On the civilization and civilizational development of Russia. Historiosophical analysis

Abstract

Two types of phenomena can be named by the term “civilization”. In accordance with the first one civilization is a socio-economic structure historically developed by the human­ity. This structure replaces barbarism and includes a set of institutions and mechanisms of social life and social consciousness.

In accordance with the second meaning civilization is a concrete people community that has changed the clothes of a traditional society and has a “strong culture”. “Universal” civilizational institutions and mechanisms manifest themselves through this culture even in forms specific to a given society, so it is possible to discuss them as a unique “all-hu­man” content. In this case the term means “local civilization”. It reveals itself in different cultural systems in accordance to their own “logic of meaningfulness, which takes origin in the deepest mechanisms of consciousness” and manifests itself in the “universal”.

In every society civilizational institutions and mechanisms are the result of revolutionary events or evolutionary processes. They are fixed by the traditional for this society forms of organization and functioning. These forms are presented both in the individual and public consciousness and they are processed in the “civilizing” process. For Russia the forms which have taken on the character of the constants are the imperial way of being, the autocratic form of government, the mechanism for maintaining autocracy “property/propertylessness”, the people accustomed to the autocratic form of government through obedience, the Ortho­dox Church performing the function of government support and neglecting the people.