Historical Psychology & Sociology: Contents and abstracts

Social violence: a comparative historical view (to the 65-th anniversary of Victory Day)

E. S. Senyavskaya: Time and space in the war (pp. 5–17).

«War time» as a borderline experience and «war space» with its specific features are shown through the perception and existential experience of Soviet participants in World War II (Great Patriotic War, 1941–1945), as reflected in their letters, diaries, memoirs, front poetry and songs of those years.

Keywords: time, space, experience, war, life, death, life’s meaning, poetry, prose, memories.

Meaning of life as an existential need: Interview with E. S. Senyavskaya (pp. 18–20).

Mirror images in culture

Yu. V. Liubimov: Imago alterius (The Image of the East in the European tradition). Part 2(pp. 21–47).

The article discusses the image of the East as it has taken shape in Russia. This process has mainly been conditioned by the circumstances caused by the colonization and the assimilation of the new territories both in the East and in the South. Three stages in the formation and growth of the Russian Empire are distinguished.

Keywords: image, interaction, colonization, national policy, Russia, the East, Volga Region, Siberia, the Caucasus, Middle Asia.

Russia: social-psychological pictures of history

S. A. Nefedov: The origin of Russian modernization and people’s mentality in the 17^th century (pp. 48–62)

This article describes the ideological and mental conflicts that accompanied the origin of modernization in Russia in the middle of the 17^th century. When Dutch and English merchants and their servants appeared in Russia, this brought about a collision between the Orthodox and the Protestant spiritual traditions. The activities of Patriarch Nikon and the persecution of foreigners in the 1650s were consequences of this clash.

Keywords: Protestantism, Orthodoxy, mentality, modernization, tradition, Russia, Holland, England, commerce, Patriarch Nikon, Tsar Aleksey Mykhailovich, Kokui.

Evolutionary studies in religion

A. M. Khazanov: Comments to the new Russian translation of the Quran (pp. 63–66).

The new Russian translation of the Quran is a response to insistent popular demand (by both religious Muslims and students of religion) for more adequate knowledge of the original document.

Keywords: Quran, Muhammad, Revelation, Islam, Islamic studies.

U. Z. Sharipov, R. M. Sharipova: Preface to the new Russian translation the Quran (pp. 67–82)

The Quran may be viewed both as an historical document and as ‘The Revelation.’ The interpreters have carefully studied all previous translations into Russian as well as multiple interpretations by both European and Eastern researchers. They have taken into account the achievements of their predecessors and have removed shortcomings as much as possible. This work is considered an intermediate result in the process of seeking to reach a better understanding of the meanings of the Sacred Book.

Keywords: Quran, Muhammad, Revelation, original, translation.

Historical demography

V. Ya. Belokrenitsky: Population growth in the Islamic world (pp. 83–96).

The relative growth of the world Muslim population came suddenly to light in the 1970s. The article highlights the historical trends associated with Muslim population dynamics. It analyzes a set of factors behind the faster increase in the number of Muslims and considers the demographic forecasts for c.2025 and c.2050. Changes in relative strength of different religious communities have occurred many times in human history. This by itself has not led to conflicts between the followers of different religions, although at regional levels it could set the stage for interfaith tensions.

Keywords: Muslim population, demographic dynamics, demographic forecasts, geo-demography, geopolitics, hybridization of cultures.

Conceptions of history

N. A. Khrenov: Public in view of history and communication theory (pp. 97–117).

The author is developing a project to investigate the population at large within the context of cultural history, and, in particular, the history of communication. Every new medium engenders the emergence of relevant socio-psychological communities and conflicts inside the developing culture. Therefore, the study of the public formation and development is an essential component of historical psychology and sociology.

Keywords: public, invariable public, accidental public, mass communication, mass psychology, social-psychological community, communication, social institute, psychological factor in history, social functioning, urban culture, cyclical principle.

A. P. Nazaretyan: Notes on human history, on ‘the nightingales of the Paleolithic’ and on ‘the conscience of Pithecanthropus’ (pp. 119–139).

The efforts to oppose cultural anthropology and history were caused by particular reasons at a certain stage in the development of science and social practice. Nowadays, however, they are becoming signs of provincialism and professional narrow-mindedness. The author demonstrates this by critically considering a typical publication in the Russian journal ‘Ethnographic Review’.

Keywords: history, anthropology, Paleolithic, evolution, progress, culture, conscience, Axial Age, techno-humanitarian balance, anthropogenic crises.

A. M. Burovsky: The amenities of the Paleolithic and scientific ethics (on a paper in ‘Ethnographic Review’) (pp. 140–157).

Despite the opinions of some of diehard-minded ethnographers, Paleolithic culture did not exhibit sufficient restrictions regarding anti-ecological activities, overkill or even the elimination of entire species. Humans destroyed nature and provoked anthropogenic catastrophes of various scales at the pre-agrarian stage of their development. The thesis of ‘ecological homeostasis’ at primitive state is a badly outdated and dangerous delusion. It contradicts the real archeological record so evidently that it can be defended only by means of aggression against its opponents instead of by rational arguments.

Keywords: primitive state, ecology, overkill, anti-ecologic activities, Paleolithic, culture, techno-humanitarian balance.

Russian anthropologists are often short of sufficient historical erudition: Interview with A. M. Burovsky (pp. 158–163).

The social past in the individual memories

O. Ye. Etinhof. Mikhail Bulgakov and Boris Etinhof: Was there a meeting during the Civil War in Russia? (pp. 164–183).

By doing archival research, an historian, granddaughter of Boris Etinhof (a Bolshevik during the Civil War in Russia, 1918–1821), is verifying the stories about her grandfather's meeting with the outstanding writer Mikhail Bulgakov who was a White Army officer (i.e. counter-revolutionary). The real circumstances of their relation are the subject of her analysis.

Keywords: Bulgakov, the Caucasus, Vladikavkaz, battlefront, the Civil War, Denikin’s fighters, the Reds, the Whites, Bolsheviks, troops, clandestine activity.

E. I. Nickolaeva, A. M. Safonova: A child’s psychological trauma as an echo of social perturbations (pp. 184–194).

The analysis (mostly done in 1990) describes the influence of the repression in the 1930s on children whose parents were repressed. Some 50 years later, the respondents revealed a typical psychological mechanism of suppressing their immediate responses to negative stimuli as well as aggression-refraction through inverted responses to positive stimuli. In this case, the child’s psychological trauma is a marker of very large perturbations in social history.

Keywords: negative emotional experience, childhood, critical period, political repressions, delayed aftereffects, psychological trauma, Stalin’s regime.

Scientific heritage

V. N. Yarkho (1920–2003): Did the Ancient Greeks have a conscience? Toward a study of humans in the Attic tragedy (pp. 195–210).

The author was an outstanding philologist, cultural historian and pedagogue as well as a first-rate expert on Ancient Greek literature of the archaic and classic periods. Outside Russia and the USSR, his works have been published in German, Italian, English, Chinese, Greek and Hungarian.

Although the title of this article looks rather unusual for a professional scientific text (it was first published in the academic collection ‘Antiquity and Modernity’ [Moscow: Nauka, 1972, pp. 251–263]), it is the brightest and most paradoxical description of the spiritual world of humans living on the threshold of the Axial Age.

Keywords: conscience, morals, shame, fear, gods, will, punishment, humans, responsibility, Aeschylus, Euripides.

Essay

V. M. Alpatov. A reflection on justice (pp. 211–219).

Two basic conceptions of just social relations are distinguished in modern culture, namely those rooted either in Humanist or in Market-oriented worldviews. The Market approach has recently become almost completely dominant, but the author argues that its dominance will be temporary.

Keywords: justice, Humanism, collectivism, egoism, intellectuals, science, the USSR, West, the USA.

Contents and аbstracts (pp. 220–222)

Authors of the issue (p. 223)