Methods historical science

To study facts, phenomena and events, processes, historical science uses many methods: both general scientific and its own. Among the latter are the following: chronological, chronological-problematic , problem-chronological. Other methods are also used: periodization, comparative historical, retrospective, systemic structural, statistical, sociological research, which is used mainly to study contemporary problems

When studying and researching Russian history, says one of the authors of the university textbook “History of Russia” Sh.M. Munchaev are used following methods:

1) chronological, the essence of which is that the study and research of Russian history is presented strictly in time ( chronological) order;

2) chronologically problematic, providing for the study and research of the history of Russia by periods (topics), or eras, and within them - by problems;

3) problematic-chronological studying and researching any one aspect of the life and activities of the state in its consistent development;

4) much less commonly used synchronous a method that makes it possible to establish connections and relationships between falls and processes occurring at the same time in different places in Russia or its regions.

Among other methods used to study and research the history of Russia, the above methods should also be noted.

AND I. Lerner believes that Methods of historical knowledge that have general educational significance include:

1. Comparative historical method. 2. Method of analogies. 3. Statistical method: sampling, group. 4. Establishing causes by effects. 5. Determining the goals of acting people and groups based on their actions and the consequences of these actions.6. Determination of the embryo by mature forms. 7. Method of inverse conclusions (determining the past based on existing remnants).8. Generalization of formulas, i.e. evidence from monuments of common and written law, questionnaires characterizing the mass character of certain phenomena. 9. Reconstruction of the whole from the part. 10. Determination of the level of spiritual life based on monuments of material culture.11. Linguistic method.

Each of these methods presupposes its own specific, sometimes variable method of implementation, for which a generalized prescription-algorithm can be drawn up. Let's take the first and last as an example.

Yes, for comparative-historical The method is usually characterized by the following algorithm:

1) updating of a comparable object; 2) highlighting the features of the compared object that are important for the problem being solved; 3) comparison of objects according to similar characteristics or comparison of characteristics of objects, taking into account that commonality characterizes the degree of continuity, and differences characterize trends of change; 4) possible (not always) use of analogy in the absence of certain features; 5) updating the reasons for the differences to prove the logical correspondence of the solution to the conditions of the problem.

For linguistic method , which is used in historical linguistics and is quite common in everyday social practice, we can offer the following prescription:

1) determining the meaning of words or their combination; 2) introduction of the initial thought about the reflection of reality in words; 3) correlating the meaning of a word with the properties of an object or its characteristics; 4) identification of phenomena and their signs according to the concepts that reflect them; 5) establishing connections between phenomena based on the generality or temporal connection of concepts; 6) establishing connections by subsuming the specific, specific meaning of concepts under the generic one.

3. Methodology of history: main approaches (theories)

Interest in the past has existed since the human race appeared. At the same time, historically the subject of history was defined ambiguously: it could be social, political, economic, demographic history, the history of the city, village, family, private life. Determining the subject of stories is subjective, connected with the ideology of the state and the worldview of the historian . Historians who take a materialist position, believe that history as a science studies the patterns of development of society, which ultimately depend on the method of production of material goods. This approach gives priority to economics, society, and not people when explaining causation. Liberal historians We are convinced that the subject of the study of history is man (personality) in the self-realization of natural rights bestowed by nature.

Whatever subject historians study, they use it all in their research. scientific categories : historical movement (historical time, historical space), historical fact, theory of study (methodological interpretation).

Historical movement includes interrelated scientific categories – historical time and historical space . Each segment of movement in historical time is woven from thousands of connections, material and spiritual, it is unique and has no equal. History does not exist outside the concept of historical time. Events following one after another form a time series. Almost until the end of the 18th century, historians distinguished eras according to the reign of sovereigns. French historians in the 18th century began to distinguish eras of savagery, barbarism and civilization. IN late XIX centuries, materialist historians divided the history of society into formations: primitive communal, slaveholding, feudal, capitalist, communist. On turn of the XXI centuries, historical-liberal periodization divides society into periods: traditional, industrial, information (post-industrial). Under historical space understand the totality of natural-geographical, economic, political, socio-cultural processes occurring in a certain territory. Under the influence of natural and geographical factors, the life of peoples, occupations, and psychology are formed; The peculiarities of socio-political and cultural life are emerging. Since ancient times, a division of peoples into Western and Eastern arose. This refers to the common historical destiny and social life of these peoples.

Historical fact– this is a real event of the past. The entire past of humanity is woven from historical facts. We receive specific historical facts from historical sources, but to obtain a historical picture we need to arrange the facts in a logical chain and explain them.

In order to develop an objective picture of the historical process, historical science must rely on a certain methodology, certain general principles, which would make it possible to organize all the material accumulated by researchers and create effective explanatory models.

Theories of historical process or theories of study (methodological interpretations, fundamentals) determined by the subject of history. Theory is a logical diagram that explains historical facts. Theories are the core of all historical works, regardless of the time they were written. Based on the subject of historical research, each theory identifies my periodization, determines mine conceptual apparatus creates my historiography. Various theories reveal only their patterns or alternatives - variants of the historical process - and offer yours vision of the past, do their forecasts for the future.

By subject of study stand out three theories for studying human history: religious-historical, world-historical, locally historical.

In religious-historical theory The subject of study is the movement of man towards God, the connection of man with the Higher Mind.

In world historical theory The subject of study is the global progress of Mankind, which makes it possible to obtain material goods. It is put at the forefront social essence man, the progress of his consciousness, allowing him to create ideal person and society. Society has become isolated from nature, and man transforms nature in accordance with his growing needs. The development of history is identified with progress. All nations pass through the same stages of progress. The idea of ​​progressive social development is considered as a law, as a necessity, an inevitability.

Within the framework of the world historical theory of study, there are three main directions: materialistic, liberal, technological.

Materialistic (formational) direction, studying the progress of Mankind, gives priority to the development of a society of social relations associated with forms of ownership. History is presented as a pattern of changes in socio-economic formations. The change in formations is based on the contradiction between the level of development of productive forces and the level of development of production relations. The driving force behind the development of society is the class struggle between the haves who own private property (the exploiters) and the have-nots (the exploited), which naturally leads, ultimately, as a result of the revolution, to the destruction of private property and the construction of a classless society.

For a long time dominated in historical science subjectivist or objective-idealistic methodology . From the standpoint of subjectivism, the historical process was explained by the actions of great people: leaders, Caesars, kings, emperors and other major political figures. According to this approach, their clever calculations or, on the contrary, mistakes, led to one or another historical event, the totality and interconnection of which determined the course and outcome of the historical process.

Objective-idealistic concept assigned a decisive role in the historical process to the action of objective superhuman forces: Divine will, providence, Absolute idea, World Will, etc. With this interpretation, the historical process acquired a purposeful character. Under the influence of these superhuman forces, society was steadily moving towards specific purpose. Historical figures acted only as a means, an instrument in the hands of these superhuman, impersonal forces.

In accordance with the solution to the issue of driving forces Along with the historical process, history was also periodized. The most widespread periodization was according to the so-called historical eras: Ancient world, Antiquity, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Enlightenment, New and Contemporary times. In this periodization, the time factor was quite clearly expressed, but there were no meaningful qualitative criteria for identifying these eras.

To overcome the shortcomings of historical research methodologies, to place history like other humanities disciplines. The German thinker K. Marx tried to establish a scientific basis in the middle of the 19th century, who formulated the concept materialistic explanation of history , based on four main principles:

1. The principle of the unity of Humanity and, consequently, the unity of the historical process.

2. The principle of historical regularity. Marx proceeds from the recognition of the action in the historical process of general, stable, recurring essential connections and relationships between people and the results of their activities.

3. The principle of determinism – recognition of the existence of cause-and-effect relationships and dependencies From all the variety of historical phenomena, Marx considered it necessary to highlight the main, defining ones. The main thing that determines the historical process, in his opinion, is the method of production of material and spiritual goods.

4. The principle of progress. From the point of view of K. Marx, historical progress is the progressive development of society , rising to higher and higher levels.

The materialist explanation of history is based on a formational approach. The concept of socio-economic formation in the teachings of Marx occupies a key place in explaining the driving forces of the historical process and the periodization of history. Marx proceeds from the following principle: if humanity naturally and progressively develops as a single whole, then all of it must go through certain stages in its development. He called these stages “socio-economic formations” (SEF).

OEF represents a society at a certain stage historical development, society, with peculiar distinctive characteristics. Marx borrowed the concept of “formation” from contemporary natural science. This concept in geology, geography, and biology denotes certain structures connected by the unity of conditions of formation, similarity of composition, and interdependence of elements.

The basis of a socio-economic formation, according to Marx, is one or another mode of production, which is characterized by a certain level and nature of the development of productive forces and production relations corresponding to this level and nature. The main relations of production are property relations. The totality of production relations forms its basis, over which political, legal and other relations and institutions are built, which in turn correspond to certain forms of social consciousness: morality, religion, art, philosophy, science, etc. Thus, socio-economic formation includes in its composition all the diversity of life of society at one or another stage of its development.

From the point of view of the formational approach, humanity in its historical development goes through five main stages-formations: primitive communal, slaveholding, feudal, capitalist and communist (socialism is the first phase of the communist formation, the second is “communism proper”).

The transition from one socio-economic formation to another is carried out on the basis of a social revolution. Economic basis The social revolution is a deepening conflict between the productive forces of society, which have reached a new level and acquired a new character, and the outdated, conservative system of production relations. This conflict in the political sphere is manifested in the strengthening of social antagonisms and the intensification of class struggle between the ruling class, interested in preserving the existing system, and the oppressed classes, demanding an improvement in their situation.

Revolution leads to a change in the ruling class. The winning class carries out transformations in all spheres of social life and thus creates the prerequisites for the formation new system socio-economic, legal and other social relations, new consciousness, etc. This is how a new formation is formed. In this regard, in the Marxist concept of history, a significant role was assigned to class struggle and revolution. The class struggle was declared the most important driving force of history, and K. Marx called revolutions “the locomotives of history.”

The materialist concept of history, based on a formational approach, has been dominant in the historical science of our country over the past 80 years. The strength of this concept is that, based on certain criteria, it creates a clear explanatory model of all historical development. The history of mankind appears as an objective, natural, progressive process. The driving forces of this process, the main stages, etc. are clear. However, the formational approach to understanding and explaining history is not without its shortcomings. These shortcomings are pointed out by his critics in both foreign and domestic historiography. Firstly, the unilinear nature of historical development is assumed here. The theory of formations was formulated by K. Marx as a generalization of the historical path of Europe. And Marx himself saw that some countries do not fit into this pattern of alternating five formations. He attributed these countries to the so-called “Asian mode of production.” Based on this method, according to Marx, a special formation is formed. But he did not carry out a detailed development of this issue. Later, historical studies showed that in Europe, too, the development of certain countries (for example, Russia) cannot always be inserted into the pattern of changing five formations. Thus, the formational approach creates certain difficulties in reflecting the diversity and multivariance of historical development.

Secondly, the formational approach is characterized by a strict connection of any historical phenomena to the method of production, the system of economic relations. The historical process is considered, first of all, from the point of view of the formation and change of the mode of production: decisive importance in explaining historical phenomena is given to objective, extra-personal factors, and the main subject of history - man - is given a secondary role. Man appears in that theory only as a cog in a powerful objective mechanism that drives historical development. Thus, the human, personal content of history is belittled, and with it the spiritual factors of historical development.

Thirdly, the formational approach absolutizes the role of conflict relations, including violence, in the historical process. The historical process in this methodology is described primarily through the prism of class struggle. Hence, along with economic ones, a significant role is assigned to political processes. Opponents of the formational approach point out that social conflicts, although they are a necessary attribute of social life, still do not play a decisive role in it. And this requires a reassessment of the place of political relations in history. They are important, but the decisive importance belongs to spiritual and moral life.

Fourthly, the formational approach contains elements of providentialism and social utopianism. As noted above, the formational concept presupposes the inevitability of the development of the historical process from a classless primitive communal through class - slave, feudal and capitalist - to a classless communist formation. K. Marx and his disciples spent a lot of effort to prove the inevitability of the advent of the era of communism, in which everyone will contribute their wealth according to their abilities and receive from society according to their needs. In Christian terminology, the achievement of communism means the achievement by humanity of the kingdom of God on Earth. The utopian nature of this scheme was revealed in the last decades of its existence. Soviet power and the socialist system. The overwhelming majority of peoples abandoned the “building of communism.”

The methodology of the formational approach in modern historical science is to some extent opposed to the methodology of the civilizational approach, which began to take shape back in the 18th century. However, it received its most complete development only at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In foreign historiography, the most prominent adherents of this methodology are M. Weber, A. Toynbee, O. Spengler and a number of major modern historians, united around the historical journal “Annals” (F. Braudel, J. Le Goff, etc.). In Russian historical science, his supporters were N.Ya. Danilevsky, K.N. Leontyev, P.A. Sorokin.

Basic structural unit the historical process, from the point of view of this approach, is civilization. The term "civilization" comes from the Latin word urban, civil, state. Initially, the term “civilization” denoted a certain level of development of society that occurs in the life of peoples after an era of savagery and barbarism. Distinctive features civilization, from the point of view of this interpretation, is the emergence of cities, writing, social stratification of society, and statehood.

In a broader sense, civilization is most often understood as high level development of the culture of society. Thus, during the Age of Enlightenment in Europe, civilization was associated with the improvement of morals, laws, art, science, and philosophy. In that context, there are also opposing points of view, in which civilization is interpreted as the final moment in the development of the culture of a particular society, meaning its “decline” or decline (O. Spengler).

However, for a civilizational approach to the historical process, the understanding of civilization as an integral social system that includes various elements (religion, culture, economic, political and social organization etc.), which are consistent with each other and closely interconnected. Each element of this system bears the stamp of the originality of a particular civilization. This uniqueness is very stable. And although certain changes occur in civilization under the influence of certain external and internal influences, their certain basis, their inner core remains unchanged. This approach to civilization is fixed in the theory of cultural and historical types of civilization by N.Ya. Danilevsky, A. Toynbee, O. Spengler and others.

Cultural-historical types- these are historically established communities that occupy a certain territory and have their own characteristics of cultural and social development that are characteristic only of them. N.Ya. Danilevsky lists 13 types or “original civilizations”, A. Toynbee – 6 types, O. Spengler – 8 types.

The civilizational approach has a number of strengths:

1) its principles are applicable to the history of any country or group of countries. This approach is focused on understanding the history of society, taking into account the specifics of countries and regions. Hence it follows versatility b this methodology;

2) orientation towards taking into account specifics presupposes the idea of ​​history as a multilinear, multivariate process;

3) the civilizational approach does not reject, but, on the contrary, presupposes the integrity and unity of human history. Civilizations as integral systems are comparable to each other. This makes it possible to widely use the comparative historical method of research. As a result of this approach, the history of a country, people, region is considered not in itself, but in comparison with the history of other countries, peoples, regions, civilizations. This makes it possible to better understand historical processes and record their features;

4) highlighting certain criteria for the development of civilization allows historians to assess the level of achievements of certain countries, peoples and regions, their contribution to the development of world civilization;

5) the civilizational approach assigns a proper role in the historical process to human spiritual, moral and intellectual factors. In this approach important Religion, culture, and mentality are used to characterize and evaluate civilization.

The weakness of the methodology of the civilizational approach lies in the amorphous nature of the criteria for identifying types of civilization. This identification by supporters of this approach is carried out according to a set of characteristics, which, on the one hand, should be sufficiently general character, and on the other hand, it would allow us to designate specific features, characteristic of many societies. In the theory of cultural-historical types by N.Ya. Danilevsky, civilizations are distinguished by a unique combination of four fundamental elements: religious, cultural, political and socio-economic. In some civilizations the economic principle prevails, in others - political, and in others - religious, in fourths - cultural. Only in Russia, according to Danilevsky, is a harmonious combination of all these elements realized.

Theory of cultural-historical types N.Ya. Danilevsky to some extent assumes the application of the principle of determinism in the form of dominance, the determining role of some elements of the civilization system. However, the nature of this dominance is difficult to discern.

Even greater difficulties in analyzing and assessing types of civilization arise for the researcher when the main element of a particular type of civilization is considered to be a type of mentality. Mentality, mentality (from French - thinking, psychology) is a certain general spiritual mood of the people of a particular country or region, fundamental stable structures of consciousness, a set of socio-psychological attitudes and beliefs of the individual and society. These attitudes determine a person’s worldview, the nature of values ​​and ideals, and form the subjective world of the individual. Guided by these guidelines, a person acts in all spheres of his life - he creates history. The intellectual and spiritual-moral structures of a person undoubtedly play vital role in history, but their indicators are poorly perceptible and vague.

There are also a number of claims to the civilizational approach related to the interpretation of the driving forces of the historical process, the direction and meaning of historical development.

All this taken together allows us to conclude that both approaches—formational and civilizational—make it possible to consider the historical process from different angles. Each of these approaches has strengths and weak sides, but if you try to avoid the extremes of each of them, and take the best that is available in this or that methodology, then historical science will only benefit.

Liberal direction, teaching progress - the evolution of Humanity - give priority to development personalities ensuring his individual freedoms. Personality serves as the starting point for the liberal study of history. Liberals believe that in history there is always an alternative to development. If the vector of historical progress corresponds to the Western European way of life, this is the path to ensuring human rights and freedoms, and if it corresponds to the Asian one, then this is the path of despotism, arbitrariness of the authorities against the individual.

Technological direction, studying the progress of Mankind, gives priority to technological development and accompanying changes in society. The milestones in this development are fundamental discoveries: the emergence of agriculture and cattle breeding, the development of iron metallurgy, etc., as well as the corresponding political, economic and social systems. Fundamental discoveries determine the progress of Humanity and do not depend on the ideological coloring of a particular political regime. The technological direction divides human history into periods; traditional (agrarian), industrial, post-industrial (information).

In local historical theory The subject of study is local civilizations. Each of the local civilizations is original, connected with nature and goes through the stages of birth, formation, flourishing, decline and death in its development. The theory is based on the genetic and biological essence of man and his specific environment. It is not the progress of consciousness, the human mind, but his subconscious, eternal biological instincts: procreation, envy, the desire to live better than others, greed, herdism and others determine and inevitably determine in time one or another form of society, born of Nature. Within the framework of local historical theory, there are a number of so-called directions.Slavophilism, Westernism, Eurasianism and others.

The idea of ​​a special path for Russia, different from Western and Eastern countries, was formulated at the turn of the 15th – 16th centuries. Elder Philotheus of the Eleazar Monastery - this was the teaching “Moscow is the Third Rome”. According to this teaching, the messianic role of Russia became clear, called upon to preserve true Christianity, lost in other countries, and to show the path of development to the rest of the world.

In the 17th century Russian historians under the influence of Western historians, they switched to the position of world historical theory of study, considering Russian history as part of the world. However, the idea of ​​a special, different from Western European, development of Russia continued to exist in Russian society. In the 30s - 40s. 19th century movements appeared "Westerners" – supporters of world historical theory – and "Slavophiles" – supporters of local historical theory. Westerners proceeded from the concept of the unity of the human world and believed that Western Europe walks at the head of the world, most fully and successfully implementing the principles of humanity, freedom and progress, and shows the way to the rest of humanity. The task of Russia, which only since the time of Peter the Great has embarked on the path of Western development, is to get rid of the inertia and Asiaticism as soon as possible, by joining the European West, and merging with it into one cultural universal family.

Local historical theory studying Russian history gained significant popularity in the middle and second half of the 19th century. The representative of this theory, Slavophiles and Narodniks, believed that there is no single universal human community, and therefore single path development for all peoples. Each nation lives its own “original” life, which is based on an ideological principle, the “national spirit”. For Russia, such beginnings are Orthodox faith and the associated principles of inner truth and spiritual freedom; the embodiment of these principles in life is the peasant world, the community as a voluntary union for mutual help and support. According to the Slavophiles, Western principles of formal legal justice and Western organizational forms alien to Russia. The reforms of Peter I, the Slavophiles and populists believed, turned Russia around natural way development along an alien Western path.

With the spread of Marxism in Russia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the world-historical theory of study replaced the local-historical one. After 1917, one of the branches of world historical theory was materialistic– became official. A scheme for the development of society was developed, based on the theory of socio-economic formations. The materialist direction of world-historical theory gave new interpretation Russia's place in world history. She regarded the October Revolution of 1917 as socialist, and the system established in Russia as socialism. According to K. Marx, socialism is a social system that should replace capitalism. Consequently, Russia automatically turned from a backward European country to “the world’s first country of victorious socialism”, to a country “showing the path of development for all of Humanity.”

The part of Russian society that found itself in exile after the events of 1917-1920 adhered to religious views. Among the emigration, local historical theory also received significant development, in line with which the “Eurasian direction” emerged. The main ideas of the Eurasians are, firstly, the idea of ​​a special mission for Russia, stemming from the latter’s special “place of development”. Eurasians believed that the roots of the Russian people cannot be connected only with the Slavic ones. In the formation of the Russian people, the Turkic and Finno-Ugric tribes that inhabited the same Eastern Slavs territory and constantly interacting with them. As a result, the Russian nation was formed, uniting multilingual peoples in single state– Russia. Secondly, this is the idea of ​​Russian culture as a culture "middle, Eurasian". “The culture of Russia is neither a European culture, nor one of the Asian ones, nor a sum or mechanical combination of elements of both.” Thirdly, the history of Eurasia is the history of many states, ultimately leading to the creation of a single, large state. A Eurasian state requires a unified state ideology.

At the turn of the 20th-21st centuries, historical and technological direction of world historical theory. According to him, history presents a dynamic picture of the spread of fundamental discoveries in the form of cultural and technological circles spreading throughout the world. The effect of these discoveries is such that they give the pioneer nation a decisive advantage over others.

Thus, the process of understanding and rethinking the history of Russia is currently ongoing. It should be noted, that in all centuries historical facts have been grouped by thinkers in line with three theories of study: religious-historical, world-historical and local-historical.

The turn of the 20th–21st centuries is a time of completion in the world scientific and technological revolution, domination computer equipment and the threat of a global environmental crisis. Today, a new vision of the structure of the world is emerging, and historians are proposing other directions of the historical process and corresponding systems of periodization.

Methodology is an integral part of scientific knowledge

Any discipline, in order to have scientific status, must inevitably acquire a clear systematic approach and methodology of knowledge. Otherwise, in the absence of a methodological apparatus, strictly speaking, it cannot be considered a science. A striking example Such a statement is the existence of a number of alternative views (like homeopathy). The historical discipline, taking shape as a science, of course, also over time acquired its own scientific apparatus and acquired methods of historical research.

Peculiarities

It is interesting that research methods in history are not always purely historical; sometimes they are borrowed from other sciences. Thus, much was taken from sociology, geography, philosophy, ethnography, etc. However, history has one important feature that is unique to it. This is the only scientific discipline, the object and subject of research of which do not exist in real time, which complicates their study, significantly reduces the capabilities of its methodological apparatus, and also adds inconvenience to the researcher, who inevitably projects his own experience and beliefs onto the logic and motivation of past eras.

A variety of historical methods of knowledge

Methods of historical research can be classified in different ways. However, these methods formulated by historians are divided mainly into the following: logical knowledge, general scientific methods, special, interdisciplinary.
Logical or philosophical methods of historical research represent the most elementary elements of common sense in the study of a subject: generalization, analysis, comparison, analogy.

General scientific methods

These are those methods of historical research that do not belong only to history, but extend in general to the methods of scientific knowledge, such as the following: scientific experiment, measurement, hypothesis building, and so on.

Special methods

They are the main ones and characteristic of a particular story. There are also a lot of them, but the following are the main ones. Ideographic (narrative), which consists in the most accurate description of facts (of course, a description of reality and facts has a place in any study, but in history it has a very special character). Retrospective method, which consists of tracking the chronicle preceding the event of interest in order to identify its causes. Closely related to it is the historical-genetic method, aimed at studying the early development of the event of interest. The historical-comparative method is based on the search for what is common and different in phenomena occurring in distant time and geographical periods, that is, on identifying patterns. The logical successor of the previous method is the historical-typological method, which is based on the found patterns of phenomena, events, cultures, and creates their classification for simpler subsequent analysis. The chronological method involves a strict presentation of factual material in the correct sequence.

Interdisciplinary methods

Methods of historical research include interdisciplinary ones. For example, quantitative, borrowed from mathematics. Or socio-psychological. And geography did not just give history a cartographic method of research based on close work with maps. The purpose of the latter is to identify patterns and causes historical events. A special discipline was born - historical geography, which studies the influence of geographical and climatic features on the course of history.

Thus, methods of historical research are the most important basis for history as a science.

The historical method owes its existence to such a science as story.

Story- is a science that studies the past of mankind, events and facts of world civilization in their chronological sequence.

Apparently, A. Smith should be considered the first “global” historian.

The main goal of history is the study of individual facts of the past of mankind, as well as their subsequent generalization and the creation of a holistic picture of the process of human development; history can be local, of individual regions, peoples and eras (for example, the history of Russia, the history of Europe, medieval history, etc. ), and global (world historical or general history). Special sections of historical science examine sources (source studies), monuments of material culture of the past (archaeology), etc. History also distinguishes special directions that study the methodology of historical knowledge (methodology of history, methods of historical science) and its philosophy (philosophy of history).

Usage historical method goes beyond the boundaries of history itself: it has been adopted by almost every science. Most often it is used in two forms: as a method for studying the history of social institutions that a given science deals with, And How a method of studying the history of knowledge accumulated by a given science. Sometimes these two approaches merge into one - usually this happens in the natural sciences. For example, the history of physics (as well as mathematics, chemistry, biology, etc.) explores de facto both the history of the institutions that generate physical knowledge and the history of this knowledge itself. In other sciences, both methods are separated in different directions: the history of institutions is dealt with by one direction of the discipline, the history of knowledge by another. This situation has developed in economics, law, political sciences, etc. The history of economics and the history of economic doctrines, the history of state and law and the history of political and legal thought, etc. - these are examples of the parallel use of the historical method in the same science.

Thus, the historical method is not only a method of history, but also a universal (universal) method of any other science. However, as we have already noted, it represents only one of two options genetic method- a method of studying processes and phenomena based on the analysis of their development. Where the process of development of any system is studied empirically in its spontaneous, chaotic unfolding in time, we are dealing with the historical method; if we study such development in its logically, and abstracting from particulars, “branches”, “false paths”, in this case our research takes on the character evolutionary method. Evolution in in this case- this is “straightening”

history, identifying the main vector in it as opposed to secondary and lateral directions.

Historical method- This is a method based on the study of any processes in their chronological sequence, spontaneous and chaotic development.

Like any method, the historical method has its advantages and disadvantages. Its main advantage is that it allows you to see the process dialectically, not limited to last stage or era. The historical method also allows us to bring the reality under study as close as possible to historical facts, i.e. to empirical facts directly observed by the researcher or any other researchers. True, historians and methodologists do not have a common opinion on what is considered a historical fact. Some believe that a historical fact is something that exists outside the consciousness of the historian and outside his subjective interpretation; others, following L. Febvre and R. Collingwood, believe that the historian, interpreting historical data, himself develops historical facts:

“To establish a fact means to work it out” 1 .

“History is the interpretation of factual data (evidence), Moreover, actual data is a collective name for things that are individually called documents. A document is a thing that exists here and now, a thing of such a kind that a historian, analyzing it, can get answers to the questions posed about past events” 2.

But, without going too deeply into such discrepancies, we can give approximately the following definition of a historical fact.

Historical facts- these are any events of historical reality, directly or indirectly observed and recorded by the subject of historical knowledge.

I.D. Kovalzon points out the existence of three groups of historical facts:

1) facts of historical reality (or “truths of fact” - what directly took place and what all historians agree with);

2) facts from a historical source (“source messages”);

3) scientific and historical facts (“facts-knowledge”) 3.

2 Collingwood R. Story idea. Autobiography. M., 1980. P. 13.

3 Kovalzon I.D. Methods of historical research. M., 1987. P. 130.

Historical facts form the basis for the application of the historical method. But among all these three groups of facts, scientific and historical facts are, of course, of greatest importance. It can even be said that the facts of historical reality and the facts of the source play the role of “plasticine” from which each historian molds “scientific and historical facts” in his own value-normative interpretation.

“A scientific-historical fact is, on the whole, a doubly subjective representation of the past.”

Focus on use scientific and historical facts makes the historical method scientific, but makes history not simple description of the past, but by social science, striving to develop a rational and evidence-based picture of the past. Many difficulties and problems await historians along this path, and along with its undeniable advantages, the historical method also has significant disadvantages.

A very interesting classification and description of them was proposed by the Italian historian and philosopher of the Enlightenment, Giambattista Vico (1668-1744). In his essay “Foundations new science on the general nature of nations" (1725), he pointed out five main shortcomings of the historical method:

1) an exaggerated idea of ​​the ancients, including their capabilities and abilities;

2) vanity of nations (each nation tends to exaggerate its role and significance in history and underestimate the role and significance of other nations);

3) the vanity of historians (every historian puts himself above any historical figure- be it an emperor, a commander or an outstanding politician);

4) errors of sources (for example, if two peoples or states developed the same social institution in parallel, then it must be assumed that there was borrowing);

5) that supposedly past peoples or individuals were better informed about the times close to them than we are.

However, apparently, these are only a few of those problematic for scientific research situations to which hypertrophy of the historical method can lead. It should be only one of the methods for studying social reality and is unlikely to claim the status of a leading method.

Kovalzon I.D. Decree. op. WITH. 130.

Regarding economic science J.N.’s warning remains very relevant. Keynes:

“But the strongest objections to the primacy of the historical method arise when it is understood literally as a requirement to limit oneself to the facts of the past. It is obvious that the purely historical method is much narrower than the inductive method; and hardly anyone will deny that facts essential to the economist in very many cases are obtained from observations of the present or from equally fresh data of the past, which have not yet been able to enter into what we mean by economic history” 1 .

After such a serious warning about the limitations of the historical method, it is time to turn to an analysis of its use in economics.

You can find reliable information and gain new historical knowledge methods studying history. As is known, any process of cognition, including the knowledge of history, consists of three components: the object of historical knowledge, the researcher and the method of cognition.

In order to develop an objective picture of the historical process, historical science must rely on a certain methodology that would make it possible to organize all the material accumulated by researchers.

Methodology(from the ancient Greek methodos - the path of research and logos - teaching) history is a theory of knowledge, including the doctrine of structure, logical organization, principles and means of obtaining historical knowledge. She develops the conceptual framework of science, general techniques and standards for obtaining knowledge about the past, deals with systematization and interpretation of the data obtained in order to clarify the essence of the historical process and reconstruct it in all its specificity and integrity. However, in historical science, as in any other science, there is no single methodology: differences in worldview and understanding of the nature of social development lead to the use of different methodological research techniques. In addition, the methodology itself is constantly in development, replenished with more and more new methods of historical knowledge.

Under methods Historical research should understand the ways of studying historical patterns through their specific manifestations - historical facts, ways of extracting new knowledge from facts.

Methods and principles

There are three types of methods in science:

Philosophical (basic) - empirical and theoretical, observation and experiment, isolation and generalization, abstraction and concretization, analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, etc.

General scientific – descriptive, comparative, comparative-historical, structural, typological, structural-typological, systemic,

Special (specific scientific) - reconstruction, historical-genetic, phenomenological (study historical phenomena, what is given in human sensory and mental intuition), hermeneutic (the art and theory of text interpretation), etc.

The following methods are widely used by modern researchers:

Historical method - this is the path, the method of action through which the researcher acquires new historical knowledge.

The main historical methods of scientific research often include four methods: historical-genetic, historical-comparative, historical-typological and historical-systemic.

The most common in historical research is historical-genetic method. Its essence comes down to the consistent disclosure of the properties and functions of the object being studied in the process of its change. When using this method, cognition proceeds from the individual to the particular, and then to the general and universal. The advantage and at the same time disadvantage of this method is that when it is used, the individual characteristics of the researcher are revealed more clearly than in other cases. One of its weaknesses can be considered that an excessive desire to detail various aspects of the problem being studied can lead to an unfair exaggeration of unimportant elements and smoothing out the most important ones. Such a disproportion will lead to a misconception about the essence of the process, event or phenomenon being studied.

Historical-comparative method. The objective basis for its use is that socio-historical development is a repeating, internally determined, natural process. Many events that took place in different time and different scales, similar in many ways, different from each other in many ways. Therefore, by comparing them, it becomes possible to explain the content of the facts and phenomena under consideration. This is the main cognitive significance of the historical-comparative method.

The right to exist as an independent method has historical-typological method. Typology (classification) serves to organize historical phenomena, events, objects in the form of qualitatively defined types (classes) based on their inherent common features and differences. For example, when studying the history of World War II, a historian can raise the question of the balance of power between the Hitler and anti-Hitler coalitions. In this case, the warring parties can be conditionally divided into two groups. Then the sides of each group will differ only in one way - their attitude towards Germany's allies or enemies. In other respects they may differ significantly. In particular, the anti-Hitler coalition will include socialist countries and capitalist countries (by the end of the war there will be more than 50 states). But this is a simple classification that does not give a sufficiently complete idea of ​​the contribution of these countries to the common victory, but rather, on the contrary, is capable of developing erroneous knowledge about the role of these states in the war. If the task is to identify the role of each state in carrying out successful operations, destroying enemy manpower and equipment, liberating occupied territories, and so on, then the states of the anti-Hitler coalition corresponding to these indicators will be a typical grouping, and the study procedure itself will be a typology.

In current conditions, when historical research is increasingly characterized by a holistic coverage of history, it is increasingly used historical-systemic method, that is, a method using which the unity of events and phenomena in socio-historical development is studied. For example, considering the history of Russia not as some kind of independent process, but as a result of interaction with other states in the form of one of the elements in the development of the history of the entire civilization.

In addition, the following methods are widely used;

Dialectical method, which requires all phenomena and events to be considered in their development and in connection with other phenomena and events;

Chronological method, the essence of which is that events are presented strictly in temporal (chronological) order;

The problem-chronological method examines individual aspects (problems) in the life of society (state) in their strictly historical and chronological order;

Chronological-problematic method, in which the study of history is carried out by periods or eras, and within them - by problems;

The synchronous method is used less frequently; with its help, it is possible to establish a connection between individual phenomena and processes occurring at the same time, but in different parts of the country or beyond its borders.

Periodization method;

Retrospective;

Statistical;

Sociological method. research taken from sociology and used to study and research contemporary issues

Structural-functional method. Its essence lies in decomposing the object under study into its component parts and identifying the internal connection, conditionality, and relationship between them.

In addition, historical research also uses general scientific methods of cognition: analysis, synthesis, extrapolation, as well as mathematical, statistical, retrospective, system-structural, etc. These methods complement each other

It is important to consider that these and other existing methods are used in combination with each other, complementing each other. The use of any one method in the process of historical knowledge only removes the researcher from objectivity.

Principles of studying historical facts

Historical research is carried out on the basis of certain principles. Under principles It is customary to understand the basic, initial position of any theory, teaching, science, or worldview. The principles are based on objective laws of social historical development. The most important principles of historical research are: the principle of historicism, the principle of objectivity, the principle of a spatio-temporal approach to the event being studied.

The basic scientific principles are the following:

The principle of historicism presupposes the need to evaluate historical processes not from the standpoint of today's experience, but taking into account the specific historical situation. It requires the researcher to take into account the level of theoretical knowledge of the participants in a particular historical process, their social consciousness, practical experience, capabilities and means for making optimal decisions. An event or person cannot be considered simultaneously or abstractly, outside of temporal positions.

The principle of historicism is closely related to the principle of objectivity

Principle of objectivity involves relying on facts in their true content, not distorted or adjusted to fit a scheme. This principle requires considering each phenomenon in its versatility and inconsistency, in the totality of both positive and negative aspects. The main thing in ensuring the principle of objectivity is the personality of the historian: his theoretical views, culture of methodology, professional skill and honesty. This principle requires the scientist to study and illuminate each phenomenon or event in its entirety, in the totality of its positive and negative aspects. Finding the truth for a true scientist is more important than party, class and other interests.

Principle spatio-temporal approach to the analysis of the processes of social development suggests that outside the categories of social space and time as forms of social existence it is not possible to characterize social development itself. This means that the same laws of social development cannot be applied to different historical eras. With changes in specific historical conditions, changes in the form of manifestation of the law may occur, expansion or narrowing of the scope of its action (as happened, for example, with the evolution of the law of class struggle.

The principle of the social approach involves consideration of historical and economic processes taking into account the social interests of various segments of the population, various forms of their manifestation in society. This principle (also called the principle of the class, party approach) obliges us to correlate class and narrow group interests with universal ones, taking into account the subjective aspect of the practical activities of governments, parties, and individuals.

The principle of alternativeness determines the degree of probability of the occurrence of a particular event, phenomenon, process based on an analysis of objective realities and possibilities. Recognition of historical alternativeness allows us to re-evaluate the path of each country, see the untapped possibilities of the process, and draw lessons for the future.

Methodological concepts of the historical process.

History is one of the oldest sciences, about 2500 years old. During this time, many conceptual approaches to the study of the historical past of mankind have developed and functioned in historical science. For a long time, it was dominated by subjectivist and objective-idealistic methodologies.

From the standpoint of subjectivism, the historical process was explained by the actions of outstanding historical figures: Caesars, Shahs, Kings, Emperors, Generals, etc. According to this approach, their talented actions or, conversely, mistakes and inactions, led to certain historical events, the totality and interconnection of which determined the course of the historical process.

The objectively idealistic concept assigned a decisive role in the historical process to the manifestation of superhuman forces: Divine will, Providence, the Absolute Idea, the World Spirit, etc. With this interpretation, the historical process acquired a strictly purposeful and orderly character. Under the influence of these superhuman forces, society was supposedly moving towards a predetermined goal. People, individual historical figures acted only as a means, an instrument in the hands of these faceless forces.

An attempt to put the methodology of historical research on a scientific basis was first made by the German thinker K. Marx. He formulated concept of materialistic understanding of history , based on 4 main principles:

The unity of humanity, and, consequently, the unity of the historical process;

Historical pattern, i.e. recognition of the action in the historical process of general stable laws of social development;

Determinism - recognition of the existence of cause-and-effect relationships and dependencies in the historical process;

Progress, i.e. the progressive development of society, rising to higher and higher levels of its development.

The Marxist materialist explanation of history is based on formational approach to the historical process. Marx believed that if humanity as a single whole develops naturally, progressively, then each part of it must go through all stages of this development. These stages in the Marxist theory of knowledge are called socio-economic formations. The concept of “socio-economic formation” is key in Marxism in explaining the driving forces of the historical process and the periodization of history.

basis socio-economic formation and, according to Marx, is one or another mode of production. It is characterized by the level of development of the productive forces of society and the nature of production relations corresponding to this level. The totality of production relations and methods of production constitute the economic basis of a social formation, on which all other relations in society (political, legal, ideological, religious, etc.), as well as state and public institutions, science, culture, morality, are built on and on which depend. morality, etc. Thus, the concept of socio-economic formation includes all the diversity of the life of society at one or another stage of its development. The economic basis determines the qualitative feature of a given formation, and the superstructure generated by it characterizes the uniqueness of the social and spiritual life of the people of this formation.

From point of view formational approach, The human community in its historical development goes through five main stages (formations):

primitive communal

slaveholding,

feudal,

capitalist and

communist (socialism is the first phase of the communist formation). The transition from one formation to another is carried out on the basis social revolution. The economic basis of the social revolution is the conflict between the productive forces of society, which have reached a new, higher level, and the outdated system of production relations.

In the political sphere, this conflict manifests itself in the growth of irreconcilable, antagonistic contradictions in society, in the intensification of the class struggle between the oppressors and the oppressed. Social conflict is resolved by revolution, which leads to political power new class. In accordance with the objective laws of development, this class forms a new economic basis and political superstructure of society. Thus, according to Marxist-Leninist theory, a new socio-economic formation is being formed.

At first glance, this concept creates a clear model of the entire historical development of society. The history of mankind appears before us as an objective, natural, progressive process. However, the formational approach to understanding the history of social development is not without significant drawbacks.

Firstly, it assumes the unilinear nature of historical development. The specific experience of the development of individual countries and regions shows that not all of them fit into the strict framework of the five socio-economic formations. The formational approach, therefore, does not reflect the diversity and multivariance of historical development. It lacks a spatiotemporal approach to the analysis of social development processes.

Secondly, the formational approach strictly connects all changes in society with the economic basis, economic relations. Considering the historical process from the standpoint of determinism, i.e. Attaching decisive importance in explaining historical phenomena to objective, extra-personal factors, this approach assigns a secondary role to the main subject of history - man. This ignores the human factor, downplays the personal content of the historical process, and along with it the spiritual factors of historical development.

Thirdly, the formational approach absolutizes the role of conflict relations in society, gives the class struggle and violence decisive importance in the progressive historical development. However, as the historical experience of the last fifty years shows, in many countries and regions the manifestation of these “locomotives of history” is limited. IN post-war period in Western Europe, for example, a reformist modernization of social structures is being carried out. While not eliminating the inequality between labor and capital, it nevertheless significantly increased the living standards of wage workers and sharply reduced the intensity of the class struggle.

Fourthly, the formational approach is associated with elements of social utopianism and even providentialism (a religious and philosophical view according to which the development of human society, the sources of its movement and purpose are determined by mysterious forces external to the historical process - providence, God). The formational concept based on the law of “negation of negation” assumes the inevitability of the development of the historical process from primitive communal communism (classless primitive communal socio-economic formation) through class (slave, feudal and capitalist) formations to scientific communism (classless communist formation). The inevitability of the onset of the communist era, the “welfare society” runs like a red thread through all Marxist theory and ideology. The utopian nature of these postulates has been fully revealed in recent decades in the Soviet Union and other so-called countries. socialist system.

In modern historical science, the formational methodological concept is opposed to methodology civilizational approach to the process of development of human society. The civilizational approach allows scientists to move away from a one-dimensional picture of the world and take into account the uniqueness of the development paths of individual regions, countries and peoples.

The concept of “civilization” has become widely established in modern Western historiography, politics, and philosophy. The most prominent representatives of the civilizational concept of social development among Western researchers are M. Weber, A. Toynbee, O. Spengler and a number of other prominent scientists.

However, for many decades, Soviet social science, in presenting the course of the world-historical process, placed the main emphasis on the theory of socio-economic formations, because cornerstone This theory is the rationale for the revolutionary replacement of capitalism by socialism. And only in the late 80s - early 90s. In the domestic scientific literature, the shortcomings of the rigid five-fold approach to history began to be revealed. The requirement to complement the formational approach with a civilizational one sounded like an imperative.

The civilizational approach to the historical process and social phenomena has a number of serious advantages over the formational one:

Firstly, its methodological principles are applicable to the history of any country or group of countries and to any historical time. It is focused on understanding the history of society, taking into account the specifics of individual countries and regions and, to a certain extent, is universal in nature;

Secondly, the focus on taking into account the specifics of individual human communities makes it possible to consider history as a multilinear and multivariate process;

Thirdly, the civilizational approach does not reject, but, on the contrary, presupposes the integrity and unity of human history. From the point of view of this approach, individual civilizations as integral systems that include various elements (economic, political, social, science, culture, religion, etc.) are comparable to each other. This makes it possible to widely use the comparative historical method of research. As a result of this approach, the history of individual countries, peoples, regions is not considered in itself, in comparison with the history of other countries, peoples, regions, civilizations. This makes it possible to better understand historical processes and identify the peculiarities of the development of individual countries;

Fourthly, the definition of clear criteria for the development of the world community allows researchers to fairly fully assess the level of development of certain countries and regions, their contribution to the development of world civilization;

Fifthly, in contrast to the formational approach, where the dominant role belongs to economic factors, the formational approach gives its due place in the historical process to spiritual, moral and intellectual human factors. Therefore, when characterizing a particular civilization, such factors as religion, culture, and the mentality of the people play an important role.

However, the civilizational approach also contains a number of significant flaws. This, first of all, refers to the amorphous nature of the criteria for determining types of civilization. It is known that in the development of some civilizations the economic principle is decisive, in others it is the political principle, in others it is the religious principle, and in others it is the cultural principle. Particularly great difficulties arise when assessing the type of civilization, when its most important essential principle is the mentality of society.

In addition, in civilizational methodology the problems of the driving forces of the historical process, the direction and meaning of historical development are not clearly developed.

It is also important to emphasize that the last quarter of the twentieth century was marked by intense reassessment of values. Many scientists perceive this phenomenon as a spiritual revolution, which prepares the arrival of a new system of social life or, as they say today, a new world order, i.e. a qualitatively new stage in the development of world civilization. In the context of the unfolding intellectual revolution, there is a crisis not only of the Marxist methodology of knowledge, but also of almost all areas of major classical theories of knowledge with their philosophical, ideological and logical-methodological foundations. According to Professor V. Yadov, world sociological thought today “casts doubt on the suitability of all classical social theories developed in the past”

The crisis of the theory of knowledge of the surrounding world is caused, first of all, by the fact that the modern human community is entering into new era of its development, which is usually called a turning point. In a variety of forms, the trends inherent in the new order of development are affirmed - the trends in the formation of a multidimensional world. Previously existing theories of knowledge (including Marxism) were focused on the development of machine civilization. Marxism in its essence is the logic and theory of machine civilization. However, this theory in one form or another extended to both earlier and future forms of social development.

Today, humanity is experiencing a change from the industrial paradigm of social progress to post-industrial, informational, which indicates its entry into a new world civilization. And this, in turn, necessitates the creation of an appropriate logical and methodological tool for understanding social development.

Among the new methodological approaches to the problems of global social development, the concept of a multifundamental multidimensional world should be highlighted. One of the criteria for multidimensionality is the equation of the part and the whole. In the multidimensional picture of a social system, such parts as culture, science, economics, politics, etc. are not less than the whole, but are of equal order and equal in power (equal in essence) with it. In other words, multidimensionality is not a relationship between social system and its particular spheres, levels, subsystems and not the relationship between structures, one of which is determined by the basic, primary, fundamental, etc. This relationship is revealed at a deeper level: between such structures, each of which is an equivalent individual dimension of the social whole into which it is included.

Recently, researchers have demonstrated an increasing commitment to a nonlinear (synergetic) style of thinking. Having emerged in the field of physics and chemistry and acquiring the corresponding mathematical support, synergetics quickly expanded beyond the scope of these sciences, and soon biologists, and after them social scientists, found themselves under its powerful influence.

Using synergetics as a methodology, historical processes are studied in their multidimensional form. The central place in the study is occupied by issues of self-organization, self-development in open and closed systems. Society appears as a nonlinear system with an integrating system-forming factor. The role of this factor in different systems can be played by different subsystems, including not always the economic sphere. Much depends on the reaction of society to the challenge of the “external environment” and the dynamics of internal processes. The reaction of society is aimed at achieving the most useful result within the framework of appropriate value orientations.

Synergetics considers the development of society as a nonlinear system, which is carried out through two models: evolutionary and bifurcation. The evolutionary model is characterized by the action of various determinations. They are not limited to cause-and-effect relationships, but also include functional, target, correlation, systemic and other types of determinations. A distinctive feature of the evolutionary model is the immutability of system quality, which is determined through the system-forming factor. Throughout the entire stage of evolutionary development, the system-forming factor manifests itself as a special activity of a specific set of systems that play a leading role in the life of society at a given period of time.

According to the evolutionary model, the sustainable development of society is replaced by an increase in internal disequilibrium - a weakening of connections within the system - which indicates an impending crisis. In a state of maximum internal disequilibrium, society enters a bifurcation phase of development, after which the previous systemic quality is destroyed. The old determinations are not in effect here, the new ones have not yet unfolded. Under these conditions, alternative opportunities for reaching new systemic connections arise. The choice of one path or another at the bifurcation point depends on the effect of fluctuation (random factor), first of all, on the activities of specific people. It is a specific historical person (or persons) who bring the system to a new systemic quality. Moreover, the choice of path is made based on individual attitudes and preferences.

The role of chance and freedom at the bifurcation point is not just great, it is fundamental. This allows us to single out the class of unstable systems as an independent object of study, along with stable systems. The effect of the randomness factor indicates that the historical development of each society is individual and unique.

Recognizing the multiplicity of development paths of various societies, laying out individual routes through bifurcation points, synergetics understands a general historical pattern not as a single path of historical development, but as common principles of “walking” along different historical routes. Thus, synergetics allows us to overcome the limitations of classical approaches in history. It combines the idea of ​​evolutionism with the idea of ​​multivariate historical process. Historical synergetics gives scientific status to the problem of the “historical fate of Russia”, which has been debated for more than a century and a half.

Among modern non-traditional concepts of historical development, the systemic sociocultural theory of our compatriot A.S. deserves special attention. Akhiezer, outlined in his three-volume study “Russia: Criticism historical experience". It is important to emphasize that the author examines the new systematic view of the history of Russia from a non-Marxist methodological position and against the general background of the world historical process. The study is not limited to a purely Russian framework, only to modernity, but illuminates both the retrospective and the perspective of world civilization

Traditional ideas for Marxism about the determining role of economic relations, about the leading role of the working class, in general about class relations in the historical process, about exploitation, about surplus value, etc. are not relevant in the system of categories that A. Akhiezer is developing. In fact, the main subject of the author’s research was the sociocultural potential of Russian society. The theory is based on the category of reproduction. For Akhiezer, this category is different from Marxist ideas about simple and expanded production. It acts as a general philosophical category that focuses on the need for constant recreation, restoration and development of all aspects of social existence, focusing on the need to maintain and preserve what has already been achieved. It is in this, according to Akhiezer, that the viability of society is manifested, the ability to avoid social catastrophes, destruction and death of social systems.

The author views culture as the experience of understanding the world created and acquired by a person, and social relations as organizational forms that realize this cultural experience. Between culture and social relations there is never identity. Moreover, an indispensable condition human life, the life of society, the course of history is the contradiction between them. The normal process of development of society continues until the contradiction passes a certain point, beyond which the destruction of both culture and social relations begins.

In Russia, the sociocultural contradiction has resulted in such a sharp form as a split. It is in the split that Akhiezer sees an explanation for why historical inertia operates so strongly in Russia. A split is the lack of dialogue between the values ​​and ideals of the bulk of the population, on the one hand, and the ruling, as well as the spiritual elite, on the other, the incompatibility of the semantic fields of different socio-cultural groups. The consequence of the split is a situation where people and society cannot become subjects of their own history. As a result, spontaneous forces operate in it, throwing society from one extreme to another, leading it from catastrophe to catastrophe.

The schism occurs and is reproduced in all spheres of public life, including in the cultural and spiritual spheres. Due to the reproduction of the split, all attempts by the Russian ruling elite to radically change the situation and overcome the split led to nothing. Akhiezer sees the mechanism of the split in the following. In the East, traditional (syncretistic) forms of worldview translate new realities into their own language, i.e. there is a synthesis of traditional and modern cultures, which can become dynamic and not impede development. In the West, new ideals grew from popular soil and the contradictions between the cultural innovations of a liberal society and traditional culture were pushed into the background. In Russia, these contradictions still persist and are even worsening. Coming into contact with traditional ones, new ideals here form not a synthesis, but a hybrid, which often results in the strengthening of their old anti-modernization content. Therefore, every step forward can also become a rollback. The hybrid of liberalism with traditionalism in Russian conditions showed its limited possibilities, since traditionalism was too important for us. great place. This is the explanation of why in our society the ideals of the past are often defended by full-blooded, integral individuals, while reformers look fragile and wavering. However, the split in Russia is not some inherent attribute of Russian society, but a result of development historical situation. And therefore, despite its centuries-old existence, it is temporary, transitory.

The theory created by A. Akhiezer can also be defined as the theory of transitional social systems. Traditional society (Eastern civilization) is not familiar with the contradictions that plague Russia. Western society (liberal civilization) also successfully avoided them (at least in sharp conflict forms). In this regard, many researchers consider Russia as a special, third mega-civilization - Eurasian. However, the Eurasian civilization is not absolutely unique. This is, rather, a special case of situations common to countries that are late in their development. It is no coincidence that they are called “catching up civilizations.”

A. Akhiezer, thus, moved away from the linear scheme (positivist, pragmatic), which studies historical processes in some fixed general units, and presented us with a voluminous, multidimensional vision of history. The center of his research is the process of reproduction, recrystallization of the sociocultural whole. There appears a view of society not as something linear and progressively developing, but as a living organism capable of changing its characteristics under the influence of external subjective factors. Moreover, this social organism is characterized by repeating cyclical development. The author sees the possibility of stopping such development on the paths of globalization of our internal development, i.e. complete transition to a global civilizational path of development.

Today we observe in science processes of synthesis of sciences based on the development of complex research methods.

All major creative scientific and scientific-technical problems today are solved through the creation of creative and scientific groups, laboratories, research institutes, uniting scientists of different specialties. In the course of joint work on specific projects, a new scientific language common to various sciences is developed and there is an intensive exchange of information accumulated during the period of scientific differentiation. This allows researchers to predict the formation and development of a unified science or a return to the period of undifferentiated science only at a different level.

Since the beginning of the 20th century. There is a growing understanding among philosophers and historians of the relationship and interdependence of various factors interacting in human society. Moreover, at different stages of human development, the role of various factors and their place in the life of an individual and society change.

Thus, in the early stages of human development, biological and geographical factors seem to be decisive, then economic, and finally, in our time, technical and scientific. Modern historical science examines the entire set of factors, their interweaving and interaction. A significant contribution to the formation of this approach was made by representatives of Russian philosophy, one of the founders of scientific sociology P. Sorokin, as well as the historical school “Annals”, which developed mainly in France in 1929 (J. Annaly, as well as the scientist geophysicist Vernadsky, philosopher B. Russell, historian M. Block, etc.) This concept is called the civilizational or cultural approach to history.

Today, the development of this concept continues, which moves from the level of scientific hypotheses to the level curricula for colleges and universities. In accordance with this concept, human history is divided into three main periods: savagery (the period of gathering and hunting), barbarism (the period of agrarian culture), and the period of industrial civilization. Obviously, this periodization is based on the nature of the activities of most people in a given society at a given time. The civilizational approach to history does not deny, but organically includes both chronological and formational approaches. At the same time, there are differences in periodization. They are clearly visible from the table below.

Periodization of world history in various methodological approaches of historical science.

Chronological	Formational	Civilization
1. ANCIENT WORLD: since ancient times BC	1. PRIMITIVE COMMUNAL since ancient times up to 3500 BC	1.WILDLIFE: from > 3 million years BC up to 10 thousand years BC
2. MIDDLE AGES: From the 5th century AD Until the 15th century	2. SLAVE OWNERSHIP: From 3500 BC until the 5th century AD	2. BARBARY: 10,000 BC – Mid-18th century
3. NEW TIME: from the 16th century to 1917	3.FEUDAL FORMATION: From V to XVI century 3. CAPITALISM: from the 16th century	to 1917 3. INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATION:
End of the 18th century. – 1970s 4. RECENT HISTORY: from 1917 to	our days 4. SOCIALISM:	1917 to present day 4. POST-INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATION
	since the 1970s and the foreseeable future 5.COMMUNISM: