Culture: forms of culture. Russian culture. Modern culture

Human civilization has reached a high stage of development. And one of the defining features of this is the diversity of culture.

Definition of term

Culture, forms of culture and its types is a complex and multifaceted concept that covers all spheres of human activity. Perhaps there is no more word, which would have such a number of definitions. But in fact, what do we mean by the term "culture"? Forms of culture - what are they and how many exist?

First of all, it is the development of human society in the aggregate and the understanding of the beautiful. These are all the material and spiritual achievements of civilization. And from this point of view, all that has been and will be done by man is culture. The forms of culture are precisely why it is so difficult to clearly delimit and define. The first instruments of labor are the achievement of mankind, but also simple female needlework in this case - too.

In addition, culture is a certain level of development of civilization. Therefore, this term is used in history to refer to historical periods: ancient, medieval, modern culture.

In the notion of an ordinary person it is art, theaters and museums, literature. People, things and even society as a whole are used to assess from the point of view of an ideal state: a cultured person, a high culture of performance. Therefore, there are so many definitions of the word "culture".

Three approaches to the definition of the term

Anthropological - is the recognition of the value of culture of each country and people. This is a broad approach, within which the greatest number of definitions of the concept we are considering are given.

Philosophical - its task is not only to describe cultural phenomena, but also to penetrate into their essence, to give them an explanation.

Sociological is the study of culture as one of the main factors of the formation and development of society.

History of the Term

Culture arose long before the term that denoted it appeared. For the first time this word occurs in ancient Rome, in written sources of the 1st-2nd centuries BC. It was a labor about agriculture. He belonged to Marc Portia Catherine the Elder, who in his treatise wrote not only about the methods of cultivation of the land, but also about how carefully it is necessary to choose a site for farming, so that he would evoke pleasant emotions and like his master, otherwise there will be no good culture. Here this word sounded in Latin meaning "to cultivate something."

Later, this term in the Romans received several more meanings: education, development, worship.

In Europe in the period of the XVII-XVIII centuries, the word "culture" was first used in the writings of the historian Pufendorf. It is interesting that he called a cultured person the one who was brought up, as opposed to uneducated persons.

This term was widely used by the German philologist Johann Christoph Adelung. They wrote an essay in which he gave his explanation. Under the culture, he understood the activity of self-education of an individual and peoples.

It should be noted that every century added to the definition of the word its mite, and this process is most likely not yet completed.

Two concepts of culture

As already mentioned above, human civilization has reached a high stage of development. Throughout the existence of society there was a continuous formation of culture. It exists in history and can not be considered outside the historical framework. There are two concepts of culture:

1. This is a unified development process that affects all countries equally.

2. Each region inhabited by man has its own unique way of development.

The first concept presupposes a unified path for the development of culture among all peoples. Those who do not fall within certain limits are "wild" and "backward". This approach to understanding culture existed until the 20th century.

The second concept rejects the notion of the backwardness of the culture of certain peoples and speaks of their uniqueness and a unique way of development.

History of culture: periodization and stages of formation

Traditionally, there are six periods of its formation and development:

1. Primitive. Forms and varieties of culture of this time were still in its infancy. Only rules and norms begin to emerge, mythology and art appear (rock paintings, sculptures).

2. Culture of the Ancient World, which includes the culture of Antiquity and the Ancient East.

3. Culture of the Middle Ages.

4. Culture of the Renaissance, or Renaissance. It is on a time frame refers to the Middle Ages, but in its scope and impact on the next generation stands out in a separate period.

5. Culture of the New Time.

6. Contemporary culture. It begins at the end of the XIX century and exists till the present time.

The sciences and methods of study

The forms and varieties of culture are so diverse that several sciences are engaged in their study. The main of them - cultural studies, cultural anthropology, philosophy and sociology of culture, as well as cultural studies.

Culturology is a modern science that studies the laws of the development of culture. The main methods used in the study: historical and logical. The first is aimed at understanding how this or that culture originated, what stages it went through in its development, and what resulted as a result. The second, the logical method, allows you to compare, compare this or that culture with others.

Basic forms of culture: a general characteristic

The question of typology is one of the most difficult in culturology. It is still a subject of debate among scientists. The types and forms of culture are too diverse to be clearly delineated from each other and identified in certain types. Therefore, there are a large number of different variants of the typology of culture. Typology allows you to systematize the objects under consideration by some of their common characteristics.

The simplest and most understandable is the division into three forms of culture: material, spiritual and physical.

Material culture is all that is done by the hands of a person to meet their needs. It includes items of production and crafts, various structures, tools. The material objects of material culture are called artifacts.

This species has a complex structure, consisting of several directions:

1. Agriculture. It ensures the survival of man.

2. Structures and buildings.

3. Tools that provide physical and mental labor rights.

4. Transport and communication (mail, radio, telephone, computer networks).

5. Technologies.

In the XX century - as a continuation of the material - they began to allocate an economic one.

Spiritual culture. Its objects are morality, ideology, religion, art, philosophy, literature, folklore, education. That is all that is the product of the sphere of consciousness. It is not connected with material objects, but with intelligence, feelings and emotions.

It should be noted that these two types can not always be clearly delineated. For example, the art of design or great architectural monuments are equally treated as a material and a spiritual culture.

The forms of spiritual culture are very diverse and include religion, mythology, art, philosophy.

Religion is a special kind of relationship of a person to himself and to the world, belief in the existence of higher powers, worship. The most important concepts in religion are good and evil, faith, morality.

Mythology is folk tales in the form of epics, fairy tales and myths. They existed at different stages of development in any society and people.

Art is a way of knowing reality. In general, the concept of art, like culture, is very broad and multifaceted.

Philosophy is one of the ways of knowing the world, studying the laws of its development.

Spiritual culture has its own characteristics. It reacts most sensitively to social influences, and its products are valuable in themselves, even without the embodiment of them into a material form.

Physical culture is a creative type of activity that is expressed in bodily form and is designed to meet the primary needs of the individual. It includes: a culture of physical development (everything related to health promotion, up to professional sports), recreational (restoring and maintaining health) and sexual.

In addition, by typology, culture is also divided into traditional, industrial and post-industrial.

Forms of culture

Given the complexity and versatility of the term in question, it is also common to divide culture into the following forms:

1. World culture - the totality of all the best achievements of mankind in the history of its existence.

2. National - the synthesis of material and spiritual values, norms of behavior and beliefs of the nation. As a rule, it is not created by the whole society, but by its most educated part - writers, poets, scientists, artists. It is necessary to distinguish between national and ethnic cultures. These are different types, although at first glance they are very similar.

3. Ethnic - always strictly localized in certain geographical frameworks. It is homogeneous in its structure and usually covers the sphere of everyday culture.

4. Dominant - traditions, customs, values that are shared by only a part of society, but it is the largest or has instruments of influence on the rest.

5. Subculture - the traditions, norms, rules of behavior of any particular social group. There are a lot of kinds: hippies, punks, emo, gothic, majors, hackers, bikers and others. Sometimes some species becomes the opposite of a dominant culture.

6. Elitary (high) - is created by professionals independently, or by order of the privileged strata of society. Its forms, in turn, are fine art, literature, classical music.

7. The mass form of culture - it can be called the opposite of the elite. It is created on a large scale for a wide range of people. Its main tasks are entertainment and profit making. This is one of the youngest forms of culture, which owes its appearance to the rapid development of mass communication in the 20th century. They are divided into the following types:

• Media - television, newspapers, radio. They disseminate information, have a strong impact on society and are targeted at different groups of people.

• Means of mass impact - advertising, cinema, fashion. Their influence on society is not always regular. Most often, they are focused on the average consumer, and not on individual groups.

• Communication tools - these include the Internet, cellular and telephone communications.

Recently, individual researchers are invited to identify another type of mass culture - computer. Computers and tablets have practically replaced many users of books, television and newspapers. With their help, you can instantly get any information. According to its impact, this type of culture catches up with the mass media, and with the further spread of computers in a short time may be ahead of them.

8. Screen - one of the types of mass culture. Got my name on the way the demonstration is on the screen. It includes movies, computer games, television series, game consoles.

9. Folk culture (folklore) - in contrast to the elite, it is created by anonymous non-professionals. It can also be called amateur. This is folk art, which is born from labor and everyday life. Passing from generation to generation, folk culture was constantly enriched.

Features of culture of different countries and ages

Each country, ethnic group or nation has its own special culture. Sometimes the differences can be inconspicuous, but most often they are immediately evident. The European will hardly see the difference between the culture of such peoples as the Incas and Maya. Not very different in his eyes the art of Ancient China and Japan. But he will easily distinguish the culture of some European country from the Asian one.

An example is the legacy of Ancient China. What features does it have? This is a strict hierarchy of society, observance of rituals, the absence of a single religion.

Functions

There is no need to prove that culture plays one of the important roles in the life of an individual and society as a whole. It performs the following functions:

1. Cognitive. Culture, summarizing the experience of previous generations, accumulates valuable information about the surrounding world, which helps a person in his cognitive activities. A single society will be intellectual as far as it studies and applies the experience and knowledge contained in the gene pool.

2. Normative (regulating): taboos, norms, rules, morals are called upon to regulate a person's personal and social life.

3. Educational (educational) - it is culture that makes a person a person. Being in society, we learn knowledge, rules and norms, language, culture of behavior, traditions - both of our social community, and global ones. On how much a person will learn from cultural knowledge, it will depend on who he will eventually become. All this is achieved through a long process of upbringing and education.

4. Adaptive - helps a person adapt to the environment.

Domestic culture

The Russian Federation is a multinational country. Its development took place under the influence of national cultures. The uniqueness of Russia lies in the extraordinary diversity of traditions, beliefs, moral norms, rules, customs, aesthetic tastes, which is related to the specificity of the cultural heritage of different peoples.

Russian culture is dominant in the territory of the Russian Federation. Which is understandable, because the Russians constitute an ethnic majority among other peoples of the country.

In all existing typologies, our culture is always treated separately. Domestic and Western culturologists unanimously believe that Russian culture is a special phenomenon. It can not be attributed to any of the known types. It does not apply to either the western or the eastern, being somewhere in between. This borderline, dual position led to the formation of internal contradictions of Russian culture and national character.

And it was formed quite differently than in the East or West. The struggle against the raids of nomads, the adoption of Christianity (while in the West great power was acquired by Catholicism), the Mongolian yoke, the unification of the ruined and weakened principalities into a single Russian state had a huge influence on its development.

At the same time, Russian culture has never developed as a holistic phenomenon. She always had a dualism. It constantly has two opposite principles: pagan and Christian, Asian and European. The same duality is inherent in the character of the Russian person. On the one hand, this is humility and compassion, on the other - rigidity.

An important feature of Russian culture was that it arose on a multi-ethnic basis. The nucleus of the future Russian people, the Eastern Slavs, encountered the Turkic and Finno-Ugrian tribes in the process of settlement, partially assimilating them and having absorbed the elements of the culture of these peoples.

Stages of the development of Russian culture

1. Ancient period.

Speaking about the development of Russian culture, it is worth noting that at the very beginning the great influence on it was rendered by the Slavic culture. The Slavs, before their division into three groups, lived in Central and Eastern Europe. They settled near rivers and streams, in a safe place, for example, in a remote forest. The main occupations were agriculture, fishing and various crafts. The Slavs were pagans and worshiped gods, spirits of nature and ancestors. In the objects of everyday life, ornaments and weapons found at the site of excavation, the influence of Scythian tribes and ancient culture is traced.

2. Culture of Kievan Rus.

The beginning of this period is connected with the adoption of Christianity in Russia. Material culture, which existed before, changed little. But huge changes have occurred in the sphere of spirituality. Thanks to Orthodoxy, such types of art as painting, architecture, music, literature received impetus to development. The culture of this period had the following features: a strong influence of religion, the cult of the hero - defender of Rus, the disunity and isolation of Russian principalities, integration into European cultural space. At this time, crafts and folklore are developing, the first bylinas appear, a single writing arises, the first schools are opened.

3. Culture XIII-XVII centuries, which is divided into two periods: the culture of Moscow Rus and the Russian Empire.

In the times of Moscow Rus, the country began to lag far behind the western states as a result of the Mongol yoke. At the time when the first manufactories appeared in Europe, Russia had to engage in the restoration of crafts.

The beginning of the Russian Empire (the Petrine era, or the period of the "Russian Enlightenment") is characterized by the transition from the ancient heritage to the culture of modern times.

4. Soviet culture.

The 20th century was a time of great upheaval for the whole world, but most of all global changes touched the Russian Empire. Revolution, the change of state system, the formation of the USSR ... Culture, the forms of Russian culture were changed in the strongest possible way. The main features of this period: the emergence of a new, socialist culture, the diversity of its forms. In these years, created such remarkable personalities as Mayakovsky, Blok, Zoshchenko, Bulgakov, Sholokhov, Gorky.

As for the culture of modern Russia, after a difficult transition period as a result of the collapse of the USSR, it begins its gradual revival. In many respects, state policy contributes to this. Various projects are being developed and implemented. For example, the federal program "Culture of Russia", which operates from 2012 to 2018. It helps to realize many creative non-commercial projects, providing grants to its authors.

The modern culture of Russia is a set of national cultures that are in constant interaction. Gradually, it fades away from traditional culture, and its image is increasingly associated with the cosmic age and the ecological ideas of mankind. For a modern man it becomes characteristic to be dissatisfied with his present position and way of life. He is looking for a way out in the "green" movement, becomes a fan of natural nutrition or actively begins to practice yoga. All these are shoots of a new, alternative culture that replaces the one that existed in the transitional period of Russia's development.