Lucien Fevre and his “Fights for History. Annals after the Second World War. Lucien Febvre Download Lucien Febvre earth and human evolution
Lucien Febvre
Febvre Lucien (22.VII.1878 - 27.IX.1956) - French historian. Member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences (since 1951). Professor at the Universities of Dijon (1912-1914), Strasbourg (1919-1933), College de France (since 1933). Since 1948, he headed the 6th section ("Economic and Social Sciences") Practical schools of higher knowledge. Febvre directed the publication of the French Encyclopedia (since 1935), founded (together with M. Blok) in 1929 the journal "Annales d" histoire économique et sociale "(in 1946 renamed to" Annales. Economies. Sociétés. Civilizations ").
Criticizing the myopia of "historicizing historians" - factologists who avoided generalizations and theory and studied mainly political history, Febvre was a staunch supporter of deep penetration into the essence of historical development and the formulation of new research problems. The path to knowledge of history, Febvre pointed out, lies through a comprehensive knowledge of society. Accordingly, Febvre turned to research historical geography ("La terre et l" evolution humaine ", P., 1922;" Le problème historique du Rhin ", P., 1930), agrarian relations, trade, social order, language, religion, culture and historical psychology. devoted to the development and clarification of the concepts used by historians. The chronological framework of February's research is very wide: the Middle Ages and modern history, right up to the present. However, his focus was on the Renaissance, the 16th century. The main categories of the historical theory of February are society and civilization, representing, according to Febvre, the unity of various aspects of the material and spiritual life of people. He pointed to the qualitative differences between civilizations (cultures), to the fact that each of them has its own unique features, its own system of outlook. Emphasizing the uniqueness of civilizations is associated with relativistic conclusions : he wrote that in each era there is not only its own special, but also equally legitimate perception of reality and passed th; the image of the world, in its own way created within the framework of a particular civilization, has the same degree of objectivity - it corresponds only to a given civilization. To understand the essence of civilization and the behavior of people belonging to it, it is necessary, according to Febvre, to reconstruct their inherent way of perceiving reality, to get acquainted with their "mental and sensory tools." At the same time, Febvre defended the thesis about the historical variability of the structure of human consciousness and the importance of studying social psychology in different historical eras. The problems of historical psychology, the relationship of the individual to the collective were posed by Febvre in the books about Luther ("Un destin, Martin Luther", P., 1928) and about Rabelais ("Le problème de l" incroyance au XVIe siècle. La religion de Rabelais ", P., 1942) Despite the fair remarks of Febvre about the inadmissibility of antihistoricism in the approach to cultural phenomena, he himself did not avoid one-sidedness in the interpretation of Rabelais's work and ignored the popular stream in the culture of the Renaissance (see the criticism of Febvre in the book: Bakhtin MM, Creativity F. Rabelais and the folk culture of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Moscow, 1965, pp. 143-49). February attached great importance to the analysis of the spiritual life of not only outstanding people, but also the social psychology of the masses and individual human groups. the study of language from a cultural and psychological point of view.Febvr made many interesting observations of the system of world perception of people of the 16th century; in their language and literature, according to Febvre, a number of elements comrades, from which scientific thinking is built in modern times. Febvre emphasized the conditioning of the mental makeup of people by their social existence and saw in social psychology one of the integral elements of the whole - civilization.
Fevre's justification of the need to study the economic, social and spiritual life of a particular civilization as an integral system, as well as his requirement to fully take into account the specifics of social and individual consciousness in different historical epochs, had a positive significance in the development of historical thought. Febvre had a significant impact on many French historians. Around him and M. Blok was formed the so-called school of "Annals" (see in the article. Historiography).
A. Ya. Gurevich. Moscow.
Soviet Historical Encyclopedia. In 16 volumes. - M .: Soviet encyclopedia. 1973-1982. Volume 14. TAANAKH - FELEO. 1971.
Read on:
Historians
Historical persons of France (biographical reference).
Compositions:
Philippe II et la Franche Comté, P., 1911; Origène et des Périers, P., 1942; Autour de l "Heptaméron, (P., 1944); Combats pour l" histoire, P., 1953; Au coeur religieux du XVIe siècle, P. 1957; Pour une histoire and part entiere, (P.), 1962.
Literature:
Vidal V., L. Febvr. "Bulletin of the history of world culture", 1957, No 1; Baumont M., Notice sur la vie et les travaux de L. Febvre, P., 1959; Braudel F., L. Febvre et l "histoire," Annales. Economies. Sociétés. Civilizations ", 1957, No 2.
Lucien Fevre - historian of mentality
Paris, 1902. In a room of a small apartment, a young man talks with its owner, the historian Gustave Blok, professor of Roman history at the Higher Pedagogical School. This is the father of the future historian Mark Blok. The professor shares with his guest his thoughts on the need to feel the era, the worldview of people. The young man pensively listens to the speeches of Gustave Blok, reflecting on the role of great people in history, their influence on the mentality of society.
The young man's name is Lucien Fevre.
Fast forward 10-12 years. A thin teenager enthusiastically reads the book "Greco-Roman history" found in his father's library. Mentally, he conducts a dialogue with the heroes of the book: Pericles, Plato, Caesar, Sulla ... Epic scenes of Greco-Roman wars, images of Cicero and Pompey the Great arise before his eyes. What did they think, how did they perceive the world? Were there differences in the thinking of Romans and Greeks belonging to different social classes and groups? How did the ideas of individual freedom, private property, and human rights come about? Lucien Febvre — and this is him — takes Jules Michelet's History of France from the shelf. A passionate defender of the idea of development, the romantic Michelet reveals to the teenager the soul of the French nation, its troubles and joys, the evolution of culture.
In the library of his father, a university professor of philology, Lucien conducts almost everything free time... Until he decided which path he would choose: literature, history or fashionable sociology. Eagerly swallowing books on history and philology - Jacob Burckhardt, Stendhal, Rabelais, Taine, Guizot, Thierry - yesterday's schoolboy reflects on the psychology of society. These are his correspondence teachers, who planted the ideas of the history of mentality, which, with the light hand of Marcel Proust, entered the everyday life of the French.
Leaving his father's office, the young man breathed deeply in the air of Nancy. Childhood and adolescence is the best time in life. Memories of these years are not forgotten. Years will pass, and the young man, having matured, will write the history of his homeland - Franche-Comté. In the meantime, he thinks about nature, geography, climate, which shape the consciousness and way of life of people. Geography and History are two sisters walking arm in arm through the centuries.
In 1899, after serving in the army, the young Lucien Fevre faced a dilemma - philology or history? As the historian would later write: I committed a betrayal in relation to myself and History, having decided to study at the Faculty of Philology of the Higher Normal School. What influenced his decision to become a philologist - the influence of his father or an attempt to try his hand at literature? Febvre did not reveal this secret.
After studying for two years, he moved to the Faculty of History. So philology lost, and history acquired a scientist who was destined to become one of the founders of the "new historical science".
Febvre's teachers, outstanding scientists of the beginning of the last century - geographer Paul Vidal de la Blanche, linguist Antoine Meillet, historians Christian Pfister, Gabriel Monod and Gustave Block - open up to him the wonderful world of humanitarian knowledge. Lucien Febvre is not limited to studying at the alma mater - he attends lectures at the Sorbonne, where psychologist Henri Bergson, ethnologist Lucien Levy-Bruhl, historian Emile Malle shine. Febvre is especially grateful to Henri Pirenne, whose books - Ancient Forms of Democracy in the Netherlands, Merovingians and Carolingians, Medieval Cities - he read in the 1910s / 1920s, enjoying the joy of meeting a bright and distinctive talent. We owe them the appearance of such a bright and multifaceted talent as Lucien Febvre.
The future historian will not be persistent - after all, according to his confession, Franche-Comté and Lorraine endowed him with a double share of this quality. His younger friend Mark Blok was the same fighter in history.
During the years of study of Febvre and Blok, the masters, historians Charles Senbosse and Charles Langlois reigned in French historical science. The founders of the Methodological School, who enriched the methodology of history and developed the methodology of historical research. Even then, Febvre began to think about the isolation of history from the humanities, about the fact that it was being pushed aside by sociology and psychology, claiming leadership in the field of humanitarian knowledge. “It is necessary to break down the partitions separating History from sociology, geography, linguistics, economics ... History should absorb humanitarian knowledge, synthesize the achievements of social sciences - so thought the young historian, getting acquainted with the works of Durkheim, Freud, Levy-Bruhl.
Lucien Fevre gradually forms the idea of an interdisciplinary approach, embodied in his first serious work - the thesis "Philippe II and Franche-Comté" (1911). For nine years he wrote a dissertation. This work was written on behalf of the historian Henri Berra, the creator of the journal Historical Synthesis and a series of books on history. Childhood memory, keeping memories of the dear heart of Franche-Comte, religion and psychology, geography and sociology, linguistics and history - all intertwined in the fabric of the dissertation.
This work conceals the beginnings of future articles and books dedicated to the humanists of the early modern era - Martin Luther, François Rabelais, Marguerite of Navarre.
After becoming a doctor of science, the young professor is assigned to the University of Dijon. We present him at the department giving an introductory lecture to future historians, philologists, and philosophers. “History is the science of Man, of the past of man. But not only the science of personality, but also of society, its evolution. We need to "revive" History, buried under a pile of archival documents. When we talk about peasants or industry, trade, imagine them daily life, their fears and hopes, attitudes towards power, property, law, their customs and social practices ... Armed like a craftsman with tools - geography, psychology, linguistics, ethnology, historical sources, the historian analyzes the spirit of the era, society, personality. Learn to see the numbers, reports, dates of living people, their ideas and values, feelings and passions - Lucien Febvre exclaimed emotionally in front of the audience, catching every word.
Eight years later, Lucien Febvre moved to Strasbourg and took a job at a local university, where he met Mark Block. He has known him for a long time, from the time of his visit to his father, Gustave Blok. But the age difference and shyness of Mark Blok interfered with the rapprochement. Now he is working in neighboring departments: Febvre deals with the history of the early modern times, Blok - the history of the Middle Ages.
Often they could be seen arguing enthusiastically, in the university courtyard or in the park. We can only be annoyed that in that era there were no dictaphones, because how interesting it is to penetrate into the creative laboratories of genius people.
The choice was made - Lucien Fevre became a Historian trying to develop a complex and complex direction - historical psychology, later called the history of mentality. The center of February's scientific interests is Man and Society, their culture, attitudes, ways of thinking, and stereotypes of behavior. Man and his environment - natural, social, spiritual, material, linguistic.
In the early 1920s, the historian Henri Burr published the Evolution of Humanity series of monographs. It contains the works of Blok and Febvre - dissertations dedicated to Ile-de-France and Franche-Comte. Various works in terms of structure and content, united by the idea of historical synthesis. Later, in 1922, Febvre wrote the groundbreaking work “Earth and Human Evolution. Geographic introduction into history ". With this work, the historian will lay the idea of geographical determinism, brilliantly developed decades later by Fernand Braudel. Not devoid of significant shortcomings, historical geography will become a part of total history, predetermining the directions of historical research.
So Lucien Febvre entered the struggle for the renewal of History, supported by Mark Block. One of them will not live to see the liberation of France from the German invaders, I will die in captivity. And the second is destined to see the results of "battles for history", when young and talented historians came to replace them - Fernand Braudel, Camille Labrousse, Pierre Gubert.
Perceiving the theory of historical synthesis by Henri Berra, Lucien Fevre conceived the publication of a journal in which articles on the history of society and civilizations would be published, based on an interdisciplinary synthesis. The plan was to make the journal linguistically and financially international. But this idea was not destined to come true. Then Mark Blok comes to the aid of Febvre, who changed the concept of the magazine - reorientation to a national audience. The new journal is named Annals of Economic and Social History. The name is influenced by Blok, who occupied the department of economic history and successfully developed the methodology of social history.
For all the difference in the views of February and Blok, the journal has brought together thousands of articles on broad topics, reviews and reviews. Febvre has a new idea - a plan for the renewal of humanitarian knowledge. The plan should be put into practice in the book "Encyclopedia of France" (1932).
The period of work at the University of Strasbourg, Febvre recalled as best years... “That was the time when our dear Charles Blondel wrote An Introduction to Collective Psychology, his masterpiece, a small book that became one of the greatest books of our time, an essay so akin to us in spirit that we could consider it ours if its verbal fabric and form (surprisingly graceful as always) did not belong to Blondel, and only Blondel. And next to him (I will mention mainly those who died; their list is already quite extensive) - a whole army of linguists, starting with the dear Ernest Levy, an unrivaled connoisseur of old Alsace, its customs, manners, its folklore - not to mention furniture and antique trinkets, and ending with the cohorts of our Germanists, Anglists, Slavists ... Have you come across some philological subtlety in the medieval text? Ernest Hepfner will immediately come to your aid. Have you stumbled upon an archaeological find? P. Perdriese will hasten to reveal to you the inexhaustible treasury of his knowledge ... - recalled Febvre "glorious thirties."
February was undoubtedly influenced by Henri Pirenne, the famous Belgian historian, author of the History of Belgium and works on medieval cities. He was the helmsman of February and Blok in the sea of historical knowledge. Pirenne's lectures served as a model for many scholars of the time.
In 1933, fate divorced February and Blok from different universities. There was almost a rivalry between them for one department at the Sorbonne University. Nobly yielding to Mark Blok, Febvre takes a professor position at the Collège de France, his last educational institution, where he will work until his death in 1956.
Immersion in science does not prevent Febvre from showing himself as a manager, having founded the VI section of the practical school of higher research (social and economic sciences), becoming its first president in 1947. F. Braudel and S. Moraze became assistants. Lucien Fevre is the permanent editor-in-chief of the Annals magazine, who later transferred the post to Fernand Braudel. He also headed the journal "Notebooks of the World History", "Journal of the History of World War II", was in charge of the publication of the "French Encyclopedia". But the main thing is that Febvre created a history of mentality that is so close to the author of these lines.
The historical psychology created by Febvre is revealed in works, among which the remarkable monograph "The problem of unbelief in the 16th century: François Rabelais" rises.
This work was the fruit of February's many years of reflections on the mentality of people in the early modern times, the influence of humanism on their faith and way of thinking.
Writing the Problem of Unbelief ... was preceded by numerous articles on the Age of the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Great Geographical Discoveries.
Lucien Febvre's articles are the fruit of a tree planted in 1911, when his doctoral dissertation defined the research topic.
Religion, economics, culture, technology, mentality, geographic factors, linguistics, ethnology became rivulets pouring into the ocean of total History. The idea of a historical science, embracing all aspects of human life, was understood by Febvre as a historical psychology that reveals the worldview of Man and Civilization with a "sensitive toolbox".
Febvre's dissertation on Franche-Comte set a vector for his research. A similar story happened with Mark Blok, only it led him to agrarian and social history. Mark Blok gave priority to the synthesis of history and sociology, Lucien Febvre - history and psychology. Although Blok, as we wrote earlier, was no stranger to the study of mentality, as evidenced by the unique monograph of the Wonderworking Kings.
February's creative legacy is enormous. Dozens of articles, thousands of reviews, monographs. Without setting the task of a comprehensive analysis of the works of Febvre, let us concentrate on his works on mentality. L. Febvre used the expression "historical psychology" (as his student Robert Mandroux did), but we will use the term "mentality" as generally accepted.
One of the first articles of the historian is devoted to the iconography and preaching of Christianity. Studying the thinking of a person in the early modern era, one cannot ignore its religious component. Many features of the Christian worldview passed from the Middle Ages in the Renaissance, as, indeed, to the following eras.
In this article, Febvre examines the religious origins of social life in the 16th-17th centuries. Religion is a deep mental structure for a long time, along with genetic and natural-climatic structures. Long before the emergence and substantiation of theories of structures of long duration and long Middle Ages, Fernand Braudel and Jacques Le Goff, the founder of the history of mentality, Febvre, gives historians the keys to understanding the psychology of European civilization. From the Christian doctrine, including iconography, a thread is stretched to the early modern times.
Starting with dating, following them like buoys in the sea, Febvre talks about the motives for adopting Christianity. What are they? Curiosity, the spread of Christian literature, the desire to make a spiritual career - the historian answers us. Let's add to what has been said - the desire of the Church to replace paganism with Christianity as a new ideology that unites people. This is a complex and separate topic, which has been analyzed in sufficient detail by medieval historians Le Goff, Gurevich, Duby and others.
Febvre approaches the problem of spreading Christianity and the instrument of its expression - icon painting - from the point of view of folk mentality. The analyst's knife reveals the reason for the spread of Christianity: faith in the miraculous and hope for God's help. In conditions of poverty, almost constant hunger, military conflicts, natural disasters, a man of the Middle Ages seeks salvation in faith. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote about this: ... every religion was born out of fear and need and invaded life through delusions of reason.
The spread of religion was facilitated by the persecution of the first Christians, who earned them the fame of martyrs for truth and justice, and the barbaric invasions that almost destroyed the Greco-Roman culture.
By destroying old idols, people created a new - Christian God. Febvre expressed an important point: Christianity was superimposed on the pagan ideas of medieval society. Religion fought against paganism, but instead of victory, a symbiosis of mental attitudes and ways of thinking turned out.
Christianity turned out to be necessary for everyone: the elite as an idea that holds the state together, the people as a powerful antidepressant, the knights as an excuse for the wars of liberation, the clergy for enrichment. It contributed to the centralization of power and the consolidation of society, although at first there were conflicts between royal power and the papal throne.
February calls the V-VIII centuries a period of rapid spread of the Christian faith. The Church uses Latin as a tool to combine different cultures and ethnicities on the ruins of the Roman Empire. There is a Christianization of everything and everyone: villages, cities, social classes.
The Church is in no hurry - it is gradually penetrating the fabric of European civilization, convincing the royal power and the aristocracy of its necessity. The church is biding its time. For centuries, she has been establishing strict rules of living and trying to subjugate the supreme power in every country. Having suffered defeat, the church enters into a contract with the authorities, in which the anointed of God - the king - determines the limits of its power. Nevertheless, the Catholic Church will make attempts to subjugate secular power until the 18th century, until science and agnosticism bury its dreams of world domination.
In the meantime, in the Middle Ages and the New Time, rituals, dogmatics, hagiography serve as tools to avert people from pagan idols and bad habits (alcoholic beverages, entertainment, sexual practices, etc.).
Febvre quotes wonderful words that evoke a smile, even laughter: while the peasants, with their mouths open, are looking at the frescoes and figures of Christ and the saints, discussing them and looking again - the clock is running; all this time they do not think about a feast, about an orgy, about a rough drinking bout.
By the way, the Church at one time hesitated in relation to iconography - we are talking about the period of iconoclasm. First, those who prayed to icons were executed, then, decades later, the former executioners of the first were executed. The suggestibility of the crowd is evident - a phenomenon beautifully shown by the classic of 19th century psychology - Gustave Le Bon.
Analyzing the problem of idolatry, Febvre makes a correct remark - the rare image of God in the form of statues is associated with the fear of the people of the Middle Ages to return to idols. Such a return took place, only instead of idols there appeared the status of Christ, the Virgin Mary, saints, icons. A number of pagan elements - an altar, a candle, a procession of the cross - have survived safely to this day and are popular in backward countries. Christianity successfully borrowed these elements from previous cults.
One of the theses of the article is perplexing: Christians do not deny magic. It should be clarified - they recognize the existence of magic, astrology, palmistry and other mystical practices, but consider it a manifestation of demonic forces. This is natural - the ignorance of people and the fear inspired by religion suppressed intellectual development. Intellectuals — practically all — were clergy. Let us recall at least the Dominicans Galileo Galilei or the Franciscan Roger Bacon.
But back to magic. She, according to medieval Christians, manifested itself in sculpture and architecture. Ominous gargoyles, mythical evil creatures in Gothic cathedrals are a vivid example of the use of art as a tool of visual agitation of Darkness. This is the manifestation of the ancient archetypes of consciousness, its duality: good-evil, light-darkness, friend-foe, etc.
It is worth saying that in later works devoted to the interaction of religion and culture, Febvre, albeit in an implicit form, demonstrated the action of mental attitudes and the struggle of Christianity: the perception of the world by a person of the early modern times through the prism of scientific discoveries and art.
In the works of Febvre, the term "civilization" is often found. The historian in the article Civilization: The History of the Word writes about the usefulness of analyzing historical terms. You can't argue with that - you can't conduct historical research without terminology. Let us note that Mark Blok, a comrade of Fevr's in the shop of historians, preferred the term "society". So what should a historian use to characterize the culture and economy of a community of people - "civilization" or "society"?
Attempts to revise the established definitions have been undertaken by historians, philosophers, linguists, sociologists many times. One of the ways to solve a terminological problem is to substantiate terms in dictionaries. Nowadays, in Europe, USA, Russia and other countries, dictionaries of medieval culture are published. Shining examples are dictionaries edited by Jacques Le Goff in France and Aron Gurevich in Russia.
But, to paraphrase the well-known expression: how many scientists - so many opinions. Each era has its own vision of fundamental problems. Science tends to revise some theories and methods.
This revision was made to the concept of "civilization", which was considered by Febvre from a theoretical and practical point of view.
The use of the term is rooted in the environment of the European Enlightenment. Febvre begins his analysis with the statements of Voltaire, Guizot, Michelet. But you can look in an earlier era and another country - England. Charles Senbosse once correctly noted that the French Enlightenment is based on the idea English philosopher and economists (T. Gobss, J. Locke and others).
The history of the term "civilization" is as dark as a deep well. However, let us ask ourselves a question: is the author of the term so important? Words, like music, painting, architecture, give birth to the people.
It is believed that the term was first used by the economist A. Turgot at the Sorbonne. Later he was picked up by Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu. Febvre earlier works in which "civilization" occurs - "Experiments" by Montaigne and the work of R. Descartes (XVII century). But we can find the basis of this term in the ancient Greek texts - by the verb "civilize" the Greeks understood compliance and tolerance. The new is the well-forgotten old. The Greeks' understanding of civilization as an instrument of compromise and tolerance is amazing. So, the word passed from Greece and Rome to modern times, reborn like a phoenix from the ashes.
As modern marketers would say (for example, Philip Kotler or Yuri Yegorov), the term was promoted by the publication of the Encyclopedia of Diderot and D'Alembert in 1756-1772.
The term gained popularity in the 19th century, when geographers used it to describe countries, comparing European civilization with the backward civilizations of Oceania, Australia, and the New World.
A detailed analysis of "civilization" was carried out by Francois Guizot, having published the books - Civilization of Europe and Civilization of France. Let's highlight the main thing in his work.
Guizot distinguished between the general civilization - the world one, and the private ones, which are characteristic of each nation. These vectors interact overlapping each other. But did they proceed at the same time - Febvre asked Guizot (of course, in absentia). No answer. Note that, probably, the sociologist Arnold Toynbee used the theory of the plurality of civilization, creating his own classification, numbering 21 (!) Civilizations (and the number of civilizations varied throughout the sociologist's work).
Febvre believed that Guizot's use of the word "civilization" in the plural was correct. It should be added that the opponent of February - Mark Blok - preferred the concept of "society". Let us remember this opposition, which we need for further analysis.
Today, from the height of the achievements of historical science, philosophy, sociology, we can confidently assert that there are three civilizations in the world - European, Islamic and Chinese. The rest is numerous variations or modifications. Historian Leonid Vasiliev distinguished between two types of civilizations - European and Eastern civilizations, substantiating this approach to a number of articles and monographs. One - European civilization - is based on humanism, market economy and democratic principles, the second - Eastern - on authoritarianism, planned economy and religion. The third - Chinese civilization - is based on philosophical teachings and the social market economy (Confucianism, Buddhism, Laoism, etc.).
Every civilization includes societies as a set of social classes, social and economic structures, cultural and other elements.
Therefore, Fevre's use of the term "civilization" in relation to the countries of Europe is methodologically incorrect. Mark Blok is right here when he considers the social structures of society and their collective representations. Febvre, on the other hand, is inclined to spread the mentality to all social classes.
At the same time, Lucien Febvre gave us an excellent example of the structural analysis of civilization. This is the article "The main aspects of one civilization." One of the works in the collection "Fights for History" by February.
The choice of the historian fell on the following structures - the city and the countryside, the upper and lower classes of society, education, philosophy and art. It is possible (and necessary) to argue with this approach, because the main elements of any civilization include economics, science, and politics. However, civilizations are so complex and multifaceted that it is difficult to analyze all the elements, especially within the framework of one article. It is worth saying that each era adds more and more new structures, embedding them in civilizations.
But what you definitely cannot argue with is a brilliant analysis of the aspects of civilization, on which the author drew the attention of readers.
Considering the basic forms of solidarity, Lucien Febvre correctly notices the dichotomy and contradiction of the "city-village" link. A city is a cluster, a hub of culture, science, art, economy, innovation. The village is a closed community, conservative, living with the archetypes "friend or foe", "dislike of the new", "faith in miracles", "good or evil", etc.
Febvre compares modern city dwellers to those of the 16th century, arguing that we are almost slaves, making periodic escapes from the city to nature. But are we slaves, in contrast to the free villagers of that era? Yes and no. We are subject to work schedules, traffic congestion, social and political constraints. But the people of the early modern era were dependent primarily on food, a religion that prohibits many practices. Hunger, religious conflicts, wars, epidemics, natural disasters, climate change (a sharp cold snap at the end of the Middle Ages) - all this gave rise to constant fear and horror, as Jean Delumo wrote in his book colorfully.
In modern times, the city and the village converge in a curious synthesis, or rather symbiosis. Bad roads, centers of the same type with a town hall square, private vegetable gardens and orchards in the city limits (a penetrating village!), Cemeteries serving as sources of bad air and a breeding ground for infections, a haven for marginalized people (thieves, bandits, runaway peasants, etc.) - a brief description of cities of modern times. But there is another side to the city. It is a trade, craft, cultural and financial center.
Different cities. From small and poor, of which most are in France, Spain, Germany, to rich cities - the states of Venice, Florence, Ferarre, Milan in Italy. Italy, as the legal successor to the Roman Empire, retained the cities as centers of economic and political life. For this, one had to pay with feudal fragmentation and numerous wars between the families of Sforza, Medici, Urbino ...
The private life of the people. In that era, she little worried about the royal power and the elite, but it was the object of restrictions and prohibitions of the Catholic Church. Febvre reflects on the nutrition and social practices of the villagers. Remarks on the diet, crowding of peasants in the premises, wear-out materials of houses, heating of the historian will later be developed by Mandru, Le Goff, Duby in their works, including those devoted to the history of private life in different historical periods.
Poor food - potatoes, stale bread, occasionally meat or lard - crop failures, underdeveloped agricultural technology and church prohibitions (fasts) made them suffer from hunger and malnutrition, giving rise to disease and deteriorating health. The person of the early modern era in social practices did not differ much from the medieval ancestor: the same fears, the same famine, war, epidemics, hopes for a miracle. People needed stimulants to brighten up the harsh life. They were spices (pepper, ginger, etc.) and alcohol. Consumption was reduced by an expensive price.
What kind of leisure was it? Uncomplicated, given the general illiteracy of the population. In the evenings, in the short hours of rest, the peasants were busy with calculating the budget, playing games (cards or loto), telling fairy tales to children. The literate had a more interesting pastime - at their service church literature (the lives of the saints, the Bible, the Gospel, prayer books, etc.) and chivalry novels (fablio). Wealthy peasants could buy books that were very expensive, given the natural materials, small print runs, a wealth of illustrations and the labor of printers.
In the town more possibilities and entertainment: booths, markets, shops where you can dress in fashion, holidays ...
The man of the early modern era was characterized by insecurity generated by fears of the afterlife and darkness, wars, epidemics. The moral decline of the church and the beginning process of the development of science caused a sharp increase in the Inquisition, with the help of which the Roman throne cruelly dealt with dissidents and heretics. The 16th century is an era of religious conflicts, counter-reformation and the bonfires of the Inquisition, which burned tens of thousands of those who dared to think and question the divine origin of people, miracles, and condemn the vices of the Church, like Martin Luther or Jacques Calvin. However, they were lucky, since the flight to Switzerland, which sheltered heretics, saved the ideologists of the Reformation from execution.
Did uncertainty give birth to an attitude towards life, family, children, home as transitory values? The answer should probably be affirmative. The transience of life, the decay of material wealth reflected the religious thinking of most of society. We are not talking about the elite or the clergy, whose faith caused great doubts among the common people. For the royal power and the aristocracy, faith personified the support of power, the clergy with its help kept the people in fear, cultivating the cult of guilt. Everyone won in this position of society, except for the people.
The 16th century is not only the heyday of obscurantism and the era of wars. The Renaissance or Renaissance - this is how humanists and scientists called it, striving for knowledge and shaping the individual through science and culture. Humanists and intellectuals are a subtle social class, almost invisible in the crowd of townspeople. In the eyes of the city dweller, a scientist is an eccentric, a sorcerer, from whom it is better to stay away. Universities and colleges seemed to be the palaces of celestials, where scholarly disputes about higher matters were conducted. The image of the scientist as a sorcerer and warlock (magician) was greatly facilitated by studies in alchemy and astrology. The light of knowledge illuminated a small part of society. The rest is hidden by the darkness of ignorance and faith.
The invention of printing and the publication of the works of ancient authors, later - N. Copernicus, M. Servet, G. Galileo - was for the society of the early modern times as great an event as for the people of the last century - the invention of the Internet and television.
The West was not an innovator in book printing, which was known long before modern times in the East. The bottom line is that the publication of books - the works of Augustine the Blessed, Occama, Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, Nicholas of Cusa - sparked religious discussions about the cognizability of God and rationalism as an instrument of knowledge. Doubt is the enemy of faith and has been sown by church leaders. There was no paradox in this - literate monks could talk in the quiet of their cells about religious and scientific knowledge. Moreover, many of the highest church hierarchs, including the popes, were engaged in astrology, alchemy, palmistry and other, questionable from the point of view of the Christian faith, "sciences." For example, the works of Pope John XXII (Jacques Duez), containing the theses of the denial of heaven and hell, smacked of the fire of the Inquisition and heresy, as his opponents, the cardinals, said. The Catholic Church is more and more tied up in the mundane: enrichment, the dissolute lifestyle of church leaders, drunkenness and gluttony, an irrepressible thirst for power, pride and vanity. To undermine the foundations of Catholicism did not require heresy or unbelief - the church destroyed itself. Examples of unworthy behavior of God's servants are vividly described in the literature, including the novels of Maurice Druon.
Reformation. The word that sounded on the lips of supporters and opponents of the Roman Church for two centuries - the XVI and XVII centuries. Alternative theses of Luther and Zwingli, science and art, revived on the wave of a return to ancient cultural values - the beginning of the Reformation process. Its roots are in Platonism and heresies that flourished in the Middle Ages, despite the fierce struggle against them by the church and royalty.
Typography goes hand in hand with capitalism. This term has not yet taken root in the lexicon of the bourgeois ... but its spirit is in the air. The third estate, the mantle nobility and the bourgeoisie (it can be called proto-bourgeoisie), are fragmented: officials faithfully serve the sovereigns of Europe, the bourgeoisie is inclined to support royal power, while demanding economic freedoms.
Typography is far from the minds of the common people ... it will take centuries for a satirical and political literature(pamphlets, satirical novels, manifestos, etc.) penetrated the mentality of the people, predetermining the French Revolution.
Books are the main treasure of itinerant teachers. Monks and scientists, humanists and just literate people brought knowledge and word to society, which was beginning to free itself from the shackles of dogmatism and church prohibitions. The main place in life and the Universe is returned to the person. From now on, it will be an object of science and culture.
The attack on medieval religious consciousness and thinking is led from all sides - poetry, painting, architecture, the science of humanist scientists breaks mental attitudes. The laughter of the people of the early modern era, caused by the satire of Erasmus of Rotterdam and Sebastian Brant, destroys a mentality better than the heresies or sins of the papacy.
Lucien Febvre noted an incredible thirst for knowledge and science. She was not stopped by linguistic barriers (the dominant Latin and numerous dialects in the countries Western Europe), nor the terrible regime of study (punishment with rods, heavy scholasticism, disunity of scientific schools, etc.).
The inquisitive mind of Febvre sees a danger for the conservative part of society in the stormy study of ancient culture. “These people were so greedy for book knowledge, so serious, convinced, did they not fall into a slavish and thoughtless adoration of the ancients, great and not so great, compilers and creators (our italics. - OA)? - the historian asks. In his opinion, salvation was in the flexibility of the mind of a modern man, in his connection with nature.
It was the interest in nature and antiquity that helped people to wash away the layers of superstition, Febvre is convinced. This thesis is disputed by many, from Jacques Le Goff to modern anthropologists and historians. Superstitions as mental attitudes are stable and exist for a long time. Perhaps they will never disappear from the genetic memory of civilizations. Intertwining with modern scientific thinking, they form a symbiosis of images. Such is the fusion of astronomy and astrology, which have not been separated from each other for centuries. Astrology lives on in modern societies, as a rule, intellectually and culturally backward.
February, considering the Renaissance, touches on Art, reflecting the philosophy and beauty of man. Individualization of the impersonal Man of the Middle Ages. Interest in the body, proportions, beauty and ugliness found a second wind in Raphael, Titian, Da Vinci, Michelangelo and other artists. One cannot but cite the wonderful words of Lucien Febvre: “soon a new classical art rises on the ruins of the Gothic - in the Louvre, the Tuileries ... Italian art, penetrating European countries, became the connecting thread. Refracting in folk characters - Dutch severity and rationalism, French frivolity, English prudence and stiffness - painting, sculpture, architecture began their march, winning the hearts and minds of the people of the early modern era. Emile Malle, theorist and art historian, emphasized his trait - humanity.
The arts and sciences needed financial help. And she came from the proto-bourgeoisie. The bourgeois created their own cultural world, not wanting to lag behind the aristocracy and clergy.
The atmosphere of the Renaissance, religious conflicts, geographical discoveries, economic crises, shaking European civilization, hide God in a thick fog. The victory of reason over faith? No, it's very far from her. Even scientists like Nicolaus Copernicus or René Descartes had superstitions and believed in miracles, let alone the rest of society.
Humanists are helped by the bourgeoisie, often incognito, fearing persecution by the church and the state. The Reformation creates a split in society, giving rise to Protestantism. It was destined to become a prerequisite for industrial and political revolutions in England and the Netherlands, and a factor behind other European countries that preferred the dogma of Catholicism and religious intolerance. For the societies of the early modern period, there are jerks and kickbacks associated with the incredible vitality of religious and pagan attitudes of thought. Acceptance and cancellation of the Edict of Nantes: there is a hundred years between them, but for structures of a long time (mentality, natural environment, climate, etc.) it is like one day.
It will be three centuries before the advocates of entrepreneurship and free choice - Adam Smith, Max Weber and others - will finally assert the priority of the bourgeoisie in society.
In the meantime, Art and Science are binary: ancient art in Italy and harsh realism in the Netherlands, astronomy and astrology, medicine and alchemy.
Reformation and Counter-Reformation
The eternal struggle between the old and the new. People who are ahead of their time suffer and almost always die misunderstood. Society clings to old idols and is ready to die for them, as F. Nietzsche wrote.
The historical wind of Protestantism swept over Europe, stirring societies with the theses of Martin Luther (1517). Luther sparked the flame of religious renewal that swept through the 16th century. Striving for the purity of faith and the purification of the Roman Church steeped in lawlessness and sins, Luther and Zwingli intensified the doubts of intellectuals about the need for the Church as a social and spiritual institution.
Martin Luther, this ascetic monk, was outraged by the sale of indulgences that wrote off not yet committed sins. The church sacrament of confession and communion is profaned. Rome remained deaf to the voice of the Protestants, and then Luther announced a campaign against the Church. At first, the church, which did not attach much importance to the doctrine of Luther, recovers and excommunicates him in 1520. At the same time, Emperor Charles V declares Luther a heretic. The fanatic's teaching causes him to fall on the fertile soil of Germany, through which he fled to Geneva, which became a stronghold of the Lutherans, and later the Calvinists.
Protestants criticize Christian teaching, denying the meaning of rituals and symbols. In their opinion, the mediation of the church as a mediator between God and society is needed for the mass enslavement of the popular consciousness. The elites, on the other hand, used faith as a tool in politics, achieving material goals. The bourgeoisie also took advantage of Luther's teaching, declaring the oppression of the church.
Religious doctrines and alternative theses of Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Lefebvre clash in European civilization like a bullfighter and a bull in a bullfight. It is not so important for the historian of culture, where the Reformation originated, and whether Luther was a follower of the theologian Lefebvre, as Febvre believes, citing many proofs of the correctness of the words.
The point is different - the Reformation was perceived by a part of the creative society, so to speak, as an excuse to defend their economic rights. This is how the bourgeoisie understood the significance of Luther's theses.
The conservative majority - the peasantry - saw in the Reformation calls to return to the purity and severity of faith, to cleanse the Church from sins. The influence of Lutheranism and Calvinism on the lower strata of the population was not as strong as the clergy or the bourgeois. For what could the semi-literate and ignorant rural priests and servants teach their flock? A couple of simple prayers and a few rituals. The rural population remained largely pagan, although they tried to hide it from the ubiquitous monks-inquisitors. Any freethinking or interpretation of the Holy Scriptures could turn into misfortune for a villager.
The Catholic Church took up the challenge, declaring a campaign against the heretics. The Counter-Reformation manifested itself in various forms, from the holding of councils, prescribing the fulfillment of dogmas, to the strengthening of the Inquisition.
Here the Jesuit order entered the stage of history, becoming the sword of the papacy in the struggle against the Reformation. The Jesuits made a "knight's move", taking on the education of the children of the nobility, seeking to oppose Catholic education to Lutheranism and secular scientific education. Has the attempt to mimic religion for science succeeded? In part, because the control of the Church over the education of the nobility delayed the triumph of science.
The scope of the Jesuits is amazing: the formation of hundreds of educational institutions (colleges) throughout Europe. But the action provokes a backlash, and Protestant schools soon open. The Catholic faith relied on the power of the Roman Church and the Inquisition, partly on royal power, the Protestant faith on the bourgeoisie and humanists.
However, Jesuit philosophy, with its penchant for cunning and compromise, lurked the danger of instilling skepticism among the pupils of the Order of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Suffice it to mention the well-known names of the graduates of the Jesuit schools - Galileo and Descartes, Voltaire and Diderot.
This was, according to the philosopher Richard Tarnas, the greatest influence of the Reformation on the process of secularization of the church. At first, the medieval model of Christianity split into two parts (Catholicism and Protestantism - OA), then split into many parts (sects, Lutheran trends, etc.).
The situation was different among intellectuals (litterati, as they were called in the Middle Ages). We see a struggle between two trends - Occamism and the teachings of Thomas Aquinas.
Critical scholasticism - Occamism - originated as the teachings of the English priest and philosopher William of Occam (1285-1347), a proponent of nominalism and the individual. He offered rational knowledge and contemplation of personality. Occam's philosophy heralded the emergence of intellectual pluralism in medieval thought; later his ideas in France would be developed by the French thinkers Jean Buridan (c. 1300-1358) and Peter d'Ailly (1350-1425). The Reformation, the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution will rely on Occam's individualism.
From medieval scholasticism at the end of the 15th century, a transition was made to classical humanism. A decisive moment in the history of Western culture was in F. Petrarch's proclamation of the Middle Ages as an era of decline in greatness, a decline in the level of literary skill and moral perfection. The term “ dark ages", Which has taken root in scientific and fiction literature for a long time.
Petrarch contrasted the decadent Middle Ages with the Greco-Roman civilization (golden age), the work of Virgil, Cicero, Homer and Plato.
The fall of Constantinople in 1453 was another factor in the spread Greek culture in the Western European universe. Humanists rediscovered Plato, freeing themselves from Christian views. They viewed their era as a time of rebirth after the barbaric ignorance and darkness of the Middle Ages. The Church, which did not prohibit the study of Greek philosophers - Aristotle, Plotinus, Socrates, Plato - itself brought up a galaxy of figures who undermine the spiritual foundation of the Roman throne.
In 1486, Pico della Mirandola's treatise "Speech on the Dignity of Man" was published, proclaiming Man as a divine value. In the second half of the 15th century, the Platonic Academy was founded in Florence, patronized by the Duke Cosimo Medici, and headed by the humanist Marsilio Ficino. So Italy became the hotbed of the Renaissance! Throughout Europe there was a spirit of free thought; Western thinking was going through a painful breakdown of the opening of reason to science and art. A new culture was ripening within the European civilization, ready to get rid of the old attitudes of thinking, to change the mentality of society.
Developing Approaches to the History of Mentality: Febvre on François Rabelais and the Problem of Unbelief in the 16th Century
Perhaps the book by Lucien Febvre, dedicated to the origins of atheism in early modern times, can be called the main work. Of course, for a writer, historian, any creative person, each of his "offspring" is important and valuable. At the same time, Febvre presented his observations and views on the mentality of Man and the Civilization of the New Time in the mentioned book.
Aron Gurevich correctly noted that the main thing in the book of Febvre is not François Rabelais and disbelief, but the lessons that the master taught future cultural historians and anthropologists.
The main lesson of February is a warning against the transfer of our ideas, attitudes of consciousness to past eras. It is tempting to think that humanity has changed little over the past centuries, and modern people overwhelmed by the same passions and feelings, ideas, as the people of the Middle Ages and Modern times.
February's book about François Rabelais is an attempt to understand the worldview of man in the early modern times, changing under the influence of the Reformation, humanism, science, and geographical discoveries. Febvre speaks of the awakening of individuality at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries, which was suppressed by Christian thinking.
But did the individualism of humanists and scientists extend to all social classes? Of course not. Febvre writes about intellectuals, the bourgeoisie, that is, people with a certain level of education and partially free from religious dogmas. Studying their way of thinking and behavioral attitudes allows you to break through to the depths of mentality.
Research is necessary for such an understanding. social structures and practitioner, the spiritual life of a person. Symbols, rituals, customs of society will give a hint. Thus, pilgrimages are gradually transformed into travels for the sake of understanding the world and scientific goals, and art loses its purely religious function, and turns to Man, his needs, fears, hopes. Painting, architecture, sculpture - these are "dumb" things that need to be talked about.
Aron Gurevich rightly notes that in order to understand the worldview of people in the early modern era, one needs to get acquainted with their way of thinking and attitudes of consciousness. Here, individual consciousness stands out from the collective consciousness. Vivid examples are Martin Luther or Nicolaus Copernicus. The presence of spiritual education and acquaintance with philosophy allowed them to doubt the fidelity of the decisions and rituals made by the Church. Doubt and criticism are the tools borrowed by Dominican and Franciscan monks, future astronomers, mathematicians, physicists, doctors, humanists.
Lucien Febvre writes about atheism, which took root in the consciousness of modern society. We know what influenced the emergence of the germs of unbelief - the drop in trust in the Church due to her enrichment and unrighteous way of life, scientific discoveries, geographical travel, which broke the myths about the structure of the Earth, satire of humanists, scourging the vices of society.
Let us emphasize that mental changes affected a small part of society, mainly the elite and clergy. Most of the people of the 16th and 17th centuries continued to live with a religious mindset, were ignorant, and did not accept innovation well. Moreover, the society was aggressive - remember the outbursts of violence in the form of witch hunts or Huguenot heretics.
Innovations in society spread very slowly, with great difficulty breaking the old Christian mentality. Febvre's work on Rabelais showed the role of cultural diffusion: new ideas and views, formulated by the intellectual elite, spread across social strata, descending from the top to the bottom of society. Later, Georges Duby confirmed this hypothesis with his works on medieval society.
The book by François Rabelais: the problem of unbelief ..., for all its merits, suffers from undoubted drawbacks: it speaks only about the evolution of unbelief in man and society in the early modern era. This one-sided approach obscures the emotions that dominate the human mind: laughter and fear. They are companions, marching through the centuries, intertwining in bizarre shapes. After all, laughter can be nervous, out of fear. Likewise, fear can be conquered by laughter.
In this regard, interest was aroused by the work of another intellectual, the philologist Mikhail Bakhtin, dedicated to the culture of laughter in the Middle Ages and early modern times. In Soviet times, the appearance of such a book, which made a revolution in historical science, caused heated debates among humanitarians, who split the community of historians into supporters and opponents of Bakhtin's theory.
Mikhail Bakhtin, creating his masterpiece in Saransk exile, follows the tradition of Lucien Fevr, who dreamed of a history of emotions: laughter, fear, joy. But the cardinal difference between Bakhtin and February is that he is a Russian philologist who turns to folk culture. In this he is close to Mark Blok, who explored the medieval mentality of the peasants in the Wonderworking Kings and the Feudal Society.
As Bakhtin believed, the laughable, "carnival" culture of the people opposed the official culture of the church. Laughter confronted guilt, inhibitions, and fear. Folk carnivals were periods of liberation of the people's thinking from the colossal oppression of church rules and dogmas that cultivated fear and guilt in a person as a ball of sins.
Each epoch chooses its own objects of laughter, its "heroes" of satire. In early modern times, humanists mocked the life and order of the Catholic Church, the highest nobility and the bourgeoisie. Undoubtedly, commoners laughed at the vices of the clergy - the laziness of monks, their gluttony, vanity and pride of church bishops and popes. However, their illiteracy did not preserve printed samples of folk satire. Indirectly, the thinking of the people was described by humanists such as Erasmus of Rotterdam or Sebastian Brant in satirical works.
February's book introduces the reader to the world of mentality, "sensitive and thoughtful tools", albeit from a one-sided point of view. It is necessary to take into account the influence of the environment, social classes on the ideologists of the new mentality of the early modern period. The people sent a kind of impulses, fears, hopes captured by humanist scientists.
An important property of mentality is a combination of various features, often paradoxical. So, scientists could know astronomy, be a first-class doctor, and at the same time believe in palmistry, miracles, outlandish animals, look for a philosopher's stone or a recipe for immortality. Scientists of subsequent eras were not devoid of superstition and prejudice.
Here are some examples. Francis Bacon believed that witches ruin crops; Johannes Kepler, the great astronomer and mathematician, was convinced that the craters on the moon were dug by local residents; Nicolaus Copernicus did not doubt the presence of the "crystal spheres of the sky" described by Ptolemy. Examples can be multiplied and multiplied. It will take a long time before scientists clear their thinking of medieval prejudices. As for the society, most of it still believes in astrologers and palmists.
Trying to find out the reasons for the perception of the world, Lucien Fevre in his works relies on the works of L. Levy-Bruhl, including "Primitive thinking". Levy-Bruhl analyzed the archaism of consciousness in the primitive societies of Asia and Africa. A dichotomy reigned there, replacing individual ideas with collective unconscious and mass thinking. Febvre's contemporaries, psychologists Charles Blondel and Henri Vallon saw a similarity between primitive ideas and children's perception of the world.
But if everything was clear with the ideas of savages and children, then the mentality of the people of the early modern times was different. Very slowly, new scientific ideas and cultural values, revived by humanists who studied Greek philosophy, begin to penetrate into their worldview.
It should be borne in mind that medieval people were not just superstitious or "underdeveloped". Christian teaching was the way of their thinking, consolidating attitudes and behavioral stereotypes. This simple idea was not accepted by the predecessors of Mark Blok and Lucien Febvre. Aron Gurevich wrote that the founders of the Annales School for the first time clearly saw the fallacy of putting modern ideas into the heads of people of past eras, and rebelled against it. The concept of "mentality", for all its vagueness and uncertainty, expressed the heightened historicism of the thinking of Febvre and Blok, historicism, extended to the most difficult sphere to study - the sphere of emotions and worldview.
The work of Lucien Febvre is not limited to those works that are analyzed in this book. Moreover, they can find different approaches to the study of the psychology and culture of people and society. Nevertheless, the main service of February to the world historical science should be emphasized. This is the development of approaches and themes of the history of mentality. Mentality, as well as the natural and climatic environment, are deep structures for a long time, layers of the lowest level of thinking and consciousness, as well as the unconscious. Mental representations change social and economic structures, giving rise to events and facts. However, it would be wrong to resort to simplifying this theory, reducing everything to a base and a superstructure, as the Marxists liked to do and do. The difficulty is that the structures intertwine, "float" over each other. Indeed, what gave rise to the development of the bourgeoisie as a social class - the Reformation or the geographical discoveries that gave markets and resources in other countries? Economic crises give rise to new ideas and values, or vice versa? These are ambiguous and multi-layered things. Lucien Fevre tried to answer them, using psychology, linguistics, geography to help History. He did it.
Lucien Febvre left us not only a rich legacy in the form of books and articles, reviews and lectures on history. He outlined a program for future historical research, a program for total history. The paradox of Febvre's legacy was the methodological split of the Annals Movement in the 1950s and 1960s, initiated by the maestro's pupil, on whom Febvre had high hopes - Fernand Braudel. He created his own total history, calling it global economic history. In this brilliant and interesting concept, there was no place for the main participant in History - Man.
The scientific value and attractiveness of L. Febvre's theory of mentality were so high that they broke through the political obstacles between the West and the USSR. In the early 1970s, Soviet historian Aron Gurevich, unknown to anyone in France, literally blows up the cultural world of Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Italy and other European countries, where his book "Categories of Medieval Culture" (1974) is published. The outstanding medievalist Jacques Le Goff, having read the book with great interest, will contribute to the publication of two articles by Gurevich on the famous "blue" pages of the "Annals" magazine. Although a number of representatives of the Annals were characterized by snobbery (for example, J. Duby expressed skepticism about some provisions of Gurevich's book, and F. Braudel "did not notice" it), in general, the book was considered a breakthrough in the history of mentality and medieval culture.
Later, in the 1980s, Aron Gurevich will write prefaces to Russian publications of books by historians of mentality - Lucien Fevr and Jacques Le Goff.
More than sixty years have passed since the death of Febvre, the world has changed, historical science has gone ahead, capturing more and more new objects of research from the related humanities. But the basic provisions and views of Febvre remain and will remain relevant, both for scholars in the humanities and for everyone who is interested in the evolution of historical consciousness, thinking, the nature of mental archetypes.
Literature
1. Gurevich A.Ya. Historical synthesis and the "Annals" school. - M., Center for Humanitarian Initiatives, 2014.
2. J. Huizinga. Autumn of the Middle Ages
3. Febvre L. Philippe II et la Franche-Conte, etude d "histoire politique, religieuse et sociale. Paris. 1911.
4. Fevbre L. Un destin, Martin Luther. Paris. 1928.
5. Fevbre L. Autour de l "Heptameron, amour profane, amour sacre. Paris. 1944.
6. Fevbre L. Le probleme de l "incroyance au XVIe siecle. La religion de Rabelais. Paris. 1944.
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- (Febvre) (1878 1956), French historian. Works on the problems of the Renaissance (mainly the 16th century), the methodology of history, in which he set the task of studying society (civilization) as an integral system, including public consciousness and ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary
Lucien Febvre (fr. Lucien Febvre; July 22, 1878 September 11, 1956) is a famous French historian. Born in Nancy in the family of a university professor of philology. Graduated from the Higher Normal School in Paris, professor at the Universities of Dijon (1911 1914), ... ... Wikipedia
Febvre Lucien (22.7.1878, Nancy, √ 27.9.1956, Saint Amour), French historian. Member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences (1951). Professor at the Universities of Dijon (1912-1914), Strasbourg (1919-1933), College de France (since 1933). Since 1948 he headed in ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Febvre, Lucien- FEBRE (Febvre) Lucien (1878 1956), French historian. Works on the problems of the Renaissance (mainly the 16th century), the methodology of history, in which he set the task of studying society (civilization) as an integral system, including public consciousness ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary
Febvre, Lucien- (1878 1956) famous fr. historian. Born in Nancy in the family of a university professor of philology. Graduated from the Higher Normal School in Paris, professor of high fur boots in Dijon (1911 1914), Strasbourg (1919 1933), College de France (since 1933) in Paris. V… … The Medieval World in Terms, Names and Titles - (1878 1956) French historian. Works on the methodology of history, on the problems of the Renaissance (mainly the 16th century), etc. Together with M. Blok founded (1929) the journal Annale ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
- (Febvre) Lucien (1878 1956), French historian. Works on the problems of the Renaissance (mainly the 16th century), the methodology of history, in which he set the tasks of studying society (civilization) as an integral system, including public consciousness and ... ... Modern encyclopedia
n1.doc
Lucien Febvre
CIVILIZATION:
EVOLUTION OF A WORD AND A GROUP OF IDEAS
Trace the history of a word - such work is never in vain. Whether this journey is short or long, monotonous, full of adventure, it is instructive in any case. It is possible, however, to count in the vast lexicon of culture a dozen terms, no more, rather less, whose past should be studied not just by an erudite scientist, but by a historian - yes, a historian in the full sense of the word. These terms, the meaning of which, more or less roughly outlined by dictionaries, continues to evolve as the humanities develop, appear before us enriched, so to speak, by the entire history through which they have passed. These terms alone are enough to trace and accurately measure (with some delay, because language is not a quick means of registering) the transformation of a group of fundamental concepts; a person likes to consider them unshakable, since their inviolability, as it were, guarantees him confidence and safety 1 *. To recreate the history of the French word "civilization" in fact means to reconstruct the stages of the deepest revolution that French thought has made and passed through from the second half of the 18th century to our time. And thus to grasp with a glance - from a special point of view - history, the interest and significance of which are not limited to the borders of one state. Even a brief preliminary sketch of this revolution, which is given below, made it possible, perhaps, to more accurately date its stages. In any case, he will once again show the following: the rhythm of the waves shaking our society, what ultimately determines this rhythm establishes it - this is not the progress of any particular science and thoughts circulating in the same area - this is progress all disciplines, all knowledge that help each other.
1 * Let us note in parentheses that not a single venerable historian advised, not a single young historian came with his mind to the idea of dedicating an in-depth study to the history of any of these words - say, a doctoral dissertation. This perfectly depicts the state of not material, but spiritual disorganization, in which research on modern history still remains. There are similar monographs in the field ancient history and we know how useful and instructive they are. It is clear that writing such monographs is not easy - this requires historians with a great philosophical culture: aves eider [rare birds]. There are, however, such; and if not, then care must be taken to educate them.
Let's clearly outline the problem. A few months ago, the Sorbonne defended a dissertation. It dealt with the Tupi Guarani civilization. These tupi-guarani. tribes of South America, fully correspond to what our fathers called the word "savages". However, the idea of civilizations of uncivilized tribes has long been common. Without much surprise, we would have learned that an archaeologist (if archeology had supplied him with such materials) began to talk about the Hunnic civilization - the very Huns we were taught about recently that they were the "scourge of civilization." Meanwhile, our newspapers and magazines and we ourselves do not stop repeating about the successes, conquests and benefits of civilization. Now with conviction, now with irony, at times - with bitterness. But one way or another we speak. What does this indicate, if not that one and the same word serves to designate two different concepts? In the first case, the word "civilization" means for us simply the totality of properties and features that the collective life of a human group reveals to the observer: material, intellectual, moral, political life and (what could replace this unfortunate expression?) - social life. This is what it was proposed to call the “ethnographic concept of civilization” 2 *. On the one hand, it does not contain any value judgment - neither about individual facts, nor even about the totality of the studied data. On the other hand, he does not deal with individual individuals taken by themselves, with their individual reactions, with their behavior and actions. It belongs primarily to the category of "collective".
In the second case, when we talk about success or decline, about the greatness and weaknesses of civilization, we, of course, resort to evaluative judgments. We proceed from the premise that the civilization in question - our civilization - is something great and beautiful, as well as something more noble and more comfortable, better both morally and materially than something that is not civilization , - rather than savagery, barbarism or semi-civilization. We are, of course, confident that this civilization, of which we are participants and bearers, parasites and propagandists, gives us all value, prestige, and high dignity. For it is a collective good enjoyed by civilized societies. But it is also a personal privilege, and everyone proudly declares himself to be its owner.
So, in our language, which has a reputation for being clear and logical, the same word means two very different concepts. almost opposite. How did it come about? How and to what extent can the history of the word itself help in explaining this riddle?
The word "civilization" has appeared in the language recently. André Lune Madziii writes on the first page of his book "About Italy, its relation to freedom and modern civilization": "This word appeared in France, it was created by French thought of the last century." Mazzini anticipates a letter from Nietzsche to Strindberg, who in 1838 expressed regret that he was not German: “There is no other civilization than French. There is nothing to argue against this; it is the truth itself, and it is absolutely true ”3 *. Similar statements, as we will see below. pose, but do not resolve one rather important question. In any case, one thing remains indisputable: the word "civilization" (civilization) was invented on purpose and entered the language recently.
Who pronounced it first, or at least - who printed it first? We do not know this. Such recognition will surprise no one. We have a very poor toolbox - let's be honest, we are not at all equipped to study the history of words that have recently appeared in our language. We have nothing but a series of "Dictionaries of the French Academy" (1694, 1718, 1740, 1762, 1798, 1835, 1878) and the classical collections - from Fueretier through the Encyclopedia to Littre, supplementing the fundamental editions mentioned above; except - in what refers to the 18th century - a few works, efficient, but short and too general, such as Goen's study "Changes in the French language from 1710 to 1789" (1903) or Max Frey's work "Changes in the French vocabulary in the era of the Revolution 1789-1800 "(1925). And if I call these works too general, it is only because the facts force us to do so: we are very much lacking two dozen dictionaries of the language of individual authors: the language of Montesquieu, Voltaire, Turgot, Rousseau, Condorcet and others - and only such works would allow us to write one of the most remarkable and recent chapters of that general history of French thought, reflected in language, the importance and fruitfulness of which M. French».
Anyone who intends to deal with the history of the word that appeared in the 18th century is forced to search, probe blindly, wander the endless sea of literature, having no indexes or lexical codes at his disposal that could help him. And for the sake of the result, which is not yet known whether it will be achieved, many hours of work are wasted. As for me, after spending a lot of time reading books, as closely as possible according to the topic, I did not find the word "civilization" in French texts printed earlier than 1766.
I know that the appearance of this neologism is usually attributed to earlier times, to the speeches of the young Turgot at the Sorbonne. Gohen's work gives the date of birth of the word "civilization" "about 1752" and gives a reference - "Turgot II, 674" 4 *. Obviously, this does not mean the publication of Schell - it is only one and authoritative - but the publication of Der and Dussard, two volumes of which, printed after the publication of Dupont de Nemour, appeared in the "Collected Works of Prominent Economists" in 1844. This edition published, or rather, reprinted, in the second volume (p. 671) “Thoughts and fragments that were put on paper in order to use them in any of the three works on general history, or On the success and decline of sciences and arts ". On page 674 you can read: "At the beginning of civilization, success" can be, and especially seem to be fast. " Unfortunately, the word "civilization", in all likelihood, does not belong to Turgot, but to Dupont de Nemour, who could have used it in a completely natural way, publishing much later the works of his teacher 5 *. This word cannot be found in the text reproduced by Mr. Schell directly from the manuscripts 6 *. We do not find the word "civilization" in the speeches of 1750, nor in the letter of 1751 to Madame de Graffigny about the Letters of a Peruvian woman, nor in the article "Etymology" in the Encyclopedia (1756). In all these works 7 * the meaning often requires, in our opinion, the very word that the prior of the Sorbonne 1 allegedly ventured into in 1750; however, he never uses it; he does not even use the verb "civilize" (civiliser), the participle "civilized" (civilize), which were already in use. He sticks to the words "police" and "police" - in short, it turns out that for the only time in his life he wrote on paper a word that he never used again and, we add, which none of his contemporaries dared after more than ten years after that: neither Rousseau in his "Discourse", which won an award in 1750 in Dijon, nor Duclos in his "Reflections on the customs of our century" (1751), nor Helvetia in his book "On the mind"; we will not lengthen the list.
So, only in 1766 we find the word of interest to us in printed form. This year in Amsterdam, Ray published in two different editions (one was in-quarto, the other - three volumes in-12 °) "Antiquity, exposed in its customs" by the recently deceased Mr. Boulanger. In the third volume of the in-12 edition we read: “When a wild people becomes civilized, in no case should the act of civilization be considered complete after the people have been given clear and indisputable laws: it is necessary that they treat the legislation given to them as a continuing civilization " eight* . This original and very apt expression is in italics. Antiquity was published posthumously: the author died in 1759. Thus, the word could be dated at the latest this year - if we did not know that there was a person who supplemented, if not revised the manuscript of the late engineer of bridges and roads Boulanger, so that it would see the light of day. And this man was the great creator of neologisms in the face of eternity, Baron de Holbach, who wrote, for example, in 1773 in his "System of Society": "A man is electrified in society," and this is two years after the publication of "History electricity "Priestley 9 *. And here is what an amazing circumstance: de Holbach uses the word "civilization" in his "System of Society" 10 *. And Boulanger never, not once, except for the phrase quoted above. I have carefully read "Investigation of the Origin of Oriental Despotism", posthumously published in 1761 by "Mr. V. I. D. R. E. S." *; the word "civilized" is quite rare there; "Civilization" never met; usually police and police. The example given above seems to be the only one in the literary heritage of Boulanger, but not in the heritage of de Holbach. One way or another, the fact is obvious. Before us is one instance of the use of the word, dated 1766. I do not claim that he is the first, and I express my wish that other, more successful seekers took away laurels (however, rather modest ones) from Boulanger or de Holbach.
The word did not go unnoticed. Between 1765 and 1775, it acquired the rights of citizenship. In 1767, Abbot Baudot, in turn, uses it in the "Citizen's Calendar" 11 * and argues that "the right to land ownership is a very important step towards the most perfect civilization." Somewhat later, in 1771, he again returns to this word in his "First Introduction to Economic Philosophy, or Analysis of States Into Cultural" 12 *. His example is followed by Reinal in "The Philosophical and Political History of the Administration and Trade of Europeans in Both Indies", in book XIX of this work he uses the new word many times 13 *. Diderot, in turn, dared to use it in 1773-1774 in the "Systematic refutation of the book of Helvetius" On Man "". 14 * However, this word is not found everywhere. historical epochs "- the first volume of this work was published in Amsterdam in 1772 - brother Jean de Chastellu writes a lot about" police ", but, it seems, never about" civilization "15 * Buffon, a purist author, although he uses the verb and participle seems to ignore the noun in his "The Epochs of Nature" (1774-1779). The same - Antoine Yves Goguet in the book "On the origin of laws, arts and sciences and their development among ancient peoples" (1778) - in the book, where one could hope to find this word. In contrast, Demenier in The Spirit of the Morals and Customs of Different Nations (1776) speaks of the “successes of civilization.” 16 * Little by little, the word became not so
rare. With the revolution approaching, the word "civilization" is celebrating victory 17 *. And in 1798 it first makes its way into the "Dictionary of the Academy", which until then ignored this word, just as the "Encyclopedia" and even the "Methodical Encyclopedia" ignored it 18 *. Only the Trevu Dictionary gave it a place, but only in order to ascribe to the word the old judicial meaning: “Civilization,” a legal term. Judgment, which transfers criminal proceedings into the category of civil proceedings ”19 *.
This is how, during the time from 1765 to 1798, the term, which we now cannot do without, was born, strengthened and won recognition in France. However, one problem arises here, it, in turn, can be solved only with the help of a lucky chance.
If you open the second volume " English vocabulary"Murray, if you look for history in him english word, which, apart from one letter, is an exact tracing of the French word "civilization", you will find a remarkable quote from Boswell 20 *. He tells how, on March 23, 1772, he went to the old man Johnson, who was working on the fourth edition of his dictionary. I quote his words in translation: "Jones does not want to put the word" civilization ", but only" civilization. " And although I really respect his opinion, I thought that the word "civilization", which comes from "civilize", better than "civilization" conveys a meaning opposite to "barbarism." how many intellectual ties were there between the English and French intellectual elite; therefore, one cannot help but ask oneself the question: was there borrowing, but who borrowed from whom?
Murray does not carry any texts earlier than the passage from Boswell, where the word "civilization" would have meant "culture." This text is from 1772; Boulanger's text 1766, no later than: five years difference. That's not a lot. There is, however, a text that seems to confirm that the French word came before the English one. In 1771, a French translation of Robertson's History of the Reign of Emperor Capla V 21 * was published in Amsterdam. Naturally, I became interested in this work, which could somehow help in solving the problem of the origin of the word "civilization". And so in the Introduction (p. 23) I read the following phrase: “It is necessary to follow the rapid steps that they (the northern peoples - L.F.) took from barbarism to civilization” - and a little further I came across another phrase, namely : "The most vicious state of human society is when people have lost ... the simplicity of primitive morals and have not reached such a stage of civilization when feelings of justice and decency serve as a bridle for wild and cruel passions." Then I turned to the English text, to "A View of Social Development in Europe", which opens this so famous book. In both cases, the word that the French translator has translated as “civilization” is not “civilization”, but “refinement”.
This fact is significant. He certainly belittles the role that could be attributed to the Scots in the introduction to everyday life, in the introduction of a new word. In France, of course, it can be found in translations, for example, in Notes on the Principles of Social Structure by Professor J. Millar from Glasgow 22 *. And Grimm, announcing the publication of this book in his Correspondence litteraire (November 1773), takes the opportunity to use the word "civilization" 23 *. However, in those days there was nothing extraordinary in this. This word, of course, occurs in Robertson's History of America 24 *; but the book is dated 1790. Finally, of course, we find it in the translation of Adam Smith's "Research on the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations"; the translation was made by Rouchet and provided with comments by Condorcet 25 *. It came out in 1790. These are examples chosen from many others. They do not allow us to conclude that the word came to France from Scotland or England. Pending new information, Robertson's text rules out such a hypothesis.
2 * Niceforo A. Les indices numeriques de la civilization et du progres. P., 1921.
3 * Cit. Quo: Counson, A. Qu "est ce qne la civilization? Bruxelles. 1923. Idem. La civilization, action de la science sur la loi. P., 1929. P. 18? .. 188, not.
4 * Cit. Quo: Counson A. Qu "est ce que la civilization? P. 11.
5 * As Monsieur Schelle has reliably established, for Dupont de Nemour this was a common thing: he was very free to handle Turgot's texts.
6 * The word "civilization" appears, however, in the first volume of
Turgot (Targot A. R. 1. Oeuvres et documents le concentrant / Ed. G. Shell.
P., 1913), but only in the summary, preceded by the "Philosophical picture of the successive successes of the human mind." This summary was written by Mr. Schell.
7 * All collected in the first volume of the Writings of Turgot.
8 * Boulanger N. A. L "Antiquite devoilee par ses usages. Amsterdam, 1766. Liv. 6, ch. 11. P. 404-405.
9 * Holbach P. H. de. Systeme social. Vol. 1-3. L., 1773. Vol. 1, ch. 16. P. 204; Pristley 1. Histoire de l "electricite. P. 1771.
10 * “The complete civilization of peoples and the leaders who govern them ... can only be the result of the work of centuries” (Holbach P. H. de. Systeme social. Vol. 1, ch. 16. P. 210). In this work, the words "civilize", "civilized" are used constantly, just as in the "System of Nature" (1770), where I did not find the word "civilization".
* The abbreviation stands for Boulanger, ingenieur des ponts et chaussees - Boulanger, engineer of bridges and roads.
11 * Baudeau L. Ephemerides du citoyen. P., 1767. P. 82.
12 * "In the state in which the civilization of Europe is now" (Baudeau L. Premiere introduction a la Philosophie economique, ou Analyse des Etats polices. P., 1771. Ch. 6, art. 6. P. 817).
13 * "Liberation from slavery, or, what is the same, called by a different name, the civilization of a kingdom, is a long and difficult matter ... The civilization of states was more a fruit of circumstances than a consequence of the wisdom of sovereigns" (Raynal G. Th. F. Histoire philosophique et politique des etablissements et du commerce des Europeans dans les deux Indes. Geneve, 1781. T. 10, ch. XIX. P. 27, 28). About Russia: "The climate of this country - is it favorable for civilization?"; "We ask: is civilization possible without justice?" (R. 29); "Mysterious, enigmatic circumstances, delaying ... the success of civilization" (T. 1. P. 60).
14 * “I think that in a similar way, there is some stage of civilization that is more consistent with the happiness of man in general” (Diderot D. Refutation suivie de l "ouvrage de Helvetius intitule l" Homme // Oeuvres completes / Ed. J. Assezat, M . Tourneaux. P., 1875. T. 2. P. 431),
15 * He, of course, uses the words "civilized", "civilize": "Who are they - civilized people?" (Chastellux J. de. De la felicite publique et considerations sur la sort des hommes dans les differentes epoques de l "histoire. Amsterdam, 1772. T. 1. P. 10);" Rejoice that Tsar Peter began to civilize these northern regions ”Etc. (Ibid. T. 2, ch. 10, P. 121).
16 * In Introduction; see: Van Gennep A. Religions, moeurs et legendes // Mercuro de France. Ser. 3.1911. P. 21 sqq.
17 * Texts are endless. A few examples: 1787, Condorcet. "The Life of Voltaire": "The wider civilization spreads across the Earth, the more wars and conquests will disappear" (quoted in: Jaures J. Histoire socialiste de la Revolution francaise. P., 1902. T. 2: La Convention. P . 151 sqq); 1791, Boissel. "Catechism of the Human Race"; 1793, Billot-Varennes. "Elements of Republicanism"; 1795, Condorcet: "The first stage of civilization in which the human race could be seen"; “Between this stage of civilization and the one on which the wild tribes still live”; "All epochs of civilization"; “Peoples. reached a very high level of civilization ", etc. (Condor cet M. J. A. N. Esquisse d" un tableau historique des progres de l "esprit humain. P., 1795. P. 5, 11, 28, 38) 2; 1796, Lamarck: "He (the Japanese people - L. F.) retained that share of freedom that is permissible in the conditions of civilization" (Voyages de C. P. Thunberg au Japon, traduits par L. Laig les et revus par J. -B. Lamarck, P., an IV (1796) T. 1. Introduction). Finally, the word became so common that on the 12th Messidore VI year (June 30, 1798), on the eve of the landing in Egypt, on board the Vostok, Bonaparte wrote in a proclamation: “Soldiers, conquests await you, the impact of which on civilization and trade throughout the world will be immeasurable. " We tried to pick up a little bit of examples from different categories of texts of that time.
18 * Thus, Littre commits a gross mistake when in his Dictionary, in the article “Civilization” (generally quite mediocre), he claims that “the word appeared in the Academic Dictionary only in the 1835 edition and began to be widely used only modern writers - when public thought focused on social development».
19 * Dictionnaire universel francais et latin, nouvelle edition, corrigee, avec les additions. Nancy, 1740. The 1762 edition of the Academic Dictionary was enriched with many words that were not in the 1740 edition (as Goen states, 5217 words), suggesting an expansion of the Dictionary concept. It is all the more remarkable that the word "civilization" is not in the Dictionary. The 1798 edition captures 1887 new words and, most importantly, reveals a new trend: it pays attention to the philosophical meaning of all new words; it is no longer limited to registering the use of a word: it makes judgments. However, the definition of 1798 is simple, but inexpressive: "Civilization is a civilizing action or the state of what is civilized." All dictionaries repeat this definition until we read in " Complete Dictionary French from the beginning of the 17th century to the present day ":" Neologism; in a broad sense - the advancement of humanity forward in moral, intellectual and other aspects ”(Dictionnaire general de la langue francaise du commencement du XVII siecle a nosjours / Ed. G. Hatzfeld, J. Darmesteter, A. Thomas. P.,. S. v. "Civilization").
20 * Murray J. A. A New English Dictionary. Oxford, 1893. Vol. 2. S. v. Civilization (1772, Boswell Johnson XXV).
21 * The first English edition came out in 1769.
22 * "The Influence of the Success of Civilization and Management" (Foreword, p. XVI), section of the second chapter of the fourth (p. 304) is called: "Changes in the government of the people under the influence of its success in civilization." In the English text, section two of chapter five (p. 347) is entitled: "The Observed Influence of Wealth and Civilization on the Treatment of Servants Commonly Observed" (Millar J. Observations sur les commencements
de la societe. P., 1773. P. XVI, 304, 347).
23 * Successive successes of civilization ... the first successes of civilization (Grimm F. M. Oeuvres / Ed. M. Tourneux. P., 1879. P. 164).
24 * Robertson W. Histoire de l "Amerique. P. 1790. T. 2. P. 164
25 * “The peoples ... in all likelihood, the first to reach civilization, are those to whom nature gave the coast Mediterranean Sea"(Smith A. Kecherches sur la richesse des Nations. P. 1790. T. 1, ch. 3. P. 40). The translation has been done since the fourth edition.
However, be that as it may, the use of this word in English language, as well as in French, creates a new problem. On both sides of the English Channel, the verb "civiliser" ("to, and before Fueretier, who wrote in 1690:" Police "is a law, rules of conduct that must be followed for the sake of the existence and maintenance of the state and human societies in general; opposed to barbarism." And he gives an example of the use of the word: “The savages of America - when it was just discovered - had neither laws nor police.” Fenelon wrote the same about the Cyclops: “They do not know the law, they do not observe any police rules.” Thirty years after Fuertiere Delamard, writing his voluminous and very valuable Treatise on the Police, in the first dedication of the book first defines the basic idea of “police”; he recalls the very general meaning that this word had for a long time. used sometimes, - he explains, - in the sense of the general management of any state, and in this sense, "police" can be divided into Monarchy, Aristocracy and Democracy ... "In other cases, the word means the management of each state separately, and then “police” is subdivided into “police ecclesiastique” [church authority], “police civile” [civilian authority] and “police militaire” [military authority] 40 *. These values were already outdated and obsolete then. Delamare, who was an expert on these matters, insisted that the word "police" should be used in a narrow sense. Quoting Le Bré and his treatise on the supreme power of the king, he writes: “Usually - and in a more limited sense - we understand the word 'police' as a public order in any city, and custom so much connected it with this meaning that every time when pronounced by itself and without a continuation, it is understood only in this sense. ”41 * Delamar was right. And yet, a few years later, writers who were interested in general ideas more than terminological accuracy tended to attach the word“ police "The meaning is less narrow, less specifically legal, associated with legality and government. And this fact is of paramount importance for us.
In 1731, Duclos, in his Reflections on the Morals of Our Time, speaking of the "polices" peoples, noted that they "stand higher than the" polis "peoples, for the" polis "peoples" are not always the most virtuous. "42 * He adds that if among the savage peoples "strength gives nobility and honor" among people, then among the peoples of "polices" the situation is different. For them "strength is subject to laws that prevent and tame its rampage", and "the most true and deserved honor is given spiritual quality. ”43 * A remark for that time is curious: it turns out that at the same time when people involved in management, as well as purists and linguists-professionals tried to banish the“ ambiguity ”that made it difficult to use the word“ police ”, Duclos, on the contrary, to the traditional the meaning of this word, mainly political and associated with legality, added a new meaning - moral and intellectual. He was not alone. Expand "The Philosophy of History" (1736), which later became "Introductory Reasoning" to the "Experience of morals." Voltaire writes: "The Peruvians, being polices, deified the Sun", or: "The most polices of the peoples of Asia on this side of the Euphrates deified the stars," or else: "A more philosophical question in which all the great policees of the nation - from the Indus to Greece, were one opinion is the question of the origin of good and evil "44 *, when fourteen years later, Rousseau wrote in his Dijon Discourse:" The sciences, literature and the arts ... make them love their slavery and make of them what is called peoples polices "; when in 1756 Turgot in his article "Etymology" noted that "the language of the police people is richer ... only he can give names to all concepts that were absent from the wild people", or extolled "the advantages that the light of reason gives the police people" 45 *, it is obvious that all these people, who actively participated in life, involved in the philosophical activities of their time, were busy searching - let's say, in such expressions that they would not object to - searching for a word that means triumph and the flourishing of reason not only in the field of law, politics and government, but also in the field of moral, religious and intellectual.
The language did not give them such a word in finished form. The word "civilite", as we have seen, was no longer suitable. Turgot in 1750 still remained an adherent of the word "politesse" - that "politesse", about which Voltaire in 1736 declared that it is not "something violent, unlike what is called" civilite "". And after Madame de Sevigne , who shortly before this lamented: "I am like a piece of wood - far from any politesse; I don't know if there is music in this world" 46 *, - after her, Turgot uses the same word when he addresses the king in high-flown expressions in his Philosophical Picture of 1750: "Oh, Louis! What greatness surrounds you! Your happy people have become the center of the politesse!" A ceremonial phrase in which some archaism is appropriate 47 *. Indeed, the adjective "civilize" (civilized) was not quite the right word to accurately express what the adjective "civilize" means to us today. And in those days when all the work of thought was directed towards that. to ascribe superiority to peoples who not only observed the "police", but rich in philosophical, scientific, artistic, literary culture, to use a word to denote this new concept that has served for so long to denote an old concept - this could only be a temporary and unsatisfactory way out. Moreover, as we have seen, the word "police", on which the word "police" depended in one way or another, acquired an increasingly limited and "mundane" meaning. A meaning defined by a character with awe-inspiring and ever-growing power: lieutenant de police 3.
And then they remembered the word that Descartes used already in 1637, giving it a completely modern sense, - about the word, which Füretier translated as "to make someone civil poli", accompanying, however, with such an example: "The preaching of the Gospel civilized (a civilize) the wildest of the barbarian peoples" - or else: "The peasants are not as civilized as the bourgeois, and the bourgeois - not to the same extent as the courtiers ”; These examples, as we see, admit of a very broad interpretation.
Who grasped the new term? Of course, not all. Turgot, for example, in his "Philosophical Picture", in the French text of his speeches in Sorbonne, in the article "Etymology" does not use either "civiliser" or "civilize". The same goes for Helvetius in On the Mind: both are true to the term "police", like many others in those days. But Voltaire very early began to use both words - "civilize" and "police". In the Philosophy of History, the word "police" occurs frequently. However, in Chapter IX ("On theocracy") the word "civilize" crept under Voltaire's pen. However, with a remark that betrays the author's doubts. “Among the peoples,” he writes, “which are so unfortunately called civilized (civilises)” 48 *. This "unfortunate" word Voltaire uses again and twice in the Philosophy of History. "We see," he notes, for example, "that morality is the same for all civilized peoples." And in chapter XX we read: “The Egyptians could unite, become civilises, polices, skillful and enterprising, powerful only much later than those peoples that I have listed above” 49 *. A very interesting sequence: the formation of society; softening and using morals; the establishment of natural laws; economic development and, finally, power. Voltaire weighed his words and did not submit them to the press without thinking. However, he also used two words where, twenty-five years later, Volney 50 * in an interesting excerpt from his "Explanations of the United States", trying to develop one of the thoughts of Voltaire's Philosophy of History, will use only one of them, namely "civilize" , in an era when this word will enrich its content with all the content of the word "police". Voltaire's "dualism" allows us to clearly see the possibilities that language presented to people of that time. They were tempted to include in the content of the word "police" the whole meaning of the words "civilite" and "politesse"; be that as it may, the word "police" resisted, and from the rear, the word "police" - the police - greatly annoyed the innovators. As for the word "civilize", there was a temptation to expand its meaning, but the word "police" resisted, it was still tenacious. To break his resistance, to express a new concept that was forming in the minds at that time, to give the word "civilize" new strength and put new content into it, in order to make it something other than a substitute for the words "civil", "poli" and even partially "police", for all this it was necessary to create a new word. In addition to the participle, in addition to the verb, the words "civilization" will be required - civilization: the term is somewhat scholarly, but it did not surprise anyone; under the arches of the Palace of Justice, you could hear his sonorous syllables for a long time; and, most importantly, he did not have a compromising past. He was far enough from "civil" and "civilite" that these dilapidated relatives could interfere with him. It was a new word and it expressed a new concept.
26 * In any case, in the sense related to culture, for in English, as well as in French, "civilization" in the judicial sense (which is quoted by the "Trevu Dictionary") has existed for a long time. Murray gives examples dating back to the very beginning of the 18th century (Harris; Chambers' Encyclopedia, etc.).
27 * Experiments. Book. 1. Ch. 25: About pedantry.
28 * “So, I believed that those peoples who, being at first half-savage and gradually becoming civilized, worked out their laws only insofar as they were forced to do so by the inconveniences arising from crime and strife, - such peoples could not be so cultured and law-abiding (bien polices), like those who from the very beginning, as soon as people were united, observed the instructions of some wise legislator. " A little further, there is another passage in which barbarism and savagery are described as devoid of reason: even more, endowed with reason ... ”These places were pointed out to me by Mr. Henri Burr (Descartes R. Discours de la Methode // Oeuvres / Ed. Ch. Adam. P., 1905. T. 6, pt 2. P. 12).
29 * Moreover, it was in the 18th century that the number of verbs ending in "-iser" increased; Mr. Frey gives an impressive list of such verbs (see: Frey M. Les transformations du vocabulaire francais al "epoque de la Revolution, 1793-1800. P., 1825. P. 21): centraliser, fanatiser, federaliser, municipalise, naturaliser, utiliser etc. However, still earlier mr Goen compiled for the era preceding the Revolution, another list of similar verbs taken from the encyclopedists; among others you can find "barbariser" there.
30 * Voltaire. Essai sur les moeurs // Oeuvres completes / Ed. P. Beuchot. P., 1829. T. 15. P. 253, 256.
31 * Rousseau J. J. Contrat social. P., 1762. Liv. 2, ch. eight.
32 * The word "civilization" does not occur, as I was convinced of this, in the Dijon "Discourse" of 1750 ("Did the revival of the arts and sciences contribute to the improvement of morals"). Rousseau uses only "police" and "police", as does Turgot in The Philosophical Picture of the Successive Achievements of the Human Reason (1750) or Duclos in Discourse on the Morals of Our Century (1751) and many of their contemporaries.
33 * Dictionnairo de l "ancienne langue francaise. P., 1881. The Ethics of Nicola Orezm are also referred to in the Civilite article by Hatzfeld, Darmstether and Tom in their Complete Dictionary.
* Along with other meanings (such as urban), the Latin word "urbanus" could have such as well-bred, educated; one of the meanings of the Latin word "civilis" is courteous.
34 * The word "civiliser" [civilize] is defined by the same Fueretier as follows: to make well-mannered and polite, sociable and amiable (for example: "The preaching of the Gospel civilized the wildest of barbarian tribes" - or: "The peasants are not as civilized as the bourgeois, but the bourgeois - not to the same extent as the courtiers ").
35 * "The words" courtois "and" affable ", - writes Kallier, - are now almost out of use among people of the world; they were replaced by "civil" and "honnete" [here: courteous) "this" Dictionary "adds the meaning of" city law ".
36 * Girard G. Les synonymes francois. 2 0 ed. P., 1780 (this edition revised by Bose). The first edition of Girard's work was published in 1718 (La justesse de la langue franchise ou les synonymes), the second in 1736 (Les Synonymes francais), the third revised by Bose in 1769; reprinted in 1780.
37 * Girard G. 9p. cit. T. 2.P. 159.
38 * Voltaire. Essai sur les moeurs. Liv. 19.ch 16. It is about the Chinese who, "wanting their people to live in peace," made it so that "the rules of courtesy became the most widespread and influential."
39 * "Locations where the labor of people can give nothing but the necessary, should be inhabited by barbaric peoples: any kind of politic is impossible here"; "From this dual power followed a constant conflict of jurisdiction, which made any good politic impossible in the Christian states" (Rousseau J. J. Op. Cit. Liv. 3. ch. 8; Liv. 4. ch. 8). Godefroy cites the words "policie", "pollicie", "politie" as medieval forms and registers the ephemeral noun "policien" - the citizen used by Amyot.
40 * Delamare N. Traite de la police. P., 1713. Liv. 1. P. 2. Sixty years later, Brother Jean de Chastellu noted that "up to our day the word" police "can mean" rule over people "" (Chastellux J. de. Op. Cit. "Vol. 1, ch. 5 . P. 59).
41 * The definition given by Le Bré, which is also professional, has not yet been limited to the city. “I call it police,” he wrote, “the laws and decrees that have always been issued in well-governed states in order to regulate food issues, suppress abuses and monopolies in trade and crafts, prevent corruption of morals, curb luxury and banish games from cities. ".
42 * Duclos clarifies: “Laws should shape the morals of the barbarians. Among peoples, the polices of manners and customs improve the law and sometimes replace it ”(Dudos Ch. Oeuvres completes. P., 1806. T. 1. P. 70).
43 * Ibid. Ch. 12.P. 216.
44 * Voltaire. Oeuvres completes. T. 15.P. 16, 21, 26.
45 * T argot A.R.J. Ethymologie // Oeuvres. T. 1.P. 222.
46 * Letter dated June 15, 1680. It is interesting to note that in those days it was said: "to be away from politesse, to return to politesse", as we say: "to return to civilization."
47 * Turgot A. V.]. Tableau au philosophique // Oeuvres. T. 1.P. 222.
48 * Voltaire. La philosophie do 1 "histoire," Oeuvres completes. T. 15. P. 41.
49 * Ibid. P. 83, 91.
50 * The word "civilization" should be understood as an association of these people within the city, that is, a walled-off aggregate of dwellings that have common means of protection against robbery and internal disturbances; this association contains the idea of a voluntary agreement of its members, protection of their natural right to security, natural rights of personality and property; thus, civilization is nothing more than a social order that protects and protects individuals and property, etc. " (Volpeu C. F. Eclaircissements sur les Elats-Unis // Oeuvres completes. P., 1868. P. 718). This entire very significant passage is a criticism of Rousseau.
Introduction
The relevance of research ... Recently, in the context of the "anthropocentric turn" in the humanities and social sciences, there has been a reorientation of scientific interest from the study of social structures and processes to the analysis of their personal, human content. There is a clear increase in interest in the anthropological interpretation of culture in its individual-personal aspect, in the real content of everyday life and consciousness of people, symbolic systems, customs and values, psychological attitudes, perception stereotypes and behavior models. Such a change in orientation ran into well-known methodological difficulties: theories that analyze the structures and processes of social life are of little use for studying the problems of human individuality. In addition to psychology, which by definition studies the personal properties of a person, another way of studying this phenomenon in its historical dynamics was found and already mastered - historical anthropology, which seeks to reconstruct the "picture of the world" of people of different eras, their lifestyles, and norms of social behavior.
This turn is accompanied by a terminological search. For example, the concepts of “ethnic or national consciousness” sometimes lack historical concreteness, and the search goes further, to the deepest meaning of ethnic or nationality. Thus, the term “mentality” or “mentality” is introduced into scientific use, denoting the deep structures of the national character, the fundamental characteristics of the national spirit, manifestations of mass psychology. This "oasis" picture of the world, located somewhere on the border of the conscious and the unconscious, motivating the psychological and behavioral reactions brought to automatism to the right and wrong, good and evil, is a kind of "collective unconscious" that plays a significant role in the attitude and behavior of people ...
The study of mentality is not only a special area of cultural studies, but also a relatively wide interdisciplinary field of scientific interests. Mentality today is a category of culturology, history, sociology, ethnology, psychology, linguistics, and each scientific specialty has received its own specific interpretation.
Purpose of the study: comprehension of the phenomenon of mentality from the point of view of Lucien Febvre.
Tasks:
Formulate the definition of the concept of "mentality" from the standpoint of a system-holistic approach to the phenomenon;
- to identify the origins and forms of manifestation of mentality in the development of human culture;
- consider the theoretical problem of the interaction of mentality and national character on the material of Lucien Febvre "Fights for history".
Historiography. In the past century, correlated research in philosophy, anthropology, linguistics, psychology, cultural studies, philosophy of history led to the introduction of the problem of mentality and mental structures into scientific use, as evidenced by the analysis of the works of L. Levy-Bruhl, who was the first to introduce into the scientific
terminological apparatus category of mentality. It is necessary to pay attention to the fact that, starting with L. Levy-Bruhl, the category of mentality began to be used not so much to characterize the peculiarities of the type of thinking of any social association or ethnic community, but to reflect its specificity within a particular historical epoch, on the basis of a huge empirical material - reports of ethnologists, records of travelers, missionaries, etc. - sought to identify the differences between purely cognitive individual ideas and collective ideas of "primitive peoples".
L. Febvre, an outstanding French scientist who, together with his associates and associates, made a methodological revolution in history, a man who most vividly described the dramatic nature of the situation in scientific knowledge of the first half of the 20th century.
“From one impulse, the whole idea of the world, developed over the centuries by generations of scientists, collapsed - the idea of the abstract, generalized world, containing its own explanation. Old theories had to be replaced with new ones. All scientific concepts had to be revised. "Battles for history" Lucien Febvre waged with an erudite historiography, hiding from reality behind catalogs with extracts from ancient texts, in which she was unable to sense living people.
The collection demonstrates "the battle of February for history", for a new historical science in his understanding - "the science of man."
Collaboration with L. Fevre did not prevent M. Blok , to express their agreement with their colleague on many problems of historical science, to create their own vision of the historical process and an understanding of mentality corresponding to it. The ideas of M. Blok not so much contradicted the views of L. Fevr, but supplemented them, revealed new possibilities of historical knowledge.
1.The theory of mentality according to Lucien Fevre
Mentality, the way of seeing the world, is by no means identical to ideology dealing with thought systems of thought; it in many ways - maybe in the main thing - remains unreflected and not logically identified. Mentality is not a philosophical, scientific or aesthetic system, but that level of social consciousness at which thought is not separated from emotion, from latent habits, from methods of consciousness - people use them without noticing it, without thinking about their essence and prerequisites, in their logical rationale.
The history of mentality was the antithesis of traditional history.
L. Fevre considered history an "aristocrat by birth" because she studied the life of only great people and knew little about the "obscure movements of anonymous human masses, doomed, figuratively speaking, to the dirty work of history." Through the study of mentality, historical science
got the opportunity to turn to mass consciousness research
(ideas about life, death, the world around, about the wonderful and sacred) and feelings of people of the past (fear, prejudices, phobias, laughter), which significantly expanded its subject area.
L. Fevre believed that the identification of uniqueness in a separate historical event or in an outstanding personality is impossible "without referring to general concepts and without anything more than a superficial mention of context. " The search for this "more" led L. Fevr to psychology, which was drawn attention to by his teacher Henri Burr, who considered history as a whole to be the history of the birth and development of the psyche.
L. Fevre believed that the most important flaw in the analysis of the acts of great historical figures in traditional historiography was the attribution of the thoughts and feelings of modern man to the people of the past. To avoid this shortcoming L. Febvre introduces the concept of "spiritual equipment". In other words, "it is necessary to identify the archetypes of consciousness that are inherent in people of a given era and in which they did not clearly understand, applying them" automatically ", without thinking about their nature and content." It should be borne in mind that each civilization has its own psychological apparatus, which “meets the needs early era and is not intended either for the human race in general, or even for the evolution of an individual civilization. "
Mentality for L. Fevr appears in two manifestations. First, as a tool for a more comprehensive and complete study of history. He studies mentality as a historian of culture and civilization in order to identify the collective in the individual. Secondly, mentality appears as an objective reality that plays an essential role in the life of society and the individual.
Thus, through the reproduction of the same emotional states of members of society in a certain situation, a system of people's attitudes to individual phenomena of life is formed, which is passed on to subsequent generations through rituals and traditions. This emerging system of relations has an impact on the environment, shaping it for themselves.
2.Criticism of traditional approaches in historiography
By the end of the 1920s, it became obvious that neither traditional liberalism, nor openly apologetic concepts of bourgeois reformism meet the new intellectual and ideological needs. There is a need for broader scientific generalizations, for deeper reflections on the fate of civilization in general and French society in particular. The growing role of the popular masses in French society contributed to the leftward movement of a significant part of the intelligentsia. Under these conditions, the most progressive-minded scientists began to realize that one of the most important conditions for the development of historical science and the strengthening of its influence on the fate of France is the rejection of the traditional bourgeois scheme of thinking, including the anti-communist version of this scheme. At the same time, ties with the ruling class, as well as the entire burden of bourgeois culture, kept the majority of the French intelligentsia from turning to the revolutionary theory of Marxism.
M. Blok and L. Febvre were able not only to feel these moods, but also to express them more fully and better than others. From what has been said, however, one should not conclude that this objective basis was immediately embodied in the subjective desire of the founders of the Annals to develop an alternative to Marxism. The reality turned out to be much more complicated. She did not fit into the strictly defined framework of the social order. Blok and Febvre did not occupy a clear position in the social and political battles of our time. Nor did they show any desire to characterize the most important events in the social life of the XX century, to assess them. This does not mean, of course, that they did not at all express their attitude to the reality around them.
L. Fevre was deeply convinced that science is not done in the "ivory tower" by scientists living outside time and space a life of pure intellectuality. Repeatedly returning to the idea of the close connection of historical science with life, Febvre concretized it in the sense that the history of any science cannot be recreated without taking into account its relations with the economy, politics, and social conditions of a particular historical epoch. Scientific concepts, he said, arise not in the sphere of "pure ideas", but in reality itself, they are developed not by maniacs cut off from life, but by specific people who, regardless of whether they realize it or not, extract everything from their environment. objects for your thoughts.
3. Psychology in historical research Lucienne Ferna
In the psychology of modern man, L. Fevre drew attention to the ambivalence of feelings, which cannot be explained logically. The scientist sees its cause in those constant abrupt changes in emotions that a person of the past experienced. There was a consolidation of this process in mental reactions, which control the emotions of a modern person. “Let's look at ourselves. How many finds can be discovered by the archeology of human thoughts in that successive change of words that constitute the fundamental basis of our consciousness! This is a legacy bequeathed to us by our ancestors. And we must accept it unconditionally. For the dead still retain power over us, the living. "
The vertical of the psychological relationship between representatives of different eras, identified by L. Fevre, has two elements in its content. First, it means the presence in the consciousness of a modern person of those archetypes of consciousness of the entire multitude of previous generations, which each person, without knowing it, inherits at the moment of his birth. Secondly, the lower and upper points of this vertical have different content. In other words, the mentality of the individual and society as a whole undergoes certain changes over time, despite the insignificance of these changes, the historian can trace them. The top point is determined by the time and the events that the individual has witnessed. “A person sometimes looks more like his time than his father,” says Eastern wisdom. The bottom point represents the perception of the world that a person inherits from his ancestors.
Febvre adopted the approaches to the study of the human psyche that were developed by psychologists and ethnologists and boldly used them in history. The collective unconscious has received the "right of citizenship" in historical research.
Thus, according to Lucien Febvre, the presence of such a vertical connection makes it possible to better understand not only the mental reactions of a person of the past, but also the psychology of our contemporary.
Conclusion
After analyzing the work of Lucien Febvre "Fights for History", we came to the following conclusions that mentality, in his understanding, is a task for a person, it is unconscious and it is necessary to study it, using all the results of human activity as sources: not only written texts, but also tools, rituals, beliefs, etc. Even the phenomena of economic life, and primarily psychological phenomena, facts of beliefs and beliefs.
L. Fevre saw his main task in substantiating new principles of historical knowledge. The pathos of his work is the return to historical knowledge of the lost humanistic content, the saturation of history with problems related to the life of modern society and dictated by its fundamental, deep-seated needs.
He fought the battle for scientific history against traditional, narrative and erudite historiography, decisively rejecting story-story, developing the concept of story-problem and thus overcoming the simplified event-based approach to illuminating the historical past. He contrasted the narration of events with the study of the deep layers of historical reality. He sought to find in the texts of sources unintentional, involuntary statements, as well as what the authors of historical texts reported against their own will, that "remnant" that was not subject to the internal censorship of the creators of the texts.
