The concept of global history. Geopolitical epochs of global history

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Alexander Semenov Global history: final synthesis of scientific historical knowledge or continuation of dialogue?

The book by Sebastian Konrad, a professor at the Free University in Berlin, may seem to the Russian reader to be devoid of novelty. Since the adoption of the German curriculum model, most Russian universities still include a section on world history in their curricula. A rigid division into domestic and general history can be traced both in the Russian scientific nomenclature and in the institutional architecture of historical knowledge in Russia, which leads to meaningless scientific casuistry (what code of the specialty passport to include a study on the influence of the Chinese factor on the social and economic development of the Russian Far East at the beginning of the 20th century?) and causes despair of graduate students. The legacy of the German university system and the Soviet Marxist model of studying the world economy and politics have made the global history project illusoryly recognizable and familiar to different generations of historians and intellectuals in Russia. Even to a general audience outside the historical workshop, global history may seem familiar from memorable episodes from the commercials of the Imperial Bank in the 1990s.

However, global history, in the form in which Conrad presents it on the pages of his book, is a relatively new field of historical knowledge that opposes itself to the paradigm of universal and world history. The dialectic of new questions and scientific heritage, the change of scientific paradigms (as well as the productivity factor of intellectual counterpoint) is always present in the formation of new scientific schools and trends. But to say that the field of global history that is developing before our eyes is an offshoot of universal or world history means the same as reducing the Bolshevik ideology of the 20th century to the ideas of the Enlightenment of the 18th century.

The formation of the modern field of global history takes place after the euphoria from the idea of the “end of history” (the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the USSR, it would seem, the complete victory of liberalism and the free market) and the processes of globalization as a universal political value and an undeniable mechanism for the development of the modern world have faded. The impulse of the “end of history”, as well as the request for a “big” history, born in search of answers to the current challenges of the global world, of course, created a breeding ground for the formation of the field of global history. But the emergence of a specialized journal on global history ( Journal of Global History, March 2006), thematic changes in the work of the World History Association ( World History Association) and in the preferences of grantors occur precisely in the 2000s. In other words, the formation of the modern field of global history takes place at the moment of the crisis of the normative concept of capitalist and liberal globalization. The formation of global history coincides with the awareness of the “unevenness” of the modern world, the emergence of obvious conflicts and fractures in economic and political development, including the periodicity of crises of the capitalist system, more and more frequent wars, in which the world hegemon is losing weight, the stubborn return of politicized religion and the competition of various universalist programs and models of regional integration. The owl of Minerva once again began its flight only with the onset of twilight.

Conrad's book itself is a tool for the articulation of a dynamic field of research in which different points of view on the subject and approach of global history are clashing. Surprisingly, Conrad's main argument is the need for self-restraint in what has become an expansionist global history. Konrad proposes to look for this self-limitation on the way of abandoning the notion of the “omnibus” nature of global history (everything that happens in the world falls into the field of consideration of global history) and a look at its “planetary” (in terms of strength and scale of impact) nature. The author of the book offers his own reading of the contemporary debate about global history, describing this field of research as a specific approach and set of research questions, and not as a specific object (world or world relationships) of historical analysis.

Global history in Conrad's reading is still aimed at overcoming the birth trauma of modern historical discipline - the isolationism of national history and methodological nationalism (in the Russian version, this is the state version of Russian history). However, if the canon of national history can be presented in the form of a Hegelian thesis, then the approaches of comparative history, transnational history, world-systems analysis, post-colonial studies and the school of multiple modernities have already shown an antithesis, showing each in its own way ways to overcome the isolationism of the national frame. It is these approaches that the author of the book examines in detail in a methodological plan, pointing out their contribution to the criticism of national history and overcoming the Eurocentrism of the modern historical canon, and also showing how new questions and perspectives of global history are born from the limitations of each of these approaches. Particularly important for the Russian intellectual situation is the methodology proposed by the author for consistent criticism of “centrisms” and identifying the positioning (the impossibility of a “neutral Archimedean point of view”) of the historical source and the historian’s perspective (Chapter 8 “Positioning and centered approaches”). The nature of Russian history often pushes the researcher to see in the Eurasian approach the emancipatory effect of historical analysis, freeing one from the limitations of the Eurocentric view. Similarly, emphasizing the history of non-Russian nationalities has more recently been seen as a fundamental revision of the earlier narrative of the history of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. The problem, as Conrad emphasizes, is the substitution of one "centrism" for another. Developing this idea, we can add that the problem lies in the fact that with such a replacement, the understanding of historical experience and the role of subjectivity in the historical process does not change in any way, just in place of one structuralist idea of history there is another, no less monologically representing the space of historical experience ( single European or single Eurasian) and no less deterministically depicting the nature and form of historical relations.

Given that the antithesis to national history has already been given in existing historiography, is global history thus not a Hegelian synthesis of this spiral development? The author himself denies such a reading of his book. But it must be admitted that Conrad's argument about the need to combine interpretation and explanation (causality) within the framework of historical research, as well as the subtle work on creating a new analytical language for the global historian (the concept of positioning, distinguishing between Eurocentrism and Eurocentricity, ecumenical history) allow us to speak, if not about a full-fledged synthesis, then about a new and dialogic combination of different methodological schools of historical knowledge.

Let us dwell on the first part of the author's argument. Global history is often accused of having an almost stratospheric view of historical processes. This is especially true for the direction of "big and deep history" (known from the works of historical sociologists and historians of the Anthropocene). From this perspective, a person, a historical subject with his ideas and various experiences, becomes completely invisible. Konrad shows how a combination of microhistory with its attention to the anthropological dimension of human experience and a global historical approach is possible if the scale of historical context and historical time is not perceived by the historian as given from outside historical experience. Another extreme of global history is the pursuit of various kinds of connections, intersections and borrowings. Translation of a book from another language or a traveler's observation of the population of another (preferably non-European) country instantly becomes material for global history. Konrad insists that simply following connections and influences is not enough, it is necessary to establish the reasons for their regularity and stability, the conditions for the successful perception of one or another borrowing, and thereby reveal their impact on the course of historical processes. By doing so, Conrad reminds historians that their discipline is part not only of the humanities, but also of the social sciences, and therefore must set itself the task of identifying causality and historical explanation, and not just interpretation.

In the view of the author of this preface, the most interesting part of Conrad's argument lies in the systematic development of a constructivist view of global history (Chapter 9, The Making of the World and the Notion of Global History). This constructivist view applies both to the historian, who chooses different scales (planetary, regional, local) for understanding historical phenomena, and to historical subjects, who master and describe their own "worlds". In this part of the argument, the author of the book convincingly shows the multi-level and diversity of contexts of the past, the absence of an ontological reality of the world outside of historical experience and its semantics.

In the section of competing approaches, in my opinion, the author made a significant gap. We are talking about the direction of the "new imperial history", which is an international trend and arose with a difference of several years in the field of research on the British and Russian empires. Conrad notes that the empire is a kind of "darling" of global historians precisely because it is "ubiquitous" in the space of the past. He notes that empire as a category of analysis makes it possible to compare different and temporally separated historical experiences. At the same time, Conrad distances global history from studies of empires, as he sees in the latter the homogenization of diverse experiences (the Comanche empire and the Habsburg empire) with the help of the generalizing category of empire, as well as the reduction of the entire variety of historical relationships to the political connections (violent and non-violent) of the imperial state. However, it is precisely in the direction of the “new imperial history” that the identification of the experience of historical diversity with the imperial state structure is consistently overcome and a consistently constructivist approach to understanding polyphony (languages of self-description) and the multilevel scale of historical experience is developed. An important element of this approach in the Russian dimension of the “new imperial history” is the basic category “imperial situation”, which is used instead of the concept of “empire” bearing structuralist connotations.

At the present stage of historiographic development, it is important to record an interesting convergence of constructivist intuitions of the field of global history and the field of "new imperial histories", as well as the possibility of a productive dialogue between these areas of historical research. Possible points of such a dialogue concern the dialectic of the approach and the object of historical research, views on the historical character and variety of analytical languages for its description, the problem of determining the boundaries and levels of the historical context and the most basic historical contextualization procedure, the balance between interpretation and explanation within the framework of historical research.

1. Introduction

There are many reasons for the current boom. The most important of these is the end of the Cold War, followed by the events of September 11, 2001. Given that it has become fashionable in our time to see “globalization” as the key to understanding the present, it is time to look back to the past to explore the historical origins of this process. In many regions, and especially in immigrant communities, global history also acts as a response to social problems and to the demand for a less discriminatory and narrowly nationalistic approach to the past. The shift in US university curricula from the history of Western civilization to global history is a typical result of such public pressure. Within the academic community, trends of this kind are reflected in changes in the social, cultural, and ethnic makeup of the scientific environment. In turn, transformations in the sociology of knowledge have reinforced dissatisfaction with the long and enduring tendency to view national histories as narratives of separate and self-contained spaces.

The media revolution that began in the 1990s also had a major impact on how we interpret the past. Historians—and their readers alike—are traveling the world more and getting to know it better than ever before. The growth of mobility, further accelerated by the Internet, has made it easier to establish horizontal connections and enabled historians to participate in global forums, although, of course, voices from former colonies are still often barely audible. As a result, historians today deal with a large number of competing narratives - it is in this variety of voices that they find potential opportunities for new discoveries. Finally, the horizontal networking that computer technology has developed is influencing the thinking of scientists, who are increasingly using the language of networks and nodes instead of the old "territorial" logic. Writing history in the 21st century is not at all the same as it used to be.

Why "global history"? Beyond Internalism and Eurocentrism

Global history was born out of the belief that the tools that historians used to analyze the past have lost their effectiveness. Globalization has raised fundamental new questions for the social sciences and the prevailing narratives designed to explain social change. The present is characterized by a complex interweaving and network nature of connections that have replaced the previous systems of interaction and exchange. However, the social sciences are often no longer able to adequately pose the questions and provide answers to help understand the realities of a networked, globalized world.

In particular, this applies to two "birth traumas" of modern social and human sciences, because of which the systemic understanding of world processes suffers. The origins of these flaws can be traced back to the formation of modern academic disciplines in 19th-century European science. First, the birth of the social sciences and humanities was associated with the nation state. The topics that such disciplines as history, sociology and philology dealt with, the questions they posed, and even their functions in society were closely related to the problems of a particular nation. In addition, the "methodological nationalism" of academic disciplines meant that, theoretically, the nation-state was thought of as a fundamental unit of study, a kind of territorial unity that served as a kind of "container" for society. In the field of history, the attachment to such territorially limited "receptacles" was more pronounced than in other, neighboring disciplines. As a result, the understanding of the world was discursively and institutionally predetermined in such a way that interchange relations receded into the background. For the most part, history has been reduced to national history.

Second, the new academic disciplines were deeply Eurocentric. They were based on ideas about European historical development and viewed Europe as the main driving force in world history. Moreover, the conceptual apparatus of the social sciences and the humanities was based on European history and, through generalization, presented it as a universal, universal model of development. 'Analytical' concepts like 'nation', 'revolution', 'society' and 'progress' have transformed concrete European experience into a (universalist) language of supposedly universally applicable theory. From a methodological point of view, modern disciplines, by applying specifically European categories to any other historical past, considered all other societies as European colonies.

Global history is an attempt to answer questions arising from such observations and to overcome two deplorable birth traumas of modern social sciences. Thus, this is a revisionist approach, despite the fact that it draws on the work of predecessors in areas of study such as migration, colonialism and trade, which have long attracted the attention of historians. The interest in the study of transcendent phenomena is not in itself new, but it is now taking on a new meaning. It is time to change the territory of the thinking of historians. Global history, therefore, has a polemical aspect. It challenges many forms of "container" paradigms. and, above all, national history. In the fourth chapter, we will demonstrate in more detail what adjustments it makes to internalist, or genealogical, versions of historical thinking that attempt to explain historical change "from within".

However, it is not only about methodology: global history sets the task of changing the very organization and institutional order of knowledge. In many countries, "history" as such has for a long time actually been equated with the national history of their country: most Italian historians deal with Italy, most of their Korean colleagues with Korea. Almost everywhere, entire generations of students got acquainted with history from textbooks that told about the national past. Against this background, the theses of global history sound like a call to perceive oneself as part of a whole, to a broader vision of the world. The past of other countries and peoples is also certain stories. History is not only our past, but the past of all others.

And even where history departments are staffed with teachers who are ready for a broader approach, the courses they teach tend to present the histories of states and civilizations as isolated monads. Chinese textbooks on world history, for example, completely exclude the history of China, since the national past is "passed through" in another department. The division of historical reality into domestic and world history, or into "history" and "country studies", means that significant parallels and conjugations are out of sight of scientists. Global history is, among other things, a call to overcome such fragmentation; its challenge is to arrive at a more comprehensive understanding of the interactions and interdependencies that make up the modern world.

Global history, of course, is not a panacea for all ills and is not even a qualitatively better method than others. This is just one of the possible approaches. It is better suited for solving some issues and problems and less for others. Global history is concerned above all with mobility and exchange, processes that transcend distinctions and borders. The interconnected world for her is the starting point, and her main themes are the circulation and exchange of things, people, ideas and institutions.

Preliminarily and deliberately broadly global history can be defined as a form of historical analysis in which phenomena, events and processes are considered in global contexts. Among scientists, however, there is no unity on the question of how best to achieve such a result. A host of other approaches—from comparative and transnational, global and “big” history to post-colonial studies and the history of globalization—are vying for the attention of the scientific community today. Just like global history, they are trying to cope with the task of tying the past together.

Each of these scientific paradigms highlights something different, and the most influential approaches will be discussed in chapter three. However, the differences should not be exaggerated: there are many overlapping areas and methodological similarities between the different options. In fact, it is very difficult to pinpoint exactly what the specificity and uniqueness of global history are. Nor does it make it any easier to try to show how this concept functions in practice. Even a superficial acquaintance with the current scientific literature convinces us that researchers do not just use this term - they use it for their own, very diverse purposes, often along with other terms, as interchangeable concepts. The wide distribution speaks more about the attractiveness and vagueness of the term than about its methodological peculiarity.

. Gerasimov I., Glebov S., Mogilner M. The Postimperial Meets the Postcolonial: Russian Historical Experience and the Postcolonial Moment // Ab Imperio. 2013. No. 2. P. 97–135.

Semyonov A. "Global History Is More Than the History of Globalization": Interview with Sebastian Conrad // Ab Imperio. 2017. no. 1. P. 26–27.

Gerasimov I., Glebov S., Kaplunovsky A., Mogilner M., Semenov A. (eds.) New imperial history of the post-Soviet space. Kazan, 2004; Howe S. (ed.). The New Imperial History Reader. Routledge 2010

Hopkins A. G. (ed.). Globalization in World History. London: Pimlico, 2002; Bender th. (ed.). Rethinking American History in a Global Age. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002.

Smith A. D. Nationalism in the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Robertson, 1979. P. 191 ff.; Beck U. What Is Globalization? Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000. pp. 23–24; Wallerstein I. et al. (eds.). Open the Social Sciences: Report of the Gulbenkian Commission on the Restructuring of the Social Sciences. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996.

For "birth trauma" see: Bentley J. H. Introduction: The Task of World History // Bentley J. H. (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of World History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. pp. 1–16.

Sachsenmaier D. Global History, Version: 1.0. // Docupedia-Zeitgeschichte. Feb. 11, 2010 (http://docupedia.de/zg/Global_History?oldid=84616).

The article is devoted to the institutionalization of global history as a field of scientific research and educational discipline. Educational projects in the field of global history are considered in detail on the example of universities in the UK.

Keywords: global history, globalization, educational programs, research networks, innovative forms of education.

Global history ( global history ) is one of the most promising areas of historical research at the beginning of the 21st century. This could not but affect the education in the field of history. Over the past decade and a half, many universities around the world have opened relevant courses and programs.

First educational programs

Initiatives related to the organizational development of global history were due to both internal factors in the development of scientific thought, which constantly requires not only substantive, but also formal modernization, and external factors, which primarily include global changes in the system of international order at the turn of 1980-1990. -s. and activation of globalization processes in the second half of the 1990s.

A kind of "locomotive" of the globalization of the social and humanitarian discourse of recent decades has become the demands of the Western education system, built on the principle of fierce competition and sensitive to the social order. As well as parallel projects (Big History, World and Transnational History, Crosscultural Studies, Environmental Historyetc.), Global History was institutionalized primarily within the framework of educational programs, and then within the framework of specialized periodicals and professional associations.

London has become one of the largest centers of global history. The first seminar (Institute of Historical Research, University of London) and the first master's program (London School of Economics & Political Science) in global history were organized there, a research network in the field of global economic history (Global Economic History Network) was established, a periodical (Journal of Global History).

“In London, global history began as an experiment and turned into a mission,” says Garith Austin, president of the European Network in Universal & Global History. - The project began with an initiative that now seems quite moderate, but then seemed innovative and even radical - with the establishment of a regular seminar in such an amorphous field as "Global history in the context of processes of long duration." The seminar was brought together by Patrick O'Brien, then director of the Institute for Historical Research at the University of London, and Alan Milward, head of the economic history department at the London School of Economics and Political Science. At the first meeting in February 1996, O'Brien outlined the purpose of the seminar in terms that, according to academics, almost contradict the concept of a seminar: not scientific research, but conversation between specialists in various fields. As we shall see later, this was the start of a new research initiative that has been further developed.” Here is how O'Brien himself recalls this: “As director of the Institute for Historical Research, I organized (for the amusement of my colleagues) the first seminar on global history. The seminar began with a discussion of a rather short list of works known by that time in this new field: Wirtfogel, McNeill, Braudel, Wallerstein, Frank, Pomeranz, etc. . Today, the list of works on global history includes thousands of titles. The methodological possibilities of the subject were appreciated by the community of historians, a significant part of which considered promising work in this area.

Within the framework of O'Brien's seminar, in particular, Alan MacFarlane's keynote report "Braudel and Global History" was prepared, in which the question of the methodological origins of the subject was reflected. MacFarlane argues that it was the concept of processes of "long duration" that became the most important theoretical basis for the subject of global history.

Seminars similar in content to O'Brien's seminar have been held since 2009 in Cambridge (World History Workshop) and Oxford (Oxford Transnational and Global History seminar). The preamble of the program of the Oxford seminar explains its appearance by the need to reorient historical research from Eurocentric to "non-Eurocentric" concepts, and connects the general spread of the subject with the reaction of the academic environment and the public to political, economic and social implications globalization . The result of this reorientation of historical research, according to Oxford University professor John Darwin, “was the discovery of new views on the world history that was once treated only as the history of European expansion» .

In an article devoted to the experience of the London School of Economics and Political Science, the President of the European Network, G. Austin, notes three main directions for the institutionalization of global history: educational programs, the establishment of a new journal, and the organization of an international research network. Austin outlined the time frame for the existence of the project: "Global history as an approach to the study of the past has been intensively developing in London over the past decade and a half." To the three directions of the institutionalization of global history noted by Austin, we can add the publications of British professors on the subject as a whole. In particular, the work of the prominent British sociologist Anthony Giddens in 1997-2003. , which, of course, stimulated the interest of his colleagues in global historical issues.

The London School of Economics and Political Science established the UK's first master's degree in global history in 2000. This one-year program still exists (as a stand-alone program and as part of a two-year program implemented jointly with the universities of Leipzig, Vienna, Wroclaw and Roskilde). Along with this, there is also a joint world history program with Columbia University.

About the content of the master's program in global history, O'Brien writes: “It has become a comprehensive program focused on studying the long-term retrospective of the development of the “material life” of mankind, taking into account data from Europe, Africa, China, India and Japan. Syllabus designed to explore what is perhaps the mega-problem of our time: when and why some societies (located mainly in the West and North of the modern world) became prosperous, and the majority of the Earth's population, which is seven billion people still live in poor countries (East and South). The program consists of a number of separate courses, which are based on the most relevant meta-narratives of world history, studying environmental, state, geopolitical, religious, cultural, gender, epidemiological and, of course, economic changes on the planet.

Innovative forms of education

Interesting forms of development of global history as an innovative discipline are offered by the Center for Global History and Culture of the Department of History at the University of Warwick (Global History & Culture Centre, Department of History, University of Warwick). A feature of the center's research is the study of globalization through the intercontinental spread of technologies and cross-cultural relationships.

The center operates in the formsymposia, conferences, day schools, serial seminars, solemn events, meetings with guests of honor, public lectures, exhibition projects, awardingscholarships, exchange of postgraduate students and doctoral students. Other forms of education at Warwick include summer schools. One of the most interesting -« Theory for a Global Age - took place in 2009In addition, since 2006, the university portal has been reviewing publications (books and articles) on global history.

The Center is also implementing a series of educational projects in the field of global history in cooperation with major British museums. One of the latest projects - the study of the global distribution of porcelain - " Global Jingdezhen". In 2010, a conference was held "Cultures of Ceramics in Global History, 1300 to 1800". IN 2010-2011 gg. took placeExhibitionsAndpubliclecturesVMuseumartEasternAsia and the British Museum "Chinese Ceramics & Early Modern World", "Pots, Power & Beauty: Porcelain and Desire in Early Modern World", "The Wanderings of a Chinese Lady" and etc . Their task was to present the ways of the world distribution of porcelain and its design in the early modern period.“First we listen to scientists who talk aboutimages and objects Chinese-European interactions in fascinating and suggestive form , and then we carry outdiscussion of more general issues and show how this issue has been reflected in global history", - Warwick specialists explain their methodology for studying global interactions through similar cross-cultural influences.

In a joint project with the British Museum"Plates, Parasols & Global Design in the 18th Century"was brilliantly presented one of the private, but very characteristic of global history, examples of the spread of fashion influences around the world ( global design ) - its extension to porcelain plates depicting a Chinese woman under an umbrella ( Parasol Lady ). As the course organizers explain, “This image has been popular for many decades in both East and West and can be seen as a great example of early globalization.” Center carried out a number of similar projects - Global Arts, Global Commodities, Global Textiles, Global Fashion, Global Technology.

Platforms for discussions

A serious step towards the institutionalization of global history was the establishment in 2006 of the Journal of Global History ( Journal of Global History ), published by the London School of Economics and Cambridge University Press (London School of Economics and Cambridge University Press).

In Patrick O'Brien's keynote article "Historiographic Traditions and Modern Imperatives of Global History" the subject is presented as an international meta-narrative capable of responding to the demands of a globalizing world. The editorial program defines subject field of global history: “The magazine highlights the most important issues of global development in a long historical perspective, and also presents various historical versions of the globalization process. In addition, the journal pays attention to the processes and structures that hinder globalization, considering their study as an important area of global history. The journal seeks to overcome the dichotomy “the West and the rest of the World” that exists in historical science, transferring material across traditional thematic boundaries and overcoming the tendency towards fragmentation of historiographical discourse. The journal serves as an interdisciplinary forum for social and natural science discussions on global development.

In 2003, the Global Economic History Research Network (Global Economic History Network), which, according to Austin, can be seen as a "globalized" continuation of the seminar on global history" . Today, this network brings together representatives of several disciplines - history, economics, economic history, anthropology, geography, sociology from universities B UK, Holland, Italy, Germany, USA, Turkey, India and Japan.

"Global history seeks expand and deepenrepresentations of people about themselves, their culture and their states by expandinggeographical space and chronology lengthening accepted in traditional historiography. And the global economic history proclaims the need study of the material life of mankind (taking into account data natural and social sciences) in a long chronological And wide geographicalperspective, soto analyzedifferences in production and quality of life across time and space", - stated on the official site.

Creation of research networks - one of the most striking characteristics of the process of becoming an object as an innovative (not only in content, but also in form) field of knowledge.

One of the largest networks is the European Network for Universal andglobal history ( ENIUGH ), the task of which is to unite specialists dealing with relevant issues. The network was created in 2002 on the initiative of the Institute for Global and European Studies at the University of Leipzig (Global and European Studies Institute, Universität Leipzig). The European congresses on global and general history have become significant platforms for the network. The first congress was held in 2005 in Dresden, the second - in 2008 in Dresden, the third - in 2011 in London. By analogy with ENIUGH in 2008, the World Network of Organizations Dealing with Global and General History was created (Network of Global and World History Organizations). The network timed its first conference to coincide with the 21st World Historical Congress, held in 2010 in Amsterdam.

These and other initiatives of European universities show that global history is a very attractive and actively promoted brand in the scientific and educational environment.

Subject and method of global history

However, it would be wrong to say that global history is only a momentary phenomenon that reflects the demands of the education system and the market for research projects. There is also an essential definition of the subject, expressing the main idea of this direction.

The subject of global history is the history of the formation of social integrity, considered in the context of global socio-natural processes. It studies the genesis of systems of cultural and economic relations between different peoples that are stable in the long-term historical perspective. The most important factors in the stability of these systems in the concept of global history are the natural features that determined the nature and direction of the underlying systems of social ties. Migration, settlement of territories, trade routes, spread of material culture, spiritual mutual influence of civilizations and others - the main themes of global history.

The focus of "historians-globalists" is the history of globalization, the contradictory concepts of which create a problematic field of the subject. “The history of globalization is the heart and innovation of global history,” says MIT professor Bruce Mazlish, one of the founding fathers of the American school of global history.

Methodological foundations of global history were further developed in the works of Fernand Braudel “The Mediterranean Sea and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II” (1949), “History and Social Sciences. Historical duration” (1958), “Material civilization, economy and capitalism. XV-XVIII centuries.» (1967-1979).

Firstly, this is an understanding of world history as the history of the formation of the social integrity of mankind;

Secondly, description of long-term and large-scale social processes in terms of spatial coverage;

Thirdly, the inclusion of the world-historical process in the context of geological, biological, climatic, epidemiological, demographic and other changes on the planet.

On these principles, private concepts of global history later began to be built.

Epistemological origins of global history are also associated with the information revolution of the last third of the twentieth century. With the penetration of computer technologies into social and historical research, huge amounts of data (including those of a non-traditional character for history) entered the field of historical research, the machine processing of which made it possible to implement complex research programs. This has become one of the most important factors in the renewal of historical science and the qualitative expansion of its capabilities. The achievements of such fields as quantitative historiography, cliodynamics, macrosociology, etc., opened the way for the creation of theories of a global scale. The ability to work with the empiricism of the global order has become a key prerequisite for the formation of global history as a field of scientific knowledge.

The philosophical tradition that deeply explored the content of the “global” category in the 1970s and 1980s prepared not only private sciences, but also public opinion for a new, planetary way of thinking. And global history, which took shape as an area of scientific research and teaching in the 1990s, has become one of the forms of manifestation of a new worldview.

Despite the ideological contradictions of the concepts of global history, its methodological possibilities are recognized by the majority of scientists working in other areas and schools. This is evidenced by the materials of recent World Historical Congresses, in whose programs the discussion of problems of global history has taken a prominent place.

IN conclusion Let us note that in Russian science and education global history has not yet been presented as an established institution. Nevertheless, one can hope that domestic specialists will also take advantage of the prospects opened up by global history. S.P. Karpov, for example, defined global history as one of the opportunities for world historiography to overcome the disease of fragmentation of historical knowledge and "preserve the conceptual vision of the world-historical process, to know the connection of times and the division of epochs" with the help of the system of deep interconnections and interweaving that it creates, identified on an interdisciplinary basis. O "Brien P. Global history //Making history. The changing face of the profession in Britain. [ URL ] http :// www . history. a c.uk/makinghistory/resources/articles/global_history.html. [Date of access: 04.05.2011].

11. Karpov S.P. Historical science at the present stage: state and development prospects // New and recent history. - 2009. - № 5.

According to "official" data, Russian history began in 862. It is not entirely clear how it began, and even more so it is not clear what happened before that. However, it is known that this year the city of Novgorod (according to another version - northern, Novgorod Rus') concluded an agreement on the rule of the Norman princes "Varangians-Rus": Rurik and his associates. Thus, it would seem that the theory of the social contract comes into play, but it can also be assumed that this was either an invitation as mercenary guards, who subsequently seized power in the city, or was not an invitation at all, but was the result of the defeat of the Slavic Finnish population in the fight against the expansion of the Normans on their lands.

The pagan northerners, the future Swedes, Norwegians, Danes and Icelanders, were hardly more cultured than the inhabitants of the north of the East European Plain. Nevertheless, according to the chronicle legend, an order was put in place that had not existed before. The lack of order will become a typical Russian phenomenon in the future. The Vikings laid the foundation for a centuries-old dynasty in Rus' (862 - 1598). They have always been known for their harsh temper, but it is also known that the North of Europe has never been associated with slavery and bloody dictatorships. Therefore, the first choice of the Eastern Slavs can be called quite European.

But that was just a prelude. The story continued in 988. It should be noted that all these dates are conditional and "modern". The countdown of the Eastern Slavs began after a meeting with Eastern Roman civilization and was conducted from the creation of the world according to the Byzantine version. So the time came when the young, emerging East Slavic ethnos decided to rely on a civilized superpower: the eastern part of the former great Roman Empire - Roman-Hellenistic civilization. Lean in order to get out of the former natural, "pagan" state; get what was the great civilizations of Antiquity; get what became among the new peoples of Europe, who are also in the process of formation.

This has always been the case when young peoples starting their way adopted the experience and culture of more developed neighbors. The acquisition of religion, writing, calendar, names, as well as the foundations of art or the political system from outside is not something reprehensible or humiliating, but rather natural and traditional for developing ethnic groups. However, if we keep in mind the Eastern Slavs, then there is an opinion according to which the adoption by Russia of the Byzantine system of socio-political and cultural-religious values was a mistake and the best option for development would be to preserve the old path: a purely Slavic (or Slavic-Norman?) and natural-pagan. It is possible that in this case Rus' would not have taken a roll in the Eurasian direction. The question of what vector the acquisition of 988 has is very important, if not the main one. Was it the European, Western or Asian, Eastern choice of Rus'?

The Eastern Roman Empire, which originally included vast eastern territories, will eventually cease to be part of the Western socio-cultural type, and the political regime and the mentality of the majority of the population will gradually regenerate here. Having become an independent Eurasian state geographically, Byzantium will become one both politically and culturally.

Abandoning the previous innovative aspirations, Eastern Rome will move to traditionalism, conservatism, guardianship, which will also be reflected in religion: unlike Western Europe, which continued the tradition of innovations of the Antiquity era, the largely untouched, “orthodox” branch of Christianity will be preserved here. And even when before the schism (great religious schism of 1054) was still far away, however, it was already obvious: anathema the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople - a matter of time.

Of course, Byzantium is not Asia. But Byzantium is not Europe either. And as a result, Rus' makes its first “special” choice: it makes a Eurasian “tilt”, which it will later be constantly proud of, speaking of itself as a special socio-cultural phenomenon. In the XV century. the universal Orthodox state of the Roman Empire will forever disappear from the world stage, and a few years later the new Russian Empire, on the contrary, will acquire complete independence and produce a “replacement reaction”: it will take the vacant place of the Second Rome in order to continue the confrontation that has already begun with the First.

The third turn of Russian history will simultaneously become the first turn on the way to the centuries-old Russian tragedy. The question is, when did it start? Of course, the year 1054 is tragic: a complete break between Catholics and Orthodox, the split of Europe for 1000 years. In Rus', this year is the death of Yaroslav the Wise and the end of a period of relatively calm development. With his death, the struggle for power until the complete extermination of their opponents will become the norm: this will be demonstrated by the 12th, 16th, and 20th centuries. The death of Yaroslav will be the prologue of at least 400 years of political fragmentation (if we take only the territories of Eastern Rus').

The catastrophe, which will later have a decisive character for the further development of Rus', will happen in 1132. In this year, associated with the death of the son of Vladimir Monomakh: Mstislav the Great, at least the formally united state of Rus' with the center in the city of Kiev will cease to exist. Only four centuries later, Ivan III and Vasily III will unite, but only one, the eastern part of the former Rus': the one that will be called in Byzantine Russia. Another, formerly the main part of Kievan Rus, will become, led by the Lithuanian elite, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia.

The 7-century era of the political decentralization of Rus' will finally end only at the end of the 18th century, when all Western Russian lands will become part of Moscow Russia. Few people will pay attention to these figures: for three quarters of a millennium, that is, for a significant part of their history, the Eastern Slavs, together with their numerous neighbors, did not live in unity, they lived apart, most often not experiencing at all in relation to each other not only blood, but and even just elementary humane feelings. At the same time, the centuries-old confrontation between two new, one might say superethnoi - Russian and Ukrainian - has become demonstratively textbook.

The split of Rus' and its actual disappearance from the political map of the world ultimately predetermined the fourth global event in its history, its fourth turn, which became decisive. The former Vladimir Rus will actually cease to exist. Its place will be taken by Lithuanian Rus - in the west, and Mongolian Rus - in the east. The first state will adhere to the European orientation of development, the second - to the Asian, Eastern model of development. The first will become independent and federal, the second - dependent, politically fragmented, but over time - rigidly unitary. The West Russian macrostate with a new Lithuanian-European dynasty and East Russian microstates appeared before the world (with the exception of the North Russian Novgorod Republic), ruled by the former Norman dynasty, but vassal dependent on the Mongol-Asiatic dynasty.

Thus, due to the Mongol conquests of the first half of the 13th century, in place of the former, not fully formed Russian-European civilization, two new parallel and at the same time polar socio-cultural structures begin to take shape: Lithuanian-Russian, with a predominantly Western socio-cultural type of development and Mongolian-Russian, with a predominantly eastern socio-cultural type of development. Let's not forget about the alternative version that in the east of Rus' there was not only the so-called chronicle "yoke", but there was also no moderate vassalage as such, but there was a single allied Russian-Mongolian (or Mongolian-Russian) federal state.

The development of events according to such a scenario, probably, cannot be ruled out. The need for a radical change in the foreign policy of Rus' was caused by the fact that since the 13th century the focus of the Catholic crusades shifted from Muslim and pagan lands to the Orthodox Christian world. It is not surprising that in response to the onslaught of the Catholic crusaders, who, unlike the pagan Mongols, had very unambiguous claims to modify or destroy the central core of the Byzantine-Russian Orthodox civilization, Alexander Nevsky takes a course on tactical rapprochement with the stronger, but spiritually less for Rus'. dangerous Mongols. In the future, such a temporary tactical rapprochement will lead to a strategic and permanent rapprochement, to the fact that a socio-cultural oasis of the East will be created on part of the territory of Rus', which will subsequently spread to a sixth of the Earth.

For Alexander Nevsky, the enemies were clearly defined: this is the West - in the person of the Catholic crusaders, and these are the Russians themselves: those of them who refused to obey the Mongols, serve in their army, pay taxes, possibly to the “general federal budget”. The adopted son of the conqueror of Rus', Batu, who by force bowed Eastern Rus' to the Golden Horde, Alexander will become the Holy Hero of the Church, Russia and even the USSR. Alexander will not only preserve the Orthodox-pagan culture and the Orthodox-pagan spirit of Rus', but Alexander will lay the foundation for something fundamentally new and extraordinarily great. He will lay the foundation for the spirit of Russian autocracy (when the "darkness of power" is at the top) and the spirit of Russian slavery (when the "power of darkness" is below), that is, everything that will exist for three quarters of a millennium and survive until the end of the twentieth century. Until now, the political choice of Alexander Nevsky, which turned out to be epoch-making and macrohistorical, is disputed by few. Other, alternative scenarios for the development of events of that era are not discussed enough.

And as an alternative, we can name the Lithuanian-Russian path. In neighboring Lithuanian Rus, all those who encroached on the sovereignty of this state were identified as political opponents. Having created a federal state in the spirit of the former traditions of Kievan Rus and European norms of law and morality, Lithuanian Rus successfully resisted the onslaught of the crusaders, the aggression of the Mongols, and the expansion of Mongol-Russian, and then Muscovite Rus. In the future, however, in the confrontation between the Lithuanian-Russian and Mongol-Russian alternatives in the historical development of Rus', the one that will rely on the traditions of the eastern socio-cultural type will prevail, and the new Russia will be destined to become a state-civilization that inherits not only Byzantine (Eurasian), but also Mongolian (Asian) features in their development.

The global turn of Russian history, committed in the middle of the XIII century. subsequently it will be fixed in 1328. This year, the least acceptable alternative for the future of the new civilization is realized: Moscow. Authoritarian Moscow, having become the head of the unification process in the east of Rus', is defeating Tver: its most serious competitor. The principality of Moscow, which has recently appeared on the map of Rus', having received a label from the newly Muslim Mongols of the Golden Horde for the right to control Eastern Russia, begins that significant process of “centralization”, which will end in the complete subordination of the democracies of Novgorod, Pskov and Vilna. Russian macrohistory finally chose Moscow this year as its main path of development, but not Tver, Novgorod, Pskov or Vilna. In other words, imperial "continental" thinking, permanent tyranny and slavery.

The next most important turn of Russian history is the period of the reign of Ivan the Great. And we are talking here rather than about well-known facts: the final liberation of the lands of Eastern Rus' from under the influence of the Horde and the beginning of the restoration of the former borders of Kievan Rus in the struggle against Lithuanian Rus. The point here is different. Accepting the Eastern Roman inheritance (coat of arms, signs of royal power, wife - heiress of the Roman Caesars), By translating the beginning of the new year from the East Slavic March 1 to the Byzantine September 1, Ivan III spoke about Rus' (before Philotheus) how about Third Rome. At the same time, the young Muscovite state also assumed the political Mongol imperial legacy: Moscow felt the right to unite under its banners not only the East Slavic lands, but also most of Eurasia.

Ivan the Great, being, perhaps, in many respects a traditional Moscow autocrat, was able, nevertheless, to plant the sprouts of the European path of development into Russian soil: absolutism, but not autocracy; freedom, but not slavery; compromise, but not terror and violence. Unfortunately, this trend will not receive long-term stable development. Its last surge will probably be the great reforms of 1550, which for a short time will place Russia among the advanced states following the path of radical socio-political reforms in the spirit of the just begun era of modern times.

So Russia XVI century. again faced with a choice. Culturally and religiously, the Byzantine (Eurasian) inheritance, in the socio-political aspect - Mongolian (eastern) a legacy interspersed with the spirit of change coming from the West. Ivan the Great for the final choice, obviously, did not have enough time. Ivan the Terrible - time was enough in full. During the 24 years of the counter-reform era, they carried out all the necessary measures that created a political regime in the country, which no one will be able to significantly change. He will change (or, as they will say in pseudo-historical language: to reform), but only in one direction: towards strengthening the regime of sole power. This intimidating authoritarian-despotic regime, in various forms of rigidity and cruelty, will happily exist right up to the present day - right up to the current unlimited super-presidential system of government.

The global turn begun by Ivan the Great was successfully completed by his grandson Ivan the Terrible: Russia was not destined to become Great and free (this trend will come to naught after the coup of 1560), but it was destined to become terrible and not free (this trend after 1560 will prevail and become dominant over the next five centuries).

The fifth, terrible turn of Russian history has so rooted the eastern, as well as the imperial essence of the new Russia, that even short-term periods of remissions do not help get rid of it. Created in the second half of the 16th century. the autocratic regime of political power, the beginning of the enslavement of the population, the suppression and extermination of the opposition, the beginning of expansion into Asia (1552) and Europe (1558), i.e. the beginning of a global confrontation with the world will become characteristic features, distinctive features of the new Russian state, or the new Russian Eurasian monocivilization. It will be a special, "garrison" state, historically focused on confrontation, on war, on survival in harsh geopolitical conditions, mystically oriented towards the past, towards a paradoxical movement in space and time back, into the distant past - into the past in which Russia to visit, as others did not happen.

During all five centuries, attempts will be made in Russia to make a new global turn, which would change the previous unfavorable trend of development, unfavorable for society, for the economy, for the life of an ordinary person, but, perhaps, quite favorable and optimal for the state macrosystem itself. In five centuries, one can count up to a dozen and a half daring and hopeless attempts by various reformers and idealist dreamers to change the vector of Russia's movement. All of them will be successfully blocked both by the state machine itself and by the ingrained conservative traditionalist mentality of the new Russian society.

Several such attempts can be singled out, during which, under favorable circumstances, it was possible to start and complete a new global turn in Russian history. These are the eras of Alexander I, Alexander II, Nicholas II and the period of the democratic revolution of February 1917. All of them had a good start, which did not receive the same good continuation. Meanwhile, Russia, meanwhile, moved further and further away and lagged behind the previously quite politically “related” and equal Western Europe, not wanting to follow either European or former East Slavic (relative to European) course.

The attempts of Peter the Great to westernize Russia by the method of violence, to create a culturally Europeanized, and in all other aspects - an Asian, eastern state, in which it would be absolutely unbearable for a person to live, are nothing more than a consolidation and continuation of the oprichnina counter-reform of Ivan the Terrible, the great Asian despotic tilt of Russia. The Bolsheviks, that is, the extreme left Social Democrats, highly valued both Ivan and Peter, calling them their teachers. Therefore, the line of October 1917 - 1991. is nothing fundamentally new. Rather, on the contrary, it represents the liquidation of the centers of Europeanism left behind by the ideas and reforms of M. Speransky and P. Stolypin, Alexander II and Nicholas II, A. Kerensky and P. Milyukov.

Thus, the era of counter-reforms of Ivan the Terrible, Peter I, Lenin-Stalin finally marked the line, trend, path chosen by Russia back in the era of Mongol-Russian rivalry - alliance. The path of omnipotence, limitlessness and arbitrariness of power, giving rise to lack of freedom - for some, slavery - for others. It is known that this was not the choice of all of Russia, not all of its peoples, not all of its political elite. But it was a choice that determined the further fate of Rus', determined a new vector of its movement. Over the course of subsequent history, this vector will acquire the character of “optimal” and “only possible” and will invariably take precedence over all other options for the development of Rus' and Russia, which will remain unrealized.

Alternative development options.

Summarizing and summarizing what has been said, we can identify a number of unrealized alternatives for the development of Rus' and Russia.

First. In the 9th century, the Norman alternative to the political development of Russia was implemented: the traditions of foreign dynasties, the aggressive imperial vector of development, the formation of the state on the basis of contract theory, how much based imperial theory of violence and subjugation of nearby lands. The Slavic alternative was not implemented: the beginning of dynastic rule in the East Slavic lands was laid not by the Norman ("Russian"), and Slavic (not Russian) Novgorod dynasty. The development vector could become completely different, relying on a social contract, veche democracy, mental "settledness" and reduced militancy (It is possible that the symbol of the nation would not be a horse, but a house).

Second. In the 9th century, the Kiev alternative was implemented, but the Novgorod alternative was not implemented. The capital of the country is veche, republican, almost European in spirit Novgorod. Not for years, but for centuries, to the present day. With the preservation and development of ancient veche traditions. It is not Ivan the Terrible who wipes Novgorod, recalcitrant to him, from the face of the Earth, but vice versa: Ivan Vasilyevich is a citizen of Novgorod's democratic Russia.

Third. Since the 10th century, since the time of the Russian Alexander the Great - Svyatoslav, the trend of permanent imperial expansion of the country's territory has been realized (I wonder for what rational purpose?). The trend of unrestrained expansion continued (with some breaks) almost a whole millennium, sometimes accompanied by complete collapses, at least once in a 4-century cycle. No one knows whether this centuries-old disease of Russia has ended, or whether a new global gathering of lands around the same Moscow is still waiting for us. Thus, until now, an alternative to a relatively peaceful and truly sedentary life, based on the principles of not extensive, but intensive development in the limited space of the great Russian plain, has not been realized.

Fourth. Since the end of the 10th century, a Eurasian cultural and religious alternative has been implemented, which not only brought Rus' closer to the West, but fenced it off from most of Europe, creating a centuries-old "iron curtain" of mistrust and alienation. Catastrophes of 1054 and 1204 give this problem a global and eternal character. Thus, in the tenth century the European cultural and religious alternative was not implemented, which could create more favorable conditions for Russian and Russian integration into the European community of nations, into the pan-European modernization process.

The perhaps less optimal, less attractive "Asian", purely oriental cultural program was also not implemented. Dressing Rus' in an exclusively oriental cultural and religious shell (for example, in Islamic) would probably give her no less color and create a more solid foundation for her worldview and self-consciousness, which would become more definite. In other words, the process of social macro-identification of Rus' and Russia would have been more successful, with a more adequate internal and external assessment of the situation, without delaying this process for many centuries.

Fifth. Since the 11th century, an extremely unfavorable alternative has been realized, connected with the constant confrontation in the struggle for power among the political elite, which led to a split and disintegration of the country. Subsequently, to this will be added the constant confrontation between the state and its subjects, turned into serfs, servants, slaves. There will also be a split in the elite, cultural part of society, usually referred to as "Cultural Divide" which will largely hinder the implementation of progressive reforms in the country. Thus, the alternative of a cautious, rational, flexible, far-sighted policy of the central government, based on a compromise with the political elite of society and neighboring lands without a sharply defined pathology of violence and suicide, has not been implemented.

Sixth. In the XIII century, the Russian-Mongolian political alternative was implemented. With family ties and even friendship. With bloody quarrels in the "showdown" with the Mongols and the continuation of the state of decentralization and civil war between the Russian lands. With the creation of the state on the Mongol-Chinese model. With the refusal of the help of the West, from the proposal to carry out a joint crusade with the Slavs against the Mongols . (This vice was adopted from the Byzantines, who preferred to accept death from Muslims than help from the hands of the head of the Vatican).

Thus, an alternative has not been realized, which would consist in the joint struggle of the united East Russian lands in alliance with Western, Lithuanian Russia against the conquerors of the West and East. An alternative has not been implemented that would be associated with a truce, at least a temporary one, between Catholic Europe and all the East Slavic lands in the name of jointly repulsing the Mongol aggression.

Seventh. Since the 14th century, Moscow has been implementing an extremely authoritarian, essentially pro-Eastern alternative to uniting all Russian lands into a new state. With the establishment of relations of allegiance (in the Russian version you can say "slavery"), but not democratic vassalage - as in Europe and in Kievan Rus. Thus, the Lithuanian-Russian unification program is not implemented. And neither the "knightly" Tver, nor the republican Novgorod or Pskov become the capital of the future state. Four European alternatives remain unrealized.

Eighth. From the second half of the 16th century, the foundations of Russian autocracy were created - autocracy. The subjects finally acquired the status of slaves. There is no real political opposition now. Thus, in Russia of that era, an alternative to moderately progressive political development based on compromise, the traditions of the “old times” was not implemented. (epoch of Ivan the Great) and on radical reforms "from above" (the era of the Chosen One). The modernization alternative in the development of "early" Russia has not been implemented. To do it then meant to do it not only not too late, but to do it before many European states. Someone or something did not allow Russia in the middle of the 16th century to step into the depths of the era of the New Age even then.

Ninth. At the turn of the XV - XVI centuries. in Russia, a rigid, orthodox branch of Orthodoxy was strengthened. As a result of the defeat of the emerging Russian religious Reformation (supporters of the official line of the church, led by Joseph Volotsky, prevailed over the "non-possessors" who were looking for the true path, headed by Nil Sorsky), informally supported by the monarch himself, Russia will not acquire the spirit of Protestantism ("pray and work"), but Filofeevsky messianism and serfdom. The champions of greater humanity, greater religiosity will be defeated, and some of them will even be burned as heretics at the stake. The "Protestant" religious alternative was buried first of all by the Church itself, as a state, but not a sacred, not a religious structure.

The religious schism of society will again become aggravated and intensify in the second half of the 17th century during the church reform of Patriarch Nikon. And again, instead of a policy of compromise, the state and its Church will demonstrate their inability to ensure freedom of conscience, freedom of religion. Unlimited and untimely violence against the Old Believers will give rise in response to anti-state and anti-church violence, civil wars and revolutions, the apotheosis of which will be 1917, which "meaningless and ruthless" revolt "bottom" will overthrow the dynasty, and the state, and the Church. All this will be very reminiscent of revenge. An alternative to harmonious development along the path of social tranquility in the 17th century. was completely lost.

Tenth. The European trend of February 1917 was quickly suppressed. In the new, totalitarian forms of the communist type, the former autocracy and former forms of slavery were restored. Thus, Russia failed to implement the alternative of the progressive-evolutionary path of development after October 1905: a gradual movement towards a constitutional monarchy of the Western European type, or (after February 1917)- to a democratic republic modeled on the American one. With a high degree of certainty, we can talk about the non-realization of the radical multifaceted democratic alternative during the 16th-20th centuries as a whole. Each time, Russia contemplated only the contours of liberalization and democratization, which were highlighted in a number of modernization reforms, and more often - reform projects or declarations of intent.

Enough. Ten of these unrealized alternatives are enough to understand: Rus' and Russia have always chosen the vector of movement, which in the end turned out to be not only not entirely favorable for it, but also the least promising, more dead end, more sacrificial. Probably, the choice that the state and the Church serving it made was beneficial, first of all, to themselves. The state of the pro-Oriental type does not grow out of society, does not serve its interests, it rises above society, controlling it and preventing it from turning into a truly civil society.

The Russian state chooses not only the type of development and the vector of movement that is convenient for itself, but also corresponding to specific geopolitical conditions. Therefore, for life on a cold giant plain, in conditions of constant aggression from the outside, a fortress state is chosen. It becomes convenient not only for defense, but also for preventive strikes and long-term expansion. The choice of a pro-Eastern state is always favorable from his point of view.

It will touch upon the creation and functioning of a powerful, boundless empire. This is relevant. It will deal with the problems of satisfying the appetites of power and keeping one's own people and the new colonized nations in subjection. This is also relevant. The historical choice of a state of the pro-Oriental type will not affect the interests of society, the interests of the general population, their rights and freedoms. It's not relevant. And for the empire, in addition, it is contraindicated.

The historical choice that the traditionalist pro-Oriental macrosystem makes from time to time is always relevant for it, because it decides the question of its survival in the new conditions. And he is always pleasant to her, because she always thinks only of herself. However, this choice is always unfavorable for her, because it always leaves her where she was. And in particular, this choice is unfavorable in terms of correlating it with a new world phenomenon - Western civilization. And if a purely eastern macrosystem is of little concern (that someone, somewhere, has gone somewhere, supposedly forward), then a system of a mixed type, with elements of Western thinking and worldview - is very exciting.

She begins to complex about this, in offices and palaces they begin to talk about the lag of "our great power" from other countries and peoples. The idea of a total mobilization of all the resources of the country is born, in the name of "a great goal: "catch up and overtake." Thus, the largely far-fetched problem of lagging behind and the need to close the gap is born, if possible at any cost. And most often not in the name of self-preservation, but in the name of satisfying the vain ambitions of state power. This is not a European mentality, and not an Eastern one. In all this lies something else, something mixed. In a way, it's pathological.

This will be discussed. Already the very introduction, the very formulation of the problem partially answered the global question: what are the reasons for Russia's lagging behind the West? Is it possible to add anything else to this? And add something that has never been said before?

II. Russia and freedom.

Political freedom and economic freedom. Were they ever in Rus' and in Russia? Usually the answer is negative. Only sometimes it is said about short periods of time when, at least to one degree or another, freedom as such would be present. Mentioned, in particular, the times of the veche system of Kievan Rus and short periods of time at the beginning of the 20th century. as a consequence of the events of October 1905 and February 1917. And all this is short-lived and relatively. Rus' and freedom, Russia and freedom - how are things incompatible? Lack of freedom, guaranteed private property, hence the presence of slavery (not the owner - it means a slave), and if slavery, then lagging behind the civilization of the West, based on the spirit of freedom and the principles of private property.

Even at the dawn of Russian statehood, the people delegated freedom to the state in exchange for two things: 1) in response, it should take the greatest possible care of its subjects (in conditions of extreme geopolitical and climatic conditions, this was extremely important); 2) his national power must rise, if not over the world, then at least over the surrounding lands.

A completely conscious choice of society, for which it should be responsible. And do not talk only about the usurpation of power and the artificial imposition of autocracy. If every nation deserves the government it has, then both Rus' and Russia have received that socio-cultural type, those forms of power that they consciously and unconsciously desired.

A person, depending on the measure of his pride, his self-respect, always chooses one or another degree of psychological inclinations before force, before power, which he is ready to accept as a compromise. The Russian man, like an Oriental man, has chosen the degree of maximum possible inclination, humility in the face of power. At the same time, it should be noted that in the era of the early Middle Ages, the Eastern Slavs were unlikely to be such.

Consequently, the spirit of submission came to them somewhat later. Perhaps only in the Moscow era of Russian history will that very psychological phenomenon arise, the meaning of which will be that the Russian people will find more pleasure in slavery than in freedom. A state is being created in which there will be only first, and behind it - last. Moreover, this first will concentrate power to a greater extent than the pharaohs of Egypt.

European and old Russian model vassalage, limiting the arbitrariness of the monarch, securing their rights and privileges for the elite, society, gradually led to progress, to the democratization and liberalization of the political system. Conversely, the Eastern and New Russian model of relations citizenship according to principle "monarch - serf" gave birth to autocracy without borders, gave birth to a historical impasse. The absence of political opposition, freedom, property, lack of alternative development gave rise to permanent political stagnation, the impossibility of creating an attractive competitive civilization.

The system of vassalage existed at one time even in the Principality of Moscow, and the system of ministeriality finally took shape only in the 16th century. And if you remember that there was another Rus', it turns out that in it people not only enjoyed freedom, but also abused it from time to time, and the political elite had legal guarantees of their rights and freedoms. And in this, not at all a unitary state, even such a fighter against the tyranny of Ivan the Terrible as Andrei Kurbsky did not look like a “democrat”, but the same tyrant. Russian people in this "non-Russian" state were completely free, professed the Orthodox faith and spoke their native language, which was also the state language.

Subsequently, the Russian East will be able to overcome the Russian West, and free Rus' will become part of unfree Rus'. Therefore, one should not say with such certainty that freedom in Russia is impossible and, moreover, contraindicated for it. An alternative to the development of Rus' and Russia along the path of autocracy and slavery has almost always existed.

The question is different: why did the Russian Middle Ages ultimately win the fight against European Antiquity, and the Russian Middle Ages - from the European Modern Age? Why existed for more than five centuries (on the border with Europe, on the lands of Holy Kievan Rus) free Western Rus' failed to implement the program of all-Russian national unification? Why would a civilization created by the archaic spirit of prehistoric times ultimately prevail not only over its own kind, but also over those who were looking to the future?

Is it not in the suppression of freedom that these, above all, military successes lie? But they cannot be durable. They are always temporary. Because human resources, unlike imperial ambitions, are not unlimited. Bleed and de-energize, but "catch up and overtake." To win at any cost, through maximum effort, gathering all conceivable and unthinkable resources, through total enslavement and robbery of one's own people, using their sometimes resigned, sometimes amazing readiness to sacrifice themselves in the name of the interests of the state.

The manifestation of elements of a slave psychology, in all likelihood, was not the original feature of the national character of the Eastern Slavs. Judging by Western, Lithuanian Rus', it did not submit to either the Horde, or the Crusaders, or Moscow. Elements of this kind could first arise and manifest themselves in the Moscow principality, later in the Muscovite state, i.e., where the influence of the Mongol conquerors was more noticeable, where contact, cooperation, and interaction with them were maximum. It was during this period that the old Russian elite (one that still valued freedom and independence) was mostly destroyed.

The elite that replaced it was both less proud and less well-born, not self-confident, and because of this, more dependent, pro-Mongolian, more thinking about self-preservation, which ultimately gave rise to its cynicism, duplicity, inferiority, betrayal. The new Russian-Moscow elite was humiliated in the Horde, not recognized in other Russian lands, but in response, servile to the khans, they humiliated and trampled on their own people. Thus, a kind of pathological sado-masochistic complex of the new Russian nobility was born, transmitted to the people themselves, who previously only knew how to endure violence, but now they began to learn how to create it. And subsequently, the numerous riots of the Russian people will become "senseless and merciless."

The lack of freedom that came to Russia is a consequence of that global metamorphosis that happened in the epochal 240-year period of the so-called "yoke". There is a feeling that not Rus', not Moscow overcomes the Horde, gaining independence. But vice versa. The weakening, decaying Horde metropolis passes on its inheritance to its successor and, perhaps, the best student: the Muscovite state. And as a testament - the right to acquire all the Horde lands, and all the former possessions of the empire of Genghis Khan, the right to become the second great Eurasian empire.

As a result of the transfer of this "baton": the creation of an aggressive, continuously and prohibitively growing, semi-barbarian and semi-impoverished superstate, the characteristic features of which were superpower, supersubordination, supertension, supermobilization. As a result, our lack of freedom, and it - as a consequence of the fact that we became the children of the most authoritarian, most immoral principality, who went through the harsh Mongolian school and entered the bosom of the eastern, mainly Turanian worldview. The Principality, which brought the rest of the East Slavic world to its knees, imposed on it its own style of life and way of thinking, its own method of relating to society and the individual. We are the children of Mongolian Muscovy, the children of Ivan Kalita, Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and all their contemporary associates, heroes of the 20th century, champions of unfreedom and slavery.

An undeveloped, non-individual society cannot be free. And it is impossible to change its structure: people are too attached to the structure. It can only be replaced, but whatever such a replacement is, society still will not become free. The "mass", devoid of the spirit of individuality, is afraid to be free. She does not know what freedom means, she cannot recognize it as a necessity. At best, she can present it in Russian: as will - for herself and suppression - for others.

Therefore, the "mass" clings in every possible way, fearing to lose their lack of freedom. More than anything in her life, she wants to…belong. Inspired revolutions, designed to give the "mass" freedom, change its external form, but inside everything remains the same. Freedom must be realized, it must be grown up to it, so that it could appear as a natural necessity for those who have left the ranks of the "mass". For those who have never been in them, freedom has always existed.

There has never been freedom in Russia, because the "masses" have always prevailed here, thirsting for submission. We are doomed to freedom. And even when freedom is very close, presented for us by some Sisyphus reformer, its stone again rolls far down, to the bottom, where unfreedom reigns. The creation of a free society requires an excessively high level of spiritual development of a person, while an attempt to “introduce” freedom into an undeveloped system only leads to the fact that it becomes even worse, and the system stops working altogether.

In order for it to work again, a return to the past, to unfreedom, is required. This is how the Russian phenomenon is born: the regime of political counter-reform, leading the country out of the crisis caused by the introduction of the spirit and elements of freedom into it. Every time the spirit of freedom was presented from the outside as something artificial, while freedom must be sown and nurtured within. It is like a state of mind. Then it is natural, immanent and capable, already at the macro level, to be embodied in the state of society.

Undoubtedly, M. Gorbachev's and later B. Yeltsin's attempt to grant freedom to the country and people, who were completely unprepared for it, can be recognized as great and daring. What happened when the first reformer lengthened the "chain", and the second - and completely removed the "collar", we have seen and see with our own eyes. And if this liberal reform does not give a positive result (the experience of the past suggests that this should happen), then society, which has not reached the stage of a mature perception and understanding of freedom, will be forced to admit: it was better in the past, i.e. lack of freedom for us it is more expedient than freedom, and counter-reform is more effective than reform. And the people themselves, of their own free will, will return to the new tyrant, whom he will elect, both the “chain” and the “collar”.

In Russia, there have always been paroxysmal outbursts of love of freedom from time to time. In the form of various kinds of peasant uprisings, pogroms, escapes, drunkenness. This removed, probably, the stress accumulated over the centuries of slavery, caused by the pathology of the formed masochism. After the removal of stress, most often a voluntary return to the previous place followed: to receive punishment and endure new humiliations, waiting for the appearance of a new impulse of aggression. Permanent, rooted social masochism with rare, but absolutely senseless and merciless outbursts of repressed sadistic energy.

More recently, Russia has again experienced this kind of episode. We saw this psychopathological outburst again. All those who are helpless, who are mediocre, having felt that the Master has weakened, (the power has weakened: he does not feed, does not water, does not rape) began to take revenge. Revenge for what does not feed, does not water, does not rape. They don't need freedom. They will die in it. They need someone who will feed, water and rape. And sooner or later they will find one. Something that will keep them in check. Otherwise, they themselves will create lawlessness and violence.

The West is freedom. The East is a tradition.And maybe that's the whole point. Not that Russia is an underdeveloped civilization that is still not ripe for freedom. And the fact that Russia, perhaps even being a mono-civilization that combines the signs of East and West, is still predominantly an eastern socio-cultural system. She is natural the way she is, and she cannot be otherwise. And this is its uniqueness, its unsurpassedness, its oriental beauty. Beauty of her Spirit.

The West is freedom. And where there is freedom, there is creativity, there is progress, there is emancipation. Democracy. Right. Industrialization. Market. This is an activity. And it's a race. Race for survival. Race for profit. Race for comfort. For the comfort of Civilization.

The East is a tradition. And where there is tradition, there is continuity, there is naturalness, there is integrity. Theocracy. Religion. Spiritualization. This is non-action. And this is contemplation. Creations of the Cosmos. And the creations of culture.

The West focuses on one thing, the East on the other. According to some indicators, the West will be ahead of the East, according to others, the East will be ahead of the West. There is no doubt that the civilization of the West focuses on comfort, on the standard of living of a person, and achieves success in this. And this is an undeniable plus.

The East, by its nature, is natural and religious, it cannot set the material plane as a priority goal: this is at odds with the moral standards developed by the Eastern socio-cultural type within the framework of the religious and ethical systems of the “axial time” era.

In other words, the East cannot respond “in an oriental way” to the challenge of the rational West, striving for a technogenic future devoid of sensuality, even if it provides all its fellow citizens with all earthly blessings. The East understands that the priority development of the material will lead to the humiliation and possible destruction of the spiritual, to a change in the predominantly cultural orientation of society to a civilizational orientation. Which, in fact, has already happened in the West.

Russia- not the West. And in order to at least “catch up” with the technogenic, pragmatic-rational West, Russia had to become the West itself. But she couldn't do this. Her deep inner spirit did not allow her to do so. For the same reasons why the East could not do it. (And if someone in the East managed, according to Western criteria, to catch up with the West, then he achieved this using Western methodologies and technologies). Russia is the inner East. Outwardly - at times the West.

What are the reasons for the constant lag (political, socio-economic) of Russia from the West? The fact that Russia is not the West. And it will never be able to become the West in its entirety.

What are the reasons for the relative lag (cultural-religious, mystical-spiritual) of the West from Russia? The fact that the West is not the East, but Russia is closer to the East, being a kind of internal Christianized East.

Being a pseudo-West, Russia will never be able to match it according to Western criteria, but it can surpass the East in these parameters, because it is closer to the West.

Being a pseudo-East, Russia will never be able to equal it in accordance with the Eastern criteria of evaluation, but it can surpass the West in these parameters, because it is closer to the East.

Nobody knows which is better: East or West. East introversion or West extroversion. Everyone considers himself the best. This is nothing more than delusions of grandeur. An indicator of one-sided, non-universal development. One-sided, not universal thinking. To think that someone is better, and the Truth - lies on someone's side - is either a disease of the Mind, or its absence. To think that it is better to be both here and there, not being anywhere, is also obviously a disease. But really to be everything: both here and there, to be universal and integral - this is perfection itself, the object of aspirations, the meaning of being. This is the meaning of religious aspiration. And we should be proud of the fact that we, Russia, are striving to overcome the limits of limitation, to become free and to come out alive into the integral world that is opening up for us.

Similar information.

The modern era is called the era of globalization. There is a merging, integration of political, economic systems, culture and education. In the era of globalization, the meaning and purpose of history are beginning to be reassessed. In the modern world, there have been several trends, the development of which can lead to a rethinking of the role of history for humanity.

The goal of globalization is to build a unitary, unified world. Because of this, it denies the existence and development of national histories. Such a history is not necessary for it and is even harmful, as it slows down the processes of globalization, convergence, and so on.

Meanwhile, until now, historical science has developed precisely within the framework of national historiographies. Thus, the entire previous history of the development of our science comes into conflict with the main modern trend in world development. Is a "global history" possible? Will it play the same role in the future as it has played so far? What is the meaning and purpose of history in the era of globalization?

American philosopher and political scientist Francis Fukuyama substantiated the term "end of history". He put forward a hypothesis that the goal and meaning of the course of world history is the building of liberal democracy on a global scale. Under it, there will be no reasons for interethnic, interstate and internal wars, conflicts, etc., that is, history will disappear, stop in the old sense - as a description of political struggle.

“In the era of the victory of liberal democracy, “history with a capital letter” will stop, that is, history understood as a single, logically consistent evolutionary process, considered taking into account the experience of all times and peoples ... the historical mechanism presented by modern science is sufficient to explain many historical changes and the growing uniformity of modern societies, but it is not enough to explain the phenomenon of democracy"

Some scholars point out that the globalist culture denies history as the basis of identity and self-identity. For her, other identities are more important - belonging to an international corporation, to the culture of consumers of some product that is sold all over the world, to local non-historical subcultures. If this trend really develops, then history will not be in demand in the sociocultural sphere where it is most important today. And it will cease to exist in the form in which it is now.

"What future awaits historical knowledge in the era of globalization? Of course, no one can predict this exactly, but some important trends, perhaps, can already be spoken of. The main one (disappointing for historians) is that the gradually emerging single world , it seems, will not need history at all.Or, to put it more carefully, it will not need those types of history that are so familiar and dear to us ... For a long time, humanity as a whole did not have any common memory at all - it began to slowly take shape only in the era of world wars.Therefore, history in the global community should be drawn primarily as a denial and overcoming of national, regional and cultural histories, as the history of building a single planetary civilization and as a rationale for why in this civilization power and resources are distributed exactly as they are distributed The story in the traditional style about the emergence and development of the Near and Far East, African, American, European cultures turns out to be not only "ideologically" harmful, but also technically impossible.

The Russian historian Boitsov suggests that classical historical science will become something purely scientific, highly intellectual and elitist - like modern Assyriology. And society will see the meaning and purpose of history in the satisfaction of its needs.

"The main function of history in the era of globalization is by no means a means of identifying the community, as it was before, to which we are so accustomed in the ending (or already completed) era of "modernity", but a source of commercialized images. It is clear that such images are used primarily for entertainment, so that whether we like it or not, history becomes a way of entertainment, a source of pleasure.

In addition to the sphere of entertainment, the meaning of history will be seen in the conduct of local studies of local lore, which are in demand in the field of tourism and provide local identities, in microhistory - in the study of very narrow phenomena or individuals.

Such a radical change in ideas about the meaning and purpose of history in the era of globalization is theoretically possible, but it is worth noting that the "end of history", the collapse of historical science, depriving it of any meaning in the 20th century. predicted repeatedly, and these scenarios did not come true. History exists as long as there are historians and people are interested in their past, guided by various motives, the need for historical memory, identity, national ideology, knowledge of the world, entertainment, etc.

Fukuyama F. The End of History and the Last Man: Per. from English. M.: Publishing house ACT, 2004.S. 34.
Fighters A/. L. Will Clio survive globalization? // Social sciences and modernity. 2006. No. 1. P. 92.
Fighters M. A. Will Clio survive globalization? S. 100.

Why is there a need for the development of global history - in contrast to the history of the local, the history of individual countries, regions, civilizations, and, finally, in contrast to the history of the world or universal, which, it would seem, embraces everything? What is the specificity of global history in comparison with the above stories? These naturally arising questions are closely interrelated and need to be elucidated in the first place.

Let's start with local histories - the histories of individual places, cities (for example, the history of Moscow or London), individual states (for example, the history of Russia or France), individual regions (for example, the history of Southeast Asia or Central Europe), individual civilizations (for example, history of Ancient Greece or Western Europe) and even a whole group of civilizations (for example, the history of the East). Despite their vastly different scope, all of these histories share some common limitations stemming from their locality. Firstly, this is a spatial-geographical limitation: here the history of a certain limited territory of the earth's surface is considered, and then just a separate point of it, Secondly, this is a temporal limitation: the history of a city, state, one of the civilizations or their group in terms of its time duration incommensurably less than not only the history of mankind as a whole, but also the history of the civilized world. This country or civilization either arose much later than the first civilizations (such are not only all modern states and civilizations, but also the ancient Greek or Roman civilizations that seem “ancient” to us), or they ceased to exist long ago and, therefore, are also very limited in time (Ancient Egypt or the most ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia).

But it's not just the limitations themselves. The problem is that the history of any city, any country or civilization cannot be understood without its connection with the histories of other cities, other countries and civilizations that influence each other and are interdependent. Thus, the history of Russia cannot be understood without knowing the history of Western Europe, the Arab Caliphate. Golden Horde, Ottoman Empire, Iran, China, India, etc. The same is the case with time span: the history of the United States cannot be understood without knowing the history of Western Europe, the history of Western Europe cannot be comprehended without taking into account the history of Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece, which, in turn, without knowing the history of ancient Persia, Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and so on. The fact that the history of the United States is often studied without knowledge of the history of Western Europe and without any connection with it, and the history of Ancient Greece - without knowledge of the history of Persia, Ancient Egypt, etc., speaks only of the quality of such a "study" and nothing more. History is a fabric from which we try to pull out separate threads, not realizing that all the threads are interconnected and closely intertwined, that the very “pulling out” of the thread inevitably leads to its deformations and breaks. This is how history is taught in schools and universities. Is it any wonder that such a story is often incomprehensible, boring and gives little to a person, not only spiritually, but even in practical terms? Indeed, too often such history teaches only that it teaches us nothing.

Excessively narrow specialization in historical science often leads to the fact that the very meaning of the study of history is lost. The endless accumulation of individual historical facts becomes an end in itself; At the same time, lengthy disputes are being waged over individual facts and facts, over the clarification of individual dates and places where certain events took place.

Clarification is necessary, but it is completely insufficient and often not essential for a general interpretation of historical processes. Moreover, it in no way saves from raids on history by individual representatives of the natural sciences, who have a pronounced anti-historical thinking and who, under the guise of "clarification", seek to destroy history as such. In this regard, the statement of the modern Australian historian D. Christian, who tried to justify the need for a Universal History, remains fair: “Alas, historians are so absorbed in the study of details that they began to neglect a large-scale vision of the past. Indeed, many historians, believing that in the end the facts will speak for themselves (as soon as a sufficient number of them are accumulated), deliberately refuse to generalize and forget that any facts speak only with the “voice” of the researcher. The result of such a one-sided approach is a discipline that carries a large amount of information, but with a fragmented, narrow vision of its research field. Not surprisingly, it is becoming more and more difficult to explain to those we teach and those for whom we write why they need to study history at all” [Christian, 2001, p. 137 - 138].

It would seem that world history is devoid of these shortcomings, because it covers and connects (or tries to cover) all countries and civilizations, all epochs and periods, starting with the emergence of man himself. But, alas, the existing world history does this completely unsatisfactorily. As a matter of fact, world history is, first of all, a simple sum of the histories of individual states, regions and civilizations, and therefore, as a rule, there are no real connections between such individual histories or they are very incomplete. Yes, at the beginning or at the end of some sections of existing monographs and textbooks on world history, brief introductory paragraphs are given, written either from the point of view of the theory of socio-economic formations, or in the spirit of a civilizational approach, or in some other way. But these “generalizing” paragraphs give almost nothing and save almost nothing, they exist on their own, and the chapters on individual countries or individual regions exist on their own. Attempts to “rewrite” the history of individual countries in the spirit of, for example, formation theory often lead to a distortion of history: for example, uprisings and revolutions come to the fore completely unjustifiably, and the “exploited” continuously suffer from unbearable exploitation. However, attempts to rewrite world history in the spirit of "Eurocentrism" or "Sinocentrism", "West-centrism" or "East-centrism" in the end distort history no less.

The fundamental shortcoming of the existing world history is that it does not in any way reflect the real, actual unity of human history, the closest interconnection of all its branches and subdivisions. A unified history is artificially divided, for the sake of “the convenience of study” (what convenience this is, can be judged by the characteristic fact that not a single historian knows world history, because it is impossible to know it in principle), divided into separate, isolated from each other histories. And then from these separate stories, like from bricks, they want to put together a single living history. But it turns out not a living organism, but only a corpse or a skeleton. The natural human desire is to see and feel the connection of times, the connection of epochs and civilizations; but instead of helping in this endeavor, narrow specialists - historians argue that such connections are not known to historical science. And indeed, narrow specialists "burrow" into the smallest details of individual historical events to such an extent that, in principle, they cease to see the historical development as a whole, denying its unity and integrity. However, the "connection of times" irreversibly disintegrated in the minds of narrow, one-sided specialists, and not in real continuous history, in which the present follows from the past, and the future from the present. In fact, the dissection of a single living history into separate, isolated, closed in their uniqueness "events" and "facts" fails. Of course, it is extremely difficult for our limited knowledge to grasp the unity of history. Things have come to the point where the obvious unity of human history has to be proved. The prominent German philosopher Karl Jaspers, who dealt with this problem, pointed out the following obvious premises:

“This unity finds its support in the isolation of our planet, which, as space and soil, is one and accessible to our domination, then in the certainty of the chronology of a single time, even if it is abstract, finally, in the common origin of people who belong to the same genus and through this biological fact show us the commonality of their roots ... The essential basis of unity is that people meet in the same spirit of the universal ability of understanding. People find each other in an all-encompassing spirit that does not fully open itself to anyone, but absorbs everyone. With the greatest obviousness, unity finds its expression in faith in one God" [Yaspers, 1994, p. 207].

The modern American historian J. Bentley, speaking about the role of intercultural and intercivilizational interactions for the periodization of global history, notes: “From remote times to the present day, intercultural interactions have had important political, social, economic and cultural consequences for all participating peoples. Thus, it becomes clear that the processes of intercultural interaction could be of some importance for the tasks of recognizing historical periods from a global point of view ... Researchers are increasingly aware that history is a product of interactions involving all the peoples of the world. By focusing attention on the processes of intercultural interaction, historians could more easily recognize patterns of continuity and change that reflect the experience of many peoples, instead of imposing on everyone a periodization derived from the experience of a few privileged peoples" [Bentley, 2001, p. 172 - 173].

Global history directly proceeds from the unity of the historical process, which is due to the fact that this process takes place on the Earth with its certain natural conditions and, in a certain sense, is a continuation of the development of a single biosphere. Global history is a single but diverse history. It is neither a simple sum of the histories of individual ethnic groups, peoples, nations, nor the abstract common that is in all these histories. Rather, global history is a close interweaving, the interaction of various, divergent, differentiated lines, threads of the development of the human race, just as a fabric is an interweaving of individual threads, but is something fundamentally new in comparison with their mechanical aggregate.

Global history does not measure all peoples, states, civilizations by one or more standards, does not proceed from the fact that a society existing in one country is the future or past for a society existing in another country or another region, as numerous theories of “single progress for all”, varieties of which are the theory of industrial and post-industrial society, the theory of stages of growth, Soviet Marxism-Leninism, etc. Unlike these still widespread and inevitably ideologized theories, global history considers the complex, diverse, contradictory unity of various societies, states, civilizations as a living whole, not amenable to ranking, lining up in ranks according to the degree of “development” and “progressiveness”. For development in one direction is inevitably accompanied by degradation in another, progress is inextricably linked with regression, and the acquisition of one leads to the loss of the other. Sadly, "in history there are also peculiar "laws of conservation": the acquisition of a new one is bought at the cost of losing the former. This is connected with the infinite variety of life forms, the variety of cultures that the history of mankind demonstrates, and it is possible that it is precisely such a variety, considered as a whole , only capable of restoring the integrity of a person.

Another important prerequisite for the formation of the field of historical knowledge in question is the permanently inherent in the history of mankind throughout its entire duration of globality. The very formation of humanity, which, according to modern theories, most likely took place in one particular region, presupposes the initial unity and interaction in the human history of globality and locality: humanity that arose in one region, i.e. locally, it turned out to be able to populate the entire planet, to turn into a global community. R. Lubbers pointed out in this regard that the first homo sapience in their way of life were nomads who traveled considerable distances, which made the presence of man on Earth global; in later epochs, Indian tribes moved from Mongolia to North America, and the story of Jesus went around the world at the beginning of our era. The most interesting thing is that, although the development of the planet by man took place gradually, already in very ancient epochs, the global processes of historical changes covered vast territories that made up the then world of man, his Ecumene. Such a global process was, for example, the Neolithic revolution, the territorial boundaries of which cannot be precisely defined. The oldest civilizations known to us have a lot in common, and they arose in about the same era (4th-3rd millennium BC). If we take into account that the history of a modern type of man is at least 40-50 thousand years old, such a close in time formation of ancient civilizations can hardly be considered accidental; Rather, it is a consequence of global natural, primarily climatic, processes, in particular, the climatic optimum of the Holocene, when, for example, a warm, humid climate prevailed on the Central China Plain, and its flora and fauna corresponded to the flora and fauna of the subtropics and tropics [Kulpin, 1999, p. . 256].

Global changes and shifts associated with the impact of natural or socio-historical factors are present 1 and in later eras. Among these shifts, which had not only local but also global significance, we can mention, for example, the events and achievements of K. Jaspers' "axial time", the great: migration of peoples at the beginning of a new era. Great geographical discoveries of the XV - XVI centuries, the formation of trade and colonial empires in the XVII - XVIII centuries, modern globalization associated with the spread of new information technologies and means of communication. These and other shifts of global significance will be discussed below. At the same time, the strengthening of globality in world history is not a monotonous process; history becomes either more global or more local and differentiated. However, despite the fact that in history there is a characteristic and very significant alternation of periods of relative strengthening and relative weakening of globality, globality itself is an integral side, a necessary aspect of human history, present from its very beginning. And this is a prerequisite for the formation of global history as a field of historical and philosophical knowledge.

Global history makes it possible to overcome the limitations of "Eurocentrism" and "West-centrism" (as well as "Russian-centrism" or "East-centrism" in the interpretation of the past and the present). This limitation is very dangerous because, for example, it presents the modern "American-centric" model of globalization, with all its disproportions and ugly one-sidedness, as the only possible one. Western historical science, as well as other social sciences in the West, have worked hard to absolutize the real, but by no means exclusive features of the development of Europe and the West. Rightly criticizing this absolutization, the Canadian historian A.G. Frank, in particular, notes: “After all, the Europeans simply turned their history into a “myth”, but in fact it developed with the great support of other countries. Nothing has ever come easy to Europe, and if it did, then the least important role here was played by its notorious “exclusivity”. And of course, Europe did not "create the world around itself" at all. Rather, on the contrary, it joined the world economy, which was dominated by Asia, and the Europeans long sought to reach its level of development, and then "climbed onto the shoulders" of the Asian economy. That is why even such Europeans as Leibniz, Voltaire, Quesny and Adam Smith considered Asia to be the center of the world economy and civilization" [Frank, 2002, p. 192-193]. Only a truly global vision of historical development is capable of recreating an adequate and holistic picture of the past future, thereby protecting us from nationalism, chauvinism, narcissism, which have more than once led peoples and civilization to catastrophes.

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