Three eras of human history. Historical era

There are many different ways to periodize history. It is clear that they are all conditional in nature, but their benefits are undeniable: when going on a journey into the depths of centuries, it is a good idea to have a route plan and a map so as not to get lost in the world of events, discoveries, dates, etc. In any case, I cherish the hope of systematizing my knowledge of human history, “putting everything into pieces,” so that it would be easier to understand the origins of modern events, draw parallels and establish relationships between different cultures.

To do this, I will use the simplest and most general method of dividing human history into the following periods, which has no clear boundaries.

Primitive society- from the appearance of the first human ancestors to the emergence of cities, states and writing. This period is also called prehistoric, but I do not agree with this: once man appeared, it means that the history of mankind began, even if we learn about it not through written sources, but through various archaeological finds. At this time, people mastered agriculture and cattle breeding, began to build houses and cities, and religion and art arose. And this is history, albeit primitive.

Ancient world– from the first ancient states to the fall of the Western Roman Empire (5.5 thousand years ago - 5th century AD). Civilizations of the Ancient East, Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, Ancient America. An amazing time in which writing appeared, science was born, new religions, poetry, architecture, theater, the first ideas about democracy and human rights, you can name it all!

Middle Ages (V–XV centuries)- from the fall of the Western Roman Empire at the end of the ancient era, to the Great Geographical Discoveries, the invention of printing. Feudal relations, the Inquisition, knights, Gothic - the first thing that comes to mind when mentioning the Middle Ages.

Modern times (XV century - 1914)– from the Great Geographical Discoveries to the beginning of World War I. The Renaissance period in science and culture, the discovery of the New World by the Spaniards, the fall of Constantinople, the English and French revolutions, the Napoleonic Wars and much more.

Modern times- period in human history (from 1914 to the present).

Other approaches to dividing human history into periods:

– formational, depending on the socio-economic system: primitive communal system, slaveholding, feudal, capitalist and communist(what they taught us at school);

– by production methods: agricultural society, industrial society, post-industrial society;

– according to the level of development of material culture: primitive period, archaic period, dark ages, antiquity, middle ages, renaissance, modern times, modernity;

– by periods of reign of outstanding rulers;

– by periods of historically significant wars;

– and others ways that I might need later.

Lecture “Topic No. 2”

Epochs, styles, directions

A work of art is a form of existence of art. It reflects the world in all its complexity of diversity and aesthetic richness.

Artists* always strive to convey the world truthfully. In the process of creativity, a certain artistic method is born, so truth in art is not always identical to verisimilitude.

In the formation of artistic and figurative techniques and methods, many social and cultural prerequisites are involved, associated with ideas about truth, with the religious and ideological views of society, with the worldview of the artist himself.

The historically established structural uniformity of artistic techniques, artistic language, relationships between content and form, which in a given era unites the works of masters who worked in different types and genres of art, is calledstyle .

The word style can be used in a broad sense - lifestyle, playing style, clothing style, etc., and in a narrow sense - “style in art”.

In different historical eras, Style manifests itself in separate types, which are called current.

Social development occurs unevenly. If it is slow in nature, as in Antiquity, then the change in the system of artistic forms occurs very slowly over thousands of years, centuries, then such development is usually called an artistic era.

Later, from the 17th century. world public development is significantly accelerating, art is faced with diverse tasks, aggravation of social contradictions, so there is a rapid change of styles.

In the art of the 19th and 20th centuries, only individual stylistic trends appear; the ideological instability of society prevents the formation of unified styles, and rapidly changing directions emerge.

Primitive art (20,000 - 5,000 BC) developed in complete dependence on nature, on the everyday needs of man, and was associated with magic. Characteristic is the development of ceramics with regular shapes, ornaments, carvings, and realistic images of animals (rock paintings).

*The word “artists” is used in a broad sense, i.e. artists, architects, writers, etc. , i.e. creators of works of art.

:

Rock paintings depicting animals. Paintings in the caves of Lascaux (France), Altamira (Spain), Tassilin Ajer (North Africa).

Sculptural images of women, the so-called Paleolithic Venus.

Megalithic structures Stonehenge (England), Stone Grave (Ukraine).

Ancient despotism (the art of the interfluve and Ancient Egypt (5000 BC - VIII century BC)) represent an artistic era. During this period, many artistic discoveries took place, but the main thing that defines the era remains unchanged:

Complete submission to religion,

Development of funeral cults

Development of canons in all types of art,

Formation of the fundamentals of construction equipment,

Synthesis of arts in architecture,

gigantism.

Major monuments and leading artists :

Mesopotamia.

Bulls - I’m walking from the palace of Sargon II to Dur Shurrukin.

Harp with a bull's head from the royal tomb of Ur.

Gate of the goddess Ishtar. Babylon.

Ancient y Egypt:

Pyramids at Giza

Temples of Amon Ra in Karnak and Luxor

Abu Simbel Temple

Thutmose. Sculpture. Head of Queen Nefertiti

Sculpture of the royal scribe Kaya

Fayum portrait of a young man wearing a golden crown

Antiquity (the art of Ancient Greece (VII-III century BC) and Ancient Rome (III century AD)) explained the world mythologically. It was both realistic and illusory - a fantastic view of the world. In art this is expressed in:

glorification of the ideal image

harmony of internal and external appearance

humanization of art

Sculpture becomes contemporary art. Ancient artists convey the image of a perfect person with the highest skill and realism. Sculptural portraiture developed in Ancient Rome.

Antiquity developed building systems that we still use today. In Ancient Greece, an order building system developed, a combination of columns and ceilings, and in Ancient Rome, based on the discovery of cement, a round arch and a dome were used. New types of public and engineering buildings were created.

:

Knossos Palace, Fr. Crete

Lion Gate, Mycenae

Ancient Greece:

Architectural ensemble of the Parthenon (main temples: Parthenon, Erechtheion).

Pergamon Altar.

Halicarnassus Mausoleum.

Phidias (sculptor). Sculpture of the Parthenon.

Phidias. Sculpture of Olympian Zeus.

Miron (sculptor). Discus thrower.

Polykleitos (sculptor). Spearman.

Sculpture. Venus de Milo.

Sculpture. Nike of Samothrace.

Sculpture. Laocoon.

Ancient Rome:

Pantheon in Rome (temple of all gods)

Colosseum, Flavian Amphitheater (Rome)

Pont Du Gard (France)

Equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius

Trajan's Column (Rome)

Medieval art (V – XVI centuries) is subordinated to Christian ideology, filled with allegories and symbols. Characteristic is the synthesis of art subordinate to Christian liturgy. The current view was architecture.

The era is divided into two periods: Romanesque (XI - XII centuries) and Gothic (late XII - XIV centuries)

Romanesque architecture uses design features of the architecture of Ancient Rome (Roma). Romanesque cathedrals are built in the form of basilicas, they are ponderous with dark interiors, with two round towers on the façade of the building. The sculpture decorating the cathedral is planar, schematic (usually a relief), located mainly above the portals.

Gothic art - This is a qualitative leap in the development of medieval art. The cathedral, while maintaining the shape of a basilica, is now being built on the basis of a new frame system. The essence of which is that a brick frame is built using a pointed arch. The spaces between the pillars - supports (buttresses) are filled with windows - stained glass. Therefore, the interiors become as if permeated with light. The building is richly decorated with sculpture and architectural decoration. The façade is flanked by towers that are now square in plan. The façade of the cathedral, the only real wall, is richly decorated with sculpture. Now very realistic, round sculpture predominates. Above the main portal there is a round carved window called the “rose”.

Late Gothic (XV - XVI centuries) is distinguished by the architectural decoration of the facade - it resembles tongues of flame, the rose window disappears. This kind of Gothic was called flaming.

Major monuments and leading artists :

Worms Cathedral (Germany) – Romanesque architecture

Notre Dame de Paris (Paris) - Gothic

Cologne Cathedral (Germany) – late

St. Anne's Cathedral (Vilnius, Lithuania) – flaming

After the collapse of the Great Roman Empire in the 4th century AD, it was divided into the Western Empire, with its capital in Rome, and the Eastern Empire, with its capital in Byzantium. In the West, Catholicism and, accordingly, Romanesque and Gothic culture developed. And in Eastern (it became known as Byzantium) Orthodoxy spread. In Byzantium, the entire culture was also subordinated to religious ideology. Byzantium existed from the 4th to the 15th centuries. but art reached its greatest flowering during the reign of Justinian (VI century AD). In architecture, centric, domed, and later cross-domed cathedrals corresponded to Orthodoxy. Monumental painting (mosaics and frescoes) and easel painting (icon painting) are developing. Subject to religious dogma, painting was strictly canonized.

Major monuments and leading artists :

Sophia of Constantinople (Istanbul)

Church of San Appolinare (Ravenna)

Church of San Vitale (Ravenna)

Old Russian state (X - XVII centuries) adopted Orthodoxy, respectively, the cross-domed system of temple buildings and the picturesque canon. But in the process of development it developed unique national features. A national type of temple building is emerging: cross-domed, cuboid with wavy or keel-shaped walls (zakomar). The domes are raised on high drums.

In strictly canonized painting, the Slavic type of face predominates, Russian saints appear, national ornaments appear, and the entire characteristic of the images becomes more humane.

The influence of folk architecture was very strongly manifested in the transfer of artistic expressions, decor, and color into stone construction and was called “patterned” (XVI-XVII centuries). Folk technical techniques were embodied in the appearance of stone and tented temples.

Major monuments and leading artists :

Sofia Kyiv, Kyiv. (13 domes)

Demetrius Cathedral, Vladimir. (1 dome)

Church of Paraskeva Pyatnitsa, Chernigov. (1 dome)

Aristotle Fiorovanti. Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. (5 domes)

Icon of Our Lady of Vladimir.

St. Basil's Cathedral (Protection on the Moat), Moscow.

Icon of the Intercession with a portrait of B. Khmelnitsky.

Oranta. Mosaic of Sophia of Kyiv.

A. Rublev. Trinity (icon).

Renaissance (Renessanse) as the basis of the ancient heritage at a new historical stage arose in Italy, here at the end of the 13th – 16th centuries the humanistic ideals of antiquity were revived. Hence the name of the era “Renaissance”. The Renaissance claims that the world is knowable, and man is a titanic personality capable of changing the world. Artists discovered the individuality of man, so the portrait appeared; They developed the theory and practice of perspective, artistically mastered the anatomy of the human body, developed the harmony of composition, used color effects, the depiction of nudes and the female body was a visible argument in the fight against medieval asceticism.

In the sculpture, the main image is the shuttle, and not the deity. The main types of sculpture have emerged: monumental and decorative. After antiquity, the equestrian statue is being revived again.

In architecture, along with the requirement of ancient forms (the use of arcades, the Greek portico), the development of its own artistic language occurs. A new type of public buildings is being created, a city palace (parade ground) and country houses - villas..

Major monuments and leading artists :

Giotto di Bonde. Murals of the Chapel del Arena, Padua.

Botticelli. Birth of Venus.

Leonardo da Vinci. Jokona. Mona Lisa.

Leonardo da Vinci. Madonna of the Rocks.

Leonardo da Vinci. Painting “The Last Supper” (Milan).

Rafael Santi. Sistine Madonna.

Rafael Santi. Murals in the Vatican (Vatican Stanza, Rome).

Michelangelo. Sculpture. David.

Michelangelo. Ceiling paintings of the Sistine Chapel (Vatican)

Giorgione. Judith.

Giorgione. Storm.

Titian. Portrait of Pope Paul III with his nephews.

Titian. Young man with a glove.

Titian. Assunta.

Veronese. Marriage in Cana of Galilee.

Brunelleschi. Church of Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence.

Palladio. Villa near Rome.

Donattello. Equestrian statue of Gattamelata, Padua.

In the Nordic countries (Netherlands, Germany, France) the ideas of the Renaissance penetrated from the end of the 15th century. The uniqueness of national cultures, medieval traditions, combined with the ideas of the Italian Renaissance, have developed a unique style, which is commonly called Northern Renaissance.

The 17th century was a time of intensive formation of national states, national cultures, the establishment of absolute power in some countries and the emergence of bourgeois relations in others. It became impossible to express the complexity and inconsistency of the era in one artistic formula, therefore in the 17th century a variety of artistic forms arose, i.e. styles. In the 17th century, styles appeared: classicism, baroque, realism.

Major monuments and leading artists :

Durer. Portrait of a Venetian.

Durer. Four Apostles.

Durer. Graphic illustrations for "Apocalypse"

Van Eyck. Madonna of Chancellor Rollin.

Van Eyck. Ghent Altarpiece.

Limburg brothers. Miniatures of “The Magnificent Book of Hours of the Duke of Berry.”

Bruegel. Blind.

Bosch. Ship of fools.

Baroque - the most common style of the 17th century. This is art built on contrasts, asymmetry, a tendency towards grandeur, and overload with decorative motifs.

In painting and sculpture characteristic:

diagonal compositions

image of exaggerated movement

illusory image

black and white contrasts

bright color, picturesque spot (in painting)

In architecture:

bent, volute-shaped forms

asymmetry

use of color

abundance of decor

the desire to deceive the eye and go beyond the real space: mirrors, enfilades, ceiling lamps depicting the sky.

ensemble organization of space

synthesis of arts

the contrast of elaborately decorated architecture and the clear geometry of gardens and parks, or city streets.

Baroque triumphed in those countries where feudalism and the Catholic Church dominated. These are the following countries: Italy, Spain, Flanders, later Germany and in the 18th century - Russia. (in architecture)

Major monuments and leading artists :

Caravaggio. Lutenist.

Rubens. Perseus and Andromeda.

Rubens. Self-portrait with Isabella Brant.

Bernini. Sculpture "Ecstasy of Saint Teresa"

Bernini. Sculpture "Apollo and Daphne"

Jules Hardouin Mansart. Palace of Versailles (France).

Bernini. St. Peter's Square in Rome.

Classicism (Lat. exemplary). French absolutism of the 17th century. regulated life, enclosing it within the strict framework of statehood. The hero of classicism is not free in his actions, but is subject to strict norms, social duty, humility of feelings with reason, adherence to abstract norms of virtue - this is the aesthetic ideal of classicism.

The classicism of the 17th century was a model for itself. chose Greek antiquity. IN architecture The Greek order is used. The sculpture contains ideal mythological images. In painting:

stern majesty

sublime beauty of images

horizontal or side-by-side composition

careful selection of details and colors

standard images, theatricality of gestures and feelings

Major monuments and leading artists :

Poussin. Arcadian shepherds.

Poussin. Seasons.

Lorren. The Rape of Europa.

Dutch culture. In the 17th century In the countries where capitalism was emerging, there was a struggle for national independence. The victory of the burghers determined the character of Dutch culture, the birth of realism, and the emergence of independent genres of easel painting (portrait, everyday genre, still life).

Major monuments and leading artists :

Holland XVII :

Rembrandt. Self-portrait with Saskia on her lap

Rembrandt. Return of the Prodigal Son.

Vermar of Delft. A girl reading a letter.

Vermar of Delft. Geographer.

Terborch. A glass of lemonade.

Hals. Gypsy.

Spain XVII :

Velazquez. Spinners.

Velazquez. Portrait of Pope Innok X

Velazquez. Surrender of Breda

Velazquez. Portrait of Inflanta Margherita

El Greco. Funeral of Count Orgaz

Rococo. With the beginning of the 18th century, a crisis of French absolutism emerged. Strict etiquette is replaced by an atmosphere of frivolity and pleasure. An art emerges that can satisfy the most elaborate and refined tastes - this is Rococo. This is a completely secular art, the main theme is love and erotic scenes, favorite heroines are nymphs, bacchantes, mythological and biblical themes of love.

This art of miniature forms found its main expression in painting and applied art. Light colors, fractional and openwork forms, complex patterns, asymmetry, creating a feeling of unease.

Major monuments and leading artists :

Watteau. Society in the park.

Boucher. Diana's bathing.

Boucher. Portrait of Madame Pampadour.

Fragonard. Swing.

Fragonard. A kiss on the sly.

Education. Since the 40s, a new social stratum of the emerging bourgeoisie, the so-called “third estate,” has appeared in France. This is what determined the development of the new philosophical and artistic movement, the Enlightenment. It originated in the depths of philosophy, and its meaning was that all people from birth have equal opportunities and only education and enlightenment (i.e. training) can distinguish them from the general mass of equal members of society.

The main genre is the everyday picture, depicting the modest life of the third estate; integrity and hard work are glorified.

Major monuments and leading artists :

Chardin. Cook.

Dreams. Spoiled child.

Houdon. Sculpture. Voltaire in a chair.

In England, the Enlightenment originated in literature at the end of the 17th century. Therefore, everyday painting becomes narrative, i.e. artists and graphic artists create whole series of paintings that consistently tell about the fate of the heroes and are of a moral and edifying nature. The English Enlightenment was characterized by the development of portraiture.

Major monuments and leading artists :

Hagarth. Fashionable marriage.

Gainsborough. Portrait of the Duchess de Beaufort.

Russian Enlightenment developed in the 18th – early 19th centuries and is associated with ideological and philosophical movements. Russian Enlightenmentists: philosophers - F. Prokopovich, A. Kantemir, M. Lomonosov and writers - Tatishchev, Fonvizin, Radishchev believed in the limitless mind of man, in the possibility of harmonizing society through the development of the creative principles of each individual, through education. At this time, home education is rapidly developing in Russia, new educational institutions are opening, and newspaper, magazine and book publishing is developing.

All this served educational purposes, the upbringing of the individual - the “son of the Fatherland”; and therefore the development of the portrait.

But the Russian Enlightenment also had an anti-serfdom orientation, because They quite rightly believed that peasants (serfs) were also endowed with a wealth of mental and emotional abilities.

Major monuments and leading artists :

Argunov. Portrait of P. Zhemchugova.

Nikitin. Portrait of a floor hetman.

Livitsky. Portraits of Smolyanok.

Borovikovsky. Portrait of Lopukhina.

Rokotov. Portrait of Struyskaya.

Shubin. Portrait of Golitsyn.

Falcone. Monument to Peter I in St. Petersburg (“Bronze Horseman”)

But creating ideal images of peasants, the art of the Enlighteners of the late 18th - early 19th centuries. merged with sentimentalism .

Major monuments and leading artists :

Tropinin. Portrait of A. Pushkin.

Tropinin. Goldsmith.

Venetsianov. Spring.

Venetsianov. On the arable land.

Baroque in Russian and Ukrainian architecture. With the advent of absolutist monarchies, including in the Vatican - the center of the capitalist church, the pomp, splendor, and theatricality of court art intensified, which contributed to the development of baroque in the architecture of Italy and France in the 18th century, in Russia (18th century), Ukraine (“Cossack baroque ") second half of the 17th - 18th centuries.

Features of Baroque architecture:

synthesis of arts in architecture

ensemble (a palace in a park with a large number of pavilions)

increase in decorativeness, stucco decorations, sculpture

the use of order elements: bent pediments, bunches of pilasters or semi-columns, niches that completely cover the wall and enhance the light and shadow contrast

color use: turquoise wall, white architectural details, gold molding

interiors: lush decorative theatricality, enfilades, painting with illusory effects, use of mirrors

Ukrainian or “Cossack Baroque”- This is a completely independent stage in the development of European Baroque. There is no palace pomp in it. Bent pediments, “creases” in the roofs and domes of churches are used. Wall decor is a flat carving, white on a white or light blue wall background. Instead of palaces, houses of the Cossack elite, offices, and collegiums are built. And the religious architecture continues the traditions of folk wooden architecture (three-domed cathedrals).

Major monuments and leading artists :

Rastrelli. Winter Palace (St. Petersburg)

Rastrelli. St. Andrew's Church (Kyiv)

Grigorovich Barsky. St. Nicholas Church on the Embankment (Kyiv)

Kovnir. Bell tower at the Far Caves (Kievo-Pechersk Lavra)

Kovnir. Intercession Cathedral in Kharkov.

In the last third of the 18th century, a bourgeois revolution took place in France. Its tasks and requirements for citizens of society coincided with the heroic-civic ideals of Roman antiquity. In Ancient Roman society, the individual, her freedom and even life are sacrificed to society. The story was interpreted as the act of an outstanding personality. It is the hero, the outstanding personality, who is the bearer of the moral values ​​of society. This became the model for artists of the late 18th century. and developed into the last great pan-European style.

Classicism (in the works of J. David it is customary to say “revolutionary classicism”).

Painting is characterized by the artistic techniques of 17th century classicism. But the historical picture reflects civic and journalistic themes, and the portraits, in accordance with the ideals of the revolution, reflected the personality, the image of a contemporary of great changes.

From the beginning of the 19th century. classicism in painting loses its citizenship, only the external side remains: the strict logic of the composition of details, colors, statuesque figures. Thus, classicism in painting turns into academicism.

Major monuments and leading artists :

David. Death of Marat

David. Oath of the Horatii

Engr. Odalisque

Classicism in architecture. In France at the end of the 18th century, and in Russia from the beginning of the 19th century, the classicism style dominates in architecture. The style was formed under the influence of the ideas of patriotism and citizenship based on the use of ancient samples. Compositional techniques:

symmetry; usually the main building with a portico in the center and two wings

the sculpture is concentrated at the main entrance - the portico. A sculptural image of a chariot drawn by four or six horses driven by the goddess of Glory is often used.

Classicism is associated with the growth of cities and the need to organize their space. In Russia, classicism appears as the idea of ​​a universal style that creates uniform construction techniques; the use of local materials, plaster, creates new types of buildings: gymnasiums, universities, trading houses, triumphal arches, the type of noble estate.

The architectural style of late classicism is called empire style- completing the development of style. Along with the use of ancient forms (both Greek and Roman), stylized Egyptian motifs appear, especially in interiors.

Major monuments and leading artists :

Russia. General Staff Building (St. Petersburg)

Voronikhin. Kazan Cathedral (St. Petersburg)

Bozhenov. Pashkov house. Moscow.

Baretti. University building. Kyiv.

Soufflot. Pantheon (Paris)

Romanticism. The Great French Bourgeois Revolution ended with the restoration of the monarchy. The style of romanticism (early 19th century) was the result of people's disappointment in the possibility of a reasonable transformation of society based on the principles of freedom, equality, and fraternity. The desire to rise above the prose of life, to escape from the oppressive everyday life, which is why artists are so interested in exotic subjects, the dark fantasy of the Middle Ages, and the theme of the struggle for freedom. Artists are interested in the ancient world of man, his individual exclusivity. The romantic hero is always portrayed in emergency situations; usually he is a proud, lonely hero, experiencing vivid and strong passions. This is expressed in the expressive and sensual power of color, where color begins to dominate the design.

Painting is characterized by:

nervous excitement, composition expression

strong contrasts of color spots

exotic themes, gothic symbolism

software works, i.e. based on historical and literary subjects

Major monuments and leading artists :

Gericault. Raft "Medusa".

Delacroix. Freedom at the Barricades.

Ryud. Sculptural relief "La Marseillaise" on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

Goya. Mahi.

Goya. Portrait of the king's family.

The history of mankind, first of all, is divided into two main periods: (I) the era of the formation of man and society, the time of proto-society and prehistory (1.6-0.04 million years ago) and (II) the era of development of a formed, ready-made human society (from 40-35 thousand years ago to the present). Within the last era, two main eras are clearly distinguished: (1) pre-class (primitive, primitive, egalitarian, etc.) society and (2) class (civilized) society (from 5 thousand years ago to the present day). In turn, in the history of mankind, since the emergence of the first civilizations, the era of the Ancient East (III-F millennium BC), the Ancient era (8th century BC - V century AD), and the Middle Ages ( VI-XV centuries), New (XVI century -1917) and Newest (since 1917) eras.

The period of slavery and prehistory (1.6-0.04 million years). Man emerged from the animal world. As is now firmly established, between the animal predecessors of man, on the one hand, and people as they are now (Homo sapiens), on the other, lies an unusually long period of formation of man and society (anthroposociogenesis). The people who lived at that time were people still in their formation (proto-people). Their society was still just forming. It can only be characterized as a proto-society.

Some scientists consider the habilis, who replaced the australopithecines, approximately 2.5 million years ago, to be the first people (protohumans), while others consider the archanthropes (pithecanthropus, synanthropus, atlantropes, etc.) to be the first people, who replaced the habilis, approximately 1 .6 million ago. The second point of view is closer to the truth, because only with the archanthropes did language, thinking and social relations begin to form. As for the Habilis, they, like the Australopithecines, were not proto-humans, but pre-humans, but not early, but late.

The formation of man and human society was based on the process of emergence and development of production activity and material production. The emergence and development of production necessarily required not only a change in the organism of producing creatures, but also the emergence between them of completely new relations, qualitatively different from those that existed among animals, relations that were not biological, but social, that is, the emergence of human society. There are no social relations and society in the animal world. They are unique to humans. The emergence of qualitatively new relationships, and thus completely new, uniquely human stimuli of behavior, was absolutely impossible without limitation and suppression, without introducing into the social framework the old, undivided driving forces of behavior in the animal world - biological instincts. The urgent objective necessity was to curb and introduce into the social framework two egoistic animal instincts - food and sex.

The curbing of the food instinct began with the emergence of the earliest proto-humans - the archanthropes and ended in the next phase of anthroposociogenesis, when they were replaced 0.3-0.2 million years ago by the proto-people of a more advanced species - the paleoanthropes, more precisely, with the appearance of 75-70 thousand. years ago of late paleoanthropes. It was then that the formation of the first form of socio-economic relations - collapsible-communalist relations - was completed. With the curbing and placing under social control of the sexual instinct, which was expressed in the emergence of the clan and the first form of marriage relations - the dual-clan organization, which happened 35-40 thousand years ago, the emerging people and the emerging society were replaced by ready-made people and a ready-made society, the first form of which was primitive society.

The era of primitive (pre-class) society (40-6 thousand years ago). In the development of pre-class society, the stages of early primitive (primitive-communist) and late primitive (primitive-prestige) societies were successively replaced. Then came the era of society in transition from primitive to class, or pre-class.

At the stage of pre-class society, there were emerging peasant-communal (proto-peasant-communal), emerging politaristic (protopolitary), nobilary, dominant and magnar modes of production, with the last two often forming one single hybrid mode of production, dominomagnar. (See Lecture VI "Main and Minor Modes of Production.") They, individually or in various combinations, determined the socio-economic type of pre-class sociohistorical organisms.

There were societies in which the proto-peasant-communal way of life dominated - the proto-peasant ones (1). In a significant number of pre-class societies, the proto-political way of life was dominant. These are protopolitarian societies (2). Societies with dominance of nobilary relations have been observed - proton-bilary societies (3). There were sociohistorical organisms in which the dominant mode of production dominated - protodominomagnar societies (4). In some societies, nobilary and dominomagnar forms of exploitation coexisted and played approximately the same role. These are protonobil-magnar societies (5). Another type is a society in which dominomagnetic relations were combined with the exploitation of its ordinary members by a special military corporation, which in Rus' was called a squad. The scientific term for designating such a corporation could be the word “militia” (Latin militia - army), and its leader - the word “militarch”. Accordingly, such sociohistorical organisms can be called protomilito-magnar societies (6).

None of these six main types of pre-class society can be characterized as a socio-economic formation, because it was not a stage of world-historical development. Such a stage was pre-class society, but it also cannot be called a socio-economic formation, because it did not represent a single socio-economic type.

The concept of paraformation is hardly applicable to different socio-economic types of pre-class society. They did not complement any socio-economic formation that existed as a stage of world history, but all taken together replaced the socio-economic formation. Therefore, it would be best to call them socio-economic proformations (from the Greek pro - instead).

Of all the named types of pre-class society, only the protopolitan proformation was capable of transforming into a class society without the influence of societies of a higher type, and, of course, in an ancient political way. The remaining proformations constituted a kind of historical reserve.

The era of the Ancient East (III-II millennium BC). The first class society in human history was political. It first appeared at the end of the 4th millennium BC. in the form of two historical nests: a large politarian sociohistorical organism in the Nile Valley (Egypt) and a system of small politary sociohistorical organisms in southern Mesopotamia (Sumer). Thus, human society split into two historical worlds: pre-class, which turned into inferior, and political, which became superior. Further development followed the path, on the one hand, of the emergence of new isolated historical nests (the Harappa civilization in the Indus basin and the Shan (Yin) civilization in the Yellow River Valley), on the other hand, the emergence of more and more new historical nests in the neighborhood of Mesopotamia and Egypt and the formation of a huge system of political sociohistorical organisms that covered the entire Middle East. This kind of set of sociohistorical organisms can be called a historical arena. The Middle Eastern historical arena was the only one at that time. It was the center of world historical development and, in this sense, the world system. The world was divided into a political center and a periphery, which was partly primitive (including pre-class), partly class-based, political.

Ancient Eastern societies were characterized by a cyclical nature of development. They arose, flourished, and then fell into decline. In a number of cases, the death of civilization occurred and a return to the stage of pre-class society (Indus and Mycenaean civilizations). This, first of all, was due to the inherent way of a political society to increase the level of development of the productive forces - the increase in the productivity of social production due to an increase in working hours. But this temporal (from the Latin tempus - time), method of increasing the productivity of social production, in contrast to the technical method, is a dead end. Sooner or later, a further increase in working hours became impossible. It led to physical degradation and even death of the main productive force - workers, which resulted in the decline and even death of society.

Ancient era (8th century BC - 5th century AD). Due to the dead end of the temporal method of development of productive forces, political society was unable to transform into a society of a higher type. A new, more progressive socio-economic formation - ancient, slaveholding, ser-varny - arose as a result of a process that was above called ultrasuperiorization. The emergence of ancient society was a consequence of the comprehensive influence of the Middle Eastern world system on the previously pre-class Greek sociohistorical organisms. This influence has long been noticed by historians, who called this process Orientalization. As a result, the pre-class Greek sociors, who belonged to a proformation different from the protopolitan one, namely the protonobil-magnar one, first (in the 8th century BC) became dominomagnary societies (Archaic Greece), and then turned into actually ancient, server ones. Thus, along with the two previous historical worlds (primitive and political), a new one arose - ancient, which became superior.

Following the Greek historical nest, new historical nests arose in which the formation of the servar (ancient) method of production took place: Etruscan, Carthaginian, Latin. The ancient sociohistorical organisms taken together formed a new historical arena - the Mediterranean, to which the role of the center of world historical development passed. With the emergence of a new world system, humanity as a whole rose to a new stage of historical development. There was a change of world eras: the era of the Ancient East was replaced by the Antique.

In subsequent development, in the 4th century. BC. The Middle Eastern and Mediterranean historical arenas taken together formed a sociological supersystem - the central historical space (central space), and as a result, became its two historical zones. The Mediterranean zone was the historical center, the Middle East - the inner periphery.

Outside the central historical space there was an external periphery, which was divided into primitive (including pre-class) and political. But unlike the era of the Ancient East, the political periphery existed in ancient times in the form not of isolated historical nests, but of a significant number of historical arenas, between which various kinds of connections arose. In the Old World, the East Asian, Indonesian, Indian, Central Asian arenas and, finally, the Great Steppe were formed, in the vastness of which nomadic empires arose and disappeared. In the New World in the 1st millennium BC. Andean and Mesoamerican historical arenas were formed.

The transition to ancient society was marked by significant progress in the productive forces. But almost the entire increase in the productivity of social production was achieved not so much by improving technology as by increasing the share of workers in the population of society. This is a demographic way of increasing the level of productive forces. In the pre-industrial era, an increase in the number of producers of material goods within a sociohistorical organism without an increase in the same proportion of its entire population could occur only in one way - through the influx of ready-made workers from outside, who did not have the right to have families and acquire offspring.

The constant influx of workers from outside into the composition of one or another sociohistorical organism necessarily presupposed an equally systematic removal of them from the composition of other sociological bodies. All this was impossible without the use of direct violence. Workers brought in from outside could only be slaves. The considered method of increasing the productivity of social production was the establishment of exogenous (from the Greek exo - outside, outside) slavery. Only a constant influx of slaves from outside could make possible the emergence of an independent mode of production based on the labor of such dependent workers. For the first time, this method of production was established only during the heyday of ancient society, and therefore it is usually called ancient. In Chapter VI “Basic and non-basic methods of production” it was called servar.

Thus, a necessary condition for the existence of ancient society was the continuous pumping of human resources from other sociohistorical organisms. And these other sociors had to belong to types different from this one, and preferably to a pre-class society. The existence of a system of societies of the ancient type was impossible without the existence of a vast periphery, consisting primarily of barbarian sociohistorical organisms.

Continuous expansion, which was a necessary condition for the existence of server societies, could not continue indefinitely. Sooner or later it became impossible. The demographic method of increasing the productivity of social production, as well as the temporal one, was a dead end. Ancient society, just like political society, was unable to transform into a society of a higher type. But if the political historical world continued to exist almost to the present day and after leaving the historical highway as an inferior one, then the ancient historical world disappeared forever. But, dying, ancient society passed the baton to other societies. The transition of humanity to a higher stage of social development again occurred through what was called above formational super-elevation, or ultra-superiorization.

The era of the Middle Ages (VI-XV centuries). The Western Roman Empire, undermined by internal contradictions, collapsed under the onslaught of the Germans. There was a superposition of Germanic pre-class demo-social organisms, which belonged to a proformation different from the protopolitan one, namely protomilitomagnar, on the fragments of the Western Roman geosocial organism. As a result, on the same territory, some people lived as part of demosocial pre-class organisms, while others lived as part of a half-destroyed class geosocial organism. Such coexistence of two qualitatively different socio-economic and other social structures could not last too long. There had to be either the destruction of demosocial structures and the victory of geosocial ones, or the disintegration of geosocial ones and the triumph of demosocial ones, or, finally, a synthesis of both. On the territory of the lost Western Roman Empire, what historians call the Romano-Germanic synthesis took place. As a result, a new, more progressive mode of production was born - feudal and, accordingly, a new socio-economic formation.

A Western European feudal system emerged, which became the center of world-historical development. The ancient era was replaced by a new one - the era of the Middle Ages. The Western European world system existed as one of the zones of the preserved, but at the same time rebuilt, central historical space. This space included the Byzantine and Middle Eastern zones as an internal periphery. The latter as a result of the Arab conquests of the 7th-8th centuries. expanded significantly to include part of the Byzantine zone and became an Islamic zone. Then the expansion of the central historical space began due to the territory of Northern, Central and Eastern Europe, filled with pre-class sociohistorical organisms, which also belonged to the same proformation as the German pre-class societies - protomilitomagnar.

These societies, some under the influence of Byzantium, others - Western Europe, began to transform and turned into class sociohistorical organisms. But if ultrasuperiorization occurred on the territory of Western Europe and a new formation appeared - feudal, then a process took place here that was called literalization above. As a result, two similar socio-economic paraformations arose, which, without going into details, can be conditionally characterized as parafeudal (from the Greek para - near, about): one included the sociors of Northern Europe, the other - Central and Eastern. Two new peripheral zones of the central historical space emerged: Northern European and Central-Eastern European, which included Rus'. In the outer periphery, primitive societies and the same political historical arenas continued to exist as in the ancient era.

As a result of the Mongol conquest (XIII century), North-Western Rus' and North-Eastern Rus', taken together, found themselves torn out of the central historical space. The Central-Eastern European zone narrowed to Central European. After getting rid of the Tatar-Mongol yoke (XV century), Northern Rus', which later received the name Russia, returned to the central historical space, but as a special peripheral zone - Russian, which later turned into Eurasian.

Modern times (1600-1917). On the verge of the XV and XVI centuries. capitalism began to take shape in Western Europe. The Western European feudal world system was replaced by the Western European capitalist system, which became the center of world-historical development. The Middle Ages were followed by modern times. Capitalism developed in this era both inward and outward.

The first was expressed in the maturation and establishment of the capitalist structure, in the victory of the bourgeois socio-political revolutions (Dutch 16th century, English 17th century, Great French 18th century). Already with the emergence of cities (X-XII centuries), Western European society embarked on the only path that was capable of ensuring, in principle, unlimited development of productive forces - growth in labor productivity through improving production technology. The technical method of ensuring the growth of productivity of social production finally prevailed after the industrial revolution, which began in the last third of the 18th century.

Capitalism arose as a result of the natural development of the society that preceded it in only one place on the globe - in Western Europe. As a result, humanity was divided into two main historical worlds: the capitalist world and the non-capitalist world, which included primitive (including pre-class), political and parafeudal societies.

Along with the development of capitalism in depth, it developed in breadth. The capitalist world system gradually pulled all peoples and countries into its orbit of influence. The central historical space has turned into a global historical space (world space). Along with the formation of the world historical space, capitalism spread throughout the world and the formation of a global capitalist market. The whole world began to turn into capitalist. For all socio-historical organisms that have lagged behind in their development, no matter at what stage of evolution they lingered: primitive, politaristic or parafeudal, only one path of development became possible - to capitalism.

These sociologists not only had the opportunity to bypass, as we liked to say, all the stages that lay between those in which they were located and the capitalist one. For them, and this is the whole point of the matter, it became impossible not to go through all these steps. Thus, when humanity, represented by a group of advanced sociohistorical organisms, achieved capitalism, then all other main stages became completed not only for these, but, in principle, for all other societies, not excluding primitive ones.

It has long been fashionable to criticize Eurocentrism. There is a certain amount of truth in this criticism. But in general, the Eurocentric approach to the world history of the last three thousand years of human existence is completely justified. If in the III-II millennia BC. the center of world historical development was in the Middle East, where the first world system in the history of mankind was formed - a political one, then, starting from the 8th century. BC, the main line of human development goes through Europe. It was there that the center of world historical development was located and moved all this time, where the other three world systems successively changed - ancient, feudal and capitalist.

The fact that the change from the ancient system to feudal, and feudal to capitalist, took place only in Europe, formed the basis for viewing this line of development as one of many regional ones, as purely Western, purely European. In reality, this is the main line of human development.

The global significance of the bourgeois system formed in Western Europe is undeniable, which by the beginning of the 20th century. drew the whole world into its sphere of influence. The situation is more complicated with the Middle Eastern political, Mediterranean ancient and Western European feudal systems. None of them covered the whole world with its influence. And the degree of their influence on sociohistorical organisms that lagged behind in their development was much less. However, without the Middle Eastern political system of sociohistorical organisms there would not have been an ancient one, without the ancient one there would not have been a feudal one, without a feudal one the capitalist one would not have arisen. Only the consistent development and change of these systems could prepare the emergence of bourgeois society in Western Europe and thereby make not only possible, but also inevitable the movement of all lagging sociohistorical organisms towards capitalism. Thus, ultimately, the existence and development of these three systems affected the fate of all humanity.

Thus, the history of mankind in no case can be considered as a simple sum of the histories of sociohistorical organisms, and socio-economic formations - as identical stages of the evolution of sociohistorical organisms, obligatory for each of them. The history of mankind is a single whole, and socio-economic formations, first of all, are stages of development of this single whole, and not of individual sociohistorical organisms. Formations may or may not be stages in the development of individual sociohistorical organisms. But the latter does not in the least prevent them from being stages of human evolution.
Beginning with the transition to class society, socio-economic formations as stages of world development existed as world systems of sociohistorical organisms of one type or another, systems that were centers of world-historical development. Accordingly, the change in socio-economic formations as stages of world development occurred in the form of a change in world systems, which may or may not have been accompanied by a territorial movement of the center of world historical development. The change in world systems entailed a change in eras of world history.

As a result of the impact of the Western European world capitalist system on all other societies, the world as a whole by the beginning of the 20th century. has turned into a supersystem consisting of capitalist, emerging capitalist, and sociohistorical organisms that have just embarked on the path of capitalist development, which (the supersystem) can be called the international capitalist system. The general trend of evolution was the transformation of all sociohistorical into capitalist.

But it would be erroneous to believe that this development led to the cessation of the division of human society as a whole into a historical center and a historical periphery. The center has been preserved, although somewhat expanded. It included, as a result of the “transplantation” of capitalism, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, as a result of the formational elevation (superiorization) of the countries of Northern Europe and Japan. As a result, the world capitalist system has ceased to be only Western European. Therefore, they now prefer to call it simply Western.

All other sociohistorical organisms formed the historical periphery. This new periphery was significantly different from the periphery of all previous eras of the development of class society. Firstly, it was all internal, because it was part of the world historical space. Secondly, she was entirely dependent on the center. Some peripheral sociors became colonies of the central powers, while others found themselves in other forms of dependence on the center.

As a result of the influence of the Western world center, bourgeois relations began to penetrate into countries beyond its borders; due to the dependence of these countries on the center, capitalism in them acquired a special form, different from the capitalism that existed in the countries of the center. This capitalism was dependent, peripheral, incapable of progressive development, and a dead end. The division of capitalism into two qualitatively different forms was discovered by R. Prebisch, T. Dos Santos and other supporters of theories of dependent development. R. Prebisch created the first concept of peripheral capitalism.
There is every reason to believe that the capitalism of the center and the capitalism of the periphery represent two related, but nevertheless different modes of production, the first of which can be called orthocapitalism (from the Greek orthos - direct, genuine), and the second paracapitalism (from the Greek para - near, about). Accordingly, the countries of the center and the countries of the periphery belong to two different socio-economic types of society: the first to the ortho-capitalist socio-economic formation, the second to the para-capitalist socio-economic para-formation. Thus, they belong to two different historical worlds. Thus, the impact of the system of superior capitalist organisms on inferior ones, with rare exceptions, resulted not in superiorization, but in lateralization.

The essence of the relationship between the two components of the international capitalist system: the ortho-capitalist center and the para-capitalist periphery lies in the exploitation by the states that are part of the center of the countries that form the periphery. The creators of theories of imperialism drew attention to this: J. Hobson (1858-1940), R. Hilferding (1877-1941), N.I. Bukharin (1888-1938), V.I. Lenin (1870-1924), R. Luxemburg (1871-1919). Subsequently, all the main forms of exploitation of the periphery by the center were examined in detail in the concepts of dependent development.

By the beginning of the 20th century. Russia finally became part of the countries dependent on the center, and thereby also exploited by it. Since by the beginning of the 20th century. Since capitalism in Western Europe has finally established itself, the era of bourgeois revolutions has become a thing of the past for most of its countries. But for the rest of the world and, in particular, for Russia, an era of revolutions has begun, but different from those in the West. These were revolutions that had as their objective goal the destruction of dependence on the ortho-capitalist center, directed simultaneously against both para-capitalism and ortho-capitalism, and in this sense, anti-capitalist. Their first wave occurred in the first two decades of the 20th century: the revolutions of 1905-1907. in Russia, 1905-1911. in Iran, 1908-1909 in Turkey, 1911-1912 in China, 1911-1917 in Mexico, 1917 in Russia.

Modern times (1917-1991). In October 1917, the anti-capitalist workers' and peasants' revolution won in Russia. As a result, this country's dependence on the West was destroyed and it broke out of the periphery. Peripheral capitalism was eliminated in the country, and thereby capitalism in general. But contrary to the aspirations and hopes of both the leaders and participants in the revolution, socialism did not arise in Russia: the level of development of the productive forces was too low. A class society has formed in the country in a number of ways, similar to the ancient political one, but different from it in its technical basis. The old political society was agrarian, the new one was industrial. Ancient politarism was a socio-economic formation, the new one was a socio-economic paraformation.

At first, industrial politarism, or neopolitarism, ensured the rapid development of productive forces in Russia, which had thrown off its shackles of dependence on the West. The latter transformed from a backward agrarian state into one of the most powerful industrial countries in the world, which subsequently ensured the USSR's position as one of the two superpowers.

As a result of the second wave of anti-capitalist revolutions that took place in peripheral countries in the 40s of the 20th century, neopolitarism spread beyond the borders of the USSR. The periphery of the international capitalist system has sharply narrowed. A huge system of neopolitan sociohistorical organisms took shape, which acquired global status. But the global and Western capitalist system has not ceased to exist. As a result, two world systems began to exist on the globe: neopolitarian and ortho-capitalist. The second was the center for the para-capitalist, peripheral countries, which together with it formed the international capitalist system. This structure found expression in what became in the 40-50s. V. the so familiar division of humanity into three worlds: the first (ortho-capitalist), the second ("socialist", neopolitarian) and the third (peripheral, para-capitalist).

Modernity (since 1991). As a result of the counter-revolution of the late 80s - early 90s. Russia, and with it most of the neopolitan countries, has embarked on the path of restoration of capitalism. The neopolitarian world system has disappeared. Thus, the coexistence of two world centers, characteristic of the previous era, disappeared. There was again only one center on the globe - the ortho-capitalist one, and now it was not split, as it was before 1917 and even before 1945, into warring camps. Ortho-capitalist countries are now united under the leadership of one hegemon - the United States, which sharply increases the importance of the center and the possibility of its influence on the whole world. All neopolitarian countries that embarked on the path of capitalist development again found themselves dependent on the ortho-capitalist center and again became part of its periphery. As a result, capitalism, which began to take shape in them, inevitably acquired a peripheral character. As a result, they found themselves in a historical impasse. A relatively small part of neopolitan countries chose a different path of development and retained independence from the center. Along with the dependent periphery, there is an independent periphery in the world (China, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, Belarus). It also includes Iran and Iraq.

In addition to the unification of the center around the United States, which meant the emergence of ultra-imperialism, other changes took place. Nowadays, a process called globalization has unfolded in the world. It means the emergence on Earth of a global class society, in which the position of the dominant exploiting class is occupied by the countries of the ortho-capitalist center, and the position of the exploited class is occupied by the countries of the periphery. The formation of a global class society inevitably presupposes the creation by a global ruling class of a global apparatus of coercion and violence. The famous “G7” emerged as a world government, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank as instruments of economic enslavement, and NATO became a special detachment of armed men with the goal of keeping the periphery in obedience and suppressing any resistance to the center. One of the main tasks facing the center is to eliminate the independent periphery. The first blow, which was struck against Iraq, did not lead to achieving the set goal, the second, struck against Yugoslavia, did not immediately, but was crowned with success.

Neither Russia nor other dependent peripheral countries will ever be able to achieve genuine progress, will not be able to end the poverty in which the vast majority of their population now finds themselves, without liberation from dependence, without the destruction of para-capitalism, which is impossible without a struggle against the center, against ortho-capitalism. In a global class society, a global class struggle has inevitably begun and will intensify, on the outcome of which the future of humanity depends.

This struggle takes on a variety of forms and is not waged under the same ideological banners. All fighters against the center are united by the rejection of globalism and, accordingly, capitalism. Anti-globalist movements are also anti-capitalist. But anti-globalism manifests itself in different forms. One of the currents, which is usually called simply anti-globalist, goes under secular banners. Anti-globalists protest against the exploitation of periphery countries by the center and, in one form or another, raise the question of the transition from capitalism to a higher stage of social development, which would preserve and assimilate all the achievements that were achieved under the bourgeois form of social organization. Their ideal lies in the future.

Other movements understand the struggle against globalization and capitalism as a struggle against Western civilization, as a struggle to preserve the traditional forms of life of the peoples of the periphery. The most powerful of them is the movement under the banner of Islamic fundamentalism. For its supporters, the struggle against globalization, against dependence on the West becomes a struggle against all its achievements, including economic, political and cultural: democracy, freedom of conscience, equality of men and women, universal literacy, etc. Their ideal is a return to the Middle Ages, if not to barbarism.

3. AGES AND PERIODS IN HUMAN HISTORY

The history of mankind goes back many hundreds of thousands of years. If in the middle of the 20th century. It was believed that man began to emerge from the animal world 600 thousand - 1 million years ago, then modern anthropology, the science of the origin and evolution of man, came to the conclusion that man appeared about 2 million years ago. This is the generally accepted view, although there are others. According to one hypothesis, human ancestors appeared in Southeast Africa 6 million years ago. These two-legged creatures did not know tools for more than 3 million years. They acquired their first tools 2.5 million years ago. About 1 million years ago, these people began to settle throughout Africa, and then beyond its borders.

The two-million-year history of mankind is usually divided into two extremely uneven eras - primitive and civilizational (Fig. 2).

civilization era

Primitive era

about 2 million

years BC e.

BC e. milestone

Rice. 2. Epochs in human history

era primitive society accounts for more than 99% of human history. The primitive era is usually divided into six unequal periods: Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age.

Paleolithic, the ancient Stone Age, is divided into the Early (Lower) Paleolithic (2 million years BC - 35 thousand years BC) and the Late (Upper) Paleolithic (35 thousand years BC - 10 thousand years BC). During the Early Paleolithic period, man entered the territory of Eastern Europe and the Urals. The struggle for existence during the Ice Age taught man how to make fire and make stone knives; the proto-language and the first religious ideas arose. During the Late Paleolithic period, Homo habilis turned into Homo sapiens; races were formed - Caucasian, Negroid, Mongoloid. The primitive herd was replaced by a higher form of social organization - the clan community. Before the spread of metal, matriarchy reigned.

Mesolithic, the Middle Stone Age, lasted about 5 thousand years (X thousand years BC - V thousand years BC). At this time, people began to use a stone ax, bow and arrows, and the domestication of animals (dogs, pigs) began. This is the time of mass settlement of Eastern Europe and the Urals.

Neolithic, the new Stone Age (VI thousand years BC - IV thousand years BC), is characterized by significant changes in technology and forms of production. Ground and drilled stone axes, pottery, spinning and weaving appeared. Various types of economic activity have developed - agriculture and cattle breeding. The transition from gathering, from an appropriating economy to a producing one, began. Scientists call this time Neolithic revolution.

During Chalcolithic, Copper-Stone Age (IV thousand years BC – III thousand years BC), Bronze Age(3rd millennium BC – 1st millennium BC), iron age(II thousand years BC - end of the 1st thousand years BC) in the most favorable climatic zone of the Earth, the transition from primitiveness to ancient civilizations began.

The appearance of metal tools and weapons in different regions of the Earth did not occur simultaneously, therefore the chronological framework of the last three periods of the primitive era varies depending on the specific region. In the Urals, the chronological framework of the Chalcolithic is determined by the 3rd millennium BC. BC - beginning of the 2nd millennium BC e., Bronze Age - beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. – mid-1st millennium BC e., Iron Age - from the middle of the 1st millennium BC. e.

During the spread of metal, large cultural communities began to emerge. Scientists believe that these communities corresponded to the language families from which the peoples who currently inhabit our country emerged. The largest language family is Indo-European, from which 3 groups of languages ​​have emerged: Eastern (current Iranians, Indians, Armenians, Tajiks), European (Germans, French, English, Italians, Greeks), Slavic (Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Poles, Czechs , Slovaks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats). Another large language family is Finno-Ugric (current Finns, Estonians, Karelians, Khanty, Mordovians).

During the Bronze Age, the ancestors of the Slavs (proto-Slavs) emerged from the Indo-European tribes; archaeologists find monuments belonging to them in the region located from the Oder River in the west to the Carpathians in eastern Europe.

Civilization era is about six thousand years old. In this era, a qualitatively different world was created, although for a long time it still had many connections with primitiveness, and the transition to civilization itself was carried out gradually, starting from the 4th millennium BC. e. While part of humanity made a breakthrough - moved from primitiveness to civilization, in other areas people continued to be at the stage of a primitive communal system.

The era of civilization is usually called world history and is divided into four periods (Figure 3 on page 19).

Ancient world began with the emergence of civilization in Mesopotamia or Mesopotamia (in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers). In the 3rd millennium BC. e. A civilization arose in the Nile River valley - the ancient Egyptian. In the 2nd millennium BC. e. Ancient Indian, ancient Chinese, Hebrew, Phoenician, ancient Greek, and Hittite civilizations arose. In the 1st millennium BC. e. The list of ancient civilizations was replenished: the civilization of Urartu was formed on the territory of Transcaucasia, the civilization of the Persians was formed on the territory of Iran, and the Roman civilization was formed on the Apennine Peninsula. The zone of civilizations covered not only the Old World, but also America, where the civilizations of the Mayans, Aztecs and Incas developed.

The main criteria for the transition from the primitive world to civilizations:

The emergence of the state, a special institution that organizes, controls and directs the joint activities and relationships of people and social groups;

the emergence of private property, the stratification of society, the emergence of slavery;

social division of labor (agriculture, crafts, trade) and the producing economy;

the emergence of cities, special types of settlements, centers

Newest

Ancient world Middle Ages Modern times

IV thousand 476 beginning

BC e. BC e. XV-XVI 1920s

Rice. 3. Main periods of world history

crafts and trade, in which the inhabitants, at least partially, were not engaged in rural labor (Ur, Babylon, Memphis, Thebes, Mohenjo-Daro, Harappa, Pataliputra, Nanyang, Sanyang, Athens, Sparta, Rome, Naples, etc.);

the creation of writing (the main stages are ideographic or hieroglyphic writing, syllabic writing, alphabetic or alphabetic writing), thanks to which people were able to consolidate laws, scientific and religious ideas and pass them on to posterity;

creation of monumental structures (pyramids, temples, amphitheatres) that have no economic purpose.

The end of the Ancient World is associated with 476 AD. e., the year of the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Back in 330, Emperor Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire to its eastern part, to the shores of the Bosphorus, to the site of the Greek colony of Byzantium. The new capital was named Constantinople (the ancient Russian name for Tsargrad). In 395, the Roman Empire split into Eastern and Western. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire, officially called the “Empire of the Romans”, and in literature - Byzantium, became the successor to the ancient world. The Byzantine Empire lasted for about a thousand years, until 1453, and had a huge influence on Ancient Rus' (see Chapter 7).

Chronological framework middle ages, 476 - the end of the 15th century, are determined, first of all, by the events and processes that took place in Western Europe. The Middle Ages were an important stage in the development of European civilization. During this period, many special features emerged and began to develop that distinguished Western Europe from other civilizations and had a tremendous impact on all of humanity.

Eastern civilizations did not stop in their development during this period. There were rich cities in the East. The East presented the world with famous inventions: the compass, gunpowder, paper, glass, etc. However, the pace of development of the East, especially after the invasion of nomads at the turn of the 1st – 2nd millennium (Bedouins, Seljuk Turks, Mongols), was slower compared to the West. But the main thing was that eastern civilizations were focused on repetition, on the constant reproduction of old forms of statehood, social relations, and ideas that had developed in ancient times. Tradition placed strong barriers holding back change; Eastern cultures resisted innovation.

The end of the Middle Ages and the onset of the third period of world history is associated with the beginning of three world historical processes - a spiritual revolution in the life of Europeans, the Great Geographical Discoveries, and manufacturing production.

The spiritual revolution included two phenomena, a kind of two revolutions in the spiritual life of Europe - the Renaissance (Renaissance) and the Reformation.

Modern science sees the origins of the spiritual revolution in the crusades organized at the end of the 11th - 13th centuries. European chivalry and the Catholic Church under the banner of the struggle against the “infidels” (Muslims), the liberation of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and the Holy Land (Palestine). The consequences of these campaigns for the then poor Europe were important. Europeans came into contact with the higher culture of the Middle East, adopted more advanced methods of cultivating the land and craft techniques, brought from the East many useful plants (rice, buckwheat, citrus fruits, cane sugar, apricots), silk, glass, paper, woodcuts ).

The centers of the spiritual revolution were medieval cities (Paris, Marseille, Venice, Genoa, Florence, Milan, Lubeck, Frankfurt am Main). Cities achieved self-government and became centers not only of crafts and trade, but also of education. In Europe, city residents achieved recognition of their rights at the national level and formed the third estate.

Renaissance originated in Italy in the second half of the 14th century, in the 15th-16th centuries. spread throughout all Western European countries. Distinctive features of Renaissance culture: secular character, humanistic worldview, appeal to the cultural heritage of antiquity, as if “reviving” it (hence the name of the phenomenon). The creativity of the Renaissance figures was imbued with faith in the limitless possibilities of man, his will and reason. Among the brilliant galaxy of poets, writers, playwrights, artists and sculptors whose names humanity is proud of are Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Francois Rabelais, Ulrich von Hutten, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Miguel Cervantes, William Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas More, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael Santi, Michelangelo, Titian, Velazquez, Rembrandt.

Reformation- a social movement in Europe in the 16th century directed against the Catholic Church. Its beginning is considered to be 1517, when the doctor of theology Martin Luther came out with 95 theses against the sale of indulgences (certificates of remission of sins). The ideologists of the Reformation put forward theses that actually denied the need for the Catholic Church with its hierarchy and the clergy in general, and denied the rights of the church to land and other wealth. Under the ideological banner of the Reformation, the Peasant War in Germany (1524-1526), ​​the Dutch and English revolutions took place.

The Reformation marked the beginning of Protestantism, the third movement in Christianity. This direction, which broke away from Catholicism, united many independent churches and sects (Lutheranism, Calvinism, the Anglican Church, Baptists, etc.). Protestantism is characterized by the absence of a fundamental opposition between the clergy and the laity, the rejection of a complex church hierarchy, a simplified cult, the absence of monasticism, and celibacy; in Protestantism there is no cult of the Virgin Mary, saints, angels, icons, the number of sacraments is reduced to two (baptism and communion). The main source of doctrine for Protestants is the Holy Scripture (that is, the Old Testament and the New Testament).

The Renaissance and Reformation placed at the center the human personality, energetic, striving to transform the world, with a clearly expressed strong-willed beginning. However, the Reformation had a more disciplinary effect; she encouraged individualism, but placed it within the strict framework of morality based on religious values.

Great geographical discoveries- a set of the most significant discoveries on land and sea from the mid-15th to the mid-17th centuries. The discoveries of Central and South America (H. Columbus, A. Vespucci, A. Velez de Mendoza, 1492-1502), and the sea route from Europe to India (Vasco da Gama, 1497-1499) were important. F. Magellan's first trip around the world in 1519-1522. proved the existence of the World Ocean and the sphericity of the Earth. Great geographical discoveries became possible thanks to technical discoveries and inventions, including the creation of new ships - caravels. At the same time, long sea voyages stimulated the development of science, technology, and manufacturing. The era of colonial conquests began, which was accompanied by violence, robberies and even the death of civilizations (Mayans, Incas, Aztecs). European countries seized land in America (from the beginning of the 16th century, blacks began to be imported there), Africa, and India. The wealth of the enslaved countries, usually less developed socio-economically, gave a powerful impetus to the development of industry and trade, and ultimately to the industrial modernization of Europe.

At the end of the 15th century. originated in Europe manufactories(from Latin - I do with my hands), large enterprises based on the division of labor and manual craft techniques. Often the period of European history from the emergence of manufactories to the beginning of the industrial revolution is called "manufacture". There were two forms of manufacture: centralized (the entrepreneur himself created a large workshop, in which all operations for the manufacture of a particular product were carried out under his leadership) and much more widespread - dispersed (the entrepreneur distributed raw materials to home-based artisans and received from them a finished product or semi-finished product) . Manufactures contributed to the deepening of the social division of labor, the improvement of the instruments of production, the growth of labor productivity, and the formation of new social strata - the industrial bourgeoisie and wage workers (this social process will end during the industrial revolution). Manufactories prepared the transition to machine production.

World historical processes indicating the end of the Middle Ages required new ways of transmitting information. This new method was printing. Johannes Gutenberg made a breakthrough in book production technology. Gutenberg's invention was a mature and prepared development of the book industry in previous centuries: the appearance in Europe of paper, the technique of woodblock printing, the creation in scriptoria (monastic workshops) and in universities of hundreds and thousands of handwritten books of predominantly religious content. Gutenberg in 1453–1454 In Mainz he first printed a book, the so-called 42-line Bible. Printing has become the material basis for the dissemination of knowledge, information, literacy, and sciences.

Chronological framework of the third period of world history, new times(beginning of the 16th century - beginning of the 1920s) are defined in the same way as the medieval period, primarily by events and processes that took place in Western Europe. Since in other countries, including Russia, development was slower compared to the West, the processes characteristic of modern times began here later.

With the advent of modern times, the destruction of medieval foundations (that is, political and social institutions, norms, customs) and the formation of an industrial society began. The process of transition from a medieval (traditional, agrarian) society to an industrial society is called modernization (from French - newest, modern). This process took about three hundred years in Europe.

Modernization processes occurred at different times: they began earlier and proceeded faster in Holland and England; these processes proceeded more slowly in France; even slower - in Germany, Italy, Russia; there was a special path of modernization in North America (USA, Canada); began in the East in the 20th century. modernization processes were called Westernization (from English - Western).

Modernization covered all spheres of society, it included:

Industrialization, the process of creating large-scale machine production; the process of ever-increasing use of machines in production began with the industrial revolution (it first began in England in the 1760s, in Russia it began at the turn of the 1830s-1840s);

Urbanization (from Latin - urban), the process of increasing the role of cities in the development of society; the city gains economic dominance for the first time,

pushing the countryside into the background (already at the end of the 18th century, the proportion of the urban population in Holland was 50%; in England this figure was 30%; in France - 15%, and in Russia - about 5%);

democratization of political life, creation of prerequisites for the formation of a rule of law state and civil society;

Secularization, limiting the influence of the church in the life of society, including the conversion by the state of church property (mainly land) into secular; the process of spreading secular elements in culture was called the “secularization” of culture (from the word “secular” - secular);

Rapid, compared to the past period, growth of knowledge about nature and society.

The ideas of the Enlightenment played a major role in the process of modernization and the spiritual revolution. Education, as an ideological movement based on the conviction of the decisive role of reason and science in the knowledge of the “natural order” corresponding to the true nature of man and society, arose in England in the 17th century. (J. Locke, A. Collins). In the 18th century Enlightenment spread throughout Europe, reaching its highest peak in France - F. Voltaire, D. Diderot, C. Montesquieu, J.-J. Rousseau. French educators, led by D. Diderot, participated in the creation of a unique publication - the “Encyclopedia, or Explanatory Dictionary of Sciences, Arts and Crafts,” which is why they are called encyclopedists. Enlighteners of the 18th century. in Germany - G. Lessing, I. Goethe; in the USA - T. Jefferson, B. Franklin; in Russia - N. Novikov, A. Radishchev. Enlightenmentists considered ignorance, obscurantism, and religious fanaticism to be the causes of all human disasters. They opposed the feudal-absolutist regime, for political freedom and civil equality. The Enlighteners did not call for revolution, but their ideas played a revolutionary role in the public consciousness. The 18th century is most often called the “century of Enlightenment.”

Revolutions and fundamental changes in the socio-political system, characterized by a sharp break with the previous tradition and a violent transformation of social and state institutions, played a huge role in the process of modernization. In the West in the XVI-XVIII centuries. revolutions swept four countries: Holland (1566-1609), England (1640-1660), USA (War of Independence of the North American Colonies, 1775-1783), France (1789-1799). In the 19th century revolutions swept other European countries: Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Germany, Italy, Spain. In the 19th century The West “got sick” of revolutions, having undergone a kind of vaccination.

The 19th century is called the “century of capitalism” because in this century industrial society was established in Europe. Two factors were decisive in the victory of industrial society: the industrial revolution, the transition from manufacture to machine production; a change in the political and social structure of society, almost complete liberation from state, political, and legal institutions of traditional society. For the main differences between industrial and traditional societies, see table. 1. (page 27).

The end of modern times is usually associated with the First World War (1914 -1918) and the revolutionary upheavals in Europe and Asia in 1918 -1923.

The fourth period of world history, which began in the 1920s, was called modern times in Soviet historiography. For a long time, the name of the last period of world history was given a propaganda meaning as the beginning of a new era in the history of mankind, opened by the October Revolution of 1917.

In the West, the last period of world history is called modernity, modern history. Moreover, the beginning of modernity is moving: once it began in 1789, then in 1871, now in the early 1920s.

The question of the end of the fourth period of world history and the onset of the fifth period, just like the whole problem of periodization, is debatable. It is quite obvious that in the world at the turn of the 20th - 21st centuries. V. dramatic changes have occurred. Understanding their essence, significance and consequences for humanity, which has entered the 3rd millennium after the birth of Christ, is the most important task of economists, sociologists, and historians.

Table 1.

Main features of traditional and industrial societies

Chronology (from the Greek χρόνος - time and λόγος - doctrine) is the science of measuring time, an auxiliary historical discipline that studies the methods of calculating the time of various peoples in different historical periods. Its purpose is to give the historian correct information about the time of historical events or determine exact dates.

Today we know that the great historian of Ancient Greece, Herodotus, lived in 484-425. BC e., in 490 BC. e. Persian troops were defeated at Marathon, Alexander the Great died in 323 BC. e., March 15, 44 BC. e. Gaius Julius Caesar was killed in the 1st century. BC e. Virgil and Horace created. How is it established exactly when events so distant from us took place? After all, even the historical sources that have reached us often do not have a date. And no written sources have survived from more distant eras.

Historical chronology has various methods that make it possible to quite reliably establish the date of a historical event. The main condition for establishing a reliable date for a source is an integrated approach, i.e., the use of data from paleography, diplomacy, linguistics, archeology and, of course, data from astronomical chronology. If, when dating a historical fact, all components of the study are not taken into account, an error is inevitable. This makes it difficult to establish the chronology of ancient history.

To measure time, phenomena that were repeated in nature were used: the periodic change of day and night, the change of lunar phases and the change of seasons. The first of these phenomena determines the unit of time - the day; the second is the synodic month, the average duration of which is 29.5306 days; the third is the tropical year, equal to 365.2422 days. The synodic month and the tropical year do not contain an integer number of solar days, so all three of these measures are incommensurable. An attempt to at least to some extent coordinate the day, month and year with each other led to the fact that in different eras three types of calendars were created - lunar (based on the duration of the synodic month), solar (based on the duration of the tropical year) and lunar- solar (combining both periods). They became the basis of the lunisolar calendar.

In ancient times, each country had its own methods of calculating chronology and, as a rule, there was no single era, that is, counting years from a specific event. In the states of the Ancient East, the year was designated by outstanding events: the construction of temples and canals, military victories. In other countries, time was counted according to the years of the king's reign. But such records were not accurate, since there was no sequence in recording the events of the history of the country as a whole; sometimes these records stopped altogether due to military or social conflicts.

But these ancient records can only be correlated with modern chronology if they can be associated with a precisely dated (most often astronomical) phenomenon. The most reliable chronology is verified by solar eclipses. So, for example, on this basis all the events in the history of Western Asia, starting from 911 BC. e., are dated most accurately; the error, as a rule, does not exceed 2 years.

The chronology of Ancient Egypt was conducted according to the records of the reign of the pharaohs, starting from the era of the Early Kingdom of the 21st-28th centuries. BC e. However, in these records, as in the royal lists of Mesopotamia, there are a lot of inaccuracies, errors sometimes reach 300 years or more. Egyptian historian Manetho, who lived at the end of the 4th century. BC e., carefully studied and largely clarified the lists of the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt based on materials from the archives of the pharaohs, and his chronology is still used in world historical science.

The same can be said about the chronology of Ancient China. In China, as in Egypt, Greece and Rome, special historical works were created, which necessarily provided chronological information. The outstanding historian of Ancient China, Sima Qiang, wrote “Historical Notes”.

In his work, he paid great attention to chronology, giving a chronological framework for the history of Ancient China - from the legendary date of the creation of the world to the end of the 2nd century. BC e. However, he did not indicate the sources and grounds for dating the events, which is why the dating cannot be considered unconditionally reliable.

The most reliable chronological systems of antiquity are the counting of years in Greek and Roman history. In Greece there was a pan-Greek system of chronology based on the Olympics. According to legend, the first Olympics took place in 776. Then the Games were successively held every four years. The connection between the dating and events of Greek history can also be traced with the dating of the reign of the archons - officials in Athens (these notes have partially survived to this day).

The reliability of Greek chronology can be considered proven subject to constant comparison of data from various historical sources, the results of archaeological excavations, and numismatic material. So, for example, thanks to the method of comparative analysis, it was established that Alexander the Great died in the 114th Olympiad, i.e. in 323 BC. e.; a year after his death, his teacher, the great philosopher of antiquity, Aristotle (384-322 BC), died.

The chronology of Rome also has its own specific starting point. The Roman era begins in 753 BC. e. - from the legendary date of the founding of Rome. Recent archaeological excavations have confirmed this date. But back in the 1st century. BC e. The Roman historian Marcus Terence Varro used the method of comparative analysis of Greek dating according to archons and Olympiads with Roman dating according to consuls. Thus, he calculated the year of the founding of Rome, placing it in the third year of the sixth Olympiad (754-753 BC).

In 46 BC. e. In Rome, Julius Caesar adopted the solar calendar developed by the Alexandrian astronomer Sosigenes. In the new calendar, three years in a row contained 365 days (simple years), and every fourth (leap year) - 366. The New Year began on January 1. The length of the year was 365 days, 6 hours, i.e. it was 11 minutes 14 seconds longer than the tropical one. This calendar, called the Julian calendar, was recognized as mandatory for all Christians at the Nicene Ecumenical Council in 325.

A new attempt to create a chronology system was made only in the 4th century. n. e. Dionysius the Insignificant (he was nicknamed this way because of his small stature) proposed starting a new calendar from the date of the birth of Jesus Christ, considering the birthday of Christ to be December 25, 753 from the founding of Rome.

The new era was not immediately recognized in the world. For a long time, the countdown here coexisted with the countdown from the “creation of the world”: 5508 BC. e. - according to the dating of the Eastern Christian Church. The Muslim era even now begins from the date of the journey of the prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina (622 AD) - according to the Muslim calendar, now only the 14th century begins.

Gradually, chronology from the beginning of our era (from the conventional date of birth of Jesus Christ) was accepted by most peoples of the world.

But the difference between the tropical and calendar years gradually increased (every 128 years by 1 day) and by the end of the 6th century. was 10 days, as a result of which the spring equinox began to fall not on March 21, but on 11. This complicated the calculations of church holidays, and the then head of the Catholic Church, Pope Gregory XIII, carried out a reform of the Julian calendar in 1582 according to the project of the doctor and mathematician Aloysio Lilio . A special papal bull ordered that after Thursday, October 4, skip 10 days in the count and consider the next day to be Friday, October 15. In order to prevent the day of the equinox from moving in the future, it was prescribed to exclude 3 days from every four hundred Julian calendar years, so the leap year system also changed. Of the “century” years, those whose first two digits were divisible by 4 without a remainder remained leap years - 1600, 2000, 2400, etc. The Gregorian calendar is more accurate than the Julian calendar; a difference of one day accumulates in it in 3280 years. During the XVI-XVIII centuries. it has been adopted in most European countries.

The calendar of the ancient Slavs was lunisolar; The counting of days within months began from the new moon. Two years had 354 days each (12 lunar months of 29 and 30 days), and the third year had 384 days (354 + 30). The beginning of the year occurred on the spring new moon (around March 1). The names of the months were associated with the change of seasons and agricultural work: grass (when the first spring grass sprouted), serpen (harvest time), leaf fall, jelly, etc. With the introduction of Christianity, the Orthodox Church adopted the Julian calendar and the era from the “creation of the world” ( The church, according to Byzantine tradition, dated the “creation of the world” to 5508 BC). The New Year (since 1492) began on September 1. This time reckoning system lasted until the end of the 17th century, when Peter I carried out a calendar reform. He moved the beginning of the year to January 1 and introduced the era from the Nativity of Christ. Now it is accepted in historical science and is called the new era (AD).

The introduction of the generally accepted era and the January beginning of the year facilitated trade, scientific and cultural ties for Russia. However, the Julian calendar was preserved, and already in the 19th century. Russia felt serious inconvenience due to calendar isolation. Privately, the Gregorian calendar was used in the ministries of foreign affairs, finance, railways, internal affairs, the commercial and navy, as well as astronomical meteorological services. The government and the Orthodox Church opposed the Gregorian calendar, since its canons and accounting of chronological cycles were associated with the Julian calendar.

The calendar reform was carried out after the October Revolution of 1917. The Decree of the Council of People's Commissars determined that after January 31, 1918, February 14, rather than February 1, should be considered. Now we celebrate the New Year twice: January 1 according to the new style and January 13 according to the old style.

The development of chronology continues on the basis of the systematic use of achievements of archaeological, paleographic, linguistic and other research methods, which will ultimately make it possible to clarify the still controversial dating of the history of many countries.

Date reduction

• 1. Translation of dates of the Byzantine era.
  • a) Dates of the September year. If the event occurs in the months from January to August, 5508 years should be subtracted; if the event occurs in the months from September to December, 5509 years should be subtracted.
  • b) Dates of the March year. If the event occurs in the months from March to December, 5508 years should be subtracted, and if in January and February, 5507 years should be subtracted.
• 2. Converting dates from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar.
  • a) Dates are translated by adding to the number of the month:
    • 10 days for the 16th century. (from 1582) - XVII century,
    • 11 days for the 18th century. (from March 1, 1770),
    • 12 days for the 19th century. (since March 1, 1800),
    • 13 days for the 20th century. (since March 1, 1900) - XXI century,
    • 14 days for the 22nd century. (since March 1, 2100).
  • b) In the 21st century. the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars will be 13 days, as in the 20th century, since the year 2000, which ends the 20th century, will be a leap year both according to the Julian and Gregorian calendars. The difference will increase only in the 22nd century.
  • c) The number of days changes when converting dates from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar due to the additional day that ends February of a leap year (February 29), so the difference increases from March 1.
  • d) Centuries end with years with two zeros at the end, and the next century begins with the 1st year - 1601, 1701, 1801, 1901, 2001 (3rd millennium), etc.