Categories of wars and the national-historical consciousness of peoples in the XX century. People's memory and power Modern coverage of history and historical consciousness
One of the most important qualities that has always distinguished man from animals, of course, is memory. The past for a person is the most important source for the formation of one's own consciousness and determining one's personal place in society and the world around.
Losing memory, a person loses his orientation among the environment, social ties collapse.
What is collective historical memory?
Memory is not abstract knowledge of any events. Memory is life experience, knowledge of events experienced and felt, reflected emotionally. Historical memory is a collective concept. It lies in the preservation of the public, as well as the understanding of historical experience. The collective memory of generations can be both among family members, the population of the city, and among the whole nation, country and all mankind.
Stages of development of historical memory
It must be understood that collective historical memory, as well as individual, has several stages of development.
First, it is oblivion. After a certain period of time, people tend to forget events. It can happen quickly, or it can happen in a few years. Life does not stand still, the series of episodes is not interrupted, and many of them are replaced by new impressions and emotions.
Secondly, people again and again encounter past facts in scientific articles, literary works and media. And everywhere the interpretation of the same events can vary greatly. And not always they can be attributed to the concept of "historical memory". Each author presents the arguments of the events in his own way, putting his own view and personal attitude into the narrative. And it doesn't matter what topic it will be - world war, all-Union construction or the consequences of a hurricane.
Readers and listeners will perceive the event through the eyes of a reporter or writer. Various options statements of the facts of the same event make it possible to analyze, compare the opinions of different people and draw their own conclusions. The true memory of the people is able to develop only with freedom of speech, and it will be completely distorted with total censorship.
Third, most milestone the development of the historical memory of people - a comparison of events taking place in the present time with facts from the past. The relevance of today's problems of society can sometimes be directly related to the historical past. Only by analyzing the experience of past achievements and mistakes, a person is able to create.
Hypothesis of Maurice Halbwachs
The theory of historical collective memory, like any other, has its founder and followers. The French philosopher and sociologist Maurice Halbwachs was the first to put forward the hypothesis that the concepts of historical memory and history are far from being the same thing. He was the first to suggest that history begins exactly when tradition ends. There is no need to fix on paper what is still alive in memories.
Halbwachs's theory proved the need to write history only for subsequent generations, when there were few or no more witnesses of historical events alive. There were quite a few followers and opponents of this theory. The number of the latter increased after the war with fascism, during which all members of the philosopher's family were killed, and he himself died in Buchenwald.
Ways to communicate memorable events
The memory of the people to past events was expressed in various forms. In the old days, it was the oral transmission of information in fairy tales, legends and traditions. The characters were endowed with the heroic traits of real people who distinguished themselves by feats and courage. Epic stories have always sung of the courage of the defenders of the Fatherland.
Later, these were books, and now the media have become the main sources of coverage of historical facts. Today, they mainly form our perception and attitude to the experience of the past, fateful events in politics, economics, culture and science.
The relevance of the historical memory of the people
Why is the memory of the war waning?
Time is the best healer for pain, but the worst factor for memory. This applies both to the memory of generations about the war, and in general to the historical memory of the people. The erasure of the emotional component of memories depends on several reasons.
The first thing that greatly affects the strength of memory is the time factor. With each passing year, the tragedy of those terrible days is getting further and further away. 70 years have passed since the victorious end of World War II.
The political and ideological factor also influences the preservation of the reliability of the events of the war years. Glow in modern world allows the media to assess many aspects of the war inaccurately, from a negative point of view convenient for politicians.
And one more inevitable factor influencing the people's memory of the war is natural. This is a natural loss of eyewitnesses, defenders of the Motherland, those who defeated fascism. Every year we lose those who bear "living memory". With the departure of these people, the heirs of their victory are unable to keep the memory in the same colors. Gradually, it acquires shades of real events of the present and loses its authenticity.
Let's keep the "living" memory of the war
The historical memory of the war is formed and preserved in the minds of the younger generation not only from bare historical facts and a chronicle of events.
The most emotional factor is “living memory”, that is, the memory of the people itself. Every Russian family knows about these terrible years from eyewitness accounts: stories of grandfathers, letters from the front, photographs, military things and documents. Many testimonies of the war are stored not only in museums, but also in personal archives.
It is already difficult for little Russians today to imagine a hungry, destructive time that brings grief every day. That piece of bread laid according to the norm in besieged Leningrad, those daily radio reports about events at the front, that terrible sound of the metronome, that postman who brought not only letters from the front line, but also funerals. But fortunately, they can still hear the stories of their great-grandfathers about the stamina and courage of Russian soldiers, about how little boys slept at the machines just to make more shells for the front. True, these stories are rarely without tears. It hurts too much to remember.
Artistic image of war
The second possibility of preserving the memory of the war is literary descriptions events of the war years in books, documentaries and feature films. Against the backdrop of large-scale events in the country, they always touch on the topic of a separate fate of a person or family. It is encouraging that interest in military topics today is manifested not only in anniversaries. For last decade there were many films telling about the events of the Great Patriotic War. On the example of a single fate, the viewer is introduced to the front-line difficulties of pilots, sailors, scouts, sappers and snipers. Modern cinematography technologies allow the younger generation to feel the scale of the tragedy, hear the "real" volleys of guns, feel the heat of the flames of Stalingrad, see the severity of military transitions during the redeployment of troops
Modern coverage of history and historical consciousness
Understanding and representations modern society about the years and events of World War II today is ambiguous. The main explanation for this ambiguity can rightfully be considered the information war unfolded in the media in recent years.
Today, without disdaining any world media, they give the floor to those who during the war years took the side of fascism and participated in the mass genocide of people. Some recognize their actions as "positive", thereby trying to erase their cruelty and inhumanity from memory. Bandera, Shukhevych, General Vlasov and Helmut von Pannwitz have now become heroes for radical youth. All this is the result of an information war, which our ancestors had no idea about. Attempts to distort historical facts sometimes reach the point of absurdity when merit Soviet army belittled.
Protecting the authenticity of events - preserving the historical memory of the people
The historical memory of the war is the main value of our people. Only it will allow Russia to remain the strongest state.
The authenticity of the historical events covered today will help to preserve the truth of the facts and the clarity of assessment of the past experience of our country. The fight for truth is always hard. Even if this fight will be "with fists", we must defend the truth of our history in memory of our grandfathers.
The end of the twentieth century provided the republics of the former USSR with a historic opportunity to gain freedom and restore national statehood. The reassessment of the value system, the growing interest in the past, the culture of peoples, in the formation and development of national self-consciousness led to the actualization of historical memory in the mass consciousness.
The need to study ethnosocial memory is largely due to the fact that this phenomenon itself is extremely ambiguous. On the one hand, it can be used to incite ethnic and group hostility, the emergence of interethnic tension, on the other hand, to strengthen good neighborliness and cooperation between peoples. The inconsistency of the manifestation of ethno-social memory is due to the bias of this phenomenon: power structures, various political, social groupings always strive to impose their own understanding of historical memory on society.
Turning to the memory of the historical, social past is an important need of society, since it also contains a great educational potential. Historical memory ensures the connection of generations, their continuity, creates conditions for communication, mutual understanding and certain forms of cooperation between people in various spheres of social activity.
Social memory is a complex and multicomponent phenomenon (historical memory of the people, cultural memory, political memory, etc.), which is a prerequisite for the existence of society, based on the accumulation, storage and transmission of socially significant information. Ethno-social memory, as a subsystem of social memory, determines a specific form of accumulation and transmission of socio-ethnic experience.
The ethnic factor is one of the determinants of social memory. The ethnic component of social memory can only be discussed in the case when ideas, knowledge, assessments of the historical past by an individual, group, society are based on events, phenomena that reflect their specific ethnic specificity.
The formative factor of ethnosocial memory is that the latter acts as a way of fixing, preserving and transmitting information from the accumulated experience of the national community both within the same generation and between successive generations. The factor of translation of ethnosocial memory is very significant, but the importance of the accumulative function , its role as a synthesizer of socio-cultural experience.
As an initial definition in the study of the ethnic determination of socio-memory, we use the following: the component of the content of ethno-social memory is facts, plots that characterize the originality of the historical path of the people, the totality of cultural and material values that underlie ethnic identification.
The main functional characteristic of ethnosocial memory is the preservation and transmission of the self-identity of the national community. The information accumulated by ethno-social memory through the institution of upbringing and education, the mechanism of social inheritance is transmitted from one generation to another, and this is what ensures the self-identity of the national community.
Ethno-social memory is one of the most complex socio-psychological formations in the system of the spiritual image of the nation. Being deposited layer by layer in language, culture, customs, rituals, in psychology, ethno-social memory makes itself felt in ideas about the native land, in the awareness of national interests, the attitude of the people to material and spiritual values. Ethno-social memory reflects both heroic and dramatic events in history, both national pride and national grievances.
Ethno-social memory can be represented as the "core", the center of the spiritual image of the nation. In studies of complex evolutionary systems within the framework of synergetics, scientists noted that information about the system's past is usually stored in its central part. Ethno-social memory is a kind of "national genetic code" that stores information about the history, stages of development, conditions of existence and the ethnic potential of the nation. Encoding the cultural and social experience of an ethnic group in memory is a multifaceted process. It takes place both in the sphere of intellectual and spiritual, and in material and production activities. The components of culture, in order to become part of the core of the spiritual image of the nation - the cultural gene pool of the people - must pass the test of time, become values for the community. In the event of the destruction of this "national genetic" code, similar to the processes of violation of human heredity, we can talk about the disappearance of the ethnic community
In turn, ethnosocial memory can be modeled as an integral two-component phenomenon, consisting of an ethnic core and a social belt. The first component contains the "original substrate" of the ethnos, i.e. those elements that laid the foundation for the ethnic community as a special integrity. The ethnic core is highly stable and has little variability. If the ethnic core includes both the memory of sociobiological and the memory of historical development, then the social belt is limited only by the memory of historical development. This social belt performs the function of an "information filter" of the national community, passing through itself numerous information flows, selects information that is significant and valuable for this community.
In other words, the ethnic core of ethnosocial memory stores a certain set of ethnic parameters, and their use serves as a means of self-identification, demonstrating one's belonging to a given ethnic group. Another thing is the social belt of this phenomenon, since for its existence it is not so much diachronic, but synchronous connections that are important.
The social memory of peoples is often limited by the personal experience of different generations. People usually are not able to remember as the most important those events that took place before the beginning of their lives.
The promotion of the ethnic component to the center of ethno-social memory does not indicate the primacy, relatively speaking, of ethnic memory over social memory in this phenomenon, but that the ethnic side of national memory is much more stable.
During periods of socio-cultural crises, the rise of national movements, historical experience and knowledge are updated, historical peoples. In ethnosocial memory social groups, social movements find justification and support for their national demands. However, the appeal to ethno-social memory is not due to the phenomenon of memory itself, but primarily to specific national interests. Different political and social forces see in historical memory what they want to see. National memory is always selective, because there is a subjective factor here, i.e. facts and events are reproduced through the prism of the interests of the individual, various social groups.
When considering the role and place of ethno-social memory in modern national processes, objective problems are exposed that have not yet received a specific interpretation. First of all, this is the problem of the “volume” of historical memory: what to “take” from the past, how to approach the assessment of critical events in the life of one or another ethnic community. There is, perhaps, no such people, whose fate developed safely and happily, in whose history there would be no interstate wars and interethnic conflicts, injustices and insults. Appeal to historical heritage poses an urgent need to restore the real equality of the rights of all peoples to manifest their historical memory in various forms. Analysis of the events of the past should be carried out from the standpoint of national tolerance. This means, first of all, determining what, in the course of historical contacts, enriched peoples, brought them closer, and not what separated and quarreled them. Apparently, the expedient path is the cultivation of a complete, truthful, concrete history not as the memory of only one people, but also as the memory of all peoples.
In recent years, the memory of historical events and phenomena of the past has become a powerful source for public sentiment and the expression of the national self-consciousness of peoples. The use of the potential of the ethno-social memory of each nation, accumulated by national self-consciousness, the activation of this potential for the benefit of progress is a complex and responsible task of society.
The article contains a brief insight into the history of Russia in the context of the formation of the spiritual values of the people. affects the relationship between church and state. HISTORICAL MEMORY IS THE BASIS FOR THE FORMATION OF THE NATIONAL SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE PEOPLE
Download:
Preview:
Historical memory as a basis for preservation
Spiritual and cultural traditions people.
Who am I? What is the meaning of my life? Every person asks himself this question sooner or later. To get an answer to it, you need to look into the annals of historical memory, because the life of every person bears the imprint of the history of his people, his country.
What is "historical memory"? Currently, there is no unambiguous definition of this term.In general, historical memory can be defined as the ability of social actors to preserve and transmit from generation to generation knowledge about historical events that have occurred (about historical figures of bygone eras, about national heroes and apostates, about traditions and collective experience in the development of the social and natural world, about stages, which this or that ethnos, nation, people went through in its development.)
It is important that historical memory is the basis of the spiritual and cultural continuity of generations.
One of the main structural components of historical memory, contributing to the most complete inheritance of historical experience, are traditions. They define specific interpersonal relationships, performing an organizing function, expressed not only through the norms of behavior, rituals, customs, but also through the system of distribution of social roles, the social stratification of society. This was especially evident during periods of social instability. Russian society, whether it was the Time of Troubles or Perestroika, the Decembrist Uprising or the revolutionary upheavals of the early 20th century, when the shaken state foundations replaced folk traditions, they organized, rallied society, gave the government grounds for transformation. A striking example of this is the activities of the Second - Nizhny Novgorod militia, led by Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky, who took responsibility for the fate of Russia during the difficult period of the Time of Troubles. The Council of All the Earth, created by them in Yaroslavl, became a de facto people's government in 1612, and the subsequent election of Mikhail Romanov, the first representative of the new ruling dynasty, Zemsky Sobor 1613 is nothing but a manifestation of the veche traditions of the Russian people.
The power of tradition is evident throughout the centuries-old history of Russia.
So, after the Decembrist uprising, which shook the foundations of autocracy and split the Russian elite, the state needed an idea that would unite society on the original Russian principles. This idea took shape in the so-called Theory of Official Nationality, developed by the Minister of Public Education, Count Sergei Semenovich Uvarov. “Autocracy, Orthodoxy, Nationality” - these three whales have become an expression of the essence of state ideology for almost a century Russian Empire, which reflected the unity of the king and the people, as well as Orthodox faith as a guarantee of family and social happiness.
Today at Russian Federation in accordance with article 13, paragraph 2 of the Constitution, there is not and cannot be any single ideology. But Russian society cannot live without a unifying idea, and where there is no official, clearly defined idea, there is ground for many unofficial destructive aggressive and even extremist ideologies. And today we see how this national idea, which is based on patriotism, is gradually taking shape, as the eternal traditional true value of our national self-consciousness. Patriotism - thanks to which in 1380. the Horde hordes were defeated on the Kulikovo field, and in 1612 the interventionists were expelled from the Moscow Kremlin, in 1812 the army of “twelve languages” was destroyed, and, finally, the Wehrmacht troops were defeated near Moscow in December 1941, and in 1943 near Stalingrad and Kursk. For us, adults, all these victories have become the core basis for the formation of personality and citizenship. But how to make it so that in today's concrete historical conditions, when the Western media are making gross attempts to falsify history, in particular, belittling the role of the USSR in the victory over fascism, criticizing and denigrating the military actions of the Russian armed forces in Syria, there is propaganda of Western values and direct their imposition on the younger generation, how to make sure that the consciousness of our children and their value world are formed under the influence of historical memory based on true values patriotism and citizenship? What forms of methods should be used for this? The answer is simple: it is necessary to have additional resources in order to acquaint children with the events of our history, not only in the classroom, but also outside of school hours. In our school, the museum of the history of the school, created by the hands of students and teachers in December 2011, has become such a resource center. The museum has two expositions. The first is dedicated to the harsh years of the Great Patriotic War, when evacuation hospital No. 5384 was located within the walls of the school, the second tells about the post-war years, about the life and achievements of students, as well as about the participation of our graduates in the Afghan and Chechen wars. On the Day of Aleksin's liberation from the Nazi invaders, the Day of the Internationalist Warrior and the Day of Victory, lectures are held in the museum. For this purpose, a lecture group was created. From lectures, students learn about the exploits of school graduates and teachers, about the achievements of children who study nearby, about the school, the walls of which are living history, because they keep traces of bomb explosions during the Great Patriotic War. And every time, peering into the faces of the children during lectures, seeing how the mischievous people quiet down and tears begin to shine in wide-open eyes, and during a minute of silence, heads drop as if on command, I want to believe that historical memory is doing its important job - helping to educate patriots.
For several years we have been participating in the Museum Marathon. Excursion trips have a strong impact on the emotional sphere of the children, allow you to directly come into contact with history, feel its spirit. So, we visited the village of Savino, Zaoksky district - the Museum of Vsevolod Fedorovich Rudnev - the commander of the legendary cruiser Varyag.
We visited the museum - the estate of the counts Bobrinsky in the city of Bogoroditsk, visited the legendary park created by the hands of the first Russian agronomist Andrei Timofeevich Bolotov.
Trip to Yasnaya Polyana, contact with the life of Leo Tolstoy also left an unforgettable impression on the guys.
In September of this year, the ninth-graders of our school made a sightseeing trip to Moscow at VDNKh, where they visited the Historical Park and one of its expositions - The Romanovs.
History is not only wars, upheavals and revolutions - it is, first of all, people who become participants in these events, who build and restore the country. Adults do this, and children absorb the spirit of the times, the attitude of parents to their work, understand what public and personal duty are. The post-perestroika years contributed to the formation of a deep gap in relations between the younger and older generations. Trying to narrow this gap and use the experience of the older generation, as part of the work of the Patriot school club, we hold meetings with members of the Council of Veterans of the city of Aleksin, soldiers-internationalists. On Mother's Day and March 8, we go out with concerts for labor veterans at the Center for Social Protection of the Population. Such meetings enrich the spiritual world of adolescents, make it possible to feel included in a common cause and elementary, tear them away from virtual world computer life, contribute to the socialization of the younger generation.
IN modern period development of Russian society, when its moral crisis is obvious, historical experience is in demand in the social practice of forming the value priorities of society. The transmission of historical experience occurs through traditional social institutions.
the only social institution The Russian Orthodox Church, which has passed through the severe trials of time, and has retained its foundations and its mission unchanged - to be a source of morality, goodness, love and justice in society, is the Russian Orthodox Church.
Made by Prince Vladimir in 988. the choice in favor of the adoption by Russia of the Christian faith according to the Greek model was not just a choice of religious worship, it was a civilizational choice that predetermined the development of Rus' as a powerful European power. Along with Christianity, European cultural achievements also came to Rus': writing, architecture, painting, education. Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin writes about this event in his “History of the Russian State”: “Soon the signs of the Christian faith, accepted by the sovereign, his children, nobles and people, appeared on the ruins of gloomy paganism in Russia, and the altars of the true God took the place of idols…. But it is not so easy for the new to take root in Rus'. Many people, tied to the ancient law, rejected the new one, because paganism dominated in some countries of Russia until the 12th century. Vladimir did not seem to want to force his conscience, but he took the best and most reliable measures to exterminate pagan errors:he tried to enlighten the Russians. In order to establish faith on the knowledge of divine books, ... the Grand Duke started schools for youths, which were the first foundation of public education in Russia. This beneficence then seemed terrible news, and mothers whose children were taken to science mourned them as if they were dead, for they considered reading and writing a dangerous sorcery. Having begun his reign as an ardent pagan, Prince Vladimir at the end of his life becomes true christian, to whom the people will give the name Red Sun, and in the 13th century he will be canonized and canonized as a Saint. life path Prince Vladimir, as well as each of us, a prime example that everyone has their own way to God and their own way to the temple.
Millennium history of Russian Orthodox Church represented by a series of various events and phenomena that affected the position of the church in society: this is the establishment of the patriarchate in Rus' in 1589, and the Church schism caused by Nikon's reforms, and the Spiritual Regulations of Peter I, which subordinated the church to the state, and the Decree of Soviet power, which separated the church from state and school from the church. It is possible to issue a law, but one cannot force a person to renounce his convictions, change his worldview with one stroke of the pen, one cannot disregard the historical memory of the people. Religion is faith, and without faith a person cannot live. Belief in victory helped the Soviet people endure the severe trials of the Great Patriotic War. The holy war against the invaders received the blessing of the Russian Orthodox Church.
On September 4, 1943, in the Kremlin, JV Stalin received the patriarchal locum tenens Sergius, who on September 8 was elected Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus'. It was also allowed to form the Holy Synod.
The historical memory of the people turned out to be stronger than the ideological attitudes and persecution of the church; it retained the most important thing - faith in the triumph of justice.
And today, each of us, brought up in the spirit of atheism, goes on his way to the temple to celebrate Orthodox holidays: Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Trinity and others, or on the occasion of any events in his personal life. Historical memory has preserved the need for spiritual communication and enrichment.
In our work, we try to familiarize our students with traditional values, to involve them in design and research activities. So, in the 2014-2015 academic year, our students developed the project "Where the Motherland Begins", the purpose of which was to attract students' attention to the problem respectful attitude to those places in the city that keep the sacred memory of the Great Patriotic War: this is the mound of Glory, and Victory Square, and the Exaltation of the Cross Church, and the native school. The meeting with Father Pavel, rector of the Exaltation of the Cross Church, enriched the children with knowledge about the patron saints of Rus'.
Cooperation with the club "Orthodox Aleksin" makes it possible to introduce students to the world of Orthodox values. Participation in interesting substantive discussions held by the clergy, all possible assistance in organizing and conducting Orthodox holidays, participation in round tables, Orthodox quizzes is nothing more than mastering the primordial traditions of the Russian people and familiarizing them with their historical memory. Therefore, we can say with all confidence that even today the church continues to fulfill its historical mission, which it has been carrying since the time of St. Vladimir Equal-to-the-Apostles - the mission of enlightenment. human soul through the upbringing in her of kindness, mercy, humility and compassion.
Thus, historical memory shows that no matter how acute social upheavals leading to the oblivion of the original Russian principles, society experiences, the connection between generations is eventually restored. Society, at all times, feels the need to restore ties with the past, with its roots: any era is generated by the previous stage of historical development and it is impossible to overcome this connection, that is, it is not possible to start development from scratch.
Ethno-cultural problems and the development of national self-consciousness are currently acquiring special significance and depth of socio-philosophical understanding. This is due to the socio-economic, socio-political and historical-cultural processes that are currently taking place in the country.
In terms of renewal public life the dynamics of the development of national self-consciousness is moving apart, interest in the knowledge of cultural classical heritage, a new phenomenon is being developed in the sphere of spiritual culture. Now there is a comprehension of the spiritual heritage of all peoples, powerful layers of national culture are returning. All this has a great influence on the formation of national identity, contributes to the development of spiritual and moral values.
The structure of national identity, for many scientists and to a greater extent for ordinary people, is perceived as a unity of awareness of national identity, commitment to national values, the desire for sovereignty.
National identity includes belonging to a given community, love for the native language, national culture, adherence to national values, conscious feelings national pride and awareness of common interests. These structural components national identity are in constant dialectical development. Here is what Ch. Aitmatov wrote, discussing the role of the native language in the fate of the nation: “The immortality of the people is in its language. Every language is great for its people. Each of us has his own filial duty to the people who gave birth to us, who gave us their greatest wealth - their own language: to keep its purity, to increase its wealth.
An important side of national self-consciousness is people's awareness of their individuality, belonging to this, and not to another, national-ethnic, socio-political community - the nation and nationality.
Under the conditions of authoritarianism in the USSR, the existing system caused the degradation of national consciousness, a break in historical thinking and national self-consciousness, and had a negative impact on the development ethnic culture, the infringement of national self-consciousness, its atrophy took place against the background of the alleged prosperity and prosperity of all the peoples of the country.
The level of national self-consciousness must be considered in its variability. Thus, according to the results of sociological research in the Republic of Bashkortostan, there is a qualitative and quantitative growth of national self-consciousness. And the factors of this growth are not only the productive activity of the creators of national ideas and views, but also their wide prevalence in the mass consciousness.
A special place in the formation of national identity belongs to historical figures, whose activities determined the fate of the people and statehood. In our country, there were many destinies covered with falsification, deliberate distortion of the life and personality of prominent politicians, military men, revolutionaries, scientists and even heroes of the Great Patriotic War. Our people are now learning the truth about most of them, and they are beginning to take their proper place in their historical memory.
The development of national identity as structural element in system public consciousness is a complex, lengthy, controversial process. The above facts and provisions, conducted by us sociological research, indicate that the national consciousness is focused on the formation of a civic position, responsibility for the fate of one's own small motherland, patriotism, feelings of love for one's ethnic group and national values in the name and for the benefit of one's people. Various destructions in moral-political questions and national relations will have their definite consequences. The self-consciousness of peoples must develop in a favorable socio-political environment, in a civil state in which the principles of civility and democratic approaches to solving national issues are respected.
Azamat Suleymanov, Bashkortostan
J.T. Toshchenko
HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESSAND HISTORICAL MEMORY.
ANALYSIS OF THE CURRENT STATUS
J.T. Toshchenko
Toshchenko Zhan Terentievich- Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor,
editor-in-chief of the journal "Sociological Research", head. Department of Theory and History of Sociology, Russian State University for the Humanities.
The article offered to the reader is the fruit of reflections on the results of sociological studies conducted in Russia in the late 80s and 90s and revealed previously unknown information about a special - historical - section of public consciousness and some forms of its manifestation. It's about that among the numerous problems that began to concern the population of our country, a specific form of public consciousness and behavior of people, covering knowledge, understanding and attitude of people to the historical past, its relationship with realities, has become more relevant today and its possible future reflection. A more detailed consideration of this phenomenon made it possible to form an idea of historical consciousness, of historical memory, which turned out to be very stable characteristics of people's lifestyle and which largely determined their intentions and moods, indirectly exerting a very powerful influence on the nature and methods of solving social problems. However, in fairness, it should be noted that in the 80-90s, during the years of intensive development of sociology and its analysis of many aspects of social life, data on the state and problems of historical consciousness were recorded in passing, along the way and were taken into account insofar as they could not be ignored when characterizing political and ethno-social processes: even with the episodic fragmentary data, they helped to clarify the essence of the changes taking place in society.
It was during these years that sociologists were faced with the need to interpret such a phenomenon of social consciousness as historical memory. As a result of a thorough, step by step, study of its various aspects and forms of manifestation, this concept began to be taken into account more purposefully, more thoroughly, and gradually received both theoretical justification and empirical interpretation. On this basis, the first experiments of an independent sociological analysis of historical consciousness, its contradictory, specific essence, as well as the features of the functioning of historical knowledge of both the population and specialists - historians, including future ones, i.e. students.
WHAT IS HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND HISTORICAL MEMORY
If we characterize the essence and content of historical consciousness, then we can say that it is a set of ideas, views, ideas, feelings, moods, reflecting the perception and assessment of the past in all its diversity, inherent and characteristic both for society as a whole and for various socio-demographic, socio-professional and ethno-social groups, as well as individuals.
In sociology, unlike philosophy, it is not the theoretical and everyday level of social consciousness that is studied, but the really functioning consciousness, expressed in the positions of specific people. Since sociologists turn to people themselves for information, they are faced with the fact that each individual object of scientific research - a person, a group, a layer, a cohort - represents a very bizarre combination of some scientific and everyday (everyday) ideas about history in general, the history of Russia , the history of his people, as well as the history of his city, village, and sometimes his family. Especially often significant historical events concerning the country, social strata and groups, an individual, some problems in the life of the people become the object of close attention.
Historical consciousness is, as it were, "poured", encompasses both important and random events, absorbs both systematized information, mainly through the education system, and disordered information (through the mass media, fiction), the orientation to which is determined by the special interests of the individual. A significant role in the functioning of historical consciousness is played by random information, often mediated by the culture of the people surrounding a person, family, as well as, to a certain extent, traditions, customs, which also carry certain ideas about the life of a people, country, state.
As for historical memory, it is a certain way focused consciousness, which reflects the special significance and relevance of information about the past in close connection with the present and future. Historical memory is essentially an expression of the process of organizing, preserving and reproducing the past experience of a people, country, state for its possible use in people's activities or for the return of its influence to the sphere of public consciousness.
With this approach to historical memory, I would like to draw attention to the fact that historical memory is not only updated, but also selective - it often focuses on individual historical events, ignoring others. An attempt to find out why this happens allows us to argue that actualization and selectivity are primarily related to the significance of historical knowledge and historical experience for the present, for current events and processes and their possible impact on the future. In this situation, historical memory is often personified, and through an assessment of the activities of specific historical figures impressions, judgments, opinions are formed about what is of particular value for the consciousness and behavior of a person in a given period of time.
Historical memory, despite a certain incompleteness, still has an amazing feature to keep in people's minds the main historical events of the past, up to the transformation of historical knowledge into various forms of worldview perception of past experience, its fixation in legends, fairy tales, traditions.
And, finally, one should note such a feature of historical memory, when hyperbolization occurs in the minds of people, exaggeration of individual moments of the historical past, because it practically cannot claim to be a direct, systemic reflection - it rather expresses indirect perception and the same assessment of past events.
EVENTS IN THE MIRROR OF HISTORICAL MEMORY
The data of sociological studies of the last decade show sufficient stability in assessing the historical past, although the data that can be compared are based on various sociological studies carried out by different sociological organizations using unequal methods.
So, in the framework of the all-Russian study "Historical consciousness: state, development trends in the context of perestroika" (May - June 1990, head of Ph.D. V.I. Merkushin, the number of respondents - 2196 people) the most significant events for the fate people were named:
- the era of Peter I (opinion of 72% of respondents),
- Great Patriotic War (57%),
- Great October Socialist Revolution and Civil War (50%),
- years of perestroika (38%),
- the time of the struggle against the Tatar-Mongol yoke (29%),
- period of Kievan Rus (22%).
The most recent economic events - perestroika and liberal reform - are rejected - they are positively assessed by 4 and 3.2% of the respondents, respectively.
Consequently, despite certain fluctuations in the official policy of the Russian authorities in the 90s and numerous attempts to revise the history of Russia, the consciousness and historical memory of the population continue to remain as the most significant periods when Russia underwent serious and sometimes dramatic changes - the period of reforms of Peter I and Catherine II, the abolition of serfdom, Russian revolutions of the XX century.
A somewhat different situation develops when people evaluate the events of the 20th century, because short-term historical memory is triggered here, when many of its real participants are still alive and the events of history are still part of a person’s personal life and therefore are not spared from their individual perception, their specific understanding and explanation. . This perception is imprinted by official and semi-official interpretations of events, literary and everyday assessments of the activities of statesmen and public figures, and many of them have been revised many times in relation to the ongoing changes in political life countries. But - and this can be attributed to paradoxes - the main parameters of mass attitudes in relation to the most important events of the 20th century. remain unchanged. In other words, historical consciousness shows a certain stability, consistency - it was little affected by fluctuations - sometimes sharp ones, occurring in official propaganda. The phenomenon of rejection of hasty conclusions about certain events is a subject of special discussion. But it is obvious that attempts to influence historical memory for the sake of political and ideological interests, to change historical consciousness, by and large, fail.
Let's consider this in more detail. So, in the studies of the early 90s, the most important event of the 20th century. the Great Patriotic War is recognized, taking first place (57% of respondents) compared to the October Revolution (second place, 50%). This order did not change in the assessment of these events in subsequent years, despite the huge social shifts in the political and economic structure of the country, which once again confirms that there is no automatic influence of social life on public consciousness. Research All-Russian Center research public opinion(VCIOM), covering the entire population of Russia according to a representative sample, showed that in 1989 the most outstanding event of the 20th century. The Great Patriotic War (World War II) was named by 77%, in 1994 - 73% of respondents. In other studies, including regional studies, the phenomenon of the Great Patriotic War is also highly valued by historical memory. Such an opinion requires, in our opinion, a special explanation.
The Great Patriotic War is estimated by historical memory as the most significant event, firstly, because this memory is connected with the history of each family, because this event affected the most essential and intimate aspects of people's personal lives. Secondly, this event determined not only the future of our country, but also the whole world, and therefore its assessment is based not only on the conscious, but also on the intuitive recognition of the role of this war in the history of all mankind. Thirdly, the Great Patriotic War, as rightly stated by Doctor of Historical Sciences, Head. Department of VTsIOM L.D. Gudkov, became "a symbol that acts ... as an important element of positive collective identification, a starting point, a yardstick that sets a certain optics for assessing the past and partly understanding the present and future". The fact that this event has become a symbol for the whole people, all its strata and groups is evidenced by the fact that the significance of this war for the history of the people was noted by 70% of young men and women under the age of 25 and 82% of people over 50 years old. And this means that the experience in assessing the older generation has been transformed and acquired a symbolic significance for subsequent generations.
This indicator is reinforced by the fact that in the conditions of modern ideological and political confusion, victory in the Great Patriotic War has become in fact the only positive reference point national identity of today's Russian society. And although numerous attempts were made in the 1990s to disavow the results and events of this war, they were rejected by historical memory. Attempts to revise the significance of the battle of Moscow, Stalingrad, attempts to deheroize the exploits of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Alexander Matrosov and others were not only not accepted in the scientific community, but also rejected by the mass historical consciousness.
In the same way, "research" such as V. Suvorov's books is not perceived and does not find a response - at best, they become the property of a group of people who are not so much thirsty for the truth, but are looking for a reason to express their ambitions, gain fame, produce a sensation, gain popularity and money. Samo national identity as if defending himself from these attacks, he does not want to indulge in something that can humiliate national dignity, the history of the country and the history of his "I". By and large, this is a refusal to support the revision of what unites the people and the rejection of which can turn into a major spiritual and then political catastrophe.
As for the October Revolution, it appears in the historical consciousness as a significant milestone, as a starting point that marked a turn in world history. However, as a landmark event, its evaluation along the "positive-negative" axis seriously changed in the 1990s: the number of people who critically evaluate the results and results of the revolution has increased significantly. According to VTsIOM, in 1989 October revolution to the most important events of the 20th century. attributed 63%, in 1994 - 49% of respondents.
However, while recognizing the role of this event, people evaluate this event ambiguously. In the aforementioned study led by V.I. Merkushin (1990), 41% of respondents rated the October Revolution as the first successful socialist revolution in history, 15% - as a popular uprising, 26% - defined it as a spontaneous combination of circumstances that brought the Bolsheviks to power. In addition, 10% rated the October Revolution as a coup carried out by a handful of intelligentsia, while 7% rated it as a conspiracy of the Bolsheviks. This ambiguity of assessments continues to persist at the present time, because there are political forces in society that want to cross out many pages of history associated with the existence of Soviet power, to present Soviet history as a kind of failure in the development of Russian society.
As for other significant events in the life of Soviet (Russian) society in the 20th century, as the most important different years called various events. But under the influence of political conjuncture, public mood, these assessments changed significantly, sometimes radically. Thus, according to VTsIOM data, mass repressions in 1989 - 23%, in 1994 - 16%, the war in Afghanistan - 12% in 1989 and 24% in 1994 were named as the most important events of this century, and the beginning of perestroika, respectively, 23 and 16%.
After 1991, many people began to name the collapse of the USSR as one of the most important events (40% in 1994). In other studies and in a different context, up to 70% regretted this, which is comparable to the figure of 71% who voted for the preservation of the Soviet Union in a referendum in March 1991.
In other words, from the events of the XX century. we are united and related mainly only by the assessment of the Great Patriotic War. Such unanimity is also evident in the assessment of our scientific and technological achievements, such as the flight of Yuri Gagarin, space exploration, which is noted by almost every third respondent.
However, the ability of people, their social consciousness to judge the historical past in a qualified manner, to correctly reproduce and evaluate historical events is seriously questioned. In the study by V.I. Merkushin, together with the population, experts were also interviewed - 488 teachers of historical disciplines in schools, technical schools and universities, who were skeptical about the ability of many people to think critically and draw reasonable conclusions (see. table 1).
Table 1
Assessment of the level of historical thinking of people (in % of the number of respondents)| High | Average | Short | Difficult to answer | |
| The ability to reproduce the historical past, to feel the era | 2 | 28 | 61 | 9 |
| Ability to navigate in historical space and time | 1 | 24 | 65 | 9 |
| Ability to uncover causal relationships in history | 1 | 14 | 78 | 6 |
| Ability to freely operate with historical facts | 1 | 21 | 70 | 7 |
| The ability to determine the reliability of historical facts | 1 | 16 | 67 | 15 |
These costs of historical thinking are especially evident when the historical consciousness of individual peoples is studied, when, in assessing the past, the events that determined their fate are updated in their memory. Here there is an amazing interweaving of rational and emotional perception, a zealous assessment of turning events in the life of his people and their consequences. So, in the study of public opinion of the population of the North Caucasus on a number of problems of socio-political development in the course of sociological observations, it was noted that many phenomena and events last century still excite the minds of people, attract the close attention of cultural and scientific figures. The Caucasian War of 1817-1864 left the deepest mark in the memory of these peoples. As it turned out, this memory concentrates not only information that is open and accessible to everyone, but also latent sources - such as family traditions and legends, stories, folk songs, official and unofficial place names.
A special study conducted by the Department of Philosophy and Sociology of the Adyghe Republican Institute for Humanitarian Research in 1995 showed that 84% of all respondents, including 95% of the Circassians, had some information about the Caucasian War. Moreover, this event is not just a memory of the past - about 40% (among the Adyghes 55%) believe that this event is closely woven into the socio-political reality of our time. In this regard, in our opinion, it should be emphasized that in the mass, really functioning consciousness, rather diverse characteristics of the causes of this war are manifested. Contrary to some "scientific" and pseudo-scientific assertions that the autocratic policy of Russia is to blame for everything, in the mass consciousness only 46% of the respondents adhered to this position, while 31% blamed Turkey and 8% - local feudal lords.
We are becoming eyewitnesses of the fact that historical memory, as well as the fruits of some historical research, is used in the current political and ideological controversy and is engaged by various political forces.
Now artificially created models of the interpretation of the past are marked by ethnocentrism, emotional coloring and, being supported by the mass consciousness, stimulate thinking by analogy; their authors try to explain modern problems from the "methodological" positions of the conceptual and philosophical archaism, which sometimes coexists in a bizarre way with the most diverse scientific theories. Many specific, but very important events for individual peoples become a very significant factor in both public consciousness as a whole and their historical memory, involving in an explicit and sometimes invisible discussion representatives of other peoples currently living in a given territory (events of the past in the history of Tatarstan, the fate of the statehood of Tuva, the historical past of the divided Lezgin people, etc.) Therefore, the correct placement of accents in the interpretation of historical events contributes primarily to the rational, friendly coexistence of peoples. Otherwise, wariness, prejudice, negative clichés ("empire", "chauvinistic policy", etc.) appear, which tend to persist for a long time, escalate social tension and give rise to conflicts.
HISTORICAL PERSONS
We emphasize once again that when identifying judgments about historical figures, it is not so much the personality as such that is assessed, but the totality of those acts that influenced the course of history and that brought cardinal changes to the lives of millions of people. In this sense, it is clear that the assessment of the reforms of Peter I as the most outstanding event Russian history correlates with the assessment of Peter himself, whose activities were positively assessed in the early 90s by 74% of the population. In the same study, from the same positions, the results of V.I. Lenin (opinion 57%), G.K. Zhukov (55%), Alexander Nevsky (28%).
Other more recent studies also show some stability in the assessment historical figures, primarily Peter I, Catherine II, Ivan the Terrible, Alexander II. Of course, in assessing the significance of certain figures, a certain bias is manifested, namely, proximity and involvement in the life of the 20th century. makes certain adjustments, although they are essentially different. So, when assessing G.K. Zhukov, despite the criticism of his actions, despite the doubts that were expressed in a number of publications, his personality is more and more glorified, acquiring features of a national scale, turning into a symbol of national pride and infallibility (holiness, as it would have been said in past centuries) .
When evaluating such figures of the 20th century as V.I. Lenin, I.V. Stalin, for all the significance of these figures (their role is recognized by the majority of the population), the assessment of their activities falls into both positive and negative. This emotional value assessment politicians closely correlates with personal experience, individual perception and personal acceptance or rejection of them. For how important this is, see table 2(VCIOM poll, January 2000).
table 2
Assessments of political figures of Russia in the XX century.
- what brought this or that figure - more positive or more negative
(in % of the number of respondents)
| Positive | Negative | |
| Nicholas II | 18 | 12 |
| Stalin | 26 | 48 |
| Khrushchev | 30 | 14 |
| Brezhnev | 51 | 10 |
| Gorbachev | 9 | 61 |
| Yeltsin (March 1999) | 5 | 72 |
| Yeltsin (January 2000) | 15 | 67 |
Obviously, such assessments, as in the assessment of historical events, are directly influenced by a personal idea of contemporaries who were at the helm of power, or information that is associated with short-term memory, formed in a significant part of the population under the influence of the environment. And if the assessment of previously functioning personalities is close to memories (public opinion cannot be reproached for ignorance of the behind-the-scenes mechanisms of power), then all responsibility for the difficulties that Russia is now experiencing is transferred to contemporaries. And the fact that in January 2000 public opinion somewhat changed in relation to Yeltsin (as well as the analysis of some other data) allows us to assert that Yeltsin's departure is not perceived by people as a change of faces (short or early - this is not so important), but as a sign of the end of a certain gloomy and contradictory era for people who tend to forgive something as they forgive an accomplished, but already incurable loss. And at the same time, according to the data of this study, 46% of respondents believe that it was not necessary to provide security guarantees to the departed president, since he should be responsible for illegal actions and abuse of power.
And yet, these and similar assessments of the historical figures of the past, despite some seeming randomness, nevertheless, at the level of mass historical consciousness, capture the role and significance of the most eminent figures of the past. The information circulating in society at the level of this consciousness, in principle, corresponds to what is followed both in historical science and in the process of teaching in universities, secondary specialized and general educational institutions. And this is their greatest merit. The characterization of the efforts of the media in the field of historical knowledge stands somewhat apart. For the most part, they follow established concepts, and if they distort some historical facts or events in the process of presentation, then in most cases they do not change overall score historical past. Individual cases the grossest trampling of history, with all the seeming interest of readers, pass almost without a trace, without affecting the deep layers of memory.
The historical preferences of people look more substantive and visual when assessing prominent figures of the 20th century. according to certain parameters, according to those spheres of public life in which they acted. Thus, in 1999, the Russian Independent Institute for Social and Ethnic Problems conducted a survey about who Russians consider "the best" in the outgoing century among military leaders and scientists.
As for the military, G.K. was in the first place. Zhukov, on the second - K.K. Rokossovsky, on the third - S.M. Budyonny (21%). In the ten most prominent military figures of Russia of the XX century. entered M.N. Tukhachevsky (17%), K.E. Voroshilov (15%), M.V. Frunze (15%), I.S. Konev (13%) and V.K. Blucher (8%). It is noteworthy that the White Guard Admiral A.V. Kolchak (12%) and the hero of the First World War, General A.A. Brusilov (7%).
As for scientists, the most prominent participants in the survey recognized the "father of Soviet cosmonautics" S.P. Queen (51%). In second place is the great Russian theoretician of space navigation K.E. Tsiolkovsky (39%). The top ten also included one of the creators of the atomic bomb, I.V. Kurchatov (28%), the inventor of the legendary M.T. Kalashnikov (25%), biologist and breeder I.V. Michurin (17%), physiologist I.P. Pavlov (16%), geneticist N.I. Vavilov (15%), aircraft designer A.N. Tupolev (13%), physicist P.L. Kapitsa (13%) and literary critic D.S. Likhachev (14%) .
An analysis of these opinions allows us to conclude that this information quite clearly shows the assessments that are contained in scientific and popular science publications, although there is no task of determining the rating of historical characters.
A characteristic feature of historical consciousness at the end of the 1990s was the departure from ideological assessments and the recognition of the role and significance of the activities of this or that person without necessarily correlating it with the interests of certain class or political forces. In this regard, the data of the VTsIOM poll on the personality of Stalin, conducted in the autumn of 1999, are indicative.
32% of Russian citizens believe that he was a cruel, inhuman tyrant, guilty of the destruction of millions of innocent people.
Exactly the same number believe that no matter what mistakes and vices are attributed to him, the most important thing is that under his leadership Soviet people emerged victorious in the Great Patriotic War.
"We still do not know the whole truth about Stalin and his actions," 30% of those polled are convinced.
In our opinion, such a characterization reflects the inconsistency, ambiguity, and sometimes paradoxicality of assessments of the activities of specific historical figures. But it is precisely such assessments that are the most effective and objective in comparison with some research "works" in which the authors set a predetermined goal to prove one or another version. For her sake, they select only the material that confirms their ideas and excludes all that information that can be called into question. And now we are witnessing publications about Lenin, Stalin, Nicholas II, about other historical characters, in which their life is "explored" from positions directly opposite to what was written 20-50 years ago. But if earlier the authors of such "works" set the task of glorifying (or denigrating), selecting the appropriate texture and ignoring everything that contradicts positive (negative) information, then in the 90s, facts and information of a directly opposite nature are selected with the same zeal and subpassion. in order to prove other provisions, other installations. In this situation, the data of public opinion become very curious, which more fully, voluminously and objectively characterize the inconsistency of the life and work of many historical figures.
PERSONAL HISTORICAL MEMORY
A huge layer of historical consciousness is represented by information that relates to the perception of what is connected with the life of the individual, his immediate environment. Representation of faces national heroes, geniuses, talents and their activities are stored in the total historical memory, as in a kind of museum - they are known from textbooks, from scientific and fiction literature. But these are few.
The memory of millions and millions of others is stored in the storerooms of this museum, in the memory of only relatives, relatives and friends. But these are millions of bricks in the foundation of our historical memory, nameless workers and witnesses, without whom History itself and, most importantly, our involvement in it, are inconceivable. I am deeply convinced that a person cannot fully feel like a citizen of the country, if he not only does not know major events, milestones in its history, but also the genealogy of his family, the history of his city, village, his region, in which he was born or lives.
Unfortunately, most Soviet people (Russians) have a very approximate knowledge of their genealogical tree, often no further than the third generation, i.e. his grandfather. This is evidenced by the data obtained in a sociological study in 1990. Answering the question "Has a pedigree been compiled in your family?" only 7% gave a positive answer. To the question "What do you see as the reasons for the poor knowledge of the history of your family?" 38% said that there was no one to tell about it, and 48% claimed that this issue was indifferent for the family, they were treated with indifference.
This alienation from personal involvement in history, disregard for one's roots, is also manifested in the fact that only 14% said they knew the history of the origin of their surname (20% claimed to know partially). Low culture and attitude towards family heirlooms. So far, it is limited to the storage of such material media that have a short history: 73% claimed that they have photographs of grandparents (note that 27% did not even begin to state this), 38% - that there are such memorabilia as orders , medals, certificates of honor, award signs. Letters from the front and other family relics were mentioned by 15%, while diaries, manuscripts, and correspondence were mentioned by only 4% of the respondents.
How to characterize this personal section of historical consciousness, historical memory? In our opinion, we can talk about its poor development, that it is of low quality, and I dare to say that it undermines the foundations of higher feelings - patriotism, pride in one's country, readiness to defend it and defend its interests.
In this regard, I will allow myself one personal recollection. Being in 1959 on my first foreign tourist trip - and this was the GDR, in accordance with the program, I was settled for two days in a family of German peasants in Saxon Switzerland. Great was my surprise when in the evening the head of the family (note - a peasant) showed me a book of records in which the genealogy of this peasant family was kept from the 17th century. Judging by these records, it was an uninterrupted chronology of a peasant family that successfully survived until the 20th century. and, given the professions of the son and daughters of this peasant, he was going to continue this impressive tradition even further.
Unfortunately, in our country such traditions were either lost (for noble and merchant families) or not cultivated (for peasant and bourgeois families). Why this happened is a topic for a separate discussion, although in the sociological literature we already have the first experiments (based on the biographical method) of a detailed analysis of the history of a number of families in several generations, which gives a figurative, lively, colorful history of the country through the history of the family.
Knowledge of the family pedigree is closely intertwined with the history of one's people. National self-identification has always played a huge role in the personal behavior of people, but its importance has increased especially in the transition period. In a study by V. I. Merkushin, to the question "Will you feel pride for your Motherland, your people, your city, your team?" the first place was taken by the assessment of their ethnicity - 62% of the respondents said this.
The question about the history of the family is accompanied by information about the history of their city (village), which does not much exceed the indicators of knowledge about their genealogy: 17% of people said that they know this history. True, another 58% claimed to know something about the history of the city (village), but this, firstly, was more about the townspeople, and secondly, the effect of presence worked here - knowing something does not mean the satisfaction of this knowledge.
Also indicative is the fact that registers not just a contemplative attitude towards history, but also a desire to contribute to the preservation of its values, its objects and symbols. According to available information, only 4% of people are directly involved in the restoration of historical and cultural monuments. Another 33% said that they contribute to this process, in particular, by contributing some funds to their restoration. In other words, the civic activity of people in relation to their historical past is still small.
The renaissance of interest in the folk spirit, the craving for cultural and spiritual heritage of the past. The restoration of the memory of undeservedly forgotten names is positively perceived (opinion of 58%). 85-91% actively support the revival of folk crafts, folk medicine, folk festivals, fairs.
HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE - WHAT IS IT?
I will start with the data of the already mentioned study by V.I. Merkushin. To the question "Are you satisfied with the quality of historical education at school?" Only 4% of respondents gave a positive answer. Even every second teacher (48%) admitted that the level of teaching history at school is low. But historical consciousness, historical memory, objectively reflecting at least the main milestones in the development of the country, the people cannot be formed without historical information being presented systematically, completely, without the predominance of emotions and attempts at falsification, when historical facts are replaced by all sorts of versions generated more by fantasies and arbitrary gag.
Meanwhile, the craving for historical knowledge is significant. Interest in the past is dictated by the desire to know the truth about the past (opinion of 41% of respondents), the desire to broaden their horizons (30%), the need to understand and learn the roots of their country, their people (28%), the desire to know the lessons of history, the experience of previous generations (17% ), the desire to find answers to topical questions in history (14%). As you can see, the motives are quite convincing, quite clear and in a certain sense noble, as they meet the needs of people to be citizens of their country in the full sense of the word. This includes the motives of identification (to be together with one's country, one's people) and the desire for objective knowledge, because, according to 44% of respondents, this allows a better understanding of modernity, and according to another 20%, it helps in making the right decisions. 28% of the population see the key to raising children in historical knowledge, and 39% believe that without knowledge of history it is impossible to be a cultured person. Remarkable is the self-assessment by people of their knowledge of history (cf. table 3).
Table 3
The degree of assessment of historical knowledge (in % of the number of respondents)Note: the missing percentage (per line) refers to those who abstained from any answer
Now let's compare these data with the opinions of experts - teachers of history, teachers of historical disciplines in universities and technical schools, who answered similar questions in this study. 44% of them recognized the level of knowledge of the population in the history of Russia as medium or low. According to the history of their people, respectively, the average and low 25 and 63%, according to the general history - 20 and 69%. It is noteworthy that, in our opinion, such data quite accurately reflect the real situation with the "main" stories.
It is also worth recognizing that the history of one's country, one's people will always be "closer" to the heart, feelings, social values and mood of people. Moreover, interest in different eras (stages) in life is not the same (see. table 4).
Table 4
The most interesting topics in the history of Russia (in % of the number of respondents).
| Population | students | |
| Life of outstanding scientists, military leaders, cultural figures | 48 | 51 |
| History of Ancient Rus', the formation of a centralized state | 37 | 33 |
| Life and work of kings, khans, princes | 29 | 32 |
| Life, way of life, customs, traditions, oral folk art | 27 | 40 |
| The history of the peoples of our country | 22 | 13 |
| Story Soviet society | 20 | 6 |
| History of religious movements and teachings | 17 | 12 |
| The history of the liberation and revolutionary movement | 10 | 1 |
Everyone is called upon to give an answer to these needs - the education system, the family, the mass media, fiction, and science. This is an important task, because, according to 80% of teachers - historians, the most terrible misfortune is not so much bad, insufficient or one-sided historical knowledge, but the distortion of this knowledge, the dominance of outdated dogmas. Considerable harm is also caused by "innovative" searches, for example, the works of Academician A.T. Fomenko and his adherents and co-authors, in which the entire system of scientific knowledge developed by many generations of historians is called into question. Published in hundreds of thousands of copies compared to the meager amount of scientific historical works, these works claim to replace the previous historical knowledge with arbitrary versions and conjectures. One thing saves now - and this, perhaps, affects the mentioned stability of historical consciousness - that, as test polls show, this information is considered by readers as special kind fantasy and adventure on a par with detective stories and by no means science fiction in bright covers that flooded the shelves at bookstores.
In conclusion, I would like to note one remarkable fact: at present, a very interesting scientific discipline is being formed - historical sociology. Proceeding from this objective need, the journal "Sociological Research" brought to the public's judgment many events of the past that still disturb people to this day. This was reflected in the materials of B.N. Kazantsev on the "unknown" statistics of the standard of living of the working class (1993, No. 4) and on the problems of employment of the urban population in the mid-1960s (1996, No. 5); A.A. Shevyakov on the All-Union Census of 1939 and the "secrets" of post-war repatriation (1993, No. 5 and No. 8) and Soviet food aid to the People's Democracies (1996, No. 8); V.P. Popov on the demographic situation in Russia in the 1940s and after the Great Patriotic War (1994, No. 10; 1995, No. 3-); on the passport system in the USSR (1995, No. 8-9); V.N. Zemskov about prisoners in the 30s (1996, No. 7) and the repatriation of Soviet citizens and their further fate (1995, No. 5-6). Since 1998, the journal began to publish a special section "Historical Sociology", where materials were published in which attempts were made to reconstruct many historical events based on documents characterizing the mass historical consciousness (letters to authorities, career histories, events of the 20-40s years, monetary reform, protest movement through the eyes of contemporaries, etc.). The complex of problems that lie at the intersection of history and sociology makes it possible to approach the characterization of historical consciousness and historical memory as part of social consciousness in all their contradictory development, and at the same time take into account the relative independence of this phenomenon and its specific forms. scientific knowledge.
All this allows us to conclude that, as this analysis shows, it becomes obvious that without a certain level of knowledge, understanding and respect for the historical past, it is impossible not only to be a citizen, but also to form a new Russian statehood, a Russian civil society.
Literature
1. Historical consciousness: the state and trends of development under the conditions of perestroika (results of a sociological study). - 2. Economic and social changes: public opinion monitoring. - News bulletin. 1997, No. 5, p. 12. 3. Ibid., p. 13. 4. Ibid., p. 12. 5. See Historical Consciousness: State and Development Trends under Perestroika, p. 97. 6. Hunahu R.A., Tsvetkov O.M. Historical phenomenon in modern refraction. - Sociological research, 1995, No. 11. 7. See Historical Consciousness: State and Development Trends under Perestroika, p. 96. 8. Levada Yu. Opinions and moods. January 2000 - Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 9.II.2000. 9, 10. TVNZ, December 21, 1999. 11. See Historical Consciousness: State and Development Trends under Perestroika, p. 93. 12. Kozlova N.N. Peasant's son: the experience of the study of biography. - Sociological research, 1994, No. 4; her own. horizons 13. See: Myths of the "new chronology" by Academician A.T. Fomenko. (Proceedings of a scientific conference at Moscow State University). - New and recent history, 2000, No. 3. 14. See Afanasiev V.V. Historical sociology. Barnaul, 1995; Ivanov V.V. Introduction to historical sociology. Kazan, 1998.
Information bulletin of the Center for Sociological Research of AON. M., 1991, p. 96.
everyday life of the Soviet era: a voice from the choir. M., 1996: Chuikina S.A. Reconstruction of social practices. - Sociological research,
2000, № 1.
