"Germany, The United Kingdom and the United States are countries with high numbers of immigration and an increasing number of migrants who obtain the citizenship of the host country. Besides controlling migration inflows strong institutions of integration are needed. Policy makers in all three countries are discussing potential instruments for a better understanding of the rights and responsibilities that come with naturalization, how basic information on the political system, the state and society can be conveyed and how a feeling of belonging to the host nation can be encouraged. These aspects are central points of a larger complex, which could be called a culture of integration. In the United States this culture of integration and naturalization has a long tradition: citizenship courses and citizenship tests are to ensure that naturalization applicants receive civic education; through "civil religion" and an almost holy significance of the American nation for the individual, a strong patriotism and a feeling of national loyalty expressed by symbols, celebrations and festival days Americans and immigrants are united beyond ethnic belonging or different religious denominations. This strong patriotism is passed on by national institutions (schools, army) and in everyday life. The significance of belonging and identifying with the United States is also expressed in very festive naturalization ceremonies. Even if organised as large-scale events the naturalization ceremonies still have collective and binding effects. Naturalization in the United States is very much seen as a step in the integration process, not as its completion. Access to American citizenship consequently is relatively easy. In the United Kingdom policy makers are also discussing ways of making the acquisition of citizenship more valuable. The currently applied "mail order approach" will be reformed. Naturalization ceremonies are planned to give added significance to naturalization. The wording of the current oath of allegiance will be modified to a more modern citizenship pledge. Germany is also rethinking its traditional approach to naturalization. With the reform of the Citizenship Law in 2000 it was made easier for immigrants to acquire the German citizenship. As part of the development of a new culture of integration, including a nation-wide integration program, the symbolic side of naturalization is promoted by introducing naturalization ceremonies. They are meant as a gesture of welcome and can be understood as an offer to identify as part of a new German nation."[author´s abstract]
From nineteen Sixties to nineties Lithuanian photography reached its highest maturity. Its acclaim in the former Soviet Union prompted the apparition of a term Lithuanian school of photography, defining the mainstream of Lithuanian photography of the time. The authors to participate in this cultural phenomenon created a considerable body of photographic works, often metaphorically depicting Lithuanian ethnic culture and rural life. During the last decades the debates on the issues of the contemporary photographic creation are rising, implying questioning, whether or not the works of the newer generation lack creative maturity, Whether they are worth of being exposed next to those made by classics. This article provides an overview of similarities and differences in the work of the Lithuanian school of photography and the generation of the independent Lithuania, using a complex method of social iconography. The usage of this method will guide the discourse from the offsprings of the socially-based national art and social photography to the overview and localization of the Lithuanian social photography in the global scene. The research aims to emphasize the basic iconological differences in the works of the two creative generations, to name the changes of the Lithuanian social and cultural habits and to detennine if the iconography of the Lithuanian photography corresponds to its period of time. Two types of social photography are distinguished - social documentation and semiotic communication. Conclusions. The iconographic formulas, practiced by the photographers (1960-1990), like old persons portraits, are common also to other Eastern European countries. The frequent festive aspect (religious holiday, manifestation, basketball team Victory etc.) works as a reason for picture-taking, and expresses a Lithuanian preference of a holiday to workday, exterior to interior, spiritual to material, anecdote to invented story. Very few signs of material culture of the Soviet period appear. Inthe works of the classics, mirror of the spiritual culture is a face of old persons. Meanwhile the young generation discovers the importance of teenagers and youth as the marginal part of the postmodern demo graphic situation. The influence of media transfers images of convicts, drunkards, disabled and other disadvantaged social groups. The crisis of the contemporary photography might lie in the lack of social descriptiveness, but not in the definition of national, social or private identities.
Throughout many years Berdyaev discusses the problem of spiritual aristocracy formation in Russia. The Russian philosopher defends an imperishable value of spiritual aristocracy, as he doesn't see a direct connection between the socio-historical environment and the emergence of "knights of spirit". In his works he underlines the priority of the universal objective Divine will, calls for renewing Christianity and all aspects of public life, connects religious revival only with the development of a person. Berdyaev believes that the 'people-nation' can be aristocratic if it is ready to subordinate their own actions to the absolute Divine will. In 1917-1918 the idea of a hierarchical structure of any reality defines a train of Berdyaev's thought. The being of the free person is closely connected with cosmic hierarchy. Creativity and social equality are not compatible, creativity demands inequality; the nature of creativity and the essence of the person are aristocratic. The Russian thinker welcomes the overthrow of autocracy. He denies class foundation of the ongoing revolution, exposes bourgeois, non-creative base of the socialist idea. Berdyaev sees the cause of 'the sacred realm' downfall in the estrangement of Russian people from the state power, absence of spiritual aristocracy in Russia. He accounts for the victory of democracy as an external condition of spiritual knighthood's making, whose thoughts are directed outside of the empirical world, a necessity and compulsion realm. The Russian philosopher hopes that the democratic revolution will release spiritual forces of the people, whose ascending creative movement will be accompanied by the formation of national spiritual aristocracy. But in July 1917 Berdyaev ascertains that Russia is sacrificed to revolutionary element. He considers the propensity of the Russian person to social utopias as a consequence of centuries-old slavish existence of the people, the absence of the sense of duty and responsibility in the Russian national character. The victory of Bolsheviks in race for power by autumn of 1917 has confirmed Berdyaev's worst fears: the triumph in Russia of a bourgeois ideal of prosperous habitation in the material world, ideals of equality and justice over a hierarchical principle of the universe design acted as a characteristic symptom of Russian people's degradation, transformed the project of national aristocracy of spirit into a utopia. The article also shows how the adherents of Marxist ideology have turned this project into a caricature on the philosophy of history.
Historiography of the famine in Soviet Russia and Ukraine 1921-23. includes a large number of scholar papers covering foreign humanitarian aid to starving population in the context of the work of such large organizations as the American Relief Administration, the Nansen Committee, etc. At the same time, there are practically no articles and thesis which fully describe the assistance to the Soviet starving from individual states and national aid committees. The purpose of this article is to highlight and summarize the main aspects of the activities of the Dutch charitable and public organizations on the territory of Soviet Russia and the Ukrainian SSR during the famine of 1921-23 on the basis of documents from the Russian central and regional archives, as well as the National Archives of Sweden, whose data are first introduced into the scientific circulation. Despite the absence of diplomatic relations between Soviet Russia and the Netherlands, representatives of almost all sectors of Dutch society took part in that activities. The collected data allow us to identify four main channels for the receipt of Dutch humanitarian aid in the areas affected by crop failure:1) Pro-government and public charitable organizations (the Red Cross of the Netherlands, the Dutch branch of the International Union "Save the Children"), which provided aid to the population in Volga region, Crimea and in Ukraine. In addition to sending humanitarian supplies, the Dutch Red Cross equipped its own expedition to Samara province;2) Associations of trade unions of the Second International, which participated in the financing of an independent expedition of the "International Federation of Trade Unions" to the Chuvash Autonomous Region;3) communist trade unions and associations of the Netherlands, acting through the organization "International Workers' Aid", which took part in the restoration of the Soviet national economy, and also maintained numerous orphanages in Soviet Russia;4) Religious societies of Dutch Mennonite Protestants, which sent humanitarian aid to the places of settlement of their co-religionists, where, at the insistence of the Soviet government, they provided aid to all those in need, regardless of religion.All the activities of various Dutch organizations and individual citizens in Soviet Russia and the Ukraine showed the readiness of the population and political forces of the Netherlands to maintain close contacts and interaction between our peoples, regardless of the official relations of states and political differences.
Even during the first establishment of the Republic (with the expression of Balaban), "the science of spirituality (=psychology) that talks about the spiritual existence of man" has always been interesting by the writers of that period. Especially since the 1940s, in some scientific, moral, religious and literary journals published in Turkey, the views of Western psychologists such as Carl Gustav Jung, who are famous in the psychology of religion, were explained. In this research, it has been tried to analyze how C. G. Jung and his views are handled in these journals. The journals discussed in the research are as follows: "Sebilürreşad", "Muslim Voice", "Tawhid", "New Ground", "Orbit", "Academy", "Young", "Cultural World", "Monthly" and "Kur'ani Hayat". In our research, the approach to Jung and his views in these examined journals was investigated and some results were obtained. Accordingly, Jung has a positive phenomenon accepted by the Islamic community, as some Islamic journals acknowledge that Jung is different from their peers". All Islamic journals used Jung. Although some criticize Jung to strengthen their own claims by pointing to Jung's authority, he used Jung to "guide his target audience" because he considered it closer to Islamic understanding than his Western counterparts. Islamic journals never used Jung's concepts of "persona", "anima-animus" and "self" in their articles. But they gave a lot of place to Jung's concepts such as "religion", "God", "archetype" and "collective unconscious". Especially since they see the concept of "collective unconscious" as an Islamic value, they have embraced it more. Islamic journals acknowledge Jung as the "authority". While this "authority" is the "strengthener" of its own claims based on some Islamic journals, it is a "model" for some Islamic journals whose aspects should be taken in accordance with their worldview. It is clear that Islamic journals do not have a scientific style and purpose when using Jung. It was concluded that Islamic journals approached Jung's concepts in the form of "ethnocentric" and "circular reasoning". It has emerged that Islamic journals that act with the logic of "Take what works and leave what does not work" and those who defend Islamic psychology are similar to the logic of "take the positive side of the West that fits the Islamic perspective" to Jung and his views. Key Words: Islamic Journals, Carl Gustav Jung, Jung's Views, The Jungian Phenomenon, The Collective Unconscious, Document Analysis.
Abstract: The article examines theoretical and practical aspects of the activities of Muslim banks in the countries of Eurasia in the first half of the 20th century. These credit institutions were created on the initiative of Muslim entrepreneurs who sought to have an affordable source of financing for their activities. Muslim banks were an important element of the financial system of a number of countries during the era of colonialism. In the context of competition in the capital markets between Western banks and credit institutions belonging to different religious and ethnic groups, as well as competition of the latter with each other, Muslim banks acted as an instrument for ensuring the economic independence of Muslim communities in a number of countries and regions in the period under review. After the countries of Asia gained independence, Muslim banks were transformed into ordinary national banks.The activities of Muslim banks are considered in the article against the background of discussions on the admissibility of loan-based banking operations in the context of the prohibition of usury (riba) in Islamic law. The article emphasizes that Muslim banks in their activities relied on the theological and legal conclusions (fatwas) of Islamic scholars who considered such activities legitimate and not falling under the Quranic concept of usury.The author adheres to the point of view that the creation of an independent state or nationalterritorial / national-cultural autonomy of Muslims was a natural result of the struggle of the Muslim bourgeoisie with competitors for the markets for goods and services in a number of countries and regions, considering both Muslim and Islamic banks only as a certain stage in the development of banking in a number of countries in Asia, Africa and Europe.The article disputes the idea that both Islamic banks and the Islamic economic model as a whole are monolithic structures that cannot be modified. According to the author, the very creation of Islamic banks, as well as their convergence with conventional (non-Islamic) credit institutions, which we observe today, is a natural result of a change in the economic interests of the ruling class both in the countries of the spread of Islam and in the Western world.The article examines the history of the creation of Muslim banks in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in British India. These regions are brought together by the fact that Muslims who lived there were forced to compete with representatives of other ethno-confessional groups and communities living in the same territory. Particular attention is paid to the theological and legal discussions on the creation of a Muslim bank in Russia.
Purpose. The paper is aimed at studying the specificity of anthropological problematics in pragmatism from the perspective of its ability to be the source of analytic philosophy evolution in the socio-humanitarian direction. Theoretical basis of the research is determined by the works of the representatives of classical pragmatism (C. S. Peirce, W. James, J. Dewey, F. Schiller), neopragmatism (W. V. O. Quine), post-pragmatism (R. Rorty) and analytic pragmatism (R. Brandom). Their works give a clear understanding of the important place of anthropological searches in the theory of pragmatism. Originality. On the basis of the analysis of logical, epistemological and metaphysical ideas formulated by representatives of pragmatism, it is proved that pragmatic methodology is anthropocentric. It is established that the ideological and social foundations of pragmatism can be determined as pluralistic ones due to the attention to the human person. It is revealed that theoretical and methodological searches of pragmatism can be effective in the formation of the socio-humanitarian concepts in analytic philosophy through the specification of strategies for the cognition of human existence in such terms as experience or self and the development of practical ways to justify the truth of knowledge. Conclusions. Pragmatists criticized impersonal, formal thinking, which cannot be an effective means of cognition. Thinking has a social basis and is entirely personal. Justifying its dependence on the socio-cultural sphere and the internal intentions of the subject, it is possible to develop an effective logical theory that operates symbols not only at the syntactic or semantic level but also takes into account the pragmatic aspect of language. Anthropological problematics is also important in the theory of knowledge, the core of which is the notion of pragmatic belief, which enables truth and religious beliefs, since the foundation of the theory of truth is determined by the principle of humanism, and the truth is interpreted as a value orientation. Knowing the external world, we find in it the similarity with us – that's why the metaphysical foundations of being, according to pragmatism, are personified, and the methodology is defined in anthropomorphic terms. Applying it, the study of human existence is specified in the analysis of psychological and socio-cultural dimensions of such concepts as experience or self. Attempts to comprehend the nature of human existence in pragmatism are empirically grounded. Appealing to science, methodological pluralism, the search for socio-cultural background for thinking and suitable linguistic forms of expression of human experience are the achievements of pragmatism, which are the basis for the socio-humanitarian redescription of analytic methodology.
Lebanon has a number of features that determine its special position in the region and its importance in the system of relations between the Middle East states. An important role in this is played by the ideological and strategic aspects of world politics in the region in which Lebanon is organically inscribed in both the historical and geopolitical plans. The stability of a country that has passed through a long civil war makes it stand out from a number of states in the region. The author's hypothesis is that the reason for the extraordinary stability — of Lebanese society, the system of state power, political elites, economic ties and foreign policy contacts, despite all the negative regional factors — can be rooted in the consociational principle of making key decisions based, paradoxically, on the notorious political confessionalism. The peculiarities of the Lebanese political model (although they are subject to well-deserved criticism) distinguish it from the multitude of "customary" democracies, bringing together with examples of the unique democratic systems of Europe and other continents. The motley confessional composition of society, along with the historically determined foreign policy guidelines of individual communities, suggested a special informal decision-making mechanism throughout the country — not on the basis of majority power, but on a contractual, compromise principle. Leading theorists of consociationalism often had in mind the Lebanese pattern of democracy in their political studies, and many of their developments are still well applicable for analyzing the functioning of the main state institutions of Lebanon. A theoretical study, along with an analysis of the current regional situation, convince the author of the correctness of the hypothesis put forward. Both in Lebanese history and now, it is the inveterate forms of external influences that forced Lebanese society to balance on the verge of aggravated intercommunal clashes. The combination of external factors served as the beginning and further warmed up the civil war. Heightened relations with Syria by 2005, the Israeli attack in 2006, the gravest threat from jihadi-caliphatists – all these factors have negatively affected intra-civil and inter-group relations. Stereotypical forms of use of religious communities (Shiites, Sunnis, Christians of different denominations, etc.) from the outside and even direct pressure from abroad continue to confront them, imposing ideas on social relations and political participation that are alien to Lebanese. Diversification of political and business contacts of Russia with representatives of different Lebanese communities can serve as a good example of Lebanon's perception of all the features of its political system as a full subject of international relations.
The article covers the place and role of Derbent in the cultural and civilization space of the Medieval Caucasus. Basing on written sources, the author highlights important features and peculiarities of the town situated at the 'eternal crossing', its polyethnic nature was the main structure-forming factor and the cultural environment was a kind of symbiosis based on centuries of interaction of traditions of historically developed ethnic, confessional and social groups of townspeople. A certain negative balance in the historical and cultural process of Medieval Derbent was accounted for the slave trade. Traditionally being one of the transit centers of the slave trade in the Eastern Caucasus, in the 11th-13th centuries Derbent acquired the status of the most well-known and active slave trade market. During the process of Islamization, Dagestan people found themselves under direct influence of the Arab-Muslim civilization. Together with the religion, the rich scientific literature and fiction of the peoples of the Middle East came here and had an entirely fruitful influence on the development of spiritual life of the region. Representatives of the Muslim elite of Derbent were recognized authorities in the field of hadith science and Muslim law. Medieval Derbent was not only a religious but also a major center of spiritual culture, a kind of intellectual base and foundation of the local Muslim spiritual elite. The Arabic language and writing were critical for the formation of the local culture and science. In the comparative historical aspect, the development of Medieval Derbent had a strongly-pronounced specific character conditioned, first of all, by the centuries-old history of the town, which created unique conditions for the formation of the ethno-confessional composition of the town's population, for the development of economic and social life. As polyethnicity was the main structure-forming factor in Derbent, it should be considered as a specific model of stable long-term interethnic interaction. For many centuries, Derbent was a well-known center of large-scale transit trade in the Eastern Caucasus. Realizing the natural needs of peoples for the exchange of goods, trade was a powerful factor of creation because it stimulated the development of crafts, science, art, development of new territories, and construction of towns. Trade was also an important factor of peace as it required political stability. At the same time, trade was a factor of dialogue culture, the culture of civilized communication, respect for customs and faith of partners in trade. An important feature of Derbent was its unique socio-cultural function: it was the center of not only economic, but also considerable cultural attraction.
<div><p><em>Savitribai Phule and Pandita Ramabai, Tarabai Shinde, Dr Anandibai Joshi, Ramabai Ranade, the greatest women produced by modern India & one of the greatest Indians in all history, the one who lay the foundation for a movement for women's liberation in India. Their goal was freedom from Indian tradition, freedom from religious practices and rituals. Despite coming from diver's social background they talk about individual development. They wanted to introduce practical philosophy of human being. In their philosophy they are talking about individual growth, care and humanism as virtue, they emphasis on self-reliance and wants to interpret Indian tradition in their own way. They fought against the tradition and fought for human rights, rights of education and rights of human development. They took a very revolutionary stand in their life in the history of India. Like Pandita Ramabai rejected Hinduism on gendered ground. She rejected traditional practice forced by so called traditions. </em></p><p><strong><em>On the other hand Savitribai was the teacher who educates all females and all underprivileged peoples of India.</em></strong><em> The truly liberating moments for Indian women happened in and through the life of Savitribai, who chose to walk tall, in step with her husband ahead of her time by centuries. The historic disadvantages of caste and gender filed to keep her down in the 19<sup>th</sup> century. In her writings she constantly emphasizes the importance of education and physical work for knowledge and prosperity. She felt that women must receive an education as they were in no way inferior to men; they were not the slaves of men.</em></p><p><em>This paper is an attempt to discuss Savitribai Phule as feminist philosopher in colonial India. She raised the problem of women's oppression and her thoughts on resolving women's domination through their own efforts and autonomy makes her join the company of other nineteenth century male feminist Philosophers. In this small work I would like to focus on feminist philosophical aspect of her thought through her writings with special reference to Kavya Phule, moral values given by Savitri will compare with Aristotle's moral theory/virtue ethics and will conclude with remark on contemporary relevance of her philosophy of feminism.</em></p></div>
The purpose of this article is to review the literature of Kievan Rus' in the light of interaction and mutual influence of Christian and pre-Christian worldviews; to open and show the character of the relations of pre-Christian and Christian religions; to reveal some aspects of these relationships in the literature of Kievan Rus in XI-XIII centuries. Methodology. Among the general scientific approaches in solving the problems that have been used was primarily theological and philosophical. This approach allowed us to explore and objectively analyze the tendency to reflect pre-Christian beliefs in the literature of Kievan Rus. As specially-scientific methods there were used historiosophical (philosophical understanding of historical events and processes), topical (selection and analysis of the basic conceptual directions of transformations), chronological (link historiographical tradition with a concrete historical reality) and the philosophical and hermeneutical (theological-philosophical interpretation of monuments). Scientific novelty. The work is theological and philosophical reflection analysis of pre-Christian ideas in literary monuments of Kievan Rus. For the first time takes into account the specifics of medieval imagination and poetry, studied the religious significance of the texts found their reflection in the pre-Christian beliefs and stated on their role in shaping the world Kievan Rus' scribes, analyzed the specificity of interaction between Christian and pagan notions. Conclusions. In the process, the author comes to the conclusion that by denying the fact of paganism, separating itself along with other Orthodox nations from the "Latins" and "heretics", Rus claimed its identity through the adoption of Christianity. This process has had its impact on the internal development of the mythodogical consciousness of the people, has accelerated the emergence of the epic in his heroic cycles and Kiev, where it was easy, but dosed and originally instilled Christian ritual principles and values.Byzantine and Bulgarian literature's circle passed to Russ ready and clear truth, and Rus scribes were the first who learnedit as a model for their life. It is practical, saint idea became the basis of Rus literacy. The apparent ease of assimilation of people outside of the Orthodox Church with the epic structure is not set to culture in general, the problem of conscious, long and organized opposition to the new faith and the old folk pagan wisdom, representatives of which remained "team change people's consciousness," because she folk wisdom in his epic the design principles adopted ritual orthodoxy.
The Silk Route Between Past and Present. A Paradigm Beyond Space and Time. On the threshold of the third millennium, in an atmosphere of anachronisms and contradictions, dominated and conditioned by scientific and technological discoveries, new ideas seem to take flight whilst regional barriers and territorial boundaries are collapsing to give way to a new form of comprehensiveness. Sharing ideas and intellectual stimuli, amalgamating cultural elements circulating along its intertwining branches, the Silk Route has more than once given life to new scientific forms, cultural and intellectual systems and, amongst these, artistic shapes and religious syncretism. The "Silk Route", which, with its articulated network of twisting routes and sub-routes, even now well represents the challenging paradigm of a new age yet standing at its threshold.
A paradigm beyond time and space. The following paper aims at focusing on the Silk Route's Religious-Cultural dimension in the middle-inner Asia of the 13th-15th Centuries, when, whatever may have happened regarding local realms and rulers, it played the role of junction and meeting point of different worlds and their civilisations. Even now we are confronted with a political trend that is at once and the same time a cultural current; emanating from the past, it is re-linking Europe and Asia and, re-uniting territories with their individual and traditional cultural forms, is shaping a renewed kaleidoscopic framework. We are confronted with new forces deeply rooted in the past, which, emanating from the far eastern fringes of Asia, by the second decade of the 21st century have reached the far western fringes of Europe, dynamics that are not only 'economics' and 'scientific technologies' but also thought, religion, and other intellectual values. These forces are heir of past times, nevertheless they endure in the present and are the active lively projection of a future time…though still largely to be understood and matured. A vision of life and universe where speculative and religious values coexist with astounding technological and scientific discoveries in a global dimension without space and time.
At the verge of this millennium, the Information and Communication Revolution has given life with its advanced technologies to a new space conditioned and dominated by no-distances. And this space with its always-evolving scientific discoveries today involves the society in its entirety (what is commonly named as "global space" actually symbolised by the Silk Route), endeavours to amalgamate it creating new links between civil and political society and positioning them in a new military dimension. New forms and structures that are rapidly evolving in search of some balance between technological development and preservation of ancient traditions, which might make possible social and economic justice, yet an utopia more than a reality. However, both (social and economic justice) form the ideological basis of order and stability, anxiously pursued by the young generation in search of an economic and speculative order where stability, security (hard and soft security) and religious structures should in their turn become the platform of new political-institutional structures.
Be that as it may, this is not a new phenomenon. Technological advancements are astoundingly new, but not the process and its aims. We are confronted with a phenomenon that has already occurred in more than one historic phase. Epochal phases. That is the human search for economic and social justice, and their framing into new conceptual schemes. And within this ratio, it would be unrealistic to ignore an additional key-factor. It would be unrealistic to deny that Religion has always been a major player. It has been at the basis of more than one revolution, it has represented the culturalpolitical response to foreign challenges, it has legitimised military action, it has given life to new spaces and political systems, it has filled with its pathos cultural and political voids. It has given to Mankind and Universe a new centrality, creating a new space within which Man and Mankind, History and Philosophy, Cosmos and Universe with their laws meet and merge in new systems and structural orders. The World and its Destiny, core of lively debates, conditioned by the eternal dialectic between economics and society, between society and religion, between science and technology on the one hand, and religion on the other, between formal ratio and ideologies or myths, which underline with their voice the eternal antithesis between cultures and civilisations.
At the verge of the third millennium, the intellectual world is facing a new historiographical debate, into which the Religious Factor has also entered. Knowledge and the vision of the world and its new order/disorder are translated into a new philosophy of culture and history, of society and religion. Rationality, historicity of scientific knowledge, nature and experience, nature and human 'ratio', science and ethics, science and its language, science and its new aims and objectives are amongst some of the major themes of this debate. But not only this: which aims, which objectives? And within which new order that might ensure security and stability, social and economic justice? Thence, revolution and power are coming to the fore with another factor: Force and its use…a stage that, however, does not disregard dialogue and tolerance, or, as recently stated by Francesco Bergoglio, more than tolerance, "reciprocal respect". These are only 'some' amongst the main issues discussed and heard of also in the traditional culture of ordinary people.
Undoubtedly, the end of the Cold War and the well-known "global village" dealt with by Samuel Huntington, the global village with its technological revolutions, have induced to re-think our own speculative parameters, traditional paradigms and models of society and power, mankind and statehood. And once again we have been confronted with elements that might bring to new forms of sharp opposition and a global disorder. However, beyond and behind the Huntingtonian cliché of the "clash of civilizations", a new cultural current seems to take flight spurring from the roots of a traditional past, which however has not yet disappeared. The Silk Route stems out emanating from the far-eastern lands of Asia as the conceptual image, the paradigm of a conceivable new order. By merging the material, scientific-technological and economic dimension of life with a new cultural (or neo-cultural) vocation it seeks (and seems to be able) to give life to a new social body and new systemic-structural answers, a comprehensive order capable of tackling the challenges opened by the collapse of the traditional cultural parameters and the dramatic backdrop of a mere clash of civilisations.
Middle-Inner Asia of the 13th -15th Centuries: the Silk Route and its Reflection on Painting and Architectonic Forms. As just pointed out, nothing is new in the course of History. Professor Axel Berkowsky has authoritatively lingered on the Silk Route – or better "the New Silk Route" – with specific regard on practical aspects of these last decades. In the following text, I wish to linger on a past historic period, particularly fertile when confronted with the collapse of traditional values and the challenges posed by new fearful forces and their dynamics: the Mongols with their hordes (ulus) and, some later, Tamerlane with his terrible Army. Sons of the steppe and its culture, these people suddenly appeared on the stage, raced it from Mesopotamia to the north-eastern corner of Asia with their hordes and their allied tribal groups, shattered previous civilisations and imposed a new dominion, a new political-military order and new models of life. But, with their Military superiority, they also brought the codes and the ancient traditional knowledge of the nomadic world. It is misleading to watch to this epochal phase only as a phase of devastation and horrors. With their codes, Mongols and Timurids brought with them the Chinese algebraic, mathematical and scientific knowledge, and fused it with Mesopotamian mathematical and medical sciences reaching peaks of astronomical, arithmetical, numerical, geometric, algebraic theoretical and practical knowledge. They also brought with them from vital centres of religious scholarship and life a large number of theologians, pirs, traditionists and legal religious scholars with their individual religious features and systems. Shamanism, Buddhism, Muslim forms, Nestorianism and other cults vigorously practised in the mobile world of the steppe gave life to an important phase of religious culture and multifarious practices largely imbued with mystic feelings and traditional emotional states.
Then, and once again, within the global space created by the military conquests of the new-comers, the Silk Route – or more precisely, the Silk and its Routes – reorganised and revitalised trades and business, gave life to close diplomatic connections and matrimonial allegiances reinforced by a vigorous traditional chancery and official correspondence, that tightly linked Asia with Europe. Within this new global order, the Silk and its routes played the crucial role, shaped new political, institutional, scientific and intellectual formulae, gave life to new conceptual forms that – at their core – had Man and Mankind as centre of the entire Universe. We are confronted with a cultural development begun at a time when the sons of the steppe were taking over lands of the classical Arabic civilisation (like Syria, Iraq and al-Jazīra), at a time when the Iranian world was still centre of intellectual life and its social norms were still spreading over large spaces of Inner Asian territories. Visual Arts wonderfully mirror this phenomenon.
We witness a process that renovated itself 'from within' in the course of three centuries and did not stop even when the arrival of the European Powers on the Asian markets seemed to sign, with the decay and end of the traditional market economy, also the closing of the cultural interactions created by the Silk Routes of the time. Once again, Visual Arts wonderfully mirror this phenomenon: a dramatic transitional, fluid period, marked by a distinctive timeless reality, which had no longer territories well delimited by frontiers to conquer or defend.
Herewith I have dealt, as an example, with the reflection of the new conceptions of Life and Universe on visual Fine Arts in the 13th-15th centuries, specifically painting and architectonic forms. Ideological values that aimed to forge new relationships among different peoples and their individual human values, religious thinking, moral codes…and economic, scientific, technological achievements.
'Fine Arts'. Visual fine arts, in my case painting and architecture, are the mirror of feelings shared by the Lords of the time, registered by painters and architects in plastic forms, the signal of these stances to an often confused Humanity. Here, I linger on two pictorial themes: Nature and Landscape on the one hand, and Religion with its very images on the other. With regard to architectonic forms, these reflect the same conceptual paradigm shaped through technical features. By those ages, Nature and Landscape were perceived by contemporary painters and architects with formal, stylistic and technical characteristics which strongly reflected the impact with a world which lived its life in close, intimate contact with nature, a world and a culture which observed Nature and the Cosmos, and perceived them in every detail over the slow rhythmical march of days and nights, of seasons and the lunar cycles. These artistic features depict a precise image, that of a world which lives its life often at odds with nature for its very survival, a world which conditions nature or is conditioned in its turn. At that time, it was a world and a cosmic order which were often perceived by the artist in their tension with uncertainty and the blind recklessness of modern-contemporary times. However, to a closer analysis, these same artistic forms shape a celestial order which was at one and the same time a culture and a religion.
In the vast borderless space of the Euro-Asiatic steppes, cut by great rivers, broken by steep rocky mountainous chains and inhospitable desert fig.aux, the Silk succeeded in building and organising its own network of twisting routes and sub-routes, along which transited (albeit, yet still transit) caravans with their goods…but also cultural elements and their conceptual-philosophical forms. Of these latter and their syncretic imageries and dreams, the fine arts have left evocative pictures and architectonic images, which depicted a world that is the projection of a precise social and political reality and its underlying factors, such as the restlessness of a nomadic pattern of life and the culture of the Town and its urban life. Little is changed today despite the collapse of the Soviet empire and its order. Features and forms change, but in both cases they announce a different world with its order built on a robust syncretism, which is at the same time science, knowledge, harmony and religion (divine or human, or both). A world that is the projection of a precise political, social and economic reality. A reality that, at one and the same time, is the silent voice of a humanity often disregarded by contemporary writers, an 'underground world' that echoes traditional forms and their dynamics, and a no less authoritative de facto power that politically, economically and militarily conditions and dominates its times. A reality that finds an authoritative voice through the Silk Route.
Purpose. The paper attempts to investigate the constructivist approach to the social world and its implications for social forecasting. Theoretical basis. Social forecasting is mainly based on the idea that a human is "determined ontologically". Using the methodology of the natural sciences, most predictions and forecasts fail to encompass all the multiplicity and variability of the future. The postmodern interpretation of reality gave impetus to the development of the new approaches to it. A constructivist approach to social reality began to compete with essentialism. Social constructivism asserts that reality is a set of mental constructs, that it is ultimately a text. Radical constructivism interprets reality as a specific system of meanings emphasizing the artifact aspects of our reality. An interpretation of the social actors' behavior is based on the ways of understanding accepted in a given society/community and do not possess ontological universality. The creators of social space are also its creations. Originality. Within the framework of the postmodern approach to reality, the second-order forecasting, or forecasting of forecasting, is particularly relevant. That means that the observers-forecasters must be included in the forecast as a part of one-unified process. At this stage, a forecaster must realize that he/she is a part of a larger system, a part of the world he/she observes (and actually creates). The situation changes dramatically – the forecaster is forced to take responsibility for his/her own observations. This ultimately leads to the "humanization" of forecasting. Acting in our world full of uncertainty, unpredictability, and turbulence, modern researchers of the future should be mindful of powerful social constructs of reality. Conclusions. Social forecasting should be embedded in a wider context, which requires a joint effort of philosophers, foresight practitioners, historians, psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, religious scholars, anthropologists, etc. To develop promising visions and scenarios of the future, it is necessary to answer the question "Why?", which is the task of philosophically oriented research, because without this answer, we will deal with the consequences; and the implementation of the negative scenarios will reproduce itself in new socio-cultural and historical conditions. An in-depth understanding of this "Why?" provides opportunities to be in the flow of transformations. The study of the deep mental processes of the actors of social changes, the multidimensional influence on the transformation of social structures can gradually expand an answer to the question "Why?", that can cause positive changes and, accordingly, allow to create fruitful projects of the future and form effective behavioral strategies that correspond to the desired level of social development.
In: Meždunarodnye processy: žurnal teorii meždunarodnych otnošenij i mirovoj politiki = International trends : journal of theory of international relations and world politics, Band 18, Heft 1, S. 72-88
The relevance of the research is determined by the fact that in the current conditions economic, technological, social, cultural, and religious competition between states becomes increasingly acute. Global threats are constantly increasing which proves the need for international cooperation in this area – right now many countries around the world are working together to reduce the threat of a large-scale epidemic of acute respiratory infection. New challenges of global scale are emerging, and there are still risks of natural, man-made, bio-social, and other catastrophes that could lead to global crisis situations, which requires Russia to strengthen its role in this area. The article is devoted to the problems of selecting prospects for national innovation and technological strategies that allow giving a new impetus to international humanitarian cooperation and emergency humanitarian response. The main aspect of methodological and legal bases of innovative management in international economic cooperation is the implementation of interrelated measures that provide large-scale assistance in areas of major disasters. Materials and publications of domestic and foreign experts working in the humanitarian field were used as sources in this analysis. The main purpose of the research is to substantiate the prospects for innovative management of international cooperation in the humanitarian sphere and in the field of disaster risk reduction. In accordance with the stated purpose of the study, the key tasks of substantiating the organizational foundations for the formation of an integrated system of international emergency humanitarian response, creating a new economic model of innovative management of international cooperation in the humanitarian field in order to increase economic security were solved. The methodological foundations of the research provide for the theory of constructing a new system of economic interstate humanitarian interaction. As a result of the research, the prospective directions of international economic cooperation and humanitarian cooperation, identified on the basis of a specific historical analysis of the development of such interaction, are analyzed. The article analyzes not only theьstages of building an international humanitarian response system with different countries, but also the experience of creating institutional joint organizations in the field of ensuring life safety at the international level. On this basis, a modern economic model of innovative management of international humanitarian aid is proposed, which meets the principles and spirit of international law. Practical recommendations for increasing the importance of the Russian Federation in the international system of emergency humanitarian response are substantiated. We have developed proposals that will allow our country to make a technological breakthrough in the international humanitarian sphere. The results of the research can be applied in the formation and implementation of the national international policy of humanitarian cooperation in the field of life safety.
The article is devoted to the problems of the development of modern Chinese cities, which describes the development of large Chinese cities in the 20th and 21st centuries, analyzes contemporary problems and the conditions for their formation in the near future. The pur- pose of the article is to show the dynamic development of the largest and most important modern cities in China and the problems that arise in connection with their development. Novelty — first in the periodical literature describes the development of megacities as a ra- tional option for the territorial organization of urban areas. The methodological basis of the article consists of historical-logical and complex approach, tabular and graphical me- thods of presenting research results. In the 80s, the fi rst special economic zones were created. His process was characterized by the introduction of elements of the free market, the de- collectization of agriculture, changes in the sectoral structure of the economy and its ration- alization. A prolonged concentration of the population in large cities of China causes their further expansion and the formation of large metropolitan clusters — megacities. Given the development of the Chinese economy, it should be understood that its participation in international exchange, despite notable progress, still too small; expansion in world markets occurs with low quality and, as a result, with low prices for Chinese goods; China's growing position in the global economy is predominantly quantitative rather than qualitative. To con- solidate China as one of the leaders in the process of economic globalization, it is important to ensure the eff ective management of such large centers of concentration of human and material resources as megacities. In this regard, much attention is paid to the analysis of trends and the conditions for the further development of Chinese cities. It is determined that in 20-25 years, more than 1,000,000,000 Chinese citizens will live in large cities. Th e process of converting them into a new modifi ed form, megalopolises, will continue. Th e factors that will infl uence the development of modern megacities, and the set of internal processes for their further development (political, social, economic, ethnic, religious and environmental) that require some structuring are identifi ed. Th e negative aspects of urbanization were iden- tifi ed: growing income inequality and a deterioration in population structure. To overcome these phenomena, restructuring of the regional economy and measures to overcome inequa- lity are considered useful, where preference is given to income distribution mechanisms de- pending on the quality of labor, stimulation of social responsibility of employers and others. Th is assessment of China's demographic policy is aimed at improving family planning.
