religion serves; Conflict theorists analyze how religion strengthens the class system, destroys it, or contributes to both.
Religions also represent a wide variety of cultures. Intertwined, sometimes bizarrely, are universal, formational, class, ethnic, particular, global and local components. In specific situations, one or the other may be actualized and come to the fore; religious leaders, groups, thinkers may not express these tendencies in the same way. All this is expressed in socio-political orientations - history shows that in religious organizations (churches) there were and are different positions: progressive, conservative, regressive. Moreover, a particular group and its representatives are not always strictly “fixed” to one of them; they can change orientation and move from one to another.
From the point of view of history and sociology, the church is connected with the world in complex, ambiguous, sometimes paradoxical relationships. On the one hand, it functions in society as a harmonizing, stabilizing factor that contributes to the preservation of the existing social status quo and thereby strengthens the position of power structures. But at the same time, religion can also act as a destabilizing factor, since it always contains a high moral standard that gives it critical potential. The presence of critical potential in religion, combined with the traditional authority of established religious institutions, determines the most important role that the church plays in society.
Conclusion.
A high degree of unity of people in social communities, their cohesion (collectivism), the similarity of their positions objectively contributes to a reduction in the number of offenses. When the degree of unity (integration) of a social community (class, society) is high enough, then the number of deviations in the behavior of members of this community decreases. On the contrary, the increase in the number of deviations in behavior is an indicator of the disintegration of its integration. In some cases, ineffective influence, for example, on a teenager from the closest social community (family), insufficient socialization (in the sense of inclusion in the system of values and norms of behavior characteristic of society as a whole) can lead to increased influence on him of spontaneously emerging groups, where illegal views and ideas exist and antisocial norms of behavior operate. This may include some groups of teenagers with antisocial behavior, recidivist thieves, alcoholics, etc. The influence of such social communities is often directly related to the low socio-educational effect of the family, school or production team, and parts of the political system of society. Another point that should be paid attention to, also related to the weakening of social ties between people, is the negative consequences of the scientific and technological revolution: urbanization, the emergence of large cities, etc. Although it is historically progressive, it can also cause some increase in immoral phenomena associated with the movement of people, population migration.
In the 20th century, a view of world history as a process of change local civilizations received further development. Significant contributions to the development of this theory were made by O. Spengler (1880-1936), A. Toynbee (1889-1975) and the domestic thinker L. N. Gumilyov (1912-1992).
In theories of civilizational development, progress was associated with the fact that each new civilization, to a certain extent inheriting the achievements of its predecessors, reaches ever higher levels of material and spiritual culture. Gumilyov considered the main source of development to be the interaction of peoples with their environment.
In the second half of the 20th century, ideas about the existence of phases, or stages world civilizational development. American economists, political scientists and sociologists (J. Galbraith, W. Rostow, D. Bell, E. Toffler) saw the driving force of history in expanding the horizons of knowledge, which made it possible to improve the tools of labor, which ensured the mastery of new forms of production activity. They associated progress with the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture and cattle breeding, and then to industrial production and a modern high-tech society.
The transition to each new stage of development was not considered as strictly determined (predetermined) by the laws of the progressive development of history. It was characterized as an opportunity, the implementation of which depended on the existence of appropriate prerequisites. Among them, historical, cultural, political features, international conditions and traditions of individual civilizations, which determined the position of the individual in society, were particularly highlighted.
Particular attention within the framework of the theory of stages of civilizational development was paid to the problems of modernization, which became aggravated in the 20th century - the accelerated transition from traditional (agrarian-pastoral) societies to industrial ones.
Other realities of the 20th century associated with world wars, the emergence of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction capable of destroying civilization, and the aggravation of environmental problems were also reflected in the understanding of the problems of history. The idea of the steady progressive development of humanity in modern conditions is causing increasing skepticism. Increasingly, questions have begun to be raised about whether it is legitimate to link progress with the growth of production and consumption, whether the time is coming for a rethinking of values, when its main criterion will be the possibility of human spiritual development.
Questions and tasks
· Explain what were the features of knowledge of the past in the preliterate era. What myths do you know that explain the origin of the world and man?
· Name the names of outstanding historians of antiquity. Indicate the features of historical science in the early stages of its development. What were the limitations of historical knowledge in ancient times?
· How did the dominant position of religion and the church in the spiritual sphere of the Middle Ages affect the content of scientific knowledge?
· Why did interest in the past increase during the New Age?
· What scientific approaches and principles of historical research were developed in the 18th-19th centuries?
· What are the features of the development of historical science in the 20th century?
· What were the features of religious-mystical views on the historical process? In what historical eras did such views prevail? What was the role of man in history?
· Indicate the features of the historical views of the Enlightenment. What was, according to scientists of the 18th century, the driving force of social development?
· What fundamentally new things did the German philosopher I. Kant bring to the understanding of the question of the place of personality in history?
· How did G. Hegel represent the historical process? What did he mean by the concept of “world spirit”?
· Explain the essence of Marxist views on historical development. What factors, according to Marxists, are decisive in the progress of mankind? Consider the limitations of the Marxist interpretation of history.
· In what meanings did 20th century historians use the concept of “civilization”? What principles underlie the civilizational approach to history? Name the scientists who developed the concepts of local civilizations.
· How do supporters of the theory of stages of world civilizational development determine the driving forces of the historical process?
· What realities of the 20th century cause scientists to worry about the progressive development of humanity?
Fill out the table
Topic 2 Principles of periodization in history
An approach in which the main stages of human history are distinguished according to the principle of changing forms of economic activity and the development of material culture has received wide recognition. Such ideas were expressed by the French philosopher J. Condorcet(1743-1794) and American ethnographer L. Morgan(1818-1881). They divided history into eras of savagery (the period of gathering, hunting), barbarism (the predominance of agriculture, cattle breeding) and civilization (agriculture, cattle breeding, writing, metal working)
Scheme Periodization of history according to L. Morgan and J. Condorcet
Civilization
Barbarism
This periodization was based on changes in the nature of tools. It has also gained recognition in archeology in the study of the early stages of human existence, which are divided into the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages
Supporters of the theory of world civilizational development see in it three main stages, separated by intermediate, transitional stages.
The first stage began around the 8th millennium BC. It was associated with the transition from gathering and hunting to agriculture, cattle breeding and handicraft production.
The second stage, which began in the middle of the 17th century, was marked by the establishment of manufacturing production, when a system of division of labor emerged, making it more productive, conditions arose for the introduction of machines and the transition to the industrial stage of development.
The third stage began in the second half of the 20th century and was associated with the emergence of a new type of society (it is most often called information society), when with the introduction of computers the nature of intellectual work qualitatively changes and a knowledge production industry takes shape.
Proponents of perceiving history from the perspective of changing local civilizations (ancient, Greek-Byzantine, Islamic, Christian medieval Europe, etc.) measure historical eras by the duration of their existence, which ranges from several centuries to millennia. A. Toynbee believed that in world history there were 13 independent civilizations that had unique characteristics (he considered the rest as their branches).
Marxist formation theory identified five main eras in human history.
The era of the primitive communal system was characterized by an extremely low level of development of productive forces, when there was no private property yet, people were completely dependent on nature and could survive only under the condition of joint, collective labor and consumption.
The transition to a slave-owning system was associated with the improvement of the tools of labor, the emergence of the possibility of producing a surplus product and its individual appropriation, and the emergence of private property. At the same time, the owner-slave owner owned not only the land and means of labor, but also the workers themselves, slaves, who were considered as “talking tools.”
Feudal society was characterized by the partial personal dependence of workers on land owners - feudal lords. Peasants, who made up the bulk of the working population, had personal ownership of tools and could dispose of part of the product produced. This determined their interest in increasing labor productivity, which slaves did not have.
Within the framework of the formation that Marxism defined as capitalist, the worker is personally free. However, not having sources of livelihood, he is forced to sell his ability to work to an entrepreneur, the owner of the means of production, who appropriates the unpaid part of the surplus product produced.
The next, communist, formation was seen as a society where, with the withering away of private property, a person would acquire true freedom, would work exclusively for himself and the needs of society as a whole, and would become the master of his own life.
Within each historically extended era in Marxist theory, periods of formation, flourishing and decline of the corresponding formations were distinguished. The civilizational approach highlighted the same phases in the development of civilizations.
The boundaries between eras and their constituent periods were, as a rule, determined by large, large-scale historical events that had a great influence on the lives of peoples.
At first glance, it may seem that supporters of different approaches to history should fundamentally diverge in its periodization, but in reality this does not happen. Disputes arise only on certain issues. The fact is that the time of change can be called in different ways - a change of formation, the collapse of a local civilization, the onset of a new phase of development. The essence of the events described does not change.
Each new period of historical development, as a rule, is associated with a change in forms of economic activity, property relations, political upheavals, and profound changes in the nature of spiritual culture.
It should be remembered that any periodization, if we are talking about the history of mankind as a whole, is to a certain extent conditional. The transition to a new era is not a one-time act, but a process extended in time and space. The crisis and decline of society can be combined with the formation in its depths of the sprouts of a new civilization. These processes do not develop simultaneously in all areas of the world. This is exactly how the formation of the industrial civilization of the New Age proceeded. While some countries have already experienced the industrial revolution, others have not yet gone beyond the boundaries of the class system and manufacturing production, and in others, elements of the old and new systems were combined in a bizarre way.
When studying world history, it is necessary to proceed from an understanding of world development as a process of constantly occurring interconnected changes in all spheres of life of societies, states, in their relations, in the interaction of peoples with their natural environment. When these changes affect the appearance, if not of the entire world, then of the lives of the majority of the Earth's population, it is right to talk about the onset of a new stage in world history. Sometimes it is associated with completely obvious events that directly affect many peoples. In other cases, the transition to a new stage turns out to be extended in time. Then a certain conditional date can be taken as a turning point.
Stages of human development
It has become generally accepted to divide the historical path traversed by humanity into the primitive era, the history of the Ancient World, the Middle Ages, New and Contemporary times.
The length of the primitive era is determined to be more than 1.5 million years. When studying it, archeology comes to the aid of history. Using the remains of ancient tools, rock paintings and burials, she studies the cultures of the past. The science of anthropology deals with the reconstruction of the appearance of primitive people.
During this era, the formation of a modern type of man took place (about 30-40 thousand years ago), tools were gradually improved, and the transition from hunting, fishing and gathering to agriculture and cattle breeding began.
The history of the Ancient World dates back to the emergence of the first states (IV-III millennium BC). This was a time of a split in society into rulers and the governed, the haves and the have-nots, and the widespread spread of slavery (although it was not of great economic importance in all ancient states). The slave system reached its heyday during the period of antiquity (1st millennium BC - early AD), the rise of the civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.
In recent years, the attempts of a group of scientists, in particular the mathematician A.T., have gained some popularity. Fomenko, to offer his own chronology of the history of the Ancient World and the Middle Ages. They argue that the reconstruction by historians of many events that occurred earlier than the 16th-17th centuries, before the widespread use of printing, is not indisputable and other options are possible. In particular, they propose to consider that the written history of mankind has been artificially extended by more than a millennium. This, however, is only an assumption that has not been recognized by most historians.
The era of the Middle Ages is usually defined by the time frame of the V - XVII centuries.
The first period of this era (V-XI centuries) was marked by the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the formation of a new type of social relations associated with the establishment of the class system in Europe. Within its framework, each class has its own rights and responsibilities. This time is characterized by the predominance of subsistence farming and the special role of religion.
The second period (mid-11th - end of the 15th century) is the time of the formation of large feudal states and the growing importance of cities. They become centers of crafts, trade, and spiritual life, which is becoming increasingly secular in nature.
The third period (XVI - mid-XVII centuries) is associated with the beginning of the decomposition of the feudal system; it is sometimes characterized as the early modern period. Europeans discover the world, the creation of colonial empires begins. Commodity-money relations are developing rapidly, and manufacturing is becoming widespread. The social structure of society is becoming more complex; it increasingly comes into conflict with its class division. The Reformation and Counter-Reformation mark the onset of a new stage in spiritual life. In conditions of growing social and religious contradictions, central power is strengthened, and absolutist monarchies arise.
The civilizations of the Ancient World and the Middle Ages are not distinguished within the framework of the theory of “growth stages”; they are considered as a “traditional society”, the basis of which is natural and semi-natural agricultural and craft farming.
The era of New Time - the era of the formation and establishment of industrial, capitalist civilization - is also divided into several periods.
The first begins in the middle of the 17th century, when the time of revolutions came that destroyed the foundations of the class system (the first of them was the revolution in England in the 1640-1660s). The Age of Enlightenment was no less important, associated with the spiritual emancipation of man, his acquisition of faith in the power of reason.
The second period of modern times begins after the Great French Revolution (1789-1794). The industrial revolution, which began in England, covers the countries of continental Europe, where the formation of capitalist relations is proceeding at a rapid pace. This is a time of rapid growth of colonial empires, development of the world market, and a system of international division of labor. With the completion of the formation of large bourgeois states, the ideology of nationalism and national interest was established in most of them.
The third period of modern times begins at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century. It is characterized by the fact that the rapid development of industrial civilization “in breadth”, due to its development of new territories, is slowing down. The capacity of world markets turns out to be insufficient to absorb the growing volumes of products. The time of deepening global crises of overproduction is coming,
growth of social contradictions in industrial countries. The struggle between them for the redivision of the world begins and intensifies.
Contemporaries perceived this time as a period of crisis of industrial, capitalist civilization. They saw the First World War of 1914-1918 as its indicator. and the upheavals associated with it, most notably the 1917 revolution in Russia.
Periodization of Contemporary History
The question of what should be understood by the term modern history is one of the most controversial in modern science.
For some Soviet historians and philosophers, the 1917 revolution in Russia marked the transition to the era of the formation of the communist formation; it was with it that the advent of modern times was associated. Proponents of other approaches to the periodization of history used the term “Modern Time” in a different sense, meaning by it a period directly related to the current time. They preferred to talk about the history of the 20th century, or the history of modern times.
Nevertheless, within the framework of the history of modern times, two main periods are distinguished.
The process of deepening and growing crisis of the industrial civilization of modern times, which began at the end of the 19th century, covers the entire first half of the 20th century. This is early modern times. The severity of the contradictions that have declared themselves in the world continued to increase. The Great Crisis of 1929-1932 brought the economies of the most developed countries to the brink of collapse. Power rivalry, the struggle for colonies and markets for products led to the Second World War of 1939-1945, even more destructive than the first. The colonial system of European powers is collapsing. The conditions of the Cold War are breaking the unity of the world market. With the invention of nuclear weapons, the crisis of industrial civilization began to threaten the death of the entire human race.
Qualitative changes associated with changes in the nature of social, socio-political development of the leading countries of the world begin to appear only in the second half - the end of the 20th century.
During this period, with the spread of computers and industrial robots, the nature of work activity changes, and the intellectual worker becomes the central figure in production. In developed countries, a socially oriented market economy is emerging, and the nature of human life and leisure is changing. Significant changes are taking place in the international arena; power rivalry is being replaced by cooperation. Integration processes are developing, common economic spaces are emerging (Western European, North American, etc.). With the collapse of the USSR and its system of unions, the integrity of the world market is restored, the processes of globalization of economic life begin to develop, and a global system of information communications is taking shape.
At the same time, the symptoms of the crisis of industrial society are making themselves felt in many parts of the world at the beginning of the 21st century, including in the territory of the former USSR.
Questions and tasks
· What approaches to the periodization of world history existed in historical science? Give examples.
· Explain why any periodization of the historical process is conditional. Under what changes in social development is it right to talk about the onset of a new stage in world history?
· Explain why the periodization of the modern period of history is one of the controversial issues. What changes in global social development can be associated with the onset of a new stage?
Fill out the table.
Topic 3. The primitive era. Human society and natural communities
The oldest stone tools are 2.5-3 million years old. Consequently, at that time, creatures with the rudiments of intelligence already lived in East Africa.
The most developed primates (chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans) are capable of using ready-made objects (a stick, a stone) in certain situations. However, they cannot make a tool, even the most primitive one (chip and sharpen flint). This requires certain knowledge about the properties of objects (for example, that flint is more amenable to processing than granite), the ability to plan one’s actions, and speculatively imagine their result, which implies the skill of abstract thinking, the presence of reason.
The origin of the mind is explained by the action of natural laws of evolutionary development, interspecies struggle for survival. The best chances in this struggle were those species that, to a greater extent than others, could ensure their existence in the changing conditions of the natural environment.
Wildlife has demonstrated an infinite variety of both dead-end and viable evolutionary options. One of them was associated with the formation of the rudiments of social behavior that many animal species demonstrate. By uniting in herds (flocks), they could defend themselves and protect their cubs from stronger opponents, and obtain more food. Moreover, the size of each of them was limited by the ability to feed themselves in a certain territory (among primitive people, the size of the herd was 20-40 people).
In interspecific and sometimes intraspecific struggle between herds that needed similar food, those who had better developed communication, the ability to warn each other about the approach of the enemy, and better coordinate their actions during the hunt won. Gradually, over hundreds of thousands of years, among human predecessors, primitive sound signals expressing emotions began to acquire an increasingly meaningful character. Speech was formed, inseparable from the ability for abstract, abstract thinking, which implied a complication of the structure of the brain. Those individuals who showed greater communication abilities had the best chance of surviving in the primitive herd and leaving offspring.
Thus, the emergence and improvement of speech and abstract thinking became the most important factor in the development of the human race itself. It is no coincidence that each new step in the stage of human evolution was associated, on the one hand, with the development of the brain, and on the other, with the improvement of hunting and fishing tools.
Many animals demonstrate the ability to learn. However, reflexes and skills acquired by one individual do not become the property of the species. In the herds of primitive people, knowledge gradually accumulated, which, thanks to the development of speech, was passed on from generation to generation. They reflected the experience of tens of thousands of years of interaction with the outside world, concerned the properties of surrounding objects, and understanding the connections between actions and their results.
The accumulation of knowledge and practical skills in its application has provided humans with decisive advantages in the struggle for survival compared to other species. Armed with clubs, spears, and acting together, primitive hunters could cope with any predator. The possibilities for obtaining food have expanded significantly. Thanks to warm clothing, mastery of fire, and acquisition of the skill of preserving food (drying, smoking), people were able to settle over a vast territory and felt relative independence from the climate and vagaries of the weather.
The accumulation of knowledge was not a constantly developing, progressive process. Many human communities perished due to hunger, disease, and attacks by hostile tribes, and the knowledge they acquired was completely or partially lost.
Stages of human development
The most ancient stone tools are found in East Africa, North and South Asia. It was in these areas that Australopithecus lived. They were more like monkeys than people, although they could walk on two legs. It is generally accepted that Australopithecus used sticks and sharp stones as weapons, but most likely did not yet know how to process them.
Approximately 1.0 million - 700 thousand years ago, a period begins that is called the Early Paleolithic (from the Greek “paleo” - “ancient * and “cast” - “stone”). Excavations in France, near the villages of Chelles and Saint-Achelles, have revealed the remains of caves and ancient settlements, where successive generations of the predecessors of modern man lived for tens of thousands of years. Subsequently, such finds were discovered in other places.
Archaeological research has made it possible to trace how tools of labor and hunting have changed. Tools made of bone and sharpened stone (points, scrapers, axes) became more and more sophisticated and durable. The physical type of a person changed: he became more and more adapted to moving on the ground without the help of his hands, and the volume of his brain increased.
Thus, the brain volume of the ape was about 300-600 cubic meters. cm, Australopithecus - 600-700 cc. cm, Pithecanthropus - 800-870 cc. cm, Sinanthropus and Heidelberg man - more than 1000 cubic meters. cm, Neanderthal - 1300-1700 cc. cm, modern man - 1400-1800 cubic meters. cm.
The most important achievement of the Early Paleolithic was mastering the ability to use fire (approximately 200-300 thousand years ago) to heat a home, prepare food, and protect against predators.
Initially, people did not know how to light a fire. Its source was randomly occurring forest and steppe fires; the resulting fire was constantly maintained in the hearths. The ancient Greek legend of Prometheus, who stole the knowledge of fire from the gods, is probably an echo of the memory of very ancient times.
The time of the Early Paleolithic ends with a period of sharp changes in the natural conditions of existence of primitive people. The onset of glaciers began, approximately 100 thousand years ago, covering almost the entire territory of Russia, Central and Western Europe. Many herds of primitive Neanderthal hunters were unable to adapt to new living conditions. The struggle for diminishing sources of food intensified between them.
By the end of the Early Paleolithic (approximately 30-20 thousand years BC) in Eurasia and Africa, Neanderthals completely disappeared. The modern, Cro-Magnon type of man has established himself everywhere.
Man masters his planet
The Mesolithic era (from the Greek “mesos” - “middle” and “cast” - “stone”) covers the period from the 20th to the 9th-8th millennium BC. It is characterized by a new change in natural conditions, which become more favorable: glaciers are retreating, new territories become available for settlement.
During this period, the Earth's population did not exceed 10 million people. This is not much, but with the predominance of an appropriative type of economy (hunting, fishing, gathering), it was necessary to constantly expand the territory of hunting grounds. The weakest tribes were pushed to the periphery of the inhabited world. About 25 thousand years ago, man first entered the American continent, and about 20 thousand years ago - to Australia.
The history of the settlement of America and Australia causes a lot of controversy. It is generally accepted that man could have ended up on these continents even before the end of the Ice Age, when the sea level was about 100 m lower than today and there were land bridges connecting these continents with Eurasia. At the same time, scientists, noting that there were several waves of migration to overseas continents, prove that already at the dawn of their history people could cross wide expanses of water. The Norwegian explorer T. Heyerdahl, to prove the correctness of this point of view, crossed the Pacific Ocean on a raft made using technologies that could have been available to man during the Mesolithic.
During the Mesolithic era, rock painting arose and became widespread. In the remains of dwellings of that time, archaeologists find figurines depicting people, animals, beads and other decorations. All this speaks of the onset of a new stage in the knowledge of the world. Abstract symbols and generalized concepts that arose with the development of speech take on a kind of independent life in drawings and figurines. Many of them were associated with rituals and rites of primitive magic.
The greatest mystery for man was himself, the process of cognition, understanding the nature of intellectual activity and the abilities associated with it. Primitive magic was built on the belief in the ability to influence distant objects and other people with words, symbolic actions and drawings, and in the special significance of dreams. Early beliefs sometimes did have some rational basis. However, they often became fetters for further knowledge of the world.
The large role of chance in people's lives gave rise to attempts to improve the situation in hunting and in life. This is how belief in omens, favorable or unfavorable, arose. Fetishism appeared - the belief that some objects (talismans) have special magical powers. Among them were animal figurines, stones, and amulets that supposedly brought good luck to their owner. Beliefs arose, for example, that a warrior who drank the blood of an enemy or ate his heart acquired special strength. Hunting, treating a patient, and choosing a mate (boy or girl) were preceded by ritual actions, among which dancing and singing were of particular importance. People of the Mesolithic era knew how to make percussion, wind, string and plucked musical instruments.
Particular importance was attached to funeral rituals, which became more and more complex over time. In ancient burials, archaeologists find jewelry and tools that people used during their lifetime, and food supplies. This proves that already at the dawn of history there were widespread beliefs in the existence of an other world where a person lives after death.
Belief in higher powers gradually strengthened, which could both help and harm. It was assumed that they could be appeased with a sacrifice, most often with part of the loot, which should be left in a certain place. Some tribes practiced human sacrifice.
It was believed that some people have great abilities to communicate with higher powers and spirits. Gradually, along with the leaders (they usually became the strongest, most successful, experienced hunters), priests (shamans, sorcerers) began to play a noticeable role in the life of primitive tribes. They usually knew the healing properties of herbs, perhaps had some hypnotic abilities and had a great influence on their fellow tribesmen.
The time of completion of the Mesolithic and the transition to a new stage of human development can only be approximately determined. Among many tribes of the equatorial zone in Africa, South America, on the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, among the aborigines of Australia, and some peoples of the North, the type of economic activity and culture has remained virtually unchanged since the Mesolithic era. At the same time, in the 9th-8th millennia BC. In some areas of the world, the transition to agriculture and livestock breeding begins. This time of the Neolithic revolution (from the Greek “neos” - “new” and “cast” - “stone”) marks the transition from the appropriating to the producing type of economic activity.
Man and nature: the first conflict
Man around the 10th millennium BC. has established itself on all continents as the dominant species and, as such, has ideally adapted to the conditions of its habitat. However, further improvement of hunting tools led to the extermination of many species of animals, a reduction in their numbers, which undermined the foundations of the existence of primitive people. Hunger and related diseases, the intensification of the struggle between tribes for increasingly poor hunting territories, the decline in the human population - such was the price for progress.
This first crisis in the development of civilization in history was solved in two ways.
The tribes living in the harsh climate of the North, desert areas, and jungles seemed to freeze in their development and knowledge of the surrounding world. Gradually, a system of prohibitions (taboos) developed that limited hunting and food consumption. This prevented population growth, hampered changes in lifestyle and the development of knowledge.
In other cases, there was a breakthrough to a qualitatively new level of development. People began to consciously influence the natural environment and transform it. The development of agriculture and cattle breeding occurred only in favorable natural conditions.
After a successful hunt, live wolf cubs, lambs, kids, calves, wild boars, foals, and fawns often ended up in the camps. Initially they were considered as a food supply, then it became clear that they could live in captivity and give birth. Breeding animals turned out to be much more productive than hunting their wild relatives. It took thousands of years for individual attempts at domestication to lead to the establishment of a new type of economy. During this time, new breeds of domesticated animals arose, most of which, unlike their wild ancestors, could no longer survive in the natural environment and needed humans to protect them from predators.
According to archaeologists, the first animal that began to live with humans back in the 15th millennium BC, guarding their homes and helping to hunt, was a dog. In the 10th millennium BC. the tribes of Northern Eurasia began to breed deer. In the 7th millennium BC. in the Caspian steppes, Iran, and Turkey, goats and sheep became domestic animals. Another thousand years later, cattle breeding began there, as well as in the Indus Valley.
The transition to agriculture took place in a similar way. Gathering edible plants has always played a large role in the life of primitive man. Over time, from observations and experience, the understanding came that plant seeds can be sown near a settlement and, with appropriate care, watering, and weeding, good harvests can be obtained.
Agro-pastoral crops
The first agricultural cultures of the 7th-4th millennia BC. arose near large rivers, where the mild climate and exceptional soil fertility made it possible to obtain good harvests - in the territory of modern Egypt, Iran, Iraq, India, Central Asia, China, Mexico, Peru.
The first plants to be grown in Europe were wheat and barley. In Southeast Asia in the 7th millennium BC. They grew beans and peas. In China, from the agricultural cultures of the 4th millennium BC. millet predominated. In South America in the 7th-5th millennia BC. e. They planted corn, pumpkins, and beans.
During this period, people's lives underwent very significant changes.
For most of the primitive communal era, the existence of people was subordinated to the interests of the struggle for survival. All the time was spent searching for food. At the same time, a person who accidentally strayed from his tribe or was expelled from it had no chance of survival.
The memory of that time was preserved in subsequent eras. Thus, in the city-states of Ancient Greece, the death penalty was often replaced by exile, although in ancient times moving from one city to another was quite common.
The only form of division of labor existed between men, who were predominantly engaged in hunting, and women, who remained in the camp and looked after the children, running the household, doing sewing and cooking.
Over time, the structure of social relations began to become more complex. Thanks to increased labor productivity, it became possible to produce more food than was necessary for the survival of the tribe.
The division of labor deepened. On the one hand, agriculture separated from cattle breeding, on the other, handicraft labor acquired independent significance. In the V-IV millennia BC. Weaving and pottery developed (clayware was made using a potter's wheel). Boats and the first wheeled carts appeared, driven by draft animals (horses, oxen and donkeys).
In order for a craftsman to specialize in the manufacture of products needed by the entire tribe and to improve his skills, he had to be free from getting food. He had to exchange the products of his labor with his fellow tribesmen for meat and grain.
The sphere of exchange gradually expanded. Tribes that produced more food than they needed to survive began to exchange their surplus. This made it possible to expand the diet and make consumption more varied. Stable economic ties gradually developed between neighboring settlements and the division of labor was established. For example, in some settlements artisans specialized in weapons, in others in weaving, in others in making dishes, etc.
In the settlements of the 7th-5th millennia BC. lived from several hundred to 2-3 thousand people. In warm regions, the wooden frames of houses were covered with leather, straw, and coated with clay. In Northern and Central Europe, houses were built of wood, each house accommodating several related families. Settlements were usually surrounded by walls made of stones and clay, and ditches were built to protect them from attacks by hostile tribes. In the center of the settlement, a monumental building was most often erected, an altar to the spirits - the patrons of the tribe.
Initially, the exchange was in kind. But with its expansion, the need arose for the existence of a single equivalent of the value of goods, in other words, money.
The function of money in different parts of the world was played by various objects, usually quite rare and at the same time suitable for use. Among the Slavic, Scandinavian tribes, and Indians of North America, these were most often furs and skins. The Arab and some Slavic tribes have cattle, many tribes of the Pacific Ocean have rare shells. The tribes of Central Africa have ivory, and in China, salt.
The emergence of surplus products became the basis not only for the development of trade, but also for the emergence of property inequality.
Neolithic tribes did not know private property. Thus, American Indians even in the 17th - 19th centuries. They farmed together, and the products grown and obtained were the common property of the tribe.
Gradually, the leaders, sorcerers (priests), and the most skilled artisans began to accumulate property and valuables. Experienced artisans and healers, whose work was especially highly valued by their fellow tribesmen, began to hide the secrets of their skills.
The transition from matriarchy to patriarchy
The emergence of property, property, knowledge, labor and professional skills, which were inherited, was closely related to changes in the way of life of Neolithic people, the emergence of such a unit of social organization as the family.
The question of the origin of the family has long been controversial among ethnographers and archaeologists. The greatest contribution to its solution was made by the American scientist L. Morgan (1818-1881), who studied the life of the Indians of North America in comparison with the life of other peoples who remained at the Neolithic level. According to Morgan's views, the family relationships of primitive people underwent a long evolution, going through a number of successive stages.
The most important role in the formation of the family was played by the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy.
During the period when hunting was the main source of food, the life of men was, as a rule, short. Only the luckiest and most skillful of them lived to be 25-30 years old.
An echo of the time when the survival of a tribe depended on the number of men who provided food, the special significance that many nations attach to the birth of a boy remains.
Under these conditions, women played an important role in preserving the clan. It was they who gave birth to new generations of hunters (the degree of relationship was determined by the mother), raised children, maintained a home, and organized the life of the tribe, whose members were related by blood ties. This system was called matriarchy.
The work of a farmer, cattle breeder, and artisan did not involve such a risk to life as hunting. Mortality among men decreased, the number of men and women became equal. This played a big role in changing the nature of family relationships.
Fields and paddocks for livestock were usually located near the settlement, and men now worked together with women, doing the most difficult, hard work. They passed on the acquired skills and knowledge to their children. This determined the increasing role of men in the tribe. For many peoples it gradually became dominant.
The emerging traditions, customs, and rituals also reinforced the norms of patriarchy, i.e. the special role of men in society.
Neolithic people usually lived in large families (several dozen people), which included blood relatives. Men and women belonging to the same clan could not marry each other. The time of this prohibition, which allowed to avoid genetic degeneration, observed by most tribes, is unknown, but it arose quite a long time ago.
Grown-up girls were given in marriage to other clans, and men took wives from them. In other words, women passed from clan to clan, men remained in their family, and it was they who became its permanent core. The degree of kinship was now taken into account along the male line. In some tribes, women were viewed as a kind of commodity that one family sold to another.
With such a system of kinship ties, property created or acquired by the family remained with it. The concept of property arose. Craftsmen and healers also sought to pass on their knowledge to their family members.
Several clans living in the neighborhood, whose members married each other, constituted a tribe. At the head of the tribe was a chief.
Transition to the Chalcolithic
As the population grew, individual clans settled into undeveloped or reclaimed territories, and over time, new tribes formed. Related tribes speaking the same language and having similar beliefs usually maintained close ties with each other. Together they formed tribal alliances that supported each other in case of conflicts and in lean years.
Tribes that moved a long distance from the territory they originally occupied (those who specialized in cattle breeding were especially drawn to resettlement) often lost ties with their place of origin. Their language developed, words appeared in it, borrowed from new neighbors, associated with changing forms of economic activity.
The classification of languages provides material for determining the original areas of residence of peoples, understanding the foundations of their traditions and culture. Thus, the kinship of the languages of peoples separated by a vast territory indicates either that they had common roots, or that they lived in the past within the same geographical area and the existence of close ties between them, which is often confirmed by the similarity of customs and rituals.
Around the V-IV millennia BC. The main centers of distribution of language groups that still exist today are emerging.
In total, there are about 4 thousand languages on the globe (it is impossible to give an exact figure, since the boundaries between languages and dialects of the same language are fluid). Linguists unite them into large language families (Indo-European, Finno-Ugric, Turkic, Mongolian, Semitic-Hamitic, Berber-Libyan, Cushitic, Sino-Tibetan, etc.). The languages of the largest, Indo-European, family are spoken by about 45% of the world's population. It includes the languages of the Slavic, Baltic, Germanic, Celtic, Romance, Albanian, Greek, Armenian, Iranian, Nuristan, and Indo-Aryan language groups.
In the modern world, people who speak Indo-European languages perceive them as different (like, for example, Russian and English). However, according to archaeological data, tribes who spoke similar dialects, which later developed into Indo-European languages, in the 4th-3rd millennia BC. lived in a limited area - in South-West Asia, south of the Black Sea and Caspian regions. Later they settled over vast areas of Eurasia.
At the same time, a new stage began in the development of agricultural and pastoral tribes: they moved on to the development of metals. In search of new materials for making tools, artisans found nuggets of fusible metals (copper, tin, lead, etc.) and over time learned to make weapons, tools and jewelry from them. Metals were easier and faster to process than stone; more productive tools, better weapons, and armor could be made from them.
There were still few available metal reserves, their processing was only taking its first steps, so stone tools were used for a long time. Nevertheless, the time that began with the development of metal (the first metal tools date back to the 7th millennium BC, but they became widespread only in the 4th-3rd millennium BC) is called the Eneolithic (Copper-Stone Age). It marked the onset of a new stage in the history of mankind, associated with the emergence of the first states.
Questions and tasks.
· Using the knowledge acquired in biology, history and social studies classes, talk about the most common hypotheses of human origins. When did the theory of evolution arise and who was its author?
· What factors contributed to the separation of man from the natural world? What role did interspecific and intraspecific struggle play in the process of human evolution?
· Name the directions of evolution of the human race. What was the significance of the accumulation of knowledge for ancient man in the struggle for survival?
· Which regions are the ancestral homeland of humanity? Name the anthropoid ancestors of humans.
· Trace changes in the anthropological type of man in the process of evolution.
· What human achievements in the Early Paleolithic era allowed him to survive the Ice Age?
· At what stage of primitive history did human settlement take place across the continents of the planet?
· When did rock art and religious beliefs emerge in human groups? What function did they perform?
· What changes in human economic activity gave rise to talk about the Neolithic revolution?
· What problems in the relationship between man and nature have arisen from the improvement of tools? What were the consequences of the first crisis in the development of civilization?
· Tell us about the process of transition from the appropriating to the producing type of economy.
· Explain how the division of labor and specialization of activities influenced the complexity of social relations and the change in the nature of exchange. What items were used as equivalent to the value of goods?
· Indicate the factors that contributed to the emergence of property inequality and the emergence of private property.
· Explain the concepts: matriarchy, patriarchy. Think about how the processes are connected: the formation of private property and the transition to patriarchy.
· At what stage of development did the separation of language groups occur?
· What changes occurred in human society with the beginning of the development of metals?
Medieval philosophy is characterized by belonging to an era in whose culture the Christian religion occupied a dominant position.
The origin of this type of philosophy dates back to the time when ancient philosophical thought began to be influenced by Christian ideas. Sometimes the beginning of the Middle Ages is associated with a specific event: the deposition of the last Roman emperor in 476 and the abolition of imperial power, and the end with the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 and the fall of Byzantium, when philosophy was freed from the power of church canons.
In the Middle Ages, the purpose of philosophy was seen in its service to religion, which is well reflected in the famous statement of the 11th century scholastic. Petra Damiani: “Philosophy must serve the Holy Scriptures like a servant to her mistress.”
In general, medieval philosophy should be considered as a kind of synthesis of ancient philosophy and Christian mythology and religion. The ancient philosophical heritage entered this philosophy in a significantly modified form in order to correspond to Christian teaching and way of life. Theocentrism replaced ancient cosmocentrism, and philosophical activity began to be regulated by the church.
Medieval European philosophy represents a very important and long period in the history of philosophy, which covers the period from the 5th to the 15th centuries. At the end of the 5th century, the Roman Empire fell under the onslaught of Germanic tribes. Since that time, a new social system has arisen and developed in Western Europe - feudalism, the main principle of which is private ownership of land. Gradually, the enslavement of free peasants and their complete subordination to the feudal lords occurs.
The official ideology of feudal society becomes the Christian religion, which in the 4th century became the official religion of the Roman Empire. By this period, an official doctrine and an official church led by the Pope had already developed, and contradictions between secular and spiritual feudal lords for a dominant role in society were intensifying.
The development of philosophical thought of this period was permeated with problems of religion. The church monopolized all processes of development of education and scientific knowledge; the content and development of philosophy was completely dependent on theology, or theology, which was a set of religious doctrines about the essence and action of God.
Philosophical service seemed very honorable. Philosophy had to rationally and orderly, mastering the achievements of spiritual culture, based on the provisions and experience of the Christian faith, comprehend everything that exists, support Christian value principles and the worldview based on them with rational arguments, as well as interpret, explain the truths of faith, promoting the dissemination and strengthening of knowledge about them.
In the history of the development of medieval philosophy, two stages are distinguished: patristics, which covers the 6th - 10th centuries, and scholasticism - 11th - 15th centuries.
In general, medieval philosophy is characterized by the following features:
Firstly, it was characterized by Biblical traditionalism and retrospectiveness, since the Bible became the starting source and measure of evaluation of any philosophical theories;
Secondly, since the Bible was understood as a set of laws of existence and the commands of God, exegesis—the art of correct interpretation and explanation of the provisions of the Testament—acquired special significance;
Thirdly, the philosophy of the Middle Ages was characterized by a tendency towards edification and teaching.
The basic provisions of Christian doctrine take the form of guiding principles in religious philosophy and theology.
The dominant idea of the Christian worldview is the idea of God. The medieval worldview is theocentric, since the reality that determines everything in the world is a supernatural principle - God. At the same time, development, the meaning of history and worldview, human goals and values acquire a special supra-world perspective, rising above finite everyday situations. This main principle of Christian religious philosophy is called supernaturalism. Christian theology concretizes supernaturalism with the following principles:
Soteriologism is the orientation of all human life activity towards the salvation of the soul;
Creationism is the doctrine of the creation of the world by God;
Anthropocentrism is the doctrine of the exclusive role of man among God’s creations;
Providentialism is the doctrine of man's predestination to a supernatural destiny;
Eschatologism is the doctrine of the end of the world and the coming of the “kingdom of God.”
The main position of medieval thinkers was an appeal to antiquity: the more ancient, the truer, more authentic, and more reliable. The most ancient truth is that which is reflected in the Holy Scriptures, therefore the Bible is the main source of knowledge and inspiration.
Theocentricity of thinking - the force that determines thinking, all behavior of man and society - is God, man must conscientiously serve God.
The dogma of the creation of all things shifted the center of gravity from the natural to the supernatural. In Ancient philosophy, two opposite principles struggle - passive and active, matter and idea. Monism (the doctrine of unity) of the Middle Ages is that there is only God, he is the absolute beginning, the whole world, the Universe is the result of his creation, only God has true reality.
One of the stages in the development of medieval philosophy is patristics. Patristics is a set of teachings of the “Church Fathers”, Christian thinkers of the 2nd - 10th centuries. There are Greek (Eastern) and Latin (Western) patristics. In early patristics (2nd - 3rd centuries), in conditions of persecution of Christianity and unsettled dogma, philosophical arguments were put forward in defense of Christianity, and approaches to its philosophical understanding were defined. The most significant philosopher of early Greek patristics was Origen (185-264), and the most significant philosopher of Latin patristics was Quintus Septimius Tertullian (160-after 220). Mature patristics (4th - 5th centuries) is a time when Christianity occupies a leading position in spiritual life, dogma is established, and the foundations of Christian philosophy are created in a tense creative atmosphere. In Greek patristics, Gregory of Nyssa and Pseudo-Dionysius stand out in this regard, and mature Latin patristics are crowned by the work of Augustine Aurelius. In late patristics, reflections on the philosophical material developed in the previous period and perceived as canonical come to the fore. Outstanding philosophers of late Greek patristics were Maximus the Confessor and John of Damascus. A major thinker of late Latin patristics, who prepared the transition of philosophy to scholasticism, was Severinus Boethius.
The main purpose of the patristic philosophers was the creation and dissemination of Christian philosophical teaching, the establishment of its principles, the transformation of philosophy into the handmaiden of the Holy Scriptures and church orthodoxy. The ancient philosophical heritage and, above all, Platonism were processed in the Christian spirit. An ideological struggle was waged around dogmas, ancient cosmocentrism, cultural elitism, and intellectualism were overcome. The philosophical thought of patristics was focused on the task of comprehending how Divine being and human being are united. The main problems for her were: problems of faith and reason, the nature of God, his trinity, Divine attributes, human personality, its freedom, ways to save the soul, the historical destinies of mankind.
In the works of Augustine, all these problems found deep development and vivid expression. Augustine is characterized by a religious and artistic style of philosophizing, voluntarism, personalism, and psychologism. The central theme of his work is the human soul turned to God in search of salvation. Augustine's fundamental idea: God is a perfect person and absolute being. From this idea follows his existence (“ontological proof of the existence of God”). God is absolutely simple, unchanging, outside of time, outside of space. The divine trinity can be understood by imagining the soul as the image of God:
The soul exists—the Being that distinguishes God the Father is affirmed;
The soul understands - the Reason, the Logos, which distinguishes God the Son, is affirmed;
The soul desires - the Will is affirmed, distinguishing God the Holy Spirit.
Man, according to Augustine, is a union of soul and body. The soul is an intelligent substance adapted to control the body. The union of soul and body is incomprehensible; the soul knows about the state of the body without interacting with it. Life is concentrated in the life of the soul, in its experiences and doubts. “I doubt,” says Augustine, “therefore I live.” Will and love are more valuable than reason. The body exists in space and time, the soul - only in time. Augustine gives a psychological understanding of time as a state of the soul: the soul remembers - this is the present of the past, the soul contemplates - this is the present of the present, the soul waits, hopes - this is the present of the future. Love, will and reason of man, like everything created, are initially directed towards God. In the relationship between faith and reason, Augustine gives primacy to faith, declaring: “I believe in order to understand!” But he believes that faith is not counter-reasonable, but super-reasonable. Reason can lead to certain stages of comprehension of the truth, but beyond that it is powerless; faith leads. God is perceived by the soul, as if by illumination. The Upper Light is revealed in a mystical union with God. God is Absolute Good, i.e. the true goal to which one should strive. He is the absolute object of love, everything else is a means. Freedom is following God's will, love for God. Original sin, which lies within everyone, distorts the soul. Consequences of sin: weak will to good, inclination to evil, instability of mind, bodily mortality. Evil is a deviation from the direction towards God as an absolute goal. But even in the sinful soul there is an impulse towards God, towards salvation from sin. The main responsibility for evil in the world lies with the person who committed the Fall and abused the great Divine gift of freedom.
People are divided into components: the City of God and the City of Earth. The people of the City of God carry grace within themselves and are predestined for salvation, but they do not know this with complete certainty. The earthly city is doomed to destruction. Baptism is a necessary but not sufficient condition for salvation. The church is higher than the state, although the earthly church is only an imperfect embodiment of the heavenly church - the spiritual community of the City of God. A state pursuing earthly goals is a “gang of robbers,” a kingdom of violence. In Augustine's historiosophy, built on the principles of providentialism and revelation, ancient cyclism is overcome. History is considered as world history, it goes from Adam and Eve through the Fall. Its central event is the coming of Christ, after which nothing can “return to normal.” The idea of linearity and irreversibility of history as the history of mankind is affirmed.
Scholasticism was developed primarily in Western Europe under the auspices of the Catholic Church, in a single cultural space characterized by a community of faith and language, religion and education, in church centers, as well as in secular schools and universities. In scholasticism, there are early, mature and late scholasticism. In early scholasticism (11th - 12th centuries), the Platonic-Augustinian direction predominates. Its largest representatives were Anselm of Canterbury and Peter Abelard. In mature scholasticism (13th century), an orientation towards Aristotelianism took over, which was given an orthodox Christian character through the efforts of outstanding thinkers of the Dominican Order, Albertus Magnus and his student Thomas Aquinas. Late scholasticism (14th -15th centuries) is a time of crisis in medieval philosophy, when there is a opposition between philosophy and theology, reason and faith, will and intellect, dogmas of religion and the principles of science; nominalism triumphs. Philosophy begins to have its own domain; it ceases to be the servant of theology.
Scholastic philosophy is characterized by the fact that, on the basis of religious dogma and church orthodoxy developed in the era of patristics, scholastics created in a rational way, widely using the techniques of formal logic, the method of deduction, speculative systems and encyclopedic collections of various knowledge - sums. In addition, scholasticism is distinguished by commentary (systematization was based on commentary on texts that had the indisputable authority of the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the “Church Fathers”) and didacticism (giving theoretical constructs the form of educational material). The feudal system of life was based in Western Europe on the Christian doctrine, which sanctified the individual and work, the interaction of church and secular authorities, complex legal ties that fixed the vassal and corporate structure, and rational forms of management. All this contributed to the preservation, and in some directions, the development of ancient, especially Roman, traditions of jurisprudence, rationalism, historicism, psychologism, and partly individualism. Even the relationship God – man – the world was then largely perceived as legal, and philosophical argumentation acquired the features of a legal one. Theoretical activity was regarded as an important component of serving God. The largest orthodox scholastics Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas were canonized by the Catholic Church.
The scholastics conducted the most heated debates on the problems of faith and reason and universals. The “Golden Age” of scholasticism - 13, in it grandiose theological and philosophical constructions were erected, representing all things as a harmonious, rationally ordered unity in plurality. The most perfect of these constructions is considered to be the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, who created the most influential philosophical doctrine in the Catholic world - Thomism. The main works of Thomas Aquinas are “Summa Theology” and “Summa Philosophy”. The philosophy of Aquinas develops in line with Aristotelianism and bears such features as life-affirming optimism, confidence in the possibility and significance of theoretical knowledge of the world, the presentation of everything that exists as unity in diversity, the affirmation of a single, individual existence with its special place in the general order. Thomas Aquinas exalts man, claiming that the world was created for his sake. The philosopher strives to present a harmonious relationship: God - man - nature; existence – essence; mind - will; faith - knowledge; soul - body; morality is right; church - state. In Thomas's system, ancient jurisprudence, rationalism, and individualism, along with Christian theocentrism and personalism, were continued.
Thomas accepts, already defined by the 13th century, the difference between theology and philosophy, the path of the first is from God to the world, from cause to effects, and the second is from the world to God, from effects to causes. The spheres of reason and faith partly overlap. Some dogmas are super-reasonable (for example, about the Trinity), but some rational arguments can be given to substantiate the dogmas.
Guided by the ideas of Aristotelian metaphysics, Thomas puts forward rational arguments in favor of the existence of God. The philosopher does not explicitly resort to an ontological argument, believing that his existence cannot be deduced from the concept of God: since the essence of God is unknowable: the human mind is devoid of the concept of him. The essence of Thomas Aquinas's five proofs is this: there is a hierarchy in the world:
The sources of motion, which means that at the top of it there must be a prime mover;
Producing causes, they must go back to the final producing cause;
What is necessary, the limit here should be unconditional necessity;
Perfect, his crown should be absolute perfection;
Goals, they must rise to a higher goal.
And the prime mover, the primary producing cause, unconditional necessity, absolute perfection, i.e., Thomas concludes, “a rational being that sets the goal for everything that happens in nature…. we call God."
On the problem of universals, Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle, takes the position of realism. He believes that general concepts exist in three ways: before things (as patterns in the mind of God), in things (as their essence), after things (in the mind of man as concepts).
Law 1. Every tribe or family of peoples, characterized by a separate language or group of languages, sufficiently close to each other, so that their affinity is felt directly, without deep philological research, constitutes an original cultural-historical type, if it is at all its spiritual inclinations are capable of historical development and have already emerged from infancy. Law 2. In order for a civilization characteristic of a distinctive cultural and historical type to arise and develop, it is necessary that the peoples belonging to it enjoy political independence. Law 3. The beginnings of a civilization of one cultural-historical type are not transmitted to peoples of another type. Each type develops it for itself under the greater or lesser influence of alien, previous or modern civilizations. Law 4. Civilization, characteristic of each cultural-historical type, only reaches completeness, diversity and richness when the ethnographic elements that make it up are diverse, when they, without being absorbed into one political whole, taking advantage of their independence, constitute a federation or political system of states. Law 5. The course of development of cultural-historical types is most closely similar to those perennial single-fruited plants in which the growth period is indefinitely long, but the period of flowering and fruiting is relatively short and depletes their vitality once and for all. Questions for document 10: What theory of historical development is discussed in the above document? Describe its main provisions and name the author of this document. Document 11 In the last century, during the era of rapid development of the theory of evolution, both before and after Darwin, it was believed that separate races and ethnic groups were formed as a result of the struggle for existence. Today, this theory suits few people, since many facts speak in favor of another concept - the theory of mutagenesis. In accordance with it, each new species arises as a result of mutation - a sudden change in the gene pool of living beings, occurring under the influence of external conditions in a certain place and at a certain time. Consequently, we can also hypothetically associate the beginning of ethnogenesis with the mechanism of mutation, as a result of which an ethnic “push” arises, which then leads to the formation of new ethnic groups. The process of ethnogenesis is associated with a very specific genetic trait. Here we introduce a new parameter of ethnic history – passionarity. Passionarity is a trait that arises as a result of mutation (passionary impulse) and forms within a population a certain number of people who have an increased desire for action. We will call such people passionaries. Passionaries strive to change their environment and are capable of this. It is they who organize long trips, from which few return. It is they who fight to conquer the peoples surrounding their own ethnic group, or, conversely, fight against the invaders. Such activity requires an increased capacity for stress, and any effort of a living organism is associated with the expenditure of a certain type of energy. This type of energy was discovered and described by our great compatriot Academician V.I. Vernadsky and called it the biochemical energy of living matter in the biosphere. The mechanism of connection between passionarity and behavior is very simple. Usually, people, like living organisms, have as much energy as is necessary to maintain life. If the human body is able to “absorb” more energy from the environment than necessary, then the person forms relationships with other people and connections that allow him to apply this energy in any of the chosen directions. It is also possible to create a new religious system or scientific theory, and to build a pyramid or the Eiffel Tower, etc. At the same time, passionaries act not only as direct performers, but also as organizers. Investing their excess energy in the organization and management of their fellow tribesmen at all levels of the social hierarchy, they, although with difficulty, develop new stereotypes of behavior, impose them on everyone else and thus create a new ethnic system, a new ethnos, visible to history. Questions for Paper 11: What theory is discussed in the above passage? What are its main provisions? 32 Worksheet 2 Define the concepts. Relate concepts to the topic. Remember that some of them can have several meanings: 1) annals; 2) anti-Norman theory; 3) anthropology; 4) archaeography; 5) archeology; 6) archival science; 7) archontology; 8) bonistics; 9) auxiliary historical disciplines (HED); 10) genealogy; 11) heraldry; 12) historiography; 13) historical geography; 14) historical metrology; 15) history; 16) history of science; 17) historical sources; 18) historical materialism; 19) source study; 20) classes; 21) class struggle; 22) local history; 23) chronicles; 24) Marxism; 25) methodology; 33 26) communism; 27) science; 28) Norman theory; 29) numismatics; 30) socio-economic formation; 31) onomastics; 32) paleography; 33) papyrology; 34) paradigm; 35) passionarity theory; 36) periodization of history; 37) the principle of historicism; 38) subject of research; 39) revolution; 40) socialism; 41) means of production; 42) sphragistics; 43) faleristics; 44) philosophy of history; 45) functions of scientific knowledge; 46) chronographs; 47) chronology; 48) civilization; 49) school "Annals"; 50) epigraphy; 51) ethnography. 34 Worksheet 3 Answer the questions. 1) Why do people study the past and preserve knowledge about it? 2) What is history? What are its substantive boundaries and scientific and disciplinary framework? 3) What functions does historical science perform, what methods and principles does it use when studying historical facts and events? 4) What sources do historians use to obtain reliable information? 5) What main stages has historical science gone through in its development? 6) Indicate a feature of historical science in the early stages of its development. What were the limitations of historical knowledge in ancient times? 7) How did the dominant position of religion and the church in the spiritual sphere of the Middle Ages affect the content of historical knowledge? What is the essence of the Christian interpretation of historical development? 8) What directions and schools in modern foreign historical science seem to you the most promising and significant? 9) Explain the essence of Marxist views on historical development. What factors, according to Marxists, are decisive in the progress of mankind? 10) What are the limitations of the Marsist interpretation of history? 11) Why, in your opinion, do scientists introduce the concept of “civilization” when studying the history of human society? 35 12) What principles underlie the civilizational approach to history? List the names of scientists who developed the concepts of local civilizations. 13) Are the concepts of civilization and socio-economic formation interconnected? Explain your point of view. 14) How do Eastern and Western types of civilizational development differ from each other? 15) What civilizational type, in your opinion, does Russia belong to? 16) What is the basis for Oswald Spengler’s typology of culture? What cultural and historical types does he identify? 17) What options for the periodization of historical development can you name? Which of them seems most reasonable to you? Why? 18) Is the science of “history” connected with other humanities and social sciences? And how? 19) The great ancient Greek historian Polybius said: “...knowledge of the past, rather than any other knowledge, can serve to benefit people...”. Do you agree with the above statement and why? 20) What, in your opinion, is the “engine” of history? 21) Can historians be absolutely objective and how, in your opinion, does the interpretation of the historical process depend on the political interests of the interpreters? 22) Why do you think the political leadership of many states pays special attention to historical education? 23) When and why does the formation of historical science take place in Russia? Note the characteristic features of this process. 24) What are the differences between Russian chronicles and a similar type of historical writings in medieval Western Europe? 36 Worksheet 4 Fill out tables 1. Functions of historical science Types of functions Characteristics 2. Classification of historical sources Types of historical sources Characteristics Linguistic Ethnographic Material Tools, household items, weapons, building structures, etc. Oral Written 3. Paradigms of historical science Division criteria Basic Name Authors, time of historical concept and theory of creation of the process of definition Religious Formation Civilization - Developed in the Socio- Civilization - equestrian tse XIX - early cultural no - XX centuries. N.Ya. Danisalny Oplevsky, O. Spenreddeleniya, Gler and A. Toyn - each author, depending on the criteria, gives his own definition Passionary 37 4. Civilization approach Author Definition of civilization G. Morgan, F. Engels N .I. Danilevsky O. Spengler Civilization is the decline (descending phase) of the development of mutually permeable and individual cultures. Civilization is characterized by “ossification,” the development of cities, the flourishing of technology, and the emergence of mass culture. A. Toynbee 5. Formation approach Socio-economic Features of formation Primitive OEF Appropriating type of economy (gathering, hunting), absence of private property, exploitation, classes, state. Social equality. Slave-owning OEF Feudal OEF Capitalist OEF Communist OEF 6. Russia’s place in the world historical process Time Points of view Representatives Arguments for the emergence of Westernism Slavophilism - 1830-40s. A.S. Khomyakov, Peculiar in A.I. Koshelev, development path Yu.F. Samarin, Russia, I decide - K.S. Aksakov, the role of the right- I.S. Aksakov glory in the formation and development of the Russian state, collectivist, communal structure of social life Eurasianism 38 7. Periodization of Russian history (N.M. Karamzin) Name of period Duration Characteristics Ancient history From Rurik to Ivan III Foundation of the monarchy (system of appanages) 8. Periodization of Russian history (S.M. Solovyov) Duration Characteristics From the beginning of the 17th to the middle The period of Russia’s entry into the system - XVIII century. theme of European states 9. Periodization of Russian history (V.O. Klyuchevsky) Name of period Duration Characteristics Great Russian From the middle of the 15th century. to Great Rus', Moscow - second decade, Tsarist - XVII century. boyar, military-agricultural 10. Modern periodization of Russian history Chronological Name of the period Characteristics of the frame Old Russian state Russian lands during the period of political fragmentation and the Tatar-Mongol invasion Formation and development of the Moscow state Russian Empire 39 Continuation of table. 10 Chronological Name of the period Characteristics of the frame Russian Empire during the period of transition to a limited monarchy Russia during the period of the bourgeois-democratic republic Formation and existence of the Soviet state 1985 – 1991 An attempt to reform the Soviet system within the framework of the socialist system Russian Federation 40
