2. Ethnos, its properties and features

1. Stereotype of behavior, 2. Ethnic structure: Subethnos, Ethnos, Superethnos

              Gumilyov often repeated that every person, if asked who he is, without thinking, would say: I’m Russian, French, Polish, Armenian, or Japanese. And then he will add that he is a worker, a businessman, or a student. You can change your class affiliation by moving from one social class to another, but you can't change your ethnicity. This is more fundamental.

         "Everyone knows," said Gumilyov, "that people have lived and probably will live in some strange associations. For example, on the "great construction sites of communism," (the prisons) where I had to serve terms more than once, everyone spoke Russian.  But there were also Kazakhs, Koreans, Germans, Chinese, Latvians and many others. Were they different from each other? Sure they were! And each helped his own. And everyone, in case of trouble, stuck only to his own people.

         People in any situation, especially in extreme situations, unite on the basis of their nationality. That's how it was in the war. That's how it was in the Soviet army in the postwar period. It was called community. And large nations were also divided among themselves. For example, the Kazakhs were divided into three dzhus: large, small, and medium. Russians - into Siberians, Urals, Volga, Leningrad, etc.

         Why does this happen? And by what traits do people distinguish representatives of their ethnos from others? First of all, Gumilyov wrote, by the stereotype of behavior. That is, by how a person behaves in life, what he considers good and bad, what is normal and what is abnormal. Gumilyov defines the structure of the stereotype of behavior as follows: "It is a strictly defined norm of relations: first - between the collective and the individual, second - individuals among themselves, third - intra-ethnic groups among themselves, fourth - between the ethnos and intra-ethnic groups. Stereotypical behavior includes customs, manners, tastes, household habits, treatment of elders, attitudes toward women, etc.

         Often a different stereotype of behavior causes a feeling of dislike -the alien and the unlike often repulse. For example, the knights who conquered Palestine resented the Arab custom of polygamy, and the Arabs considered the uncovered faces of French ladies shameless. Today, American feminists are outraged by the disenfranchisement and subjugation of Arab women and even try to fight for their liberation. But Arab women can't understand why they should make a career before having children, or why they should send their parents out of sight and into old people's homes. Sometimes even little things are given great importance. Confucius was very complimentary of a 7th century B.C. ruler for saying, "If it weren't for him, we would all be wearing robes with the hollow to the left." (Like wild nomads.)

         Gumilyov wrote: "When any people live long and quietly in their homeland, it seems to their representatives that their stereotype of behavior is the only possible and correct. And if there were any deviations somewhere, it is from the "uneducated".

         Gumilyov's favorite example at his lectures: a streetcar in Leningrad is going by, a drunkard enters it and starts swearing and bullying. How will the people sitting in there react to this (let's assume that they are all Soviet employees): a Russian, a German, a Caucasian, a Tatar. A Russian would say: "Kiryukha, you are going to be noticed, go away."  He felt pity for the man. The German will call the police. The Caucasian will burst into tears. The Tatar will look with disgust and turn away.

          This example from the stable Soviet past is somewhat outdated today, and the behavior of the Russian can have variations, especially if he is strongly stepped on. But the main thing here is that the reactions will be different.

          Another example: "At the front," Gumilyov recalled, "I was told how a German feldfebel hit a soldier on the face, and he stretched out into a string and repeated, 'Herr Feldfebel, I am to blame!' If my foreman had ever hit me in the face!  There was such a case - he kicked me in the neck, and I kicked him in the teeth. Then we looked at each other - that's it, we're even. And if he had hit a Caucasian - he would have grabbed for a gun.

         Or a famous example concerning the attitude toward labor. If two Europeans (Swedes, Germans, Dutchmen) are carrying a log at a construction site and the bell rings that it's the end of the working day, they drop it. The Russians will definitely carry it. And, if necessary, they will stay overtime for the rush, and will work until they are exhausted, and they will fulfill ten standards.

And then they're out for two days. Just as ardently as they worked. (This is without adjustment for sub-passionality.) And the Latino, according to Gumilev, will work, work, then sit under a palm tree, take a guitar, and sing: "My señorita, my señorita!" And you can't move him. And if somebody tells them all that it ain't right to work that way, they'll be genuinely surprised. - Why? It's the way they've always worked.

        The stereotype of behavior, emphasized Gumilev, is not something immutable. It changes depending on the age of the ethnic group. At the same time, let us add, the mental core - at the level of hereditary memory - archetype  - is preserved much longer.

        For example - the English. At the time of their ethnic youth in the early Middle Ages (X - XIII centuries) the role model was a fierce and religious knight, in the XIX century - an imperturbable and prim and proper gentleman with capital in the bank, in the XX century - a faceless manager of the City of London (at best, and at worst - some "pop star"). And this, despite the fact that England is a conservative country.

         Sometimes, we should note, ethnic stereotypes of behavior change, or rather are deformed, under the influence of a foreign culture. This, as a rule, does not affect the entire ethnic group, but a separate group. For example, in XVIII-XIX centuries Russian nobility and later intelligentsia, not without help of our Tsars and Tsaritzas, began to adopt European stereotype of behavior intensively. At the same time, obviously, they deformed the mental basis of the personality of "educated" Russian people. As a result, over two hundred years of Europeanization, the worldview (i.e. the subconscious response to the world around them) of many Russian nobles and intellectuals has changed in a non-Russian direction. In the end, we got a chimera: something in between Russian and European, "a mixture of French and Nizhny Novgorod". Scientifically speaking, a loss of national identity. The French called our noblemen and intellectuals, who flocked to Europe, "disguised Tatars," and the Russians called them "strangers in their own country. In the end, after 1917, these unfortunate people were rejected as a hindering, unnecessary element in the ethnic system.

         By the way, today's "new Russians" settled in London and Paris are very reminiscent of those very "disguised Tatars". To be more precise, a degraded copy of them. No matter how much gold and diamonds they have, they are still not considered in a "friendly" way there.

         But the question arises, what factors influence this or that stereotype of behavior? Gumilev answers: first of all, under the influence of natural and climatic factors. The scientist wrote: "Ethnogenesis is primarily a process of active adaptation of human groups in the environment, ... and the landscape environment forces people to develop a set of adaptive skills - ethnic stereotypes of behavior. Consequently, the unique combination of landscapes in which this or that ethnos was formed determines its peculiarity - behavioral and in many ways even cultural. In other words: "The behavior of each individual and each ethnicity is simply a way of adapting to its geographic and ethnic environment". From this, we add, comes the identity, i.e., the unique appearance of a particular people. This, by the way, to the question of "mysterious Russian soul".

         Gumilyov did not consider in detail how the stereotype of behavior of the Russian people was formed, but if we use his method, then this question is quite possible to understand on our own. Especially since many Russian writers, historians and philosophers, who have long been attracted to this topic, can help us.

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        As the philosopher Berdyaev rightly noted: "The landscape of the Russian soul corresponds to the landscape of the Russian land, the same boundlessness ... aspiration to infinity, breadth". The Russian man is a spontaneous man. Only in Russian language there are such words as "vololye" and "rasdolye" (V. Odoevsky).

         It is different in Europe; there everything is cramped, "everything is arranged and categorized", everything is systematic and rational. And, let us add, there is control everywhere, they look after you everywhere, and if anything happens, there is nowhere to run to. They'll catch you and punish you. And we had somewhere to run - to the free Don, the Volga, then to Siberia. (This is to the question of a certain "indiscipline" of the Russian person.) Therefore, for example, in the West, there has never been such a spontaneous and anarchic concept of "Will", which is so close to the Russian person; instead, they had the concept of "Freedom" (within the law). Therefore, paradoxically, our man under political despotism, was internally more free (in everyday life, morals, social life) than a European, who was always pressed by the close authority, the letter of the law and rigid class - this is not allowed, that is not allowed - almost everything is not allowed - walk on the edge of the ruler, where the lines and the signs show. Otherwise, you'll get pushed around and get in the way of others - because, really, it's crowded. And, again, there's private property all around. And this is “sacred”.

        Berdyaev wrote: "The German and I will never agree on the concept of freedom. In the free air he feels the pressure of chaos, the German feels free only in the barracks.

         The Russian man organically could not and did not want to live according to a given program, a boring pattern. For example, the German, even when going to drink beer, knows how many pints he will drink (he has a program in his head for everything), Russian does not. Therefore there is a well-known proverb: "What is good for the Russian for the German is death. Well, for example, imagine Stenka Razin or Batka Makhno running wild somewhere in Bavaria or Prussia.  Or a German burgher in our bathhouse with a broom.  It is rather difficult to imagine, because there are neither endless steppes nor frosts in Germany. In this sense, our nearest neighbors in Northern Eurasia, the nomadic steppe-dwellers, were closer and clearer to us. And this despite centuries of wars, the yoke, and even racial differences.

         Writer Sergei Kuniaev recalled how once a Slavic professor from the GDR came to visit Vadim Kozhin. During the feast, the German asked him to sing a Russian folk song: "And we were just ripe to sing, On the wild steppes of Transbaikalia, where they wash gold in the mountains" - a song about a vagabond. We sang it with heart and soul. And we looked at our guest, expecting, naturally, his approval. And he sat frowning. "What's the matter with you, Dietrich? - Vadim asked. - Didn't you like our performance? Well, I'm sorry, of course, we sang into the woods and out into the woods!"

        Not only did we have a long time to explain to the German the meaning of the proverb, but when he understood it, then he completely shocked us: "It's strange! Why did you admire the hero of the song so much? He comes to Baikal and "takes a fisherman's boat". But it's someone else's boat! What's more, he's escaped from prison and started stealing again. He's a recidivist! Not only that! His own mother comes out to meet him and says that his brother "has been ringing in the irons" in Siberia "for a long time now" - after all, his whole family is criminal! What is there to admire?

        As they say, no comment.

        Let us ask ourselves the question, why the Russians, for the most part, are not able to work as systematically and punctually as the Europeans? Why do we have so much love to rush? First of all, because Russia, unlike Europe, has an unfavorable climate: short summers and long, cold winters. The Russian peasant had to do the entire annual volume of agricultural work ("stada") within a short period of time. Therefore they had to work hastily. Risking to lose the harvest because of early frost, prolonged rain or drought (which does not happen often in Europe). Hence our traditional: "Come on, come on! Hurry up, hurry up! - "The day feeds the year"... And we'll be lazy in the frost, on the stove.

         But the Chinese and Japanese, for example, have a year to feed themselves. In their warm, humid climate the peasant had to work the whole year, with almost no breaks between seasons. So he worked monotonously, like a machine. Plus the specific rice crop, which unlike cereals - sowed in spring, harvested in autumn – rice required constant, daily care. This is the reason for the traditional meticulousness and scrupulousness that has been part of the Chinese mentality for thousands of years and that has been genetically fixed in the people of the Celestial Empire. (Just like the Koreans, Vietnamese, etc.) This is why the southeastern man is ideally suited to work in modern assembly line production - he is not bored with being a machine. But the Russian man is bored, even more so, disgusted and very nervous. He is by nature a more versatile, universal worker. After all the Russian peasant was engaged in agriculture only five-six months in a year and to make ends meet he had to do something else: to carpenter, make furniture, utensils, sew clothes, go hunting, be a trucker (we know that the best truck drivers are Russians), finally, make some things for sale.

         A Russian person is much more interested in creative, piecemeal production, for example, shoeing a flea. Or inventing something amazing. Or to work for a "big deal," like making military aircraft in a factory. Because this is not a simple monotonous task, but a super-task - to defend the Motherland. (By Russians we mean here Great Russians, Belarusians, and Little Russians.)

If we recall the famous parable of the construction of the Cathedral of Rouen, we can say that while a Russian person is organically incapable of simply "carrying these damned stones," - he is capable of "building the Cathedral of Rouen." This is to the question of why we in Soviet times made excellent spacecraft and sophisticated military equipment "for the country" and could not cope with the simpler, conveyorized production of passenger cars "for the man in the street". And, I should add, we won't cope for a long time yet, and we won't catch up with the Japanese or Germans in this business, despite capitalism and the market, "which itself should regulate everything". The stereotype of behavior (let alone the archetype) is not regulated by order. It is a phenomenon of nature.

         Another example. A small ethnic group is the Chechens. It is known that Chechens have long been engaged in robber raids on neighbouring tribes, and sometimes on one another, even before the arrival of the Russians. In addition to booty, prisoners were seized and either sold into slavery or returned for a ransom. With time, raids turned into a national tradition and were considered an honorable occupation, in which the military spirit was tempered and the youth learned the art of war. Chechens and some other mountain peoples firmly retained this passion for permanent "small wars" in their stereotypes. From the point of view of peaceful farmers, the bearers of this stereotype of behavior were bandits and murderers. From the point of view of the highlanders themselves they were young men of action, maybe heroes.

         But the question arises: was it not possible to do without raids? After all, the constant risk of being killed ... it turns out you cannot. The main reason is the same geographical factor. The fact that suitable land for arable farming in the foothills and especially in the mountains was very small. The development of cattle breeding was also limited by the few pastures, for which there was a constant back and forth struggle. Therefore, the highlanders often lacked food and the simplest things needed to survive. Raiding was, so to speak, a way of extracting the necessary and surplus product. And not much of it at all. The main value for the highlander was a weapon and a warhorse. (A kind of "means of production".) Otherwise, they were content with the minimum. Hence the famous expression: "A dzhigit may have a tattered Circassian coat and a leaky saklya, but his horse is a Meskhetian and his weapon is in silver. Let us recall Lermontov and the first Caucasian War. And let's pay attention to such an important natural factor as the mountainous landscape, ideally suited for raiding and guerrilla warfare.

         Over time, the material situation of the highlanders changed for the better, especially during the last decades of Soviet power. Chechnya's territory expanded markedly at the expense of the fertile lands of the Terek Cossacks. All mountaineers had jobs, sturdy houses and large plots of homestead land. Their standard of living has risen, but the stereotype of behavior has hardly changed! Let's remember the last Caucasian War. And not only that one, for example, the way in which the form of traditional Caucasian raids "on neighbors" has changed in our time.  

          Now, let us return to the Chinese and ask ourselves a question: why do the Celestial Chinese have such a developed reverence for rank, hierarchy, the cult of the state (even more than the Russians), why are the Chinese organized and disciplined? The roots go back there, to the natural and climatic factor, or, more precisely, to the way they adapt to the unique Chinese landscape. Gumilev wrote about this in detail.

         The first Chinese civilization was born in the III millennium BC, in the valley of the Huang He River. The Huang He is the Yellow River; it carries a lot of sediment, sand, and small stones from the mountains. For thousands of years it has washed up an entire dam and flows along the dam like a chute. From time to time this dam would burst at river bends, and the water would fall down, flooding vast areas. Farming under such conditions was simply impossible. Eventually, however, a solution was found: a clever Chinese emperor who lived as early as the second millennium B.C. proposed repairing this natural dam by reinforcing the walls of the huge trough. And the Chinese began to do so. Since then, the Huang He River has been placed in a rigid framework - it is already an artificial river with an extensive system of irrigation. But in order to do such a grandiose work, it was necessary to organize and discipline huge masses of people, and this required a whole army of overseers, officials, managers. That is, in the end, a strong state power headed by an absolute ruler. (An ant colony state!) This was the way of survival in the natural environment, and it has imprinted itself on the Chinese stereotype of behavior.

        Since then, the Chinese have become disciplined collectivist-statesmen. And they also began to actively breed and multiply. This was possible because in the warm and humid climate of the subtropics, "where even a stick grows if pushed into the ground," there was always plenty of food to grow. And when it is warm and there is enough food with almost no outside threats - natural boundaries (mountains, deserts, ocean) on three sides - families always have a lot of children. Hence the cult of the large patriarchal family in China and the ancestor cult associated with it. This is also where Confucianism itself comes from, the essence of which is the strict observance of the established order, strict hierarchy, respect for elders and care for the younger ones.    

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        It is necessary to say that not only Chinese, but also Russian communal collectivism, which, let us note, differs from the Chinese, derives from the geographical factor. It was possible to survive in the unfavorable climatic conditions of Central Russia, with extremely low yields and risky farming, only by uniting in a rural community.

The European-type khutor, individual farming was possible only in the south of Russia, but there was for a long time the danger of nomadic raids ("Wild Field"). That is why the ideas of equalizing socialism and collective farming found their breeding ground in Russia. (The concept of "Soviet collective farm" is close to the concept of "Russian peasant community.") And so the Russian peasants, going to work, have long been united in artels, where everyone was responsible for everyone, and where the incentive to work was not so much money as the worker's responsibility to the "community." And we must say that the productivity of such artels was very high. So artels, for example, built the Trans-Siberian Railway, the pace of construction of which amazed contemporaries. In Soviet times the artel way of working manifested itself in the form of a brigade contract.

         It is quite typical that Russian collectivism was reflected in the language. For example, the words "at us" (на нас) "in our village," "at our factory," "in our country", are used very often in Russian, and Russians are usually surprised to learn that there is no corresponding equivalent in English.

         Unstable climate is also connected with such peculiarity of our behavior stereotype as dislike to prognosis and wishful thinking, as well as hope on notorious Russian "avos". For what the Russian man criticized and even scolded people with non-Russian stereotype of behavior, calling "nebsoska" and "avoska. As historian Kljuchevsky wrote: "Often deceiving in the most careful calculations, the Russian person undertook, sometimes, for the most hopeless business ("was - was not!"), having opposed a whim of nature, a whim of his own bravery" and, what is characteristic, - quite often won. And in this he was helped by our magic wand - Russian ingenuity - derived from extreme conditions of existence. In cases where Russian ingenuity clashed with German programming, for example, in wars, then Russian ingenuity often won. Because when the German "lost his program," he simply did not know what to do, and he needed time to “reset”. But the Russian knew, all the more so, that he sometimes had no program at all, except the one called: "act according to the situation".

         As already noted, the stereotype of behavior in addition to the climatic factor is always influenced by a geopolitical factor. In Russia it is a huge territory, for a long time unprotected by natural borders: seas, mountains, deserts. And consequently, the constant threat of attack from outside. Therefore, beginning with XIV - XV centuries the Russian man was formed not only and even not so much as a free Cossack, but also as a statesman. He understood that only a strong centralized state can protect him from numerous external enemies, and from his own robbers, too. (And to this day continues to illiberally believe that "the state - must help!"). Therefore, our peasantry voluntarily submitted to the despotism of state power, and sometimes gave this power their last shirt, knowing that without a shirt you can live, but not without security. The same Crimean Tatars would raid, beat, burn, pick out the healthiest guys and beautiful girls, and steal them away to be sold as slaves.

         This is why until the Moscow state turned into the Russian Empire and established a reliable defense of all borders (especially southern borders), the Russian people for centuries lived with caution, ready at any moment to throw everything and flee from the enemy - the good thing was where. This is to the question of our dislike of calculations and the unsettled Russian way of life. And also to the question: "Why Europe is so rich and beautiful, and we have everything through ... it’s a dull patch".

         In order to put everything in order and to put in order - as in comparatively compact Western Europe, which is located on the edge of the continent and is protected from three sides by the sea - we need relative security. And also, recall, we need a surplus - a surplus product, which in our cold climate was very small. While in Europe, with its milder climate, this surplus product was much larger. Plus a very convenient geographical location for the development of trade, especially the most profitable – by the sea.

         After all, where did the European bourgeois (Protestant) stereotype of behavior, with its unquenchable thirst for profit, come from? It began with the Italian merchant-speculative republics of Venice and Genoa, who profited from robbing the Byzantine Empire. Then this virus of greed carried over to Holland, and from Holland to England, which, occupying a very advantageous geographical position (an island at the crossroads of sea routes) began to actively develop large-scale wholesale maritime trade. The English peasants were driven from their land by their landlords, and then those of them who did not die of hunger and escaped the noose turned into wage laborers. Eventually the whole economic life of England became based on trade.

Then other countries joined this activity, and gradually the Anglo-Saxon bourgeois stereotype of behavior began to spread throughout Europe. And then it moved to America... At the same time we should not forget the terrible robbery of the colonies. And all this - by sea, by sea.

         And before the British, the carriers of a similar stereotype of behavior were farmer-sailor merchants, the Frisians, who lived in relative safety on the peninsulas of the North Sea coast and were the intermediaries in the trade between Rome and the Germanic tribes. And before them were maritime predators and speculators from Phoenicia, Carthage, and Ancient Greece. All these peoples lived in very combative places at the crossroads of land and sea routes.

         And one more very important point. Comparing the "backward" Russia and the "civilized" Europe one more factor must be taken into account beside the geographical factor - the age of the ethnos. After all, for the accumulation of material values and the organization of life in a bourgeois, ordered way requires a long time, when the count goes not for decades, but for many centuries. It is this age factor, discovered by Gumilyov, that we will discuss further in detail.

        Returning to the stereotype of behavior of the Russian man, we must emphasize that he, unlike the European, for many centuries lived by his own, anti-bourgeois formula: "If you have it, it's good; if you don't have it, the hell with it!" Even if he dreamed of wealth, it was the kind of wealth which falls suddenly, "at God's will", rather than accumulated over many generations, as in relatively stable and prosperous (since the 17th century) bourgeois Europe. Our people sincerely believed that "you will not get chambers of stone from righteous deeds". And through sin - no need.

        Therefore, the main thing for the Russian person was not the law ("freedom", parliament, capital), but the grace. Or according to the terminology of philosophers - Perfection. The main thing that there was harmony in the world. And that there was peace in the soul.

          But that's exactly what it was.

           Everything changes over time, and as we said, so does the stereotype of behavior. Looking ahead a little bit, we note that the Russian man for the last, crisis-transition 150 years has changed noticeably. He has become more bourgeois, and, accordingly, less spiritual; we have more kulaks-accumulators, and we have fewer straightforward idealists-no-kindnesses. The new Russian individualist has greatly supplanted the old Russian collectivist. He has not yet won definitively, but he has already entered "the operational space".

         Of course, the Russian individualist does not look like a Western burgher, he is still incomplete - with one foot in the communal past and the other in the "civilized" future, and with a Eurasian bent. But, nevertheless, he is already an individualist. If to imagine mentally a thousand-year way, which the majority of ethnoses pass from not very comfortable but heroic and religious youth (high spirituality) to satisfied but completely vulgar and irreligious old age (no spirituality - just eating, drinking and fornication), then the present Russian man is somewhere in the middle. Therefore, note, it is not necessary, looking only into the past, to idealize the modern Russian man, as it is done today by some good and kind people - the preserved patriotic idealists. At the best half of what was left, it is not a little, but it is not that.

          There are two circumstances that are somewhat comforting. First, there is the fact that it could be much worse - for example, as in modern Europe or, God forbid, in America. Obviously, the fate of Babylon and Sodom awaits them simultaneously in the coming decades. Secondly, there is the fact that even with the mass "okulachization" and secularization of the Russian population, our Eurasian (spontaneous communal-imperial) psychology still continues to dominate over the home-grown bourgeois and artificially introduced liberal psychology. Especially in the provinces. For all the losses, there is still a healthy core among the people. So there is no need to give up on the modern Russian man, or to write him off.

        And here it should be emphasized once again that mentality, that is the original psychological makeup of an ethnos, from which arises the worldview of a given people, is a more stable phenomenon than the ethnic stereotype of behavior. Gumilyov almost never touched upon the subject of mentality in his works, but, as rightly pointed out by Gumilyov's disciple V.A. Michurin, mentality is a deep consolidating factor, both at the level of ethnicity and at the level of super-ethnos, especially when the super-ethnos has a variety of behavior stereotypes. Thus the core of Russian super-ethnos - Russians, Little Russians, Belarusians - apart from close psychology, has always been united by the Orthodox faith, which for many centuries was included in the flesh and blood of our people, and to a large extent preserved in it to this day.

        Practice shows that mentality, unlike the stereotype of behavior transmitted from parents to children by signal heredity, is stored in the deeper layers of the subconscious (unconscious), and changes (it is destroyed) very slowly. This is already at the gene level.

        Hence the conclusion is that in the modern Russian super-ethnos, despite serious losses, there is a mental resource for independent development. No matter how much they try to artificially impose alien values and stereotypes on us.                                     

         Continuing the theme of the dissimilarity of different ethnic groups, it should be emphasized that in addition to behavioral and psychological differences, there is something else that goes beyond human consciousness. "Like any natural phenomenon," Gumilev wrote, "ethnos is given to people in the senses. When we see a person belonging to another ethnicity, we cannot even determine why he is not our own. But we feel that he is not our own. But about this important feature - a little below.

        According to Gumilev, the ancient Egyptians were the first to try to classify the peoples. They believed that people are divided into four breeds. They painted themselves as yellow, black blacks, white Semites from Arabia, and red-brown Libyans. The Greeks had a simpler view: Hellenes and all others were barbarians. But later, they still had to divide the known peoples into Asians, Scythians and Negroes. The ancient Chinese also took it the easy way, putting themselves in the center of the world: we inhabitants of the Celestial Empire, and the rest are wild and dirty barbarians.

        But then the Great Migration of Peoples happened, and things got complicated. It still does. Two thousand years ago, in the first century A.D., the world population was about 300 million people; in the early 19th century, it was 1 billion; in the early 21st century, it was 7 billion! Today, there are about 200 nations and more than 3,000 ethnic groups on the planet. The world has become smaller. Before our eyes, humanity is changing into a new quality, everything is shrinking, as if before an explosion.

        

2. Ethnic structure: Subethnos, Ethnos, Superethnos

        Ethnicity, Gumilyov noted, can be relative. For example, a Karelian, arriving from his village in St. Petersburg, would call himself a Russian. A Kazan Tatar in St. Petersburg would call himself a Tatar. But when he comes to Western Europe or China, he will declare himself a Russian, although he may add that he is actually a Tatar. And in Africa our Tatar will be considered a European.

        The ethnic structure represents the following hierarchy:

sub-ethnos, ethnos, super-ethnos.

        A sub-ethnos is an ethnic system, which is an element of the structure of an ethnos. For example, in Russia in the 16th-17th centuries the following sub-ethnoses were formed: in the south - the Cossacks, in the north - the Pomors, in Siberia - the Siberians (Cheldons). After the church split, another sub-ethnic group appeared - the Old Believers. They all differ from each other in their stereotype of behavior, language, and conditions of life. But they are all Russian. Confronted with representatives of another ethnic group, they feel their unity. It would seem, Gumilyov noted, what can be common between a Russian intellectual and an Old Believer? However, once in a foreign environment, they feel Russian and, if necessary, unite. 

        In the course of history, all sub-ethnoses are dissolved in one way or another into the bulk of the ethnos. But at the same time new ones stand out. "Sometimes they coincide with estates, but never with classes." (Thus, for example, in a number of works, Gumilyov singles out the Russian serving nobility as a special sub-ethnos.)

         The scholar cites the example of the French. A seemingly homogeneous ethnos, but it includes Bretons, Burgundians, Gasconians, Normans, Provencals and other sub-ethnic groups. The purpose of these sub-ethnoses is to maintain ethnic unity through "internal non-antagonistic rivalry. The complexity of the structure gives the ethnos strength and increases its resistance to external shocks. When the ethnic system is simplified, in the period of decline, the number of sub-ethnoses is reduced to one.

         Looking somewhat ahead, we note that by the beginning of the twenty-first century, the ethnic structure in Russia has simplified. There is still a long way to go before the final simplification, but the tendency is alarming.

         The next level after ethnos is the super-ethnic level. (The definition of ethnos will be given below.) A super-ethnos is a group of closely related ethnic groups. It is the largest unit after all mankind, which emerges in one region and manifests itself as a "mosaic integrity". Super-ethnos can be called a civilization, culture or cultural-historical type otherwise. For example: Byzantine culture, Byzantine civilization, Byzantine super-ethnos (Gumilyov wrote it with a lowercase letter).

        Today, we can identify several major super-ethnoses: Western (European), Chinese, Indian, Latin American, and Russian. Before our eyes, a Muslim (Arab-Islamic) super-ethnos is taking shape.

         Although, strictly speaking, Gumilyov gave a more fractional division. For example, he attributed the Japanese to a special super-ethnos, in India he counted three super-ethnoses, and in Russia he singled out separate steppe and circumpolar super-ethnoses.

         Super-ethnoses, just like ethnoses, are not eternal. The life span of a super-ethnos (ethnos) is approximately 1200-1500 years. (The exception is the Jewish super-ethnos, but more about that below.) The European super-ethnos is already old, over 1000 years old. The Russian one is middle-aged, 450-500 years younger than the European one. The Indian and Chinese, oddly enough, are young. This is why they are on the rise.

        It should be clarified that the modern Chinese are the fourth Chinese in a known historical period. They are roughly the same as the Italians are to the Romans, or the ancient Egyptians to the modern Egyptians, with the difference that the inhabitants of the Huang He river basin were for a long time in relative isolation, and the original Chinese culture was passed from one Chinese to another almost without loss. The penultimate (medieval) Chinese super-ethnos existed from the 6th to the 17th centuries. And after that, it fell into semi-paralysis. Power in the Celestial Empire in the XVII century was seized by the Manchus. Europeans, when they discovered China in the 18th century, thought that hibernation was its natural state. And they began to plunder. They would have plundered to this day, if China had not begun a new round of ethnogenesis in the mid-18th century. In the 18th - 19th centuries there was a little-noticed "in utero process," and in the 20th century a new China was born. And in front of it, according to the theory of passionarity, a great future.

         And what about the United States? America is not a super-ethnos, it is an extension of Europe (just like Canada and Australia). Gumilyov wrote almost nothing about modern America, but it is quite obvious that today the USA is the leader of the Western super-ethnos. It would seem to be a strong country, but there is no internal, ethnic unity.

The system is highly unstable: whites are separate, blacks are separate, yellows (Chinese, Koreans, etc.) are separate, Hispanics are also separate. It is only in the movies that black and white cops are almost brothers. In fact, ethnic tensions in the U.S. have been and remain high. In the future, it will only grow.

         By the middle of the 21st century, only 40 to 45 percent of white Americans - mostly Anglo-Saxons - who have been the backbone of the ethnic system for centuries, are projected to remain. (Today they are just under 70 percent.) The majority will be "people of color”. They are actively breeding, but they do not represent unity. The largest ethnic group is Hispanics (Hispanics). They have overtaken blacks, and are rapidly gaining, not only because of the high birth rate, but also because of illegal migration. By 2050, the proportion of Hispanics should rise to 25 to 30 percent. Negroes and immigrants from Southeast Asia, especially the Chinese, are likely to share second place; they are currently in first place in the U.S. in terms of fertility rate. In the not-so-distant future, America will turn very brown and yellow.

        As for blacks, from an ethnological point of view, the so-called "African Americans" are in fact neither African nor American (Native). In fact, these descendants of different tribal slaves from Africa are a kind of ethnic zigzag, a social group with a strong anti-state bias, rather than an ethnic system. (Through no fault of their own, of course. This is a negative example of the gross interference of humans, slave traders, in the natural process of ethnogenesis. And it should be noted that such examples, which Gumilyov called "shifts" of ethnogenesis - all over the world has already accumulated quite a few ...)

         ** Ethnic history teaches that such - not multinational, but multinational states - collapse at the first strong blow from the outside, if not torn from within.

          In any case, the U.S. should collapse sooner than Old Europe. This is in spite of the fact that white Protestants living in the U.S. hinterland are more energetic than most Europeans. The people of Europe, by the way, have already sensed this prospect, and have begun to understand the vortex into which they can be sucked before their time. Such fears have become one of the deep reasons for the growing contradictions between Europe and the USA, which is a bad sign in terms of ethnogenesis. After all, the loss of unity within a super-ethnos reduces the viability of the ethnic system. This does not mean that the Western nations will start dying tomorrow - sometimes the disintegration takes 150 to 200 years. But the process has begun. And thanks to the new information technology and globalization, it went ahead of schedule, as nature intended. (For more about the crisis in the West, see the chapter on "the phase of obscuration.)

         So if you look at modern super-ethnoses not from the usual perspective of economics or politics, but from the perspective of age (the level of passionarity), then we will see that of the six world super-ethnoses one is old - Western, one is middle-aged - Russian, and four young ones: Chinese-3 (the 4th is from the oldest), Indian-3, Muslim-2 and Latin American (more mature).

         It is known from history that violent wars are often fought between close relatives, that is, within the super-ethnos. However, they are fundamentally different from wars at the level of large systems, when representatives of different super-ethnoses are at war. In this case, the enemy is seen as something foreign, interfering and to be destroyed. "The farther apart the super-ethnic systems are, the more coldly mutual extermination takes place. Conversely, the struggle within the super-ethnos is not aimed at destroying and enslaving the enemy, but at defeating him," Gumilyov wrote.  Europeans could fight among themselves as much as they wanted. For example, for some "royal inheritance. But against the rest of the world, that is, against other super-ethnoses, whether Byzantines, Arabs or Russians, they were always a united front. It's like in the Russian countryside - the men used to fight, street to street, but when fighters from other villages came, all the locals united.

         For example, during World War II, Hitler did not aim to exterminate the European peoples. In the West European countries occupied by the Germans, the occupation regime was rather mild. Though the fascists considered the French as a second-class nation, they did not consider them to be "subhumans". They were Europeans.

         But in Russia, the Germans behaved quite differently. Here the war was fought for the annihilation. In a memo to a German soldier it was written: "No pity for the inferior race, your heart must be stone....Kill everyone...".

There were practically no punishments for war crimes committed in Russia - murder of civilians, rape, looting. And this is not just a matter of Nazi ideology - the same Crusaders in the 13th century behaved in Constantinople and Russia not much more humane than the Nazis. The Roman pope then proclaimed: "The Orthodox are worse than heretics. Beat them!" And who in medieval Europe was worse than heretics, who were burned at the stake? Only non-humans.

         Another example: the Patriotic War of 1812. Moscow burned down. Trapped in a stalemate, Napoleon was so angry at the "Russian barbarians" that before retreating he ordered to blow up the Moscow Kremlin, and along with it the St. Basil's Cathedral. Then chance prevented it, ... but in Europe "enlightened" Napoleon did not allow such barbarism even in his thoughts.

        Why did the Germans during the Second World War show such cruelty to the Serbs? And why did NATO troops, with the support of "public opinion", mercilessly bomb Serbian cities in 1999? Because the Serbs are strangers in Europe. They were not and are not part of the European super-ethnos, although they live in Europe. The Croats, for example, are a part of it, but as provincials. As well as Hungarians, Czechs, Romanians and other East-European ethnoses. Which, by the way, during the war mostly supported Hitler and fought on the eastern front. Therefore, the recent accession of these countries to NATO is quite natural - they have returned to their own, albeit from the backyard. (That is why they began to enthusiastically berate the "Russian occupiers" and to do them petty nasty things. To the delight of their new patrons, the Americans).

         The same goes for the Baltic peoples: Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, who, while formally part of the Russian Empire-Soviet Union, were not part of the Russian super-ethnos, but always gravitated toward Europe. The Belarusians, on the other hand, were and are still part of it, as well as the Ukrainians, except for the Western Ukrainians (a separate ethnos, the Galicians). That's why since the 1990's the western Ukraine wants to join NATO, and the rest of the country doesn't. The country is shaking. (More about Ukraine in a separate chapter).

          The fact is that you can tear apart an empire, but it is much harder to tear apart a super-ethnos. This is not a political phenomenon, but a natural one. And as you know, it is better not to interfere with nature. It does not like it. (More about the collapse of the USSR in a separate chapter.)

          How was the Russian super-ethnos formed? It began to take shape in the 16th century. Its core were the Russians, or, in the old manner, the Velikorosses. The first member of the Russian super-ethnos are the Finno-Ugric peoples - Komi-Permyaks, Karels, Mordva, Udmurts and others. (part of the Finnic tribes participated in the previous, Slavic ethnogenesis). With the incorporation of the Volga region into the Moscow state, the Turkic ethnic groups, splinters of the Golden Horde, were included. Today these are the Tatars, Bashkirs, and Chuvashs. (However it should be noted that Gumilyov does not talk about the inclusion of the Tatars and Bashkirs in the Russian super-ethnos, speaking only about the Chuvash. It can be assumed that until the XIX - early XX century the Tatars and Bashkirs really belonged to the steppe super-ethnos, but then joined the Russian super-ethnos.) Since the 17th century the Russian super-ethnos includes the Siberian peoples: Khanty, Mansi, Buryats, Evenks, Yakuts and others, including many smaller ethnic groups. And with all of them Russians get along relatively peacefully. With the exception of the Yenisei Kyrgyz, the Chukchi and the West Siberian Tatars, with whom they have had to fight. But these military conflicts cannot be compared with the extermination of the North American Indians by the "civilized" Europeans.

        Today, all these ethnic groups which have lived side by side with the Russians for four hundred years and more are considered to be the indigenous peoples of Russia.

          With the entry into the Russian Empire in the XVII-XVIII centuries of the Ukrainians-Malorossians (without Galicians) and Belarusians (excluding a small group of Polonized Westerners ("Prsheks")), the Russian super-ethnos was finally formed.

          In the 19th century, the Caucasus and Central Asia became part of Russia. But the question is whether the peoples of these suburbs were included in the Russian super-ethnos? Gumilyov answers no. The Georgians and Armenians were fragments of the Byzantine super-ethnos, friendly to the Russians. Experiencing a serious threat from Turkey and Persia, they joined Russia voluntarily (even with great joy). Turkmen, Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Crimean Tatars were part of the Muslim super-ethnos. There the incorporation was done militarily. As in Azerbaijan. These wars were short-lived, and no serious resistance was encountered by the Russian troops. The attitude toward the Russian invaders in those regions was not very friendly in the beginning, especially on the part of the national elites, but over time the tension subsided (except in Crimea).

         The closest to the Russian super-ethnos are the peoples of the steppe super-ethnos, primarily the Kazakhs. Subjected to constant attacks of the Dzungars, the Kazakhs joined Russia voluntarily.

          Gumilyov said little about the peoples of the North Caucasus. Obviously, they are close to the Muslim super-ethnos, although they retain their distinctiveness. Most of the North Caucasian peoples were annexed to Russia in the 19th century through a long, bloody war. Attitudes toward Russians there were and remain, to put it mildly, not very warm (although not everywhere).

         Today the most part of Central Asian republics gravitate to Russia as the backbone of Eurasia. Ten years after their "liberation" from "Big Brother", the leaders of these republics have finally started to understand that it is better to be friends with Russia than to be controlled by the United States or China. And the peoples of these countries, for the most part, perceive the Russians as the most tolerant and kind neighbors. Here is an example. During the 2008 European Football Championship, Central Asians and some Caucasians cheered for the Russian footballers who unexpectedly reached the semi-finals as if they were their own. A Kyrgyz man at Bishkek airport asked a Russian journalist, "How did our team do against the Dutch yesterday?

        Compared to the Europeans or Chinese - they are really our people. The more so that USSR experience showed it is quite possible to get along with the majority of these nations and be good neighbors. But exactly as neighbors, that is when each ethnic group lives on its territory (in its ecological niche) and does not interfere in the affairs of other ethnic groups. As has already been said: "In peace, but apart. Gumilyov distinguished two types of positive ethnic contacts: 1) symbiosis - good-neighborly, mutually beneficial relations without fusion; 2) xenia - neutral coexistence of ethnicities in one region without interpenetration. (There is another, negative type of contact - chimera, different reacting as fire, but more about it below).

         Ethnic history teaches us that when the ethnic law "side by side, but apart" was violated, it always ended in ethnic conflicts, sometimes very bloody. In this connection it is necessary to note that the migration policy which is carried out in Russia for the last 15-20 years is directed exactly against this iron law. If this "open door" migration policy continues, in the foreseeable future it will lead to a sharp increase in tension and very serious ethnic conflicts. The first negative results of this "national policy" we are already witnessing are the dramatically increased street nationalism among the youth and not so youth. As I.S. Shishkin rightly noted, the impression is that those behind this national policy have either not read Gumilyov, or, on the contrary, have read very well.

        About Eurasianism. Over the historically observable period, Gumilyov wrote, the Northern Eurasia was united three times. First it was united by the Turks, who in the VI century created the Khaganate from the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean. In the XIII century to replace them came the Mongols. Then, after a period of complete collapse, the initiative to unite the Eurasian space was taken by Russia. In the middle of the seventeenth century, Russians reached the Pacific Ocean. Thus, the Russian power became the heir to the ancient nomadic empires.

        Gumileyov said that in the broadest, geopolitical sense, the Russian super-ethnos could be considered Eurasian, since it included peoples inhabiting a special geographic region - Northern Eurasia. These territories, protected on three sides by natural boundaries - the tundra, the Pacific Ocean, mountains and deserts - are by nature itself designed to unite peoples. Even in the west there is an invisible temperature boundary, to the left of which in Europe in January the temperatures are above zero, and to the right - below zero. And this natural boundary passes, precisely, along the western outskirts of the Russian Empire - the USSR.

        Gumilyov wrote: "For the peoples of Eurasia integration has always been much more profitable than disintegration. Disintegration deprived of strength, resistance; dis-unification in Eurasia meant putting oneself in dependence on neighbors, not always unselfish and merciful.  Eurasian peoples built their common statehood based on the principle of primacy of rights of each nation for a certain way of life. In Russia this principle was embodied in the concept of sobornost and was strictly observed. Thus, the rights of the individual were also ensured.

        Historical experience has shown that while each nation retained the right to be itself, the united Eurasia successfully withstood the onslaught of Western Europe, China, and Muslims. The Russians, having conquered the Caucasus and Central Asia, allowed these peoples to live in their own way. Most importantly, they were not retrained and did not try to turn them into Russians. "Tolerance and good treatment of non-Russians led to most non-Russians becoming friends with Russians."

          And about inter-ethnic relations in the Soviet Union Gumilyov said: "In general, the friendship of peoples is the best that has been invented in this matter for a millennium. However, it should be noted that serious mistakes were made in Soviet nationality policy as well (about this in a separate chapter). When in the late 80's in our country inter-ethnic conflicts and persecution of the Russians began, Gumilyov noted: "International policy is also necessary inside the state".

         As already mentioned, Gumilyov always emphasized in his works that contacts at the level of super-ethnoses rarely lead to positive results (although such sometimes happen, for example - Eastern Slavs and Turkic tribes ("Tatars")), more often these contacts have negative consequences. A striking example is the relationship between Eurasian nomads and the Chinese. Gumilev wrote: "There were three turns of ethnogenesis in Eurasia in historical time: Scythian (before III century BC), Hun-Sarmatian (from III century BC to XI century), Mongol-Manchurian - in the east (XII - XX centuries). The fourth, Velikorussian, which began in the 13th century, has not yet been completed.

         For 2500 years several ethnic groups have changed in Eurasia, but when comparing them in the chosen parameter-relationship with neighbors, a general pattern can be observed. Each ethnos has two cultural and political dominants:

         I. The desire to imitate its neighbors, richer and more numerous - mimesis.

         II. Pursuit of originality, based on adaptation syndrome or adaptation to the host landscape - Euturophilia (love for Motherland) - Eurasianism.

         This is the way of all!

      A clear characteristic of the Hunnish-Chinese relations was given by the eunuch Yue, offended by the (Chinese) emperor of the Han dynasty, ... and who gave his sympathies to the shanyu (ruler of the Huns). He said: "Before, i.e. after the victories over the Chinese, many Hunnish women changed their sheepskin coats for silk dresses. Along with koumiss and cheese, the Huns had wine, cookies and Chinese delicacies, and with them a decline in manners. If you shanyui change the customs, and China spends one-tenth of its wealth on bribery, all the Huns will be on the Han side. Strike silk fabrics on thorns, and keep eating cheese and milk, or you will lose your freedom, and with it your life."

         And so it happened. After a while, the Huns divided into two parties, which can be conventionally called court-liberal and national-patriotic. The liberals went into contact with the Chinese, and in the end were destroyed by the Chinese. The patriots, later called Huns, retreated to the West and lived long heroic lives. They successfully fought Rome, and then their descendants created a powerful nomadic empire, the Turkic Kaganate, which united the entire Great Steppe.

        "The Türks were replaced in the Great Steppe by the Uighurs (745 - 840). They carefully avoided contacts with China, but they were seduced by the thought of the Iranian Gnostic Manicheans (life-negating doctrine. - Author). This doctrine was exotic and unacceptable for the Uigurs, but the intellectuals took it fanatically. The Uigur khanate was destroyed by the Siberian khygs, and people were dispersed. It turned out that ideological aggression can be just as devastating as military and political aggression.

        Let us stop and draw a conclusion. All of the Eurasian ethnic groups lived relatively well in their homeland. But, penetrating into China, first as winners, after as guests, they perished, as well as taking the Chinese to themselves. Contact at the super-ethnic level yielded negative results. Even the ideological aggression, Manichaeism among the Uighurs, gave the same result, "- Gumilyov wrote.   (Does this remind you of anything?)

         3. Complimentarity

          Gumilyov wrote: "The world, the Earth, the Oikumen is a communal apartment. And a very large, diversely populated one. With some neighbors you are better not to meet, with others you will still quarrel, with others you will play chess and drink tea. That is, you will always have different relations with all your neighbors. And in each case you will need to find a common language.

          Let us ask ourselves the question: Why can some nations get along with each other and even be friends, while other nations cannot, and are better off living separately? For example, the Chinese hated the nomads (Huns, Turks, Mongols) to such an extent that they even refused to drink milk, because milk is the food of nomads. And the stereotype of the behavior of the steppe nomads was generally perceived by the Chinese as something unnatural. On the other hand, the Russians and Tatars got along easily, and were actively mixing and intermarrying.  And this despite the yoke and the racial difference. The Byzantine Greeks were friends with the nomads, too, and converted many of them to Christianity.

          But the European Catholics didn't like the nomads. It would seem, why? They lived far away from each other, military conflicts between the two super-ethnoses were rare and far less significant than wars within Europe. "There was simply a belief," Gumilyov wrote, "that the Huns, Turks, and Mongols were dirty savages, and if the Greeks were friends with them, then the Eastern Christians were 'such heretics that God himself is sickened.'

        And this negative attitude toward the steppe Christians was later transferred to the Russians. Gumilyov wrote: "Every Russian familiar with the history of international relations over the past three hundred years, has always been astonished by the attitude toward Russia, which in Western Europe was considered quite natural and even the only possible - unfriendly and somewhat contemptuous. After all, even in Paris, in the school of Oriental languages, the expression "scrape a Russian and you will find a Tatar" was as if it did not require proof. And the attitude toward "Tatars," by which all the nomads of the Great Steppe were meant, was for some reason negative. Not that they were disrespected, but they were put below the Chinese, Indians, and Arabs, without even asking the question, why were they so disrespected? And this attitude spread to the Russians, and very long ago: since the times of Ivan the Terrible and Alexei Mikhailovich.

        We should add that some Russians, in connection with this, developed an inferiority complex. They really wanted to be like civilized Europeans, and became Westerners. Many of them became so enamored of Europe that they hated everything Russian. Academician A.M. Panchenko noted rather caustically about these "liberal" people: "They ask to be in the "pan-European house," but they are not allowed beyond the entrance hall, except to send them a glass of vodka and a crust of bread.

         Russia rejected them at the beginning of the 20th century and still rejects them today at the beginning of the 21st century.

         But still, why are sympathies and antipathies between ethnic groups not always explained by economic gain, political calculation, differences in ideologies or religions? To explain this phenomenon, Gumilyov introduces the concept of complementarity. Positive complementarity is a subconscious sympathy of one people for another. Negative - unaccountable antipathy. Neutral complementarity is tolerance towards another ethnic group, i.e. a calm and even indifferent attitude, without emotions.

         Complementarity is a natural phenomenon, it does not arise by order or for monetary gain. It is a sincere feeling. It is the principle upon which marriages of love are made, and real friendships are forged. "The basis of ethnic relations lies outside the sphere of consciousness - it is in emotions: sympathies - antipathies, love - hatred," emphasized Gumilyov.

        The scientist wrote: "The principle of complementarity appears at the level of ethnicity, and very effectively. Here it is called patriotism and is in the competence of history. For one cannot love a nation without respecting its ancestors. Intra-ethnic complementarity, as a rule, is useful for the ethnos, being a powerful protective force. But sometimes it takes the ugly negative form of hatred for everything alien; then it is called chauvinism.

         At the personal level, that is, when two or three people from different ethnic groups meet, complementarity is very weak and easy to break. But the larger the ethnic group, the stronger and more irresistible it is. For example, if you invite one or two Chinese people over, you drink tea and have a nice conversation. That's one feeling, usually comfortable. But if you suddenly find yourself in a train carriage with only Chinese people (or, a milder version, you enter a Chinese market), it is another feeling - you become uncomfortable. If you come to China and live there (alone), you get homesick.

        It is obvious that the complementarity between Russians and Chinese is negative, and primarily on the part of the Chinese themselves. And the roots of this phenomenon go deep into history: all the peoples who lived on the territory of Northern Eurasia before the Russians - Huns, Turks, Mongols - were at enmity with the Chinese, and they could not make friends in any way. "The attempt to mix the Chinese with the southern branch of the Xiongnu did not yield results. It ended in a massacre. And it was always the Chinese themselves who were the first to offend, and then to kill.

          However, to be fair, it should be noted that the attitude of the Chinese not only to nomads, but in general to all non-Chinese at all times was purely negative and contemptuous. This has been firmly entrenched in their mentality. Even a thousand years ago and today, the Chinese are sincerely convinced of their superiority over other peoples. In the 19th century, even the advanced, high-tech Europeans were seriously considered barbarians. For example, during the famous "Boxer Rebellion," the Chinese put forward the slogan: "Beat the devils!" By "devils" were meant all foreigners, without exception ... Note that this is not just nationalism, it is very similar to chauvinism.

         History teaches us that as soon as there was a collapse of energy in China, and it was defeated by foreigners, the Chinese turned into a calm, nice, and helpful people. They bowed and smiled all the time (with their heads in their pockets, though). This is how Europeans found them in the XVIII century. But since the beginning of the twentieth century, everything has changed radically - in China there has been a clear energy boom. Gumilyov wrote: "As soon as China gained strength - it began to expand in all directions ... War with barbarians, i.e. with all neighbors, was the leitmotif of Chinese foreign policy for 3000 years.  No way can it be considered a coincidence that along the Great Wall of China for 2000 years was almost incessant war, in which Huns, Turks and then Mongols defended their native steppes from a much more numerous, cunning, cruel and well-armed opponent".

         Of course, the negative complementarity alone did not explain these wars. The geopolitical aspirations of the two super-ethnoses were completely different. But the negative complementarity gave rise to the Chinese firm belief that the "northern barbarians" were very bad people and should be treated without ceremony. This belief has survived to this day, and to a certain extent, it has been transferred to the Russians.

        A simple example from today's life. Chinese migrants have been growing vegetables on our land for years. No one knows what chemicals they use, but the vegetables are poisoned. (After the demolition of the Chinese greenhouses, the land remains scorched in the literal sense of the word.) Our good neighbors, for example, the Uzbeks, would not think of poisoning us with poisoned tomatoes (poisoning for real!), but the Chinese, nothing - they poison. And they poison deliberately. That's not just how they treat strangers. This is the way to treat something completely foreign. Add to this the fact that some Chinese maps show the Russian Far East and part of Siberia as Chinese territory "temporarily under Russian control," and the conclusion comes naturally.

         Once again, this does not mean that the Chinese are bad and the Russians are good, or vice versa. It means that the Chinese and I are so different that we are better off living separately. You can and should establish diplomatic relations and trade with China, but you cannot open the border. And if anyone thinks you can, we recommend that you study Chinese history. 

         Another example. At the time of the Reformation in the 16th century, Europeans were divided into two opposing camps, Catholics and Protestants. They became very different. When the colonization of America began, Gumilyov noted, it turned out that both also behaved differently toward the American Indians. The French Catholics in Canada and the Spanish Catholics in Mexico, though brutally exploited them at first, still saw the Indians as people like themselves. Therefore, not only did they get along well with the Indians, but they also actively mingled, intermarrying with Indian women. This is an example of positive complementarianism. But the Protestant Anglo-Saxons did not consider Indians human, so they killed them methodically and ruthlessly. In the end, the Native American population was almost completely exterminated. This is an example of negative complementarity.

        It is interesting that the Russians, who came to America from the Alaskan coast, did not get along with the Indians either. So they did not go deep into the territory. On the other hand, the Russians made friends with the Eskimos and Aleuts who lived on the islands. The Aleuts embraced Orthodoxy, learned the Russian language and embraced Russian culture. When the Aleutian Islands were ceded to the United States, there remained an Orthodox community with knowledge of the Russian language. With the northern and Siberian peoples, the Russian pioneers and settlers also got along quite well.

Except for the Chukchi, who, being Americanoids, i.e. relatives of American Indians, stood out from the general number of peoples of Siberia.

        But if the Russians and Protestants in America could not make friends with the Indians, then they had something in common? Indeed, it was, answers Gumilyov, despite the fact that Catholics are closer to Orthodox Christianity than Protestants (who can hardly be called Christians), it is with Protestant countries that Russia has historically established closer contacts. And it began even before Peter I. Many European Protestants, mainly Lutherans, fleeing from Catholic repression, fled and settled in Russia. This did not mean that there was positive complementarity between Orthodox Russians and European Protestants. At best, it was close to neutral. But this is enough to keep each other alive for the time being. Especially when there is a lot of space and few migrants. And they live on their own.

         Another example. "With the Mongols," Gumilev wrote, "the Russians have been establishing contact since the 13th century, but the Chinese could not establish contact with the Mongols - ever!  But European Catholics could not establish contact with the Mongols either. And therefore they should have been able to make contact with the Chinese?

Yes, they did! There were 30 million Chinese Catholics in the early 20th century. Catholic preaching in China was very successful. Orthodox missions had no such success, and if they converted anyone, it was only in Northern Manchuria, where non-Chinese people lived. (It should be noted, however, that Catholics in China were also persecuted on several occasions. Subsequently, with the dramatic increase in Chinese passionarity in the twentieth century, their number declined considerably.)

          The question arises - what is the nature of complementarity?

          To explain this phenomenon, Gumilyov proposed the hypothesis of the ethnic field. That is, just as an individual person has his individual biofield, so the ethnos has its collective energy field. Like any other field (gravitational, electromagnetic) ethnic field has its own frequency of oscillations, its own rhythm. Gumilyov wrote: "When carriers of one rhythm collide with carriers of another, they perceive the new rhythm as something alien, in some way disharmonious with the rhythm, which is inherent in them organically. The new rhythm may sometimes like it, but the dissimilarity is fixed as a fact that has no explanation, but is not questionable either."

        In other words, if rhythms completely coincide and symphony arises - you have met the representatives of your ethnos; when rhythms are similar and there is a feeling close to harmony - you have met the representatives of complementary ethnos (complementarity is positive); when rhythms don't coincide and cacophony arises - you deal with the representatives of non-complementary ethnos (complementarity is negative). 

         It's like in life: when two strangers meet and sympathy arises between them at once, or on the contrary - the person evokes antipathy at first sight. Why is that? It is impossible to understand. There is simply an inner feeling, and that is all. (By the way, one of the brightest signs of positive ethnic complementarity is inter-ethnic marriage.)

         Gumilyov said: "Here we see a natural effect, which cannot be explained by the fact that someone is good and someone is bad at all. Good and bad, good and evil are concepts exclusively on a personal level. Above the personal level, above personal morality, it does not go; because there are natural phenomena at work there. And natural phenomena, such as typhoons and earthquakes, can be very unpleasant, but they are not evil or good.

        Recently, the ethnic field hypothesis has received an unexpected confirmation. According to some reports, for a long time work has been going on to create psychotropic weapons, which affects selectively - that is, not just people, but people of a certain nationality. This is an ethnic weapon. The generator produces waves of a certain frequency, which is tuned to the representatives of a particular ethnic group. Such exposure can cause panic, fear, depression and other unpleasant reactions.

         Probably the mismatch of the rhythms of the ethnic field explains such a phenomenon as nostalgia. A person, abandoned in an environment of strangers, even kind and good people, living often in wealth and comfort, nevertheless feels a strange insecurity and nostalgia. This discomfort lessens when one meets his fellow countrymen and disappears when he returns home. (It has been noted that women suffer less from nostalgia than men, if they have a family.) This is why almost all immigrants, once in a foreign country, form ethnic communities, sometimes occupying entire neighborhoods in large cities.

That is why ethnic groups torn apart by historical destiny and exposed to different cultures do not fall apart. They live all over the world, forming diasporas. For example, the Armenians and the Jews. (Russian immigrants, on the other hand, do not have this kind of cohesion. And there is an explanation for this, which will be discussed below.)

        Or, a seemingly atypical example of complementarity; What brings people together in political parties? Especially when ethnos is split into hostile groups (jumping ahead we note that this is typical of the fracture phase). Is it only a common ideology and the political views? Where do these views, and more broadly, the worldview, come from? In any case, one-party members tend to be comfortable with each other. And when they meet with representatives of a party or public organization where the ideology is the exact opposite (for example, national patriots and "liberals") - they become uncomfortable. Especially in a cramped room.

         But back to history. Obviously, in the Russian Empire, and later in the USSR, the vast majority of more than a hundred nations (!) had a positive or at least neutral complementarity among themselves. That is, they got along quite well with each other. No empire will last long on bayonets alone.

        Here are the most striking examples of different complementarities at the imperial level. Russians and Tatars (Bashkirs, Chuvashs, Udmurts, Buryats and many others) - positive complementarity (symbiosis); Russians and "Russian Germans" - neutral (xenia); Russians and Chechens - negative. Gumilyov noted that Leo Tolstoy in his remarkable novel "The Cossacks" described how the Chechens, risking drowning, swam across the turbulent Terek on snags to get a shot at a Russian Cossack. And the Cossacks, in turn, hunted the Chechens. Why? After all, they did not interfere with each other: some lived in the plains, others in the mountains.

         With whom else did the Russians have a negative complementarity? (Gumilyov does not give more examples.) Obviously, with the Western Ukrainians (Uniats), the Balts (especially Latvians and Estonians), the Crimean Tatars and some peoples of the North Caucasus.  That's pretty much it. That's not much for such a huge, multinational country.

        Take, for example, the densely populated Caucasus. After all, all inter-tribal borders there are abundantly sprinkled with blood. On the one hand this can be explained by the closeness and, consequently, by territorial claims. But on the other hand we see many examples of negative complementarity. For example: between Georgians and Circassians, Georgians and Armenians, Armenians and Azerbaijanis, etc.  At the same time, the Russians got on well with the Transcaucasian peoples and with individual North Caucasian peoples.      

         Dostoyevsky was right. Russians are an all-human people. That's why they are so kind.

         But the question arises: why are the Russians so kind?

         Following Gumilyov's method, we find that the main reason lies in the same geographical, or rather, geopolitical factor. In the huge nomadic empires of the Huns, ancient Turks and Mongols, which occupied the territory of Northern Eurasia (up to the Pacific Ocean), the principle of religious and ethnic tolerance was always observed. It was a way of adapting to the multi-ethnic environment. Otherwise it was simply impossible to maintain such a large area populated by different tribes. After all, all the peoples, who created the Eurasian empires, were very few. For example, the Huns were only about 300 thousand, Mongols were about 800 thousand. By comparison, in China, both under the Huns and Mongols - tens of millions, in Central Asia - millions...

        We can say that the Russians inherited this principle of ethnic tolerance from the nomads, along with a huge territory. "Most valuable was the absence, in both Mongols and Russians, of that curse which is called racism," emphasized Gumilev.

         In addition, Russian tolerance is also related to the fact that as the Eurasian spaces were being developed, there was a constant mixing of Russians with the local, predominantly Finno-Ugric and Turkic population. First of all, in the Northeast (up to the Urals), in the Volga region, in the South of Russia and in Siberia. And then also the mixing of the settlers themselves among themselves, mostly Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians (especially in Novorossia, the Urals, and Siberia). This led to the fact that over time, the pure-blooded Great Russians, among the inhabitants of these outlying regions were relatively few. Most of them constituted a mixed (at the level of its own super-ethnos!) Russian-Eurasian type of person, which already by its international origin could not be "evil" in relation to foreigners.

        It should be noted that such mestizatsiya had a positive effect - the children of mixed marriages (complimentary!) were, as a rule, more energetic and capable (in the first and second generations).

And this Eurasian "ethnic generator" worked practically uninterruptedly since the 16th century, providing a high level of resistance of the Russian super-ethnos. And this, in turn, had a political effect - a Russian man from the 17th century was formed as an imperial man. (Another matter is that in non-complementary marriages (infrequent) the increased ability and vigor of a person could be combined with internal conflict, which sometimes gave a negative result (see comment on anti-system)).

        Gumilyov wrote: "The idea of national exclusivity was alien to Russian people. They considered the Tatars, Mordovians, Cheremisses, Tungusses, Yakuts, Kazakhs as people like themselves. They were not shocked that a Mordvin Nikon sat on the patriarchal throne, military leaders were descendants of Cheremisses - Sheremetevs, Tatar - Kutuzov.

        Let us add to this that in addition to the main, geographical factor influencing behavioral stereotypes, other factors should also be taken into account. First of all it is religious. Thus, the formation of "good" Russian stereotype of behavior was influenced by Orthodoxy, which is the most tolerant and collectivist religion (in comparison with Catholicism and Protestantism).

        In this connection, two circumstances apparently related to the phenomenon of complementarity, should be emphasized. It is known that each religion has its own "timbre", its sound, its own, figuratively speaking, spiritual wave. And this spiritual wave directly affects the formation of the image of the believer. That is why the image of an Orthodox believer is not like that of a Catholic, a Muslim or a Buddhist. This is on the one hand. But on the other hand, it is obvious that a new (world or just a big) religion is accepted by a people only if it meets the spiritual mood of that people, that is, is consonant with the "timbre" of that people, with its ethnic field. That's why more than a thousand years ago, out of the four proposed religions, Russia chose Orthodoxy, which came from the multi-ethnic Byzantine Empire, where the main people were tolerant to other ethnic groups and positively complimentary to the Slavs, the Greeks.

        It is known that a heightened national consciousness, often leading to extreme nationalism, is characteristic of small, "squeezed" nations. This kind of nationalism is simply a way for an ethnos to survive in an unfavorable environment. A small dog is known to bark more wickedly.  Big nations which live in open spaces are, as a rule, kind and generous nations (wide spaces mean wide soul). They become angry only in case of a major war with a cruel enemy, that is, when there is a real threat to their existence. But, characteristically, after the victory over the enemy, such people become kind and tolerant again. And to make them angry again, it is necessary to make a very great effort.

        In Russia, in contrast to the cramped Europe or the same Caucasus, has always been very spacious - a rare population settled on a huge sparsely populated areas. Therefore the Russians, being the largest and strongest people, for centuries had a fairly relaxed attitude to newcomers: "Come in, good people, there is enough room for everyone!" (Although, of course, there were exceptions to this rule, such as the European Latin Catholics and Jews (until the 18th century).

        As long as there were few good people from neighboring countries, there was enough room. But things began to change rapidly as early as the 20th century, and by the beginning of the 21st century, things changed radically. A flood of migrants poured into Russia. Primarily from Central Asia, the Caucasus, and China. (There were subjective and objective reasons for this, which will be discussed below.) And Russians, along with the other indigenous peoples of Russia, for the first time in their centuries-long history, found themselves in the position of an oppressed people. Not yet oppressed, but already oppressed. We stress - for the first time!  In peacetime. We observe this picture in large cities, in the capital cities first of all, in the south of Russia, in Siberia, in the Far East. Moreover, in Moscow this process of ethnic "squeezing" is beginning to take a threatening nature.

        This unexpected mass invasion of migrants has led to an explosive internal contradiction in the Russian people. At the level of stereotype of behavior, even deeper - at the level of mentality. Traditional Russian tolerance, which today many migrants unknowingly take for weakness, began to conflict with the instinct of national self-preservation. The Russian man began to scratch the back of his head: "Something wrong is going on"! And began to timidly object: "Of course we welcome guests ... but you don't have to set your own rules in someone else's home!"  And he was immediately accused of xenophobia and chauvinism. Although in reality, his worldview has not even reached the level of ordinary nationalism. And what will happen if he reaches it?

        And who would benefit from it in the long run?

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