The decline of the East and the transition of world hegemony to the countries of Western Europe. Eastern European Civilization: Structural Features, Past, Present
East - West - Russia: civilizational
Types
Interest in the West in the East arose due to
missionaries of Christian missionaries of the 16th - 17th centuries, who
who were the first to draw attention to the significant differences
between regions in the political structure and values
people's orientations. These testimonies were
the beginning of two directions in the assessment of the East: panegyric
sky and critical. Under the first East, and before
of all China is a country of universal prosperity, learning and
enlightenment, - was set as an example of a European monarch
boor as a model of wisdom in management. Within the framework of the second
attention was focused on the spirit of stagnation and slavery reigning
shem in the eastern despotisms.
In a direct collision of two types of civilians
national development, eastern and western, in conditions
when the strength of the state was determined by the technical and economic
military and political advantages, discovered
there was a clear superiority of European civilization.
This gave rise in the minds of European intellectuals to the
view of the "inferiority" of the Eastern world, on the wave of which
the concept of “modernization” arose as a way of incorporating
of the "inert" East to civilization. On the other hand,
in the East in relation to Europeans almost to the end
19th century dominated the idea of overwhelming
moral and ethical superiority of Eastern civilization, about
that there is nothing to borrow from the "Western barbarians" except
machine technology.
The modern civilizational approach, based on
ideas of "cultural pluralism", on the recognition of non-destructive
acceptance of cultural differences and the need to reject
any hierarchy of cultures and, consequently, the denial of Euro-
centrism, introduces a number of clarifications to the concept of
fundamental difference in the paths of historical development
East and West.
The idea that the "lag"
East is historical in nature: up to a certain
time, the East developed quite steadily, including
"its own rhythm", which was quite comparable with the rhythm
development of the West. Moreover, some researchers believe
that historically the East is not an alternative at all
West, but acts as the starting point of the world-historical
process.
In particular, L. Vasiliev considers the “Asian
society” as the first civilizational form of post-first
everyday evolution of the community, which retained the dominant
in it an authoritarian-administrative system and lying in
its basis is the principle of redistribution.
For the despotic states that emerged in the East
characteristic was the absence of private property and eco-
nomic classes. In these societies, the dominance of the apparatus
administration and the principle of centralized redistribution
tion (tribute, taxes, duties) was combined with the autonomy of the
chines and other social corporations when solving all
internal problems. The arbitrariness of power in contact
the relationship between the individual and the state gave rise to the syndrome of "servile-
complex”, slavish dependence and obsequiousness.
A society with such a social genotype had
strength, which manifested itself, among other things, in some
eradicable potency of regeneration: on the basis of the collapsed
for one reason or another, the state easily, almost auto-
mathematically, a new one arose with the same parameters, even
if this new state was created by a different ethnic group.
As this society evolved, commodity
relationships and private property. However, since its
of its occurrence, they were immediately brought under control
authorities, and therefore turned out to be completely dependent on it -
mi. Many eastern states of antiquity and the Middle Ages
kovya had a prosperous economy, large cities,
twisted trade. But all these visible attributes of private property
vennic market economy were deprived of that
the main thing that could ensure their self-development: everything
agents" of the market were hostages of power and any inconvenience
the will of the official turned into ruin, if not gi-
linen and confiscation of property in favor of the treasury.
The "Asian" societies were dominated by the principle of "power
- property”, i.e. such an order in which the power
gave rise to property. .Social significance in the state
Wahs of the East had only those involved in power, while more
Wealth and property without power meant little. Morning
those who were in power became disenfranchised.
At the turn of the VII - VI centuries. BC e. in Southern Europe in frame-
In a society of this type, a social mutation has occurred.
As a result of Solon's reforms and related processes
in the policies of Ancient Greece, the phenomenon of antiquity arose, os-
the novelty of which was civil society and legal
state; availability of specially developed legal
legal norms, rules, privileges and guarantees for the protection of in-
interests of citizens and owners.
The main elements of the ancient structure are not only
lived, but also in synthesis with Christianity contributed to the formation
world in medieval towns-communes, trading
European republics that had autonomy and self-government
nie (Venice, Hansa, Genoa), the foundations of private property
th market economy. During the Renaissance and then
Enlightenment ancient genotype of European civilization
manifested itself in full, taking the form of capitalism.
Despite the alternative social genotype of an-
ity in comparison with the evolutionary type of development on
East, until about the XIV - XVII centuries. between the West
The East had a lot in common. Cultural achievements on
East at that time were quite comparable in their
value with the successes of the European Renaissance (system
Copernicus, typography, great geographical
covers). The East is the world's largest hydraulic
skies and defensive structures; multi-deck ships
whether, including for ocean navigation; collapsible
metal and ceramic fonts; compass; porcelain;
paper; silk.
Moreover, Europe, acting as the heir to the ancient
vilization, joined it through Muslim
srednikov, having first become acquainted with many ancient Greek
chemic treatises translated from Arabic. Many euro-
Pei humanist writers of the Renaissance are widely
enjoyed artistic means, designed-
mi in Iranian and Arabic poetry, and the very concept of “huma-
nism" ("humanity") was first heard in Farsi
was comprehended in the work of Behind.
However, between East and West, within their traditional
development in general, there were significant differences,
primarily in terms of spiritual development of similar do-
achievements. So, in Europe, despite the dominance of Latin
as an elite language of the Renaissance, typography
developed in local languages, which expanded the possibilities
sti "democratization" of literature and science. In the East
the very idea that, for example, Korean or Japanese
language may be the "scholarly" language of Confucianism, while
time did not appear at all. This made it difficult to access high-
to whom the knowledge of simple "people. Therefore, typography on
West was accompanied by an increase in the authority of the book, and in
East - Teacher, "scientist-scribe", "consecutive
la" and "correct interpreter" of any doctrine.
The fate of science in the West and East was also different.
current. For the humanists of the West and the humanists of the East, the general
we were the syncretism of knowledge and morality, the constant conversion
ness to this-worldly problems of human existence.
However, the scientific thought of the West has always been turned towards
ed, and this was manifested in her increased attention to natural
knowledge, fundamental research, and this is required
lo the appropriate level of theoretical thinking.
The scientific virtue of the East was a deepening in
ancient ethical and philosophical treatises in search of hidden
them anticipations. "Scholars" -Confucian, demonstrating
ruya their ideological attachment to the classical authoritative
there, constantly revolving in a circle of only "correct" to
him comments, without even thinking about changing
the thread is not only the spirit, but also the letter of the canon.
Therefore, in the East, "science" before joining it to the "West-
scientific-rational type remained within the framework of the
tsepturnoy, practical and technological activities. East
did not know such a logical phenomenon as proof, there
there were only prescriptions, “what to do” and “how to
lament”, and knowledge about this was transmitted in an unshakable form from
generation to generation." In this regard, in the East, no
the question arose about understanding within the framework of methodological
inflection of all that "scientific" wealth that was
accumulated over a millennium in the course of a prescription-utshtarnon scientific
activities.
In the East, science was not so much theoretical as
to the practical, inseparable from the individually-sensual
scientific experience. Accordingly, in Eastern science
there was a different understanding of the truth, it was not logical that dominated,
and the intuitive method of cognition, which assumed unnecessary
the existence of a strict conceptual language and any formal
knowledge. Naturally, various Confucian, Buddhist
stskie, Taoist, Shinto systems of knowledge, perceived
considered by Europeans as "extra-scientific", "pre-scientific"
or "anti-scientific".
Describing the phenomenon of "Eastern science", some
researchers draw attention to two points. First of all
out, they believe, we are overlooking the age difference
zu civilizations of the East and West: “Maybe from what
the Greeks started, for the Chinese it was a passed stage?
Secondly, “science in the East was syncretic
rakter” not because it did not have time to stand out in an independent
telny type of activity, but because scientific knowledge
was not the highest goal of spiritual experience, but only its means
vom (T. Grigorieva). From these assumptions, one can conclude
read the following: in the East already at that time or knew that
is a true "universal" science, and therefore it is quite consistent
significantly passed the deductive-theoretical stage of its development
development, or anticipated modern methodological
searches in line with postmodernism.
However, it looks more preferable to represent
the notion that the East was dominated by other, non-discursive
strong styles of thinking and cognition, where ideas were expressed
not so much in the conceptual, but in the artistic and figurative
form, which are supported by intuitive solutions,
mediocre emotions and experiences. It gave
great importance of interpretation, rather than translation on-
accumulated mental material and social experience.
In the XIV - XVII centuries, when there was a significant change
scrap in the alternative development of civilizations of the West and East
current, with the problem of self-identification in the West-East
cultural area, Russia also encountered, declaring theo-
riya "Moscow - the Third Rome" about his Orthodox culture
tour and messianic exclusivity.
The question of Russia's attitude to the civilizations of the West and
East became the subject of theoretical reflection in the XIX century.
G. Hegel, not seeing the future in the cultural-historical
development of Russia, crossed it out of the list of "historical
peoples." P. Chaadaev, recognizing the originality of civilization
on the development of Russia, saw it in the fact that "we never
did not go along with other nations, we do not belong to any
to one of the known families of the human race, nor to
to the West, nor to the East, and we have no traditions of either one or the other
gogo", "we are still discovering the truths that have become beaten in
other countries."
In the controversy between Westerners and Slavophiles, a
there were two opposite versions of the civilizational
belongings of Russia. One version linked the future of Russia
with its self-identification in line with the European community-cultural-
non-tradition, the other - with the development of a distinctive cultural
her self-sufficiency. K. Leontiev developed the concept
Eastern Christian (Byzantine) cultural "prop-
ski" Russia. N. Danilevsky, the most promising
considered opposing Western culture "Slavic
type" of civilization, most fully expressed in Russian
kind. A. Toynbee considered Russian civilization in
as a "subsidiary" zone of the Orthodox Byzantine
There is also a Eurasian concept of civilization
development of Russia, whose representatives, denying
both eastern and western character of Russian culture
tours, however, its specificity was seen in the mutual
the influence of Western and Eastern elements on it, believing that
that it was in Russia that both the West and the East converged. Eurasians
(N. Trubetskoy, P. Savitsky, G. Florovsky, G. Vernad-
sky, N. Alekseev, L. Karsavin) separated Russia not only
from the West, but also from the Slavic world, insisting on a claim
lucidity of its civilization, due to the specifics
"place of development" of the Russian people. First, originality
Russian (Russian) national identity they
saw in the fact that the vast expanses of Russia,
located in two parts of the world, imprinted
current on the originality of its cultural world. Secondly, euro-
Zians emphasized special influence on him "Turanian"
(Turkish-Tatar) factor.
An important place in the Eurasian concept of civilization
development of Russia was assigned to the ideocratic state
to the gift as the supreme master, possessing an exclusive
power and maintaining close ties with the people
we masses. The originality of Russian civilization
was also seen in the fact that the national substratum of her state
the united multinational Eurasian
sky nation.
At present, there are also various civilizations
typological typologies of the historical process of con-
vergent and divergent character. So, some
Qualitative researchers defend the thesis of the existence
researches of two types of civilizations - western and eastern, in
during the interaction of which "westernization" occurs
East on the basis of modernization. To the defining features
Eastern societies, they refer to “undivided property
ness and administrative power”; "economic and political
domination - often despotic - bureaucratic
ti"; "subordination of society to the state", the absence of "ga-
raniy private property and the rights of citizens. For
Western civilization, on the contrary, is characterized by guarantees of
your property and civil rights as an incentive to inno-
vation and creative activity; harmony of society and state
donations; differentiation of power and property (E. Gai-
gift). In such a civilizational interpretation, Russia looks
oriental society.
A. Akhiezer also distinguishes two types of civilizations -
traditional and liberal. "Traditional civilization-
tion is characterized by the dominance of a static type of reproduction,
which is aimed at maintaining society, the entire system
social relations, personality in accordance with some
eye idealizing the past idea. In lib-
ral civilization "dominant position occupied-
there is intensive reproduction, which is characterized
the desire to reproduce society, culture, constant
but deepening its content, increasing the social effect
activity, vital activity.
Russia, Akhiezer believes, is in its own historical development
went beyond traditional civilization, embarked on the path
mass, albeit primitive utilitarianism. But those are not
less able to cross the border of liberal civilization
tions. This means that Russia occupies an intermediate position
position between two civilizations, which allows speaking
to talk about the existence of a special intermediate civilization,
combining elements of social relations and culture
both civilizations.
The main categories of co-cultural dynamics
Russia as an intermediate civilization are inverted
this and mediation. Inversion is characterized by a tense
the focus of activities on the reproduction of a certain
new type of society. Reign of inversion in every moment
time does not require a long and painful work out
create fundamentally new solutions, but opens the way
quick, logically instantaneous transitions from the real
situation to an ideal one, which, perhaps, in new clothes
dah reproduces some element of the already accumulated
cultural wealth. Mediation, on the other hand, is
constructive intensity of human activity
based on the rejection of the absolutization of polarities and the maximization
attention to their interpenetration, to their coexistence
weaving through each other.
Another feature of Russia as an intermediate civilization
lization, according to Akhiezer, is the split of cultures and
social relations. At the same time, the split is considered
as a pathological state of society, characterizing
stagnant contradiction between culture and social
relations between subcultures of the same culture.
The split is characterized by a “vicious circle”: the activation
positive values in one part of a split
society sets in motion the forces of another part of society,
rejecting these values. The danger of a split is
that he, violating the moral unity of society, under-
tears away the very basis for the reproduction of this unity,
paving the way for social disorganization.
L. Semennikova distinguishes three types: “non-progressive
form of existence”, “cyclical” and “progressive
twist." She attributed to the non-progressive type “peoples, inhabitants
existing within the framework of the natural annual cycle, in unity and gar-
Monia with nature. To the cyclic type of development - east-
new civilizations. The progressive type is represented by Western
civilization from antiquity to the present day.
Assessing the place of Russia in the circle of these civilizations, L. Se-
Mennikova notes that she does not fully fit into either
western or eastern type of development. Russia, not being
independent civilization, is a civilization
a rationally heterogeneous society. This is a special, historically
a living conglomerate of peoples belonging to different types
development, united by a powerful, centralized state
a state with a Great Russian core. Russia, geopolitically
located between two powerful centers of civilization
influence - East and West, includes in its
composition of peoples developing both in Western and Eastern
waste option. Therefore, Semennikova, following V. Klyu-
Chevsky, N. Berdyaev, G. Fedotov emphasizes that in Russia
Russian society is inevitably affected by both Western and
and oriental influence. Russia is, as it were,
constantly "drifting society" in the ocean of modern ci-
visionary worlds..
Along with such concepts of Russian civilization
at present, there are also pronounced di-
vergent options. So, O. Platonov believes that Russian
Russian civilization is one of the most ancient civilizations
lysis. Its basic values were formed long before the adoption
ty Christianity, in the I millennium BC. e. Based on these
values, the Russian people managed to create the greatest in the world
the history of the state, harmoniously uniting many
other nations. Such main features of Russian civilization,
as the predominance of spiritual and moral foundations over the material
real, the cult of benevolence and truthfulness, non-acquired
activity, development of original collectivist forms of activity
mocracies, embodied in the community and artels, contributed to
whether the folding in Russia is also an original economic
mechanism, functioning according to its internal,
only to its inherent laws, self-sufficient to provide
cooking the population of the country with everything necessary and almost half-
ness independent from other countries.
Since the question of the specifics of the civilizational
development of the East, West and Russia is considered
signifi- cantly, it is first necessary to establish the main
board of comparative study of this problem.
P. Sorokin drew attention to the fact that civilizations
differ from each other in “dominant forms of integra-
walkie-talkies”, or “civilization matrices”. Such a pony
the mania for civilization is also different from the idea of it
as a "conglomerate of diverse phenomena" and does not reduce
civilization to the specifics of culture, because as a “home-
nant form of integration” can be different
vanity. From the standpoint of this approach, it is possible to describe various
new multicultural civilizations, for example, Russian,
a characteristic feature of which is an intense mutual
action of many unique cultures and almost all world
religions. In addition, each civilization has a certain
genotype of social development, as well as specific
skye cultural archetypes.
It is also necessary to choose not only the perspective of civilizational
no comparison, but also a reference point of the comparative, comparative
telno-historical analysis. Since the most noticeable
significant divergences in development between East and West
began to be observed since the Renaissance, but at the same time
the process of cultural and religious self-identification began
tion of Russia in relation primarily to the West, then in some
As such a starting point, you can choose the XIV - XVII centuries.
Moreover, most foreign researchers
point to the Renaissance and Reformation as
the time of the change of the matrix of European civilization, and separately
nye domestic scientists say in relation to this
period about the emergence of a special Russian (Eurasian)
civilization.
At the beginning of the XIV century. Europe has entered a period of crisis
Stian world”, which turned into a cardinal
construction of its socio-economic and spiritual structures.
The normative-value order of European civilization,
asked by Catholicism, in the XIV - XVII centuries. gradually
lost its strong religious stance.
To replace the traditional, agrarian, sociocentric
mu society was an innovative society, trade and
mental, urban, anthropocentric, within co-
which a person gradually, on the one hand, acquired
economic, ideological, and then π political
freedom, and on the other hand, it turned as it increased
technological potential into a tool for effective
economic activity.
The transformation of the normative-value order in the European
rope occurred in the course of the "nationalization" of the Church of the State
and religious reformation (Protestant-Catholic-
confrontation), which led to the fact that in the
as a result of social compromise "one and only
matrix of European civilization” became liberalism, which
who created a new normative and value space,
universal for the whole of Europe and autonomous in relation to
towards emerging nation-states and towards European
cultural diversity.
The focus of the liberal worldview is on the human
century, its inimitable and unique destiny, private "earth-
naya' life. The ideal of liberalism is a person-personal
ness, a citizen who not only realizes, but also lives
cannot live without civil rights and freedoms, above all the right
wa property and the right of individual choice. core
the historical evolution of liberalism were the ideas of freedom
and tolerance. Freedom - as an opportunity and a necessity
bridges for responsible choice and recognition of the right to freedom
for others. Tolerance - as respect not only for one's own
them, but also other people's values, as comprehension and use
other spiritual experience in its originality.
Civilizational shift in Western Europe at this time
was also associated with the transition from the evolutionary path of development
tiya on innovative. This path is characterized by consciousness
human intervention in social processes,
cultivation in them of such intensive factors of development
tia as science and technology. The activation of these factors in the us-
conditions for the domination of private property, the formation
civil society has led to a powerful techno-techno-
logical breakthrough of Western European civilization and
the rise in different countries of this form of political
regime as a liberal democracy.
In order to switch to an innovative development path,
a special spiritual state was necessary, the formation
work ethic that transforms work from a household norm into
one of the main spiritual values of culture. Such ethics
began to take shape in Western Europe during the primary
noy plowing of its lands, but finally established itself in the era
xy Reformation in the form of primarily Protestant labor
howling ethics. The Protestant ideal of "pray and work"
living the foundations of the "spirit of capitalism", meant that a person,
gaining the salvation of the soul through work, does not delegate his rights
wa up, a he solves all the problems that have arisen before him,
“here and now”, without postponing for tomorrow.
The Protestant work ethic has created favorable
conditions for the development of capitalism, influenced "on
the process of primitive accumulation of capital. Huge
role in this process is played by the great geographic
coverings, which, on the one hand, led to an unprecedented
the growth of the slave trade, and on the other hand, sharply accelerated
obscure and the scale of capital accumulation in Europe through
exploitation of natural resources and the population of "overseas
territories." Money received from trading
more and more are investing in production. Decoration-
the contours of the European, and then the world market, are flickering,
the center of which are the Dutch ports. Appeared-
market economy has become a powerful factor in achieving
zhenii Western European civilization.
Important changes are taking place at this time in the political
sian life of Europe. The attitude towards the state is changing:
a person-personality increasingly feels himself not a subject, but
citizen, considering the state as the result of
public contract.
Russian civilization since its inception
nia absorbed a huge religious and cultural diversity
variety of peoples, normative-value space
whose existence was not capable of spontaneous combat
to synthesis in a universal for the Eurasian are-
ala unity. Orthodoxy was the spiritual foundation of Russian
culture, it turned out to be one of the factors in the formation
Russian civilization, but not its normative-value
basis.
This basis, "the dominant form of social
integration” became statehood. Approximately in the XV century.
the transformation of the Russian state into a universal
greasy, by which Toynbee meant the state,
striving to “absorb” the entire civilization that gave birth to it
tion. The global nature of such a goal gives rise to the claims of the
states to be not just a political institution
here, but also have some spiritual meaning, generating a single
new national identity. Therefore, in the Russian
civilization did not have that universal normative value
order, as in the West, which would turn out to be
monotonous in relation to the state and cultural diversity
ugliness. Moreover, the state in Russia is constantly
sought to transform the national-historical
consciousness, ethnocultural archetypes, trying to create
relevant structures that “justify” activities
central authority. Such legitimation structures
we were primarily statism and paternalism, that is,
ideas about the state as the highest instance of social
development, providing constant patronage
to his subjects. Over time, statism and paternalism became
dominant and to some extent universal
structures in the mass consciousness of the Eurasian superethnos.
The legitimacy of state power in Russia is therefore
relied not so much on ideology (for example, the idea of "Mo-
squa - Third Rome"), how much was determined by the etatist-
understanding of the need to preserve the political
unity and social order as the antithesis
localism and chaos. And this "statist-patrialist"
order was the real basis for the union of heterogeneous
nyh national traditions and cultures.
Therefore, the dualism of social life in Russia had
different nature than in the West. He expressed himself primarily
in such conflict tendencies, where one of the parties is always
Yes, the state acted. This is a conflict between states
as universalism and regionalism as lo-
kalism, between statehood and national
cultural traditions, between statehood and
social communities.
The methods of resolving conf-
likts in Russia, where their participants not only deny each other
friend, but strive to become the only social integrity
ness. This leads to a deep social division in
society, which cannot be "removed" by compromise, its
can only be suppressed by destroying one of the opposing
sides.
Hence the peculiar interpretation of the concept of freedom in
Russian mental ™, as recognition only of one's own
right to choose and to deny others that right. freedom
in Russian it is will, as freedom for oneself and suppression
others.
In addition, one should take into account the peculiarity of the existing
going in the era of the Muscovite kingdom of the "patrimonial state
wa." Moscow princes, and then Russian tsars, who had
great power and prestige, were convinced that the land
belongs to them, that the country is their property,
for it was built and created according to their command. Such
opinion also assumed that everyone living in Russia -
subjects of the state, servants who are in direct and without
conditional dependence on the sovereign, and therefore not having
the right to claim neither property nor any
inalienable personal rights.
Speaking about the features of the formation of the Moscow State
gifts, it should be noted that from the very beginning it was formed
elk as a "military-national", dominant and main
the driving force behind the development of which was the permanent
the need for defense and security, accompanied
strengthening the policy of internal centralization and external
expansion.
The Russian state in the conditions of social and environmental
crisis of the XV century appropriated unlimited
nye rights in relation to society. This is largely
degree predetermined the choice of the path of social development,
associated with the transfer of society into a mobilization state
a concept based on non-economic forms
state management, extensive use
natural resources, bet on forced
labor, foreign policy expansion and colonization, which became
shaya, in the words of V. O. "Klyuchevsky, the core of all ros-
sian history.
Therefore, for the Russian civilization was inherent in a different,
than in Western Europe, the genotype of social development.
If Western European civilization has moved from evolutionary
on the innovative path, then Russia went on a mobile
lizational path, which was carried out at the expense of consciousness
telny and "violent" intervention of the state in
mechanisms of functioning of society.
This type of development is either a means of getting out of
stagnant state, or a tool for accelerating the evolution
processes, i.e., such processes when it is stimulated
ly were formed solely as a reaction to
external disturbances. Therefore, the mobilization type of
development is one of the ways to adapt social
al-economic system to the realities of the changing-
of the whole world and consists in the systematic conversion to the us-
conditions of stagnation or crisis to emergency measures to
achieve extraordinary goals that represent
combat expressed in extreme forms, the conditions of survival ob-
society and its institutions.
A characteristic feature of the social genotype of Russia has become
total regulation of the behavior of all subsystems of the general
stva with the help of authoritative-coercive methods. In re-
As a result, such mechanisms of social and economic
the political and political organization and orientation of society,
who permanently turned the country into a kind of
paramilitary camp with centralized control,
rigid social hierarchy, strict discipline of behavior
deniya, strengthening control over various aspects of the
with the accompanying bureaucratization,
"state unanimity" as the main attributes
tami mobilization of society to fight for the achievement of
extraordinary goals. Moreover, the militarization of the Russian
society was not the result of a large-scale campaign
or political hysteria, although they constantly took place
in the history of Russia. This was the result of constant re-
production even in normal peacetime conditions
those of its institutional structures that were created
the needs of mobilization development.
Therefore, one of the features of the mobilization
the development of Russia was the dominance of political factors
and, as a result, the hypertrophied role of the state in
face of the central government. This found expression in
government by setting goals and solving problems
development, constantly took the initiative, systematized
using various measures of coercion,
guardianship, control and other regulation.
Another feature was that the special role of external
of these factors forced the government to choose such goals
development, which constantly outpaced the socio-economic
the cal possibilities of the country. Since these goals do not grow
whether in an organic way from the internal tendencies of its development
tia, then the state, acting within the framework of the old social
economic structures, to achieve "progressive"
results resorted to policy in the institutional sphere
"planting from above" and methods of forced development
economic and military potential.
In Russia, in the West and East, there were also formed
different types of people with specific styles inherent in them -
mi thinking, value orientations, manner of behavior
Denia. In Russia, an Orthodox (“Ioashyuva”) has developed,
messianic type of Russian man. Orthodoxy is stronger
the eschatological side of Christianity is most expressed,
this Russian man is pretty much an apocalyptic
or a nihilist (N. Berdyaev). "John's" man in the
zi with this has a sensitive distinction between good and evil, he is vigilant
who notices the imperfection of all actions, morals and
regency, never satisfied with them and never ceasing
seek the perfect good. Recognizing the highest holiness
value, the "John's" man strives for absolute
goodness, and therefore considers the zenith of value as
carrier and does not elevate "them to the rank of" sacred "principles
pov. If the "John's" man who wants to act
always in the name of something absolute, doubt the ideal,
then he can reach extreme ochlocracy or indifference
to everything, and therefore is able to quickly go from
incredible tolerance and humility to the very unbridled
nogo and boundless rebellion. " ,
Striving for the infinite Absolute, the "John" man
Lovek feels called to create on earth the highest
divine order, restore that harmony around you
niyu, which he feels in himself. John's Man
This is the messianic type of person. It spiritualizes not thirsty
yes power, but the mood of reconciliation. He doesn't share that-
to rule, but is looking for the disunited in order to reunite it
a thread. He sees in the world the gross matter that needs to be
illuminate and sanctify.
The Western, "Promethean" character of man, on the contrary,
creates the world in its reality, the chaos that it must shape
use its organizing power. "Promethean" man
Heroic type, he is full of lust for power, he is further and further
moves away from the spirit and goes deeper and deeper into the world of things. Sekou-
polarization is his destiny, heroism is his life feeling,
tragedy is its end.
Distinguishes from the "John" and "Prometheus" types
Xia oriental person. Messianism and Spirituality
Russian man, heroism and expressiveness of the Western
he contrasts "universality" ("tastelessness").
In Eastern culture, “tastelessness” is an example of a worldview
communication, focused on maintaining the harmony of the world, general
with internal dynamism of development, and therefore not
requiring arbitrary human intervention. In mo-
in the religious-religious sense, "tasteless" is a sign
perfect taste, its versatility, this is the highest
virtue, for "taste" is a preference, and any actual
lization is a limitation. In the cultural tradition of the East
"tastelessness" is a positive quality. It -
value, which in life is realized in the practice of unconscious
nannogo social opportunism, which means the acceptance
or elimination from affairs with maximum flexibility and orientation
tation solely on the demand of the moment.
Therefore, if the virtues of Western man are
energy and intensity, fashion and sensation, oriental
of a person - the exact middle and mediocrity, noiselessness
and withering, then the virtues of a Russian person are passive
ness and patience, conservatism and harmony.
"John's" man is different from "Promethean"
style of thinking. Western man is characterized by
rational style, focused on a specific
the result of activities and the effectiveness of social technology
logy. The Russian person is inherent in the value-rational
a style of thinking that presupposes a high value of a person
eternal relationships, and as a way of manifesting this valuable
increase the importance of working for a common cause. That's why
this style of thinking is not result-oriented and
social technologies, but the values behind them. Ta-
what orientation and value" makes a person able to refuse
to speak from some values in favor of others, from individual
al plans in favor of the public.
Oriental man is more characteristic of subject-ob-
different way of thinking. For him, the truth is not
what is subject to the mind and will of man, but being itself. That's why
truth does not depend on the mind or on the waves of man. If a
Western man needs truths that serve
him, then the Eastern man - in the truths, which can
serve for a lifetime. Therefore, the process of cognition in the Eastern
th person is not so much an analysis of the properties of an object,
how much his spiritual comprehension is at a level inaccessible
rational research. Western man, set
rational thinking in the center of the universe, playing
denies any transcendental will. Oriental
man, assuming at the basis of the universe some kind of transcen-
dent will, seeks to recognize it, "enter" it and
create it as your own, thereby overcoming
the end of your being.
The humanistic matrix targets the Western human
ka to change the world and man in accordance with human
ideas and projects, and the humanitarian
ritsa oriental man orients him to change
my person as part of the world in accordance with the original
(not belonging to a person) design. So if
"Joashyuvian" person is guided by the past, Western-
ny - for the future, then East - for eternity.
If the European and Russian worlds in civilization
nominally represent a relative unity
in fact, the East in this sense has never been united. On the
In the East, there are several religious and cultural, qi-
fortified regions, not only very peculiar,
but pi is open to the outside to varying degrees. This is Islam
Skye, Indo-Buddhist and Confucian civilization.
Islamic civilization is the least open to foreign
their impacts, which is primarily due to the
religion, covering all aspects of life, including
economics and politics. The Muslim way of life is
only traditional, but also valuable in itself. For Islamic men-
outside the Muslim world there is nothing
worthy of attention and imitation. However, this is
traditionally active civilization.
Indo-Buddhist civilization - neutral in relation to
to external influences, which is caused by a clear
gyous bias towards otherworldly problems (according to
claims of the Absolute, concern for the improvement of karma, etc.). Pro-
flowering in this world is not somehow
significant value within the framework of this civilization, which
which in this connection is traditionalistically passive
civilization.
Confucian (Far Eastern) civilization - more
more open to external influences and
internal transformations, which is due to Confucian-
cult of ethics and self-improvement, setting
to this-worldly search for harmony in society (the cult of
ny, increased sense of duty and responsibility, strong
paternalistic ties in the family and society, constant concern
about improving the culture and discipline of labor). This is ak-
active-innovative civilization.
European civilization in contact with other
mi civilizations reveals a trend towards socio-cultural
tour expansion, intolerance towards other cultures, no matter how
inferior and undeveloped (syndrome of the socio-cultural universal
lisma and rigorism).
Eastern type of civilizations, especially Muslim and
Confucian, in contact with other civilizations
reveals imperial political tendencies under the influence of
to socio-cultural differences (the syndrome of authoritative
tare-imperious domination and subordination).
Russian civilization in the process of civilizational
interaction reveals messianic tendencies with
orientation towards higher value-normative orientations
(syndrome of authoritative-imperious, paternalistic multi-
national statehood).
Akhiezer A.S. Sociocultural problems of Russia's development. M., 1992.
Weber M. Protestant Ethics And the Spirit of Capitalism // Selected Penetrations
pedsia. M., 1990.
Ls Goff J. Civilization of the Medieval West. M., 1992.
Danilevsky Ya. Ya. Russia and Europe. M., 1991.
Erasov B. S. Culture, religion and civilization in the East. M., 1990.
Erygin A. I. East - West - Russia: Formation of the
th approach in historical research. Rostov n / D., 1993.
West and East. Traditions and Modernity: A Lecture Course for Inhumane
container specialties. M., 1993.
Konrad II. II. West and East. M., 1972.
World of Russia - Eurasia: Lithology. M., 1995.
The problem of man in traditional Chinese teachings. M., 1983.
Russia through the eyes of a Russian: Chaadaev, Leoltiev, Solovyov. M., 1991.
Sorokin P. Human. Civilization. Society. M., 1992.
Toynbee A.J. Understanding history. M., 1991.
Spengler O. Decline of Europe: In 2 vols. M.-Pg., 1923. T. 1.
Yaa, srs K. Meaning and purpose of history. M., 1991.
test questions
1 What is the specificity of philosophical analysis. culture?
2 What are the most famous concepts and definitions of culture?
3. What are the forms of spiritual culture?
4. What is the norm of culture?
5. Is there progress in culture?
6. What are the approaches to the study of civilization?
7. What is the specificity of the civilizations of the East and West?
8. What is the difference between Russian civilization?
Essay topics
i. Philosophy of culture.
2. Classical model of culture.
3. The essence of moral culture.
4. Elite and mass culture.
5. Traditional and modern culture.
6. Traditional civilization.
7. The main features of technogenic civilization.
th. The problem of modernization in development.
The world of everyday life
Phenomenon of the everyday world. Science and philosophy about the everyday world, Everyday life and existential problems of philosophy. "Dolny world" - being without God. The moral meaning of the orientation "to life". The Other World, or the Way from Man. Metaphysical compromise: being as unity.
This article is a brief concept of the East European civilization (hereinafter, for brevity and convenience - EEC), which, in the author's opinion, solves the question of the place of Russia and Russians, as well as a number of other anthropologically and spiritually kindred peoples in the cultural space of Europe and the global world. The meeting of Russia and the West takes place in the vastness of Eastern Europe: geographical and mental. We need to think about this meeting place in perspective and retrospective.
Civilization is not just a form (a set of forms) of culture and social organization, but a stable type of person. Forms of the economy, material and spiritual culture, levels of provision and consumption are borrowed by different nations from each other, and the type of person remains stable. The type of a person is a peculiar configuration of the metabolism of a person and nature, a person and the other world.
Russian thinkers, trying to determine the civilizational affiliation of Russia through the confession (Orthodoxy); language and language group (Slavophilism - Khomyakov, Kireevsky); territory (East, Asia, Europe, Eurasia-Leontiev Eurasians), faced a large number of intractable problems. The course of history has often refuted optimistic constructions or justified their most gloomy expectations. The fraternal Slavic states betrayed Russia, together with the capture of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, the Russian Empire survived a catastrophe. Attempts to present Russia as a kind of thing in itself, a unique essence, were shattered by the needs of real life.
Today, and moreover in recent decades, a large number of completely new scientific materials on anthropology, history, and genetics have appeared. The topic is still of great interest, and so far there is no established opinion. Although, however, there is a certain general direction of thought that prepares it: the rejection of Eurocentrism, Eurasianism, the recognition of originality as a value, regardless of the benefits and material factors of development. The path to comprehending Russian civilization lies in the plane of revising the very essence of Europeanism, its different dimensions.
Essence and nature of the EEC
The EEC is a small European civilization that is, as it were, “in the shadow” of the Big West, thereby adjoining its civilization, but not merging with it. The peculiarity of the EEC is that it produces its own special culture and anthropology, which is generally related to Western European, but at the same time differs from it so significantly that one can speak of a special civilizational branch. The EEC is not "broken", as S. Huntington defined it, but quite homogeneous, although complementary to Western civilization.
Structural anthropological features of the EEC
What unites these different nations, like Russians, Tatars, Poles, Serbs and Slovenes into one civilizational community, and even different from Western Europeans and residents of Southern Europe? The features of the EEC are dictated by the fact that it has developed as a Eurasian or “continental” version of a European person living in his own special, oriental vector. I will briefly list some of its main features.
Extensive development of space exploration, seasonality of labor, low rate of surplus product, high labor costs per unit of output, low population density. The relatively narrow composition of the elite strata and their great dependence on the oligarchy and the centralized state. The need for its own world-economy, which gives viability to the economy in such conditions. On the contrary, the Western world, starting from the ancient Greek city-states, was formed as a society striving to coincide ideally with the elite, or at least the middle class, but at the same time actively exploiting other peoples, and exploiting the economy with high profitability and low costs. The secondary importance of the categories of benefit and profit, systematic labor. It's not that these categories are inapplicable, it's just that they have limited application in the east of Europe.
Developed, but non-logocentric, and non-instrumental thinking. As a result, the eastern version of Christianity was established here, and canonical Catholicism was also preserved in other states. In other words, the "dialectics of enlightenment" affected the east of Europe to a lesser extent. Purposeful rational thinking in all its might is rather an imported tool, which was not initially needed here in such quantity and quality as in the West. The Eastern European thinks synthetically rather than analytically, and is not so sophisticated in ways of extracting benefits and profits. The thinking of an Eastern European person, in the words of Lev Shestov, is not Athenian, but Jerusalem. Thinking in the metaphor of the heart, intuition. Therefore, Eastern Christianity was established here and found sincere admirers.
A less pronounced desire for reification, the materialization of culture, the creation of eternal "stone" forms, an understanding of the temporality of being. Great fluidity, relativity of the forms of material life. A world of negative dialectics, revelations and hesychia, not scholasticism and nominalism.
Religion is the most important factor of civilization, tying it as an anchor to otherworldly reality. Eastern Europe was greatly influenced by Orthodoxy and traditional Christianity in general (but not early or heretical, Gnostic or Manichaean). However, I would be careful not to define the civilization of Eastern Europe only as Orthodox, which has often been done and is being stubbornly done.
There are a number of arguments against this, both of a general and specifically cultural nature. Firstly, religion and faith is a collective or individual choice of the path, you cannot automatically write everyone into it. From the fact that a person was born in Russia, or, say, in Romania, he does not automatically become an Orthodox Christian. Moreover, most of the citizens of these countries have a weak relationship with the Church. Of course, the Church influences all members of these societies, but it does not define civilization. Secondly, dividing civilizations by confessions, we find ourselves in a stupid situation along with Huntington, according to which Western Ukrainians - Greek Catholics on one side of the Zbruch belong to Western European civilization, and their neighbors on the other side belong to Orthodox civilization. It is clear that their civilizational identity of both regions of Ukraine is the same, although it differs in ethno-cultural terms. And the civilizational identity of, say, Orthodox Arabs or Copts is completely different from that of Russians, although we are united by the Orthodox mentality. Therefore, S. Huntington is wrong, who drew the boundaries of civilization along confessional lines, in particular, dividing Western and Central Ukrainians on the basis of acceptance and non-acceptance of the Union of the Orthodox with the Catholics. “Ukraine is a divided country with two different cultures. The fault line between civilizations that separates the West from Orthodoxy has been running right through its center for several centuries now. With all the national differences within Ukraine, one should not look for a civilizational gap here. Today there are quite a few followers of this approach, both among sincere figures of the Orthodox community, hierarchs, and among the epigones of Euro-Atlanticism. It is my deep conviction that church identity cannot serve as a bargaining chip in earthly affairs, even if we are talking about such important ones as the identity of peoples and entire regions. Civilization is the work of the Prince of this world, in which the Church, although it interferes, is not called to completely change the nature of this world while it exists.
The complete domination of Orthodoxy over the souls of people lasted in Russia for no more than 5 centuries (from the beginning of the 15th to the beginning of the 20th century). Approximately the same thing happened with Christianity in Western Europe. Civilization, on the other hand, is a more stable and long-lasting form of earthly life, which religion changes in relation to its adherents, and not automatically to all members of society.
From my point of view, as an Orthodox person, the tragedy of the situation, both with Western and Eastern European civilizations, is that the person in them did not succumb to sufficient change from the Light of the Truth of Christianity. Any attribution of any civilization on earth as Christian or anti-Christian is not accurate due to the preservation of the sinful nature of people. The question is how far they have gone in cultivating this nature or, on the contrary, in rejecting it. Eastern Europe turned out to be less susceptible to these temptations. The fact that both Eastern and Western traditions of Christianity are present in it opens up the possibility for their dialogue, as it were, within one people.
Underline and such a feature as orientation on collective forms of life while maintaining and developing the individual. The personalities of EEC individuals are structured as separate, autonomous in relation to society, but at the same time closely related to each other.
As a result, the personality, although it took shape as an autonomous and sovereign, acquired the features of a close relationship with other people, not fenced off from them by external ethical frameworks. This so-called diffuse personality (best name not invented). Diffusion means the mobility of the boundaries of the personality, which is completely unacceptable for educated Western Europeans. In contrast to the undeveloped clan-type personalities of the Eastern peoples, which is practically reduced to ancestral and current ties with the environment, the Eastern European personality is independent, although dependent on the environment. These are collectivists among individualists and individualists among collectivists.
Internal egalitarianism instead of formal democracy and legalism. Distrust of systems of formal relations and law, but with the recognition of natural rights and justice. The peoples of Eastern Europe are the peoples of a military democracy, not an enlightened bureaucracy. The spirit of military brotherhood and self-sacrifice, and not wars for profit, made them always good hardy warriors.
Another important argument in favor of the EEC is that its peoples are united by a system of kinship and a common origin based on the haplogroupR1aY chromosomes, which prevails among the Eastern and Western Slavs, the Balts and is heavily represented among the neighboring peoples attributed to the EEC (Finno-Ugrians). The base is the “Slavic trace” of the EEC, so genetics can be considered a kind of modern scientific confirmation of the truth of Slavophilism.
The boundaries of the distribution of Eastern European civilization
Demographically, the population of modern Europe is divided into two equal parts: Eastern, together with Russia, and Western, with Central and Southern Europe. Any boundaries, of course, are conditional, especially those of supranational geocultural communities. Within the EEC, the following cultural and anthropological regions can be distinguished: the Balkans, the Carpathians, Poland with the Baltic states, and, finally, the Russian World.
In the west, the border of the EEC runs roughly along the line of the former Warsaw bloc and the CMEA bloc, including all Slavic states. I would also add to them the Baltic and Finno-Ugric states: Finland, the Baltic countries and Hungary. Undoubtedly, Eastern Europeans are also Romanians and Moldovans. Rather, the GDR was also an Eastern European country, like East Germany, Prussia before. Although the question of their civilizational affiliation is debatable - they occupied an intermediate position between the West and the East of Europe - as partly the whole of Germany as a whole, but only in part, since Germany is more of a Western European country, albeit with its own version of the "West". In any case, the civilizational identity of the East Germans caused a lot of controversy. But what is clear is that the territories to the east of the German states (Germany and Austria) are distinctly different from Central and Western Europe, although they are under their increasing influence, especially now within the European Union. If before the beginning of the 20th century they could be confidently attributed to the EEC, and even before the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, this could have been done with a stretch, today the issue is very difficult. The so-called "New Europe" is a special body within the EU.
For the sake of completeness, I note that the phenomenon of CEE (I mean the term "Central Eastern Europe") as a civilizational reality opposed to Russia-Eurasia does not exist outside the Eastern European civilization. This is a political and cultural construction of a pronounced anti-Russian orientation, designed to isolate from it, although in the semantic field, the western part of the EEC zone. A kind of mirage, fiction. There is only a transitional zone of countries in which the Eastern European civilization is not clearly expressed and is strongly diluted with the Western European one. This is Central and Eastern Europe without the Eastern Slavs. However, I would not consider it limitrophic or inter-civilizational, as V. Tsymbursky did. CEE has its clear civilizational certainty, albeit with transitional features.
In the south, the EEC border runs through Greece. I do not include Greece in the EEC, although there are many things that bring it closer to the Slavic world. Greece is a country of intermediate culture, the heir of the Byzantine civilization, which, in turn, is a descendant of the ancient Mediterranean. The Orthodox religion brings the Greeks very close to their co-religionists, the Slavs, but Orthodoxy is not a civilization. Christianity, its confessions, is a special world within the civilizational and ethnic world.
Having torn off the Russian world from Central and Eastern Europe and united it with the Greeks, it is impossible to outline civilization. It would be more correct to connect the Greeks with Southern Europe as part of the West, such states as Spain, Portugal, Italy. As recent events have shown, Greece is a very weak link in the European Union, which does not have its own socio-economic stability. At the same time, political riots and the prevalence of leftist ideology rather speak of the prospective political stability of Greece in the Western European sense. There is something that brings Greece closer to Asian countries: Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Christian communities in the Middle East, as well as Albania.
In this regard, we can agree with S. Huntington that “Greece is not part of Western civilization, but it gave rise to classical civilization, which became an important source for Western civilization. In their opposition to Turkey, the Greeks have always felt themselves to be the defenders of Christianity. Unlike Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria, the history of Greece has always been closely intertwined with the history of the West. And yet Greece is also an anomaly, an outsider in Western institutions.” (p.249)
Finally, there is the east. Here, the border of the EEC clearly runs along the line of the predominance of the Russian population. In terms of administrative boundaries, there are three options: 1) either along the border of the Russian Federation; 2) either within the Russian Federation between purely Caucasian and Russian regions; 3) either within Kazakhstan between regions dominated by Russians and Kazakhs. Such subjects of the Russian Federation with a predominance of non-Russian population, like Tatarstan and Bashkiria, I would generally classify as Eastern Europe. The specificity is that, despite the Turkic culture and the Muslim religion, the Tatars are more Eastern Europeans than Asians. In addition, the Tatars have a rather high percentage of Russian assimilation.
Although to a lesser extent, this also applies to the Bashkirs, but the Bashkirs are a minority in Bashkiria (Bashkortostan). It is also important that in Tatarstan both territorially and socially they are built into Russia. The Eastern, Turanian peoples within Russia form the Eurasian periphery of the EEC. But today Eurasia as a special civilization does not exist, contrary to Eurasian theories. (It is quite possible that it was in previous centuries in the Gumilyov meaning). It turns out that the Eurasians are either Eastern Europeans or Turanian, predominantly Turkic peoples. In general, Eurasia is a purely geopolitical, not a civilizational concept.
The Finno-Ugric peoples of Russia also belong to the EEC, or rather, what is left of them, because today they can be considered a sub-ethnic part of the Russian nation. However, in general, the Finns, including Finland and Estonia, belong to the eastern, and not to the western branch of Europeans. The same can be said about the Western Ugrians - Hungarians, and about the Balts - Latvians and Lithuanians. Symbiosis with Russians is for them the result of civilizational processes.
In the Caucasus, as we can see, the border of the EEC as a whole coincides with the border of Europe and Asia, which runs along the foothills North Caucasus. However, in the Stavropol and Krasnodar territories, the border of the EEC was pushed back by the Russians deep into the mountains, as, for example, in Sochi, up to the peaks of Krasnaya Polyana. The peoples of the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia are not European. Despite the long tradition of Christianity, Georgians and Armenians are Asian peoples with a corresponding clan structure of society and a mentality that can be compared with those of the Middle East.
The emergence of the EEC and the knot of civilizations of the Old World. Indo-European and Slavic factor
EEC was created by the eastern branch of the Indo-European family. Consequently, the beginning of the EEC should be attributed to the period when the Indo-Christian tribes formed in the southeast of Europe in the middle and lower reaches of the Volga and Don, and began to spread in Europe, according to the Kurgan theory of M. Gimbutas. Accordingly, this was the emergence of the "New Europe" in the Neolithic era. It is this then still new Europe that is associated today with the old traditional European civilization, which the critical theory of T. Adorno and M. Horkheimer defined as the dominance of rationality, Enlightenment, capitalism, patriarchy and cratocentrism, obsession with power over other people and class stratification. This is the civilization of the "cunning Odysseus", a traveler and conqueror of European tribes and countries. Like it or not, but classical Europe was born from the spirit of Eastern Europe, and the most, that, neither is, eastern, brought by nomads.
If we talk about the complex human anthropotype as the basis of civilization, then the Eastern European civilization and its territory are closely connected with the genetics of the haplogroup R1a. Of course, this haplogroup is considered by us as a sociobiological factor in the emergence of Eastern European civilization, and not as a mandatory criterion. In addition to it, there are a number of others, but they are rather the nature of subgroups within the general range of the EEC.
From here, another, western branch originates, which settled in Central, Western and Southern Europe and is more connected with the history of the European continent, Strictly, and then the New World. This branch is connected mainly with the movement to the east, through the East European Plain and the Black Sea region in the Volga region, Ciscaucasia and the Urals, further along the South of Siberia, and also through Central Asia to India. But not only with it, but also with the development of the Center of Europe and west of the East European Plain., where the concentration of the haplogroup R1a. The plain played a key role in relation to the Carpathians and the Balkans through the settlement of the Slavs. The middle frontier was the territory of central Germany
Unlike the Celts, the ancient Greeks, the Mediterranean peoples, the carriers of the EEC - the Slavs and the Balts, who settled in Eastern Europe, found themselves in different geographical, political and cultural conditions that left their mark on the culture and appearance.
Eastern Europe was fairly densely populated by humans during the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods. The population also increased with the arrival of the Eastern Indo-Europeans from the Balkans. They acted as a catalyst neolithic revolution and the creation of an Eastern European anthropological type.
The East European Plain from the Urals to the Elbe was open to migrations in the western and eastern directions. In the process of these migrations, a Balto-Slavic community developed between the Upper Volga, Upper Dnieper, Vistula and Oder. Later, she migrated to the Danube valley and the Balkans.
In the world of the Indo-Europeans, the Balto-Slavs occupied a central position, in the center of Eurasia. Unlike groups of Eastern or Asian Indo-Europeans who settled in the III millennium BC. Central Asia, South Siberia, India, Afghanistan, part of Iran, as well as from the Indo-Europeans of Transcaucasia and the Middle East, they geographically remained in Europe. And only then, within the framework of the Muscovite Kingdom in the 17th century, they mastered the entire space of the Eurasian center, but at the same time their European nature did not change, only the specific Eastern European features intensified.
The Indo-Europeans of Asia: Hindus, Tajiks, Persians, Pashtuns, Armenians and other peoples were cut off from the European world for millennia. Eastern Europeans, on the other hand, lived in direct contact with the world of Europe, but without merging with it.
It is also noteworthy that Eastern Europe was also the center of the civilization of the pre-Indo-European, pre-Aryan "Old Europe" (according to M. Gimbutas), which originated from the Vinci culture in the Balkans (this region of the Dinaric Alps is the westernmost point of the EEC today), and reached its peak including in the culture of Cucuteni (Trypillia). It is possible that the influence of these matriarchal and communitarian (proto-communist) cultures affected Eastern Europe to a greater extent than Western and even Central. However, this is rather a factor in the history of the EEC.
EEC in historical time. The concept of Eastern Europe inXVIII century
The historical (“axial”) time in the EEC began in the early Middle Ages, in the era of the great migration of peoples, when the Slavs became known in Byzantium and Rome as barbarian tribes that threatened their peace. The Slavs actually populated Eastern Europe and parts of the Mediterranean and finally formalized the zones of distribution of the civilization of Eastern Europeans.
Prior to this, the Greek colonies in the Black Sea region encountered representatives of the EEC in the form of Scythians and Sarmatians, and other Indo-European tribes. In the East, the Slavs settled the East European Plain, the Carpathians, and partly the Northern Black Sea region, assimilating the local peoples and including them within the framework of their Slavic world. Together with the Alans (the “Russian Khaganate” in the basin of the Right Bank of the Don), they formed a group of peoples that were in contact with the Khazars and prevented their advance to the West from the Lower Volga.
At the same time in Eastern Europe there was the adoption of Christianity, the creation of a written culture and the formation of states: Kievan Rus, Bulgarian, Polish, Czech-Moravian. The integration of nationalities and subsequent nations began.
In Eastern Europe, Orthodoxy acquired its second ecumene, its "third Rome", became a universal phenomenon that went beyond the boundaries of one people - the Greeks, one empire or several countries, engulfed the whole world area.
The products of the Eastern European civilization of the early Middle Ages were the cities of the Western Slavs in the Baltic (Arkona). The Eastern Slavs, along with the statehood of the Rurikovich, retained ethnic tribal centers, including on a pagan basis. At the same time, Eastern Europeans also faced the expansion of overpopulated Western Europe, which was carried by the Germans and Catholic church organizations. Catholic German orders and their states also had a lot of Eastern European in them. The islands of Western Europe in the east, such as East Prussia, carried a lot of the original and for the Germans themselves.
An example of a typical Eastern European civilizational state is the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which combined the Balts and Slavs. In the future, it was replaced by the Commonwealth, which had all the Eastern European features. In the Habsburg Empire, Eastern European culture had a very strong influence (the culture of the lower classes), although it had a certain balance with Western European culture (the culture of the upper classes). Of course, the Russian states were the most distinctive: the great principalities, lands, including the Principality of Moscow and the Ukrainian Hetmanate, the Russian Empire. The processes of centralization led to the formation of multi-layered multi-structural geopolitical giants on the periphery of the world metropolis and, accordingly, the Western European mentality. The internal inconsistency between the Eastern European mentality of the masses and the Western European mentality of the imperial elite should have led to their collapse.
This point of view is gradually gaining understanding among Western intellectuals: In the book “Inventing Eastern Europe”, “Wulff convincingly shows that in the views of the West, Russia, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic belonged to the same “civilizational area” of Eastern Europe. It is clear from the book that Stalin in Yalta did not at all “steal” part of this area from the West, and Churchill and Roosevelt did not betray Central Europe simply because it simply did not exist in their ideas. The author proves that the line on the map of Europe, along which the Iron Curtain passed, in a "miraculous" way - and in fact quite naturally - coincided with the ideas about the borders of the continent, deeply rooted in the West for almost two centuries. “In fact, the line drawn by Churchill “from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic” was mapped and comprehended two centuries ago, during the time of his famous ancestor, the warlike Duke of Marlborough. The "Iron Curtain" came true, and the fact that the split of the continent into two parts, into Western and Eastern Europe, dates back to another period of intellectual history, was almost forgotten or deliberately obscured. Today, among Eastern European politicians, intellectuals, and their Western fosterers, we see the same trend of “silencing”.
The role of the EEC for the European West - "constituting the other" (Lari Wolf), a kind of point of repulsion for the West to look at itself. But a very real geopolitical rival. The EEC closed the way for Western European civilization to the east, to the riches of Eurasia and its center, thereby limiting She became its guardian, and therefore a constant object of threats in the form of various Drang nach Osten.
Civilizational wars of the West against Eastern Europe
After the space of Europe crystallized, Eastern Europe faced a number of civilizational wars from the West. Like all such wars, they were total and ideologically directed. More often, Eastern Europe played the role of a victim, turning into a moral winner. Catholicism, enlightenment rationalism, non-pagan irrationalism, socialism, and globalism were taken for ideological armament in different eras.
Only an incomplete enumeration of the wars would take up a page. The first such war was the German expansion against the Baltic and Western Slavs in general, their baptism, assimilation and spread of knightly military orders in the Baltic, up to the wars with Novgorod and Lithuania, as well as the eastern conquests of the Holy Roman Empire. The suppression of the Hussite uprising in the Czech Republic is a civilizational war against the Slavs. The next act is associated with the wars of the Commonwealth against Moscow and the Ukrainian Cossacks. The Commonwealth, although it was an Eastern European state, nevertheless acted as a conductor of peace in Western Europe. The third act - the wars of Russia, Poland against Sweden, Charles XII. The fourth is the wars of Russia against Prussia. Fifth - wars with revolutionary France and Napoleon's invasion of Russia. The sixth episode concerns Crimean War Russia against a united Western Europe. 1st World War against the German world and its satellites from Russia and Serbia can be interpreted as a war of the Eastern European civilization. Germany for Russia was the closest representative of the hostile West. Its continuation was the events of the revolution and the Civil War in Russia, accompanied by the intervention of Western countries, including Germany. As a result, Bolshevik Russia became the new reality of Eastern Europe, as well as other nation-states that arose from the ruins of empires. War with Fascist Germany and its block, then the Cold War with hot episodes - this is the list of civilizational wars, unfortunately not finished. In 1999, Serbia, like all the peoples of Yugoslavia, became a victim of the civilizational war of the West against Eastern Europe. In the 2000s, the West attempted to infiltrate NATO into Ukraine and oust the Russian fleet from Crimea, and also provoked Georgia's military adventure. The Cold War and the collapse of the socialist system have shown that consumer and economic rationalism are the strongest weapons of the West, corrupting the EEC from within.
The system of real socialism (1917-1991) as an original form of Eastern European civilization
Like any civilization, throughout its development, the EEC strove to create universal original forms on a global, or at least Eastern European scale. Among such forms we saw earlier Great Moravia, Kievan Rus, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Commonwealth, the Muscovite Kingdom, the Russian Empire. However, it was the USSR and its socialist bloc, coinciding with Eastern Europe, that became the pinnacle of this originality, with all the negative features that accompany extremes.
The collapse of the Russian, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Prussian empires in the revolutions of 1917-1920. caused a surge in the Eastern European mentality of the masses, both in small nation-states and their regimes, and in the creation of a new world system. There was a collapse of the old image of the civilization of Eastern Europe, but unification with world norms also did not work out in full, as many populists, democrats, Marxists, socialists, nationalists, who became national socialists in different proportions and types, wanted. In agony, a new, no less original image was born.
Since 1918, the world revolutionary and national movement has been under the decisive influence of Eastern Europe, or rather, those complex forces that have become subjects of power there. Jewish or international groups played a big role in these forces, but I would, following Berdyaev, still define them not as the conspiratorial forces of the global West (according to conspiracy theory), but as the original forces of the Eastern European society, of which they were then a marginal part Jewish communities. Phenomena such as Leninist Bolshevism and Trotskyism and Stalinism became global factors, born in the Eastern European soup.
The power systems of the Soviets (Soviet model) and the communist hegemonic parties, through the Comintern and the export of the revolution, the Eastern Europeans also influenced China, up to its present appearance. The communist political system has become an innovative model of political development.
Western European fascism has become a kind of deeply characteristic reaction of European civilization to the processes taking place in its eastern branch. According to the dialectic theorists of the Enlightenment of the Frankfurt school Adorno and Horkheimer, which is hard to disagree with, German Nazism has become an internal product of the development of the entire Western European civilization, from the time of Ancient Greece, a kind of logical conclusion of the Enlightenment with an attempt to return to Indo-Europeanism.
But still, it is a kind of by-product, a reactive product of the era, although with much of the inner essence. Characteristically, he died in a mortal combat of total war with Eastern Europe. As a result of the military events on the “eastern front”, the Yalta division of Europe did not accidentally pass along the “east-west” civilizational line. Is it by chance? Of course, the satellites of the USSR were not happy with their fate and could well be absorbed by the West. However, the arrival of the USSR in other countries of Eastern Europe was fully programmed and even supported by part of the new elites and populations of these countries, as earlier in the 19th century. - the arrival of the Russian Empire there as a result of civilizational wars with Napoleonic France and Turkey, the partitions of Poland.
If the USSR had not been an independent civilizational factor, it would not have been able to end the war in Berlin and Vienna. Western thought (and its epigones in Russia) was generally characterized by an underestimation of the civilizational factors of Eastern Europe, which was considered underdevelopment, or, in modern terms, insufficient modernization. This played a cruel joke on the Nazis.
Having gone through a cycle of revolutionary development and Thermidor for two decades, by the end of the 1930s, socialism returned to its civilizational and ethno-cultural base, but with a new system of relations and cultural forms. The USSR was a dream come true for a new Europe, a dream more Eastern European than Western.
It is difficult to argue that the USSR represented a realized attempt of a new branch of civilization, albeit in a limited spatio-temporal and meaningful execution, after the works of A. Zinoviev. And with what it is difficult to argue, his opponents prefer to remain silent or falsify. Speaking about the originality of the communist system as a path for the development of mankind, I would limit it to the framework of the civilization of Eastern Europe as a large-scale historical whole, and not a narrow folklore and political entity. This interpretation is not new, let's take, for example, "the origins and meaning of Russian communism" N. Berdyaev. Communism is a European product, not an Asian one, but at the same time, Eastern in every sense. The defeat of the Soviet project became a kind of crisis and a sharp narrowing of the EEC.
The end of "Central and Eastern Europe": the closure of the "sanitary zone"
The history of the post-Soviet countries has shown the inconsistency of the Russophobic interpretations of Eastern Europe, designed to isolate Russia from Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states, and Moldova. As always, the Poles excelled here. The CEE theory of Jerzy Klochkovsky (History of Central and Eastern Europe, 2000) is also based on epigonism towards the West. Within the framework of the CEE concept, Russia is torn out of Eastern Europe, and Poland occupies a central place in it, influencing the cultural specifics of Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania. It is untenable, since most of Eastern Europe is not included in it. This is a cordon sanitaire, a discriminatory mechanism for separation from Russia. Poland's claims to political and ideological hegemony in the CEE region, including its northern part, are also untenable. The late Kaczynski's attempts to promote Poland's hegemony during the Orange Revolution in Ukraine showed that few people pay attention to Poland, and it is about US and NATO policy. This culminated and ended with Kaczynski's unsuccessful diplomacy during the 2008 Russia-Georgia war in an attempt to draw Ukraine, led by Yushchenko, into the events. Ukraine's withdrawal from the CEE sanitary project in 2010 marked its collapse. But it has not been curtailed completely and is an important weapon in the struggle against Eastern European civilization.
"Russian World" as the last bastion of the EEC
To speak of the Russian world as a civilization, in my opinion, is correct only within the framework of the EEC. However, the originality of Russian civilization is due precisely to the fact that it most consistently, in the eastern version, embodied the spirit of Eastern Europe as the original European cultural code, from the very times when the Indo-Europeans only entered Europe. If on the East European Plain it was “conserved” to a certain extent in adverse natural and social conditions, then in the South, West and Central it developed, flourished and mutated beyond recognition. He gave rise to antiquity, Old Europe, the New World, and, finally, the modern global world. Christianity became the inner conscience of this world and its best representatives, but did not fundamentally change it. It contradicted his intentions, and sooner or later the anti-Christian tendencies won out in him. Christianity could cope with the Indo-European nature of man only in its naive wildness, but it cannot do anything with a developed and sophisticated rationalism. The Russian man, on the other hand, remained an Indo-European in his original, barbarian-heroic appearance, which is why Orthodoxy has a special power over him, if not in the church, then in the mental incarnation.
The EEC will not cease to exist in one moment, along with the inclusion of its peoples in the European Union and the total globalization of culture. Nevertheless, there is such a threat in the future if this region of the world cannot produce its own culture, including mass culture, and its own technological products that are different from the world's. This can happen simply because of the above low economic competitiveness within the common market (eg WTO).
The degradation of languages, their replacement by English and German, the degradation of religion and customs, the aging of the population - carriers of traditional genes and races, and its replacement by migrants lead to the collapse of the EEC. Eastern Europe has embarked on this path.
Only large political and ideological state structures with sovereignty can resist this. " patchwork quilt» CEE states of small and medium-sized nations that have shared and continue to share are not able to resist globalization a priori. But it is obvious that the Slavic peoples of the former USSR, integrated into the large Russian nation, and, for a start, the Union of Eastern European Peoples, can play such a role.
Although Russians, including Central Ukrainians, Belarusians and assimilated non-Slavic strata, for example, Russian Finno-Ugric peoples, Russian Germans and Russian Jews, are the brightest and most consistent representatives of the EEC not only culturally, but, most importantly, precisely in geopolitical terms.
However, many residents of the Balkans or the Carpathians who have preserved their originality may be more colorful representatives of the EEC than urbanized Russians. The films of Kusturica and Wajda carry the spirit of the EEC that cannot be conveyed by rational tools.
Unlike China and, to some extent, India, Russia is not a country-nation-civilization on the principle of a “three in one” device. Therefore, I would consider Russia an "island" in the geopolitical, and not in the civilizational sense, although there may also be features of an island civilization. It is difficult to agree with the complex concept of the "Island-Russia" by V. Tsimbursky. However, the defense mechanisms of practical politics are interpreting Russia in this direction, a cultural structuring separate from Europe.
The Importance of the EEC Doctrine for Russia and Europe
However, the protracted global crisis, which hit the EU and the US painfully against the backdrop of the growth of BRIC, may have been the beginning of a rollback of the Western European wave from the borders of Russia and an increase in the stabilization of the EEC in the new historical conditions, both in the post-Soviet space and in the east of the European Union. The change of power in Ukraine in 2010, the preservation of the conservative post-Soviet regime in Belarus, the creation of the Customs Union are a manifestation of this geopolitical stabilization.
The Russian society, as well as the ruling stratum of the Russian Federation, have realized and adopted the concept of their cultural and civilizational originality, contrary to globalism and Western Europeanism, in the form of the “Russian World” doctrine, not accidentally presented by the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Kirill at the end of 2009.
In my opinion, this doctrine should be complemented by bright and systematic ideas that go far beyond the Russian-speaking space and the interests of Russians and Russian-oriented East Slavic communities. Russia must offer the world something important besides itself, its attributes and its territorial fragments, which seem to be no longer hers.
The ideas of the Russian world today are unlikely to find wide support outside the proper Russian-speaking area of the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Belarus and part of Kazakhstan, and some enclaves such as the PMR. Even in Ukraine, they cause an ambiguous attitude.
In order to confidently dominate spiritually within Ukraine, Belarus, the Russian Federation, and neighboring states, Russia needs to be an ideological hegemon within Eastern Europe. This is what the concept of Eastern European civilization allows, stretching far to the West and far into the depths of time. Similar ideas were expressed, for example, by S. Helemendik, a Russian member of the Slovak Parliament.
The ideas of the EEC are well combined with the policy of transport corridors and oil and gas pipelines pursued by the ruling group of the Russian Federation.
Today there is a struggle for the survival of "Old Europe", and the mission of Russia in the context of the theory of the EEC should be to protect European values, which are subject to intensive erosion, both along the lines of traditional Christianity and Indo-Europeanism.
Okara A.N. Eastern Christian civilization. M., 2009. Okara A.N. In the vicinity of the new Constantinople or Eastern Christian civilization in the face of the latest world chaos order // Civilizational assets and civilizational framework of national Russian politics. Materials of scientific seminar. Issue. No. 6 (15). M.: Scientific expert, 2008 “It seems optimal and correct to define a civilizational community as “Eastern Christian” or “Eastern European” without a number of CEE countries, but with Greece.
On civilizational differences between East and West Germans: See Biryukov S. East Germany: a dead end or an unrecognized alternative?; Howard M. Die Ostdeutschen als ethnische Gruppe? // Berliner Debate INITIAL. - 1995. - Heft 4/5. - S. 119-131. These differences within one nation, however, are traces of very significant civilizational faults.
Sidorov Igor. Reviews: L. Wolf. Inventing Eastern Europe. Map of Civilization in the Mind of the Enlightenment // Russia in Global Affairs. 06/16/2003.
Wolf L. Inventing Eastern Europe. Map of Civilization in the Mind of the Enlightenment // Russia in Global Affairs. 06/16/2003.
According to Wulff, Voltaire played a big role in understanding the category of Eastern Europe, dividing Europe according to a new principle. “Like many other great ideas of the Enlightenment, the concept of Eastern Europe owes its birth to Voltaire. His notorious interest in Russia resulted in the panegric "History of the Russian Empire in the reign of Peter the Great", two volumes of which were published in 1759 and 1763 ... Nevertheless, the map of Eastern Europe formed in the mind of Voltaire much earlier. In 1731, following his sensational "History of Charles XII" after the Swedish king in his campaigns of conquest, the philosopher described Poland and Russia, Ukraine and Crimea, whose conceptual commonality was only taking shape. His work has been translated into many languages and reprinted many times.
As you know, simple truths are almost always perceived by people more difficult than more intricate, compound ones. This happens because simple phenomena as a result of analysis are more difficult to decompose into parts, they exist as a kind of given, and do not generate food for the mind.
One of the most important axioms associated with the analysis of the cultural interaction between East and West is that there was no lag of Eastern civilizations. The East, relative to itself, developed quite evenly. After all, it cannot be said that the Ottoman Empire somehow lagged far behind or surpassed, for example, the Mughal Empire in India, or the Qing Empire in China. All these states were approximately at the same level of development, so the lag could only occur in comparison with Europe of the same historical period.
The right question here is why Europe has advanced so much from the late Middle Ages onwards, not why the East has lagged behind.
The answer to this question is absolutely simple and transparent - European civilization has constantly used the advantages arising from its territorial location. These territorial advantages served as a catalyst for cultural development on the European Peninsula. By the way, the gradual slowdown in the development of Western civilization in our days, including the current, ever worsening economic crisis, occurs for the same banal reason. The territorial advantages that Europeans used before have now ceased to be advantages, as the world has become global and the question of the location of states became less significant on the map.
Basically, that's it, period. But for the reasons stated above, I will have to disclose here the advantages that Europe had and the East did not have (by the way, both the Near and the Far)
So, if you look at the map of the world, you can see that the western part of the Old World differs from the rest of the world in that there is a large inland sea - the Mediterranean (one name is worth it!). This sea very conveniently separates the European peninsula from Asia and Africa. It can also be seen that the entire south of Europe is a collection of islands and peninsulas. And it was here that all the most developed European ancient civilizations were born. They appeared in a very favorable place, because the Mediterranean Sea here, both protects the local states from external invasions from the East and Africa, and at the same time connects Italy and Greece with the Ancient East by sea trade routes. The sea makes it possible to use all the achievements of the then mankind, and these achievements originally appeared in the East, at a safe distance from this very East. From the north, ancient civilizations covered the Alps and dense forests.
As a result, we have a greenhouse incubator with a good Mediterranean climate, which gave the first impetus to all European achievements. It is interesting that this status quo has been preserved further, Europe has continued to be a cultural incubator up to the present day, since in its entire history it has practically not been subjected to external destructive invasions. There were only a couple of moments BC. - these are the campaigns of Hannibal and the campaigns of the Persians in Greece, which did not affect the ancient European civilization in any way, on the contrary, this very civilization began to actively invade Africa and Asia. Subsequently, several episodic invasions of the Huns, Avars, Hungarians and Tatar-Mongols can be noted. Only the Hungarians managed to somehow gain a foothold in European territory, all the rest disappeared almost without a trace. True, nomadic invasions to the European Peninsula significantly slowed down the cultural development of local European tribes during the "Dark Ages", which once again confirms how significant this factor is for the development of all civilizations on Earth.
In this regard, one can imagine how devastatingly the invasions of alien invaders on states outside the European peninsula were reflected. After all, if several nomadic raids so significantly slowed down the development of European civilization, then what should people have experienced, for example, somewhere in Armenia, through the territory of which almost all possible and impossible conquerors swept, both from the East and from the West. These are not a few nomadic hordes of the Huns, who previously went through all of Asia and invaded Europe already at the end - the territories of Armenians and other Asian peoples were constantly under the yoke of foreigners - Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Turks, Mongols. Naturally, this factor seriously slowed down the development of states in the Middle East. There is no time for capitalism - "no time for fat, I would live."
Another significant problem that made life difficult for Asian peoples and is almost completely absent in Europe is natural disasters. Yes, of course there was an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, but how many such eruptions were in Indonesia!
In Europe, there were no terrible Asian earthquakes, terrible floods and constant epidemics of various serious diseases. The Yellow River in China, with its floods and destruction of dams, washed hundreds of villages and cities into the sea. On the contrary, if the Egyptian Nile did not overflow, it was a guaranteed death from starvation to 2/3 of the country's population. Europe did not know anything like this ...
Agriculture in Europe, although not as efficient as in Mesopotamia or in the Nile Delta, did not require the collective labor of a huge number of people, it was possible to get by with the mutual assistance of several families. The influence of even one person on the events was well felt.
From here grew the distinctive features of the character of a European - a propensity for active actions for one's own good, for individualism, faith in own forces, curiosity.
Of course, one could also believe in oneself in the East, but this was quickly "cured" by sudden death from annual epidemics of plague and other diseases (for example, Arab medieval historians did not even consider it necessary to describe mass epidemics, it was part of everyday life, plague and other diseases intensified every spring.In general, "like spring - so is the plague, like the plague - so is spring"). You could be as inquisitive and hardworking a Muslim as you like, but this did not prevent your severed head from flying into a common pile of the same severed heads. These heaps, after the campaigns of Tamerlane, rose near each city he took - Baghdad, Damascus, and were often the height of a minaret .... Meanwhile, a European burgher watered flowers on the window and improved his financial condition :)
There is an opinion that Christianity influenced the freedom of expression of Europeans. They say it was it that shaped the European character. Here, as always, causes and effects are confused - Christianity rather absorbed the European view of a person who was formed in a natural way.
The difference in religious views on this issue can be clearly seen in the analysis of Western and Eastern Christianity, as well as other Asian religions. Islam, Judaism and other Eastern religions are very skeptical about the "free will" of man and in general to the "human factor" as such, but Eastern Christians - Monophysites, Nestorians have the same skepticism. And this happens due to their "eastern" geographical location By the way, this commonality of views of Eastern Christians and Muslims contributed to the mass conversion of Christians to Islam, because the Nestorian emphasis on human nature in Christ is in good agreement with the Muslim point of view of Jesus as a prophet. The undesirability of images of people is present, both in Islamic mosques and in Armenian churches.
Knowing about the existence of such Christian countries as the same Armenia or Ethiopia (both countries were among the first to become Christian), any attempts to connect the current prosperity of Europe with Christian influence seem ridiculous.
Jesus Christ enters Jerusalem, 13th century Arabic miniature. 
The development of European civilization was also influenced by one negative factor, namely the absence of a large amount of free land. This stemmed from its peninsular position, you had to pay for privacy. Europeans had to develop serious communication skills in order to get along with each other in a relatively small area. Still, they tried to negotiate more than to cut off each other's heads. The lack of free land in Europe contributed to the expansion of Europeans in all directions, wherever it was possible to swim.
Here, the West was lucky again - having a long coastline and shipping for thousands of years in the Mediterranean and the Baltic, Europeans quickly mastered ocean navigation. Again, at the heart of the maritime successes of Western civilization lies the favorable location of Europe.
I think that this can already stop listing the territorial advantages that European civilization has taken advantage of.
It is worth noting just a couple of other problems that have complicated the lives of people in Asia.
The maritime successes of the Europeans had a negative impact on the entire Asian trade. The great land trade routes of antiquity ceased to exist when the Spanish and Portuguese galleons began to ply all the oceans and seas. Once active Arab maritime trade also passed into the hands of Europeans. In this regard, many cities located along the Great Silk Road began to grow poor, as intermediary trade between East and West was a significant help to their economies. Trade provided not only economic benefits, it helped the information exchange between the Central Asian peoples. After her disappearance, people in these regions were cut off from the rest of the world. Without the influx of new knowledge, technology and other information, the peoples of the interior of Asia began to degrade culturally. What we are seeing to this day.
Another interesting factor that influenced the development of many states in the East may be serious environmental problems in these territories.
When visiting many ancient abandoned cities in Asia, the eerie "lunar" landscapes around are striking. I have always wondered how the ancient civilizations of Asia Minor could flourish in such a terrible area. There are only desert plateaus and plains scorched by the sun, sand and stones, no trees, no grass, and no special animals either. There is nothing.
However, as we know, the first civilizations were formed here - in Syria, in the east of Turkey and in Iraq.
Most likely, a man corny destroyed everything Natural resources in the region. After all, the lands of the Ancient East were exploited by people longer than anywhere else, this stems from the prescription of their development. If there were any forests in Western Asia, they were destroyed even before our era, and after all, forests are what restrains the advance of deserts, it is not for nothing that the Chinese are now planting hectares of trees to prevent the onset of sand in Xinjiang.
Of course, farming has always been profitable in Mesopotamia, but you can’t build a good economy on date palms alone, you need something else, you can’t build ships from palm trees ...
Agriculture in Western Asia has always required the labor of a large number of people, it was necessary to endlessly dig irrigation canals. Gradually, starting from the 9th-10th century, the number of such channels began to decrease. The last state to be seriously puzzled by this issue was the Abbasid Caliphate, after which the network of irrigation canals fell into disrepair and vast territories became unsuitable for growing anything.
Huge cities, such as Baghdad, were completely destroyed, after several invasions of nomads - a city with a population of one million people turned into a small village. Naturally, under such conditions, there could be no question of any competition with Europe.
Let's make a final conclusion.
The prosperity of European civilization at the end of the second millennium AD. occurred due to a combination of random circumstances, the main of which is the successful, for a given historical period, location of the European Peninsula.
By the way, in this regard, those who think that everything happens by the will of Allah will be right :) If the Lord would have wanted, then the Mediterranean Sea could have ended up somewhere in China, and the whole story would have gone differently :) may influence this. What I mean is that Muslims are right in many ways when they are skeptical about human capabilities. This skepticism stems from a deep understanding of the essence of things...
The main thing when overtaking others is not to lag behind yourself!
L. S. Sukhorukov,
(Soviet and Ukrainian writer)
By the middle of the XVII century. socio-economic and technological indicators of the West and the East have approximately leveled off. The West experienced the beginning of the 16th century. spiritual and economic transformation and was able by that time to equalize the huge gap with the East (which was in favor of the latter), which had formed during the early Middle Ages, including at the level of average per capita income.
AT European states monarchical absolutism was established, which, in contrast to feudal statehood with the dominance of a religious worldview and the immobility of the social order, proceeded to a greater extent from the assumption of more rational worldviews, the possibility of social changes, national interests and objectively contributed to the accelerating modernization processes in society, namely in development of bourgeois relations. In fact, this was the beginning of a long-term modernization change in the traditional Western feudal society.
This gave dynamics to the development of Europe in comparison with the stagnant and traditionally unshakable East, which retained the dominant patrimonial-state system and political superstructure in the form of Asian despotism. Despite the New Age and the emergence of new technologies (both in the West and in the East), nothing indicated here the possibility of any changes in the form of bourgeois relations maturing. The very system of power and the traditional worldview of the population of the eastern countries rejected these alien innovations.
One could even say that if the West had not come to the East in the form of colonial capitalism and set the East in motion, nothing would have changed here. The East would continue to be in its patrimonial-state orbit and maintain the level of technology that it had, even five hundred years before the New Age. The gigantic material and human resources of the East at an early historical "start" in comparison with the West allowed the East, using an extensive path of development, to outstrip the West for a long time. However, it is precisely in modern times that Europe, which is more backward compared to the East since the fall of the Roman Empire, making the transition to a qualitatively different capitalist formation, takes historical revenge on the East and begins to bypass it.
The situation with Russia was more difficult. The Horde yoke significantly threw Russia away from the West, both geographically and from the ability to follow the path of development that brings it closer to the West. It finally formalized the eastern patrimonial-state structure in the country, however, without its political superstructure in the form of despotism of power. The country, experiencing strong geopolitical pressure from both the West and the East, was in a state of strong tension, which forced the authorities to follow the mobilization path of development, increasingly “enslaving” society by the state.
Therefore, barely surviving in the XV - XVI centuries. due to the hostile geopolitical environment and experiencing an acute shortage of people and funds, Russia has increasingly slowed down the pace of its development. At the same time, being geographically closer than the East to the more advanced military-technological West and being a Christian country, Russia tried to interact more with its western neighbor, carefully adopting military and technological innovations from it. The Russian government, unlike the rulers of the East, was the first to realize the viciousness of the policy of economic and cultural isolation from the dynamic West and its traditionalism.
Therefore, the Russian authorities, in contrast to the Asian rulers, have long and more closely watched the modernization processes in the West and, starting from Ivan IV, very cautiously and in small “portions” opened up the West for themselves. In the 17th century, experiencing even stronger geopolitical pressure from Europe and realizing its backwardness from the latter, the autocratic-ideocratic political regime of Russia was increasingly aware of the need for rapprochement with the West in borrowing Western technologies and innovations.
Awareness of its backwardness from Europe and a strong desire to overcome it led Russia at the turn of the 17th - 18th centuries. to the first large-scale modernization in the form of Peter's reforms. However, the scale of Peter's transformations had very limited social consequences, which could not be compared with the transformations of Alexander II.
Nevertheless, the vigorous reforms of Peter I and then the continuation of these reforms under Catherine II significantly reduced the gap in the socio-economic gap between Russia and the West. But they could not completely overcome it, because they were half-hearted (the state was reformed, not society), without the support of society and did not eliminate the dominating and hindering patrimonial-state structure in the country.
At the same time, to some extent, these reforms modernized Russia (in terms of its rationalization), freed it from the fetters of patriarchal traditionalism, and made it even more stable. In addition, these transformations strengthened the country's extensive development path by attracting more and more funds and resources, which the country has always had in abundance.
However, despite the unsurpassed backlog, Russia has developed a conviction in the correctness of the course of rapprochement with the West and cultural distance from the East, as well as getting rid of its own “Asianism”. This belief has changed over time. own perception itself not as a semi-Asian country, but as the largest European power spread over the vast expanses of Asia. This, in turn, made it possible for the Russian authorities to form a Europeanized colonial outlook on the East as a whole.
Identifying themselves with Europe in the eyes of their eastern subjects and neighboring Asian countries, the Russian emperors revised their eastern foreign policy, which had developed in the 16th-17th centuries. In the second half of the XVIII century. Russia considered its mission in the East as European civilizing. This, to some extent, made it possible to remove the problem of their own cultural inferiority and "residual Asianism" in relation to Europe, of which Russia was a student. At the same time, in the resources of the East (since the colonization policy continued on the eastern outskirts of the empire), the Russian autocrats saw means, both material and human, that they could use to, on the one hand, catch up with the West, and on the other, to resist it.
What factors contributed to the lag of the East and Russia from the West and the historical overtaking of the East and Russia by the latter?
1) Formational backwardness of the East and Russia from the West. The mutual meeting of the West, East and Russia took place on different formational grounds and stages of state-societies. So, if by the time of the meeting of the West, East and Russia in the West there was a transition from feudalism to capitalism (this was a variant of unfinished capitalism, but already with an essentially capitalist world-system), then in the East the processes of feudalization were only developing, and in Russia they reached its heyday in the 18th century, but at the same time in a very specific form of state feudalism.
At the same time, both in Russia and in the East, traditionalism dominated (while in the West it was almost gone), but in the 18th century. already in different proportions: more in the East, less in post-Petrine Russia. This predetermined the relationship between the three leading world actors: the West, as the center of the world economy, began to impose its own rules of the game and exchange, which were beneficial to it, with Russia, which became a semi-peripheral zone dependent on the West and the East, which was later turned by the West into a backward periphery, entirely serving it.
2) The religious and moral ideals of the East and Russia with its Orthodox worldview were directly opposed to the Western ideals of Protestant ethics with its cult of enterprise, work, self-control and personal responsibility to oneself and to God in the self-fulfillment of one's life plans. The new religious and ethical ideals of Europeans, generated by the development of market relations, were an example of a new tradition of an innovative type - a tradition of constant movement, renewal and reform of institutions and life forms.
This tradition of progress instilled in Europeans an extraordinary activity and a desire for creativity in all spheres of life, which they used to best meet ever-increasing needs. The man of the West was more and more freed from the fetters of old traditions, he confidently looked into his future. For the first time in world history, Western society was looking for its ideal of a golden age, an ideal society, in the future, and not in the past.
It is for this period that the Europeans have a new attitude to historical time, which can be described as "Time - forward!" While in the East the golden age was in the distant past (“Time is back!”), and the present and future were seen as increasingly far from the ideal. Russia was looking for its ideal in a non-historical and unearthly spiritual space - the kingdom of Pravda, the city of Kitezh, etc. All the religious and moral ideals of the East and Russia were associated with the departure from the earthly world with its imperfections - the monastic ideal or the image of a wanderer, a person not of this world. The world was dominated by collectivist principles with a focus on equality (the exception is India with its emphasized anti-egalitarianism) and social justice.
The system of priorities both in the East and in Russia was dominated by a distributive principle, an orientation towards equalizing the satisfaction of material needs, connected not with individual, but with collective principles. The culture of work both in the East and in Russia had an emphatically non-possessive character. And most importantly, nowhere in the East and in Russia a person was not responsible for the results of his work to himself, but always to the caste, community, society. (Nepomin O.E., Ivanov N.A.)
Unlike the people of the East and Russia, the European not only begins to live his uncertain future, but also as a responsible (then before God) and rational person carefully plans his life, taking full responsibility. Thus, the mobility and business profitability of the new traditions and philosophical and religious worldviews of the West, compared with the patriarchal and non-business traditions of the East and Russia, provided the West with acceleration in comparison with its main “opponents” and then a “separation” from them.
3) Neither the East nor Russia went through a spiritual secular modernization similar to that experienced by the European peoples in the Renaissance and Reformation, and then in the Enlightenment. The spiritual culture of the West, freed from the dictates of the church and the fettering tradition, reproduced science and secular education (albeit at first only for the elite), which served as a huge impetus for the development of productive forces and technologies. The book, secular education and science became a factor in the power of the West over the world, while scientific and technological innovations remained alien to both the East and Russia in modern times. The reason is the same - the lack of secularism and rationalism.
4) The West, unlike the East and Russia, which retained its cultural isolation, opened itself to the world and discovered the world for itself, emerging from its geographical and cultural isolation during the Middle Ages. The era of the great geographical discoveries with the process of colonization of new lands, the establishment of intensive economic and cultural ties with new countries and lands contributed to the influx of a huge amount of material resources into Europe, which further accelerated economic development West.
From that time on, step by step, he turned the whole world into an object of his expansion and satisfaction of his own needs. The countries of the East, for a number of reasons, refused to follow the example of the Europeans, and in the face of European trade and colonial expansion, some countries of the East (China, Japan) tried to "close". As practice has shown, such a policy turned out to be unsuccessful and only aggravated their lagging behind the West. Russia, due to its geographical proximity with the weaker and sparsely populated peoples of Siberia and Central Asia, actively pursued its imperial expansion, which, however, did not provide economic benefits to the country and could not be compared with European transcontinental expansion.
5) Lack of separation of power and property in the East and in Russia, in contrast to the West. As we have repeatedly pointed out, the state in the East, and for the most part in Russia, was the main owner and manager of all public goods, even human life. This was the essence of Eastern despotism with its non-recognition of the right to autonomy of the individual, society and private property from the state (patrimonial-state system). The inseparability of power and property had an inhibitory effect on the development of new bourgeois relations and the development public initiative of people. The division of power and property in the West, in contrast to the East and Russia, where they remained undivided, became the main distinguishing feature of the West and the reason for its civilizational success.
6) Lack of full-fledged development of private property in the East and in Russia, in contrast to the West. In the East and in Russia, either there was no private ownership of land at all and communal (public) ownership prevailed, or private ownership was under complete control of the state. And even more so, the state has never supported its entrepreneurs. Here the state, both in Russia and throughout the East, being the main owner of the land, disposed of it far from efficiently. And in turn, it was precisely the more or less free development of private property relations in the West and the all-round support of domestic business (especially in the Protestant countries of Europe) that allowed it to jump ahead sharply.
7) The most important advantage of the West over its main historical opponents at the beginning of the New Age was the emergence here of a new type of state, namely, a state that methodically and consistently (through protectionist taxes, orders, subsidies, etc.) turns the bourgeois economic system into a dominant economic system. And this happened in all the countries of Europe - the West, both Catholic and Protestant. Everywhere in these countries, the authorities, and absolute monarchs at that, in every possible way promoted (and where necessary, protected) the development of national industry, private entrepreneurship (for example, the creation of monopoly trading companies) and market relations.
That is, the European absolutist regimes played a crucial role in the formation of capitalism as the dominant socio-economic system. In the East, such a state did not appear in modern times, only in Russia, from the beginning of the 18th century, the emerging “regular state” began to pay some attention to domestic capital and more attention- state industry. But the state's attention to its "capitalists" turned out to be "on a residual basis" (firstly, feudal nobles, only then - private owners) and could not be compared with Western countries.
8) In contrast to the West, where cities were the centers of business and social life, in the East and in Russia, cities were administrative and political centers, where it was not wealthy citizens and private owners who ruled everything, but state officials and aristocratic nobility who did not create a surplus product. The cities only served the interests of the despotic state, but, "... the bureaucracy in the cities prevailed and dominated the merchants." (Fedotova V.G., Kolpakov V.A., Fedotova N.N.) In addition, the cities of the East and Russia, unlike European cities, did not have self-government, and there was no developed urban bourgeois class.
9) The great autonomy of Western society from the state and other power structures and the lack of independence of society from power (everyone was a slave to state power) in the East and in Russia. The autonomy of society from the state and the opportunities for self-realization of as many people as possible gave acceleration and dynamism to the West. Such a society, deprived of strict guardianship by the state, will later be called open (K. Popper).
At that time, in the East and in Russia, society was sometimes identified with the state or served as a weak appendage to it. The control over society here was enormous; he held back the initiative of the individual and society. Such a fact as the free travel of subjects abroad was unthinkable for the East and Russia. According to the orientalist N. Ivanov, until 1793, the Asian states did not have permanent embassies in Europe, "not a single inhabitant of the East went to the West on a private trip." Therefore, Karl Popper would later call such a society a closed society.
10) The societies of the East and Russia, in contrast to the West, were distinguished by their diversity, complex ethnic and religious composition and had vast territories. This hindered the formation here of homogeneous societies with a cohesive national culture. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the process of nation-building in the East lagged behind the similar process in the West by 150–200 years. While in Europe the consolidation of various legal status royal subjects into single national communities began actively in the period of absolute monarchies of the 17th century. This was a very important advantage of the West, since the formation of culturally unified communities - nations with a secular ideology of nationalism - in turn accelerates modernization and innovation, rationalizes social relations to the maximum.
11) The military superiority of the West over the East and Russia. All of the above factors behind the lag immediately made themselves felt in the military field. In military terms, the West demonstrated its superiority over the East in the second half of the 16th century. having won a number of victories on land and at sea over the most powerful eastern state of that time - the Ottoman Empire (for example, the defeat of the Turkish fleet at Lepanto in 1571 by the Spaniards and Venetians).
In the Livonian War of 1558–1583 numerous Russian armies were defeated by the few, but well-trained and disciplined armies of the Swedes and Poles. At the end of the XVII century. the European armies of the Austrians and Poles won victories over the vastly superior armies of the Ottoman Turks. The Russian army was repeatedly defeated in the 17th century, from the smaller, but better armed and trained armies of Sweden and Poland.
The advanced military fleet of the Europeans became a real thunderstorm for all non-European rulers. It was with the help of well-armed sailboats that the Portuguese, Dutch, British, French imposed their rules of diplomacy and trade on the powerful on land, but vulnerable and more than once humiliated at sea, the rulers of Asia. The navy became the main instrument in the struggle for supremacy on the seas and the expansion of colonial expansion, as well as the assertion of its hegemony in the so-called maritime powers - Portugal, Holland, England. The American researcher Tilly explains it simply: "All these states used their new (commercial - VB) wealth to create military power, and used their military power to increase wealth."
The military field in the West was the most important indicator of progressive and essentially revolutionary bourgeois social transformations. At the same time, the very military power of Europe - the West grew at an accelerated pace. French historian Pierre Chaunu states that “Between 1600 and 1760, the armies of classical Europe increase fivefold in number, multiply their firepower a hundredfold, and change their techniques and methods especially radically. In general, the cost of troops almost multiplied tenfold between the beginning of the XVII and the 2nd half. XVIII century".
The modernization of the army is closely connected with the modernization of the economy. And advanced European armies are being created to solve, among other things, economic tasks and the needs of societies. With the help of advanced armies and military equipment for its time, the West shamelessly imposed its dominant will on other regions of the world, which ensured its subsequent prosperity, while its non-Western opponents hopelessly and more and more lagged behind in military affairs.
A clear evidence of the superiority of European weapons and tactics over the armies of the East was the victory at the Battle of Plassey in 1757 by Robert Clive's British detachment of 800 English soldiers, 2200 sepoys and 8 guns over the army of the Bengal ruler of 68,000 thousand with 50 guns. Actually, even the superiority in the number of artillery did not give anything to the eastern rulers, as the battle of Plassey itself showed. Advanced tactics, discipline and modern organization of command and control in battle turned out to be much more important. And the traditional states of the East could not have this.
It was the superiority in weapons and military tactics of the European armies that prompted Peter I to take the path of radical reforms, as a result of which Russia, having created a trained and armed army and navy according to European standards, was able to win victories in the 18th century. over the best European armies of Sweden and Prussia, while having only a slight superiority in manpower. And in battles with the Turks, the Russian commanders Rumyantsev and Suvorov won, despite the numerical superiority of the enemy in manpower by about 1/4 and even 1/5 in favor of the Turks.
Historians note, not without irony, that “gunpowder, a compass, printing – the three great inventions that precede bourgeois society” (K. Marx) were made in China. Hundreds of other innovations, including mechanical watches and a number of metallurgical technologies, in particular the manufacture of tungsten steel (mastered in Europe only in the 19th century), owe their birth to the same China, in no small measure they stimulated the growth of European economic espionage. In the first half of the XV century. squadrons of Zheng He and Henry the Navigator almost simultaneously moved to explore the African coast. And the scientific and technical innovations of Europe itself were not something unknown to the East. In 1485, Sultan Bayazid III had already banned book printing (according to European technology) in Arabic, Turkish and Persian. In 1513 Piri Reis compiled the "Map of the Seven Seas". In addition to Arabic sources, he used the map of Columbus in 1498 and the Portuguese sailing directions of the Indian Ocean, while marking the contours of the South Polar continent, which was then unknown to Europeans. In 1580, the Janissaries destroyed the observatory in Galata (Istanbul region), equipped with approximately the same instruments that were in Tycho Brahe's observatory, which was considered the best in Europe. In 1685, an essay appeared in Damascus containing a translation or detailed exposition of the Copernican heliocentric system.
But all this knowledge and technical innovations had no effect on the socio-economic development of the East. Moreover, they were rejected by Eastern society. By the end of the 16th century, for example, the manufactories that were built in Syria and Palestine with the use of a water wheel as an engine (a technology imported from Northern Spain) ceased to exist. The same fate befell the porcelain manufactories of Egypt, which copied Chinese designs. No capitalism arose as a result of the development of trade and manufacturing and handicraft production. Neither in Mughal India nor in China did the rapid growth of commodity-money relations, commercial capital and usury, not to mention the improvement of various forms of private appropriation (and even ownership), give rise to “nothing,” as K. Marx wittily remarked, “except economic decline and political corruption”.
And in Europe itself, it was not capitalism with its cult of money, not the domination of the bourgeoisie, and even more so not “bourgeois revolutions” that were the cause of the “European miracle” of the 16th-17th centuries. It was not merchants or usurers-bankers who changed the face of the West, revealed its intellectual and artistic potential. They did not produce the revolution in consciousness that transformed the West during the Renaissance and led to the creation of an individualized society, rationally restructured on the principles of freedom. Capitalism itself as a system of a free market economy was a consequence of the changes that took place in Europe at the turn of the New Age. Back in 1973, D. North in his “The Rise of the Western World” noted that scientific and technological innovations, market structures, education, capital accumulation, etc. were not the cause of the rise, but the rise itself, its manifestation in various spheres of economic and social life. In a word, capitalism was one of the results of the progress of the West, the disclosure in the field of economics of those potentialities that lay in its social and spiritual values. It was a purely Western way of production. It came from the very nature social structures inherent in Europe since ancient times.
In the Middle Ages, especially in the 11th-14th centuries, under the influence of the Catholic Church and chivalry, these values were further developed, leading to the emergence of a new ethics and morality. In the sphere of economic life, the introduction of compulsory confession was of particular importance, as well as the practical implementation of the principles of “industriousness” (“industria” of theological treatises), which was perceived as a kind of religious asceticism. Labor has become an end in itself. From a curse, the lot of servants and slaves, he became the highest religious and moral ideal. The concept of labor as a duty to oneself and to God, the very idea of “collaboration”, the rationalization of any activity, combined with the development of legal consciousness, self-control and personal responsibility created in the West that socio-moral atmosphere, which M. Weber not quite successfully defined as “spirit capitalism."
Religious and moral ideals of the East had the exact opposite character. Asceticism was associated primarily with the withdrawal from the world. The world was dominated by collectivist principles, which underlay all the civilizations of the East. Moreover, most of them were characterized by an attitude towards equality and social justice. Accordingly, the system of priorities was dominated by a distributive principle, an orientation towards equalizing and guaranteed satisfaction of material needs, associated not with individual, but with collective efforts. This is where the attitude towards work came from. For all the differences in its culture and religious and moral basis, nowhere in the East was it an end in itself, it did not have that deeply personal and ideally non-possessive character that it acquired in the countries of the West. In all civilizations of the East, labor was seen primarily as a source of well-being and had social significance. The work of one was the work of all, and ideally all worked as one. In practice, this gave rise to the desire “not to overwork for another”, at best to be on a par with others. Nowhere in the East did a person answer for the results of his work to himself, always to society, caste or clan. Accordingly, nowhere was there that socio-moral atmosphere, that culture of the spirit, in the bosom of which the economic development of the West took place, consistently combined with rational calculation and even commercialism.
It should also be taken into account that the economic structures that developed in various civilizations of the East were absolutely incompatible with the development of a free market economy. The absence of such fundamental institutions as the guarantee of property and freedom, the denial of the self-worth of the individual and his aspirations, the dependence of man and his activities on the collective - all this did not give other alternatives than non-market forms of labor organization. The development of capitalism was also incompatible with the economic views of the Eastern rulers and governments, which, according to A. Smith's definition, came from "agricultural systems of political economy." All of them considered physical labor, primarily in agriculture, the only source of the newly produced product, and the peasants the only breadwinners of society. Finally, the emergence of free market relations was hindered by state policy. With all the differences in the ideological order, the intervention of the state in economic activity people and the concentration of wealth in the hands of the treasury. The main concern of the state apparatus was the problem of accounting, distribution and redistribution, in a word, the redistribution mechanism, which, among other things, opened up truly unlimited opportunities for the ruling classes for their own enrichment, moreover, not burdened by either personal responsibility or moral imperatives. Unbelievable, but true, according to O.I. Senkovsky (1800-1858), with reference to "experts in the matter", in Qing China, the chiefs and their subordinates plundered at least 60-70% of state money, in the Ottoman Empire and even more - 75% .
The East went its own way. He did not repeat and did not intend to repeat the path of development of the West. Throughout the period under review, he defended his ideals, opposing them to the social and spiritual values of Europe. In his public consciousness, at least at the official level, the West was invariably presented as a kingdom of evil, as a hotbed of darkness and slavery. The people of the West - all these "fathers" and "foreign devils" - personified the darkest otherworldly forces, were carriers of gross materialistic instincts, were unspiritual, morally licentious and unscrupulous. Hatred of the West permeated all the polemical literature of the East. The authorities and official propaganda nipped in the bud any interest in the West. Borrowing European experience was portrayed as a mortal danger, as “the path, according to the “Paternal Instruction” of one of the hierarchs of the Eastern Church, leading to impoverishment, murder, theft, all kinds of misfortune.” with them from one dish does not follow, advocates of traditional principles argued, for this alone threatened with infection and filth.
The rulers of the East in every possible way prevented the penetration of Western ideas. They clearly realized that their spread threatened to overturn the entire building of traditional society. The most dangerous, in their opinion even more dangerous than the merchants and conquerors, were the missionaries (mostly Catholic), who deliberately engaged in the "export" of Western European civilization. Everywhere in the East the activities of missionaries caused a negative reaction, and if they were successful, they were simply banned, as happened in Japan (1587) and some other countries of the Far East. In Qing China, all religions were tolerated except for Christianity. In the Ottoman Empire, no denomination was persecuted, with the exception of the Roman Catholic Church. In the 17th century Japan, China, Siam were closed to foreigners, in other countries contacts with them were strictly controlled. Until 1793, the Asian states did not have permanent embassies in Europe, not a single inhabitant of the East traveled to the West on a private trip.
Only the obvious inequality of forces forced the East to change its position. From confrontation and isolation, he moved on to the gradual opening of civilizational borders. Moreover, the awareness of “backwardness” gave rise to the desire to “catch up” with Europe, primarily in those areas where Western superiority was obvious, tangible. In the XVIII century. such an area was the military. And it is no coincidence that all the rulers of the East began to “catch up” with Europe with the reorganization of their armed forces. At the same time, they showed interest exclusively in the material achievements of Western European civilization, primarily in technology and natural science knowledge. But even such a one-sided interest made the first breach in the cultural and historical consciousness of the East and laid the foundations for the process of Europeanization and reforms. Having begun in Russia and Turkey, it gradually began to spread to other countries, primarily to their limitrophe and coastal regions, which were in closer contact with Europe and its colonial enclaves. This was a turning point, which meant voluntary or involuntary recognition by the countries of the East of the superiority of Western European civilization and, in general, the role of the West as the hegemon of the new monocentric system of the world.
