Civilizational theory of Arnold Toynbee and cultural studies. Arnold Toynbee - biography, information, personal life And Toynbee wrote a work called

English historian, born in London April 14, 1889. He was educated at Winchester College and Balliol College, Oxford University. In 1913 he married Rosalind Murray, daughter of Gilbert Murray, an Oxford professor of classics. Their son Philip became a noted novelist. They divorced in 1946, and that same year Toynbee married his longtime assistant Veronica Marjorie Boulter. In 1919-1924 he was professor of Byzantine studies, Greek language, literature and history at the University of London, from 1925 until his resignation in 1955 - scientific director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs and research fellow at the University of London. In 1920-1946 he was the editor of the Review of International Relations. During World War II, Toynbee was Director of Science at the British Foreign Office. In 1956 he became a holder of the Order of the Knights of Honor. Toynbee died in York on October 22, 1975.

Toynbee's numerous publications include scholarly monographs, including The Western Question in Greece and Turkey (1922), Greek Historical Thought (Greek Historical Thought, 1924), A Study of History (12 vols. , 1934 - 1961), as well as several volumes of essays and lectures published after the abridged (in one volume) summary of the first six volumes of the Study of History, which became a bestseller, was published under the direction of D. Somervell. The most interesting publication of the Gifford Lectures is the Historian's Approach to Religion (An Historian's Approach to Religion, 1956). Of Toynbee's later works, we note the following: America and the World Revolution (America and the World Revolution, 1962); Between the Niger and the Nile (Between Niger and Nile, 1965); Cities on the Move (1970), and Constantine Porphyrogenitus and His World (1973).

Toynbee followed O. Spengler and his Decline of Europe in rejecting the traditional concept of the unity of world history, offering instead a comparative study of cultures that show striking similarities in the life cycle - emergence, development and decline. However, he rejected Spengler's theory of cultures as organisms with a lifespan of 1000 years, and cited moral degeneration and the loss of a creative approach to emerging problems as the reasons for their decline. According to Toynbee's comparative tables, it turned out that in Western Europe during the Napoleonic Wars and in the Habsburg Monarchy in 1526-1918, despite the Thirty Years' War, the First World War, etc., peace reigned. However, Toynbee himself, and many of his admirers, were inclined to dismiss indications of inaccuracies, considering these amendments to be ordinary commonplaces; in their opinion, only what more or less clearly followed from volumes 1 to 6 mattered, namely, that a return to Catholicism in one form or another could stop the decline of Western civilization, which began with the era of the Reformation.

Volumes 7–10, published in 1954 after a hiatus of 15 years, no longer contained this concept, nor many other previous ideas. By showing in the Appendix to volume 6 that many sayings and episodes from the life of Jesus Christ can be found in pre-Christian Hellenistic folklore and that Christianity itself arose from religious syncretism, Toynbee rejected Christianity's claim to exclusivity. Our civilization, he believed, would perish; but, like Hellenism, it will serve its historical role if, dying, it gives rise to a new syncretic religion.

Toynbee's extraordinary erudition is undeniable, but his concept and methods have been subjected to scathing criticism. Toynbee's popularity is largely a phenomenon of American culture, in England he has more critics than admirers. Nevertheless, his ideas about the historical significance of religion and the fruitfulness of supra-material landmarks were, of course, quite sound, and even his critics admitted that he succeeded in popularizing them.

British culturologist and historian Arnold Joseph Toynbee, who was born exactly 125 years ago - April 14, 1889 in London - had an inquisitive mind, versatile interests, brilliant erudition. He left behind a twelve-volume work, The Comprehension of History, which describes the comparative history of civilizations. It was for this work that he was awarded the Order of the Knights of Honor.

Toynbee was born into a family that had an average income. However, his uncle, also called Arnold, was widely known in England as a scholar of economic history and a strong advocate of social reform, which was supposed to improve the conditions of the working class. Only thanks to his abilities, Toynbee was able to start studying at a privileged school. From 1902 to 1907, he studied at Winchester College, and then entered Balliol College, Oxford, where, as he believes, his life as a historian was finally determined.

Being a student of the British Archaeological School in 1911-1912, he travels to Turkey, Italy, Greece. In the same 1912, Toynbee returned to his native land at Balliol College, Oxford, as a teacher. Later, he goes to teach at King's College, where he reads the history of Byzantium and the Middle Ages to students. In 1913, his first major article was published, which is called "The Growth of Sparta". In the same year, Toynbee marries Rosalind Murray, daughter of Gilbert Murray. His experience was in demand during the First World War, when he worked at the British Foreign Office, advising on problems arising in the Middle East. But at the same time, he does not leave his research, publishing new works, such as "New Europe" and "Nationality and War".

In 1919, Toynbee was invited to the post of professor at the University of London, where he worked until 1924. And from 1925, Toynbee entered the service of the Royal Institute of International Relations, of which he became director in 1929 and remained in this post until 1955. After this, Toynbee decides to leave the service in order to devote the rest of his life to historical research.

In addition to numerous articles and publications published over the long life of the scientist, his main work, which brought world fame, was his "Comprehension of History" by Arnold Joseph Toynbee, which began in 1927 (finished in 1961). In this multi-volume work, he sets out his own vision of civilizational theory.

Basics of the theory local civilizations Toynbee.

Arnold Joseph Toynbee, in The Comprehension of History, suggests considering world history not as a single civilization, but as a system of conventionally distinguished civilizations. He believed that each identified civilization goes through phases from its birth to death, and for each civilization these phases are the same. According to Toynbee's theory, civilization is a closed society, which is characterized by the main criteria.

He singles out only two such main criteria:

— Religions and the form of its organization

- A territorial sign, characterized by the degree of remoteness from the place where the given society originated in its original form.

In addition to developed civilizations, according to Toynbee's classification, there were still unborn and delayed civilizations. He refers to the unborn civilizations the Far Western Christian, Far Eastern Christian, Scandinavian, Syrian "epochs of the Hyks". He defines delayed civilizations as born, but subsequently stopped in development due to various reasons. Toynbee refers to such civilizations the Eskimos, the nomads of the Great Steppe, the Ottomans, the Spartans, and the Polynesians.

Sometimes successive civilizations form sequences. These sequences can contain no more than three civilizations, and the last ones in such sequences are the civilizations that exist in the modern world.

In Comprehension of History by Arnold Joseph Toynbee, we can trace several such sequences at once:

Minoan - Hellenic - Western civilization;
Minoan - Hellenic - Orthodox civilization;

Sumerian - Indian - Hindu civilization;
Minoan - Syrian - Islamic civilization.

The scientist evaluated civilizations according to special criteria, among which the main criterion was the stability of civilization, both in time and in space in situations of interaction with other peoples and the Challenge. The development of each civilization is determined by the ability of the creative minority of society to find an answer to the challenges of the human environment and nature. The scientist believed that every civilization has stages emergence, growth, breakdown and subsequent decomposition. It was in this that he saw the whole meaning of the existence of civilization, comparing comparable units of history, called monads, with similar stages of development.

Toynbee's theory also defines the types of Challenges. These include:

- The challenge of the harsh climate that determines the development of the Egyptian, Sumerian, Chinese, Mayan, Andean civilizations;

- The challenge of new lands, characterizing the development of the Minoan civilization;

- The challenge of blows from neighboring societies to which the Hellenic civilization was subjected;

- The challenge of constant external pressure that influences the development of Russian Orthodox and Western civilizations;

- The challenge of infringement, in which society, realizing the loss of something vital for itself, directs its capabilities to develop properties that can compensate for the loss.

The researcher believed that the main driving force of civilization was the so-called. "creative minority". It is this minority, judging by Arnold Joseph Toynbee's Comprehension of History, that is able to formulate the Answer to the Challenge, which is different for each civilization. First, the creative minority works to increase its authority, finding answers to the challenges of the environment at the stages of the emergence and growth of civilization. As the authority of the creative minority grows, civilization rises to another level of development. When the stages of breakdown and decay come, the creative minority loses its ability to find answers to challenges, turning into an elite that, although it rises above society, no longer has authority to manage, moving to management not by force of authority, but by force of arms. During this period, the majority of the population that makes up this civilization becomes the internal proletariat. And then this internal proletariat creates a universal church, the ruling elite responds to this by creating a universal state, and the external proletariat proceeds to create mobile military detachments. Thus, Toynbee puts the development of civilization from finding an adequate response to the Challenge of the "creative minority". When this minority degenerates into a superstructure, called the elite, and is not able to find an adequate response to the Challenge, then the breakdown of civilization occurs, followed by its inevitable collapse.

A view of Russia as a Civilization, set out in the book "Comprehension of History" by Arnold Joseph Toynbee.

On the territory of Russia, according to Toynbee, there is a Russian Orthodox civilization. As the main challenge that determined its development, the scientist names continuous external pressure. Russia received its first challenge in 1237 from nomadic peoples, when Batu Khan organized a campaign against the Slavic lands. The response to the Challenge was a change in lifestyle and social organization. It was then that the first case in the history of civilizations occurred, which consisted in the victory of a settled society over the Eurasian nomads. But not only victory became a determining factor in the development of civilization, the result was the conquest of the lands of these nomads, the change in the face of the landscape, which consisted in the transformation of nomadic pastures into peasant villages, and camps into sedentary villages. The next stage of the challenge for the Orthodox Russian civilization, consisting in the same pressure on Russia from outside, Toynbee considers the pressure from the Western world, which occurred in the 17th century. The occupation of Moscow by the Polish army for two years was not in vain for the country. An adequate response to the challenge was the founding of the city of St. Petersburg by Peter I and the subsequent creation of the Russian fleet in the Baltic.

Toynbee considered the communist phase in Russia to be a "counter-strike" that fought back everything that the West had imposed on Russia in the 18th century. This was just one of the answers that is inevitable in the created contradiction between the aggressor - Western civilization, and the victims - other civilizations.

Rossi's answer to the constant pressure of nomadic tribes, the scientist considered the emergence of the Cossacks, as the creation of a new way of life and a new social form.

Toynbee witnessed the death of Victorian England, the collapse of the colonial system, two world wars, and therefore he formed his own vision of the death of civilization. He believes that at a time when the West is at the height of its power, it is opposed by non-Western countries. These countries have enough of everything - resources, aspirations, will, to give the whole world a different, non-Western look. Based on his theory, Toynbee also looked into the future, determining that the 21st century will have its defining Challenges. He considered Russia as such a Challenge, Islamic world and China, who will put forward their own ideals.

Basic provisions of Toynbee's theory.

The title of Toynbee's work A Study of History is not always translated correctly. Usually people refer to the work of Arnold Joseph Toynbee as "The Comprehension of History", while the translation "Inquiry into History" can be considered more correct, interpreting the study as a finished scientific work, and not as a process. This fundamental work, which brought world fame to the British historian, culturologist, sociologist, philosopher Arnold Joseph Toynbee, consists of 12 volumes, which were written from 1934 to 1961. This study still causes heated debate in scientific circles around the world.

Let us briefly repeat the essence of "Comprehension of History" by Arnold Joseph Toynbee.

The researcher abandoned the linearity of world history, dividing humanity into a number of civilizations that are in opposition to primitive societies. At the same time, each of the civilizations has a historical scale that appears as a response to the challenges of the external environment. At the same time, excessive challenge can become a factor in delaying civilization. Throughout the development of civilization there is a stratification of society. When the creative minority is able to find adequate responses to Challenges that make it possible to solve the problem that has arisen, civilization moves to a new, higher level of development. But when the correct answer to the Challenge is not found, the creative minority becomes the ruling minority, and a period of breaking of civilization begins.

"I have always wanted to see reverse side of the Moon,” this is how the world-famous English historian, diplomat, public figure, sociologist and philosopher Arnold Joseph Toynbee, who from childhood was keenly interested in the history of peoples who did not fit into the traditional Eurocentric scheme, formulated his credo at the end of his days. - Persians, Carthaginians, Muslims, Chinese, Japanese, etc. He remained faithful to this interest even in his mature years. Indeed, Toynbee, as a historian, fought all his life against near-Eurocentrism, insisting on the uniqueness of the image of each civilization, and as a public figure and publicist, against any attempts by the West to impose on other peoples and civilizations their own system of values ​​and assessments as the truth in the last instance. The importance of Toynbee cannot be overestimated. There are few names in history comparable to him in breadth of coverage and erudition, in depth of insight into the essence of the problems posed. His truly grandiose work, despite the hostility of critics and objectively existing errors, has already firmly entered the golden fund of world philosophical and historical thought. It can be said without exaggeration that more than a quarter of a century after Toynbee's death, his ideas, breaking the generally accepted stereotypes, continue to have a significant impact on social philosophy and public consciousness of both Western and other civilizations.

Arnold Joseph Toynbee was born April 14, Palm Sunday, 1889 in London. His pedigree is remarkable in its own way. He was named after two of his close relatives at once: grandfather and elder uncle. The grandfather of the future historian, Joseph Toynbee (1815-1866), was a renowned otorhinolaryngologist and successfully cured Queen Victoria herself of deafness; was closely acquainted with the intellectual elite of his time - among his friends and acquaintances one can name J. S. Mill, J. Ruskin, M. Faraday, B. Jowett, J. Mazzini ... However, his life was cut short tragically - he fell victim to a medical experiment, dying from an overdose of chloroform.

Joseph Toynbee left behind three sons, and each of them was, in his own way, unique. The eldest son of Joseph, in whose honor A. J. Toynbee received his first name, Arnold Toynbee (1852-1883), became a famous English historian, economist and social reformer, his main work "The Industrial Revolution" ( 1884; in the Russian translation of 1898 "The Industrial Revolution in England in the 18th century") is a classic. It was Arnold Toynbee Sr. who coined the very term "industrial revolution". The middle son of Joseph - Paget Toynbee (1855-1932) - took up philology, becoming one of the leading specialists in the work of Dante. The third son, Harry Volpey Toynbee (1861-1941), found his vocation in social work, working in the Society for the Organization of Charity. He is the father of A. J. Toynbee.

From early childhood, Arnold Joseph Toynbee showed extraordinary abilities in literature and had an exceptional memory. The main influence (until his marriage in 1913) was exerted on him by his mother - Sarah Edith Toynbee, nee Marshall (1859-1939), a woman of extraordinary intelligence and extremely firm in her Anglican faith, British patriotism, sense of duty and attachment to the son. It is impossible not to mention here the great-uncle ( younger brother Joseph) - Harry Toynbee (1819-1909), in whose house the future historian was born and raised. "Uncle Harry" was a retired sea captain, one of the pioneers of meteorology, who in his old age took up writing theological treatises. He encouraged his cousin's early learning and cultivated his aptitude for languages—for example, he gave a boy a few pence for memorized passages of the Bible, so that in his mature years, A. J. Toynbee could quote quite literally from memory. large chunks from the Old and New Testaments. However, "Uncle Harry", being the heir and representative of the Puritan tradition, was a religious fanatic and was very hostile towards representatives of other faiths, primarily Catholics and those Anglicans who gravitated towards Catholicism. Toynbee's parents adhered to Anglicanism - a kind of "middle way", and were much more tolerant than their elderly uncle to other religions, which subsequently distinguished Arnold Joseph himself.

At school, Toynbee's addictions were even more clearly defined. Ma-thematics was given to him with difficulty, but he easily mastered languages, especially classical ones. In 1902, he entered the prestigious Winchester College, after graduating from which in 1907 he continued his education at Balliol College, Oxford, which was at the beginning of the 20th century. a privileged launching pad for a promising career statesman. College education opened the way to high government positions.

From the colleges, Toynbee brought out a brilliant knowledge of Latin and Greek, passing in 1909 the first public examination for a bachelor's degree in both classical languages, and in 1911 in the so-called humanities("litterae humaniores"). After graduating from Balliol College, he stayed there to teach ancient Greek and Roman history. For brilliant success, Toynbee extended the scholarship and encouraged his intention to travel.

In 1911 and 1912 Toynbee traveled widely, exploring the sights of Greece and Italy, first in the company of British classical philologists, and then alone on foot, carrying only a flask of water, a raincoat, an extra pair of socks and some money needed to buy food from the villagers along the way. He slept outdoors or on the floor in coffee shops. In total, he walked almost 3,000 miles, mostly following the mountains along narrow goat paths (only occasionally leaving the path - either in order to reach some high point convenient for viewing the surroundings, or in search of a shorter path to one or another other ancient sights). In order to better study the features of a new science for him, Toynbee studied for a year at the British School of Archeology in Athens, and then took part in the excavations of the newly discovered monuments of the Cretan-Mycenaean culture.

During a journey through Laconia, Toynbee had one incident that turned out to be fateful. Here is how many years later he described it himself: “April 26, 1912, being in Laconia, I planned to walk from Kato Vezani, where I had spent the previous night, to Gythion ... I calculated that this journey One day is enough for me, because on a piece of pseudo-Austrian headquarters map a first-class road was marked here, passing just through a piece of rough terrain; thus, the last leg of this one-day hike promised to be easy and fast. This false sheet, which at that time I constantly carried with me, and now lies on my table, right in front of my eyes. Here it is, this supposedly beautiful road, marked by two shameless, bold black lines. When, having crossed the [river] Evrotos on a bridge that was not indicated on the map, I reached the place where the road was supposed to begin, it turned out that there was no road at all, which means that I had to get to Gythion over rough terrain. One gorge followed another; I was already several hours late against my schedule; my flask was half empty, and then, to my joy, I came across a briskly running stream with clear water. Leaning down, I pressed my lips to his and drank, drank, drank. And only when I got drunk, I noticed a man standing nearby at the entrance to his house and watching me. “This is very bad water,” he remarked. If this man had a sense of responsibility and if he were more attentive to his neighbor, he would have told me about it before I began to drink; however, if he had acted as he should have done, that is, if he had warned me, then it is very likely that I would not be alive now. He accidentally saved my life, because he was right: the water was bad. I fell ill with dysentery, and thanks to this disease, which did not let me go for the next five or six years, I turned out to be unfit for military service and was not called up for the war of 1914-1918. Many of Toynbee's friends and peers perished in World War I. The experiences associated with their death will haunt him for the rest of his life. Thus, a fatal accident, perhaps, saved Toynbee - he was not drafted into the active army and, continuing to engage in science, was later able to create his main work.

From 1912 to 1924 Toynbee was a research professor of international history at the University of London. During the First World War, he worked in the Information Department of the British Foreign Office as a scientific consultant on the historical, political and demographic problems of the Middle East. This work undoubtedly left a strong imprint on Toynbee's approach to historical facts. Here he often had to deal with many pieces of evidence that did not appear in official documents. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 (and later, after the Second World War, at the Paris Conference in 1946), Toynbee was present as a member of the British delegation. From 1919 to 1924 Toynbee is Professor of Byzantine and Modern Greek, History and Culture at the University of London. In 1925, he became scientific director of the British Royal Institute of International Affairs. He held this position until 1955. At the same time, he was the editor and co-author of the Institute's annual Surveys of International Relations (Survey of international affairs. London, 1925-1965).

After retiring, Toynbee travels extensively throughout Asia, Africa, America, lectures and teaches at the University of Denver, New Mexico State University, Mills College and other institutions. Almost until his death, he retained a clear mind and an extraordinary memory. Fourteen months before his death, he was shattered by a powerful para-lich. He was almost unable to move or speak. On October 22, 1975, at the age of 86, Toynbee died in a private hospital in York.

This is a brief biography of Arnold Joseph Toynbee. As for his "intellectual biography", here one can single out many different people who influenced the historian in one period or another. We meet their names on the pages of his works: first of all, this is Toynbee's mother, who herself wrote popular transcriptions of history, E. Gibbon, E. Freeman, F. J. Teggart, A. E. Zimmern, M. I. Rostovtsev, W. X Prescott, Sir Lewis Namier, ancient authors - Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, Lucretius, Polybius. In his mature years, the works of A. Bergson, Augustine the Blessed, Ibn Khaldun, Aeschylus, J. W. Goethe, C. G. Jung had the strongest influence on Toynbee ... The list goes on and on. However, it must always be remembered that all these numerous influences were fused by Toynbee into his own, deeply original concept of historical development thanks to a deep knowledge of primary sources and living life.

Peru A. J. Toynbee owns a significant number of works devoted to ancient history, the history of international relations, and the history of modern times. Many of his books became bestsellers almost immediately. Toy-nby's works were translated into more than 25 languages ​​during the author's lifetime. However, the main work that won him world fame was the 12-volume essay “A Study of History”, published by Oxford University Press in 1934-1961.

While still a very young man, Toynbee drew up a program of what he would like to implement in his works, and he carried out this program to the end, as evidenced by numerous notebooks filled with ideas and references, which years later were used to implementation of the original plan. “He grew up in an atmosphere of unshakable authority, studying the Bible, history, classical languages. But Bergson's later writings shook his quiet world with the power of revelation. Bergson brought him for the first time an acute experience of insecurity, changeability, but also faith in the creative power of leading individuals and social strata, raising vegetative life to a higher order.

This happened on the eve of the First World War, and about the same time, Toynbee suddenly had the idea, caused by the outbreak of war, that the Western world had entered the same period of life that the Greek world had gone through during the Peloponnesian War. This instant realization gave Toynbee the idea of ​​making comparisons between civilizations.

The First World War, as the historian himself later wrote, put an end to liberal-progressive illusions and to a large extent stimulated his interest in the history of mankind, taken as a whole. If, on the very eve of the war, he still did not want to recognize as valid for Europe the thesis that cultures are mortal, like people, then by the end of the war the picture changed.

“We civilizations, we now know that we are mortal. We heard stories about people who disappeared without a trace, about empires that went to the bottom with all their humanity and technology, sank into the impenetrable depths of centuries, with their deities and laws, with their academicians and sciences, pure and applied, with its grammarians, its dictionaries, its classics, its romantics and symbolists, its critics and critics of critics. We know well that all visible earth formed from ashes and that ashes have significance. Through the depths of history, we discerned the ghosts of huge ships that had sunk under the weight of wealth and intelligence. We were unable to count them. But these crashes, in essence, did not affect us. Elam, Nineveh, Babylon were beautifully vague names, and the complete disintegration of their worlds meant as little to us as their very existence. But France, England, Russia... These could also be considered wonderful names. Lu-zitania - too beautiful name. And now we see that the abyss of history is large enough for everyone. We feel that civilization is endowed with the same fragility as life. The circumstances that could make the creations of Keats and Baudelaire share the fate of the creations of Menander are least of all incomprehensible: look at any newspaper.

These are the words from an article by the greatest poet of France, Paul Valery, "The Crisis of the Spirit", written in 1919 and first published in the London magazine "Atheneum". However, we find similar thoughts in many, many thinkers who went through the experience of the First World War. The "lost generation", "crisis of the spirit", "decline of Europe" - these are the most famous characteristics of the post-war period. " World War 1914-1918, - notes the American historian McIntyre, - began a series of crises of colossal proportions that lasted for two generations, which brought intellectuals and politicians, public and cultural figures out of a state of good-natured complacency with civilization ... [ She] showed that the barbarities of war could, thanks to sophisticated technology, be increased to such an extent that they would engulf all mankind and all cultures. Toynbee called this period "a time of troubles" that shook the idea of ​​progress and confidence in the human mind, which underlay both the old, liberal, and new, Marxist views on history. "Time of Troubles" continued during the 20-30s. 20th century and prepared the situation for an alternative view of history.

In the XIX - early XX centuries. in the Western European consciousness, the “axiological” interpretation of cultures prevailed. She divided the various ways of human existence into "cultural" and "uncivilized", "higher" and "lower". A striking example of such an interpretation is the Eurocentric system of views. In the Russian philosophical tradition, this point of view was criticized more than once already in the 19th century - here one can recall the Slavophiles and the predecessors of the civilizational model of history N. Ya. Danilevsky and K. N. Leontiev. However, in the XX century. the limitations and inconsistency of the "axiological" interpretation became obvious to many researchers in the West. Many Western researchers of culture, in the process of criticizing traditional Eurocentrism, have taken the path of a “non-axiological” interpretation of cultures. Quite logically, they came to the idea of ​​equalizing all historical modes of existence, considering them as equal and equivalent. According to these researchers, it is a mistake to divide cultures into “higher” and “lower” ones, since they represent historically developed ways of life that are equivalent in their alternativeness. In domestic critical literature, these concepts are referred to as the concepts of "local" or "equivalent" cultures. The supporters of this point of view include (except for the above-mentioned N. Ya. Danilevsky and K. N. Leontiev) such thinkers and scientists as O. Spengler, E. Mayer, P. A. Sorokin, K. G. Dawson, R Benedict, F. Northrop, T. S. Eliot, M. Herskovitz, and, finally, A. J. Toynbee himself. Their criticism of Eurocentrism was often combined with a cyclical model of the historical process.

The idea of ​​historical cycles has been known for a long time. Also in ancient world many philosophers and historians have expressed the idea of ​​the cyclic personality of history (for example, Aristotle, Polybius, Syma

Qian). Such views were dictated by the desire to see a certain order, natural rhythm, pattern, meaning in the chaos of historical events by analogy with natural cycles. In the future, similar views were expressed by such thinkers as Ibn Khaldun, Niccolo Machiavelli, Giambattista Vico, Charles Fourier, N. Ya. Danilevsky. However, the dominant philosophy of history in Western Europe during the XVIII-XIX centuries. continued to be a linear progressive scheme based on a Eurocentric approach and the cult of progress. Progress became the faith of the average European, a faith that first replaced the traditional Christian religion in Europe and then spread throughout the world. The process of secularization, which began as early as the Renaissance and reached its apogee in the 18th century, inevitably led to the loss of the connection between culture itself and the spirit of Christianity that had guided it for many centuries. European culture, having lost this connection, began to look for new inspiration for itself in the ideal of progress (or Progress, as this word has often been written since the 18th century). Faith in progress, in the limitless possibilities of the human mind, becomes a real religion, more or less disguised behind the façade of philosophy or science. The worship of "Progress" is associated with the cult of "Civilization" (one, unique and absolute, European civilization) and its achievements. As C.JI wrote. Frank, characterizing the historical schemes based on the belief in progress, “if you look closely at the interpretations of this kind of history, it will not be a caricature to say that, in its limit, their understanding of history is almost always reduced to such a division: 1) from Adam to my grandfather - the period of barbarism and the first rudiments of culture; 2) from my grandfather to me - a period of preparation for great achievements, which my time must accomplish; 3) I and the tasks of my time, in which the goal of world history is completed and finally realized.

The 20th century, in its own way, placed accents both in relation to "Civilization" and in relation to "Progress". As Pitirim Sorokin wrote, “practically all significant philosophies of the history of our critical age reject progressively linear interpretations of the historical process and take either a cyclic, creatively rhythmic, or an eschatological, messianic form. In addition to rebelling against linear interpretations of history, these social philosophies demonstrate many other changes in the prevailing theories of society... The emerging philosophies of history in our critical age break sharply with the dominant progressive, positivist, and empiricist philosophies of the dying sensitive era.” The philosophy of history of A. J. Toynbee is the clearest illustration of Sorokin's words.

When Toynbee was thirty-three years old, he sketched out a plan for his future work on a half-vintage sheet of a concert program. "He clearly realized that its execution would require at least two million words - twice as much as Edward Gibbon needed for his long work written over the years on the decline and fall of the Roman Empire" Idea of ​​what can be found many parallels between various historical events and that there is a “kind of human societies that we call “civilizations””, was already gradually beginning to take shape in his mind when he accidentally came across O. Spengler’s “The Decline of Europe”. In this book, read by Toynbee in German, even before the English translation appeared, he found confirmation of many of his own thoughts, which existed in his mind only in the form of hints and vague conjectures. However, Toynbee's conception of Spengler seemed imperfect in several important respects. The number of civilizations studied (eight) was too small to serve as a basis for a correct generalization. It was very unsatisfactorily explained what was the cause of the emergence and death of cultures. Finally, Spengler's method was greatly harmed by certain a priori dogmas that distorted his thought and forced him at times to unceremoniously neglect historical facts. A more empirical approach was required, as well as the realization that the problem associated with the explanation of the origin and death of civilizations exists, and that the solution to this problem should be carried out within the framework of a verifiable hypothesis that would stand the test of facts.

Toynbee consistently characterized his method as essentially "inductive." Undoubtedly, the centuries-old traditions of British empiricism affected here. "The History of England" by D. Hume, "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by E. Gibbon, "The Golden Bough" by J. J. Frazer - all these multi-volume, abounding in huge factual material works are the immediate predecessors of the "Studies of History" . Toynbee's main goal was to try to apply a natural-scientific approach to human relations and to test "how far it will take us." In carrying out his program, he insisted on the need to consider "society as a whole" as the main units of research, and not "arbitrarily isolated parts of them, like the nation-states of the modern West" . Unlike Spengler, Toynbee singled out in history a representative of the genus of "civilizations" (later he reduced their number to 13), not counting secondary, secondary and underdeveloped ones. He included Egyptian, Andean, ancient Chinese, Minoan, Sumerian, Mayan, Yucatan, Mexican, Hittite, Syrian, Babylonian, Iranian, Arabic, Far Eastern (the main stem and its branch in Japan), Indian, Hindu, Hellenic, Orthodox -Christian (main stem and offshoot in Russia) and Western. Although Toynbee considered this number to be extremely small for solving the task set - "explanations and formulations of laws." Nevertheless, he argued that there was a very significant degree of similarity between the achievements of the societies he studied and those of the societies he compared. In their history, certain stages are clearly distinguishable, following one model. This model, according to Toynbee, is expressed too clearly to be ignored - the stage of growth, breakdown, final disintegration and death.

One of the most fundamental principles of Toynbee was cultural pluralism, the belief in the diversity of forms of social organization of mankind. Each of these forms of social organization has, in his opinion, its own system of values, different from others. Danilevsky and Spengler spoke about the same, but their biologism in the interpretation of the life of societies as a whole remained alien to Toynbee. The English historian rejected the fatal predetermination of the future, imposed on every organism by the law of the life cycle, although biological analogies are found more than once on the pages of his works.

Toynbee describes the main phases of the historical existence of civilization in terms of Henri Bergson's "philosophy of life": "emergence" and "growth" are associated with the energy of the "life impulse" (elan vital), and "breakdown" and "decay" - with " exhaustion of vital forces. However, not all civilizations go this way from beginning to end - some of them die before they have time to flourish ("underdeveloped civilizations"), others stop in development and freeze ("delayed civilizations").

After recognizing the uniqueness of the path of each civilization, Toynbee proceeds to an analysis of the actual historical factors. This is primarily the "law of call-and-response". Man has reached the level of civilization not because of a superior biological endowment or geographic environment, but as a result of "responding" to a "challenge" in a historical situation of particular complexity, which prompted him to make an attempt that was unprecedented before. Toynbee divides challenges into two groups - calls from the natural environment and human challenges. The group related to the natural environment is divided into two categories. To the first category belong the stimulating effects of the natural environment, representing different levels of complexity ("stimulus of harsh countries"), to the second - the stimulating effects of the new earth, regardless of the local character ("stimulus of the new earth"). Toynbee divides the challenges of the human environment into geographically external in relation to the societies that are affected, and geographically coinciding with them. The first category includes the impact of societies or states on their neighbors, when both sides start, initially occupying different areas, the second - the impact of one social "class" on another, when both "classes" jointly occupy one area (the term "class" used here in the broadest sense). At the same time, Toynbee distinguishes between an external impulse, when it takes the form of an unexpected blow, and its sphere of action in the form of constant pressure. Thus, in the field of challenges of the human environment, Toynbee distinguishes three categories: “stimulus of external blows”, “stimulus of external pressures” and “stimulus of internal infringements”.

If the “answer” is not found, anomalies arise in the social organism, which, accumulating, lead to “breakdown”, and then to further “disintegration”. The development of an adequate response to a change in the situation is social function the so-called creative minority, which puts forward new ideas and selflessly implements them, dragging the rest with them. "All acts of social creativity are the creation of either individual creators or, at most, creative minorities."

Within this model, certain periodic "rhythms" can be found. When a society is in its growth stage, it provides effective and fruitful responses to challenges. When it is at the stage of decline, it is unable to seize the opportunities and resist or even overcome the difficulties that it encounters. However, neither growth nor decay, according to Toynbee, can be permanent or continuous in an inevitable way. For example, in the process of disintegration, the phase of defeat is often followed by a temporary recovery of strength, which, in turn, is followed by a new, even stronger relapse. As an example, Toynbee cites the establishment of a universal state in Rome under Augustus. This period was the time of the restoration of the strength of the Hellenic civilization between the previous period of the "Time of Troubles" with its uprisings and internecine wars and the first stages of the final collapse of the Roman Empire in the 3rd century BC. Toynbee argues that clearly distinguishable rhythms of destruction-restoration manifested themselves in the course of the collapse of many civilizations - Chinese, Sumerian, Hindu. At the same time, we are confronted here with the phenomenon of increasing standardization and loss of creativity - two features that are especially evident in the decline of Greco-Roman society.

Critics have repeatedly noted Toynbee's desire to interpret the history of other civilizations in terms characteristic of Hellenic culture. Many criticized him for this, believing that this tendency led the scientist to create artificial schemes into which he tried to fit the entire diversity of human history. For example, P. Sorokin wrote about Toynbee’s theory and similar ones: “Neither real cultural or social systems, nor nations and countries as fields of cultural systems have a simple and uniform life cycle of childhood, maturity, old age and death. The life curve of especially large cultural systems is much more complex, diverse and less homogeneous than the life cycle of an organism. A fluctuation curve with a non-periodic, constantly changing rhythm of ups and downs, essentially repeating eternal themes with constant variations seems to illustrate the course of life of large cultural systems and supersystems more correctly than the curve of the cycle of an organism. In other words, Danilevsky, Spengler and Toynbee saw only "three or four rhythmic strokes" in the life of civilizations: the rhythm of childhood-maturity-old age or spring-summer-autumn-winter. Meanwhile, as in the life process of cultural and social systems many diverse rhythms coexist: two-beat, three-beat, four-beat and even more complex rhythms, first of one type, then of another ... ”.

Toynbee's later writings show that he was very sensitive to this kind of criticism. However, he argued that for the research he was undertaking it was at least important to start with some kind of model. His main doubts were about whether the model he had chosen was ideal for the task at hand and whether it was possible for a future scientist engaged in a comparative study of civilizations to advise a better one so that he could use all the variety of examples to conduct his research, and not just one example.

In defending his position, Toynbee often attacked what he called "antinomic historians," the proponents of the dogma that no model of any kind can be found in history. He believed that to deny the existence of models in history is to deny the possibility of writing it, since the model is assumed by the whole system of concepts and categories that the historian must use if he wants to speak meaningfully about the past.

What are these models? In some of his writings, Toynbee suggests that it is necessary to choose between two, in fact, opposite points of view. Either history as a whole corresponds to some single order and plan (or serves as its manifestation), or it is a “chaotic, disorderly, random flow” that does not lend itself to any reasonable interpretation. As an example of the first point of view, he cites the "Indo-Hellenic" conception of history as "a cyclic movement governed by an impersonal law"; as an example of the second, the "Judeo-Zoroastrian" conception of history as a movement governed by a supernatural intellect and will. An attempt to combine these two ideas seems to underlie one's own picture of the human past, as it appears in the last volumes of the Study of History. They explicitly state that the rise and fall of civilizations can be interpreted teleologically.

As Toynbee wrote his Study of History, he significantly changed his views. If in the first volumes he acts as a supporter of complete self-sufficiency and equivalence of civilizations, then in the last volumes he significantly changes his original point of view. As the English historian Christopher Dawson noted regarding the last four volumes of the Inquiry, “Toynbee introduces a new principle that indicates a fundamental change in his early views and entails the transformation of his Inquiry into History from a relativistic phenomenology of equivalent cultures along the lines of Spengler to a single a philosophy of history comparable to that of the idealist philosophers of the nineteenth century. This change ... implies a rejection of Toynbee's original theory of the philosophical equivalence of civilizations and the introduction of a qualitative principle, embodied in higher religions, considered as representatives of higher species of society, which are in the same relation to civilizations in which ice-cold - to primitive societies.

In an effort to introduce elements of progressive development into his concept, Toynbee saw the progress of mankind in spiritual perfection, in religious evolution from primitive animistic beliefs through universal religions to a single syncretic religion of the future. From his point of view, the formation of world religions is the highest product of historical development, embodying cultural continuity and spiritual unity in spite of the self-sufficient isolation of individual civilizations.

According to Toynbee, “the style of a civilization is the expression of its religion... Religion was the lifeblood that gave birth to civilizations and sustained them—more than three thousand years in the case of pharaonic Egypt, and in China from the rise of the Shang state to the fall of the dynasty Qing in 1912". The two oldest civilizations, Egyptian and Sumerian, were based in the potentially rich lands of the Nile Valley and southeastern Iraq. However, these lands had to be made productive through extensive drainage and irrigation works. The transformation of a complex natural environment into a favorable one for life had to be carried out by organized masses of people working in the name of far-reaching goals. This suggests the emergence of leadership and a widespread desire to follow the directions of the leaders. The social vitality and harmony that made such interaction possible must have come from religious faith, which was shared by both leaders and those led by them. "This faith was supposed to be a spiritual force that made it possible to carry out the main public works in the sphere of the economy, thanks to which an economic surplus product was obtained."

By religion, Toynbee understood such an attitude to life that creates an opportunity for people to cope with the difficulties of human existence, giving spiritually satisfactory answers to fundamental questions about the mystery of the Universe and the role of man in it, and offering practical prescriptions regarding life in the Universe. “Every time a people loses faith in its religion, its civilization is subject to local social disintegration and foreign military attack. A civilization that has fallen as a result of the loss of faith is then replaced by a new civilization inspired by another religion. History provides us with many examples of such substitutions: the fall of Confucian Chinese civilization after the Opium War and the rise of a new Chinese civilization in which Confucianism was replaced by communism; the fall of Pharaonic Egyptian civilization and Greco-Roman civilization and their replacement by new civilizations inspired by Christianity and Islam; the rebirth of Western Christian civilization into a modern civilization based on the post-Christian “religion of science and progress”. Examples can be continued. Toynbee is convinced that the success or failure of culture is deeply connected with the religion of the people. The fate of a civilization depends on the quality of the religion on which it is based. This explains the modern crisis of the spirit in the West and all the global problems that it entailed.

When Western man gained dominion over nature through the systematic application of technology, his belief in the call to exploit nature “gave him the green light to saturate his greed to the limit of a now vast and ever-increasing technological capacity. His greed found no barrier in the pantheistic belief that non-human nature is sacred and that, like man himself, he has a dignity that must be respected.

Westerners, having replaced in the 17th century the religion of their ancestors, Christianity, with the post-Christian "faith in science", abandoned theism, retaining, however, the faith inherited from monotheism in their right to exploit non-human nature. If, under the former Christian attitude, they believed in the mission of God's workers, who received Divine sanction for the exploitation of nature, on the condition of honoring God and recognizing Him. "owner's rights", then in the 17th century "the English cut off the head of God, as they did to Charles I: they expropriated the Universe and declared themselves no longer workers, but free owners - absolute owners." The "religion of science", like nationalism, has spread from the West all over the globe. Despite national and ideological differences, the majority of modern people are its adherents. It is these post-Christian religions of the modern Western world that have brought humanity "to its real misfortune."

What way does Toynbee see from this situation? It is necessary, he believes, to urgently restore stability in relations between man and non-human nature, overturned by the industrial revolution. At the heart of the technological and economic revolutions in the West lay the religious revolution, which consisted, in fact, in the replacement of pan-theism by monotheism. Modern man must now regain his original respect for the dignity of non-human nature. This can be facilitated by the "correct religion". Toynbee calls "correct" that religion which teaches respect for the dignity and holiness of all nature, in contrast to "wrong" which patronizes human greed at the expense of inhuman nature.

Solution global problems Toynbi saw modern humanity in pantheism, in particular, he found his ideal of a “correct religion” in such a variety of pantheism as Shintoism. However, Shintoism, as Toynbee's interlocutor, the Buddhist religious leader Daisaku Ikeda, rightly noted, has two faces: explicitly on the surface there is a tendency to reconcile with nature, while the implicit tendency is isolation and exclusivity. Perhaps these tendencies are also present in other pantheistic religious traditions.

Looking for a panacea for the diseases of modern mankind in Japan, Toynbee paradoxically turns out to be shortsighted in relation to Christianity. He sees in Christian monotheism the cause of the fatal changes that led to the modern "religion of science" and to the violence of man over nature. However, he attributes to Christianity in general those extreme conclusions that were made by its Western branch as a result of a deviation from the original teaching. Christianity was initially alien to both mechanical anthropocentrism, that is, the radical alienation of man from nature (which in the West led to a consumerist attitude towards it), and the proposed in the 20th century. as an alternative, cosmocentrism, which equalizes a person with any phenomenon of the natural cosmos. With regard to nature, orthodox Christianity is characterized by two main motives. Firstly, nature is perceived as a gift from God, which excludes soulless violence against it and predatory exploitation of its riches. And secondly, there is a consciousness of the humiliated state of the created world after the fall, which allows a person to fight the world chaos as an untrue manifestation of natural being and strive for its transformation. The apostle Paul also wrote: “The creation with hope awaits the revelation of the sons of God, because the creation was subjected to futility, not voluntarily, but by the will of him who subdued it, in the hope that the creation itself will be freed from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:19-21). Thus, the soteriological aspect of Christianity and the possibility of a "middle way" completely escape the attention of the historian.

In general, the topic "Toynbee and Christianity" requires additional coverage. At first glance, it may seem that the teleological interpretation of history in Toynbee's later work brings him closer to Christian historiosophy. However, there are a number of significant points in which he disagrees with the Christian understanding of history.

The main feature of Christianity as a historical religion is, according to Toynbee, in relation to suffering. The central dogma of Christianity — the dogma that Divine mercy and Divine compassion moved God to voluntarily “lose” His power and undergo the same suffering that His creatures undergo for the sake of saving His creatures — makes Christianity a historical religion par excellence. . “The distinctive meaning that Christianity gave to the Jewish understanding of the nature of God and the nature of His relationship to people is the proclamation that God is love, and not only power, and that this same Divine love is manifested in a special meeting of man with God in the form of the incarnation and crucifixion (passion) of Christ...”.

But the Incarnation serves us not only as evidence that this world has an inner and absolute value as an arena of suffering, in which God showed His love for His creatures. It simultaneously became an event that gave meaning to history, indicated purpose and direction. This completely changed our understanding of life, freeing us from the power of the cyclical rhythms that took place in the Universe, from the rhythms that we encounter in our lives.

The anthropocentric view of the Universe, which originated in the Renaissance and gained more and more strength as science and technology developed in modern times, was refuted by the same science. Modern man, like Pascal, is horrified at the mere thought of the endless black and icy expanses of the Universe, opening up to him through a telescope and erasing his life to an insignificant amount. However, “The Incarnation frees us from these alien and demonic forces, convincing us that thanks to the suffering and death of God on this infinitely small grain of sand (of the universe), the entire physical Universe is theocentric, for if God is love, then a person can feel himself everywhere, where the authority of God operates, as at home.”

But perhaps the most important thing in Christianity for Toynbee is the fact that the sufferings of Christ gave meaning to human suffering, reconciling us with the tragedy of our earthly life, since they “inspire us that this tragedy is not meaningless and aimless evil, as argued by the Buddha and Epicurus, and no inevitable punishment for deep-seated sin, as explained by non-Christian schools of Jewish theology. The light of Christ's passion revealed to us that suffering is necessary insofar as it is a necessary means of salvation and creation in the conditions of a temporary and short life on Earth. In itself, suffering is neither evil nor good, neither meaningless nor meaningful. It is the path leading to death, and its goal is to give a person the opportunity to participate in the work of Christ, thereby realizing the opportunity to become sons of God, brothers in Christ.

Critics often attributed Toynbee complete acceptance (especially in the works recent years) of Christian historiosophy, considering him almost the revivalist of the ideas of Augustine the Blessed. This misconception was based on the historian's frequent quoting of the Holy Scriptures and constant reference to events. biblical history. However, Toynbee's conception has a number of significant differences from Christian (and, in particular, from Augustinian) historiosophy. The essence of these discrepancies was at one time described in sufficient detail by Professor Singer in his study on the outstanding British historian.

First of all, in his later writings, Toynbee, in fact, denies the uniqueness of Christianity, although he recognizes it as one of the highest religions. He insists that since Christianity is one of the highest religions, then it has much to learn from other religions belonging to the same group. If Toynbee once believed that Christianity contains a unique revelation of a single, undivided truth, then over time he began to think that everything historical religions and philosophical systems are only partial revelations of truth, and that Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam have something to say to Christianity. This position obviously contradicts both biblical revelation and its Augustinian interpretation.

In fact, as Toynbee gradually changed his position as he wrote A Study of History, the first six volumes value Christianity much more highly than the last, which are written more from the standpoint of Buddhism and Hinduism. In many of his later works, he leans directly towards Mahayana Buddhism.

Although Toynbee does make frequent references to the Old and New Testaments and values ​​them highly, he is far from treating them as the inspired and inerrant Word of God. Sacred Scripture for him is to the same extent a revelation of God, as are the "sacred writings" of other higher religions. Toynbee does not regard the Bible as the only reliable revelation God has given of Himself to man. The Bible for him is just one of the ways in which man searches for God. Hence the often found on the pages of the "Study of History" attitude towards the Bible as a collection of "Syrian" myths and folklore, along with significant and useful historical data.

Inevitably, this attitude toward Christianity and Holy Scripture strongly influenced the religious thought of Toynbee. In fact, he denies the biblical doctrine of the omnipotence of God, creationism and the orthodox view of original sin. In place of these fundamental orthodox positions, he puts the evolutionary conception of reality in general and of man in particular.

Thus, denying the universal sinfulness of mankind, Toynbee fails to understand biblical teaching about redemption. Christ for him is only a noble person, uttering sublime teachings. The idea of ​​atonement for the sins of mankind Death on the Cross on Golgotha ​​remains completely misunderstood. The whole meaning of Christianity in its soteriological aspects has completely escaped the attention of the historian. Toynbee preaches the usual liberal admiration of Christ as the Great Teacher or one of the Great Teachers, but completely denies that He is the Son of God who went to the Cross for the salvation of people.

The cross for Toynbee is a majestic symbol of the suffering of Christ, and Christ Himself becomes the example of the "departure-and-return" in his historical scheme. However, there is no place here for the idea of ​​a bodily resurrection in the biblical sense of the word, and the return of Christ from the grave appears only as the coming of His spirit to the disciples along with the inspiration transmitted to them, which made them able to spread the teachings of their Master.

In the same way, Toynbee often refers to the Church and uses this word as one of the main elements of his historical scheme. But again, his conception of the Church is very far from the biblical view of the matter. Christian church for Toynbee, it is not an organism created by God, consecrated and continuous in time, including the elect of all ages, but rather a human institution that arose from the bosom of Hellenic civilization and served as the emergence of Western civilization. Obviously, the Toynbean view of the Church is also far from what Augustine the Blessed taught in his book On the City of God. For Toynbee, the Church (or, as he more often writes, the church, with a lowercase letter), is rather an institution necessary for the emergence and maintenance of civilizations, and not the Kingdom of God on earth in the biblical sense.

Finally, Toynbee does not share biblical eschatology. Civilizations come and go, are born and die, according to his call-and-response theory, and since the fall of a civilization can (and probably will) lead to catastrophic consequences, history has no purpose. History has no final goal, and therefore the historical process cannot end with the second coming of Jesus Christ in power and glory.

For Toynbee, as well as for Hegel, Marx, Spengler and the supporters of the concept of "history as a process" in general, the ultimate meaning of history can only be found within the framework of the historical process itself. Although Toynbee tried hard to avoid the pitfalls that Hegel, Marx and Spengler encountered, his attempts ended in failure, because he refused to see that only one almighty God could give meaning to His creation and all of history. , the Creator of which is. Any attempt to find meaning in a story before it is completed ends in failure.

In conclusion, I would like to say a few words about how Toynbee saw the future of all mankind. In his later works, the historian increasingly turned to modern social problems, trying to find a way out of the deep internal contradictions of Western civilization and the conflict between the West and the countries of the "third world". According to Toynbee, a spiritual renewal is needed, a rejection of the absolutization of material values ​​and mercantilist philosophy, a revival of harmony between man and nature. At the economic level, the main requirement should be equality and the limitation of human greed. For the sake of preserving human dignity, Toynbee considers the adoption of the socialist way of managing the economic affairs of mankind inevitable. However, bearing in mind the experience of building socialism in Russia, China and some other countries of the world and the extremes that were associated with the suppression of the spiritual freedom of the individual in these countries, Toynbee says that in the future this is necessary at all costs. began to be avoided. His picture of the future contains an answer both to supporters of the violent construction of an "earthly paradise" and to modern globalists who are trying to impose on the whole world single system values. “My hope for the twenty-first century is that it will see the establishment of a global humanist society that is socialist on an economic level and free-thinking on a spiritual level. Economic freedom for one person or society often entails enslavement for others, but spiritual freedom has no such negative traits. Everyone can be spiritually free without encroaching on the freedom of another. Of course, widespread spiritual freedom means mutual enrichment, not impoverishment.

The future will show how correct Professor Toynbee's predictions are and how good a prophet he was. It remains for us, guided by the direction drawn by him, to try to bring the sinking ship to the shore modern civilization on which, as on Noah's ark, both Western, Russian, Islamic, and Chinese civilizations are inextricably linked by one common destiny, and always remember how easily they can all join the ranks of civilizations that have disappeared without a trace forever Sumer, Egypt, Babylon and many, many others.

Kozhurin K. Ya., candidate philosophical sciences

Huebscher A. Thinkers of our time (62 portraits): A Handbook on Western Philosophy of the 20th Century. M., 1994. S. 60.

God, History and Historians. An Anthology of Modern Christian Views of History. Ed. by C. T. McIntire. New York, 1977. P. 7.

Frank S.L. Spiritual Foundations of Society: An Introduction to Social Philosophy//Russian Abroad: From the History of Social and Legal Thought. L., 1991. S. 265.

Dawson Ch. Toynbee's Odyssey of the West / / The Common-weal, LXI, No. 3 (Oct. 22, 1954). P. 62-67. Toynbee was in full agreement with Dawson's assessment, noting that his opinion on the change of the cyclical system to the progressive one is correct (Toynbee A. J. A Study of History. Volume XII. Reconsiderations. London; New York; Toronto, 1961. P. 27).

Arnold Joseph Toynbee(Eng. Arnold Joseph Toynbee; April 14, 1889, London - October 22, 1975) - British historian, philosopher of history, culturologist and sociologist, professor who studied international history at the London School of Economics and the University of London. He is also the author of numerous books. Researcher of globalization processes , critic of the concept of Eurocentrism . In 1943, head of the research department of the Foreign Office in London, which dealt with issues of the post-war structure of the world. Member of the American Philosophical Society (1941).

He is best known for his 12-volume work Comprehension of History. Author of many works, articles, speeches and presentations, as well as 67 books translated into many languages ​​of the world.

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Biography

Arnold Joseph Toynbee was born in London on April 14, 1889. He was the son of Harry Wolpy Toynbee (1861-1941), secretary of a public charitable organization, and his wife Sarah Edik Marshall (1859-1939). His sister Jacqueline Toynbee was an archaeologist and art historian. Arnold Toynbee was the grandson of Joseph Toynbee, nephew of the famous economist Arnold Toynbee en en (1852-1883). Arnold Joseph Toynbee was a descendant of famous British intellectuals for generations.

On October 22, 1975, at the age of 86, Arnold Joseph Toynbee died. The asteroid 7401 Toynbee is named after the historian.

Scientific and cultural heritage

Michael Lang said that for much of the 20th century, “Toynbee was perhaps the most widely read, translated, and discussed scholar of our time. His contribution was enormous - hundreds of books, pamphlets and articles. Many of them have been translated into 30 different languages ​​... the critical reaction to Toynbee's work is a whole scientific history of the middle of the century: we find a long list of the most important periods in history, Beard, Braudel, Collingwood and so on. In his most famous work, Comprehension of History, published between 1934 and 1961, Toynbee “... considered the rise and fall of 26 civilizations in the course of human history, and concluded that they flourished because of the successful response of societies to challenges under the leadership of wise minorities made up of elite leaders.”

"Historical comprehension" is both a commercial and a scientific phenomenon. In the United States alone, more than seven thousand sets of the ten-volume edition were sold by 1955. Most people, including scholars, initially relied only on an abridged edition of the first six chapters prepared by the British historian David Churchill Somerwell and published in 1947. 300,000 copies of this abbreviation have been sold in the United States. Numerous publications were full of articles on the popular work of Toynbee, lectures and seminars were held everywhere on the topic of the book "Comprehension of History". Arnold Toynbee sometimes personally took part in such discussions. In the same year, he even appeared on the cover of Time magazine. The headline read: "The most audacious historical theory written in England since Karl Marx's Capital." Toynbee was also a regular columnist for the BBC (he spoke, taking into account how non-Western civilizations look at the Western world, considered the history and causes of modern enmity between East and West.

Canadian economic historian Harold Adams Innis was a prime example of Toynbee's theory among Canadian researchers. Following Toynbee and others (Spengler, Sorokin, Kroeber, and Cochrane), Innis explored the rise of civilizations from the perspective of the government of empires and mass communications. Toynbee's civilizational theory was adopted by many scientists, for example, Ernst Robert Curtius as a variant of the paradigm in the post-war space. Curtius was a follower of Toynbee and believed that the author of "Comprehension of History" created a huge base for a new study of Latin literature. “How do cultures and historical objects, which are a cultural information source, appear, flourish and decay? Only comparative morphology with special approaches can possibly answer these questions. It was Arnold Joseph Toynbee who raised such a question before the world.

Already in the 1960s, Toynbee's theory was losing its popularity in science and the media, but many historians continue to refer to the "Comprehension of History" right up to the present day.

Toynbee's theory of local civilizations

Toynbee considered world history as a system of conditionally distinguished civilizations, passing through the same phases from birth to death and constituting the branches of a "single tree of history". Civilization, according to Toynbee, is a closed society characterized by two main criteria: religion and the form of its organization; territorial sign, the degree of remoteness from the place where a given society originally arose.

Toynbee identifies 21 civilizations:

The theory of the development of civilizations is based on the idea of ​​the emergence and development of civilizations in the form response to global challenges of his time. The mechanism of the birth and development of civilization is associated with answer on calls, which the natural and social environment constantly throws at peoples (harsh climate, frequent earthquakes or floods, wars, cultural expansion, etc.). The creative minority must successfully respond to the challenge by solving the problem. Toynbee identifies 21 civilizations, of which only 10 civilizations remained in the 20th century, and 8 of them are in danger of assimilation into Western culture. Despite the originality of each civilization, there is a single logic of their development - the progress of spirituality and religion.

The scientists put forward criteria for assessing civilizations: stability in time and space, in situations of Challenge and interaction with other peoples. He saw the meaning of civilization in the fact that comparable units (monads) of history go through similar stages of development. Successfully developing civilizations go through stages of emergence, growth, breakdown and decay. The development of civilization is determined by whether the creative minority of civilization is able to find answers to the challenges of the natural world and the human environment. Toynbee notes the following types of challenges: the challenge of a harsh climate (Egyptian, Sumerian, Chinese, Mayan, Andean civilizations), the challenge of new lands (Minoan civilization), the challenge of sudden blows from neighboring societies (Hellenic civilization), the challenge of constant external pressure (Russian Orthodox, Western civilization) and the challenge of infringement, when a society, having lost something vital, directs its energy to develop properties that compensate for the loss. Each civilization gives a response formulated by its "creative minority" to the challenge thrown to it by nature, social contradictions and, in particular, by other civilizations. At the stages of emergence and growth, the creative minority finds an answer to the challenges of the environment, its authority grows and civilization grows. At the stages of breakdown and decomposition, the creative minority loses the ability to find answers to the challenges of the environment and turns into an elite that stands above society and no longer controls by force of authority, but by force of arms. The majority of the population of a civilization turns into an internal proletariat. The ruling elite creates a universal state, the internal proletariat creates the Universal Church, the external proletariat creates mobile military detachments.

The concept of Hellenic civilization lies at the center of Toynbee's historiosophical constructions. The scientist fundamentally rejected the category of socio-economic formation.

Toynbee about Russia

Toynbee considers continuous external pressure to be the main challenge that determined the development of Russian Orthodox civilization. For the first time it began from the nomadic peoples in 1237 with the campaign of Batu Khan. The answer was to change lifestyles and renew social organization. This allowed, for the first time in the history of civilizations, a sedentary society not only to defeat the Eurasian nomads, but also to conquer their lands, change the face of the landscape and ultimately change the landscape, transforming nomadic pastures into peasant fields, and camps into settled villages. The next time terrible pressure on Russia followed in the 17th century from the Western world. The Polish army occupied Moscow for two years. The answer this time was the founding of St. Petersburg by Peter the Great and the creation of the Russian fleet on the Baltic Sea.

Criticism of Toynbee

Theoretical constructions of A. Toynbee caused an ambiguous reaction among professional historians and philosophers.

The universalist vision of cultural and historical development proposed by him is based on the idea of ​​the unity of the human race, capable of enriching with the experience of a tradition that translates general humanistic values. The constructions of the British theoretician summarize the richest empirical material, contain generalizations that encourage serious reflection. Of particular interest is his view of the fate of the history of the 20th century, marked by the unity of the entire planetary community, seeking an answer to the challenge of global problems of our time. Toynbee's legacy is interesting in terms of translating general humanist values ​​into the development of a new thinking strategy aimed at analyzing the complex collisions of the nuclear age. It calls for thinking about the relationship between the past and the present, the unity and diversity of the cultural and historical process, the progress and polyvariance of the ways of human development, and the prospects for its future.

The famous French historian, one of the founders of the Annales school, Lucien Febvre, left the following comments:

Comparative history through the eyes of Toynbee... What is it if not the resurrection in the 20th century of an old literary genre that was once popular and produced so many masterpieces? From Lucretius to Fontenelle, this genre was called "Dialogues of the Dead". Let's summarize in two words. What is commendable in A Study of History is nothing particularly new to us. And what is new in it is of no particular value ... We were not presented with any new key. No lockpick with which we could open twenty-one doors leading to twenty-one civilizations. But we never aspired to take possession of such a miraculous master key. We are deprived of pride, but we have faith. Let history remain Cinderella for the time being, sitting on the edge of the table in the company of other humanitarian disciplines. We know very well why she got this place. We are also aware that it was also affected by a deep and general crisis of scientific ideas and concepts, caused by the sudden flowering of some sciences, in particular physics ... And there is nothing terrible in this, nothing that could make us renounce our painstaking and hard work and rush into the arms of charlatans, naive and at the same time crafty miracle workers, writers of cheap (but twenty-volume) opuses on the philosophy of history

see also

Bibliography

Works translated into Russian:

• Toynbee A.J. Comprehension of history: Collection / Per. from English. E. D. Zharkova. - M.: Rolf, 2001-640 p., ISBN 5-7836-0413-5, circ. 5000 copies
• Toynbee A.J. Civilization before the court of history: Collection / Per. from English. - M.: Rolf, 2002-592 p., ISBN 5-7836-0465-8, circ. 5000 copies
• Toynbee A.J. Experienced. My meetings. / Per. from English. - M.: Iris-press, 2003-672 p., ISBN 5-8112-0076-5, circ. 5000 copies
• Toynbee A.J. The study of history: In 3 volumes / Per. from English, intro. article and comments by K. Ya. Kozhurin. - St. Petersburg: Publishing house of St. Petersburg University: "Publishing house of Oleg Abyshko", 2006-1333 p., ISBN 5-288-03610-1, circ. 1000 copies
• Toynbee A. J., Ikeda D. Choose life. Dialogue between Arnold J. Toynbee and Daisaku Ikeda - M.: Mosk. un-ta, 2007-448 p. - ISBN 978-5-211-05343-4
• Toynbee A.J. The role of personality in history. / Per. from English. - M.: Astrel, 2012-222 p. - ISBN 978-5-271-41624-8
• Toynbee A. J., Huntington S. F. Challenges and responses. How civilizations perish - M.: Algorithm, 2016-288 p. - ISBN 978-5-906817-86-0

Rest

1. "Atrocities in Armenia: The Murder of a Nation" (The Armenian Atrocities: The Murder of a Nation, 1915).
2. "Nationality and the War" (Nationality and the War, 1915).
3. The New Europe: Some Essays in Reconstruction (1915).
4. "The Balkans: A History of Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania and Turkey" (A History of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Rumania, Turkey, 1915).
5. "Deportations in Belgium" (The Belgian Deportations, 1917).
6. "German Terror in Belgium" (The German Terror in Belgium: An Historical Record, 1917).
7. "The German Terror in France" (The German Terror in France: An Historical Record, 1917).
8. "Turkey: Past and Future" (Turkey: A Past and a Future, 1917).
9. The Western Question in Greece and Turkey: A Study in the Contact of Civilizations, 1922.
10. Greek Civilization and Character: The Self-Revelation of Ancient Greek Society, 1924.
11. Greek Historical Thought from Homer to the Age of Heraclitus, 1924.
12. Non-Arab Territories of the Ottoman Empire since the Armistice of the 30th October 1918, 1924.
13. "Türkiye" (Turkey, co-authored, 1926).
14. The Conduct of British Empire Foreign Relations since the Peace Settlement, 1928.
15. A Journey to China, or Things Which Are Seen, 1931
16. "The Comprehension of History" (Abridged version by D. S. Somervell, 1946, 1957, final abridged version of 10 volumes 1960).
17. "Civilization on the Trial of History" (Civilization on Trial, 1948).
18. "Prospects of Western Civilization" (The Prospects of Western Civilization, 1949).
19. "War and Civilization" (War and Civilization, 1950).
20. Twelve Men of Action in Greco-Roman History (1952) (Twelve Men of Action in Greco-Roman History)
21. "The World and the West" (The World and the West, 1953).
22. An Historian's Approach to Religion, 1956.
23. Christianity among the Religions of the World (1957).
24. Democracy in the Atomic Age, 1957.
25. East to West: A Journey round the World, 1958.
26. Hellenism: The History of a Civilization (1959).
27. "Between Oxus and Jumna" (Between Oxus and Jumna, 1961).
28. "America and the World Revolution" (America and the World Revolution, 1962).
29. "Modern Experiment of Western Civilization" (The Present-Day Experiment in Western Civilization, 1962).
30. "Between Niger and Nile" (Between Niger and Nile, 1965).
31. Hannibal's Legacy: The Hannibalic War's Effects on Roman Life (1965): Vol. I. Rome and Her Neighbors before Hannibal's Entry. T. II. "Rome and Her Neighbors after Hannibal's Exit" (Rome and Her Neighbors after Hannibal's Exit).
32. Change and Habit: The Challenge of Our Time (19660).
33. "My meetings" (Acquaintances, 1967).
34. "Cities and Destiny" (Cities of Destiny, 1967).
35. "Between Maule and Amazon" (Between Maule and Amazon, 1967).
36. The Crucible of Christianity: Judaism, Hellenism and the Historical Background to the Experiences, 1969.
37. "Christian Faith" (Christian Faith, 1969).
38. "Some Problems of Greek History" (Some Problems of Greek History, 1969).
39. "Cities in development" (Cities on the Move, 1970).
40. "Saving the Future" (Surviving the Future, dialogue between A. Toynbee and Prof. Kei Wakaizumi, 1971).
41. "Comprehension of History" (Illustrated one-volume co-authored with Jane Kaplan)
42. Half the World: The History and Culture of China and Japan, 1973.
43. "Constantine Porphyrogenitus and His World" (Constantine Porphyrogenitus and His World, 1973)
44. Mankind and Mother Earth: A Narrative History of the World, 1976, posthumously.
45. "Greeks and Their Heritage" (The Greeks and Their Heritages, 1981, posthumously).

Notes

1. ID BNF : Open Data Platform - 2011.
2. Committee of Historical and scientific works - 1834.
3. SNAC-2010.
4. Orry, Louise. Arnold Toynbee Brief Lives. - Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. - P. 537. - ISBN 0198600879 .

Toynbee Arnold Joseph (1889-1975), English social scientist, historian and sociologist, author of the theory of a civilizational approach to history.

Born April 14, 1889 in London. The uncle of the future social scientist - Arnold Toynbee, historian and economist, professor at Oxford, no doubt, had a huge impact on his nephew. Arnold Joseph himself emphasized the influence on the formation of his views of his mother, who "belonged to the first generation of women in England who received a university education." “I am a historian because my mother was a historian,” Toynbee remarked.

He graduated from Oxford, was a professor at the University of London (1919-1955) and scientific director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (1925-1955).

During the two world wars he worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, participated in the Paris Peace Conferences (1919 and 1946).

In addition to many articles, lectures and notes, Toynbee consistently wrote and published parts of the philosophical and historical work "Comprehension of History" (vols. 1-12, 1934-1961 vols.). The scientist began this fundamental research in 1927. Its results are summed up in the book Changes and Habits (1966).

Toynbee considered world history as a system of conditionally distinguished civilizations, passing through the same phases from birth to death and constituting the branches of a "single tree of history". Only “Western civilization” looks unconditional to him. According to Toynbee, the unity of cultural development since antiquity is inherent in it, it dominates now and will retain its leadership in the future.

The scientists put forward criteria for assessing civilizations: stability in time and space, in situations of Challenge and interaction with other peoples. He saw the meaning of civilization in the fact that comparable units (monads) of history go through similar stages of development. Each civilization gives a response formulated by its "creative minority" to the Challenge thrown to it by nature, social contradictions and, in particular, by other civilizations. For example, Toynbee saw communism as a "counterblow", repulsing what the West had imposed in the 18th century. Russia.

The expansion of communist ideas is only one of the inevitable responses to the contradiction "between Western civilization as an aggressor and other civilizations as victims."

The ideas of the social scientist were adopted by American political scientists, who recognized the readiness to answer the challenge as the cornerstone of US history.

An eyewitness to the death of Victorian England, two world wars and the collapse of the colonial system, Toynbee argued that "at the height of its power, the West faces non-Western countries that have enough desire, will and resources to give the world a non-Western look."

Toynbee predicted that in the XXI century. the history-defining Challenge will be Russia, which has put forward its own ideals (which the West does not want to embrace), the Islamic world and China.