2. Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere, Gumilev
Part One - ON THE VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE
[Note: this section has much to do discussing methodology. “How will I go about writing this book and why.” I carefully read everything as I uploaded it. This section is just as fascinating as ever for me, and easy to move forward with interest.]
The spontaneous movement reflected in social development is studied by ✓historical materialism; ✓human physiology is the domain of ✓biology; the ✓relation of man to the landscape, ✓historical geography, is in the domain of ✓geographical sciences; the ✓study of wars, ✓laws and institutions is ✓political history, and of ✓opinions and thoughts is ✓cultural history; the study of ✓languages is linguistics, and the work of ✓literary - ✓philosophy, etc. Where does our problem fit in?
PROVING THAT SUPERFICIAL OBSERVATION LEADS THE RESEARCHER DOWN A FALSE PATH, AND SUGGESTING WAYS TO AUTOCONTROL AND SELF-CHECKING.
I. On the Usefulness of Ethnography THE NEED OF ETHNOSES
When a people [1] has lived long and peacefully in their native land, it seems to them that their mode of life, manners, behavior, tastes, opinions, and social relations, i.e., all that which is nowadays called "stereotype behavior," are the only possible and correct way. And if there is any deviation, it is from "ignorance," which simply means being unlike oneself. I remember when I was a kid and was into Maine Row, a cultured lady said to me, "Negroes are just like our men, only black." It could not have occurred to her that a Melanesian witch from the shores of Malaita could have said with the same reasoning, "The English are bounty hunters like us, only white." Commonplace judgments sometimes seem internally logical, though they are based on ignoring reality. But they are immediately shattered when they come into contact with that reality.
For the medieval science of Western Europe, ethnography was irrelevant. European contact with other cultures was limited to the Mediterranean basin, on whose shores lived descendants of subjects of the Roman Empire, partly converted to Islam. This, of course, separated them from the "Franks" and the "Latins, i.e., the French and Italians, but the presence of common cultural roots made the difference not so great as not to preclude mutual understanding. But in the age of the great geographical discoveries the situation changed radically. If one could even call the Negroes, Papuans, and North American Indians "savages," the same could not be said of the Chinese or Hindus, or the Aztecs or the Incas. We had to look for other explanations.
In the 16th century, European travelers, discovering distant countries, unwittingly began to look for analogies with their customary forms of life.
The Spanish conquistadors began to give baptized Cassicas the title of "don," considering them Native American nobles. The heads of the Negro tribes were called "kings". Tunguska shamans were considered priests, although they were simply doctors who saw the cause of illness in the influence of “evil spirits," which, however, were considered as material as beasts or foreign tribesmen. Mutual misunderstandings were compounded by the certainty that there was nothing to understand, and conflicts ensued, leading to the murder of Europeans who offended Aboriginal sensibilities, in response to which the British and French organized brutal punitive expeditions. The civilized Australian Aboriginal Waipuldanha, or Philip Robertet, relayed accounts of tragedies all the more horrific because they occur for no apparent reason. For example, the Aborigines killed a white man who smoked a cigarette, thinking him a spirit with fire in his body.
Another was pierced with a spear for taking a watch out of his pocket and looking at the sun. The natives thought he was carrying the sun in his pocket. And such misunderstandings were followed by punitive expeditions leading to the extermination of entire tribes. And not only with whites, but also with Malays, Australian Aborigines and Papuans of New Guinea, they often had tragic collisions, especially complicated by the transfer of infection [2].
On October 30, 1968, on the banks of the Manaus River, a tributary of the Amazon, the Atroari Indians murdered missionary Cagliari and eight of his companions solely for being tactless, from their point of view. Thus, on arriving in Atroari territory, the padre announced himself with shots, which, according to their customs, was indecent; entered a maloka hut, despite the protest of the owners; yanked a child by the ear; forbade him to take the pot of his soup. Of the whole party only the forester, who knew the customs of the Indians, survived, and left Padre Cagliari, who had not heeded his advice and had forgotten that the people on the banks of the Po were not at all like those who lived on the banks of the Amazon [3].
[3] It took a long time before the question was posed: would it not be better to apply to the natives than to exterminate them? But for this it was necessary to recognize that peoples of other cultures differ from Europeans, and from each other, not only in languages and beliefs, but also in the whole "stereotype of behavior", which it is advisable to study in order to avoid unnecessary quarrels. Thus, emerged ethnography, the science of differences between peoples.
Colonialism is disappearing under the blows of the national liberation movement, but inter-ethnic contacts remain and are expanding. Consequently, the problem of mutual understanding becomes more and more urgent, both on the global scale of world politics and on the microscopic, personal, in encounters with people who are sympathetic, but not like us. And then a new question arises, a theoretical one, despite its practical relevance: why are we humans so different from one another that we must "apply ourselves" to one another, learn other people's manners and customs, look for acceptable ways of communication, instead of those that seem natural to us and that are quite sufficient for intra-ethnic communication and satisfactory for contacts with our neighbors?
In some cases, ethnic dissimilarity can be explained by the diversity of geographical conditions, but it also occurs where climates and landscapes are close to each other. Obviously, we cannot do without history. Indeed, different peoples have arisen at different times and have had different historical destinies, which leave traces as indelible as personal biographies that shape the character of individuals. Of course, ethnicities are influenced by the geographical environment through the daily interactions of humans with the nature that feeds them, but that is not all. Traditions inherited from ancestors play their part, in habitual enmity or friendship with neighbors (ethnic surroundings) play their part, cultural influences, religion have theirs. But beyond all this, there is a law of development that applies to ethnicities as to any phenomena of nature. Its manifestation in the diverse processes of the emergence and disappearance of peoples we call ethnogenesis. Without taking into account the peculiarities of this form of motion of matter, we cannot find the key to unraveling ethnopsychology either in practical or theoretical terms. We need both, but on the path that we have chosen, unexpected difficulties arise.
THE COMPLEXITY OF THE TERMINOLOGY USED
The overabundance of primary information and poorly developed principles of systematization are particularly painful for history and ethnography. After all, bibliography alone employs volumes that are sometimes no easier to sort through than the scientific problems themselves. The reader has a need to see at once the totality of events (the principle of actualism), or all the ways of their formation (the principle of evolutionism), rather than a multi-volume list of article titles, mostly obsolete. The works of the founders of Marxism contain a program of a systematic approach to understanding historical processes, but it has not yet been applied to ethnogenesis.
It is true that in ancient and partially forgotten historiography there are several attempts to introduce the systematic method in this field, but in contrast, the concept of Polybius is nowadays considered as a systematic method.
The concept of Polybius is now regarded as an elegant rarity; the concepts of Ibn Khaldun (14th century) as a curiosity; Giambattista Vico is mentioned only in the grandiose, though perhaps unsuccessful, constructions of N.J. Danilevsky. O. Spengler, and A. Toynbee, it became a reason to abandon the construction of historical models altogether. The result of this process is unambiguous. Since it is impossible to remember the totality of historical events, and since, in the absence of a system, there is no and can be no terminology, even communication between historians year after year becomes more difficult.
By giving terms different shades and putting different contents into them, historians turn them into multivalued words. At the first stages of this process, it is still possible to understand the interlocutor on the basis of the context, the intonation, the situations in which the dispute takes place, but in subsequent phrases even this (unsatisfactory) degree of understanding disappears. Thus, the word "clan" is usually applied to the concept of "clan system", but "family of the boyars Shuisky” clearly does not apply here. Even worse in translation: if a clan is a Celtic clan, then it is not possible to call any of the Kazakh branches of the Middle and Younger Jus (ru) or the Altai "bone" (seok), as clans, because they are different in function and genesis. But all these far from similar phenomena are named equally and, moreover, on this basis are equated with each other. Willy-nilly, the historian does not study the subject, but the words have already lost their meaning, while the real phenomena elude him. Now let us assume that three historians are discussing a problem, with one putting the clan, the second the seok, and the third the boyar surname in the concept of "clan". It is obvious that they simply do not understand not only each other, but also what we are talking about.
Of course, it may be objected that it is possible to agree on the terms, but the number of concepts grows in direct proportion to the accumulation of information; new terms appear, which in the absence of a system become polysemantic and, consequently, unusable for the purposes of analysis and synthesis. But even here we can find a way out.
So far we have been talking about the conditions of research; let us say about its prospects. The study of any subject has practical value only when it is possible to look at the whole subject. Thus, for example, the electrical engineer must imagine, even if not to the same degree, the effects of ionization and thermal recoil, the electromagnetic field, etc.; the physical geographer, speaking of the Earth's shells, remembers the troposphere, the hydrosphere, the lithosphere, and even the biosphere. Similarly, a historian can only make more weighty and interesting conclusions for the reader when he covers in a single discourse a wide range of interrelated events, simultaneously agreeing on terminology.
This is difficult, but not impossible. It is only important that the conclusion be consistent with all the facts considered. If anyone offers a more elegant and more convincing concept to explain the facts listed in this book, I will bow my head respectfully. Conversely, if someone were to declare my conclusions final, not subject to revision or further development, I would not agree with him. Many books, alas, do not last as long as people, and the development of science is an immanent law of humanity's becoming. And so I see my task as being to do my best to benefit the Beautiful Lady of History and her Wise Sister, Geography, which relates people to their foremother, the Biosphere of the planet. [4]
GENERALIZATIONS AND SCRUPULOSITIES
The species Homo sapiens, spreading over all the land and a large part of the marine surface of the planet, have made such significant changes in its configuration that they can be equated with geological upheavals on a small scale. [5] But it follows from this that we distinguish a special category of regularities - historical and geographical, requiring for the consideration and study of a special methodology, combining historical and geographical methods of research. This in itself is not new, but the approach to the problem has so far been eclectic. For example, the use of C14 analysis for the dating of archaeological sites, electrical prospecting (too laborious for practical application), methods of cybernetics in the study of "stone slabs" (which gave the same results as the visual counting), etc. And the most important thing was overlooked! That "most important", in our opinion, is the ability to extract information from the silence of sources. The path of induction limits the historian to mere or critical retelling of others' words, with the limit of research being distrust of source data. But this result is negative and therefore not conclusive. Only the establishment of a certain number of undisputed facts, which, when detached from the source, can be put into a chronological table or placed on a historical map, will be positive. In order to interpret them, one needs a philosophy, a postulate, and this violates the accepted principle of inductive inquiry. Dead end!
Right! But the geographer, geologist, zoologist, and soil scientist ever have more data, and their sciences evolve. This is because instead of a philosophical postulate, natural scientists apply an "empirical generalization" which has, according to Vernadsky, a validity equal to an observed fact [6]. In other words, the natural sciences have overcome the silence of historians and have even benefited science by getting rid of the lies always contained in the source, or brought in by ourselves through inadequate perception. So why give it up for historians? In engaging nature as a source, we must also engage the appropriate methodology of study, and this gives us a splendid perspective that allows us to lift the veil of Isis.
One of the tasks of science is to get the most information from the least amount of facts, to make it possible to isolate the precise regularities that make it possible to understand the most diverse phenomena from a single point of view, and later to learn to navigate through them. These regularities are invisible, but they are not invented either: they are discovered by generalization.
Here is an example borrowed from biology: "Stars and planets move across the sky. A balloon goes up, and a stone that falls off a cliff falls into an abyss. Rivers flow into the sea, and precipitation falls in the oceans, forming layers of sedimentary rock. The mouse has very thin legs and the elephant has huge limbs. Terrestrial animals do not reach the size of whales or giant squids. What do these facts have in common? They are all based on the law of universal gravitation, which is intertwined with other laws that are just as real, invisible, but perceptible.
Earth's gravity has always existed, but it took the insight of Newton, who observed the fall of an apple from a branch, to make people aware of its existence. And how many other powerful forces of nature that surround us and control our destiny lie beyond our comprehension. We live in an undiscovered world and often move by feel, which sometimes leads to tragic consequences. This is why we need the magic glasses of science, by which I mean the insights of brilliant scientists, in order to understand the world around us and our place in it and to learn to see at least the immediate consequences of our actions.
The researches devoted to establishment of functional connection of phenomena of physical geography and paleoethnology on the material of history of Central Asia and archaeology of lower Volga have allowed us to draw three conclusions:
1. Historical destiny of ethnos, being a result of its activity, is directly connected with dynamic condition of the host landscape.
2. The archaeological culture of a given ethnos, which is the crystallized trace of its historical fate, reflects the paleogeographic state of the landscape at an era that is amenable to absolute dating.
3. The combination of historical and archaeological materials allows us to judge about the character of the given host landscape at this or that epoch, hence, about the character of its changes [8].
Of course, the accuracy here is relative, but a tolerance of plus or minus 50 years with blurred boundaries does not affect the conclusions and, therefore, is harmless. Much more dangerous is the desire for scrupulosity in the literal sense of the word. Scrupulus (Latin). - The pebble that fell into the sandals and pricked the feet of the ancient Romans. They did not bother to study the position of these stones in the sandals, believing that they should just take off and shake out their shoes. That's why the word "meticulous" meant unnecessary attention to detail. Today, the word is used in the sense of "ultra-precise”.
Unfortunately, the requirement of "scrupulousness" is not always harmless, in particular, when comparing natural phenomena with historical events, for the legal tolerance reaches 50-60 years and cannot be reduced, because the relationship sought is mediated by the agricultural system of ancient countries [9]. The system of economy, agricultural, pastoral and even hunting, has its own inertia. If, say, it is shaken by droughts, the weakening of the state is based on it, and will only take place when the supplies run out and constant malnutrition (rather than short-term famine), undermines the strength of the nascent generation.
This process can only be uncovered through a broad integration of a series of historical events rather than by a scrupulous correlation of natural and historical phenomena. In this regard, it is worth recalling the wonderful words of the naturalist: "You will never know what a mouse is like, if you carefully examine its individual cells under a microscope, as well as you will not understand the beauty of a Gothic cathedral by subjecting every stone of it to a chemical analysis."[10] Of course, considering one or even two facts in isolation from the others, we remain captive to the ancient authors, able with intelligence and talent to impose their assessments on the reader.
But if we peel away the direct information from the sources and take two thousand facts instead of two, we get several causal chains correlating not only with each other, but also with the model we propose. This is not a simple functional dependence, which was sought in the 18th century by the advocates of geographical determinism, for example, III Montesquieu. Here we find a systemic relationship, which has become the basis of the science of the relationship of mankind with nature.
Universality and specificity of the marked by us interactions, allow to allocate their study in an independent boundary field, of a science and as a combination of history with geography - to name it - ethnology. But here arises a new painful question: is it possible to find a tangible definition of ethnos?
FRAMEWORKS
What exactly do we know about ethnicities? Very much and very little. We have no reason to claim that ethnos as a phenomenon took place in the Lower Paleolithic. Behind the high-brow arches, inside the huge cranium of the Neanderthal, thoughts and feelings apparently nested. But what were they, we have no right to even guess, yet we still want to remain on the platform of scientific certainty. We know more about the people of the Upper Paleolithic. They were great hunters, they made spears and darts, they were dressed in animal skins and painted as well as the impressionists of Paris.
Apparently, the form of their collective existence was similar to that known to us, but this is only an assumption, on which one cannot even build a scientific hypothesis. It is not excluded that in ancient epochs there were some peculiarities, which have not been preserved till our time.
The peoples of the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age (III-II thousand years B.C.), however, we can consider with a greater degree of probability, similar to the historical peoples. Unfortunately, our knowledge about ethnic differences at this time is fragmentary and so scarce that, based on it, we risk not distinguishing the pattern that interests us at the moment from local peculiarities and, by taking the particular for the general, we fall into error.
Reliable material for analysis gives us the so-called historical epoch, when written sources illuminate the history of ethnic groups and their relations. We have the right, having studied this section of the topic, to apply our observations to earlier epochs and, by extrapolation, to fill in the gaps of our knowledge arising in the first stage of the study. In this way we will avoid the aberration of distance, one of the most frequent errors of historical criticism.
It is advisable to take the beginning of our nineteenth century as the upper date, because we need to look at only completed processes to establish a pattern. We can speak of unfinished processes only by way of prognostication, and for the latter it is necessary to have the formula of a regularity in hand, the very one we are looking for. Moreover, in the study of the 20th century phenomena, an aberration of proximity is possible, in which the phenomena lose their scale, just as in the aberration of distance. Therefore, we will limit ourselves to an era of 3,000 years, from the 12th century B.C. to the 19th century A.D., or, for clarity, from the fall of Troy to the deposition of Napoleon.
To begin with, we will explore our abundant material by means of a synchronistic methodology, based on a comparison of information whose reliability is not in doubt. The new thing we are going to contribute will be a combination of facts in the aspect we propose. This is necessary because the kaleidoscope of dates in the various chronological tables gives the reader no idea of what has happened to the peoples during their historical life. The proposed methodology is characteristic not so much of the humanities as of the natural sciences, where the establishment of connections between facts on the basis of statistical probability and the internal logic of phenomena is considered the only way to construct an empirical generalization that is as reliable as the observed facts [11]. An empirical generalization is neither a hypothesis nor a popularization, although it is not built on primary material (experience, observation, reading a primary source), but on facts already collected and verified. The reduction of the material into a system and the construction of a concept is the middle stage of conceptualization of the problem, preceding the philosophical generalization. It is this middle stage that is needed for our purposes.
It seems that the more detailed and numerous information concerning a subject, the easier it is to make an exhaustive picture. But is that really so? Probably not. Excessive, too small of information bits, which do not change the picture as a whole, creates what in cybernetics and systemology is called "noise" or "interference". However, for other purposes, it is the nuances of sentiment that are needed. In short, to understand the nature of phenomena, it is necessary to cover the totality of facts relevant to the issue in question, rather than the information available in the arsenal of science.
But what is to be considered "relevant to the question"? Apparently, the answer will vary from case to case. The history of mankind and the biography of a remarkable person are not equal phenomena, and the patterns of development in both cases will be different, and there are any number of gradations between them. The matter is complicated by the fact that any historical phenomenon - war, the publication of a law, the construction of a monument of architecture, the creation of a principality or a republic, etc. should be considered in several degrees of approximation, and the comparison of these degrees gives, at first sight, contradictory results. Here is an example from the well-known history of Europe. After the Reformation there was a struggle between the Protestant Union and the Catholic League (approximation a). Consequently, all Protestants in Western Europe would have to fight against all Catholics.
However, Catholic France was a member of the Protestant Union, and Protestant Denmark struck at the rear of Protestant Sweden in 1643, i.e., political interests were placed above ideological ones (approx. b). Does this mean that the first statement was wrong? Not at all. It was only more generalized. Moreover, the armies of both sides were fought by mercenaries who were overwhelmingly indifferent to religion, but who were greedy for plunder; hence, in the next approximation (c) one could characterize the Thirty Years War as rampant banditry, and that would be correct to some extent as well. Finally, behind the religious slogans and golden diadems of the kings were real class interests, which it would be wrong not to consider (approximation d). To this we can add the separatist tendencies of certain areas (approximation e), detected by paleoethnography, etc.
As can be seen from the above example, a system of successive approximations is a complicated matter even when parsing a single localized episode. Nevertheless, we should not lose hope of success, for we are left with the path of scientific deduction. Because just as the motion of the Earth is a complex composite of many regular movements (rotation around its axis, rotation around the Sun, pole shift, movement with the entire planetary system through the galaxy, and many others), so humanity, the anthroposphere, developing, experiences not one but a series of influences, studied by separate sciences. The spontaneous movement reflected in social development is studied by historical materialism; human physiology is the domain of biology; the relation of man to the landscape, historical geography, is in the domain of geographical sciences; the study of wars, laws and institutions is political history, and of opinions and thoughts is cultural history; the study of languages is linguistics, and the work of literary - philosophy, etc. Where does our problem fit in?
To begin with, ethnicity (one or the other), like language, is not a social phenomenon, because it can exist in several formations. The influence of spontaneous social development on the formation of ethnoses is exogenous. Social development can influence the formation or decomposition of ethnoses only if it is embodied in history, both political and cultural. Therefore we can say that the problem of ethnogenesis lies at the edge of historical science, where its social aspects are smoothly transformed into natural ones.
Since all phenomena of ethnogenesis take place on the surface of the Earth under certain geographical conditions, the question of the role of landscape as a factor presenting economic opportunities to naturally formed human collectives - ethnoses - inevitably arises [12]. But combining history with geography is not enough for our problem, because we are talking about living organisms, which, as we know, are always in a state of either evolution or involution or monomorphism (stability within a species) and interact with other living organisms, forming communities – geobio-cenoses.
Thus, our problem should be placed at the junction of three sciences: history, geography (landscape science) and biology (ecology and genetics). As soon as it is so, we can give a second approximation to the definition of the term "ethnos": ethnos is a specific form of existence of the Homo sapiens species, while ethnogenesis is a local variant of intraspecific form formation, determined by a combination of historical and choronomical (landscape) factors.
It may seem extravagant to consider the aspect in which one of the driving forces of human development is passions and urges, but the beginning of this type of research was laid by C. Darwin and F. Engels [13]. Following the scientific tradition, we turn our attention to that side of human activity, which has fallen out of sight of most of our predecessors.
THE HISTORIAN WITHOUT GEOGRAPHY ENCOUNTERS THE "PUNCTUATION" OF WHAT?
The dependence of man on his natural environment, or rather on the geographical environment, has never been disputed, although the degree of this dependence has been assessed differently by various scientists. But in any case, the economic life of the peoples who inhabit and who inhabited the Earth is closely linked to the landscapes and climates of the inhabited areas. The rise and fall of the economy of ancient eras is quite difficult to trace, again due to the incompleteness of the information obtained from primary sources. But there is an indicator - military power. As far as the new age is concerned, there is no doubt about this, but for two thousand years the case has been exactly the same, and not only among sedentary peoples, but also among nomads.
For a campaign one had to have not only well-fed, strong and not tired people able to draw a bow "to the ear" (which allowed to throw arrows for 700 m, whereas when drawing "to the eye" the distance of an arrow was 350-400 m), and to sword with a heavy sword or a curved saber, which was even more difficult. You had to have horses, about 4-5 per man, taking into account a wagon train, a riding horse and packs. (War horses were not loaded.)
A stock of arrows was required, and making them was a labor-intensive business. There was a need for a supply of provisions, for example, for nomads - a flock of sheep and, consequently, shepherds with it. One needed a reserve guard to guard women and children. In short, even then the war cost money, and also a lot of it.
To wage war at the expense of the enemy is only possible after the first, and not a small, victory, and to win it, requires a strong rear, a flourishing economy, and, accordingly, optimal natural conditions.
The importance of geographical conditions, such as topography, for military history has been discussed for a long time, or, one might even say, always. Suffice it to recall a few examples from ancient history: Hannibal won the Battle of Lake Trasimene by taking advantage of several deep valleys located toward the lake shore and the road, along which the Roman troops moved at an angle of 90+. Because of this disposition he attacked the Roman army in three places at once and won the battle. At Kinoskephali, the Macedonian phalanx scattered on rough terrain, and the Romans easily outnumbered the heavily-armed enemies who had lost formation. These and similar examples have always been in the field of view of historians and have given reason for I. Boldin to make the well-known remark: "The historian who has no geography in his hands, meets a piercing" [14]. However to stop on such clear problem in the XX century is inexpedient, because nowadays history sets much more deep tasks than before. Also the geography has departed from simple description of curiosities of our planet, and has found opportunities that our ancestors did not have.
So we will put the question differently: not only how does the geographical environment affect people, but to what extent are people themselves a part of the Earth's shell, which is now called biosphere [15]? Which patterns of human life are influenced by the geographical environment, and which are not? This formulation of the question requires analysis, i.e., an artificial dissection of the problem for the convenience of research.
Consequently, it has only an auxiliary value for understanding history, since the goal of our work is synthesis. But, alas, just as one cannot build a house without a foundation, so it is impossible to generalize without first dissecting it. Let us limit ourselves to a minimum. Speaking of human history, we usually refer to the social form of the movement of history, that is, the progressive development of humanity as a whole in a spiral. This movement is spontaneous and for this reason alone cannot be a function of any external causes. On this side of history, neither geographical nor biological influences can affect it. So what do they influence? On organisms, including human beings. This conclusion was already drawn in 1922 by L. S. Berg for all organisms, including humans: "A geographic landscape affects an organism, forcing all individuals to vary in a certain direction, as far as the organization of the species allows it. Tundra, forest, steppe, desert, mountains, water environment, life on islands, etc. - all these put a special imprint on organisms. Those species that aren’t able to adapt must move to another geographic landscape or become extinct. And "landscape" is understood as "an area of the earth's surface, qualitatively different from other areas, bordered by natural boundaries and representing a special integral and mutually conditioned regular set of objects and phenomena, which is typically expressed in a significant space and is inextricably linked in all respects with the landscape shell"[17].
In combination, this can be called "place-development."[18] L.S. Berg called the thesis formulated here the choronomical principle of evolution, (from the Greek "choros" - place), thus linking geography with biology. In the aspect we have adopted, history has been added to the two named sciences, and nevertheless the principle remains unshaken. Moreover, it has received a new unexpected confirmation, and this obliges us to continue considering the regularities of ethnic development, but already taking into account the dynamic moment, the emergence of new ethnic groups, i.e. ethnogenesis on the basis of the characteristics of the phases of ethnogenesis. However, this is a topic for another chapter.
II. Nature and History
THE COMBINATION OF NATURE AND HISTORY
In ancient times the world was seen by man as a whole despite its apparent diversity, and interconnected despite its seeming disconnectedness, the problem of juxtaposing natural history and history could not even arise. All events deemed worthy of immortalization were entered into the annals. Wars and floods, upheavals and epidemics, the birth of a genius and the flight of a comet were all considered events of equal importance and interest for posterity. At that time the principle of magic prevailed in scientific thought: "the similarity begets the similar," which allowed, by means of broad associations, to grasp the connections between natural phenomena and the destinies of peoples or individuals. This principle was developed in astrology and mantics (the science of divination), but with the development of individual sciences, with the accumulation of knowledge, it was discarded as untenable and not justifying itself in practical application.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, thanks to the differentiation of the sciences, a huge amount of information was accumulated, which by the beginning of the twentieth century had become indiscernible. Figuratively speaking, the mighty River of Science has been let into irrigation ditches. The life-giving moisture irrigated a wide area, but the lake previously fed by it, i.e. the holistic worldview, dried up. And now the autumn wind is stirring up the bottom sediments and sowing salty dust on the loosened ground of the fields. Soon salt marshes will appear instead of the steppe, though dry, which fed the herds, and the biosphere will give way to the solid matter, not forever, of course, but for a long time.
After all, when people leave the doomed land, the aryks will silt up, and the river will make a channel again and fill in the natural depression. The wind will cover the salt marshes with a thin layer of fresh dust; the grass will grow and fall on it, not eaten by ungulates. In a few centuries a humus layer will form on the plain, and plankton will form in the lake; it means that herbivores will come, and waterfowl will bring fish roe to the lake on their feet... And life will once again triumph in its diversity.
The same is in science: narrow specialization is useful only as a means to accumulate knowledge: differentiation of disciplines was a necessary and unavoidable step, which would become disastrous if it lasted too long. The accumulation of information without systematizing it for broad generalization is a rather pointless activity.
And were the principles of ancient science so false? Could it be that its failure lay not in its postulates, but in its unskillful application of the postulates? After all, there is an interplay of "natural and human history" that can be grasped using the sum of our accumulated knowledge and the methods of research that are evolving before our eyes. Let's try to go down this road and formulate the task as follows: can the study of history be useful in interpreting natural phenomena?
It is obvious that social and natural phenomena are not identical, but have somewhere a point of contact. It is necessary to find it, because it cannot be the anthroposphere as a whole. Even if we understand the anthroposphere as a biomass, we must note two sides of the phenomenon:
a) mosaicism, because different collectives of people interact with the environment in different ways; if we consider the well-known history of the last five thousand years, this diversity and finding out its causes will be key to the problem at hand;
b) the multifaceted character of the subject we study - humanity. It should be understood in the sense that each person (or mankind as a whole) is a physical body, an organism, the upper link of a biocenosis, a member of society, a representative of a nation, etc. In each of the above examples, the subject (in this case, man) is studied by the relevant scientific discipline, which does not negate the other aspects of research. It is the ethnic aspect of humanity as a whole that is important for our problem.
Let us make a brief excursion into epistemology. Let us ask ourselves: what is accessible to direct observation? It turns out that it is not an object, but the boundaries of objects. We see the water of the sea, the sky above the earth, for they border the shores, the air, the mountains.
But pelagic fish could only guess the existence of water by being fished and pulled up into the air. So, we know that as a category time exists, but without seeing its limits, we have no way to give time a generally accepted definition. And the stronger the contrast, the clearer for us objects are that we don't see, but rather invent, i.e., imagine.
History, as a chain of events, we observe constantly. Consequently, history is a boundary--luckily, we know what--the one social form of matter and the four natural forms. And if so, then along with the sociosphere and the technosphere generated by it, there is a certain living essence, located not only around people, but also within them. And these elements are so contrasting that they are grasped by the human mind without the slightest difficulty.
This is why humanitarian concepts proved unnecessary, or rather insufficient, as they raised the question of the influence of geographical, biological, social, or (in idealistic systems) spiritual factors on the historical process or processes, rather than of the juxtaposition of both, thanks to which the process itself and its components become accessible to empirical generalization. The approach proposed here is nothing other than analysis, that is, "dissection," necessary in order to "untangle" the obscure places in history and then to proceed to synthesis, when the results of different research methods are taken into account.
In 19th century historiography, the interaction of the social with the natural was not always taken into account [19]. But now the dynamics of natural processes have been studied to such an extent, that their comparability with historical events is evident. Biocenology has shown that man enters the biocenosis of the landscape as the upper final link, for he is a large predator, and as such is subject to the evolution of nature, which does not exclude the additional moment - the development of productive forces creating the technosphere, devoid of self-development and capable only of destruction.
FORMATIONS AND ETHNIC GROUPS
But if we look at the whole history of the world, we will notice that the coincidence of the change of formations and the emergence of new peoples is only a rare exception, while within the same formation constantly arise and develop ethnic groups that are very different from each other.
Take the 12th century, for example, when feudalism flourished from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Did the French barons resemble the free peasants of Scandinavia, the slave warriors - the Mamluks of Egypt, the riotous population of Russian veche cities, the pauper conquerors of the half-world - the Mongolian Nuhurs or the Chinese landowners of the Song Empire? They all shared the same feudal mode of production, but otherwise they had little in common. The relationship to nature was not the same for the farmer and the nomad; the susceptibility to foreign things or the capacity for cultural borrowing was greater in Europe than in China, as was the desire for territorial conquest that stimulated the crusades; Russian subsistence farming was simpler and more primitive than the viticulture of Syria and the Peloponnese, but produced fabulous harvests with less labor; languages, religion, art, education, all were different, but in this diversity there was no disorder: each way of life was the patrimony of a particular people. This was especially evident in relation to the landscapes in which ethnic groups were created and inhabited.
But we should not think that nature alone determines the degree of ethnic originality. As centuries passed, the ratios of ethnicities changed: some of them disappeared, others appeared; and this process in Soviet science is commonly called ethnogenesis. In a single world history, the rhythms of ethnogenesis are paired with the pulse of social development, but juxtaposition does not mean coincidence, much less unity. The factors of the process of history are different, and our task - analysis - is to highlight in it the phenomena directly inherent in ethnogenesis, and thus clarify what is ethnos, and what is its role in the life of mankind.
To begin with, it is necessary to define the purpose of the terms and the boundaries of the study. The Greek word "ethnos" has many meanings in the dictionary, of which we have chosen one: "species, breed", meaning people. For our statement of the topic, it does not make sense to single out concepts such as "tribe" or "nation," because we are interested in the terms that can be taken out of it.
In other words, what is that which is common to the English, to the Maasai, to the ancient Greeks, and to the modern Roma. It is a property of the Homo sapiens species to group themselves together in such a way that they can be contrasted with " the rest of the world, (sometimes close and often quite distant)." The us versus them opposition (conditio sine qua pop est) is characteristic of all eras and all countries: Hellenes and barbarians, Jews and uncircumcised, Chinese (people of the Middle State) and Hu (barbarian periphery, including Russians), Muslim Arabs during the first caliphs and "infidels"; Catholic Europeans in the Middle Ages (the unity called "Christian World") and the wicked, including Greeks and Russians; "Orthodox" (in the same era) and "non-Christians" including Catholics; Tuaregs and non-Tuaregs, Gypsies and everyone else, etc. The phenomenon of such opposition is universal, indicating its deep underlying basis, but in itself it is only the foam in a high-water river, and its essence has to be uncovered. However, the observation already made is enough to state the complexity of the effect that can be called ethnic (in the sense of "generic"), and which can become an aspect for constructing the ethnic history of mankind, just as the social, cultural, political, religious and many others are constructed. Our task, therefore, is first and foremost to grasp the principle of this process.
The connection between ethnic culture and geography is undoubted, but it cannot exhaust the complexity of the relationship between diverse natural phenomena and the zigzags of the history of ethnic groups. Moreover, the thesis that any attribute underlying the classification of ethnic groups is adaptive to a specific environment reflects only one side of the process of ethnogenesis. As far back as when Hegel wrote that "it is unacceptable to point to the climate of Ionia as the cause of Homer's creations."[20] However, having formed in a particular region where adaptation to the landscape was maximal, an ethnos when migrating, retains many of the original features that distinguish it from aboriginal ethnoses.
Thus, the Spaniards who migrated to Mexico did not become Aztec or Mayan Indians. They created for themselves an artificial micro-landscape - cities and fortified haciendas, preserved their culture, both material and spiritual, despite the fact that the humid tropics of the Yucatan and the semi-desert of Anahuac were very different from Andalusia and Castile. And because the separation of Mexico (New Spain as it was then called in Spain in the nineteenth century) was largely the work of descendants of Indian tribes who adopted the Spanish language and Catholicism, but who were supported by the free Comanche tribes roaming north of the Rio Grande.
Now let us draw the first conclusion, which will be the starting point in the following account. The mosaic anthropo-sphere, is constantly changing in historical time and interacting with the landscapes of planet Earth. Since humanity is widespread across the land surface, but unevenly, and interacts with the natural environment of the Earth always, but differently, it is advisable to consider it as one of the Earth's envelopes, but with the obligatory correction for ethnic differences. Thus, we introduce the term "ethnosphere". Ethnosphere, like other geographical phenomena, should have its own regularities of development, different from biological and social ones. Ethnic patterns can be seen in space (ethnography), and time (ethnogenesis and paleogeography of anthropogenic landscapes).
CAN WE TRUST HISTORICAL SOURCES?
В. K. Yatsunsky, author of excellent reviews of geographical thought in the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, rightly notes: "Historical geography studies, not the geographical representations of people of the past, but the specific geography of past centuries."[21] The starting point for this search must obviously be sought in historical writings of eras past. But how? Unfortunately, there is no indication of a possible research methodology. And here is why.
Historical materials, as a source for the reconstruction of ancient climatic conditions, were and are used very widely. The famous Polemic between L.S. Berg [22] and G.E. Grumm-Grzhimailo [23] on the issue of desiccation of Central Asia in the historical period developed in this respect. Related to this issue, the problem of fluctuations in the level of the Caspian Sea in the 1st millennium AD also tried to solve by selecting quotations from the works of ancient authors [24]. They made special selections of information from the Russian chronicles in order to draw conclusions about the changes in the climate of Eastern Europe [25]. But the results of the numerous and labor-intensive studies have not justified expectations. Sometimes information of the sources was confirmed, and sometimes the check in another way disproved them. It is obvious that the coincidence of the obtained data with the truth was a matter of chance, and this speaks of the imperfection of the methodology. Indeed, the path of mere reference to the testimony of an ancient or medieval author will lead to a false or, at best, inaccurate conclusion. It should be so. Chroniclers mentioned natural phenomena either in passing or on the basis of the ideas of the science of their time, treating thunderstorms, floods, and droughts as omens or punishment for sins.
In both cases the phenomena of nature were described selectively when they were in the author's sight, and how many of them were omitted, we cannot even guess. One author paid attention to nature and another, in the next century, did not, and it may be that rains are mentioned more often in dry times than in wet times. Historical criticism cannot help here, because it is powerless in relation to omissions of events that are not related to causality.
Ancient authors always wrote their writings for specific purposes and, to a degree they exaggerated, or exaggerated the significance of only the events they were interested in. The degree of exaggeration or understatement is very difficult and not always possible to determine [26]. Thus, L.S. Berg concluded, on the basis of his historical works, that the transformation of cultivated lands into deserts is the consequence of wars [27]. Nowadays, this concept is accepted without criticism, and the most frequently cited example is the finding of P.K. Kozlov - the dead Tangut city of Idzinai, known as Hara-Khoto [28].
This point is so revealing that we will focus our attention on one problem - the geographical location of this city and the conditions of its demise.
The Tangut kingdom was located in Ordos and Alashans, in what are now sandy deserts. It would seem that this state should be poor and sparsely populated, but in fact it contained an army of 150,000 horsemen, had a university, academy, schools, judiciary and even a deficit trade, for it imported more than it exported. The deficit was covered in part by gold sand from Tibetan possessions, and most importantly by the withdrawal of live cattle, which constituted the wealth of the Tangut kingdom [29].
The city discovered by P.K. Kozlov is located in the lower reaches of the Etsin-gol, in an area now waterless. The two old rivers surrounding it from the east and from the west prove that water was there, but the river has shifted its course to the west and it now flows in two arms into the lakes: the salty Gashun-nor and the freshwater Sogo-nor.
Kozlov describes Sogo-nor valley as a beautiful oasis among the surrounding desert, but at the same time he notes that a large population cannot survive here. Only the citadel of Ijin-ai represents a square with the side equal to 400 meters. All around are traces of smaller buildings and fragments of pottery, showing the presence of slobodas (free city or free settlement). The ruin of the city is often attributed to the Mongols. Indeed, in 1227 Genghis Khan took Tangut's capital, and the Mongols cruelly massacred its population. But the city discovered by P.K. Kozlov continued to live even in the XIV century, as evidenced by the dates of numerous documents found by the workers of the expedition headed by him.
In addition, the destruction of the city is associated with a change in the course of the river, which, according to the popular legends of the merchantmen, was diverted by the besiegers through a dam made of sacks of earth. This dam has survived to this day in the form of a rampart. Apparently it was, but the Mongols had nothing to do with it. In the descriptions of the capture of Urahai (Mong.), or Hechuichen (Ch.), there is no such information. It would be simply impossible, because the Mongolian cavalry had not the necessary tools. The ruin of the city is attributed to the Mongols by the bad tradition, which began in the Middle Ages, to attribute everything bad to “them”. It was taken by the Chinese troops of the Ming dynasty, which was at that time at war with the last Chinggisids, (Mongols) and ruined as a stronghold of the Mongols, who were threatening China from the west [30].
But then why was it not resurrected? A change in the flow of the river is not the reason, as the city could have moved to another channel of the Etszin-gol. And this question can be answered in the book by P.K. Kozlov. With his characteristic observation he notes that the amount of water in the Etszin-gol shrinks, the Sogho-nor lake becomes shallow and overgrown with reeds. The shifting of the riverbed to the west plays some role here, but this alone cannot explain why the country in the 13th century fed a huge population and by the beginning of the 20th century had turned into a sandy wasteland?
So, the blame for the desolation of the cultivated lands of Asia lies not with the Mongols, but with climate change, a phenomenon we have described in special papers [31].
IS IT POSSIBLE TO BELIEVE THE MONUMENTS?
But why exactly Genghis and his children were attributed the devastation of Asia, while other events, of much bigger scale, for example the defeat of Uigurs by the Kyrgyz in 841-846, or the massacre of Kalmyks by the Manchu emperor Qian Lun in 1756-1758 [32] remained out of the historians' sight?
The answer to this question must be sought not in the history of peoples, but in historiography. Talented books on history are not often written, not on every occasion, and not all of them have reached us. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were in the Middle East an era of flourishing literature.
And in Russia during this period were most urgent problems, and therefore many works have been devoted to it, which have survived to our time. Among them were talented, bright works, some of which we know. They caused imitation and repetition, which increased the total number of works on the subject.
The extermination of the Oirats, however, found no historian, or they died in the massacres. Thus it turned out that the events were covered unevenly and their significance is distorted, as they are presented as if in different scales. Hence the hypothesis arose, attributing to Genghis Khan's warriors an almost total destruction of the population of the countries he conquered and a complete change in their landscape, which by no means corresponds to the truth. It should be noted that the most desiccated were not the countries destroyed by the war, but Uiguria, where there was no war at all, and Dzungaria, where no one was going to destroy the grassy steppes. Consequently, the historical and geographic information of the sources is unreliable.
Finally, there is a temptation to consider grand historical events, such as the campaigns of the Mongols in the 13th century, as migrations. The victories were won not by hordes of nomads, but by small, well-organized mobile detachments returning to their native steppes after the campaigns. The number of displaced people was negligible even for the 13th century. For example, the Juchid khans: Batyi, Horde and Sheiban received by the will of Genghis only 4 thousand horsemen, i.e. about 20 thousand people who settled in the territory from the Carpathians to the Altai. On the contrary, the genuine migration of Kalmyks in the 17th century remained unnoticed by the majority of historians due to the fact that it did not resonate much in the works on world history. Consequently, the solution of this problem requires a more solid knowledge of history than can be easily gleaned from cumulative works, and a more detailed knowledge of geography than is usually limited to historians or agricultural economists. Most importantly, it is necessary to separate reliable information from the subjective perceptions inherent in many authors of written sources from Herodotus to the present day.
Reliable information is information from sources that have passed through the crucible of historical criticism and have received an interpretation that is beyond any doubt. There are many of them, but the vast majority of them are political histories. We know the dates and details of battles, peace treaties, palace coups, and great discoveries, but how can we use this data to explain natural phenomena? The methodology of comparing facts of history with changes in nature began to be developed only in the twentieth century.
Climate historian E. Leroy Ladurie noted that the desire to reduce the ups and downs of the economy in different countries of Europe to periods of increased or decreased moisture, cooling or warming is based on ignoring the economy and social crises, the role of which is undeniable. Thus, the increase of the Baltic (i.e. Russian) grain imports to the Mediterranean and the decrease of the sheep population in Spain in the 16th and especially in the 17th centuries, can more easily be compared with the damages caused to European countries by the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, than with the slight changes in the annual temperatures. He is right! Suffice it to note that not only Germany, on whose territory the devastating Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) took place, but also the country that had not been devastated - Spain had a negative population growth in these centuries: in 1600 - 8,0 Million decrease, and in 1700. - 7.3 million decrease. This was simply because most of the young men had been mobilized to America or to the Netherlands, with the consequence that the country lacked the manpower to support its economy and family.
"What would one think of a historian who would attribute the economic development of Europe since 1850 to the retreat of the glaciers, certainly established for the Alps...", writes E. Leroy Ladurie, and it is impossible not to agree with him.
Consequently, in the opinion of our author, we must simply accumulate facts, carefully and accurately dated and free from arbitrary interpretations. In other words, we must be sure that explaining the factor of interest at the expense of economic, social, ethnographic factors and mere chance [34] is ruled out. In geography there is no exact methodology for determining absolute dates. The error of a thousand years is considered quite acceptable. It is easy to establish, for example, that in some area silt deposits have overlapped a layer of loam, and, consequently, to note the presence of water encroachment, but it is impossible to say when it occurred - 500 or 5 thousand years ago. Pollen analysis shows, for example, the presence of dry-loving plants where water-loving plants now grow, but there is no guarantee that waterlogging of the valley did not occur from displacement of the nearby river bed, and not from climate change at all. In the steppes of Mongolia and Kazakhstan, the remains of groves have been found for which it cannot be said whether they died from desiccation or were cut down by humans, and even if the latter is proven, the era of human massacre of the landscape is still unknown.
Perhaps archaeology can help? Monuments of material culture clearly mark the periods of prosperity and decline of peoples and lend themselves to fairly clear dating. Things found in the ground or ancient graves do not tend to mislead the researcher or distort the facts. But things are silent, giving full space to the archaeologist's imagination. And our contemporaries, too, do not mind fantasizing, and although their way of thinking is very different from the medieval one, there is no certainty that it is much closer to reality. In the twentieth century we sometimes encounter a blind faith in the power of archaeological excavation, based on the really successful findings in Egypt, Babylonia, India, and even in the Altai Mountains, thanks to which it has been possible to discover and explore the forgotten pages of our history. But this is the exception, and for the most part the archaeologist must be satisfied with shards lifted from the dry dust of the heated steppes, the fragments of bones in looted graves and the remains of walls, or the height of one imprint of a brick. And yet we must remember that what is found is a tiny fraction of what is missing. In most areas of the Earth, almost all non-preserved materials: wood, furs, fabrics, paper (or birch bark replacing it), etc. are not preserved. It is never known what exactly is missing, and to count what is missing to be nonexistent and not to introduce corrections for it is an error that leads knowingly to wrong conclusions. In short, archaeology without history can mislead the researcher. Let us try to approach the problem differently.
NOTES
[1] People, nation, tribe, clan union - all of these concepts are denoted in ethnology by the term ethnos, which this book is devoted to explaining. It is easy to define the meaning of any term, but this provides little, if anything, except a starting point for research. Dispelling a term is difficult, for it means showing the place of a phenomenon in nature and history. When people say to me, "Tell me simply," I reply, "What is light? Tell me simply." No one has answered yet. That is why I ask the reader to forgive me the difficulty of imposition and to read the book from beginning to end without missing anything.
[2] Lockwood D. I am an Aborigine. М., 1971. С. 142-145.
[3] Fesunenko I. With beads and a Geiger counter // Around the world. 1972. - 3. С. 14-17.
[4] Biosphere is a term introduced into science by V. I. Vernadsky, means one of the Earth's shells, including in addition to the totality of living organisms all the fruits of their former vital activity: soils, sedimentary rocks, free oxygen of the atmosphere. Thus, establishing the connection between ethnogenesis and the biochemical processes of the biosphere is not "biologicalism", as some of my opponents think, but rather "geographicalism", although such a label is hardly appropriate, since everything that exists on the surface of the Earth is somehow or other included in the Geography, either physical, or economic, or historical.
[5] Vernadsky V. I. Chemical structure of the Earth biosphere and its environment. С. 273.
[6] Vernadsky V. I. Vernadsky. Т. V; Biosphere. С. 19.
[7] Malinovsky A.A. The way of creative biology. М., 1969. С. 7.
[8] Gumilev L.N. 1) Khazaria and the Caspian Sea // Vestnik LHU. 1964. - 6. С. 95, 2) Khazaria and Terek // Ibid. - 24. С. 78.
[9] For more details see: Gumilev L.N. 1) The Origins of the Nomadic Culture Rhythm in Middle Asia (Experience of Historical and Geographical Synthesis) // The Peoples of Asia and Africa. 1966. - 4. С. 85-94; 2) The role of climatic fluctuations in the history of people of the steppe zone of Eurasia //History of the USSR. 1967. - 1. P. 53-66; 3) Climate changes and migrations of nomads // Nature. 1972. - 4. С. 44-52.
[10] Selye H. From Dream to Discovery. New York, 1964 (quoted in Mirskaya E. 3. The Contradictory Nature of Scientific Creativity //Scientific Creativity / Ed. by S. R. Mikulin, M.G. Yaroshev. R. R. Mikulinsky and M.G. Yaroshevsky. М., 1969. С. 298). Cf: Soviet Archaeology. 1969. - 3. С. 282-283.
[11] Vernadsky V.I. Izbrbr. otv. vol. V. P. 19.
[12] Kalesnik S.V. Fundamentals of General Earth Science. М., 1955. С. 412-416. [13] See: Marx K., Engels F. Op. 2nd ed. Vol. 21. P. 176.
[14] Boltin I.N. Notes on the history of ancient and current Russia Leclerc, composed by Major General Ivan Boltin; In 2 vols. Т. 2. St. Petersburg, 1788. С. 20.
[15] Vernadsky V. I. Izbr. vol. V.
[16] Berg L.S. Nomogenesis. Pg., 1922. С. 180-181.
[17] Kalesnik S.V. Fundamentals of General Earth Science. С. 455.
[18] Savitsky P.N. Geographical peculiarities of Russia (1). Prague, 1927. С. 30-31.
[19] Plekhanov G.V. Something about history //Sob.: In 24 vol. Т. 8. M., L., 1923. С. 227.
[20] Hegel F. Philosophy of History //Vol. 14 vol. Т. 8. М., 1935. С. 72.
[21] Yatsunsky V.K. Historical geography. М., 1955. С. 3.
[22] Berg L.S. Climate and Life. М., 1974.
[23] Grumm-Grzhimailo G.E. Desert growth and destruction of pastures and cultural lands in Central Asia for the historical period // Izv. GO. 1933. VOL. XI. Vyp. 5.
[24] Berg L.S. The level of the Caspian Sea in historical time: Essays on physical geography. MOSCOW, 1949. С. 205- 279; Shnitkov A. V. Rhythm of Caspian Sea.
// Reports of the USSR Academy of Sciences. 1954. Т. 94. - 4; Apollov B.A. 1) Proof of past low states of the Caspian Sea level. M., 1951; 2) The Caspian Sea level fluctuations // Proceedings of the Institute of Oceanology. 1956. VOL. XV.
[25] Betin V. V., Preobrazhensky K). V. Severity of winters in Europe and the ice cover of the Baltic Sea. L., 1962; Buchinsky I.E. Essays on the Climate of the Russian Plain in Historical Epoch. Л., 1957.
[26] Gumilev L. N. Khunnu. М., 1960. С. 59-62. [27] Berg L.S. Climate and Life.
[28] Merpert N.Ya., Pashuto V.I., Cherepin D.V. Chinggis Khan and his heritage //History of the USSR. 1962. - 5. С. 56.
[29] Grumm-Grzhimailo G.E. The growth of deserts...
[30] Rudenko S.I., Gumilev L.N. Archaeological research of P.K. Kozlov in the aspect of historical geography // Izv. 1966. Vol. 3, p. 244.
[31] Gumilev L.N. 1) Heterochronality of humidification in Eurasia in Antiquity (Landscape and ethnos. IV) / / Vestnik LHU. 1966. - 6. С. 64-71; 2) Heterochronality of humidification in Eurasia in the Middle Ages (Landscape and ethnos. V) / / Ibid. 1966. - 18. С. 81- 90.
[32] The Chinese emperor Qian Lun mass exterminated Oirat, with Manchus preying on women, children and elders, giving no mercy to anyone. The official Chinese history is limited to a simple statement: "More than a million Oirat were slaughtered." The grandiose event sank in the executioner's note, and is it the only one! Alas, the history of mankind is known to us with varying degrees of detail, It is the same as if a geographer had a 1:200,000 map on one tablet and a 1:100 map on the other.
[33] Leroy Lodury E. History of Climate for 1000 years. Л., 1971. С. 14-15.
[34] Migration responds to extremely complex human motivations and driving forces. Hunger arises when severe conditions are created for the production of grains, and it is never possible to decipher them a priori climatically, since it may be... meteorological events, sometimes short-lived and insignificant in the climatic sense" (Ibid. P.17).
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