Reflecting on the question of Russia's place in history and in modern world, various philosophers one way or another considered Russia within the framework of the East-West scheme. At the same time, Russia is attributed either to the East or the West, or it is recognized as a special country, neither Western nor Eastern.

In the history of Russian thought for the latter case, several independent concepts of the East-West problem are known:

• G. Plekhanov believed that Russia was, as it were, between East and West, leaning first in one direction, then in the other.
• N. Berdyaev declared it East-West or West-East.
• Young predicted her great destiny: Russia must unite East and West on the basis of true Christianity.
• According to the Eurasianists, Russia forms a special world, a "third force" that is quite similar to both the West and the East, but does not depend on them.

Therefore, in order to navigate all these diverse points of view and understand true position Russia in the world, it is necessary to unequivocally establish the meaning of the original concepts and terms, to separate the boundaries of the concepts of "West", "East" and their correlation with each other.

In the view of Europeans, the East has always been in a certain opposition to the West. The mysterious and unfamiliar East was woven from contradictions - they spoke, on the one hand, of its constancy and high spirituality, and, on the other, of stagnation and slavery. Against the background of the “East”, the originality of the West was more clearly visible, in fact, in the process of understanding the East, a Western European understanding was also formed.

The "East-West" paradigm helped the Europeans to form the very European self-consciousness. Therefore, the concepts of "East" and "West" influence our worldview - voluntarily or involuntarily, regardless of our critical or dogmatic attitude towards them.

First theoretical concepts"East" and "West" were used in his writings by the philosopher G. Hegel. Under the name "East" it combines three cultural and historical formations:

• Chinese, including China,

• Indian, which includes India,

• and the Middle East, which includes the ancient civilizations of Asia, North Africa: Persia, including the people of Zarathustra, Assyria, Media, Iran, Babylon, Syria, Phoenicia, Judea, Egypt, as well as the Islamic world.

Hegel's "West" consisted of two civilizations that formed in the north of the Mediterranean - Roman and Greek. At the same time, it should be noted that there was no place in the Hegelian system of Russia.

Thus, the "West" in Hegel's philosophy had two meanings:

1. broad, including ancient times and the Christian culture of European peoples;
2. narrow, including only the Christian world.

These interpretations have their supporters and opponents.

“Localists” (N.Ya. Danilevsky, O. Spengler, A. Toynbee), rejecting the “West-East” paradigm, considered only the Western European world to be the “West”. E. Husserl called Ancient Greece the "spiritual homeland" of the West.

K. Jaspers offered a compromise point of view. He considers Western civilization one of many local ones, but notes its special role in world history, especially in the era of modern times, and points out that western culture is the spiritual successor of the Greek, Jewish and Roman cultures.

Jaspers introduces the concept of "axial time", universal for all mankind, criticizing the Hegelian "world axis", associated exclusively with Christianity. But since Christianity itself was the basis only for Western civilization, to choose it as the boundary of this "axial time" for the whole world is incorrect. The desired universality, and with it the fullness of being, existed before, for example, in Eastern cultures. Jaspers calls the “amazing era” the time between the 8th and 2nd centuries BC, when their prophets appear in various parts of the world: in China - Confucius and Lao Tzu, in Persia and Iraq - Zarathustra, in India - Buddha, in Palestine the Old Testament is being created, philosophy is actively developing in Greece. At this time, a person overcomes his local thinking and realizes himself. But people did not unite into a single formation, but several centers of world religions and political paradigms were formed.

It is worth noting that Jaspers practically does not use the concept of "East". He considers China and India as independent cultural worlds along with the West. In the broad concept of "West" he includes not only the Western culture of the II millennium, but also the culture begun by the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Crete-Mycenaean civilizations, continued in antiquity by the Greeks, Romans, Persians, Jews, completed in the Christian era by Byzantium, Russia, Europe, America and Islamic civilizations. In addition, the West in the concept of Jaspers is seen as the cradle of ideas about freedom, democracy, philosophy, science.

The East-West-Russia Problem in the History of Philosophical Thought

The question of Russia's place in the East-West-Russia paradigm was first raised in Philosophical Letters.

• Westerners claimed that Russia was part of European culture, i.e. West. The Slavophiles, on the other hand, believed that Russia was "an original spiritual formation."
• There was also a third point of view - the concept of K. Leontiev.

Great support for the ideas of the Slavophiles was given by the “pochvennik”. Not recognizing the East-West paradigm, he developed the idea of ​​having independent cultural and historical types. Russian culture, according to Danilevsky, just represented such a special type of culture.

Almost the entire 19th century in Russian philosophical thought the idea of ​​Russia's "specialness" in a number of other civilizations dominated, which influenced the formation of the national Russian civilizational and historical self-consciousness.

This process is embodied in the famous formulas:

• « The history of Russia requires a different thought, a different formula ”(A. Pushkin),

• “Russia cannot be understood with the mind” (F. Tyutchev)

• “Rus, where are you going, give me an answer?” (N. Gogol),

• "Why can't we accommodate last word His [Christ]?" (F. Dostoevsky).

Proceeding from the fact that Russian culture is Christian, Westerners put on the third world-historical stage Slavic peoples along with the German ones. The Slavophils, pointing to cultures, contrasted Russia with Western Europe.

Chaadaev believed that Russian culture can combine both reason and imagination, so Russia can become a kind of bridge between the West and the East. He calls Russia the "third force" in history.

The introduction of Russia into the Hegelian triad of "China, India, the Middle East" allows for two theoretical possibilities:

1) the preservation of the triad with the placement of Russia "inside" one of the elements;

2) reducing the elements to two and introducing Russia into the triad instead of one of them.

The theoretical priority clearly has the second possibility. However, in philosophy XIX century, the idea of ​​Russian originality dominated, therefore, in that era, Russian thinkers used the first.

The second possibility was used in his research by Vl. Solovyov, proposing the formula "East-West-Russia" in the "Philosophical Principles of Integral Knowledge".

Vl. Solovyov proposed the idea of ​​a tripartite division of history. He singled out three stages of world-historical development. Two already, according to the philosopher, we have already passed. At the first stage, the "face" of humanity was the East. After that followed the Christian frontier and the second stage, where the West played the leading role in history. In this scheme, neither antiquity, nor Byzantium, nor Ancient Rus' Vl. Solovyov does not consider cultural and political formations as significant.

According to Solovyov:

• The East symbolizes the "inhuman God",
• The West is "godless man".

The confrontation between the West and the East ends at the third stage, characterized by the establishment of true Christianity. The bearer of a new mentality can only be a young people who are not connected with either the West or the East, for example, Russia.

Understanding the dichotomy "East-West" through the prism of the originality and uniqueness of Russian culture has become one of the socio-cultural foundations for the formation of Eurasianism at the beginning of the 20th century - an ideological, socio-political and spiritual-philosophical trend, united by the concept of Russian culture as unique cultural phenomenon a Eurasian space that combines Western and Eastern features, simultaneously belonging to the West and the East, and at the same time not belonging to either cultural type.

The essence of the Eurasian concept is simple: if before them geography distinguished two continents - Europe and Asia, then the Eurasians began to talk about the third, middle continent - Eurasia. Any state is defined by the territory over which its power extends. Eurasians believed that there was an organic connection between geographical area, the specifics of the development of each culture, and the peoples living in this territory.

In essence, the whole doctrine of Eurasia is based on the understanding of culture as a living "unity", agreed cultural activities people, which allows you to turn each person into a person with a unique national identity and at the same time embodying common Eurasian principles. On the other hand, it was precisely the approach to civilization from the position of a person - the subject of culture - that allowed the Eurasians to insist that a living and original phenomenon of Russian culture, embracing all aspects of life, endowed with the qualities of symphony and catholicity, ensures its dynamic unity thanks to creative activity each person. Thus, through individual culture, the culture of an estate, a people, concerted actions individuals are transformed into a “symphonic unity of more private cultures”, into a “pan-unity” of a more general general national culture(L.P. Karsavin).

The Eurasianists were convinced of the special path of Russia against the backdrop of a deep crisis of Western civilization, and therefore they wanted to reveal the positive significance of the national worldview and Russian national culture. As a result, one of the key issues for Eurasianism is the problem of national culture. Therefore, initially the Eurasians were united by a deep conviction that it was through the actualization national beginnings you can specify real ways new spiritual and cultural revival Russia.

Russian Eurasianism began to designate the term "Eurasia" not as a European-Asian unity, but as a middle space as a special geographical and historical world, which is separated from both Europe and Asia. According to the Eurasianists, Eurasia should be a structural integrity, explained through this integrity itself, through its internal components, and not through interaction with external environment. P.N. Savitsky thus became the discoverer of structural geography. The unity of Eurasia did not lie in the existence of the same climate or space, but in systemic, in the regularity of the territory.

On the whole, in the problem of "East - Russia - West", the Eurasianists sharpened some of its aspects and gave it a deeper historical justification.

The concept of "Eurasia", as noted by S.M. Sokolov, began to designate a historical paradigm, a special civilizational essence. It required an analysis and identification of the inner content of the Eurasian nature of Russia. P.N. Savitsky was determined through main feature- middle. So, for example, his work “Geographical and geopolitical foundations of Eurasianism” begins with the words: “Russia has much more reason than China to be called the "Middle State". Middleness determines the importance for Russia of the culture of the East and the culture of the West. Middleness determines the roots of Eurasian culture. These roots are in centuries-old contacts and cultural fusions of peoples of various races.

It is Russia that occupies the main space of the lands of Eurasia. The uniqueness of Russia as a special Eurasian continent with a consolidating function was emphasized by all Eurasians. F. S. Fayzullin, in particular, notes that “Eurasians proved the great importance of the originality, uniqueness of each national culture, the need for its preservation and development in new historical conditions. At the same time, they did not deny the significance of the mutual influence of cultures, and in particular, the influence of European culture on Russia, but emphasized that Russia, as the main part of the Eurasian civilization, incorporated the values ​​of European culture. Eurasian culture is more diverse and broader than the latter, since it has as its sources the culture of many peoples adjoining it: Turkic, Finno-Ugric, Turanian, Mongolian, Aryan, etc.” The main and fundamental meaning of Eurasianism was the preservation of Russian culture, which occupies a special place within the framework of the cultural coordinates "West-East"

She, Russia, is destined for a special historical path and her own mission. In this, the Eurasians considered themselves followers of the Slavophiles. However, unlike the latter, who dissolved the Russian idea in the ethnic Slavic one, the Eurasianists believed that the Russian nationality could not be reduced to the Slavic ethnos, that in its formation big role played by the Turkic and Finno-Ugric tribes inhabiting the same with Eastern Slavs place development and constantly interacting with them. This is how the Russian nation was formed, which took the initiative to unite multilingual ethnic groups into a single multinational nation - Eurasians, and Eurasia into a single state of Russia. The national substrate of this state, as emphasized by the leading theorist of Eurasianism N.S. Trubetskoy, is the totality of the peoples inhabiting it, representing a single multinational nation. This nation, called Eurasian, is united not only by a common “place of development”, but also by a common Eurasian national identity. If we assume that the lands do not fall apart between two continents, but constitute an independent world, this determines a number of fundamental conclusions. The main one in our study is the conclusion that Russia is a special type of civilization and culture, Eurasian culture. The very name "Eurasia" suggests that "elements of the cultures of the East, West and South, in commensurable shares, interspersed and fused together, entered the socio-cultural life of Russia, creating a special synthetic, Eurasian geopolitical vision of the world."

Assessing the specifics of Russian culture, the Eurasians, first of all, substantiated the heterogeneous nature of national culture, which acquires several diverse ethnic roots and spiritual substrates, and also asserted the originality of Russian culture, in contrast to European and Asian ones. Eurasia as a self-sufficient cultural and historical world unites, according to the Eurasians, in addition to the Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians), Turanian, Mongolian, Ugric and other peoples. Eurasia is an area of ​​some equality and some “fraternization” of nations, which has no analogies in the interethnic relations of colonial empires, and “Eurasian culture can be imagined as a culture that is to one degree or another common creation and the common heritage of the peoples of Eurasia”.

The Eurasianists explained the concept of Russia-Eurasia historical function Russia - to be Eurasia - an integral unity of many peoples inhabiting its "steppes and forests".

The main factors that contributed to the formation of a very complex, synthetic and original culture on the territory of Russia were, first of all, the natural and geographical conditions, and, secondly, the features Russian state as a political and cultural-civilizational system.

On the influence of the natural environment on the formation of cultural and value orientations, archetypal features national character said many Eurasians. G. Vernadsky, in particular, wrote: “The connection of the people with the state that this people forms, and with the space that it acquires for itself, with its place of development is not accidental.” The term "local development" is one of the central ones in Eurasianism. According to scientists, it is the place of development that determines the specifics of both culture and civilization. All the same G. Vernadsky writes: “Under the development human societies we understand a certain geographical environment, which imposes the stamp of its characteristics on the human community that develops in this environment.

The role of the political, state factor in the formation of Russian culture is also very significant. Eurasians, unlike other researchers, reveal the specifics of not individual cultural worlds that exist within the Russian state, but the most Russian state, Russian society in general, they are considered as something hierarchical integral, acquiring fundamental differences both from the cultures of the West and from the cultures of the East. “We are not Slavs and not Turanians, but Russians ... We must state a special ethnic type, on the periphery bringing us closer to both Asian and European, and, in particular, of course, most of all Slavic, but differing from them more sharply than individual “neighboring” representatives in our series differ from each other.

Russia's median position between West and East made it possible to synthesize Eastern and Western orientations in its system of values. So, like the West, Russian system the value of Development played a significant role in the basic values. At the same time, like the East (for example, the Confucian civilization), the values ​​of the State and Service were important in this system of values. Russian culture has deeply assimilated the Eastern desire for integrity. But the Western way of separation of sciences, analytical thinking and specialization is also inherent Russian culture the last few centuries.

Thus, the understanding of Russia as a special historical formation, the uniqueness of which is connected, first of all, with oriental roots. According to the Eurasianists, the “Byzantine layer” played a special role in the formation of national culture, because it was he who preserved the “Eurasian” heritage of the previous culture.

Russian civilization: West or East? Types of civilizations

1. Ed. Balabanova A.I. - ed. with rev. Banks and banking. Textbook, Peter: Unity, 2005;

2. Ed. Lavrushin O.I. Banking.- M .: Banking and exchange information Center, 1999

3. Ed. Krolivetskaya L.P., Tikhomirova E.V. Banking. Lending activities of commercial banks. Textbook: "KnoRus", 2009;

4. Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan "On banks and banking activities in the Republic of Kazakhstan".

Geographical, climatic and mental factors of Russian history

As V.O. Klyuchevsky, "nature is the cradle of the people." Indeed, it is the climate, soil properties, humidity and similar factors that largely shape the standards of work, the culture of work (especially in agricultural areas), and hence the mentality of the people.

The climate on the territory of the East European Plain is sharply continental: severe, with a very long cold winter and short cool summers. The agricultural work season starts from the end of April and ends in mid-September, i.e. very short. The yield is low most of The soil is generally unsuitable for cultivation. Therefore, the peasant was forced to work at the limit of his capabilities. In addition, every 12-15 years, nature brought some “surprises” like crop failure ... Thus, the Russian work ethic was formed: you need to work a lot, hard, be able to do everything, but irresponsibility is revealed, as well as a tremendous inability to work systematically , evenly.

Natural conditions demanded collective efforts. Therefore, the Russians have a high mentality of the team.

Because of large territories developed national pride.

Since Russia is not surrounded on all sides by sea, mountains, or other obstacles, it was very open to invasions. In addition, there were almost no loyal states nearby. The consequence is that a large part of Russian history is military history.

Long distance of the country from the centers European civilization led to a lag in cultural development. Russia did not have a base of European culture - antiquity. The country was isolated, there was stagnation.

Also, due to the vastness of the territory and as a result of colonization, the country is multinational, multi-confessional, which created certain problems in mutual understanding, but at the same time brought up tolerance and tolerance in people. worldly wisdom. christian religion was brought to Rus' from Byzantium, so its eastern version, Orthodoxy, was adopted. And when in 1054 Christianity broke up into Orthodoxy and Catholicism, Russia remained faithful to the traditions of the “big brother”. And in general, Orthodoxy is “fidelity”, “orthodox”. The culture of Russia is mainly religious, based on traditions and its own, unlike any other mentality.

Russian civilization: West or East? Types of civilizations

Civilization is a human community, which during certain period time has stable special features in the socio-political organization, economy and culture (science, technology, art, etc.), common spiritual values ​​and ideals, mentality.

Among the so-called Western countries countries are currently Western Europe, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and sometimes also South Africa, Israel, Japan, etc.

Currently to countries of Eastern Europe include: Belarus, Hungary, Bulgaria, Moldova, Russia (up to 22% of the territory), Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Ukraine

As for Russia's attitude to Western or Eastern civilizational types, we can say that Russia does not fully fit into either Western or Eastern types of development. Russia has a huge territory and therefore Russia is a historically formed conglomerate of peoples belonging to different types development, united by powerful, centralized state with a Great Russian core. Russia, geopolitically located between two powerful centers of civilizational influence - the East and the West, includes peoples developing both in the Western and Eastern versions.

As a result, since its inception, Russia has absorbed a huge religious and cultural diversity peoples living on its territory and adjacent to it. For a long time, the development of Russia was influenced by states of both eastern (Mongolia, China) and western (during the reforms of Peter I a lot was borrowed from the Western type of development) civilizational types. Some scientists distinguish a separate Russian type of civilization. So it is impossible to say exactly which civilizational type Russia belongs to.

The concepts of "culture of the East" and "culture of the West" are very arbitrary. Figuratively speaking, the East (which is usually understood as Asia) and the West (represented by Europe and North America) are two branches of the same tree, each developing in its own direction, at the same time, in parallel, but in different ways. None of them rises above the other. They have a certain similarity, but there are also enough differences. How are they different? Let's try to figure it out.

Definition

Culture of the East- the culture of such countries as China, India, Japan, as well as other Asian states, is distinguished by stability, traditionality, and inviolability.

Western culture- European culture and North America, embodying dynamic image life, rapid development, including in the technological sphere.

Comparison

The man of the West, unlike the man of the East, has his own mentality, his own views on life, being, nature and much more. The cultures of the East and the West differ in religious, philosophical, scientific and other issues. The main cultural differences between East and West are presented in the table.

Findings site

1. The culture of the East is characterized by a stable historical development, The West is moving forward jerkily.
2. Western culture is characterized by a dynamic way of life, the previous system of values ​​is destroyed - another one arises. Eastern culture is characterized by inviolability, non-resistance, stability. New trends are harmoniously integrated into the existing system.
3. In Eastern culture, many religions coexist side by side. Christianity dominates in the West.
4. Eastern culture is based on ancient customs, foundations. The West tends to loosen traditions.
5. The West is characterized by scientific, technological, rational knowledge peace. The East is irrational.
6. Human Western world divorced from nature, he commands her. The man of the East is merged with nature.

The division of cultures into eastern and western fixes not only their territorial location, but also the characteristics of the methods and ways of knowing the world, value orientation, basic ideological attitudes, socio-economic and political structures. "West" means European and American culture, "East" - the countries of Central, South-East Asia, Middle East, North Africa.

Western culture is focused on the values ​​of technological development, a dynamic lifestyle, the improvement of culture and society. The idea of ​​the significance of the individual, the priority of initiative and creativity is enshrined in constitutional forms. The sociodynamics of Western culture is characterized by undulations, jerks, and unevenness. The process of transition to the new proceeds as the breaking of obsolete value systems, socio-economic and political structures.

In the East, the new does not reject or destroy the old, traditional, but organically fits into it. Western culture is directed outward, while Eastern culture is characterized by immersion in inner world person. Many Eastern thinkers were convinced that the world could be improved only by gaining wholeness and harmony in oneself. If Western culture has taken the path of creating equipment and technologies that mediate relations with nature, then for Eastern culture characterized by a desire for harmony with nature, development in a natural way. However, today we can say that the eastern cultures, without losing their original beginning, have adopted many features characteristic of the Western world.

Eastern civilizations are more ancient: they arose in the 4th-2nd millennium BC. The Western type first appears in Ancient Greece about 3000 years ago.

Western culture, formed in the countries of Western Europe, includes the following stages:

• o classical antique Hellenic culture of Ancient Greece;
• o Hellenistic-Roman culture;
• o Romano-Germanic culture of the Christian Middle Ages;
• o New European culture. The main features of Western culture:
• o the priority of a rational reasonable approach to the analysis of the world;
• o use of universal scientific concepts, intensive development of philosophy and sciences;
• o active technical and technological transformation of the world;
• o dynamism and the pursuit of novelty;
• o individualism, dominance private property. Oriental culture was formed in Asian countries and Far East and includes subcultures:
• o culture of the Far East - China, Japan, Korea;
• o culture of India. Features of Eastern culture:
• o orientation to spirituality, mysticism;
• o irrationalism;
• o communal principle, collectivism, absence of the dominant role of private property;
• o preservation of traditions, stability.

For the eastern type of cultures, the predominant influence of mysticism and religion is characteristic, for the western - philosophy and science.

Most residents of Eastern culture are characterized by character traits due to religious worldview:

• o the feeling of time as a slowly flowing river;
• o changes in life and character accumulate slowly, gradually;
• o lack of fussiness, commitment material wealth; at the same time, the bearers of this culture value all living things, especially nature, and have created a cult of admiring both all nature and its smallest creation (Chinese miniature, a holiday of admiring cherry blossoms sakura in Japan);
• o greater commitment to national traditions the ability to combine modern and traditional.

In world culture, three types of relationships between the individual world of culture and the outside world can be distinguished.

• o european type, in which the individual "I" is considered as the most important cultural value. The world of an individual's culture is focused on objectification, maximum self-realization, and optimal externalization. And the world surrounding a person and the entire cultural environment should contribute to this.
• o Ancient Chinese type (Eastern). In history Chinese culture higher cultural value in relation to the surrounding cultural world, the subordination of man was considered cultural practices and traditions, the suppression of one's individual "I", a sense of duty and the need to conform to a certain cultural standard. It is not so much the individual properties themselves, the characteristics of personal culture that are valued, but the ability to express them in a rigidly defined fixed form. individual world culture of the individual must self-dissolve in the universal whole.
• o indian type, which is based on the understanding of the human "I" as an unconditioned reality of the superpersonal spirit, along with other natural formations and living beings. The corporeal and empirical human "I" according to this view is subordinated to the supra-personal spirit. The self-realization of a person is precisely achieved through the denial of one's empirical nature and the ascent to the spirit. Therefore, the world of a person's individual culture, through the rupture of specific ties with other cultures of individuals, with society, the empirical world, and even with one's own deeds, is oriented towards dissolution in a universal spiritual substance.