Topic: Historical myths.

Historian and philologist, specialist in the field of history Russian culture and intellectual history, professor of the Moscow Higher School of Economics and Social Sciences (Shaninka), Oxford University (UK), professor of the department of humanities and scientific supervisor Liberal Arts program at the Institute social sciences RANEPA

- When a person reads a history book, he still gets acquainted with someone else’s interpretation of history? All the same, the author has his own position.

- In the 19th century, the science of “source criticism” arose, which set itself the task of formulating general principles of approach to a source, allowing one to determine the degree of its reliability. Around the same time, the famous historian of the century, Leopold von Ranke, formulated his thesis according to which the task of the historian is to find out how everything really happened. IN last decades V historical science Another trend is the idea that every source is, to one degree or another, a construction written in someone’s interests. The well-known formula: lies as an eyewitness. Yuri Nikolaevich Tynyanov, the great Russian philologist, said: documents lie like people.

- Is history an attempt to control the past?

- Yes, this is our struggle with our ancestors. We were born at the time that was given to us, in the circumstances that were given to us, we cannot change anything about it. But we take revenge by telling stories about our ancestors, supplementing them, inventing them - and through our stories, fables and fantasies about what happened, we exercise our control over them.

- Ideology very often uses history as a weapon and tries to justify its actions in the present and in the past. Has it always been this way - or are these signs of recent centuries?

If we are talking about state attempts to monopolize history, they begin from the moment when the state has a need to explain where it came from and why it is like this. A classic example is the story of the Time of Troubles, told from the reign of the Romanov dynasty. The Romanov dynasty appeared in 1613, after 700 years of the previous dynasty. Her rights to the throne were very doubtful; it was necessary to invent a vivid and convincing story that would allow them to legitimize their rights to rule Russia. They succeeded to a large extent. For the next 300 years, until the events of 1917, this dynasty reigned on the Russian throne.

- Why is it necessary to justify the present with the help of the past? And why does this technique work? What difference does it make to me that, say, Ivan the Terrible is descended from some nephew of Emperor Augustus?

- Every person is his story about himself. We come to apply for a job and say: I worked there at such and such a time - our biography explains who we are and what we represent. Any community of people, including the state, is structured in the same way, it is own story. Before modern times, as everyone well knows, power was justified by divine origin. This means that if your power is from God, then you must tell how the Lord gave you this power. I just talked about the Romanov dynasty. This characteristic story. The Cossacks came to the Zemsky Sobor and said: “Choose Mikhail Romanov.” It's not hard to argue with armed Cossacks. But when Michael reigned, this story had to be forgotten. And it was invented very beautiful legend that all the boyars were ordered to write the name of the future king on a piece of paper, they all wrote it, and they all had the same name - Mikhail. Of course, only from the Lord God could something like this come incredible coincidence, he stood over everyone and suggested this; There can be no other explanation. The fact that this version was clearly borrowed from the story about the seventy interpreters did not bother anyone. Sacred history was an absolute example of not even historical, but transhistorical, ahistorical truth, therefore the recognition of the plot gave it authenticity.

- It turns out that the creation of myths or falsifications begins in the history of Russia from the Time of Troubles, from the beginning of the Romanovs. What is the name of the first myth? Founding myth?

- Yes. This is a very common scientific term. And this is a standard thing. Everyone is celebrating their birthday. This means that you are reliving the act of your birth. A family celebrates a wedding day, the day it originated, we can give many similar examples. The state fits into the same row. Central myth of any state is the question of where it came from, its founding myth. It invents for itself a starting point from which it grew.

- In this case, the 17th century serves the myth of how the Romanovs became rulers. What happens in the 18th century, during the time of Peter?

- The gigantic breakdown that Peter I makes with the Russian consciousness leads to a colossal change historical mythology, and starting from its official title. He was called the First, Peter I. Before him, Russian emperors were not considered. They retroactively assigned the number “fourth” to Grozny, but Grozny never called himself fourth, he was simply “Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich.” Peter I calls himself the First, and this is not just a fixation of the fact that there was never a Petrov on the throne of Russia before him, but it is generally an indication that everything comes from him. They brought us from non-existence into being, Chancellor Golovkin said about Russia, and there are a great many similar quotes.

- If Peter is the New Testament, then was the old one remembered, was the Time of Troubles remembered, was Mikhail Romanov remembered?

- Peter so fixes the historical Russian consciousness on himself that pointing to other significant pages in the recent past has become uninteresting. All Russian tsars build their personal succession in relation to Peter. Elizabeth, who was known to be an illegitimate daughter, says that she is Petrovna and the daughter of Peter; Peter III says that before him there were no one knows who, and he is Peter’s grandson; Catherine puts up the Bronze Horseman and writes on it: “Peter I Catherine II.” Although there was no relationship between them, she was generally a usurper of the throne, but in this way she again writes herself into Peter’s mythology. And after her death, Paul pulls out the old monument to Rastrelli and writes on it: “Great-grandfather, great-grandson” - contrasting his own relationship with the great emperor and the numerology of his own mother (first and second) and again elevating his legitimacy to Peter.

- It turns out that throughout the 18th century there was a plot of a return to Peter, that is, a return to that order.

- Yes. The fact is that the 18th century is an endless era of crises, coups, disputes about succession to the throne, and regicides. Peter introduced permission for the emperor to appoint an heir for himself, and for 75 years the Russian monarchy was shaken until Paul I, who, however, was also killed later, introduced a decree on unified inheritance. Emperors were made by the guard; after the coup of 1762, Catherine proclaimed that she ascended the throne by the will of all classes, and especially the guards: all are equal, but some are more equal. And until, in fact, the guard was shot by cannons on December 14, 1825 on Senate Square, the source of the monarch's legitimacy was the position of the guard and continuity in relation to the creator of the guard and modern Russia - Emperor Peter.

- What specific stories around Peter I were more based on? What things did you invent, what, on the contrary, did you prefer to forget?

- First of all, this is the victory in the Northern War, new territories, access to the sea, the construction of St. Petersburg and the famous dressing up of the nobility. Peter created a completely Europeanized elite in a completely non-European country. People who, over the course of 100 years, have learned to look, think and talk like European aristocracy. When the Russian army took Paris in 1814, the Parisian public had the feeling that some indescribable barbarians would come; Parisian newspapers depicted Russians with smoke coming out of their nostrils, and everyone was, of course, amazed at the pure French language of Russian officers.

It turns out that Peter I and the rulers who followed him felt like Europeans. Catherine II appears, they go endless wars with the Turks, annexation of Crimea. And under Catherine, it turns out that we are no longer quite Europeans, but descendants of the Greeks.

The logic is clear. European culture inherits from the Roman Empire, Rome took its culture from Greece, which means that the Greek heritage came to them indirectly. And we took both faith and classical culture. That is, we are the center of European culture, because we are connected with its cradle and main hearth. We can outdo Europe in Europeanness.

For Catherine, the mythology of Vladimir the Saint is highlighted anew: hence her famous trip to Crimea in 1787, the annexation of Crimea, and all the Potemkin projects for the future of the empire. And Potemkin writes to Catherine that if Peter achieved such success in the St. Petersburg swamps, then what will you, Empress, achieve in such beautiful, God-given, fertile places that we have now annexed.

- At first the ideology is based on the fact that Europe is great, and then it turns out that in fact we are even better than Europe, but in times Napoleonic Wars The most important plot again becomes the Time of Troubles. Why is this so?

- Back in the 1760s, Catherine wrote that Peter achieved such success because he applied European morals to the European state. That is, we were already Europeans who were temporarily led astray by the Tatars, but Peter brought us back to our historical path. But who did Catherine mean? It was exclusively about a few percent of the elite. By the beginning of the 19th century, from Europe, again, the idea of a nationality that exists comes and takes root. united people, it has a single spirit, a single common history, and that the top of Russian society, the nobility, must also to some extent nationalize themselves, imbued with the people's spirit. And here the history of the Time of Troubles, the militia of Minin and Pozharsky, turns out to be unusually convenient.

There were three mythological heroes of the anti-Polish movement - Patriarch Hermogenes, Minin and Pozharsky. That is, the patriarch, representing the church, the common man Minin, from the merchants, and Prince Pozharsky, representing the noble elite - they all united, and as a result of this popular unity, a new dynasty emerged. That is, the return from Peter’s mythology to the mythology of the Time of Troubles is an attempt to, to some extent, expand the social base of state ideology. During the Napoleonic Wars, authorities had to appeal to the masses, it was necessary to mobilize much wider layers than those to which the monarchy had previously addressed.

- That is, in the myth of the Time of Troubles there is quite important role are they being played by the invaders who are capturing us?

- Yes. Let's remember last part Time of Troubles: Vladislav, liberation of Moscow, captivity of Minin and Pozharsky. Russia then found itself on the verge of destruction because it was captured by the Poles - and during the Napoleonic Wars there was the same infection, an enemy from the West, that is, the French.

- We can say that this is the first time in history when the ideology is that there are enemies around, we are surrounded, and besides, there are traitors inside the country.

- War is the most important way of historical self-affirmation. In Peter's mythology, the victory over the Swedes played a huge role. The myth of war, enemies and victory is ancient - Vladimir also fought, went on a campaign to Crimea. But what's new now is the mythology of betrayal. The importance of the concept of betrayal, internal treason, is very closely connected with the completely new, completely Western idea of the people as a single body. The people are a single body, an organism with all the metaphors: it has a head - this is usually the sovereign, it has a heart - this is usually the church. And the body, accordingly, dies from what? He dies from an infection that someone brings from outside. And the topic of betrayal arises precisely at this time.

- The Rurikovichs ruled Russia for 700 years. Is this the only time a dynasty lasted so long?

- No. The Capetians held out for a very long time, but Chinese emperors and there is nothing to say. But 700 years is still an awfully long time, and the sudden end of a dynasty is, of course, a shock. There have been several attempts to overcome this. It turned out badly with Boris Godunov. Then there was False Dmitry - again some kind of nonsense. Then Vasily Shuisky, one of the oldest Russian princes, was installed - again, not very well. Why didn’t it work out with Godunov and Shuisky? According to the general opinion, because they were not of the royal family. We didn’t have our own other royal family, but the Poles did. The Polish king Sigismund was presented with several conditions that his son Vladislav should convert to Orthodoxy and come to Moscow. And Sigismund began to experience what Stalin later called dizziness from success. And he, instead of fulfilling the agreement concluded with him, decided that he would not send Vladislav to Moscow, he would not allow him to convert to Orthodoxy, but would himself, as a king, rule the Muscovite kingdom as his province. But he did not have the political resources to carry it out, and this caused an explosion.

- Did you negotiate with the boyars?

- With the boyars, yes. There was an embassy, and boyar Filaret Romanov, the father of the future Tsar Mikhail Romanov, entered into an agreement with them. But the agreement was not fulfilled by Poland, and this caused a protest that ended with the second militia of Minin and Pozharsky. But they didn’t want to designate the boyars as enemies, so they came up with the idea of blaming the Cossack Ivan Zarutsky and several other people - including Prince Trubetskoy, who had a Cossack army. Basically, traitors were appointed among the Cossacks, and they were carriers of the Polish infection. Plus, of course, the story of Marina Mnishek and her amazing fate also affected everyone who wrote this legend strong impression. It turned out that the Polish woman had completely seduced our Russian people. “Taras Bulba” was later written on the same topic, and so on. The image of a beautiful and scary Polish woman who seduces a simple, unpretentious Russian man is very significant in Russian culture.

-Who was appointed to the role of traitor in 1812?

- A suitable candidate was already here, it turned out to be Mikhail Mikhailovich Speransky, the closest adviser to Emperor Alexander I. He was appointed as an agent of Napoleon, a man who wants to bribe and destroy Russia and get the Polish crown. Before this, one of Alexander’s advisers was Prince Adam Czartoryski, he was really a Pole, at least the logic is clear. Speransky was the son of an Orthodox priest. He was hated as an upstart. He was a popovich and became the chief minister and right hand Emperor.

-Who chose this victim?

- Public opinion, a large number of nobles who hated him from the very beginning. I was very irritated by his low origins and his reform plans. And plus, he appeared in the emperor’s inner circle after the Peace of Tilsit, which was perceived as a national humiliation. For simplicity, it must be said that the conservative-noble camp, probably led by Admiral Shishkov, practically appointed him a traitor. And Alexander, who, of course, did not believe a penny in Speransky’s version of betrayal, said: “I had to make this sacrifice.” However, with such and such accusations, exile in Nizhny Novgorod and to Penza - this was still a rather mild measure.

- The War of 1812 begins soon, and art begins to draw out this story about the Time of Troubles. Is art inventing this myth or reacting to it?

- Such strong historical myths are always a collective creation. Perhaps art does not invent it, but in art it acquires that clarity, expressiveness and power to capture minds. A monument to Minin and Pozharsky is erected in the Kremlin, and theatrical performances. For the 25th anniversary of the war - Glinka’s opera “A Life for the Tsar”, in Soviet era called “Ivan Susanin”, and so on. That is, this entire series of events creates a mythological image.

- When, before the War of 1812, Russianness came into fashion, dislike for the French, interest in the Time of Troubles, can we say that this was in some way even opposition? After all, Russia was officially friends with France at that moment.

- Yes, initially it was an opposition ideology, of course. Moreover, right up to the Battle of Tarutino and the departure of the French from Moscow, starting in 1807, there were always rumors that Alexander was about to be overthrown from the throne. Russia was no stranger to coups d'etat, and public opinion already had a candidate for his place - it was Grand Duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna.

- I’ll ask you for a short educational program. What preceded the War of 1812?

- The War of 1812 was preceded by several wars, the first of which ended in a terrible defeat at the Battle of Austerlitz, described in the novel “War and Peace.” After the truce there was another war, less catastrophic, which ended with the Peace of Tilsit, which was terribly unprofitable for Russia. As a result, Russia had to join the continental blockade of England and accept Napoleon's conditions. Alexander knew perfectly well that this was temporary and that new war can't be avoided. The rise of Speransky from a huge amount The unpopular measures that were taken were also associated with preparations for war. But this could not be announced out loud. Both Alexander and Speransky, who was perceived as a foreign agent, were opposed by the Grand Duchess, who had an excellent credit history, that Napoleon wooed her, and in a panic she was married off to the Prince of Oldenburg. They wiped Napoleon's nose, he did not get our wonderful princess, and she was perceived as the main center of the patriotic party. The Grand Duchess did not speak a single word of Russian.

- We are completely buried in this plot of the Time of Troubles. The next founding myth is the October Revolution?

- Yes, sure. Everything changes again in the 20th century after the revolution. And in this sense, it is very similar to Peter’s revolution. A new era, a new state has been created. Until the end Soviet Union The 1917 revolution plays the role of a founding myth to one degree or another.

- In a rather funny way, the holiday of November 7 turned into November 4.

- Yes, again a reference to the Time of Troubles, the Day of National Unity.

- Did they remember the Troubles in the Soviet Union? Because it fits perfectly into the plot of the Patriotic War.

- The Great War begins with a terrible defeat, when the enemy is at the capital or is approaching it. In 1612 it was the Poles, in 1812 it was the French who burned Moscow, in 1941 it was the Germans who came as close to Moscow as possible. And every time the country finds itself on the verge of absolute destruction and total disaster, from which magically, by God and the miraculous will of the leader, the king, the head of the militia, the chief, the generalissimo and who knows who, she re-emerges like a phoenix and rises to the greatest victory in her history. Here the pairing arises in terminology - “Patriotic War” and “Great Patriotic War”. That is, this parallel - it arises.

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Introduction

1. Main part

2. The emergence of a myth

Conclusion

Literature used

Introduction

Since ancient times, man has strived for “first principles” and “ultimate causes”, passionately desired to know the secrets of the beginning (birth, emergence) and the end (dying, disappearance). Moreover, obviously, there is not only (and not so much) theoretical interest here. These are deeply existential questions. As soon as a person begins to realize himself, he is faced with the fact of death, his own finitude. This fact cannot leave a reasonable person alone. Like the Sphinx, he stands before every person and every culture and demands an answer to his riddle.

What's happened myths? In the everyday understanding, these are, first of all, ancient, biblical and other ancient “tales” about the creation of the world and man, stories about the deeds of ancient gods and heroes - Zeus, Apollo, Dionysus, Hercules, the Argonauts who were looking for the “Golden Fleece”, the Trojan War and misadventures of Odysseus. myth knowledge society

The word "myth" itself has Ancient Greek origin and means precisely “tradition”, “legend”. European peoples until the 16th-17th centuries. only the Greek and Roman myths, which are still famous to this day, were known; later they became aware of Arab, Indian, Germanic, Slavic, Indian legends and their heroes. Over time, first to scientists and then to the wider public, the myths of the peoples of Australia, Oceania, and Africa became available. It turned out that the sacred books of Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists are also based on various mythological legends that have been processed. What is surprising: it was discovered that at a certain stage of historical development, more or less developed mythology existed among almost all peoples known to science, that some plots and stories are repeated to one degree or another in the mythological cycles of different peoples.

1. Main part

So the question arose about the origin of the myth. Today, most scientists are inclined to believe that the secret of the origin of myth should be sought in the fact that mythological consciousness was the oldest form of understanding and comprehension of the world, understanding of nature, society and man. The myth arose from the need of ancient people to understand the natural and social elements surrounding them, the essence of man.

Among the whole multitude of mythical legends and stories, it is customary to highlight several most important cycles. Let's call them:

* cosmogonic myths - myths about the origin of the world and the universe,

* anthropogonic myths - myths about the origin of man and human society,

* myths about cultural heroes - myths about the origin and introduction of certain cultural goods,

* eschatological myths - myths about the “end of the world”, the end of times.

We find an excellent description of the primitive myth in its universal, and not just mental significance, in Professor I.M. Tronsky in his article “Problems of the Homeric Epic”: “The essence of myth - and this is the constitutive moment of any myth-formation since primitive times - is in the magical connection that is established between the object of the myth - the past - and socially significant relevance, in the relationship of the present with its supposed prototype in the past...Myth formation and magic are equally rooted in ideology primitive society which, unable to either analyze the world or really influence it, strives only to secure for itself the existing favorable factors; The most reliable means seems to be an imitative recreation of the supposed circumstances of the emergence of these factors: a new act of creation should consolidate their effective power - the creativity of ideologists primitive world develops mainly an idea of the origin of things. Of course, these ideas are created on the model of the production of things in human society. This is how we get a mythological picture of the world, where both the very structure and content are determined by the peculiarities of primitive thinking, which very imperfectly separates the elements of things from the things themselves and considers objects mainly in their integrity.”

The relevance of the chosen topic of this course work is that the revival of mythological structures in the 20th century occurred in all spheres of worldview. The mythological as an integral part of spiritual life is being revived in modern cultures and is once again included in the design of sociocultural phenomena of life in post-industrial society. And we cannot say that the role of myth is completed only at the stage of formation of society. Myth is in interaction with society today.

Mythology and archaic traditions in the process of remythologizing the spiritual life of society and man become one of the structural units of the worldview and modern Russian society. This is facilitated by the state of systemic crisis in which our country has been for several decades. To develop the theoretical foundations of spiritual values, including those of a mythological nature, it is necessary to turn to the historical and cultural heritage. This problem was presented in the works of many European authors (G. Rickert, M. Weber, etc.), it is characteristic of the work of Russian philosophers of the 19th - 20th centuries. Russian religious thinkers of the era of culture " silver age» from V.S. Solovyov to N.O. Lossky and A.F. Losev tried, first of all, to reveal their universal values spiritual content. The philosophy of unity as a philosophical and anthropological doctrine, in particular, thereby revealed the principles of value in man and his existence. Many other domestic thinkers (N.A. Berdyaev, P.A. Florensky, etc.) believed that the value of a person lies in his positive mastery of social life and sociocultural values.

A special place in Eliade’s mythological concept is given to the concept of time (and, accordingly, history). There is sacred mythological time, in which the universe was created, in which the gods act and myths are realized. And there is profane time, correlated with this sacred, but weaker than the latter. The story of a myth is a breakthrough of the “sacred”, equivalent to a hierophany (epiphany). Profane time is historical. It is linear, irreversible and accessible to individual memory, while mythological time is preserved only in the collective memory or, more precisely, in the collective unconscious.

2. The emergence of a myth

If we consider the meaning of the word “myth” in my understanding, then it can be defined as a peculiar way or some channel through which one generation passed on accumulated experience, knowledge, values and cultural benefits to another. Moreover, since the transfer of knowledge was from person to person (since on early stage since the beginning of mythology there was no written language), then this was not an objective method of transmission, something was lost, something was embellished, etc.

"Myth" in Greek means nothing more than "word." Myth, therefore, is always one or another generalization, writes Losev, and those creatures about which mythology narrates are always one or another generalization, since a certain area of reality is always subordinated to them as something general, as a collection of one or another set or an infinite number of particular phenomena.”(5)

The main “persecutor” of myth, Plato, saw in it not only “living, naive, identical to himself,” but also “...another to himself...an allegory or symbol.”

There is a completely unexpected meaning, which A. Taho-Godi points out: “Plato, at the same time, calls purely philosophical theories a myth, for example, movement, as the first principle is for him a myth, not a poetic, not a philosophical invention.”(9)

Finally, myth as the sphere of dreams is directed to the future: the Indo-European roots consonant with it mean “to care”, “to keep in mind”, “to desire passionately”.

Myth gives meaning to life and calls for action. “Myth does this not through logic or pattern,” O. Flaherty, a researcher of his school, explains this position, “but through the activation of our emotions.”

So, a person encounters the existence of the surrounding world and holistically experiences this interaction: emotions and creative imagination are involved in it to the same extent as intellectual abilities. Each event acquires individuality and requires its own description and thus explanation. Such unity is possible only in the form of a unique story, a proper image to reproduce the experienced event and reveal its causality. It is precisely this “story” that is meant when they use the word “myth”. In other words, when telling myths, ancient people used methods of description and interpretation that were fundamentally different from those we are accustomed to. The role of abstract analysis was played by metaphorical identification. For example, modern man says that atmospheric changes stopped the drought and caused rain. But the first farmers of the Middle East, observing such an event, internally experienced it completely differently. The long-awaited bird Imdugud flew to their aid and covered the sky with black storm clouds and devoured the Bull of Heaven, whose hot breath burned the crops.

Mythological consciousness thinks in symbols: every image, hero, character denotes the phenomenon or concept behind it.

The mythological image contains many positive human qualities, which, of course, are very rarely combined in one person, which is why it is expressed in mythological form.

Myth lives in its own special time - the time of “beginning”, “first creation”, to which human ideas about the passage of time are inapplicable.

Myth thinks in images, lives by emotions, the arguments of reason are alien to it, it explains the world based not on knowledge, but on faith.

Thought in mythological consciousness was an object of internal perception; it was not thought, but was revealed in its appearance, so to speak, seen and heard. The thought was, in essence, a revelation, not something sought, but imposed, convincing precisely in its immediate givenness. Jung called this type of mythological thinking pre-existing, unable to reveal itself as such and protected from self-reflection by the structure of the symbols dominant in it.

Imagery in myth is inseparable from thought, since it represents the form in which the impression and, accordingly, the event are naturally realized. Myth becomes a way of understanding the world in primitive culture, the way in which she forms her understanding of the true essence of being, i.e. myth acts as a kind of philosophy or metaphysics ancient man.

the person did not have a thirst for learning new things, he did not and could not have a correct understanding of cause-and-effect relationships, he did not have enough words for analytical thought, he did not have the ability to think logically. A myth is an erroneous explanation of phenomena with insufficient means and opportunities for knowledge.

A myth is not an explanation of phenomena, i.e. not a theory, but an expression of faith experienced as reality. In primitive culture, myth fulfills the most important function: it expresses and generalizes beliefs, substantiates established moral norms, proves the expediency of rituals and cults, and contains practical rules of human behavior. Therefore, myth is not an idle product of half-childish imagination, but an active social force. In no case should myth be considered a poetic exercise of weak intellect. Myth is a pragmatic law that determines religious faith and moral wisdom, like holy books- Bible, Koran, etc.

Modern ideas about myth, with all their diversity, allow us to draw some very general conclusions:

1) myths are an attempt by people to comprehend their existence and, as it were, to get used to them, to consciously merge with them with the help of emotional and logical associations;

2) the features of mythological thinking are associated with a lack of general abstract concepts - hence the need to express the general, universal through the concrete. For example, in the Sumerian language there was no word for “kill”; the expression “hit the head with a stick” was used. In addition, mythological thinking identified cause-and-effect dependence with proximity, similarity, alternation;

3) myth reflects what is intuitively recognized by consciousness primitive man regularity and orderliness of natural phenomena in the form of rhythmicity, cyclical movement of their images;

4) the structure of myths reflects and expresses certain characteristics of the human psyche;

5) myth is associated with collective experience, which for the individual was an object of faith (like the wisdom of ancestors). Individual experience could not change it, myth as the faith of ancestors, as a matter of faith of the subject himself, was not subject to verification, did not need logical justification, hence the collective-unconscious nature of myth;

6) myth reflected the laws of nature, due to the weakness of abstract thinking, it personified them, connected them with a consciously acting will, hence the main character of mythology is the deity;

7) mythology is a means of human self-expression. This is the oldest and eternal form of manifestation creativity person. That is why the system of myths, mythologies of various types find themselves at the basis of all forms and types of human culture.

2.1 Myth as the first pre-scientific form of knowledge

Science is one of the most important components of spiritual culture. Throughout its existence, humanity has been exploring the world; this knowledge can be divided into several main types:

1. Pre-scientific is mythology and religion.

2. Extra-scientific - astrology, alchemy, etc.

3. Scientific.

The main criteria for scientific character can be identified:

1. Abstractness or generalization. More often this criterion is called fundamentality or theoreticality.

2. Objectivity.

3. Rationality.

4. Verifiability by practice.

Mythology, for example, was often tied to specific objects and images; it did not generalize knowledge, but took its specific forms.

According to Levi-Strauss: “Myth is the science of the concrete, it operates not with concepts, but with ideas and serves a magical effect.” Scientific knowledge has generality; it has the ability to abstract and generalize accumulated experience and theories. Advances in knowledge are closely related to the development of science as one of the forms of social consciousness. It’s impossible to imagine without science modern life And human culture, it is the highest form of knowledge, which covers all phenomena of living and inanimate nature, material and spiritual activities of people. With the help of science, not only the results of history are assessed, current events are analyzed, but also, to a certain extent, the future is predicted.

Science is the result of social development; from the moment of its inception, it is continuously connected with human activity, on the one hand, being under its constant influence, and on the other, having an active influence on it. It contributes in every possible way to the formation and development of a worldview; one of its main tasks is to satisfy social needs.

The emergence of science has its roots in the distant past. And although the beginnings individual sciences discovered long before our era, in its modern forms it manifests itself in the 16th - 15th centuries. It is precisely the period of time - from the date of publication of N. Copernicus’s work “On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres” (1543) until the publication of the work

I. Newton “Mathematical principles natural philosophy"(1687) - usually called the era " scientific revolution" During this period, a powerful intellectual movement emerged, primarily associated with the work of thinkers such as Galileo, Bacon, and Descartes.

As a result of the efforts of scientists, primarily natural scientists, the image of the world changes, its scientific picture. The idea of the infinity of the Universe is affirmed, in which the Earth is a celestial body that exists along with other planets. With the evolution of the image of the world, the image of man, revealed by a new type of worldview, also changes.

There is growing interest in scientific ideas about man, about the nature of science and the characteristics of scientific research, about the relationship between science and society, science and philosophy, scientific knowledge and faith.

Currently, science is a complex and diverse form of social activity, organically including rational and material factors. And yet, despite this, as a guide - science should be considered as a system of knowledge about the world. At the same time, the object of scientific knowledge is all phenomena and processes occurring in nature and society. Objective scientific knowledge precedes the pre-scientific, which is mainly based on the sensual subjective perception of reality. Pre-scientific knowledge depends in part on man's powers of observation, the nature, complexity, and degree of accessibility of his objects to the human senses. For these reasons, it contains many errors.

At an early stage of history, the mythological way of thinking began to be filled with rational content and corresponding forms of thinking: the power of generalizing and analytical thinking increased, science and philosophy arose, concepts and categories of the philosophical mind itself arose, the process of transition from myth to logos took place (Logos is the root basis of logic) However, logos does not displace mythology, it is immortal, poetry is filled with it, it captivates children’s imagination, delights the mind and feelings of people of all ages, contributes to the development of imagination, which has a beneficial effect on the development of a person’s creative capabilities in all spheres of his activity.

3. Interaction between myth and society

Myth is a multi-layered and multifunctional formation. Taking shape in the conditions of a primitive communal formation, undivided spontaneous collectivism, which generates a transfer to all reality of the natural relations of the tribal community, directly given to man, appears before us as a description of a certain set of fantastic creatures forming a community connected by blood kinship. Natural-cosmic, social, and production functions are distributed among these creatures. At the same time, the mythical narrative is accepted by the mythical subject completely uncritically, acting as truth, no matter how implausible it may look. Myth, therefore, appears for this subject as a completely real world, perhaps even more real than the everyday world. But at the same time, this is a detached world, alienated from the everyday world. It is at the same time visual, sensually given and magical, fabulous and individually - sensual - and abstractly generalized and obviously reliable, practically effective - and supernatural. Its main function is regulation public life in empirical diversity, and it appears here as life itself, where social, ideological and even physiological aspects merge together. In other words, mythology is a form of spiritual exploration of the world. That is why it overcomes, subjugates and transforms the forces of nature in the imagination and with the help of the imagination, it disappears, therefore, along with the onset of real dominance over these forces of nature.

“The nature of mythological consciousness must be understood within the framework of the historical era in which it lived a full life and was the main way of understanding the world. Myth performed multiple functions.” With its help, the past was connected with the present and the future, collective ideas of a particular people were formed, and a spiritual connection between generations was ensured. Mythology reinforced the accepted in given society value system, supported, encouraged certain forms of behavior. Mythological consciousness also included the search for the unity of nature and society, the world and man, the resolution of contradictions, harmony, and internal consent of human life.

With the extinction of primitive forms of social life, myth as a special stage in the development of social consciousness became obsolete and disappeared from the historical stage. But the search for answers to a special kind of questions about the origin of the world, man, cultural skills, social structure, the secrets of birth and death, the fundamental questions of any worldview, did not stop. They were inherited from myth by the two most important forms of worldview that have coexisted for centuries - religion and philosophy.

Myth is not only the historically first form of culture, but also changes in the mental life of man, which persist even when myth loses its absolute dominance. The universal essence of myth is that it represents the unconscious semantic twinning of a person with the forces of immediate existence, be it the existence of nature or society. If myth acts as the only form of culture, then this twinning leads to the fact that a person does not distinguish meaning from natural properties, but a semantic one (an associative relationship from a cause-and-effect one). Everything becomes animated, and nature appears as a world of formidable, but related to man, mythological creatures - demons and gods.

Myth is the most ancient system values. It is believed that in general, culture moves from myth to logos, that is, from fiction and convention to knowledge, to law. In this regard, in modern culture, myth plays an archaic role, and its values and ideals have a vestigial meaning. The development of science and civilization often devalues myth and shows the inadequacy of the regulatory functions and values of myth, the essence of modern sociocultural reality. However, this does not mean that the myth has exhausted itself. Myth in modern culture creates means and methods of symbolic thinking; it is capable of interpreting the values of modern culture through the idea of the “heroic”, which, say, is inaccessible to science. In the values of myth, the sensual and rational are given syncretely, unified, which is inaccessible to other means of culture of the 20th century. Fantasy and fiction make it easy to overcome the incompatibility of meanings and content, because in myth everything is conditional and symbolic.

Under these conditions, the choice and orientation of the individual becomes liberated and, therefore, using convention, it can achieve high flexibility, which, for example, is almost inaccessible to religion. Myth, humanizing and personifying the phenomena of the surrounding world, reduces them to human ideas. On this basis, a concrete sensory orientation of a person becomes possible, and this is one of the most simple ways streamlining its activities. In early and primitive cultures, this method played a leading role, for example, in paganism. But in developed cultures, such phenomena are more likely to have the nature of a relapse or are a mechanism for the implementation of one or another archetype, especially in popular culture or mass behavior. Mythology is often used in the 20th century as an amplifier of values, usually through their exaggeration and fetishization. Myth allows us to sharpen one or another aspect of value, to exaggerate it, and, therefore, to emphasize and even stick it out.

Conclusion

So, the whole era of the spiritual life of mankind, the formation and flourishing of ancient civilizations, was the kingdom of myth, created by the imagination and mind of man. Imagination is a great gift of nature, a precious quality of people, their creative energy. It created the Iliad and the Ramayana, the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Aeneid. It created the Parthenon and the majestic Egyptian pyramids, because before the builders erected them with their own hands and made them a fact of reality, they already lived in a dream, in the mind of the architect.

The consciousness of ancient man created the kingdom of myth. People were looking for answers to philosophical questions that worried them, trying to unravel the mysteries of the Universe, man and life itself. When reality did not provide an answer, imagination came to the rescue. It also satisfied the aesthetic needs of people.

Another important factor, which determines the existence of myths in modern Russia - high the mythological nature of the population’s consciousness, which gives rise to numerous illusory concepts and ideas (utopias, belief in miracles). The sociocultural nature of man, including modern Russians, requires myth as compensation for lost social harmony. Mythologized consciousness satisfies people's need for such compensation. Summarizing the above, we note: in conditions of a crisis state of society, myth is necessary for a person, since it largely solves the problem of his adaptation. Myth is interpreted as an important sociocultural phenomenon associated with the main spheres of public life. life-morality, religion, philosophy, art - with corresponding spiritual values. In the context of myth, man constantly felt his unity with nature, with society, with the Cosmos as a certain integrity, located in unity and interconnection.

Literature used

1.Asmus V.F. Ancient philosophy. M.: Higher School. 1976.

2. Bernal J. Science in the history of society. M.: From foreign literature. 1956.

3. Vico D. Foundations of a new science about the general nature of nations. L., 1940. pp. 87,128

4. Korsh M. Brief dictionary mythology and antiquities. Kaluga: Golden Alley, 1993

5. Kosarev A. Philosophy of myth: Mythology and its heuristic significance - M.: PER SE; St. Petersburg: University Book, 2000.p.96-106,175-200,271-273.

6. Losev A. F. Ancient mythology in its historical development. M.: Uchpedgiz, 1957.p.8,9,12-14,593.

7.Losev A.F.Iz early works. M.: Pravda, 1990.

8.Losev A.F. Losev A.F. Philosophy. Mythology. Culture. - M.: Publishing House of Political Literature, 1991.

9. Introduction to philosophy. Ed. I.T. Frolova. In 2 parts - M.: Politizdat, 1989.

10. Tahoe-Godi A.A. Three letters from A.F. Losev. //Questions of Philosophy.-N7, 1989.

11.Philosophical encyclopedic dictionary. Ed. L.F. Ilyicheva. M.: "Soviet Encyclopedia". - 1983.

12. Stepin V. S. Philosophical anthropology and philosophy of science. M., 1992

13. Tronsky I. M. Problems of the Homeric epic. M.-L., 1935.p.23

14.Hübner K. The Truth of Myth. M., 1996, pp. 80 - 81.

15. Eliade M. The Myth of Eternal Return. St. Petersburg: Aletheia, 1998.

16. Yatsuk D.M. Mythological in spiritual culture. /Author's abstract for the academic degree. PhD in Philosophy/Department of Philosophy and Sociology of Leningrad State University named after. A. S. Pushkina, 2003.

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Van Gogh cut off his ear

The impoverished great artist Van Gogh (who sold only one canvas in his entire life), shortly before committing suicide, in a quarrel with his friend Gauguin, who was more successful in selling his works, cut off his ear - a piece of his left lobe. It hurts, but not as bad as it might seem.

Eve ate an apple

The apple is a healthy fruit, although it is notorious as a “forbidden fruit” since Eve plucked it from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden and deprived us - her descendants - of heavenly life. However, the careful reader should have noticed that nowhere in the Bible was the “fruit” called an “apple.” Of course, it could be an apple. To the same extent as mango, or apricot, or any other fruit. But only the apple received the “stigma”.

An apple fell on Newton's head

And again apples - it was this unfortunate fruit that managed to fall on the head of Sir Isaac Newton and inspire him to invent the law of universal gravitation.. A nice fairy tale, but, most likely, it is just a fairy tale. Voltaire first told it publicly in his essay on Newton. The only person who said this before Voltaire's publication was Newton's sister, Catherine Conduit.

Walt Disney drew Mickey Mouse

It is believed that the most famous cartoon character- Mickey Mouse - drawn by Walt Disney himself. But that's not true. Mickey was drawn by Disney's #1 animator, Ub Iwerks, who was famous for being incredibly fast at drawing. The first Mickey movie (which required 700 drawings a day) was created in just two weeks. But later, when sound cartoons appeared, Disney was rehabilitated - it was in his voice that Mickey Mouse began to speak.

Napoleon was short

Many are sure that Napoleon's exorbitant ambitions are a kind of compensation for his small stature. In fact, the height of the “Little Corporal” was 5 feet 7 inches (168 cm) - taller than the average Frenchman of those years. So why was he called that? This nickname was a "tease" for his minor military rank. Napoleon became emperor, but the nickname remained the same.

Magellan circumnavigated the world

Everyone knows two things about Magellan: that he traveled around the world, and that during this trip he was killed in the Philippines. One excludes the second. In fact, Magellan went exactly halfway: Juan Sebastian Elcano, his deputy, completed the journey.

George Washington was the first US President

Everyone knows that George Washington was the first of 43 US presidents. But no! The first was Peyton Randolph - he was the one chosen by the revolutionary Congress. His first step in high office was the creation of the Continental Army to protect against British troops and the appointment of General Washington as commander in chief! Randolph was succeeded in 1781 by John Hanson, who sent a congratulatory letter to George Washington after his victory at the Battle of Yorktown and signed "I, John Hancock, President of America." And Washington became the first popularly elected US president - but the fifteenth in a row.

Jesus was born on December 25

December 25 - Christmas. But there is no evidence, in the Bible or anywhere else, that Jesus was born on this day. But why was December 25th made the birthday of Jesus? Maybe because on this day the Hellenes celebrated the day of the god Mitros, born of a virgin, and at the same time it was the Day of the Shepherd?

Edison invented the light bulb

1093 patents: Edison is a great inventor. But most of his inventions were made by unknown members of his laboratory. And, besides, four decades before Edison was born, electric light was discovered by a certain Davey Humphrey. His lamp could only burn for 12 hours at a time, and Edison just had to find the right filament material to keep the lamp burning continuously. Yes, an achievement, but not a discovery.

Columbus proved that the Earth is round

Judging by the book of the American author Irving Washington, this was so. Everyone thought the Earth was flat, but Columbus convinced everyone otherwise. In fact, from the 4th century B.C. no one thought that the Earth was like a flat pancake. Columbus could not prove in any way that the Earth was round, since he himself did not believe in it! He believed that the Earth was pear-shaped. He had never been to America, but only got to the Bahamas, which are pear-shaped.

Voluntary reader contribution to support the project

1. Potatoes and tobacco were brought to England by Sir Walter Raleigh

Sir Walter Raleigh was an English courtier, an avid adventurer and privateer. Hmm... that's not all. He was not famous for his beauty, but managed to win the favor of Elizabeth I and gain a reputation ladies' man. Didn't he sacrifice his cloak so that the queen could walk through a puddle of mud without getting dirty? No. Another myth. There was nothing like this in history, nor the fact that in 1586 Sir Walter Raleigh returned to his homeland from the New World (America) with sacks filled with potatoes and tobacco. The fact is that potatoes began to be grown in Italy back in 1585, and from there they subsequently spread throughout Europe. Tobacco was brought to France in 1560 by diplomat Jean Nicot, after whom nicotine was named.

2. Mickey Mouse was drawn by Walt Disney

Creation of one of the most popular and beloved cartoon characters, Mickey Mouse, is credited to Walt Disney. Actually this is not true. Mickey Mouse was drawn not by Disney, but by animator Ub Iwerks, with whom he worked closely. Strictly speaking, Walt Disney was never a great artist, but he had a creative vision and good imagination. He simply could not have drawn Mickey Mouse beautifully on his own. Luckily, he had the fastest animator in the world on his team. The first Mickey Mouse short, released in 1928, was drawn by Ub Iwerks in just two weeks. It turns out that he created approximately 700 drawings a day!

3. Egyptian pyramids built by slaves

In many films and books we are told that the ancient Egyptian pyramids and temples were built by slaves captured during military campaigns in neighboring countries. However, as scientists have found out, the pyramids were built by the Egyptians themselves, presumably hired workers and employees of the pharaoh. During excavations, archaeologists discovered skeletons of local residents, but not slaves. Moreover, inscriptions found on various objects indicate that many of them took pride in their work.

4. Albert Einstein “failed” his school math exam

Rumors that Albert Einstein “failed” his school math exam and could not solve even a basic equation appeared in the newspaper comic strip “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!” from 1935. The author did not indicate the source of this information. Albert Einstein began to manifest since childhood brilliant abilities to mathematics. At the age of 12, he knew arithmetic and integral calculus as well as any adult.

5. Magellan circumnavigated the world

Ask anyone, and he will tell you that the first person to circumnavigate the world was the Portuguese navigator and explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who died on the island of Mactan (Philippines) during an armed skirmish with the natives (1521). The same is written in history books. In fact, this is a myth, since one excludes the other. Magellan only managed to go halfway; the journey was completed by his deputy, Juan Sebastian Elcano.

6. 300 Spartans fought in the Thermopylae gorge

If you watched the movie "300 Spartans", then you probably remember the episode when three hundred brave warriors under the leadership of King Leonidas entered into their last Stand with a huge Persian army. There is partly truth here. The Thermopylae Pass was indeed defended by 300 Spartans, however, besides them, in the first two days of the battle there were at least 4 thousand more allied soldiers, of whom 1,500 took part in the final battle.

7. The Spanish flu originated in Spain

Between March 1918 and June 1920, the disease, originally called the "three-day flu", killed an estimated 100 million people worldwide—virtually a third of Europe's population at the time. The Spanish flu epidemic even reached the Arctic latitudes and the Pacific islands. The first deaths from the Spanish flu were reported in the United States and some European countries long before it arose in Spain. Spain is considered the birthplace of the disease because at the time of the epidemic it was the only country in a world where there was no censorship, therefore it was absolutely impossible to hide the fact of mass deaths from the “three-day flu”.

8. America became independent on July 4, 1776

All history books say that America adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. This is true, but the war for liberation from British rule continued for another seven years. And only on September 3, 1783, England finally granted America independence. This happened immediately after King George III of Great Britain and US leaders signed the final peace treaty.

9. Cleopatra was Egyptian

This fact is wrong. Cleopatra was the only legitimate heir to the Ptolemaic dynasty, a family of Greek origin that ruled Egypt after Alexander the Great. She spoke Hellenistic (a dialect of Greek) and was the first of her family to learn Egyptian. The myth of Cleopatra's Egyptian origins may have arisen because she publicly introduced herself as the reincarnated goddess Isis and quickly adopted Egyptian beliefs and mores.

10. Napoleon Bonaparte was very short

Napoleon Bonaparte is often called the "little corporal." According to historians, the French emperor's megalomania and ambitions to conquer the world are due to the fact that he was short, although in fact his height reached 1 meter 64 centimeters. At that time he was considered a tall man. Regardless of the facts, we still use the words "Napoleon complex" to describe a person who is short.

11. Nero played the violin when Rome burned

There is a popular myth that in 64 AD, the crazed Emperor Nero set fire to his own palace, climbed onto the roof and began playing the violin, singing arias and calmly watching Rome burn. Here are the facts: firstly, when Rome was set on fire, Nero was not in the city; he was in his villa 30 kilometers from the capital. Secondly, the violin was invented only 1.5 thousand years after the incident. Of course, Nero was not a particularly sane person. So, he ordered to kill my own mother due to the fact that she overprotected him and interfered in state affairs. However, it was not he who set the palace on fire. Most likely, this was done by his political enemies, who subsequently wanted to shift the blame onto him.

12. Marie Antoinette said: “If they don’t have bread, let them eat cake!”

Marie Antoinette, contrary to all the statements of historians, never said the words: “If they don’t have bread, let them eat cakes!” According to a popular myth, when famine began in France shortly before the revolution of 1789, and people did not even have bread, Marie Antoinette advised them to eat cakes. And it all started with the fact that Jean-Jacques Rousseau allegedly quoted the words of the “great princess” in his book “Confession” (year of writing - 1766). But the fact is that you need to look at the facts more carefully: at the time of writing the work, Marie Antoinette was only 11 years old.

13. Jesus was born on December 25 (January 7)

No one knows the exact date of birth of Jesus Christ. There are several indications in the Gospel that Jesus was born in the spring, but we celebrate the Nativity of Christ in the winter. Why is this so? The fact is that Christmas began to be celebrated by the followers of Mithras, the god of the Hellenistic world, back in 100 BC. Moreover, they believed that Mithras was the son of a virgin, who was born on December 25, and the first to see the baby were the shepherds.

14. Thomas Edison invented the light bulb

Thomas Edison received a record 1,093 patents throughout his life for inventions, most of which were not his own. He was an ordinary businessman who appropriated other people's ideas and copyrighted them. Thomas Edison held a patent for the light bulb, registered in 1880, but it was actually invented by British chemist and astronomer Warren de la Rue back in 1840.

15. America's first president was George Washington

Ask any American student and he will tell you that the first President of the United States was George Washington, although this is a lie! During the period of the American Revolution (1775-1783), several presidents were elected by the Continental Congress, none of whom stayed in office for long. In fact, America's first president was Peyton Randolph, who created the Continental Army under the command of George Washington. John Hancock succeeded him in 1781. Eight years later, George Washington came to power - the first American president (and formally the fifteenth) elected by the people.