The concept of history briefly. What is history? Understanding History in Traditional Societies

History is one of the oldest varieties of human knowledge, which arose in ancient Greece as early as the 6th century BC. BC e. Initially, the Greeks extended the concept of "history" to the entire body of reliable knowledge about nature, and to the often fantastic stories of foreigners about a distant and unknown world. History was patronized by one of the six muses of the arts - Clio, since the past, as a rule, was presented in the form of theatrical poetic performances about the heroic deeds of ancestors. But already from the time of Herodotus (5th century), history was understood as a presentation of events, coming from the lips of an eyewitness or based on real evidence. In the IV century. BC e. Aristotle undertook the first surviving classification of human knowledge in which he singled out history as a valid study of the past, separating it from poetry.

However, throughout antiquity and the Middle Ages, the term "history" was not yet settled and was often used to refer to any cognitive activity. In the era of the European Middle Ages (V-XVI centuries), when Christian religious dogma dominated, the entire history of mankind was perceived as a derivative of the incomprehensible will of divine Providence. Renaissance
(XIV-XVI centuries) returned to the center of historical knowledge of Man, created in the image and likeness of God, but with free will. And only by the end of the XVIII century. the modern understanding of history as a science that studies the human past is affirmed, but some ambiguity of interpretation still persisted. What do we call history? First, history is the very past of mankind, as it was and irreversibly disappeared. Secondly, history is a story about this past reality, captured in oral or written tradition. This is where the main problem of historical knowledge is rooted: to what extent does past reality itself correspond to our story about it? How objectively can we learn the past and tell our contemporaries about it?

History experienced its “golden age” in the 19th century, when there was a conviction that historians were able to give a true picture of the past, and to obtain it, a careful study of the sources and an honest, unbiased attitude to the subject of study were sufficient. This confidence in the achievement of once and for all established, objective scientific results by the forces of the human mind was truly universal, distinguished not only history, but the entirety of the natural and human sciences of the 19th and early 20th centuries. and got the name principle of positivism. The scientific optimism of the era led to the emergence of a number of global (ie, explaining the social or natural evolution of the world at the highest level of generalization) concepts. In the natural sciences, the theory of the evolution of species by Ch. Darwin has become the most popular, in the humanities - historical materialism(or formational approach) K. Marx and theories of civilizations(or civilizational approach, the ancestor - N.Ya. Danilevsky).

The key concept of historical materialism is formation - a special type of socio-economic organization of society, taking shape at a certain stage in the development of mankind. Based on the concept of Marx, five socio-economic formations were identified: primitive communal, slave-owning, feudal, capitalist and communist. The basis of human existence, according to Marx, is the "reproduction of material life", that is, the relationship of production and consumption of material goods. Consequently, a certain type of formation is distinguished on the basis of the mode of production existing in it and the antagonistic classes in each of the formations, one of which is the class of exploiters who own the means of production (slave owners, feudal lords, capitalists), the other is the exploited (slaves, dependent peasants, workers) . The production method forms economic basis society on which to develop superstructure- the whole complex of social, political, cultural and spiritual characteristics of a particular formation. The transition from one formation to another occurs inevitably, as a result of the gradual maturation of a new mode of production, through the revolutionary seizure of power by the more "progressive" owners of the new means of production.

Marxism, which was the most influential sociological theory of the 19th century, has its weaknesses: economic determinism, that is, the reduction of all motivations for human development to an economic background; the absolutization of violence, clearly expressed in the thesis about the progressive nature of the revolutionary victory of one of the opposing classes; ideologization of history and the impossibility of social compromise. And yet it was Marxism that became in the 19th century. the most consistent conductor of the principle of historicism, i.e., the understanding that any historical phenomenon can only be understood in a historical context, in a state of continuous development and change.

The first theorist civilizational approach, or the method of cultural-historical typology of the past, was the Russian historian N.Ya. Danilevsky, who marked the beginning of a break in the European historical and philosophical tradition with the ideology of progress. In the book "Russia and Europe" he substantiated the originality of the development of many world cultures, presenting history in the form of a change of various cultural and historical types. Egyptian, Chinese, Indian, Greek, Roman, Romano-Germanic and other cultures successively replaced each other, either in contact or not knowing about the existence of others, the life of which, like any organism, is valuable in itself and goes through the phases of birth, formation, maturity, decline and death. Such a picture of the world cannot be measured by the European values ​​of progress, which implies a unilinear and equal development for all; there are no “barbarians” and “civilized” peoples in it. Each nation forms its own system of values ​​and develops its own forms of state and politics, economics and philosophy, religion and art. Necessary for a better understanding of individual historical types is, according to N.Ya. Danilevsky, their comparison and understanding in the context of world history.

The ideas of the identity of individual cultures were continued by the German philosopher O. Spengler, who published the sensational monograph "The Decline of Europe" shortly before the First World War. “'Humanity' is a zoological concept or an empty phrase,” Spengler wrote, paraphrasing Goethe. “It is enough to remove this phantom from the circle of problems of historical forms, and an amazing wealth of real forms will immediately appear to the eye ... Instead of a bleak picture of a linear world history ... I see a real spectacle of many powerful cultures, blossoming with primordial strength from the bosom of the mother landscape .. Like plants and animals, they belong to the living nature of Goethe, and not to the dead nature of Newton. I see in world history a picture of the eternal formation and transformation, the miraculous becoming and passing of organic forms. (Spengler O. Decline of Europe. T. 2. Minsk, 1999. P. 36). The author of these lines sought to prove the uniqueness of each type of historical development, without denying the presence of typical features and similar periods in world history. He limited the duration of the existence of a single culture to about a thousand years. The transition from the stage of growth and creativity to the stage of "civilization", a period when culture, having realized its limit of development, "cools down", inevitably moving towards death, was especially highlighted in "The Decline of Europe". It was this situation, in Spengler's view, that contemporary Europe was going through. And although the gloomy forecasts of the philosopher were not fully justified, he sensitively caught many of the crisis trends in Europe in the 20th century.

The famous English historian A.J. Toynbee continued to develop the problems of cultural and historical typology, highlighting more than twenty civilizations along with "primitive" and "arrested" societies. By "civilizations" he meant the same communities that N.Ya. Danilevsky called "cultural-historical types", and O. Spengler - "cultures". Toynbee shared the ideas of his predecessors about the algorithm for the existence of a separate civilization: the emergence, formation, growth, breakdown and decomposition, but offered a more detailed description of the features of individual phases. In addition, he was interested in the causes and driving forces of the historical process. He saw the reasons for the emergence of local cultures in the "challenges" of the environment - difficult natural conditions or warlike neighbors, prompting a certain people to "respond", making extraordinary efforts to create their own civilization. The main catalyst for the creation and development of civilization, according to Toynbee, is the "creative minority". Where the conditions of existence were favorable, civilization either turned out to be “delayed” or did not develop at all.

Russian historian L.N. Gumilyov (1912–1992) developed the ideas of local civilizations in his concept of ethnic groups. He translated the problems of historical typology into the plane of ethnology - a science that studies the life of individual peoples - ethnic groups. He analyzed all phases of the existence of an ethnos, adhering to the previous scheme of "civilization-organism", especially highlighting the phase of the breakdown, when creative energy is transformed into the inertia of cultural stereotypes already created by the ethnos. L.N. Gumilyov strictly regulated the course of ethnogenesis: in general, the life of an ethnic group lasts 1200-1500 years, and the terms of a separate phase range from 200 to 350 years. In a peculiar way, the historian solved the problem of the root causes of historical movement. Based on the teachings of V.I. Vernadsky about the "living matter of the biosphere", he puts forward an assumption about the impact on the biosphere, including humanity, of cosmic radiation. According to the concept of ethnic groups, the flow of extraterrestrial energy periodically produces "passionate shocks" (from lat. passio- passion), as a result of which passionaries appear in certain territories - people with excess energy, with increased social activity and creating new ideological theories. “Passionarians strive to change the environment and are capable of doing so. It is they who organize distant campaigns, from which few return. It is they who are fighting for the subjugation of the peoples surrounding their own ethnic group, or, conversely, they are fighting against the invaders. Such activity requires an increased capacity for tension, and any efforts of a living organism are associated with the expenditure of a certain type of energy... By investing their excess energy in organizing and managing fellow tribesmen at all levels of the social hierarchy, they... develop new stereotypes of behavior, impose them on everyone to the rest and thus create a new ethnic system, a new ethnic group visible to history” (Gumilyov L.N. Ot Rusi do Rossii. M., 1995, pp. 29–30). Thus, according to the author, it is the passionaries who break the old tradition and create new ethnic groups, and the entire course of ethnogenesis is the process of attenuation of the received passionary impulse, the natural end of which is the state of complete harmonic balance with the environment. On the territory of Eurasia L.N. Gumilyov singles out nine passionary shocks in the historical period that brought to life a whole inflorescence of cultures - "superethnoi", one of which was Russia, which, according to the historian, is entering a stable phase of civilization in the 21st century.

Summing up, it should be noted that all the "global" concepts of history have one essential drawback: they ignore the specifics of historical events and cause-and-effect relationships that actually fill both real human life and historical research, which is always based on concrete factology.

The first doubts that it was the global level of generalization that gave the “correct” understanding of history arose at the same time, in the second half of the 19th century, and were expressed in studies of the philosophy of “neo-Kantianism” (an idealistic trend that arose in Germany under the slogan “Back to Kant!"). Neo-Kantians - G. Cohen, W. Windelband, G. Rickert, E. Cassirer - introduced the division of existing branches of knowledge into the sciences of "nature", which are based on the study and identification of laws in the world of regularly repeated, and the science of "spirit", which study the world of single, unique events that depend only on the will and actions of a person.

It is also necessary to remember the impact on the whole complex of sciences, including history, of the revolutionary discoveries of theoretical physics in the 1910s–1920s. The theory of relativity and quantum theory have called into question the idea of ​​causality, beloved by historians, and all variations of determinism (simplified explanations of complex multifactorial phenomena through one cause - the determinant, which is considered the main one). Gradually, in the general scientific consciousness, it was affirmed principle of relativism- the idea that all systems of knowledge are relative, that is, they do not have absolute scientific value. All theories that have ever been known to science, with the development of scientific and technological progress, either entered as a special case into a more complex picture of the world, or were completely refuted.

20th century brought to historical science decisive and tragic changes associated with events of a socio-political nature. History almost overnight lost its high status as a "teacher of life", because it could not foresee and then properly comprehend the coming world wars and revolutions, did not warn of the growing conflict and hitherto unseen cruelty of the near future. In the last century of the second millennium, even “self-liquidating” sentiments appeared in historical science, expressed by a simple question: “Why study history if it has not taught anyone anything?”

However, the first answers to this question appeared already in the 1920s. By this time, cardinal changes had taken place in the European community: the once rural majority of the population moved to cities, the basis of the industrial economy and mass public education was created, and traditional landmarks were collapsing. Feeling the collapse of the usual connection of times, a person turned to history, trying again to understand his place and purpose in it. Thus, the discredited “teacher of life” was again called upon to help, not with ready-made recipes, but by defining the unchanging foundations of human existence, to solve the fundamental issues of the new urbanized society.

1.2. Modern understanding of the subject of history
and the main directions of development of historical science in the twentieth century.

The modern understanding of the subject of history includes several new features. In the twentieth century not ideologies, not abstract schemes of world development, but the person himself becomes the center around which the entire system of modern humanitarian knowledge is grouped. People really do not learn from the mistakes of their ancestors, because their social, physiological and psychological nature, despite the innovations introduced by individual epochs, remains almost unchanged in its basic foundations. This means that only history - the only way to recognize people of the past - gives a person the necessary perspective of self-knowledge.

An important role in such a “humanization” of historical science was played by representatives of several generations of the French historical school “Annals” (from the name of the journal “Annals of Economic and Social History”, founded in 1929), at the origins of which stood L. Febvre (1878–1956 ) and M. Blok (1886–1944). “History,” wrote M. Blok, “is the science of people in time. We must link the study of the dead with the study of the living.”

Blok and Febvre sharply criticized the traditional positivist "event" historiography, which, in the words of Blok, vegetated "in the embryonic form of narration." They argued that history is intended not just to describe events, but to put forward hypotheses, to pose and solve problems. Blok and Febvre saw the main task of historical science in creating such a “global” history that could cover all aspects of human life, “a history that would become ... the focus of all sciences that study society from various points of view - social, psychological, moral, religious and aesthetic, and finally, political, economic and cultural. The solution of such a problem presupposed a wide contact and interaction of history with other sciences, primarily with the sciences of man. Febvre persistently substantiated the idea of ​​the existence of "an internal unity that binds together ... all scientific disciplines." He said in 1941, addressing students: “Historians, be geographers! Be lawyers, sociologists, psychologists; do not close your eyes to that great current which is renovating the sciences of the physical world at breakneck speed.”

In striving to create a comprehensive, "global" history, Blok and Febvre did not adhere to homogeneous explanations of the historical process. At the forefront in their explanation were the geographical environment and population growth, the development of technology and economics, collective consciousness - mentality. Arguing with historians of the previous generation, the founders of the Annals argued that the material of the sources and the facts certified by them are always the result of the creative activity of the scientist, the selection he made, which depends on the problem he posed, on the hypothesis put forward. “All history is a choice,” Febvre wrote. The historian "himself creates material for his work", constantly "constructs" his object of study, selecting and grouping the sources and facts he needs. Hence Blok and especially Febvre drew "relativistic" conclusions, arguing that historical facts do not exist without a historian, they are created or "invented" by historians.

Among the followers of Blok and Fevre, there are already four generations associated with the 80-year activity of the Annals magazine. This current of historical thought is also called "nouvelle histoire" - new history. Today it is represented by a whole range of historiographical currents, such as the new economic history, the new social history, historical demography, the history of mentalities, the history of everyday life, microhistory, as well as a number of narrower areas of research - the history of women, childhood, old age, the body, nutrition, disease, death, sleep, gestures, etc.

The next feature of the modern understanding of history is the extraordinary expansion of the very subject of historical research. All the circumstances connected with the man of the past, all spheres of his conscious and unconscious activity have become the center of attraction for the research interest of historians. The very perception of the past has become more multifaceted and vivid: new historical disciplines are emerging, a circle historical sources. If earlier the main basis for studying history was written sources, now it is any object of the era that allows you to discover some new aspect of the past. The unlimited expansion of the subject of history causes the convergence of history with other sciences and the establishment of an interdisciplinary approach to a number of scientific problems. However, this trend also has negative properties: history loses its own "problem field", loses the integrity and stability of internal connections, it lacks clear standards for studying the past. There is a significant danger in this, and scientists are looking for ways to overcome it.

Let us characterize several main trends in world historiography of the 20th century.

In the 1950s–1970s one of the most sought-after areas of research has been quantitative, or quantitative(from the French word "quantitative" - ​​quantitative) story. This approach was created on the basis of borrowing the methods of economics and demography, primarily due to the possibilities of statistical data processing.

The statistical approach presupposes a conscious removal from the unique characteristics of a historical source, the creation of a kind of "squeezing" of a homogeneous series of facts. This research program was based on the work of the French historian Ernest Labrousse, who brought up a galaxy of famous historians in a quarter of a century of teaching. His program singled out repeatable historical phenomena in order to find causal relationships in them: “The repeated has more human value here than the accidental. In economic history, unlike what is observed in other areas of history, everything that is important is repeatable,” wrote Labrousse in his thesis on history on the crisis of the French economy in the pre-revolutionary period (Labrousse E. La crise de l 'économie française à la fin de l'Ancien Régime et au début de la Révolution. P., 1944. P. 171-172).

This study made a significant contribution to the study of the causes of the French Revolution (1789–1794). Labrousse insisted that the revolutionary upheavals had become an uprising of the paupers. The main role in them was played by the economic crisis, exacerbated by a crop failure, which caused an increase in grain prices. Based on the statistics of the 18th century, the historian developed digital series on price changes, crops, manufactured goods, and trade. In response to traditional accusations of the unreliability of these sources, Labrousse defended himself with references to the reliability of statistical methods, to the law of "error compensation", and to coincidence tests. In societies dominated by the rural economy, crop failures, extreme increases in the price of bread, can indeed provoke a crisis. Only as the economy develops, another, industrial type of crisis matures, such as the crisis of 1929, with a different set of causes and effects.

Completely different in its research characteristics was the direction history of mentalities(from the French "mentalité" - mindset). This concept did not receive a strict definition, since it characterized the mobile and elusive world of collective consciousness and the unconscious, the basic motives of human behavior that had not previously been the subject of historical research. This approach is opposite to the previously justified method hermeneutics, i.e. understanding, according to which it is necessary and sufficient for the historian to “get used to” the subject of research, to identify himself with a person of a certain era. The history of mentality is the study of a world alien to the historian, a world in which other people lived, having thoughts, feelings and beliefs alien to modern perception.

An example is the study of F. Aries "Man in the face of death", in which the author analyzes how the perception of death has changed in Western people at an unconscious level in different centuries. He identified five ideal "ages" in the perception of death:

1. Death in antiquity and at the dawn of the Middle Ages, perceived as a natural stage of collective destiny.

2. "Tame death", "death of oneself" of the middle and late Middle Ages, the end of the biography without tragic experiences, not causing fear.

3. "Death is long and near", characteristic of the New Age and regarded as savagery and an inevitable threat.

4. "The death of you" of the 19th - early 20th centuries - the tragic loss of a dear being in a culture oriented towards family values.

5. "Inverted death" of the second half of the 20th century, which is considered as a disturbing phenomenon, forced out of consciousness. For the first time in history, society almost "taboos" the topic of death.

Philippe Aries formed a model of the history of mentalities, which has become a classic, both in terms of the sources used - mainly monuments of literature and art - and in terms of the organization of the text of the study itself.

In the 1970s in parallel with the history of mentalities, a similar research approach developed - historical anthropology. The basis for it was the success of European ethnology, or anthropology, which studies “exotic”, compared to Western, cultures. The historians who proclaimed this program began to borrow the professional tools of a related discipline, sought to reveal in the minds of modern society the echoes of the distant past, stable stereotypes of behavior that are not subject to the influence of time. As a result, new interdisciplinary projects appeared, led by historians, to study folk memory, myths, which made it possible to reconstruct the deep structures of the collective life of people.

Another subject of historical anthropology was the study of a wide variety of rituals of the past - holidays, processions, political manifestations, analysis of the structures of historical texts.

It was historical anthropology that opened for the historian the facets of the social universe perceived by ethnologists: worldly wisdom and stable traditions of the people of the past, exoticism of various eras. The study focused on everyday life, both material and cultural, of an “ordinary” person who did not leave a noticeable trace in written sources.

A true masterpiece of the Annales tradition in the genre of historical anthropology is the book "Montailou" by E. Le Roy Ladurie (Le Roy Ladurie by E. Montailou, an Aquitaine village (1294–1324). - Ekaterinburg, 2001), who tried to hear the voice of the "great mute" medieval history - a common man living at the turn of the XIII-XIV centuries. in a remote area of ​​the Pyrenees, in a specific high mountain village, and to restore its daily practices. The author did not find in the life of the villagers not only the particularly important role of feudal structures or the church (as was customary to think about the Middle Ages), but even the elementary use of the wheel. Of interest is the choice of the source from which the views of the villagers were reconstructed: these are the materials of interrogations of the Church Inquisition investigating the case of the spread of the Qatari heresy in the region.

The author resurrected the appearance of an Aquitanian village lost in the mountains during the life of one generation of peasants. The meticulousness of the interrogation protocols of the inquisitors allowed the historian to study the peasant world in detail. The first part of the book was devoted to the description of the geographical environment, systems of agriculture and pastoralism, power and social structures. Relations between family clans had a determining influence in this society.

Moving in the second part from "ecology" to "archeology" of Montaillou, the author analyzed the mental universe of the peasants, their ideas about life and death, fate and freedom of choice, love and jealousy, health and disease, acceptable and unacceptable norms of behavior. Le Roy Ladurie argued with Aries, who, studying the attitude towards children in different eras, argued that for a long time medieval people perceived their children as "little adults". The inhabitants of Montaillou had an idea of ​​the age of childhood and were attached to their children. Forming, thus, the "total history" of a small rural community, the author was inspired by the work of an anthropologist, restoring the smallest aspects of folk culture, quite autonomous from the prescriptions of the central government and the dominant ideologies.

Regardless of the French historical school, in the twentieth century. American psychohistory, which used Freudianism as a basic method (the theory and practice of psychoanalysis created by Z. Freud and his followers, in which the main role was assigned to work with the unconscious of a person, which forms the main mental and behavioral reactions in early childhood). The founder of psychoanalysis himself took part in the formation of psychohistorical concepts, having published, in collaboration with W. Bullitt, the book “Woodrow Wilson. Twenty-eighth President of the United States. Psychological picture".

In the postwar years in the United States, the main directions of psychohistorical research were formed: the study of the national character by G. Gorer; study of the history of the revolutionary movement by G. Bykovsky; the study of childhood history by E. Erickson as an environment that shapes the role and place of subsequent generations in the historical process.

Psychohistory calls itself the science of "historical motivation", which is based on "... the philosophy of methodological individualism" and aims to explain the actions of "individuals in historical groups." Thus, the researchers of the American Revolution E. Burroughs, M. Wallacey, B. Mazlish made an attempt to show it as a revolution of a special type, which, unlike the European ones, was caused not so much by economic, social or political reasons, as by a change in the general mental situation in society. .

One of the founders of psychohistory, E. Erikson, reflecting on the history of Nazi Germany, tried to explain the phenomenon of fascism by the immaturity of German spiritual life, which led to psychological conflicts among the youth, which were expressed in the form of various fears. At the same time, Erickson pointed out the connection between fascism and the psychological state of a family person, since Hitler very often used vocabulary related to the family in his speeches. The historian also touched upon the psychological split in Germany, which, according to his concept, contributed to the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship.

In the 1980s–1990s, when all the existing theories of the historical process created in the 20th century showed their vulnerability to criticism, historians turned to “microhistorical” subjects without any pretense of generalization – about the life of a small town, village, community, family or individual biography. The model for imitation in this regard was the tradition Italian microhistory.

The term “microhistory” itself was used as early as the 1950s and 1960s, but had a pejorative or ironic connotation: it is history dealing with trifles. Only in the late 1970s. a group of Italian historians made the term microstoria the flag of a new scientific direction. The magazine became the tribune of Italian microhistory Quaderni storici, it published program articles of the leaders of this direction: K. Ginzburg, E. Grandy and J. Levy. Microhistory arose as a counterbalance to simplified ideas about the automatic nature of social processes and trends. Speaking of microhistory, which always addresses the unique features of historical reality, it is difficult to single out its general theoretical principles. Its distinctive feature is experimentalism in research methods and in the forms of presentation of its results. But the most noticeable part of the experiment, which gave its name to the whole direction, is the change in the “scale” of the study: researchers resort to microanalysis in order, as if under a magnifying glass, to discern the essential features of the phenomenon under study, which usually escape the attention of historians.

One of the leaders of microhistory, J. Levy, emphasized that the study of a problem at the microlevel by no means excludes the possibility of generalizing historical material; on the contrary, microanalysis makes it possible to see the refraction of general processes “at a certain point in real life”. Thus, the study of small objects - the biography of an individual, family, local community - allows us to capture the uniquely peculiar features of the historical era, to identify the limits of the social "norm" and "exception", to show the significance of individual events that were destined to become "landline" on the verge of two epochs.

Another popular trend in microhistory in the modern world has become German "history of everyday life", which was formed in the late 1980s, when a real “historical boom” gripped West Germany, associated primarily with the urgent need to figure out what happened to the country in the 20th century. There was a massive interest in studying the past of their city or village, in the history of their family. In fact, amateur enthusiasts have challenged professional historians. "Historical workshops" open to the participation of all comers have become widespread; "oral history" was widely practiced, based on records of older people's memories of their lives.

This interest in the experience and experiences of the "little man" living under the heel of immutable traditions, totalitarian ideology
and global tragic upheavals, was called the "history of everyday life" ( Alltagsgeschichte), or "history from below" ( Geschichte von unten). Later, the history of everyday life became part of a broader process of democratization of public life and, not coincidentally, coincided with the birth of the green movement and the feminist movement in Germany. Representatives of academic science initially criticized the "history of everyday life" as an unoriginal amateurish attempt to undermine the basic principles of the historical profession. However, professional scientists have finally created their own concept of this direction under the same name.

The greatest contribution to the development of the scientific "history of everyday life" was made by A. Ludtke, a member of the Max Planck Institute for History in Göttingen. The subject of his main attention was the history of German workers in the 19th–20th centuries, and the main issue was the problem of acceptance and / or resistance of the proletarians, the “rules of the game” imposed on them, factory orders, the ideas of National Socialism, etc. The key to his concept is a hard-to-translate concept Eugensinn("willfulness", "self-respect"); as A. Ludtke shows, the dependence of workers on the factory bosses was not absolute: they found niches in the factory discipline for self-assertion, using for this purpose unauthorized work breaks, “fooling around”, etc.

Having become a world-famous and recognized area of ​​research, the history of everyday life has retained its original subject of study. The main experimental field here remains the life and way of life of people in the history of the 20th century, which “historians of everyday life” seek to get rid of ideological interpretations that distort historical reality. Historians of this trend made a great contribution to the study of the phenomenon of Nazism, considering it from the inside from the point of view of those "ordinary people" who, wittingly or unwittingly, contributed to the establishment of the fascist dictatorship in Germany.

Thus, modern historical science is represented by a variety of research trends that allow each historian to choose the subject of research to his liking. However, many researchers assess the current situation in world historiography as a crisis. All concepts in history claiming the possibility of global generalizations and categorical conclusions were refuted by voluminous and often fair criticism that came from the horizons of various related disciplines - philosophy, anthropology, linguistics.

Offering many research models, modern history does not currently have criteria and concepts shared by the entire professional community.

Title page

Introduction…………………………………………………………………….....3

What is history? ....................................................... .......................................5

The subject of history as a science: purpose, objectives of study, socially significant functions………………………………………………………..……...8

1. Periodization of world history……………………………………….13

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………...14

List of used literature……………………………………….16

Introduction

Interest in the past has existed since the beginning of the human race. This interest is difficult to explain by human curiosity alone. The fact is that man himself is a historical being. It grows, changes, develops over time, is the product of this development.

The original meaning of the word "history" goes back to the ancient Greek term meaning "investigation", "recognition", "establishment". History was identified with the establishment of authenticity, the truth of events and facts. In Roman historiography (Historiography is a branch of historical science that studies its history), this word began to mean not a way of recognizing, but a story about the events of the past. Soon, “history” began to be called in general any story about any case, incident, real or fictional. At present, we use the word "history" in two senses: firstly, to denote a story about the past, and secondly, when it comes to the science that studies the past.

The subject of history is defined ambiguously. The subject of history can be social, political, economic, demographic history, the history of the city, village, family, private life. The definition of the subject of history is subjective, connected with the ideology of the state and the outlook of the historian. Historians who take materialistic positions believe that history as a science studies the patterns of development of society, which, ultimately, depend on the method of production of material goods. This approach prioritizes economics, society - and not people - in explaining causality. Historians adhering to liberal positions are convinced that the subject of the study of history is a person (personality) in the self-realization of natural rights granted by nature. The famous French historian Mark Blok defined history as “the science of people in time”.

1. What is history?

History is one of the oldest sciences, it is about 2500 years old. Its founder is the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (V century BC). The ancients valued history very much and called it "magistra vitae" (teacher of life).

History is usually defined as a science about the past- past reality, about what once happened to a person, a people, society as a whole. Thus, history is reduced to a simple analysis of events, processes, states that have sunk into oblivion in one way or another. Such an understanding of history is neither accurate nor complete; moreover, it is internally contradictory. In fact, history does not allow people to forget "their past life." History, as it were, resurrects the past, the past, rediscovering and reconstructing it for the present. Thanks to history, historical knowledge, the past does not die, but continues to live in the present, serving the present.

It is noteworthy that in ancient Greece, the patroness of history was Clio - the goddess who glorifies. The scroll and the slate stick in her hands are a symbol and a guarantee that nothing should disappear without a trace.

History is the collective memory of the people, the memory of the past. But the memory of the past is no longer the past in the proper sense of the word. This is the past, restored and being restored according to the norms of the present, with a focus on the values ​​and ideals of people's lives in the present, because the past exists for us through the present and thanks to it. K. Jaspers expressed this idea in his own way: "History directly concerns us ... And everything that concerns us, thereby constitutes the problem of the present for a person."

Initial meaning of the word "story" goes back to the Greek "ioropia", which means "investigation", "recognition", "establishment". Thus, initially "story" identified with a way of recognizing, establishing genuine events and facts. However, in Roman historiography, it has already acquired second meaning (a story about the events of the past), that is, the focus was shifted from the study of the past to the narrative of it. During the Renaissance there is the third the meaning of the word "history". By history they began to understand type of literature, special function which was establishing and fixing the truth.

However, as an independent field of knowledge, especially scientific, history was not considered for a long time. It did not have its own subject in the period of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and even in the Enlightenment. How does this fact fit in with the rather high prestige and wide distribution of historical knowledge? How to connect it with a huge number of works containing historical information, from Herodotus and Thucydides, through countless medieval chronicles, annals and "lives", to historical studies of the beginning of the New Age? This is explained by the fact that history has long been integrated into the general system of knowledge. In the eras of Antiquity and the Middle Ages, it existed and developed in combination with mythology, religion, theology, literature, and to some extent with geography. In the Renaissance, it was given a powerful impetus by geographical discoveries, the flourishing of art, and political theories. In the XVII-XVIII centuries. history was connected with political theory, geography, literature, philosophy, culture.

The need for the allocation of proper scientific knowledge began to be felt since the time of the natural scientific revolution (XVII century). However, even at the beginning of the 19th century, the “indivisibility” of “philosophical” and scientific knowledge, on the one hand, and of science itself in disciplines, on the other, continued to persist.

One of the first attempts to determine the place of history as a scientific discipline with its own subject was undertaken by the German philosopher W. Krug in his work "The Experience of a Systematic Encyclopedia of Knowledge". The circle divided the sciences into philological and real, real - into positive (legal and theological) and natural, natural - into historical and rational, etc. In turn, the "historical" sciences were divided into geographical (place) and proper historical (time) disciplines.

At the end of the XIX century. the French philosopher A. Naville divided all sciences into three groups:

1. "Theoretics" - "sciences about the limits of possibilities or laws" (mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology).

2. "History" - "sciences about realized possibilities or facts" (astronomy, geology, botany, zoology, mineralogy, human history).

3. "Canonica" - "the science of the possibilities, the realization of which would be good, or the ideal rules of behavior" (morality, art theory, law, medicine, pedagogy).

2. The subject of history as a science: purpose, objectives of study, socially significant functions.

The study of any science begins with the definition of the concepts with which it operates in the process of cognition, both nature and society. From this point of view, the question arises: what is history as a science? What is the subject of its study? Answering this question, first of all, it is necessary to distinguish between history as any process of development of nature and society, which are closely interconnected, and history as the science of these processes.

We will consider history as a science in the development of human society in all its diversity. And since the history of society is a set of specific and diverse actions and deeds of individuals, human communities that are in a certain relationship, constituting the whole of humanity, the subject of study of history is the activities and actions of people, the totality of relations in society.

The famous Russian historian V.O. Klyuchevsky wrote about history as a science: “In the scientific language, the word “history” is used in a double sense: 1) as movement in time, a process, and 2) as knowledge of a process. Therefore, everything that happens in time has its own history. The content of history as a separate science, a special branch of scientific knowledge, is the historical process, i.e. the course, conditions and successes of human community or the life of mankind in its development and results.

Historians study their subject in a diversified way over time, in parts, from different angles of view. Disorder, fragmentation, unevenness, "white spots" and "gray niches" of the past - such is the canvas of historical time. But historical knowledge as a whole allows, when necessary, to shift one's gaze and see all the diversity of the "world of history", structures and connections, events and actions, the existence of peoples and the everyday life of heroes and the "little" person, ordinary consciousness and global outlook.

Due to the fact that the content of historical science is the historical process that reveals itself in the phenomena of human life, and these phenomena are extremely diverse, accordingly, history is a diversified science, it is composed of a number of independent branches of historical knowledge, namely: political history, civil, economic history, cultural history, military history, state and law history, etc.

History is also subdivided according to the breadth of the study of the object: the history of the world as a whole (world or universal history); history of world civilizations; history of continents (history of Asia and Africa, Latin America); history of individual countries and peoples (history of the USA, Canada, China, Russia, etc.).

A number of auxiliary historical disciplines have developed, developing general questions of the methods and techniques of historical research. Among them: paleography (the history of writing), numismatics (coins, orders, medals), toponymy (the study of the names of geographical places), source studies (general techniques and methods for studying historical sources), etc.

History is a specific science that requires precise knowledge of chronology (dates), facts, events. It is connected with other humanities and social sciences. These relations evolved differently in different periods, but the leading representatives of historiography have always believed in a "common market" for the social sciences. This belief continues today. The interpenetration and mutual enrichment of the social sciences, the so-called interdisciplinarity, is a phenomenon characteristic of the 20th century. It is due to the demarcation of the social sciences, their separation into independent areas of knowledge, as a result of which the process of division of labor and specialization was accompanied by a deepening of relationships.

History, as well as other humanities and social sciences of the late XIX - XX centuries. did not escape the influence and psychology. They were very popular at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. G. Lebon's books "Psychological laws of the evolution of peoples" (Lebon. 1894) and "Psychology of peoples and masses" (Lebon. 1895), which substantiated the assumption that European society entered the "era of the crowd", when a reasonable critical principle, embodied in personality, suppressed by the irrational mass consciousness. The Austrian psychologist Z. Freud believed that his concept of the "subconscious" could be the key to understanding historical figures, and Freud's "Essay" on Leonardo da Vinci, written in 1910, was essentially the first experience of psychohistory.

The term "psychohistory" appeared in the 1950s in the United States, where journals on psychohistory were published at that time. Their heroes were such historical figures as Hitler, Trotsky, Gandhi, etc. Psychoanalysis had a great influence on the criticism of some historical sources - diaries, letters, memoirs.

The fact of the author's psychological need for fantasies began to be taken into account. A separate topic was the study of diary entries about dreams. There are known examples of the application of psychoanalysis to social groups, for example, to the history of peasant and urban religious movements, in the study of which historians often deal with deviations. But in general, the flowering of psychohistory turned out to be short-lived, and the possibilities were limited.

Today, historians are aware of both the importance and the limitations of psychoanalysis for their discipline. The areas where psychoanalysis can be used effectively are outlined quite clearly: the study of prominent personalities, the study of cultural traditions. The task of synthesizing history and psychology, if it makes sense, is still a matter for the future.

Compared with other humanities and social sciences that study any one of the aspects of social life, history differs in that the subject of its knowledge is the totality of the life of society throughout the entire historical process. In addition, many problems of the past and present, which are dealt with by political scientists, economists, sociologists, ethnologists and other specialists in the humanitarian and social cycle, can only be solved on the basis of a historical approach and historical analysis, based on the work done by historians, because only the collection, the systematization and generalization of vast factual material makes it possible to see and understand the tendencies of social development.

The study and teaching of history in modern conditions is complicated by a number of circumstances:

1. The process of rethinking the past in our country is taking place in the context of a change in the socio-economic and political system, in the context of the formation of new moral values. In this regard, history has become a real battlefield, a field of political struggle, on which not only scientifically based criticism but also politicized points of view collide, whose supporters are interested not so much in historical truth as in arguments in favor of their existence. And this instead of one half-truth gives rise to another.

2. History has always been closely linked with the politics, interests and destinies of the rulers, who rarely encouraged the desire of historians to know the truth and communicate it to society. Today it is felt especially sharply. Therefore, one has to face bias and subjectivity in assessing historical events, especially the Soviet period.

3. Unfortunately, the level of historical training and general political culture of our youth does not create favorable conditions for deep critical reflection and perception of numerous publications that distort the picture of the historical development of our country.

4. The situation is further complicated by the lack of textbooks. Available separate textbooks and teaching aids are rare.

Under these conditions, the teaching of history acquires a general civic sound.

3. Periodization of world history.

One of the important problems of historical science is the problem of periodization of the development of human society. Periodization is the establishment of chronologically sequential stages in social development. The selection of stages should be based on decisive factors common to all countries or to leading states.

Since the development of historical science, scientists have developed many different options for the periodization of social development. To date, the periodization of world history proceeds from two principles: for the early periods of the formation of human society, the material from which the main tools of labor and the technology for their manufacture are fundamental. This is how the concepts of "Stone Age", "Copper-Stone Age", "Bronze Age", "Iron Age" appeared.

The dating of these periods is established using natural science methods (geological, dendrochronology, etc.). With the advent of writing in the history of mankind (about 5000 years ago), other grounds for periodization arose. It began to be determined by the time of existence of various civilizations and states that kept their own account of time.

In general, world history is usually divided into four main periods:

Ancient world (the period from the isolation of man from the animal kingdom about 2 million years ago until the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD).

Middle Ages(the period from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the beginning of the Renaissance in the 16th century).

new time(from the Renaissance to 1918 - the end of the First World War).

Newest time(from 1919 to the present day).

Conclusion

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

Historical movement includes interrelated scientific categories of historical time and historical space.

Historical time only moves forward. Each segment of the movement in historical time is woven from thousands of connections, material and spiritual, it is unique and has no equal. Outside the concept of historical time, history does not exist. Events following one after another form a time series. There are internal links between events in the time series.

At the end of the 19th century, materialist historians divided the history of society into formations: primitive communal, slaveholding, feudal, capitalist, and communist. At the turn of the 21st century, historical-liberal periodization divides society into periods: traditional, industrial, informational (post-industrial).

Theories of the historical process or theories of learning (methodological interpretation) are determined by the subject of history. Theory is a logical scheme explaining historical facts. By themselves, historical facts as "fragments of reality" do not explain anything. Only the historian gives the fact an interpretation that depends on his ideological and theoretical views. What distinguishes one theory of the historical process from another? The difference between them lies in the subject of study and the system of views on the historical process. Each schema-theory selects from a multitude of historical facts only those that fit into its logic. Based on the subject of historical research, each theory singles out its own periodization, defines its own conceptual apparatus, and creates its own historiography. Various theories reveal only their patterns or alternatives - variants of the historical process and offer their own vision of the past, make their own forecasts for the future.

Only the facts of history can be true, the interpretation of these facts is always subjective. Facts that are biased and built into a predetermined logical and semantic scheme (without explanation and conclusions) cannot claim to be an objective history, but are only an example of a hidden selection of facts of a certain theory.

Different learning theories that explain real historical facts do not take precedence over each other. All of them are “truthful, objective, true” and reflect the difference in worldviews, systems of views on history and modern society. Criticism of one theory from the position of another is incorrect, as it replaces the worldview, the subject of study. Attempts to create a common (single), universal theory, that is, to combine different theories - worldviews (subjects of study), are anti-scientific, as they lead to a violation of cause-and-effect relationships, to contradictory conclusions.

List of used literature:

Barg M. Civilization approach to history // Kommunist, 1991, No. 3.

Grechko P.K. Conceptual Models of History: A Handbook for Students. M.: Logos, 1995.

Danilevsky N.Ya. Russia and Europe. M.: Book, 1991.

Ionov I.N. The theory of civilization and the evolution of scientific knowledge // Social Sciences and Modernity, 1997, No. 6.

Klyuchevsky V.O. Course of Russian history. M., 1956. T. I. Part I.

Marx M., Engels F. Sobr. op. T. 13, 22.

Rakitov A.I. Historical knowledge: system-epistemological approach. Moscow: Politizdat, 1982.

Savelyeva I.M., Poletaev A.V. History and time: in search of the lost. Languages ​​of Russian culture. M., 1997.

Semennikova L.I. Civilizations in the history of mankind. Bryansk: Cursive, 1998.

Toynbee A. Comprehension of history. M., 1991.

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History is a science that studies the features of human activity in the past. It makes it possible to determine the causes of events that took place long before us and in our days. Associated with a large number of social disciplines.

History as a science has existed for at least 2500 years. Its founder is considered the Greek scientist and chronicler Herodotus. In ancient times, this science was valued and considered to be the "teacher of life." In ancient Greece, she was patronized by the goddess Clio herself, who was engaged in the glorification of people and gods.

History is not just a statement of what happened hundreds and thousands of years ago. It is not even only the study of processes and events that took place in the past. In fact, its purpose is more and deeper. It does not allow conscious people to forget the past, but all this knowledge is applicable in the present and future. This is a storehouse of ancient wisdom, as well as knowledge of sociology, military affairs, and much more. To forget the past means to forget one's culture, heritage. Also, mistakes that have ever been made should not be forgotten, so as not to repeat them in the present and future.

The word "history" is translated as "investigation". This is a very appropriate definition.

borrowed from Greek. History as a science investigates the causes of events that took place, as well as their consequences. But this definition still does not reflect the whole point. The second meaning of this term can be perceived as "a story about what happened in the past."

History as a science experienced a new upsurge in the Renaissance. In particular, the philosopher Krug finally determined her place in the system of teachings. A little later, it was corrected by the French thinker Naville. He divided all the sciences into three groups, one of which he called “History”; it was supposed to include botany, zoology, astronomy, as well as history itself as a science of the past and heritage of mankind. Over time, this classification has undergone some changes.

History as a science is concrete, it requires the presence of facts, dates attached to them, the chronology of events. However, it is closely related to a large number of other disciplines. Naturally, among the latter was psychology. In the last and the century before last, theories were developed about the development of countries and peoples, taking into account the "public consciousness" and other similar phenomena. The well-known Sigmund Freud also contributed to such doctrines. As a result of these studies, a new term appeared - psychohistory. The science expressed by this concept was to study the motivation of the actions of individuals in the past.

History is connected with politics. That is why it can be interpreted biasedly, embellishing and painting some events and carefully hushing up others. Unfortunately, in this case, all its value is leveled.

History as a science has four main functions: cognitive, ideological, educational and practical. The first gives the sum of information about events and epochs. The ideological function involves understanding the events of the past. The essence of the practical is in understanding some objective historical processes, "learning from the mistakes of others" and refraining from subjective decisions. The educational function involves the formation of patriotism, morality, as well as a sense of consciousness and duty to society.

Absolute monarchy- autocracy, a state in which the monarch has unlimited power. At the same time, a powerful bureaucratic apparatus, the army and the police are being created, and the activities of the governing bodies are being stopped.
Autocracy- uncontrolled autocracy of one person.
Autonomy- the right of independent exercise of power (within certain predetermined limits) for a part of the state formation on its territory.
Authoritarianism- an anti-democratic system of political power, usually combined with elements of personal dictatorship.
Agora- the square where free citizens gathered, - the people's assembly in the ancient Greek city-state.
Aggressor- a state carrying out an armed encroachment on the sovereignty, territory or political system of another state.
Administration- a set of governing bodies.
Administrative-territorial division- division of the country's territory into smaller units with their own governing bodies.
Acropolis- fortified part of the ancient city.
Amnesty- exemption from criminal or other liability.
Anarchy- anarchy, disobedience to laws, permissiveness.
Entente- the alliance of England, Russia and France against Germany in the First World War;
Anti-Hitler coalition- an alliance of countries that fought against Nazi Germany and other Axis powers - the USSR, Great Britain, the USA, France, China, Yugoslavia, Poland, etc.
Aristocracy- tribal nobility, the upper class.
Auto-da-fe- public execution of heretics by the verdict of the Inquisition.
Balance of power (balance, balancing)- Approximate equality of the military potentials of the opposing sides.
Corvee- forced labor of a serf in the household of a feudal lord.
Blockade- a system of political and economic measures aimed at disrupting the external relations of any state. It is used to isolate a blocked object.
Bourgeoisie- the class of owners using hired labor. Income provides the appropriation of surplus value - the difference between the costs of the entrepreneur and his profit.
buffer states- countries located between the warring states, dividing them and thus ensuring the absence of common borders and contact of armies hostile to each other.
Bureaucracy- the dominance of bureaucracy, the power of papers, when the centers of executive power are practically independent of the people. Characterized by formalism and arbitrariness.
vandals- an ancient Germanic tribe that captured and plundered Rome. In a figurative sense - savages, enemies of culture.
Vassal- feudal lord, dependent on his lord. Carried certain duties and fought on the side of the lord.
Great Migration- the movement of Germans, Slavs, Huns, etc. on the territory of the former. Roman Empire in the IV-VII centuries.
verbal note- form of current interstate correspondence.
Veche- National Assembly in Ancient Russia (Novgorod, Pskov)
Vote- an opinion expressed by a vote.
Hague conventions- international agreements on the laws and customs of warfare (adopted in The Hague in 1899 and 1907), on the protection of cultural property (1954), on private international law, etc.
Coat of arms- a distinctive sign of the country, region, noble family.
Hetman- military leader, head of the "registered" Cossacks in the XVI-XVIII centuries. in Ukraine.
Guild- the union of merchants, merchants, artisans in the Middle Ages.
State anthem- a solemn song, the official symbol of the state.
State- an association of people (population) living in the same territory and subject to the same laws and orders of a common authority for all.
Democracy- a form of state and society based on the recognition of the people as a source of power and a participant in governance.
Demonstration- procession, rally or other form of mass expression of sentiment in society.
Denunciation- refusal of one of the parties to continue to comply with previously concluded agreements, contracts, etc.
Depression- the phase of economic development following the crisis of overproduction. Synonym - stagnation. Great Depression - economic and political crisis of 1929-1933 in the USA.
Despot- a ruler who oppresses his subjects autocratically and uncontrollably.
Dictatorship- a political regime, meaning the complete domination of an individual or social group.
Dynasty- a succession of relatives - the rulers of the state.
Doge- the head of the Venetian and Genoese republics in the Middle Ages.
Druzhina- a permanent armed detachment, the army of the prince,
Heresy- Deviation from religiously prescribed views.
EEC (European Economic Community, Common Market)- an organization founded in 1957 with the aim of eliminating all restrictions on trade between its members.
Iron curtain- so in the West they called the border between the countries of the Warsaw Pact (“communist”) and the rest of the world.
Law- a set of rules, the implementation of which is mandatory for all.
Zaporizhzhya Sich- organization of the Ukrainian Cossacks, a military republic headed by a ataman in the 16th-18th centuries. with the center behind the Dnieper rapids, on the islands.
Insulation- creation of insurmountable barriers between the states or public groups.
Imperialism-. the phase of development of society, when competing financial-industrial groupings, monopoly owning the market, control all areas of life and merge with state power.
Empire- a monarchy or despotism that has colonial possessions or includes heterogeneous elements.
industrial revolution- transition to a qualitatively new level of engineering and technology, leading to a sharp increase in labor productivity and output.
Inquisition- in the XIII-XIX centuries. the system of courts in the Catholic Church, independent of the secular authorities. She persecuted dissidents and heretics, used torture and executions.
Cossacks- the military class in Russia in the XVI-XX centuries. It arose on the Dnieper, Don, Volga, Ural, Terek in the form of free communities, was the main driving force behind the popular uprisings in Ukraine and Russia. In the XVIII century. turned into a privileged military class. At the beginning of the XX century. there were 11 Cossack troops (Donskoy, Kuban, Orenburg, Transbaikal, Terskoye, Semirechenskoye, Uralskoye, Ussuriyskoye, Siberian, Astrakhan, Amurskoye), numbering a total of 4.4 million people, over 53 million acres of land. Since 1920, as an estate, it has been abolished. In 1936, Cossack formations were created that took part in the war; in the 40s. disbanded. From the end of the 80s. the revival of the Cossacks began; the total number in the CIS is over 5 million people.
Capitalism- a social formation based on private ownership of the instruments and means of production, a system of free enterprise and hired labor.
Class- a large group of people whose role in the economic system of society and in relation to property is similar.
Communism- a social system that rejects private ownership of the means of production. The theory was developed by K. Marx, f. Engels, V.I. Lenin. An attempt to build such a system was made in 1917-1991. in USSR.
Conservatism- adherence to the old, established, distrust of everything new and rejection of changes in society.
A constitutional monarchy- a system of government in which the power of the monarch is limited by law (usually the constitution).
Constitution is the fundamental law of the state.
Counterintelligence - activities of special services to suppress intelligence (espionage) activities of the relevant bodies of other countries on their own territory.
Confederation- a form of association of countries in which they fully retain their independence, but have common (joint) bodies to coordinate certain actions. As a rule, these are foreign policy, communications, transport, and the armed forces. An example is the Swiss Confederation.
A crisis- a period of acute difficulties in the economy. It is characterized by an increase in unemployment, mass bankruptcies, impoverishment of the population, etc.
Cro-Magnon- primitive; an ancient representative of the modern human species (Homo sapiens, Homo sapiens). He was preceded by a Neanderthal.
Liberal - supporter of individual freedom and freedom of enterprise.
Matriarchy- the structure of society, characterized by the dominant position of women. Kinship and inheritance were considered maternal. It was distributed in the initial period of the tribal system.
Monarchy - a state headed by a king, tsar, emperor, etc., whose power is usually inherited.
People- the entire population of one country (less often - a part of the population, homogeneous in ethnic composition).
NATO- The North Atlantic Alliance, a military-political bloc of European states, as well as the United States and Canada.
National Socialism - ideology of the German Nazis. It is characterized by blind obedience to the "Fuhrer", a sense of superiority over other peoples, permissiveness in relation to the "lower", the desire for world domination.
National symbols - a set of symbols, images, color combinations inherent in certain national, ethnic or territorial communities. It is used in the coats of arms and flags of states and other entities.
National liberation movement - the struggle for the independence of an ethnic group or the entire population of the colony, as well as the struggle for the economic and political independence of a part of the population of a multinational country.
Nation - the historical community of people that has developed due to the commonality of their territory, economic ties, literature, language, culture and character.
quitrent - natural or monetary duty of the peasants to the feudal lord.
Common Market - the same as the EEC (an organization founded in 1957 with the aim of removing all restrictions on trade between its members).
Oprichnina - the system of measures taken by Ivan IV the Terrible to combat the boyar opposition (mass repressions, executions, land confiscations, etc.).
Axis (“Axis Berlin-Rome”)- military alliance of aggressive fascist regimes (1936) to prepare and wage war for world domination. Japan soon joined the Axis.
Patriarchy - a society dominated by men. It arose during the period of decomposition of the tribal system.

Parliament - representative (elected) body of power in the state. First formed in the 13th century. in England.
Plebiscite- survey of the population on the most important issues: the integrity of the state, the form of government, reforms, etc. As a rule, it has no legislative force.
Tribe- association of several clans under the control of the leader.
The president- elected head of state or organization.

Policy city-state in the ancient world.
Slave - a person whose life and work belong to the slave owner.
Radical- a supporter of decisive, extreme, cardinal measures in matters of transforming society.
Intelligence service - a set of measures for collecting data on an actual or potential enemy.
Racism- the theory of the original superiority of people with a certain color of skin, eyes and other external differences. In practice, it leads to humiliation, conflicts, pogroms, bloody wars, etc.
Reactionary- resisting social progress, striving to preserve obsolete social orders.
Republic - a form of government in which the highest power belongs to an elected representative body (parliamentary) or an elected president (presidential republic).
The revolution- qualitative leap; violent change in social relations.
referendum - popular vote on the most important issues of the life of the country. Has legislative power.
Genus - a group of people related by blood (derived from a common ancestor) and possessing common property.
Free enterprise- a system for encouraging private initiative in the organization of enterprises, banks, trade, etc.
Slavs - the largest group of peoples in Europe: eastern (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians), western (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, etc.), southern (Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, etc.).
Smerdy- Peasants in Ancient Russia.
Socialism- a social system based on state or public ownership of tools and means of production and the absence of exploitation of man by man (in accordance with the theory of Marxism-Leninism).
Social protection- support by the state or society of low-income segments of the population (old people, children, etc.).
State sovereignty- his independence in external and supremacy in internal affairs.
Suzerain- feudal lord, to whom other, smaller feudal lords (vassals) are subordinate. The king is always overlord.
Terrorism- criminal encroachment on the lives of innocent people in order to achieve political or other goals.
Fascism- terrorist dictatorship using extreme forms of violence. Combined with nationalism and racism.
Federation- the structure of the state, in which the entire territory is divided into administrative units, and part of the powers of the supreme power is delegated to local authorities (local laws are issued, local taxes are levied, etc.).
Forum- a square in ancient Rome, the center of political life. Currently - a representative assembly, congress.
Tsar- monarch, king. The title comes from the name of Gaius Julius Caesar. The title of sovereigns of all Russia, starting with Ivan IV the Terrible.
Official- an executor of state regulations and laws of the state, a civil servant. Evolution is a gradual, smooth (unlike a revolution) transition to a new quality, a new social formation.

Among the disciplines, acquaintance with which begins in high school, one should name history, which allows schoolchildren to understand how people of past eras lived, what events happened centuries ago, and what consequences they led to. Consider what history studies, why do we need to know about long-past events.

Description of the discipline

Historical science allows you to learn about past eras, specific events, monarchs, inventions. However, such an understanding of what history studies would be simplistic. This discipline works not only with facts, but also makes it possible to identify patterns in the development of life, identify periods, analyze the mistakes of the past in order to try not to repeat them. In general, the science of "history of the world" comprehends the process of development of human society.

This area of ​​knowledge belongs to the humanities. Being one of the most ancient sciences (Herodotus is considered its founder), it continues to develop actively.

Subject of study

What does history study? First of all, the main subject of this science is the past, that is, the totality of events that took place in a particular state, society as a whole. This discipline explores wars, reforms, uprisings and rebellions, the relationship between different states, the activities of historical figures. To better understand what history studies, let's make a table.

Historical periodization

	What is being studied
Primitive	Features of the appearance and life of the most ancient and ancient hunters and gatherers, the emergence of social relations, the emergence of art, the structure of an ancient society, the emergence of crafts, the specifics of community life
ancient world, antiquity	Features of the first states, the specifics of the foreign and domestic policies of the first monarchs, the social structures of the most ancient societies, the first laws and their significance, the conduct of economic activity
Middle Ages	The specifics of the early European kingdoms, the relationship between statehood and the church, the classes distinguished in society and the characteristics of the life of each of them, reforms, the specifics of foreign policy, chivalry, Viking raids, knightly orders, crusades, the Inquisition, the Hundred Years War
new time	Technical discoveries, development of the world economy, colonization, formation and diversity of political parties, bourgeois revolutions, industrial revolutions
The newest	World War II, relations between Russia and the world community, features of life, war in Afghanistan, Chechen campaign, coup in Spain

The table shows that in the study of historical science there is a huge number of facts, trends, features, and events. This discipline helps people to realize the past of their country or the world community as a whole, not to forget this invaluable knowledge, but to keep it, analyze it, realize it.

Term evolution

The word "history" has not always been used in its modern meaning.

• Initially, this word was translated from Greek as “recognition”, “investigation”. Therefore, the term meant a way to identify a certain fact or event.
• In the days of ancient Rome, the word began to be used in the sense of "retelling the events of the past."
• In the Renaissance, the term began to be understood as a generalized meaning - not only the establishment of truth, but also its written fixation. This understanding absorbed the first and second.

Only in the 17th century did historical science become an independent branch of knowledge and acquired the significance known to us.

Klyuchevsky's position

The famous Russian historian Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky spoke very interestingly about the subject of historical science, emphasizing the dual nature of the term:

• It is the process of moving forward.
• study of this process.

Thus, everything that happens in the world is its history. At the same time, science comprehends the features of the historical process, that is, events, conditions, results.

Klyuchevsky spoke about the role of this science very briefly, but succinctly: "History does not teach anything, but only punishes for ignorance of the lessons."

Auxiliary disciplines

History is a diversified, complex science that has to deal with a large number of facts and events. That is why a number of auxiliary disciplines appeared, information about which is presented in the table.

Each of these subsidiary disciplines is very important for understanding the historical process as a whole.

Industries

The development of man and society is a complex, multifaceted process, which includes the activities of individuals, the development of social and cultural spheres, and the domestic and foreign policies of states.

Because of this, in science itself it is customary to single out a number of main areas of history:

• Military.
• State.
• Political.
• History of religion.
• Rights.
• Economic.
• Social.

All these directions in their totality constitute history. However, within the framework of the school course, only the most general information from the discipline is studied; another unit is used in history textbooks:

• Ancient world history.
• Medieval.
• New.
• The latest.

Separately allocated world and domestic history. The school course also includes local history, in which students get acquainted with the peculiarities of the development of their native land.

Basic Methods

Before understanding the question of why to study history, we should consider the set of methods that this fascinating science uses:

• Chronological - the study of science by periods and dates. For example, when studying modern history, it is very important to understand the chronology of the Great Geographical Discoveries.
• Synchronic - an attempt to identify the relationship between processes and phenomena.
• Historical-genetic - analysis of a historical event, determination of its causes, significance, connection with other events. For example, the Boston Tea Party and the First Continental Congress led to the American Revolutionary War.
• Comparative-historical - comparison of this phenomenon with others. For example, comparing the features of the Renaissance period in various European countries when studying the history of the world.
• Statistical - collection of specific numerical data for analysis. History is an exact science, therefore such information is necessary: ​​how many victims this or that uprising, clash, war claimed.
• Historical-typological - the distribution of events and phenomena based on commonality. For example, the features of the industrial revolution in modern history in various states.

All these methods are used by scientists to comprehend the features and patterns of the development of society.

Role

Consider why you need to study history. This science allows us to understand the laws of the historical development of mankind and society, on the basis of this information it becomes possible to understand what awaits us in the future.

The historical path is complex and contradictory, even the most intelligent and far-sighted individuals made mistakes that led to horrific consequences: riots, civil wars, the death of hundreds of thousands of ordinary people, coups. We can only avoid these mistakes if we are aware of them.

Without knowledge of world and native history, it is impossible to be an educated, literate person, a patriot, to understand one's place in the world. That is why from childhood it is necessary to study this fascinating science.

How to comprehend science

To understand the peculiarities of the development of society, you should choose a good history textbook and workbook. In secondary school, contour maps are also necessary for work, the filling of which allows you to visually present the features of the course of a particular process.

An additional advantage will be reading literature on the subject, through which you can significantly expand your knowledge and get acquainted with interesting facts.

Difficulties

Having considered what history studies, let's look at the question of what difficulties one has to face in comprehending this humanitarian discipline:

• Many events of the historical path have a contradictory and often subjective assessment of researchers.
• The new history is being rethought, so the knowledge that teachers of the “old school” taught in their lessons all their lives turned out to be irrelevant.
• When studying ancient periods, many facts are in the nature of hypotheses, albeit supported by evidence.
• Science strives for precision, which is not always possible.
• The need to keep in mind a huge number of dates, names, reforms.

That is why acquaintance with the science of history often does not arouse enthusiasm among modern schoolchildren. Most often, they simply do not understand the great importance of this discipline, they do not see interest in it, perceiving the subject as boring and requiring memorization of a large amount of information.

The teacher is required to convey to his students the role of this fascinating science, to help students realize its value. Only in this case, the work in the classroom will be useful and productive.