Are there passionaries at the present stage? What is passionarity? What does a passionate person mean?

Passionarity- means super-energy.

Passionary- this is a person endowed with excess energy, the impulse of which exceeds the impulse of the instinct of self-preservation, as a result of which the passionary is able to sacrifice his life for the sake of an idea.

“Passionarity,” Gumilev wrote, “is an irresistible inner desire (often unconscious) for activities aimed at achieving some goal. This goal seems to a passionate individual more valuable than even his own life, and even more so the life of fellow tribesmen and contemporaries.

Passionaries - individuals with an innate ability absorb more energy from the environment than is required for personal and species self-preservation, and to give out this energy in the form of purposeful work to change the environment. Moreover, mental and intellectual activity requires costs energy in the same way as physical energy, only this energy is in a different form and it is more difficult to register and measure it.

Passionaries in the ethnos are always a minority,
but they constitute the core on which the entire ethnic system rests

"It's the motor that drives everything." Of course, Gumilyov wrote, passionarity is a deviation from the species norm, it is probably a mutation, but the mutation is small, not leading to pathology. Although normal people (who believe that if they risk their lives, then for big money) often call passionaries fanatics and crazy.

Gumilyov recalled that when he first described this phenomenon, he was immediately scolded in the journal Questions of History and accused of moving away from materialism. And then they called the editorial board and asked: “What is this quality that you call “passionarity”, and which prevents people from arranging their lives in the best possible way?

I began to explain to them - for a long time, scientifically. I see that this editorial board does not understand boom-boom.

They say to me: “Well, okay, that's enough, that's enough,” they say, you don't know how to explain.

“No, now, just a minute! Understand, not all people are selfish! There are people who sincerely and disinterestedly value their ideal and are ready to sacrifice their lives for it. And if this had not happened, then the whole story would have gone differently! They say, “Oh, that's optimism. This is good"…

Passionarity is manifested in various character traits. It could be

• pride,
• vanity,
• greed,
• lust for power
• jealousy.

“The passionarity of an individual can be combined with any abilities: high, medium, small, it does not depend on external influences, being a feature of the psyche of this person; it has nothing to do with ethics, equally easily giving rise to feats and crimes, creativity and destruction, good and evil, excluding only inaction and indifference, ”Gumilyov wrote.

That is, a great commander, a sacrificial scientist, a robber, and a nihilist revolutionary can be a passionary.

Hitler was also a passionary, with his illusory idea. Gumilyov gives this phenomenon the following explanation: “... every energy has two poles and passionary energy (biochemical) is no exception. On ethnogenesis bipolarity affects the fact that the behavioral dominant can be directed towards the complication of systems, that is, the creation, or simplification of them. For example, the ideology of Nazism set as its goal the extermination and enslavement of most peoples as inferior, which meant simplification a complex diverse planetary system consisting of different states, ethnic groups, cultures, religions. Hitler was a typical passionary with a negative sign. Many leaders of revolutionary Marxism and modern financial globalists can be attributed to this kind of passionaries, since their ideologies directly speak of the merging of all nations and cultures on planet Earth into one global ethno-cultural mess...

To illustrate the phenomenon of passionarity, Gumilyov cites as an example two passionaries with a high degree of passionarity - Alexander the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte. Having reached the heights of power, they had everything: money, fame, reverence. Why didn't they sit at home and enjoy life? Why did they need to throw their armies into unnecessary, senseless campaigns (Indian - Alexander, Russian and Spanish - Napoleon). For most of his contemporaries, Gumilev wrote, the stimulus of their activity remained a mystery. When, after conquering almost all of Asia, Alexander invaded India, his soldiers and commanders could not stand it: “King, where are you taking us? Why do we need these Indians? We can't even ship the booty we take here home to Greece. They will kill us all here, take us back ... King, we love you, but that's enough! Few returned, and Alexander himself died on the road.

When Napoleon lost and Russian troops entered Paris in 1814, the French bourgeois shouted: “We don't want war! We want to trade!”

What made these people, Napoleon and Alexander, act so unwisely? Only one - insatiable thirst for action.

Pronounced passionaries:

• Joan of Arc,
• copernicus,
• Sergius of Radonezh,
• Patriarch Nikon,
• Ermak,
• Pugachev,
• Suvorov,
• Stalin...

However, not only great commanders, heroes, rulers can be passionate. “Leaders-passionaries,” Gumilyov said, “are only the visible top of the passionate people of the ethnic group.” A simple soldier can also be passionate. For example, Tvardovsky's Vasily Terkin is a typical passionary. Just like the armor-piercer Lopakhin at Sholokhov. People of this type are not so much "leading" as "pushing" everyone else. They seem to “turn on” those around them with their excess energy.

Passionaries were explorers, monks-missionaries, merchants-travelers. For example, simple Byzantine monks reached China with the preaching of Orthodoxy. They were in constant danger along the way, many died, but they still walked and walked, and nothing could stop them. We see a lot of passionaries among creative people - artists, writers and poets: "Talent is passionarity on an individual level."

In general, passionaries are characterized by a clear predominance social(leadership) and ideal(religion, ideology, culture) needs over biological ones, although biological needs can be pronounced.

Passionarity has one important property - it is contagious. This means that normal people (and to an even greater extent - impulsive), being in close proximity to passionaries, begin to behave like passionaries. It has long been used in military affairs. Passionaries were either gathered together and formed shock units from them, or distributed among the soldiers in order to raise their military spirit. Practice shows that two or three passionaries can raise the combat capability of an entire company (100 - 120 people). (Well, when there are not enough passionaries, detachments come into action.)

What is connected with this induction passionarity? Apparently, all with the same force field (biofield) of the passionary, which Gumilyov called passionary field. When today they talk about charisma, they mean exactly this phenomenon.

Gumilyov gives such an example. In 1880, F. M. Dostoevsky delivered his famous speech about Pushkin. The success was, according to eyewitnesses, grandiose, several people fainted. However, in reading this speech does not make much of an impression. Apparently the decisive factor was the effect of Dostoevsky's personal influence on the assembled people.

But where do passionaries come from? Gumilyov puts forward a hypothesis that passionaries appear as a result of mutations, which, in turn, occur under the influence of some kind of cosmic radiation - passionary pushes. They are quite rare (2 - 3 per millennium) and are located on the Earth's surface in narrow strips about 300 kilometers wide: "It's like someone is lashing the planet with a whip." These bands never cross over to the other side of the globe.

If the line of passionary impetus affects two or more ethnic groups that are in a static state (or, much less often, dynamic), which live at the junction of different natural landscapes, then a new ethnic group is born.

“Each passionary push,” Gumilyov said, “stirs up the population; as a result, as from a mixed deck of cards, a new combination is created.

In recent years, in a variety of places you can hear the word "passionary". The number of bold projects that seem contrary to common sense is constantly increasing. Increasingly, you can meet people who can take on non-commercial, but good, correct and really interesting things, who say something strange about the path, purpose and talent…

It's intriguing and infectious. What is it - "passionate spirit"? The concept of passionarity was once proposed by Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov. This term comes from "passio" - passion.

Passionarity is the ability and desire to change the environment, the violation of inertia, the potential for progress and activity, the internal desire for activity aimed at the realization of a super-important, distant, irrational goal.

Passionate personality- a person, a person of an "energy-abundant" type, risky, active, enthusiastic to the point of obsession, who is able to make sacrifices in order to achieve what he considers valuable.

A passionary cannot live in peace with everyday worries without an alluring and captivating goal - he is a hero and will not stand up for the price. Moreover, he can sacrifice not only himself and his interests, but also others. “Excesses” are possible, when passionarity gets out of control of expediency and turns from a creative force into a destructive one.

The degrees of passionarity can be different, but in order for it to be visible in history, many passionaries are needed. In other words, this is not only an individual trait, but also a population one. People with this trait, in favorable conditions, perform actions that in total change the inertia of tradition and create something new - for example, they initiate new ethnic groups. Therefore, there is the concept of "social passionarity".

Whether passionarity is inherited is not yet clear, but it is known that it is contagious. Ordinary people who are close to the epicenter begin to behave like passionate people. At the same time, if a person moves away at a certain distance, then he again behaves as usual. This phenomenon is called "passionary induction" and is actively used. In military affairs, for example, when several passionaries, by their example, set fire to and raise an entire army.

The role of passionaries in initiating and developing transitions and breakthroughs is enormous, but their number in the general human mass is negligible. They are doomed, they perish uncontrollably and burn.

The main social mass is formed by people of a harmonious type (those in whom the desire for self-preservation and the impulse of passionarity are balanced) - not overactive, reproducing offspring, who multiply material values ​​according to existing patterns, improve the quality of life, accommodating.

And in the phases of regression and stagnation, the majority are represented by “subpassionaries” - people with a lack of energy (with negative passionarity) - they are inert, devoid of imagination, incapable of creation, but they know how to serve for money, create and maintain rules that protect them from threats to personal comfort, "spectators of circus performances and recipients of bread", those who preach life for themselves, insanely indifferent and calm ...

According to the law formulated by Gumilyov, the total "work" performed by the people (ethnos) is in direct proportion to the "passionate tension". There are various degrees and stages of passionary tension. There are only seven of them: the first - the phase of recovery - the growth of passionary tension; acromatic phase - stabilization of the voltage level at the highest level; fracture phase - the beginning of a decrease in passionary tension; then the inertial phase - the inexorable decrease in tension, the strengthening of social institutions and state power, the accumulation of cultural and material values; the phase of obscuration (even degradation) - an increase in the number of subpassionaries and a fall in passionarity below zero; regeneration phase - restoration of passionarity for a short time due to the surviving passionaries on the periphery of the system; relic phase - setting the passionary voltage at the lowest level and vegetation.

However, one should not forget that the result of the growth of passionarity of society may be a war or a revolution.

There are ideas about the possibility of creating "passionary reactors" - generators of social energy, where passionarity can grow and be maintained without becoming dangerous.

So far, the concept of passionarity has not been accepted by any scientific community, although no one has experimented. But it might be interesting. "Passionary reactors" that work in a certain social environment and transform into society - one could try.

But, perhaps, everything is already happening - an infrastructure is being built that attracts passionaries. Communities, business incubators, networks, like-minded movements, clubs - these are all social and energy clusters. This is not a "reactor" yet, but already a way of accumulating energy, including through induction - infection. This is where the feeling of the most “passionate spirit” comes from, which is concentrated in certain places.

Time will tell if something revolutionary comes out of this after a while or if it will just be a gradual transformation.

sustainable evolving systems;

hierarchical structures.

Ethnic systems, in general, not are the following units:

although they may be.

ethnic systems

The following types of ethnic systems are distinguished, in order of decreasing the level of the ethnic hierarchy: superethnos, ethnos, subethnos, convixia and consortia. The ethnic system is the result of the evolution of an ethnic unit of a lower order or the degradation of a higher system; it is contained in the higher level system and includes the lower level systems.

Superethnos The largest ethnic system. Consists of ethnic groups. The stereotype of behavior common to the entire superethnos is worldview of its members and defines their attitudes to the fundamental questions of life. Examples: Russian, European, Roman, Muslim superethnoi. Ethnos An ethnic system of a lower order, usually colloquially referred to as a people. Members of an ethnic group are united by a common stereotype of behavior that has a certain connection with the landscape (place of development of the ethnic group), and, as a rule, includes religion, language, political and economic structure. This stereotype of behavior is usually called the national character. sub-ethnos, convixia and consortium parts of an ethnic group, usually rigidly tied to a certain landscape and connected by a common life or fate. Examples: Pomors, Old Believers, Cossacks.

Ethnic systems of a higher order usually last longer than systems of a lower one. In particular, a consortium may not outlive its founders.

Forms of ethnic contacts

They are not terms and an object of study of PTE, although Lev Gumilyov introduced them into the scientific circulation of sociology [ ]

Symbiosis- a combination of ethnic groups, in which each occupies its own ecological niche, its own landscape, while fully preserving its national identity. In symbiosis, ethnic groups interact and enrich each other. It is the optimal form of contact, which increases the life opportunities of each of the peoples.

Ethnic anti-systems

It is not a term and an object of study of PTE, although Lev Gumilyov introduced this term into the scientific circulation of philosophy [ ]

L. N. Gumilyov also proposed a more subtle classification on the basis of passionarity, including its nine levels.

Level	Name	Explanation	Description
6	sacrificial	highest level	man is willing to sacrifice his own life without hesitation. Examples of such personalities are Jan Hus, Joan of Arc, Archpriest Avvakum, Ivan Susanin
5			a person is quite ready to risk his life for the sake of achieving complete superiority, but he is incapable of going to certain death. These are Patriarch Nikon, Joseph Stalin and others.
4	superheat level / akmatic phase / transient		The same as 5, but on a smaller scale - striving for the ideal of success. Examples are Leonardo da Vinci, A. S. Griboyedov, S. Yu. Witte, Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander Suvorov.
3	break phase		the desire for the ideal of knowledge and beauty and below (what L. N. Gumilyov called “passionarity is weak, but effective”). Here you don’t have to go far for examples - these are all major scientists, artists, writers, musicians, etc.
2	seeking fortune at the risk of one's life		This is a seeker of happiness, a catcher of fortune, a colonial soldier, a desperate traveler who is still able to risk his life.
1			passionaries striving for improvement without risk to life
0	common man	zero level	a quiet person, fully adapted to the surrounding landscape. Quantitatively, it prevails in almost all phases of ethnogenesis (except for obscuration (the time of the final loss of passionarity)), but it is only in inertia and homeostasis that it determines the behavior of the ethnos.
-1	subpassionaries		still capable of some action, adaptation to the landscape
-2	subpassionaries		incapable of action, change. Gradually, with their mutual extermination and the pressure of external causes, either the death of the ethnic group occurs, or the harmonists (the inhabitants) take their toll.

L. N. Gumilyov repeatedly drew attention to the fact that passionarity does not correlate in any way with the abilities of the individual, and called passionaries - "people of long will." There can be a smart layman and a rather stupid "scientist", a strong-willed subpassionary and a weak-willed "altar", as well as vice versa; these are neither mutually exclusive nor presupposing each other. Also, passionarity does not determine such an important part of the psychotype as temperament: it only, apparently, creates a reaction norm for this trait, and a specific manifestation is determined by external conditions.

Passionate pushes

From time to time, mass mutations occur that increase the level of passionarity (passionary shocks). They last no longer than a few years, affect a narrow (up to 200 km) territory located along the geodesic line and stretching for several thousand kilometers. The features of their course indicate their conditionality by extraterrestrial processes. The mutational nature of the passionary push clearly follows from the fact that passionary populations do not appear on the surface of the Earth randomly, but simultaneously in places remote from each other, which are located in each such kurtosis on a territory that has the contours of an extended narrow strip and the geometry of a geodesic line, or a stretched thread on a globe lying in a plane passing through the center of the earth. Perhaps from time to time a beam of hard radiation from a solar prominence hits the earth.

Passionary tremors described by L. N. Gumilyov (map legend):

I (XVIII century BC).

1. Egyptians -2 (Upper Egypt). The collapse of the Old Kingdom. Hyksos conquest of Egypt in the 17th century. New Kingdom. Capital at Thebes (1580) Change of religion. Cult of Osiris. Stop building the pyramids. Aggression in Numibia and Asia.
2. Hyksos (Jordan. Northern Arabia).
3. Hittites (Eastern Anatolia). The formation of the Hittites from several Hatto-Khurit tribes. Rise of Hattusa. Expansion into Asia Minor. Capture of Babylon.

II (XI century BC).

1. Zhou (Northern China: Shaanxi). Conquest of the Shang Yin Empire by the Zhou principality. The emergence of the cult of Heaven. An end to human sacrifice. Expansion of the range to the sea in the east, the Yangtze in the south, the desert in the north.
2. (?) Scythians (Central Asia).

III (VIII century BC).

1. Romans (central Italy). The appearance on the site of a diverse Italian (Latin-Sabino-Etruscan) population of the Roman community-army. The subsequent settlement in central Italy, the conquest of Italy, which ended with the formation of the Republic in 510 BC. e. Change of cult, army organization and political system. The emergence of the Latin alphabet.
2. Samnites (Italy).
3. Equy (Italy).
4. (?) Gauls (southern France).
5. Hellenes (middle Greece). The decline of the Achaean Cretan-Mycenaean culture in the 11th-9th centuries. BC e. Forgetting writing. The formation of the Dorian states of the Peloponnese (VIII century). Greek colonization of the Mediterranean. The emergence of the Greek alphabet. Reorganization of the pantheon of gods. Legislation. police lifestyle,
6. Cilicians (Asia Minor).
7. Persians (Persia). Education of the Medes and Persians. Deioces and Achaemen - the founders of the dynasties. Mussel expansion. Partition of Assyria. The rise of Persia on the site of Elam, which ended with the creation of the Achaemenid kingdom in the Middle East. Religion change. The cult of fire. Magi.

IV (III century BC).

1. Sarmatians (Kazakhstan). Invasion of European Scythia. Extermination of the Scythians. The appearance of heavy cavalry of the knightly type. Conquest of Iran by the Parthians. The emergence of estates.
2. Kushans - Sogdians (Central Asia).
3. Huns (southern Mongolia). Formation of the Xiongnu tribal union. Encounter with China.
4. Goguryeo (southern Manchuria, North Korea). The rise and fall of the ancient Korean state of Joseon (III-II centuries BC). The formation of tribal unions on the site of the mixed Tungus-Manchu-Korean-Chinese population, which later grew into the first Korean states of Koguryo, Silla, Paekche.

V (I century).

1. Goths (southern Sweden). Migration is ready from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea (II century). Wide borrowing of ancient culture, which ended with the adoption of Christianity. Creation of the Gothic Empire in Eastern Europe.
2. Slavs. Wide distribution from the Carpathians to the Baltic, Mediterranean and Black Seas.
3. Dacians (modern Romania).
4. Christians (Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine). The emergence of Christian communities. Break with Judaism. The formation of the institution of the church. Expansion beyond the Roman Empire.
5. Judea -2 (Judea). Renewal of the cult and worldview. The emergence of the Talmud. War with Rome. Widespread emigration outside of Judea.
6. Aksumites (Abyssinia). Rise of Aksum. Wide expansion to Arabia, Nubia, access to the Red Sea. Later (IV century) the adoption of Christianity.

VI (VI century).

1. Muslim Arabs (Central Arabia). Unification of the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula. Religion change. Islam. Expansion to Spain and the Pamirs.
2. Rajputs (Indus Valley). The fall of the Gupta empire. Destruction of the Buddhist community in India. The complication of the caste system with political fragmentation. Creation of the religious philosophy of Vedanta. Trinity monotheism: Brahma, Shiva, Vishnu.
3. Bots (southern Tibet). Monarchical coup with administrative and political reliance on Buddhists. Expansion into Central Asia and China.
4. Chinese -2 (northern China: Shaanxi, Shandong). In place of the almost extinct population of northern China, two new ethnic groups appeared: the Sino-Turkic (Tabgachi) and the medieval Chinese, which grew out of the Guanlong group. The Tabgachis created the Tang Empire by uniting all of China and Central Asia. Spread of Buddhism, Indian and Turkic customs. Opposition of Chinese chauvinists. The death of a dynasty.
5. Koreans. War for hegemony between the kingdoms of Silla, Baekje, Goguryeo. Resistance to Tang aggression. Unification of Korea under Silla. Assimilation of Confucian morality, intensive spread of Buddhism. Formation of a single language.
6. Yamato (Japanese). Taika coup. The emergence of a central state headed by a monarch. Acceptance of Confucian morality as state ethics. Wide spread of Buddhism. Expansion to the north. Termination of the construction of mounds.

A graph depicting the dependence of the passionarity of an ethnic system on the time of its existence. The abscissa shows the time in years, where the starting point of the curve corresponds to the moment of the passionary push that caused the appearance of the ethnos.
The ordinate shows the passionary tension of the ethnic system in three scales:
1) in qualitative characteristics from the level P2 (inability to satisfy desires) to the level P6 (sacrifice);
2) in the scale "the number of sub-ethnoi (subsystems of an ethnos) indexes n + 1, n + 3, etc., where n is the number of sub-ethnoi in the ethnos that is not affected by the shock and is in homeostasis;
3) in the scale "frequency of events in ethnic history".
This curve is a generalization of 40 individual ethnogenesis curves constructed for various superethnoi that arose as a result of various shocks.

VII (VIII century).

1. Spaniards (Asturias). Beginning of the Reconquista. The formation of the kingdoms: Asturias, Navarre, Leon and the counties of Portugal on the basis of a mixture of Spanish-Romans, Goths, Alans, Lusitanians, etc.
2. Saxons. The split of the empire of Charlemagne into national-feudal states. Reflection of Vikings, Arabs, Hungarians and Slavs. The split of Christianity into orthodox and papist branches.
3. Scandinavians (southern Norway, northern Denmark). The beginning of the Viking movement. The emergence of poetry and runic writing [ ] . Pushing the Lapps into the tundra.

VIII (XI century).

1. Mongols (Mongolia). The emergence of "people of long will." Unification of tribes into people-army. Creation of legislation - Yasa and writing. Expansion of the ulus from the Yellow to the Black Sea.
2. Jurchen (Manchuria). Formation of the Jin empire of the semi-Chinese type. Aggression to the south. conquest of northern China.
3. Samurai in Japan. After that, Japan illustrates the interference of the PT of the 7th and 11th centuries and, ultimately, the transition of Japanese ethnogenesis from the Yamato lineage to the Samurai lineage. For example, the Meiji revolution and the removal of the samurai from power is a sign of the breakdown of the samurai ethnogenesis.

IX (XIII century)

1. Lithuania. Creation of rigid princely power. Expansion of the ON from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Acceptance of Christianity. Merger with Poland.
2. Great Russians. The disappearance of Ancient Russia, captured by Lithuania (except Novgorod). The rise of the Moscow principality. The growth of the service class. Wide miscegenation of the Slavic, Turkic and Ugric population of Eastern Europe.
3. Ottoman Turks (west of Asia Minor). Consolidation by the Ottoman beylik of the active Muslim population of the Middle East, captive Slavic children (Janissaries) and sea vagrants of the Mediterranean (fleet). military sultanate. Ottoman Porta. The conquest of the Balkans, Western Asia and North Africa to Morocco.
4. Ethiopians (Amhara, Shoa in Ethiopia). Disappearance of Ancient Aksum. Revolution of the Solomons. Expansion of Ethiopian Orthodoxy. Rise and expansion of the kingdom of Abyssinia in East Africa.

In addition, in Gumilyov's writings, references to other shocks are scattered, for some reason not summarized by the author in a general table. These include the passionary impulse in Latin America, which gave birth to the Aztecs, Incas and some other Indian ethnic groups; the shock in South Africa at the end of the 18th century, which gave rise to the Zulu ethnos, etc. There are also mentions of shocks, which the author himself referred to as hypothetical, being not sure whether to connect some historical events with passionary shocks, such as the rise of the Almoravids or the resistance of Ireland to conquest .

Fifth century, PT along the line Ireland-Wales-West Africa (Wales' resistance to the Norman conquest and the capture of Wales at the breaking stage)

Due to the huge rise in activity of China, Japan, Iran, Iraq, etc. etc. in the XIX-XX centuries. the issue of the tenth passionary push, which occurred at the end of the 18th century, is discussed. Some (the hypothesis belongs to V. A. Michurin) draw it along the line Japan - the Middle East, others (the hypothesis put forward by M. Khokhlov) - along a vertical line passing through the Caucasus. If we do not forget that the push has definitely passed through the territory of the Zulus, then the meridional character of South Africa-Grozny-Orienburg and the time of the middle of the 17th century will be more correct. According to V. A. Penezhin, there are two separate meridial drive impulses. Asian time is viewed - the middle of the 16th century and the line Manchuria - China - Vietnam - Kampuchea - Singapore - Malaysia (The capture of China by the Manchus, the beginning of the widespread spread of Islam in Indonesia)

Ethnogenesis

Initial conditions

The beginning of ethnogenesis is the formation in a certain territory of a stable and capable of expanding a population with a stereotype of behavior that is different from those around it. For such an event, the following conditions must be met:

• the location of the territory on the line of passionary push or a powerful genetic drift of passionarity to the place where ethnogenesis began,
• a combination of two or more landscapes in an area,
• the presence of two or more ethnic groups in the territory.

Leakage

A typical ethnogenesis consists of the following stages:

Term	Name	Notes
0 years (start)	Push or drifting	As a rule, it is not reflected in history.
0-150 years	Incubation period	The growth of passion. Reflected only in myths.
150-450 years	Climb	The rapid growth of passionarity. Accompanied by heavy fighting and slow expansion of territory.
450-600 years	Akmatic phase, or overheat	Passionarity fluctuations around the maximum, exceeding the optimal level. Rapid increase in power.
600-750 years	Breakdown	A sharp decline in passionarity. Civil wars, the split of an ethnic unit.
750-1000 years	Inertial phase	Slow decline in passionarity at a level near the optimum. General prosperity.
1000-1150 years	obscuration	Passionarity decline below the normal level. Decline and degradation.
1150-1500 years	Memorial	Preservation of only the memory of the life of the ethnic group.
1150 years - indefinitely	homeostasis	Existence in equilibrium with the environment.

Interaction of ethnic groups

The ways in which ethnic groups interact are determined by their level of passionarity, complementarity(relationship to each other at the level of emotions) and size. These methods include symbiosis, xenia and chimera.

Criticism of the passionary theory of ethnogenesis

Yanov points out that Gumilyov emphasizes the priority of the nation (ethnos) over the individual: “An ethnos as a system is immeasurably grander than a person”, is an opponent of cultural contacts between ethnic groups, and freedom for Gumilev is identical to anarchy: “An ethnos can ... in a collision with another ethnos form a chimera and to enter the “band of freedom” (in which) a behavioral syndrome arises, accompanied by the need to destroy nature and culture ... ”.

Theories of "chimeras", "anti-Semitism"

According to L.N. Gumilyov,

...exogamy, which is by no means related to "social conditions" and lies on a different plane, turns out to be a real destructive factor in contact at the superethnic level. And even in those rare cases when a new ethnic group appears in the contact zone, it absorbs, that is, destroys both of the former ones.

This statement is criticized by Y. Bromley and V. A. Shnirelman.

V. Shnirelman also accuses Gumilyov of anti-Semitism:

Although examples of "chimeric formations" are scattered throughout the text ... he chose only one plot related to the so-called "Khazar episode". However, due to its obvious anti-Semitic orientation, its publication had to be postponed, and the author devoted a good half of his later special monograph on the history of Ancient Russia to this subject.

• "Byzantism and Slavism" (Leontiev)
• "Russia and Europe" (Danilevsky)
• "The Decline of Europe" (Spengler)
• "Comprehension of history" (Toynbee)
• "Noosphere" (Vernadsky)

Notes

1. Gumilyov L. N.// Great Russian Encyclopedia, v.8 M., 2007, p.155.

   G.'s views, which went far beyond the traditional. scientific ideas, cause disputes and heated discussions among historians, ethnologists, etc.

2. Gumilyov Lev Nikolaevich in the encyclopedia " Around the World": "In the last years of the existence of the USSR, when Gumilyov's doctrine of ethnogenesis first became the object of public discussion, a paradoxical atmosphere developed around it. ... All scientists noted that despite the global nature of the theory and its apparent solidity (Gumilyov stated that his hypothesis is the result of a generalization of the history of more than 40 ethnic groups), it contains a lot of assumptions that have not been confirmed by actual data.

The meaning of the word "passionary" is unknown to a wide range of people. However, it often appears in television programs and some media when it comes to famous personalities or the history of states. Therefore, it is not surprising that an inquisitive person wants to understand what the word “passionate” means. This will help the information presented in this review.

General definition

Considering the meaning of the word "passionary", it should be noted that this term refers to one of the characteristics of both the human person and the state. Today we will pay the most attention to the consideration of personality.

A passionate person seems to be gnawed from within by an irrepressible thirst for activity. It is aimed at achieving a goal that is usually difficult for him not only to control, but also to explain to himself.

It is associated with the ability of such people to receive from the external environment more energy than the one that he needs to survive - as a person and species unit.

Excessive energy by a passionate personality is subconsciously directed to the formation of an internal state of overstress and concentration on some idea.

Death doesn't scare

To understand what “passionary” means, you need to learn that the ideas in question are always aimed at changing the world around you. Although at the same time the desire for activity is not always conscious, and the goals are often illusory.

But for people obsessed with them, they seem more important than their very lives. For the sake of their goals, they are ready to sacrifice it. Sacrifice is the highest manifestation of passionarity. This lack of fear of one's own death in order to achieve the goal can be called an anti-instinct.

Origin of the term

The idea that there is a biochemical energy of a living being that affects the human psyche was expressed by the philosopher and naturalist Vladimir Vernadsky. However, the very term "passionarity" was introduced into science by the Soviet and Russian scientist Lev Gumilyov in the middle of the last century.

It is one of the key words in his writings and is borrowed from Dolores Ibarruri, who was one of the brightest leaders and orators in the Spanish Communist Party in the 20th century. She was called Passionaria, which means "passionate."

An important property of passionate people is their contagiousness. Speaking to the audience, they are able to ignite them with the will to win, ideas, thoughts. Like, for example, military leaders who speak before battle. According to Gumilyov's passionate theory, the worldview, way of life, direction of development of the groups they belong to depend on the number of such people.

The personality of the passionary

Passionate personalities belong to the productive type. They are pioneers, inventors, creators. They contribute to the accumulation of energy and its transformation, the rationalization of life. These people are risky, active and enterprising.

At the same time, their ability level is not necessarily high. And passionarity can be directed both to exploits and to crimes, both to creativity and destruction, both for good and for evil. But indifference is completely excluded here.

Here are illustrative examples of passionaries:

• Columbus.
• Newton.
• Joan of Arc.
• Alexander the Great.
• Mikhail Lomonosov.
• Peter I.
• Hitler.
• Napoleon.

Gumilyov scale

For a better understanding of the meaning of the word "passionary", it is advisable to consider the scale presented by Gumilyov. On it he placed three types of people. At one end were passionaries, and at the other - subpassionaries.

In the middle, between the two extremes, are harmonic personalities (harmonics). Their self-preservation instinct and passionarity are balanced.

Reasons for the appearance

In conclusion, studying the question of the meaning of the word "passionate" let's talk about the reasons for the appearance of such people. According to the views, the level of passionarity of a person is set from birth.

In his opinion, the appearance of a large number of passionaries in one area is due to the activation of cosmic radiation. Many of his colleagues criticized this position, reproaching the scientist's assumptions for excessive mysticism.

According to the theory, there can be both individuals and entire nations. Moreover, how and in what direction social groups develop, in his opinion, is directly dependent on the number of passionaries included in them. And, therefore, from the general level of passionarity that characterizes this ethnic group.

The main work of Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov is "The Passionary Theory of Ethnogenesis". In it, he explained the forms of interaction of peoples with each other, their achievements, decline and death by changing the phases of ethnogenesis. The latter is understood as the process of formation of an ethnic community on the basis of various components.

By and large, he, the term "passionaries" is more important. Passionaries are active people for whom it is natural to do not only the work necessary for personal and species self-preservation, but also excessive work, which manifests itself in changing the environment (expanding the habitat, changing the landscape, accumulating resources).

Unlike harmonious people - for whom it is normal to do only the work necessary for survival. And then there are subpassionaries - who do not even do what is necessary for personal and / or species survival.

Accordingly, passionarity as a characteristic of behavior is an activity associated with the performance of not only the work necessary for survival, but also excess work.
All of the above terms may well be used by people who disagree with Gumilyov in other things. Here he simply summarized the observations, dividing people into three categories. And in principle, these terms are used, and many - correctly. Then there are controversial theses and hypotheses.

Gumilyov believed that the passionarity of an individual is an innate characteristic that depends on genes. That is, active people are active due to their mental characteristics inherent in the genes. Hence the following definition.
Passionarity as a characteristic of the psyche is an irresistible internal desire for purposeful activity, always associated with a change in the environment, social or natural. The desire to do not only what is necessary for survival, but also more.

Gumilev also used the term "passionarity as energy". He expounded the banality that people do any work at the expense of internal energy. Hence the following definition. Passionarity as energy is the biochemical energy of the living matter of the biosphere (BEZHVB), expended (by an individual or a team) on excess work, as a result of which the environment changes.

The activity of the collective (community, people, state, etc.) depends on the ratio of different types of people. At the same time, according to Gumilyov's passionary theory of ethnogenesis (PTE), passionarity is a coming phenomenon. The ratio of passionaries and others is changing, and the activity of the ethnic system is changing. All ethnic systems go through the same phases of ethnogenesis and sooner or later, having lost their passionarity, either live in harmony with nature or are assimilated by more active (passionate) neighbors.
So it's stupid to be proud of the high passionarity of your people (at some specific historical moment). She, like youth, happens to everyone and goes away for everyone.

It must be said that Lev Nikolayevich's observations help both against "mania of national grandeur" and against the "national inferiority complex". Lev Nikolayevich himself repeatedly wrote "there are no inferior ethnic groups."