Why did it happen that democracy became the standard of government in the world? The very ideology of democracy came to us from Europe, and now, at the speed of sound (the word of a liberal) is spreading throughout the world. Where by force of arms, and where by economic measures, where by threat, and where by bribery, but, democratic ideology is gradually becoming a kind of religion of peace. In any case, it is enforced by countries that have assumed the role of historical judge. Nobody offered them this role, and the intellectual level of such ideologists is at a low level. The demagogy of democracy did not appear so easily. European thought has been moving towards it for centuries, moving away from faith in God (a form of legitimacy of power) and changing its way of life for the sake of making money.
THE AGE OF MYTHS. - ()
The very system of democracy, as an institution of governance, appeared a very long time ago. This is one of the first forms of government on earth. Now, in historical science, it is customary to designate that distant time with the word "barbarism". This adds different definitions to this word, from primitive to archaic. But this does not change the essence of the matter. The main thing is that in ancient times, all communities were built on democratic principles. These principles were simple. All decisions in such communities were made jointly. AND modern system democracy is the successor of precisely this "barbaric" system of relations in society. In ancient communities, the role of parliament was played by people whose status was higher than their fellow tribesmen. Yes, and the very collective gathering of members of the tribes, for the sake of making decisions, was like a coven of witches. In those distant times, religious concessions had not yet formed, and a special role in society was played by priests who enjoyed the support of elders and warriors since they took it upon themselves to communicate with invisible world. In such societies, each member was an integral part of the life of the cell. Without her, he would have died, and with her, he not only survived, but was also an active member of it. In other words, such a unit of the "world" could not exist independently. Did you notice where I'm going? Democracy in antiquity is an institution and a whole system where unity with the world of metaphysics took place through a ritual. Now democracy rejects this completely. Apparently because the support systems created by her are the embodiment of the metaphysical forces in the material plane. They were brought out into the light and given material life. The market, and hence money and exchanges, exist on their own, regardless of the will of man. I printed in the newspaper of the second "poshib" information beneficial to myself, and the market collapsed in favor of an invisible player. Today, the Sabbath and the rite are no longer needed, since the whole life of the "marketer" is a continuous rite to call "Satan" from the underworld. And do not hang labels on me, a person is a metaphysical being, and whoever believes otherwise may not read further!

IN different countries ah, the forms of democracy were called differently, but they were united by one thing. This collective solution of those issues which the authorities, represented by certain castes, could not accept, or take responsibility for such acceptance. But, the man of that time did not separate himself from the laws of nature that surrounded him. All phenomena in nature were accepted by him from a mystical point of view. And the whole life of such a person was based on mysticism. Therefore, ritualism in such cells of the world was of paramount importance. Nothing was done without ritual. Man endowed things and dwellings, animals and plants with special qualities. It was an era of worship of the unknown. We may have lost some of those secrets, but that's not what we're talking about now. Such associations, all their meetings or gatherings, always turned into a mysterious magical action. The decisions made on them were tinged with mysticism, and were a kind of agreement between the soul of the community and the mysterious higher powers, with the permission of deceased ancestors. And therefore, in the course of such service to society, through a meeting of its members, a religious ritual was carried out, with the evocation of spirits, the performance of priests. And the members of the society who participated in the general gathering were a close-knit mass of people who confirmed their belonging to this community, ready to die for it and live for it. But even then, democracy did not recognize the equality of all without exception. A community of people could not exist without its leaders, who came to power solely on their merits. If the caste of priests still had heredity, then among the institute of elders and warriors, this can be said conditionally. The power of the elite here has always been based on dignity and contribution to the common cause. But even then there were categories of people who were not allowed to participate in such a general mystical action. In different communities, and then in countries, this category of people included both women and slaves, and those who did not have the status of a citizen. Excluded from general council and the poor and foreigners.
Such "primitive" magic could not exist forever. With the development of society and relations both within the state and with other countries, primitivism was replaced by a more progressive ideology. The spirits of ancestors and nature were to be replaced by a single faith. This became possible when a person in society began to turn into a sole proprietor. He no longer needed a common belonging to the mystical principles. Spirits began to be replaced by God, who could not exist without his representative on earth.
Fine lines in such a matter, I will avoid. We need to understand the trend. The development of any system is based on certain processes, which eventually lead to its final formation. The formation of religion is not just an object of study of the distant past of countries. First of all, religious consciousness is present in each of us. The peoples of different countries differ from each other in their mentality, and in their goals in life, and in relation to the world around them and God. Such characters of nations were formed in the course of a long historical process of the countries in which they existed.


The policy of the authorities of such states differed little over the centuries. The daily activities of a person, his faith, and traditions that have been passed down from generation to generation, and formed modern people. And, the society of people rejected democracy as a means of managing the community due to the fact that on a certain historical path, it began to dissatisfy both the people and the authorities. The monarchy, as the power of one, was more suitable for the goals set by the community as a whole. The monarch, or the king, or the sovereign, does not matter, relied in his state activity on the same priests who turned into clergy, and the army. new faith into Christ, into his redemptive mission, created a new type of society. And if before that, democracies had already turned into tyrannies, then with Christ, a new ideology emerged. It consisted in the fact that the monarch was endowed with power from God. And this notion endowed him with legitimacy. Faith in justice in heaven and on earth, united. And this state of affairs suited all members of the community. Each was assigned a role. Warriors defended the state from encroachment, and acted as conductors of the monarch's policy. They received food and support from the country based on their merits. And the workers, on whom the "economy" of the country rested, saw their mission in supporting their fathers and saviors. The Word of God belonged to the church.
A man in Europe, aspired further. Culture and art within the framework of European religion, went beyond the church, (The roots of such a rebellion were in Antiquity, and Catholicism was the first reform of Christ) and its representatives made a huge step towards the future democratic structure of the world. An era has come that has gone down in history as the Renaissance. Renaissance" gave the world great cultural figures.


But, there is a paradox. It is as follows. A striking example of such a revolution is the painting of the great artists of that distant era. Depicted in the painting by Raphael " Sistine Madonna”, Mary, carrying her son, Christ, to people, is a vivid example of a new approach to religious consciousness. On the one hand, Mary understands the great role of her son. She already sees his future death and his life, full of deprivation and search for truth. And in her eyes pride that this particular baby will become the savior of the human race. And the look of Christ, still a small child, is filled with awareness of his role and readiness for the future. On the other hand, Christ is still a baby, and the mother's pain for her son is read in her eyes. Raphael saw in Mary not just a holy woman and an image for worship. He saw in her a living person, whose feelings everyone who lives on Earth has.


And such a vision of the world, and especially religious stories drawn from the Bible and the Gospel, led to the fact that human nature began to be valued at the level of the Divine. On the other hand, all the figures of the Renaissance were the sons of their time. They began searching for the ideal on earth. The purpose of their search is to build a society in which all segments of the population would feel comfortable. Their gaze was directed to the past. All of them were mystics, experts in secret mystical teachings, bondage. They, without departing from Christianity, and often fulfilling the will and orders of the church on works of art, yet they were the destroyers of the foundations, the dogmas of the life of Europe. Religious plots, receiving a sacred meaning, began to decorate the temples of faith. In their works, together with Divine revelation and the secret world of God, a person with his experiences and sufferings became visible. There was a problem of the meaning of existence on earth. And earlier such global questions worried philosophers and the best minds earthlings. But, since the Renaissance, began new stage in the development of Europe. Faith in Christ began to move towards a manifestation of protest against the existing order of the church in Europe. Against this background, Russia developed in its own, special way.

In order to understand where this model, called democracy, came from, it is necessary, first of all, to understand that any event is preceded by a series of events, both in ideology and in the principles of the development of society. Nations and every person are formed from childhood, absorbing all the settings of the society in which he lives. Time always dictates its own characteristics and needs. There are the needs of every person in everyday life, there are the needs of the authorities in the realization of their desires, there are the needs of the state on the world stage. This set of needs is the general movement of the country, its historical path. The life of a country is based on its citizens. A citizen of the state has the need to live and exist comfortably in his own conditions. These comfortable conditions are provided to him by the state elite, and comfort is a relative concept, which depends on ideology. It doesn't matter what ideology. Faith or atheism. Hence the concept of comfort, and its degree of implementation in society. The desire for comfort in this way can differ several times when compared from the point of view of modernity. A person's faith in God, his traditions, and the image of the country's power, constitutes a public education. This is a kind of agreement in which the authorities take on the burden of care, and the right to use force. The right of force and violence over their subjects and the disposal of the lives of citizens is given to power by virtue of its exalted position. The authorities and the elite are rightfully considered noble, since their ability to analyze the situation, their personal qualities, and the ideology on which it relies, being the bearers of this ideology, allow it to dispose of everything. In Europe, the papacy became such a power. Exactly Rome, where such an institution was formed as a result, took on a major role in Europe in matters of faith.
Christianity could not develop separately from states and philosophical thought in the world. Both the Pope and the institution of the papacy assumed the role of government. This is how any system is arranged, where a ruler and a subordinate are supposed to be. The pope was going to subjugate all of Europe and not only. Such a system, when the religious component from one center of Europe began to dictate its conditions to the emperors of countries and play a decisive role in pan-European politics, led not only to the strengthening of faith, but also to the resistance of the rulers of different countries. The formation of the papacy was a natural process. Initially, faith in Christ and the role of the church did not bear the idea of ​​being limited by the framework of one state entity. The Church is always above such concepts. Faith involves bringing people together different nationalities and mentality. Therefore, with such needs of faith, general rules of the game are needed for everyone, which include a certain language of communication with God and rituals. But, the formation of the institution of the papacy, met with the resistance of all aspects of European life. Such a process went along with the search for truth in theological matters, and the establishment of the general dogmas of the church. Began to develop philosophical thought, institutes appeared that developed such concepts. At the same time, the church could rely on monasticism and the political elite of European countries. At the same time, the process of separation of two churches began to take place, which differed in the basic concepts of faith.


And already at Leo the ninth, in 1054, such a division has taken place. This division has been explained by theological differences. Although the reasons for it lie much deeper. We only care about the fact. The Byzantine Patriarch Michael Cerularia accused Rome of perverting the basic dogma of faith. Also in 809, Aachen the council adopted the dogma that the holy spirit comes from both the one God and his son. This disagreement served as a mutual anathema between Rome and Byzantium. Two churches appeared on the arena, Catholic and Orthodox. I am only interested in these two faiths in Christ, and I will evaluate only them, for one reason. It is between these two Christs that the main dispute is still taking place, both in terms of faith and in the ideology of life priorities on the planet as a whole. It is possible and necessary to evaluate modernity even more rigidly. One Christ, in the face of the West, advances, and therefore, a person advances, on the other hand, the Christ of Russia, defends himself in the face of the soul. In other words, a person is attacking the soul. What is meant by soul? To believe that only a person has a soul, in my opinion, is a mistake. The soul exists in everything, including both the intention of a person to go to God, and the action itself, whether it is the action of fighting sin and vice versa. The soul thus permeates the entire space around us. And it turns out that two souls collided in a fight, which means two opposite metaphysical worlds. The war has acquired the face of the Universal confrontation and its echoes are heard in all corners of the Cosmos of the human soul, and hence Infinity.


The Catholic Church in Europe fought not only on religious grounds, but also on the political arena. At the same time, the development of feudalism in Europe led to the fact that the role of cities as the center of the state began to weaken. Rome received its main income from the lands. Therefore, Europe was covered with a kind of estates, at the head of which was the feudal lord with his army. Chivalry began to develop. And the knights were in the nature of the army not just of a particular country, but of Catholic Europe as a whole. They were justly considered the guardians of the faith, and for the sake of faith they were ready to go to any lengths. Therefore, the knights united for crusades against heretics. From modern positions, from the point of view of a simple layman, it is difficult to understand the state of the soul of a person who lived at that time. Belief in the true God presupposes such a state of mind in which all human actions in the world are considered from the perspective of future posthumous punishment. All earthly life is aimed at preparing for death. And such life position, should be based on confidence in their actions. The doubts of the rest of the people were called heresy and severely punished by the Inquisition. The Inquisition itself was created to fight heresy in the teachings, and heretics in human form.
The power of Rome in the person of the pope was based not only on faith. One of the main factors was economic. Rome, as the richest residence in Europe, had its income from the exploitation of the citizens of all Europe. Europe, as you know, is not one state, but many entities with their own customs and goals in geopolitics. The controversy was that Rome as chief ideologue Christianity sought to subjugate the whole of Europe. And the representatives of the pope did not see the differences between the countries. After the rise of France in Europe, papal residence was moved to Avignon. This was due to the fact that France went to war with England in 1294, demanded taxation and the clergy. And Rome was outraged that Philip IV, Emperor of France acted according to his understanding, not paying attention to the papacy. And between France and Rome, for the first time in Europe, a dispute began to take place on the issue of power. Or imperial power or church as the highest power in Europe. All this led to the defeat of Rome, and the papal residence, having moved to Avignon, became a tool in the hands of France. It was France that became the spiritual heir to Europe. At the same time, Europe began to rule Order of the Templars, which became the richest and most powerful Catholic order in Europe. And the interests of the French king and the pope at that time coincided. One accusation of heresy was enough, as the order fell, its castles and temples were burned. For such an act, Anathema was removed from the French king. And the will of the pope began to spread in England.


Europe of that time faced another phenomenon. Papal delegates in all corners of the continent no longer commanded due respect. Their activities to collect money for the pope, increasingly led to the indignation of the population, and already at that time, there were several murders of such representatives. Yes, and England, over time, more and more outraged by the departure of money from the country to Avignon. In Great Britain, the Catholics managed to seize several monopolies in trade, and the behavior of papal representatives in this country was like the dictates of foreigners. The idea of ​​creating separate churches appeared, both in France and in England. The spiritual disputes that were going on in France, between the local clergy and papal theologians, could not but lead to conflict. At the same time, the activities of the Inquisition began to grow. Cities, developing, gave new directions in heresy. Pope John 22, starts chasing on spiritualists who preached begging. IN 1323, this pope forbade idealizing begging. The Inquisition fell upon order of the Franciscans. At the same time, the papacy put more and more pressure on Germany, as a country from which good incomes were received. This caused discontent in Germany as well. The monks in the monasteries of Germany began to openly resent the policy of the pope in Avignon. Europe was in a fever. The Catholic religion began to not suit literally everyone. And interference in the affairs of states by papal representatives was perceived as a robbery of their own resources. And now from Strasbourg remove all representatives of the pope, from 1331 years in Zurich there is not a single papal official, Constanta the magistrate requires the clergy to work for the good of the country. In Germany, on the wave of democracy, the pope is increasingly losing his influence.
The policy of the pope, whose wealth was formed on the outright robbery of Europe by his representatives, was to blame for such events. The situation became like a powder magazine. On the one hand, resistance to papal authority grew locally, on the other hand, the pope and his supporters were forced to take retaliatory measures. These measures did not imply a compromise with the authorities of European countries. The Church began to develop the doctrine of heresy, and departure from the true faith.(Catholicism was immediately built as a legal order) The defense of faith in the form of the Inquisition began to work. Already at Charles the fourth, from 1346 Heresy begins to be eradicated in Germany. 50 years later, inquisitor Petr Pilihdorf, he will proudly declare that although he did not completely bring out the heresy, he reduced it much. Everything happened just plain. Searches and arrests began to take place across the country. The trials of all those convicted of heresy led to one result, namely death at the stake. And two years later, a plague broke out in Europe. Rumors among the people about the pope as the main heretic began to spread from country to country. (Remember I already wrote about the treaty, with the death of Europe)


At this time, the practice of self-flagellation spread, to which everyone became subject, from the authorities to ordinary citizens. In the years of death, from 1348 to 1349, when Europe fell into depression, and began to count the days until doomsday . Self-flagellation as a method of atonement for sins has become common. This was a danger to the pope and the church as a whole. The preaching of begging and repentance did not suit the church. And the idea of ​​Christian equality could lead to unpredictable consequences. And the church found a way out. Jews were blamed for everything. And a wave of Jewish pogroms swept across Europe. Jews began to be destroyed everywhere so that one of his contemporaries already admitted that this nation would soon cease to exist. At the same time, the church recognized self-flagellation as heresy, and supporters of such a faith found themselves at the stake of the Inquisition. European faith in Christ began to be washed with blood. And for the first time in Europe, Vicente Ferrer's sermons who predicted the end of the world in 1400, began to be considered saints on an equal footing with the pope. And he was credited with saving the Earth. It was his prayer that helped to avoid the end of the world.
The Catholic faith in Europe developed along the path of violence. The pope and his supporters had the whole of Europe as their goal. Their wealth was the result of influence on the authorities of the countries of the continent. They simply demanded for themselves as much as they needed. Faith began to serve not God, but money. And this led to the fact that being a priest in the bosom of Catholicism became profitable. It brought huge incomes, and money dictated its terms of entertainment. Therefore, the priest in Europe turned into a kind of parasite, to whom everything was allowed. Many of them led a wild life, not shying away from any entertainment. And this picture did not suit the European countries. The power in the person of the emperor, and the political elite no longer agreed to feed the pope with his horde, and the peoples of the countries perfectly saw what these or those representatives of the papal power represented. This situation led to different groups thinkers in the philosophical direction, began to look for a way out of the current impasse.


The Catholic Church did not notice such changes in the minds, and all her activities were punitive. The city of Avignon was French, and the pope, who was here, was also related to Italy. The sacred role of Rome was not disputed, and the events in Italy took place away from the representative of Rome. At this time and works of Petrarch appeared who ridiculed Pope Benedict the twelfth, saying that he does not want to move to Rome for a simple reason. France gave him everything in his comfortable existence. His drunkenness was known throughout Italy. His criticism Clement VI and Innocent VI, led to the fact that Innocent declared Petrarch in witchcraft. Since 1347, the Italian tribune Cola di Rienzo begins its public activity. Soon he was proclaimed a tribune, and even before that, he personally went to Clement, inviting him to move to Rome. And the whole policy of Rienzo, it would seem, should suit the pope. He abolished all coats of arms and all attributes of power, leaving only papal symbols. But, his thoughts about the democratic structure of Italy frightened the pope. He even began to look for a reason to accuse him of heresy. And already in 1347 declared him the son of the devil. Rienzo is twice accused of heresy and forced to flee. He was arrested in Prague. In 1352, he was sent to Avignon. Next Pope Innocent, uses it to restore order in Italy, where he was killed. But his assistant Albornoz with "honor", over 10 years pursued a punitive policy in Italy. His death opened a page in the history of Italy, when mass demonstrations and uprisings took place on the territory of this country. But only Gregory the eleventh, was finally forced to move his residence back to Rome. But Rome was not France. Yes, and dad himself loved to live in a big way. He knew the Italian language poorly, and did not understand the political moment. Avignon was a beautiful place on earth, but Rome brought with it poverty and an increase in crime. In 1377, in Cesena, Cardinal Robert, with his "accomplices" in a cassock, massacres the population, whose fault was that they openly opposed the pope. A war broke out with Florence, which refused to extradite the heretics and submit to the pope. Before his death, Gregory spoke out sharply in relation to England, which by this time had realized all the misfortune that the papal priests carried with them. Gregory demanded to be brought to justice by the Inquisition Wyclif, who published his work, where he denied the right of the church to any property, and where he directly said that sins should also apply to the pope. England did not extradite the Inquisition of a scientist, which was the first such case in Europe. In 1378, Gregory died. Italy immediately demanded the papacy for the Italian. And the Italian was chosen. It turned out to be Urban sixth who ruled until 1389. It was still that guy. He managed to cause discontent and the cardinals and France. As a result, the Cardinals, even using support King of France, Charles V, created their own papal throne. The Great Schism of the Church began. For almost forty years there have been two popes in Europe, Urban and the outspoken crook Robert Geneva.


Urban was listed as pope, and his supporters were imprisoned throughout Italy. And, for the first time, Pope Urban had no money. And after his death, Boniface the ninth announced aloud the empty treasury. For the first time, the Bank of England gave a loan to the pope, who left jewelry as collateral. Even during his lifetime, Urban resisted the cardinals, and even drowned five in sacks. But that didn't help much. Rome in the eyes of Europe no longer represented any kind of authority in matters of faith. Yes, and Italy was covered civil war. The monasteries were destroyed. The Pope was forced to ruin his subjects in search of income. Wealthy foreigners appeared in Italy. They were adventurers who profited by selling their services to the pope. Europe is finally divided into two camps. France and her allies recognized Pope Clement the seventh, and England and her supporters Urban. Both of them were unwilling to compromise. For every citizen in these countries, one was a saint, the other a heretic. The thought of Europe began to hover around the beginning of the era of the end of the world. At this time appeared Nicholas of Climange, whose performances were very popular at the time. He openly declared all the outrages that are being created by the pope and his entourage. At the same time, a religious sect appeared that opposed papal authority in general. Its founder was Lyon merchant Pierre Waldo. His supporters were in many European countries .....

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Introduction

1. Main body

2. The emergence of a myth

Conclusion

Used Books

Introduction

Since ancient times, man has been striving towards the “first principles” and “final causes”, passionately desiring to know the secrets of the beginning (birth, emergence) and the end (dying, disappearance). And, obviously, not only (and not so much) theoretical interest takes place here. These are deeply existential questions. As soon as a person begins to realize himself, he is faced with the fact of death, of his own finiteness. This fact cannot leave a reasonable person alone. Like the Sphinx, it stands before every person and every culture and demands an answer to its riddle.

What's happened myths? In the ordinary sense, these are, first of all, ancient, biblical and other ancient "tales" about the creation of the world and man, stories about the deeds of the ancient gods and heroes - Zeus, Apollo, Dionysus, Hercules, the Argonauts who were looking for the "Golden Fleece", the Trojan War and misadventures of Odysseus. myth knowledge society

The very word "myth" has ancient Greek origin and means precisely "tradition", "story". European nations up to the 16th-17th centuries. only the famous and still Greek and Roman myths were known, later they became aware of Arabic, Indian, Germanic, Slavic, Indian legends and their heroes. Over time, first to scientists, and then to the wider public, the myths of the peoples of Australia, Oceania, and Africa became available. It turned out that the sacred books of Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists are also based on various mythological legends that have undergone processing. What is surprising: it turned out that at a certain stage of historical development, a more or less developed mythology existed among practically all peoples known to science, that some plots and stories are repeated to some extent in the mythological cycles of different peoples.

1. Main body

So the question arose about the origin of the myth. Today, most scientists are inclined to believe that the secret of the origin of the myth should be sought in the fact that mythological consciousness was the oldest form of understanding and understanding the world, understanding nature, society and man. The myth arose from the need of ancient people to realize the natural and social elements surrounding it, the essence of man.

Among the whole multitude of mythical legends and stories, it is customary to single out several most important cycles. Let's call them:

* cosmogonic myths - myths about the origin of the world and the universe,

* anthropogonic myths - myths about the origin of man and human society,

* myths about cultural heroes - myths about the origin and introduction of certain cultural goods,

* eschatological myths - myths about the "end of the world", the end of time.

An excellent description of the primitive myth in its universal, and not only mental significance, we find in Professor I.M. Tronsky in his article “Problems of the Homeric epic”: “The essence of myth - and this is the constitutive moment of any myth formation since primitive times - is in the magical connection that is established between the object of the myth - the past - and socially significant relevance, in relation to the present with its alleged prototype in the past ... Myth formation and magic are equally rooted in ideology primitive society which, not knowing how to analyze the world or really influence it, strives only to secure for itself the available favorable factors; the most reliable means seems to be an imitative recreation of the supposed environment for the emergence of these factors: a new act of creation should consolidate their effective force - the creativity of ideologists primitive world develops mainly an idea of ​​the origin of things. Of course, these representations are modeled on the production of things in human society. This is how a mythological picture of the world is obtained, where both the very structure and content are determined by the peculiarities of primitive thinking, which very imperfectly separates the elements of things from the things themselves and considers objects mainly in their integrity.

The relevance of the chosen topic of this course work lies in the fact that the revival of mythological structures in the 20th century occurred in all areas of the worldview. The mythological, as an integral part of spiritual life, is being revived in modern cultures, re-entering the construction of socio-cultural phenomena of the life of a post-industrial society. And one cannot say that the role of the myth is completed only at the stage of the formation of society. The myth is in interaction with society today.

Mythology and archaic traditions in the process of remythologization of the spiritual life of society and man become one of the structural units of the worldview and modern Russian society. This is facilitated by the state of the systemic crisis in which our country has been living for several decades. For development theoretical foundations spiritual values, including those of a mythological nature, it is necessary to turn to the historical and cultural heritage. This problem was presented in the works of many European authors (G. Rickert, M. Weber, etc.), it is typical for the work of Russian philosophers of the 19th - 20th centuries. Russians religious thinkers era of the culture of the "Silver Age" from V.S. Solovyov to N.O. Lossky and A.F. Losev tried, first of all, to reveal their spiritual content in universal human values. The philosophy of unity as a philosophical and anthropological doctrine, in particular, thereby revealed the value principles in man and his being. Many other domestic thinkers (N.A. Berdyaev, P.A. Florensky and others) believed that the value of a person lies in the positive development of social life and sociocultural values.

A special place in the mythological concept of Eliade is given to the concept of time (and, accordingly, history). There is a sacred mythological time in which the universe was created, in which gods act and myths come true. And there is a profane time, correlated with this sacred, but "weaker" than the latter. The story of the myth is a breakthrough of the "sacred", equivalent to hierophany (epiphany). Profane time is historical. It is linear, irreversible and accessible to individual memory, while mythological time is stored only in the collective memory or, more precisely, in the collective unconscious.

2. The emergence of a myth

If we consider the meaning of the word "myth" in my understanding, then it can be defined as a peculiar way or some channel through which one generation passed on to another the accumulated experience, knowledge, values ​​and cultural benefits. Moreover, since the transfer of knowledge was from person to person (since early stage the origin of mythology, there was no written language), then it was not an objective way of transmission, something was lost, something was embellished, etc.

"Myth" in Greek means nothing more than "word". Myth, therefore, is always one or another generalization, - Losev writes, - and those creatures about which mythology narrates are always one or another generalization, since a certain area of ​​​​reality always obeys them as something general as a set of this or that set or an infinite number of particular phenomena.” (5)

The main "persecutor" of the myth, Plato, saw in it not only "living, naive, identical to itself", but also "...other to itself ... an allegory or a symbol."

There is a completely unexpected meaning, which A. Taho-Godi points out: “Plato, at the same time, calls purely philosophical theories a myth, for example, movement, as the beginning, is a myth for him, not a poetic, not a philosophical fiction.” (9)

Finally, the myth, as the sphere of the dreamed, is directed to the future: the Indo-European roots consonant with it, mean “care”, “keep in mind”, “passionately desire”.

Myth gives meaning to life and calls for action. “The myth does this not through logic or a pattern,” explains O. Flyerty, a researcher of his school, “but through the activation of our emotions.”

So, a person is faced with the existence of the surrounding world and experiences this interaction in a holistic way: emotions and creative imagination are involved in it in the same way as intellectual abilities. Each event acquires individuality, requires its own description and thus explanation. Such a unity is possible only in the form of a kind of story, a proper image to reproduce the experienced event and reveal its causality. It is this kind of "story" that is meant when they use the word "myth". In other words, when telling myths, ancient people used methods of description and interpretation that were fundamentally different from those familiar to us. The role of abstract analysis was played by metaphorical identification. For example, modern man says that atmospheric changes ended the drought and brought rain. But the first farmers of the Near East, observing such an event, internally experienced it in a completely different way. The long-awaited bird Imdugud flew to their aid, covered the sky with black thunderclouds and devoured the Heavenly Bull, whose hot breath burned the crops.

Mythological consciousness thinks in symbols: each image, hero, character denotes the phenomenon or concept behind it.

The mythological image contains many positive human qualities, which, of course, are very rarely combined in one person, which is why it is expressed in mythological form.

The myth lives in its own, special time - the time of "original beginning", "original creation", to which human ideas about the flow of time are inapplicable.

Myth thinks in images, lives with emotions, arguments of reason are alien to it, it explains the world, proceeding not from knowledge, but from faith.

Thought in the mythological consciousness was an object of internal perception; it was not thought, but revealed in its manifestation, so to speak, seen and heard. Thought was, in essence, a revelation, not something sought after, but imposed, convincing precisely in its immediate givenness. Jung called this type of mythological thinking pre-existent, incapable of revealing itself as such and protected from self-reflection by the structure of the symbols dominating it.

Imagery in myth is inseparable from thought, since it is the form in which the impression and, accordingly, the event are naturally realized. Myth becomes a way of understanding the world in primitive culture, the way in which it forms its understanding of the true essence of being, i.e. myth acts as a kind of philosophy or metaphysics ancient man.

a person did not have a thirst for new knowledge, he did not have and could not have a correct understanding of cause-and-effect relationships, there were not enough words for analytical thought, he did not have the ability to think logically. A myth is an erroneous explanation of phenomena with insufficient means and opportunities for cognition.

Myth is not an explanation of phenomena, i.e. not a theory, but an expression of faith experienced as reality. In primitive culture, the myth performs the most important function: it expresses and generalizes beliefs, substantiates the prevailing moral norms, proves the expediency of rituals and cults, and contains practical rules of human behavior. Therefore, myth is not an idle product of a half-childish imagination, but an active social force. By no means should myth be considered a poetic exercise of a weak intellect. Myth is a pragmatic law that determines religious faith and moral wisdom, like the holy books - the Bible, the Koran, etc.

Modern ideas about myth, for all their diversity, allow us to draw some very general conclusions:

1) myths are an attempt by people to comprehend their existence and how to get used to them, consciously merge with them with the help of emotional and logical associations;

2) the features of mythological thinking are associated with a lack of general abstract concepts - hence the need to express the general, universal through the concrete. For example, the Sumerian language did not have the word “kill”, the phrase “hit the head with a stick” was used. In addition, mythological thinking identified causality with proximity, similarity, alternation;

3) the myth reflects the regularity and orderliness of natural phenomena intuitively recognized by the consciousness of primitive man in the form of rhythm, cyclical movement of its images;

4) the structure of myths reflects, expresses certain features of the human psyche;

5) the myth is associated with collective experience, which for the individual was an object of faith (as the wisdom of ancestors). Individual experience could not change it, myth as the faith of the ancestors, as a matter of faith of the subject himself, was not subject to verification, did not need a logical justification, hence the collective unconscious nature of the myth;

6) the myth reflected the laws of nature, in view of the weakness of abstract thinking, personified them, connected them with a consciously acting will, hence the main character of mythology is a deity;

7) mythology is a means of human self-expression. This is the oldest and eternal form of manifestation creativity person. That is why the system of myths, mythologies different type find themselves at the basis of all forms and types of human culture.

2.1 Myth as the first pre-scientific form of knowledge

Science is one of essential components spiritual culture. Throughout its existence, mankind has known the world, this knowledge can be divided into several main types:

1. Pre-scientific is mythology and religion.

2. Extra-scientific - astrology, alchemy, etc.

3. Scientific.

We can distinguish the main criteria of scientific character:

1. Abstraction or generalization. More often this criterion is called fundamental or theoretical.

2. Objectivity.

3. Rationality.

4. Verification by practice.

Mythology, for example, was often tied to specific objects and images; it did not generalize knowledge, but took their specific forms.

According to Levi-Strauss: "Myth is the science of the concrete, it operates not with concepts, but with representations and serves a magical action." Scientific knowledge, on the other hand, has generality, it has the ability to abstract and generalize accumulated experience and theories. The advances in cognition are closely connected with the development of science as one of the forms of social consciousness. Without science it is impossible to imagine modern life and human culture, it is - highest form knowledge, which covers all phenomena of animate and inanimate nature, the material and spiritual activities of people. With the help of science, not only the results of history are evaluated, current events are analyzed, but the future is also predicted to a certain extent.

Science is the result of social development, since its inception it has been continuously connected with human activity, on the one hand, being under its constant influence, and on the other hand, exerting an active influence on it. It contributes in every possible way to the formation and development of the worldview, one of its main tasks is the satisfaction of social needs.

The emergence of science has its roots in the distant past. And although the beginnings of individual sciences are found long before our era, in its modern forms it declares itself in the 16th - 15th centuries. It is the period of time - from the date of publication of the work of N. Copernicus "On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres" (1543) until the publication of the work

I. Newton "Mathematical principles natural philosophy"(1687) - it is customary to call the era of the "scientific revolution". During this period, a powerful intellectual movement arises, primarily associated with the work of such thinkers as Galileo, Bacon, Descartes.

As a result of the efforts of scientists, primarily naturalists, the image of the world is changing, its scientific picture. The idea of ​​the infinity of the Universe is affirmed, in which the Earth is heavenly body existing along with other planets. With the evolution of the image of the world, the image of a person, manifested by a new type of worldview, also changes.

There is a growing interest in scientific ideas about man, the nature of science and the peculiarities of scientific research, the relationship between science and society, science and philosophy, scientific knowledge and faith.

At present, science is a complex and diverse form of social activity that organically includes rational and material factors. And yet, in spite of this, as a guide - a guide of science should be considered as a system of knowledge about the world. At the same time, all phenomena and processes occurring in nature and society are the object of scientific knowledge. Objective scientific knowledge is preceded by pre-scientific knowledge, which is mainly based on sensual subjective perception of reality. Prescientific knowledge depends in part on man's powers of observation, the nature, complexity, and degree of accessibility of his objects to human senses. For these reasons, it contains many errors.

Early in history mythological image thinking began to be filled with rational content and appropriate forms of thinking: the power of generalizing and analytical thinking increased, science and philosophy were born, concepts and categories of the philosophical mind proper arose, a process of transition from myth to logos took place (Logos is the root basis of logic), However, logos does not displace mythology , it is immortal, poetry is full of it, it captivates children's imagination, delights the mind and feelings of people of all ages, contributes to the development of imagination, which has a beneficial effect on the development of a person's creative abilities in all areas of his activity.

3. Interaction of myth and society

Myth is a multi-layered and polyfunctional formation. Developing in the conditions of a primitive communal formation, undifferentiated spontaneous collectivism, which gives rise to the transfer to the whole reality of the natural relations of the tribal community directly given to a person, it appears to us as a description of a certain totality fantasy creatures, forming a community connected by consanguinity. Natural-cosmic, social, and production functions are distributed among these beings. At the same time, the mythical narration is accepted by the mythical subject absolutely not critically, acting as the truth, no matter how implausible it may look. Myth, therefore, appears to this subject as a completely real world, perhaps even more real than the ordinary world. But at the same time, it is a detached world, alienated from the everyday world. It is both visual, sensually given and magical, fabulous and individually - sensual - and abstractly generalized and obviously reliable, practically effective - and supernatural. Its main function is regulation public life in empirical diversity, and it appears here as life itself, where social, ideological and even physiological aspects have merged. In other words, mythology is a form of spiritual exploration of the world. That is why it overcomes, subjugates and transforms the forces of nature in the imagination and with the help of the imagination, it disappears, therefore, along with the onset of real domination over these forces of nature.

“The nature of mythological consciousness must be comprehended within the framework of the historical era in which it lived a full-blooded life, it was the main way of understanding the world. Myth served a variety of functions.” With its help, the past was connected with the present and the future was formed by the collective ideas of this or that people, the spiritual connection of generations was provided. Mythology consolidated the system of values ​​accepted in a given society, supported and encouraged certain forms of behavior. Mythological consciousness also contained the search for the unity of nature and society, the world and man, the resolution of contradictions, harmony, and the inner harmony of human life.

With fading primitive forms myth as a special stage in the development of social consciousness has outlived its usefulness and left the stage of history. But the search for answers to a special kind of questions about the origin of the world, man, cultural skills, social structure, the secrets of birth and death, the fundamental questions of any worldview, did not stop, begun by the mythological consciousness. They were inherited from the myth by the two most important forms of worldview coexisting for centuries - religion and philosophy.

Myth is not only the historically first form of culture, but also a change in the spiritual life of a person, which persists even when the myth loses its absolute dominance. The universal essence of myth lies in the fact that it is an unconscious semantic twinning of a person with the forces of direct being, whether it be the being of nature or society. If the myth acts as the only form of culture, then this twinning leads to the fact that a person does not distinguish meaning from natural property, but semantic (associative connection from cause and effect). Everything is animated, and nature appears as a world of formidable, but mythological creatures related to man - demons and gods.

Myth is the most ancient system of values. It is believed that, in general, culture is moving from myth to logos, that is, from fiction and convention to knowledge, to law. In this regard, myth plays an archaic role in modern culture, and its values ​​and ideals have a rudimentary significance. The development of science and civilization often devalues ​​the myth, shows the inadequacy of the regulatory functions and values ​​of the myth, the essence of modern socio-cultural reality. However, this does not mean that the myth has exhausted itself. Myth in modern culture creates the means and methods of symbolic thinking, it is capable of modern culture to interpret through the idea of ​​"heroic", which, let's say, is inaccessible to science. In the values ​​of myth, the sensual and the rational are given syncretically, together, which is inaccessible to other means of culture of the 20th century. Fantasy and fiction make it easy to overcome the incompatibility of meanings and content, because in myth everything is conditional and symbolic.

Under these conditions, the choice and orientation of the individual is liberated and, consequently, using conventionality, it can achieve a high degree of flexibility, which, for example, is almost inaccessible to religion. Myth, humanizing and personifying the phenomena of the surrounding world, reduces them to human ideas. On this basis, a concrete-sensual orientation of a person becomes possible, and this is one of the simplest ways to streamline his activity. In early and primitive cultures, this method played a leading role, for example, in paganism. But in advanced cultures such phenomena are rather of the nature of relapse or are a mechanism for the realization of one or another archetype, especially in mass culture or mass behavior. Mythology is often used in the 20th century as an enhancer of values, usually through their hypertrophy and fetishization. The myth allows one or another aspect of value to be sharpened, to exaggerate it, and, consequently, to emphasize and even stick out.

Conclusion

So, a whole epoch of the spiritual life of mankind, the formation and flourishing of ancient civilizations was the realm of myth, created by the imagination and mind of man. Imagination is a great gift of nature, a precious quality of people, their creative energy. It created the Iliad and the Ramayana, the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Aeneid. It created the Parthenon and the majestic Egyptian pyramids, because before the builders erected them with their own hands and made them a fact of reality, they already lived in a dream, in the mind of an architect.

The consciousness of ancient man created the realm of myth. People were looking for answers to their philosophical questions, trying to unravel the mysteries of the universe, man and life itself. When reality did not give an answer, imagination came to the rescue. It also satisfied the aesthetic needs of people.

Another important factor that determines the existence of myths in modern Russia - high the mythological consciousness of the population, which gives rise to numerous illusory concepts and ideas (utopias, belief in miracles). The sociocultural nature of man, including the modern Russian, requires a myth as a compensation for the lost social harmony. Mythologized consciousness satisfies people's need for such compensation. Summarizing the above, we note: in the conditions of a crisis state of society, a person needs a myth, since it largely solves the problem of his adaptation. The myth is interpreted as an important socio-cultural phenomenon, involved in the main areas of public life - morality, religion, philosophy, art - with the corresponding spiritual values. In the context of the myth, a person constantly felt his unity with nature, with society, with the Cosmos as with a kind of integrity, which is in unity and interconnection.

Used Books

1. Asmus V. F. Antique philosophy. M.: Higher school. 1976.

2. Bernal J. Science in the history of society. M.: From foreign literature. 1956.

3. Viko D. Foundations of a new science about the common nature of nations. L., 1940. p. 87,128

4. Korsh M. Brief Dictionary of Mythology and Antiquities. Kaluga: Golden Alley, 1993

5. Kosarev A. Philosophy of myth: Mythology and its heuristic significance - M.: PER SE; St. Petersburg: University book, 2000.pp.96-106,175-200,271-273.

6. Losev A. F. Antique mythology in its historical development. Moscow: Uchpedgiz, 1957, p.8,9,12-14,593.

7. Losev A.F. Iz early works. M.: Pravda, 1990.

8. Losev A.F. Losev A.F. Philosophy. Mythology. Culture. - M.: Publishing house of political literature, 1991.

9. Introduction to philosophy. Ed. I.T. Frolova. In 2 parts - M.: Politizdat, 1989.

10.Takho-Godi A.A. Three letters of A.F. Losev. // Questions of Philosophy.-N7, 1989.

11. Philosophical encyclopedic Dictionary. Ed. L.F. Ilyichev. M .: "Soviet Encyclopedia". -1983.

12. Stepin V. S. Philosophical anthropology and philosophy of science. M., 1992

13. Tronsky I. M. Problems of the Homeric epic. M.-L., 1935.p.23

14. Huebner K. The truth of the myth. M., 1996, pp. 80 - 81.

15. Eliade M. The myth of the eternal return. St. Petersburg: Aleteyya, 1998.

16. Yatsuk D.M. Mythological in spiritual culture. / Abstract for the competition uch. PhD in Philosophy / Department of Philosophy and Sociology, Leningrad State University A. S. Pushkin, 2003.

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Many of the so-called "generally known" facts are actually not facts, but historical myths that have nothing to do with reality. We bring to your attention a list of such myths that, through the centuries and even millennia, pretend to be historical facts, distorting our picture of the world. In descending order:

Eve ate an apple

The apple is a useful fruit, although it has been infamous as a “forbidden fruit” since Eve plucked it from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden and deprived us - her descendants - of paradise life. However, the attentive reader should have noticed that nowhere in the Bible is "fruit" called "apple". Of course, it could also be an apple. Just as much as a mango, or an apricot, or any other fruit. But only the apple received the “stigma”.

An apple fell on Newton's head

And again, apples - it was this unfortunate fruit that managed to fall on the head of Sir Isaac Newton and inspire him to invent the law of universal gravitation .. A pretty fairy tale, but most likely it is only a fairy tale. It was first told publicly by Voltaire in his essay on Newton. Only person who said this prior to Voltaire's publication was Newton's sister, Katherine Conduit.

Walt Disney drew Mickey Mouse

It is believed that the most famous cartoon character - Mickey Mouse - was drawn by Walt Disney himself. But it's not. Mickey was drawn by Disney's No. 1 animator, Ub Iwerks, who was famous for being incredibly fast at drawing. The first Mickey movie (it required 700 drawings a day) was made in just two weeks. But later, when sound cartoons appeared, Disney was rehabilitated - it was in his voice that Mickey Mouse began to talk.

Marie Antoinette said: "Let them eat cake"

In 1766, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote about an event that supposedly happened 25 years earlier. When Marie Antoinette learned that people in the French countryside did not have enough bread, she offered them cakes. The problem is that in those years, Mary was 11 years old, and still lived in her homeland in Austria. Most likely, these words were spread by revolutionary propagandists to show how far apart the people and those who govern them.

The Great Train Robbery was the first feature film

The film was made in 1903, but it was not the first feature film. Its duration is only 10 minutes. The first feature film was the 100-minute Australian film "The Story of the Kelly Gang", filmed 3 years later. And films like The Great Train Robbery were made in the late 1890s.

Van Gogh cut off his ear

Semi-poor great artist Van Gogh (who sold only one painting in his entire life), shortly before his suicide, in a quarrel with his friend Gauguin, who was more successful in selling his works, cut off his ear - a piece of his left lobe. It hurts, but not as bad as it might seem.

Witches burned in Salem

In Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692, 150 people were arrested during a witch trial, 31 people were sentenced, 20 of them were killed. Of these 31 people, not all were women, 6 of them were men. At the same time, they were not burned at the stake - this is not scary for witches, they were first stoned to death, then the bodies were hung on a rope.

Napoleon was short

Many are sure that Napoleon's exorbitant ambitions are a kind of compensation for his small stature. In fact, the height of the "Little Corporal" was 5 feet 7 inches (168 cm) - taller than the average Frenchman of those years. So why was it called that? This nickname was a "teaser" for his minor military rank. Napoleon became emperor, but the nickname remained the same.

King John Landless signed the Magna Carta

The Magna Carta limited the power of the King of England and marked the beginning of democracy. Paintings from that time show King John reluctantly signing the Charter in a meadow near Windsor in 1215. This is ridiculous, because John the Landless was most likely illiterate - look in the archives for the four surviving originals of the Charter - they all bear a seal. No signatures.

Walter Reilly brought potatoes and tobacco to England

Sir Walter Reilly - explorer, ladies' man and one of the most mysterious and mythological figures in english history. On contemporary portraits he is portrayed as exceptionally handsome, although no real portraits of him have been found. He was considered a ladies' man and allegedly liked the English Queen Elizabeth I. Is it true that he threw his cloak into a puddle so that the queen could cross it? Not true. It is true that he did not return from his trip to America with the first potatoes and tobacco in the history of England. Although it is claimed that Reilly introduced the potato in 1586, in fact the first potato crop was harvested in Spain in 1585, after which it quickly spread throughout Europe and even "crossed" the English Channel. Tobacco was introduced to France in 1560 by Jean Nicot (nicotine got its name from his last name). So the smokers of the world needlessly accuse Sir Walter Reilly of distributing bad habit.

Magellan traveled around the world

Everyone knows two things about Magellan: that he made a trip around the world, and that during this trip he was killed in the Philippines. One excludes the other. In fact, Magellan went exactly half the way: Juan Sebastian Elcano, his deputy, completed the journey.

Emperor Nero played the violin while Rome, set on fire by him, burned

This story is known to all: 64 BC. Rome is on fire and Nero is playing the violin. But this is impossible. First, the violin was invented after 1600 years. But even if there was a violin, Nero could only play it at a distance of 30 miles from burning Rome, since at the time of the fire he was not in the Eternal City, but in his villa in the suburbs.

Captain Cook discovered Australia

Of course, the Australians do not even want to think so. Long before 1770, the Dutch Abel Tasman and Dirk Hartog, and the English pirate William Dampier visited here. And this continent was discovered 50,000 years ago by its indigenous inhabitants - the Australians. The only thing for which Cook can be called the "discoverer" of Australia, and even then in quotation marks, is for the discovery of new lands, which later became the reason for the arrival of white settlers here.

Shakespeare wrote the story of Hamlet himself

William Shakespeare is known as the greatest playwright in human history. However, most of his plays were not his own creations, but rather imaginative adaptations of stories, stories, and lore. The play "The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark", according to historians, was based on an ancient Scandinavian tradition.

This is wrong. Yes, the Founding Fathers of America signed the Declaration of Independence on this day. But the war for this independence went on for another 7 years, and only on September 3, 1783, a peace treaty was finally signed between America and the English King George III.

Edison invented the electric light bulb

1093 patents: Edison is a great inventor. But most of his inventions are made by unknown employees of his laboratory. And besides, four decades before the birth of Edison, electric light was discovered by a certain Davey Humphrey. His lamp could only burn for 12 consecutive hours, and Edison had only to find the right material for the filament so that the lamp could burn constantly. Yes, an achievement, but not a discovery.

Columbus proved that the earth is round

Judging by the book of the American author Irving Washington, it was so. Everyone thought the Earth was flat, but Columbus convinced everyone otherwise. In fact, from the 4th century BC. no one thought that the Earth looked like a flat pancake. Columbus, however, could not prove that the Earth was round, since he himself did not believe in it! He believed that the earth was pear-shaped. He has never been to America, but only got to the Bahamas, which are just pear-shaped.

Gandhi liberated India

This is the most famous leader of the Indian independence movement. He urged the country to renounce violence. He was 16 years old (in 1885) when the Indian National Congress was formed. But, even without the participation of Gandhi, India would have achieved independence by other, more effective methods than non-resistance to violence, and perhaps even earlier if it had followed the path indicated by Netahi Chandra Bose.

December 25 - Christmas. But there is no evidence in the Bible or anywhere else that Jesus was born on this particular day. But why was December 25th the birthday of Jesus? Maybe because on this day the Hellenes celebrated the day of the god Mitros, born of a virgin, and at the same time it was the Shepherd's Day?

George Washington was the first President of the United States

Everyone knows that George Washington was the first of 52 US presidents. But no! The first was Peyton Randolph - it was he who was chosen by the revolutionary Congress. His first step in high office was the creation of the Continental Army to protect against British troops and the appointment of the commander in chief ... General Washington! Randolph was succeeded in 1781 by John Hanson, who directed congratulatory letter George Washington after his victory at the Battle of Yorktown and signed "I, John Hancock, President of America". And Washington became the first popularly elected president of the United States, but the fifteenth in a row.
Date: 06/22/2013 02:26:00 Visitors: 2144

Fantastic truth. How historical myths are created

Surprisingly, many established historical clichés have nothing to do with real history. Some myths are invented by people in the name of their interests, others appear by chance, but then take root in public consciousness and begin to change reality. Today we will talk only about some historical myths that are far from reality.

Historical myth #1. Vikings wore horned helmets

A Viking without a horned helmet is like a Scot without a kilt, a Mexican without a sombrero, a Jew without a kippah, a Turk without a fez or, at worst, a Russian without earflaps. Any image search engine gives a “Viking” request of fair-haired (or red) bearded men in metal bowlers with cow horns. In fact, this is not so. There were no horns on Viking helmets. Imagine a horned structure that interferes with swinging a sword and constantly strives to fall off.

Archaeologists have never found anything like it. How was this historical myth born?

It is known that among the early Celts, bronze helmets with horns were used for ritual purposes, and not for military purposes.

Well, the tenacious cliché was created by none other than Richard Wagner. In his operas from the Ring of the Nibelung cycle, he presented medieval warriors with horned warriors. Since then it has gone.

Historical myth #2. Medieval knights neglected hygiene

The era of medieval chivalry still excites the minds of people. But over the past few centuries, the facts have been distorted, and the concept of chivalry has acquired many myths. Among the popular misconceptions about medieval knights is this one. Many people think that the knights stank terribly from the fact that, because of the armor, they often went under themselves. This is wrong. The armor was made in such a way as to simplify the natural physiological procedure as much as possible. Pants, in the modern sense, did not exist then. The knights wore chausses - high stockings that were attached to the belt, and in front there was a braget - a flap valve.

well and bad smell From warriors, we can easily explain: if you put on all the knightly uniforms, pick up a sword, wave it for at least half an hour, then the smell of sweat will not take long.

historical myth No. 3. The battle on Lake Peipus was won thanks to thin ice

Not only have historians failed to find the place where the Battle of the Ice actually took place, there is a whole series of misconceptions associated with this event. According to folk mythology, heavily armed German knights fell through the ice due to the weight of their armor. However, the knights of the Livonian Order did not have any heavy plate armor in 1242, which means that the Russian and "German" armies were armed approximately the same. Moreover, the fact that the knight's army fell through the ice is not actually documented anywhere. This is not in the chronicles of the Livonian Order, nor in the original text of the Novgorod Chronicle. And no archaeological evidence of this story has been found on the territory of Lake Peipus ...

historical myth No. 4. People in the Middle Ages believed the earth was flat.

Even in history books, one can find statements that people in the Middle Ages believed that the earth was flat. Alas, just the opposite. Judging by the documents, it was widely believed among medieval scholars that the earth was spherical. Even ancient philosopher Aristotle described the earth as a sphere. Unfortunately, at that time the law of gravity was not yet known, so medieval scientists could not give a holistic justification for this theory.

historical myth No. 5. Napoleon was small

In the lexicon of psychologists there is an expression "Napoleonic complex" behind which lies a certain behavior of people who are trying to compensate for their small stature with dominant behavior. Allegedly, it was through conquest that the low Napoleon tried to assert himself.

The facts say otherwise. french emperor He was 169 centimeters tall. At the time, he was a very impressive man. So where did the myth of Napoleon's short stature come from? It is known that the Emperor went everywhere with his bodyguards, who were much taller than him. And since Napoleon was a public person, people, looking at his surroundings, began to say that Napoleon was small.

historical myth No. 6. Katana - the main weapon of the samurai

The two main myths associated with the Japanese katana sword are its superior quality and the belief that the katana has always been the main samurai weapon. The main sources of the myth are anime and fantasy literature. In fact, the production of katana, due to constant civil strife, was massive, and the words "mass" and "quality" always contradict each other. The second misconception is a little less obvious. It is known that starting from the Tokugawa era (XVII century), two swords - katana and wakizashi - became distinctive signs showing the status of their owner. But before early XVII century, the samurai was primarily a mounted archer. In addition to the bow, he had a naginata (a sort of Japanese variety of halberd), which allowed him to keep the enemy at a distance.

historical myth No. 7. The storming of the Bastille - the heroic assault on the stronghold of despotism

July 14 on the streets of Paris do not pass. This day marks one of the most popular holidays in France - Bastille Day. Even all tables in restaurants for this day are booked several months in advance. And all this in honor of an event that did not carry the significance that is given to it now. There were not hundreds of dead during the assault, there were not hundreds of prisoners, there was not even a cannon battery that fired buckshot at the crowd. On July 14, 1789, only 7 prisoners were kept in the Bastille. The garrison of the legendary prison managed to fire a single shot from a single cannon before they were taken prisoner, and the head of the commandant was planted on a pike. The soldiers, by the way, did not even aim at the crowd - they shot over their heads in the hope that the Marquis de Launay, the same commandant, would settle the matter amicably. So the myth about the revolutionary feat of those who took the "citadel of tyranny" is only a myth.

historical myth No. 8. Hitler built the first expressway

There is an opinion among motorists that the first expressway was built by Adolf Hitler. However, it is not. The first German motorway Cologne-Bonn was opened in 1921. The initiator of the construction of the motorway was the then Mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer.

Where did the myth come from? The story of Hitler the Builder was deliberately fueled Nazi propaganda. In 1933, Hitler opened the Frankfurt am Main-Mannheim highway. Its length was 78 kilometers. It was this road that Nazi propagandists presented as the first full-fledged expressway. And they unceremoniously reduced the Adenauer highway to the level of a highway.

historical myth No. 9. Edison's light bulb was invented by Edison

No matter how! Thomas Edison is known as one of the greatest inventors. However, his most famous invention, the electric light bulb, did not even belong to his laboratory. Forty years before Edison was born, the English scientist Sir Humphrey Davy invented the electric lamp. Edison's achievement was that he picked the right filament material and gas. As a result, the lamp began to burn for more than 12 hours.

The past actively invades our lives. Through the mustachioed portraits of Stalin on the rear windows of foreign cars and the scandalous clarification of the relationship of the latter Russian emperor with ballet prima. Through disputes to hoarseness - Moscow or Kyiv is the heir Ancient Rus' and whether 28 Panfilovites died on the outskirts of Moscow. Through St. George ribbons / red poppies and demotivators in social networks with quotes from politicians.

Is mythologization always bad, and how did fictitious details become textbooks in school textbooks? Why historical science remains in the background of those who broadcast a biased presentation of the past? What do modern students of one of the country's leading liberal arts universities answer to the question about Joan of Arc? Obzor asked about this the head of the Center for the History of Historical Knowledge, the chief researcher of the Institute world history RAS, professor at MGIMO (U) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia Marina Bobkova:

A classic example of "rewriting" history. Soviet leadership on the White Sea-Baltic Canal. The first picture was taken in 1937, when Nikolai Yezhov (far right) was still head of the NKVD. After Yezhov's arrest, he disappeared not only from the editorials of Pravda, but also, with the help of retouching, from official photographs.

- Are there professional criteria, tools that allow the historian to determine - is this a real event, albeit a very distant past, but is this a myth? How, for example, to understand - did it take place, for example, in the history of Ancient Egypt or medieval Rus', or was it invented by court scribes?

- History, like other sciences, has its own research tools. Answer the question "how was it really?" history cannot. Because experiment in our science is impossible. However, we can obtain verifiable, that is, verifiable, knowledge. For example, some chronicler recorded an event that actually happened and is a historical reality, or invented it for some personal reasons. We fix the primary fact, and then analyze other types of sources (for example, scribe books) of the same period. Then we turn to later sources and look for "traces" of this event there.

Since three-quarters of medieval sources are compilations, comparative analysis, as a rule, works 100%. The same applies to sources late periods. Here, the comparative approach is greatly simplified, as the source base becomes wider and more diverse. If a fact is recorded in three or four sources of different types, origins, and even different times, then it can be considered a historical reality.

- And as an inhabitant, armed only with luggage school curriculum, can understand - here he is being manipulated, passing off as reality a non-existent quote from Churchill or a photo not there and not then of people who were shot, but here they cite a historical fact?

- A person who does not have a specialized education, of course, is not armed with research methods of special historical disciplines. In his luggage - only knowledge from the school curriculum. But he can also understand or guess that he is being cheated.

Firstly, the modern information space provides quite ample opportunities to check the phenomenon that caused your doubts. Second, pay attention to the context in which the fact that “surprised” you was used. As a rule, manipulation occurs in texts that are politically biased and updated with the current situation. Here we refer to texts as any message about the past that makes sense. These are not only written or printed sources, but also visual texts - paintings, architectural monuments, sculpture, video materials, photographs.

Scales ice battle were much more modest than is commonly believed. But in the confrontation with the Third Reich, Soviet propaganda needed the image of a heroic squad that utterly defeated the German “dog-knights”. So in 1938, Eisenstein's film "Alexander Nevsky" with Prokofiev's cantata and Simonov's poem "Battle on the Ice" appeared.

Frame from the film "Alexander Nevsky" (Mosfilm, 1938)

Historical myths are actively used by the film industry both in Russia and in the West

Frame from the movie "300 Spartans" (Warner Bros, 2006)

– Mythologization historical events and persons is a universal phenomenon, or some countries are less susceptible to it. For example, what popular historical myths exist in the West? Do they have their own specifics?

– Mythologization of the past is a ubiquitous phenomenon. All peoples and countries are equally affected by it. During periods of crisis, myth-making, as a rule, flourishes especially. Vivid examples of myths from world history: the Egyptian pyramids were built by captive slaves; The Thermopylae Pass was defended by only 300 Spartans; Napoleon was short; the Germans are descended from the Trojans… And what is most interesting, as soon as the globalization processes begin (be it the Early Modern Age, or the present day), the national mythology immediately intensifies.

– The debunking of which historical myth was the most unexpected in your professional biography?

– I have not been in such a situation. Either I'm not naive enough, or I'm too pragmatic.

– At school, history is taught as an axiom. As part of the general education program, the child is not taught to work with sources, to compare. Especially today, when jagged dates and names are required to fill the exam. Why on school lessons stories do not teach to debunk myths from the past, but on the contrary, format consciousness for the acceptance of any information?

– With textbooks and teaching history at school, everything is very difficult for us. It is very dangerous to experiment with education, and it is not for nothing that education and enlightenment have always been the most conservative areas. Recent experiments are yielding results. First-year students of one of the leading liberal arts universities in Moscow who have passed the Unified State Examination in history traditionally write an “input” test for diagnosing residual school knowledge in my first lesson. It contains questions on the most common historical plots, which, in my opinion, are the general cultural baggage of any person with a school education. This year I dared to ask who is Joan of Arc? And the correct answers were less than a quarter. Basically, they answered this way: this is the heroine of the Great French Revolution, whose head was cut off; a women's rights activist who was burned like a witch; fought with the Nazis and died ... Well, what is there to comment on?

Any textbook is mythologized in a certain sense, since when creating its concept, the authors agree on the factual series, and on the personalities that will be presented in the textbook, and, you will be surprised, on the interpretation of historical phenomena ... The authors of the sensational historical and cultural standard (on the basis of which a unified history textbook is being created) pride themselves on keeping interpretations to a minimum. But then, as a textbook, you can use the “Manual for applicants to universities. History in tables. There are absolutely no interpretations here!

The textbook inevitably carries a simplified presentation of history. Its task is to explain to schoolchildren the sequence and content of the world-historical process, to equip them with a kind of navigator and teach them how to use it. The teaching of history both at school and at the university does not take into account the modern global information space at all. The textbook should teach how to obtain knowledge (give a fishing rod to fish) and systematize them. "Retelling" historical plots, which is what the textbook is today, is no longer needed by anyone. Why is the textbook the way it is? This question is no longer for me, but for the Ministry of Education.

The collapse of the USSR forced the "multinational Soviet people"to reconsider the past. Already apart

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– The globalization of the information space cannot be assessed unambiguously. On the one hand, the circulation of mythologemes has increased many times over. But that doesn't mean there are a lot more of them! Yes, there are new ones. For example, quasi-historians-quasi-linguists look “entertaining”. No less "entertaining" are the authors of quasi-historical films, again with federal channels: well, what Russian does not breathe a sigh of relief that Pushkin, who is “our everything”, was not mortally wounded in a duel. And he (oh yes Pushkin, oh yes son of a bitch!) appeared to us in France in the form of Dumas! Well, how to refute from a scientific point of view, such nonsense of commercial quasi-historians? On the other hand, there are still benefits from this coven! Even the mythologized past contributes to a significant growth of interest in scientific history.

- In addition to semi-official myths, entire schools have appeared today, so to speak, schools that teach about the history of Russia, the Great Tartary, and the many-thousand-year history of Russians invented by Romanov historians. How to explain their popularity, because the adherents of such teachings are not just indifferent inhabitants, but those who are trying to study the past, are interested in it.

- It's absolutely normal. Our country is going through a transitional period. The geopolitical catastrophe (I agree that it can be assessed in different ways) - the death of the USSR - led to the disappearance of such a geographical and ideological definition as "the multinational Soviet people." Now we are still going through a period of renewed need for national self-identification, the search for national roots. And here the national myth-making fully comes into its own. It is also impossible to evaluate it unambiguously. On the one hand, this is good - a traditional society is being founded, and on the other hand, this can become the basis of national hostility, discord and, possibly, ethnic conflicts. That is why a new geographical and political community "multinational Russian people" was declared. But this community has not yet become a reality.

Apparently she needs her own general history and possibly common myths. By the way, the appeal to the history of the Great Patriotic War, to the history of the common Victory, is updated, among other things, and ideas about the unity of our modern multinational power.

Interviewed by Andrey Koshik