3. The systemic approach

The Ages of Ethnicity and the Diversity of Ethnic Histories; Passionarity - Harmonious people (normal) - Sub-passionarians - the phase of ascent (expansion) - Acmatic (overheating) phase

         Gumilev gives the example of an elementary system - a family: husband, wife, children, mother-in-law, cat, house, household. As long as the family members love each other, the system will be strong and viable. If suddenly it happens that their house burns down, the children move to another city, and the cat runs away, the system will still hold. But if, say, the wife was unfaithful to her husband, who found out about it and didn't forgive her, or the mother-in-law started to set her daughter against her son-in-law, or the children forgot about their parents and stopped visiting them, then the system would collapse. People are left, but the family-system is gone. Therefore, the main thing in the system is not a collection of people and objects, but the connections between them.  Love and mutual understanding, primarily between husband and wife, is this invisible connection.

         All systems can be divided into four types: open, closed, rigid, and corpuscular. An open system is a system that constantly receives energy from outside; it is constantly renewed. Planet Earth, which receives energy from the Sun, is an open system. The species of animals that absorb the food that the Earth provides are also open systems.

         "A closed system," Gumilyov wrote, "is, for example, a stove, it stands in a room. It's cold, there's wood in it. You light the stove, you don't put any more wood in, you close it. The wood burns ... the temperature in the room rises, equalizes with the stove, and then they cool down together. That is, the reserve of energy - in the form of firewood - is obtained once, after which the process ends. It is a closed system...

         A rigid system is a fine-tuned machine, where there is not a single unnecessary detail. It only works when all the screws are in place, when it gets enough fuel... It works very efficiently, but if one part breaks, it stops and completely fails.

         A corpuscular system is a system of interaction between individual parts...needing each other. The family is a corpuscular system.

         So what kind of system is an ethnos? Ethnos is a closed corpuscular system. "It receives a single charge of energy and, having expended it, either moves to an equilibrium state with the environment, or disintegrates altogether.

          And what kind of system does society belong to? "A social system is a rigid, open-ended system, because it constantly receives cultural traditions, due to which any social association exists. It receives from history, from the memory of the past, on the one hand. On the other hand, it (the social system) is closely connected, but being broken, it needs to be repaired, but not repaired by itself.

         The social system is a more superficial phenomenon than the ethnos, because, let us repeat, it is possible to move from class to class, but it is impossible to move from ethnos to ethnos. The social system is something that is inside the ethnos (it exists in parallel) and, at the same time, above it as a superstructure. It is the regulator of relations between different classes and groups - rich and poor, noble and simple, etc. etc. - up to professional associations and small interest groups.  

         And here it is difficult to resist making a small digression. Gumilyov does not give an example of a social system that "needs to be repaired," but such an example begs to be made. We had a system of socialism; it derived its cultural traditions from our past. It was the tradition of a strong tsarist power, which should govern "according to the truth," and the tradition of Russian collectivism, stemming from the depths of centuries-old peasant community. And we also had an externally borrowed ideology of Marxism, which in some part corresponded to the mentality of the Russian people, because it called, on the one hand, for social justice, and on the other, for the brotherhood of people and even for the salvation of all mankind (messianic idea: Moscow - the Third Rome).

         This system worked for several decades, and, given the extreme conditions it was put under, it worked pretty well. On the wreckage of the collapsed Russian Empire was built a superpower - the USSR. But when, after Stalin, the "tsarist" power began to weaken, the "boyars" broke away from their people, and began to rule not "according to the truth”. When the traditional man-collectivist began to be gradually replaced by the individualist man of the bourgeois type, and the Marxist ideology (the main part) became rusty and stopped working, then the Soviet social system lost its steadiness and began to self-destruct. It was self-destructing, because the repairs were not made in time. The mechanics overslept the moment. And then, when the most conscious of them got up to speed, it turned out that too many parts were out of order. And at that very time, it was only natural that other "mechanics" got involved.

         So, looking ahead, the reason for the collapse of the Soviet social system was not just the intrigues of enemies (of course that); the root cause was the rigid system itself, which had gone awry.

The enemies, taking advantage of this failure, stepped up at the last stage, in the 1970s-80s (although, of course, they had done damage before that as well). They simply took a sledgehammer and finished off the machine, which was no longer working. Which, we might add, without the active "help" of external and internal adversaries, it still had a chance to be repaired. Here the subjective factor (enemies) and the objective factor (crisis of the system) joined together, and finished it off.

         An example of a timely repaired social system is China. In the decades after Mao, the Chinese did a good repair-modernization of the old communist system. The worn-out and superfluous parts were discarded (primarily orthodox, cosmopolitan Marxism, which completely replaced the ethnic with the class.) New details - actually old ones: Confucianism, Legism, nationalism, state capitalism - were inserted. The result was "Chinese socialism”.

         Why it worked for them, but not for us?

         And here we should turn to the ethnic factor, which is always greater than the social factor. Chinese managed it all, because they are more passionate today, so they are more energetic and healthy as an ethnos than we are, it's ethnic system is strong. Therefore, the ruling elite in China has avoided a deep split and degradation (as happened in Russia); it has remained strong-willed and patriotic in its mass. At the same time, the traditional stereotype of Chinese behavior has hardly changed, and they have fewer internal enemies than we do (they have not yet had time to accumulate). Plus the experience of four thousand years of culture. It's simple.

         This is an example of how the social and ethnic systems, which as we remember, exist in parallel, can productively interact with each other. We can call it positive correlation.

         We in the USSR did not have such a positive interaction. It turned out that under the pretext of perestroika-repair, Russia was simply robbed, and lowered. As a result, there is no social system in our country today. There are shards of the Soviet past and the embryos of some future, albeit very imperfect. This is the systemic crisis. Moreover, we have a double crisis - the crisis of the social system plus the crisis of the ethnic system (we will still talk about the latter in detail).

         And here it is important to stress that our social system can only be restored when the ethnic system is restored. Home can only be built on solid ground. The ethnic system is that soil. If such ethnic regeneration takes place (which is actually happening right now before our eyes, albeit not as fast as we'd like it to), then of course the new social system will be different from the old Soviet system. This does not exclude the use of suitable details of the old system: for example, a markedly reduced but lively collectivism, the principle of fair distribution of material goods, and a strong central government.

         Gumilyov's merit is that he revealed to us the laws according to which complex human systems function. The scientist wrote: "A rigid (social) system is strong because it is adapted to local conditions in the best possible way”. When the environment changes, it is difficult to rebuild the system.

         Conversely, a discrete (ethnic) system is elastic but does not allow for the complete coordination of forces to solve foreign policy problems. Therefore, rigid systems win under stable conditions, while discrete systems survive even under constantly changing habitat and ethnic environment." This means that ethnos, unlike a society, is a much more resilient and tenacious system!

         This law, discovered by Gumilev, is fully applicable to the situation that developed in Russia in the early XX century: three revolutions (1905 - 1917) - collapse of the state - survival - regeneration of ethnicity - restoration of the state - renewal of the social system. And also to the situation of the late XX - early XXI centuries: the coup of 1991 - half-destruction of the country - survival - beginning of ethnic regeneration - partial restoration of the state and society, but ... without real renewal of the social system.  

        Thus, the social system looks fundamental in times of peace, while the ethnic system emerges from the shadow of society and asserts itself in times of deep crises and wars.

        It remains to add that the main condition for the survival of an ethnos in unstable conditions and "constantly changing environment" is the presence of a certain property - passionarity, (energetic-ness) which will be discussed in the next chapter.  

         We conclude. Ethnos is, in a sense, a big family. If the ties between ethnos members are strong, intra-ethnic complementarity is high and people feel their kinship, then such people cannot be defeated. Conversely, if there is incessant strife in the ethnos-family, it can be conquered or decomposed from without or within. (Or both together.) 

       Thus, the degree of stability of an ethnos is determined not by its mass, i.e. the number of population, nor by the level of economic development, i.e. the amount of wealth, but by the strong systemic ties and the constant interaction of members of the ethnos among themselves.

         It is the same at the level of the super-ethnos. The Soviet Union in 1991 was cut open alive. But the invisible super-ethnic ties between Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians remained. It is impossible to cancel these ties by decrees and propaganda. Therefore, sooner or later, the union of fraternal nations will be restored.

        The problem, however, is that among the Russians themselves, these internal ties have greatly weakened and in some places even broken off. The ethnic system has lost its former integrity, and therefore its resilience. The once unified people, have fragmented into several groups with different ideologies. This division particularly affected the ruling class and the intelligentsia. This bad process began around the middle of the nineteenth century and continues to this day. It peaked with the civil war of 1918-1920. The second, smaller peak was in the late 1980s and early 1990s. (For a discussion of why this happened, see the chapter "The Fracture Phase”.)

         And now it is time to define ethnicity. Gumilyov was not satisfied with the already established definitions. One of the most famous ones reads:

 "Ethnos is a collective of people united by a common territory, language, culture, socio-economic ties, ideology and self-consciousness". However, it is possible not to know one's native language, to live far from one's homeland, to have been raised in a foreign culture (in a foreign family) since infancy, and, at the same time, to belong to one's ethnos. For example, a Chinese man raised in a Russian family from his childhood will still be Chinese, although he will have a "Russian superstructure”. As the saying goes, you don't feed a wolf, he will be attracted to his own people.

         Although, it should be noted that Gumilyov, in his books, does not talk directly about the genetic, innate basis of ethnicity. He talks about tuning baby's bio-field to the parents' ethnic field (to their rhythm), and about the decisive influence of signal heredity ("do as I do") on a child's upbringing. And it is impossible not to agree with this. However, practice shows that at the same time a considerable part of the behavioral information is fixed in the ethnic archetype(s) - hereditary memory - and is transmitted on the genetic (mental) level.

         At one of his last lectures (1989), speaking about Protestants (Huguenots) who fled France, Gumilyov still touches on the question of hereditary memory: "For example, the famous surname Scalon ... is a Huguenot surname. I recently spoke with one Scalon, who was defending himself with us.  And he has a purely Calvinist approach. Although he himself, being a geographer, has no idea about Calvinism. Tradition is somehow passed on through the genes. And in the little things, in the details, he retained his psychological mindset, his psychological pattern. It was very funny, he was surprised when I explained it to him.

         It follows from this that the question of the nature of ethnicity is not an easy one and requires further study. We will take the liberty of constructing the following hierarchy of ethnic identity. The first place is taken by genes (ethnic archetypes), the second by signal heredity, the third by the child's biofield tuning to the parents' rhythm (not always successful), and the fourth by the rest of the educational chain: family, school, society, etc. At the same time, one should not absolutize the immutability of archetypes, because in a long historical time (over the centuries) it also blurs and changes, especially under the influence of an "alien" environment. For example, it has been observed that many Russian Germans who have returned to Germany after two hundred years of their ancestors in Russia, no longer feel that they are one hundred percent Germans.

         In his first fundamental book "Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere of the Earth," Gumilev gives the following definition of ethnos: "Ethnos is a collective of individuals which distinguishes itself from all other collectives. Ethnos is more or less stable, although it appears and disappears in historical time. Language, ancestry, customs, material culture, ideology, are sometimes the defining moments and sometimes not. The only thing we can take out of the brackets is the recognition by each individual: "we are such and such, and all others are different. "

         In Gumilyov's last book, Ancient Russia and the Great Steppe, the definition of ethnos looks more thorough: "Ethnos is a naturally formed collective of people, based on an original stereotype of behavior, existing as an energy system, which opposes itself to all other such collectives, based on a sense of complementarity".

         In his first works, Gumilev defines ethnos as a phenomenon of nature. That is, ethnos is an organism; it can be young or old, healthy or sick. In recent works, he specifies: "Ethnos is a phenomenon that lies on the edge of the biosphere and the sociosphere". Ethnos "connects the social form of the movement of matter with all natural forms. It is precisely the mechanism by which man influences nature, and the mechanism by which man perceives the gifts of nature and crystallizes them into his culture.

         At the same time Gumilev emphasizes the importance of the geographical factor: "Ethnos is a geographical phenomenon, always connected with the host landscape, which feeds the adapted ethnos. And since the landscapes of the Earth are diverse, so are the ethnoses".

         Modern ethnology thus occupies a frontier field of science. This meets the demands of the day, for scientific thought does not stand still - there is a constant synthesis. Gumilev's merit is that he was one of the first (after Danilevsky and the Eurasians) to apply the methods of natural science to the study of history. At the same time, he dug much deeper than his predecessors and created a completely original scientific theory.

         Again, Gumilev's "natural approach” to the study of history is still unaccustomed and therefore repulsed by many humanities scholars, who grew up on Western theories and are used to building air castles - mythologies and ideologies detached from life - from Marxist utopias to liberalism and fascism.

        It is no accident that natural scientists were the first to become interested in the theory of ethnogenesis. Gumilyov wrote: "The humanities provide an opportunity to learn much, but do not allow us to understand much". The humanitarian is limited by the scientific level of the authors of antiquity studied, and it was lower than in the twentieth century. Ethnology presents different challenges. It does not rely on texts, but on facts and their systemic connections." Thus, There is only one criterion in science: opinion must not contradict strictly established facts, but has the right to contradict any concepts, no matter how familiar they may be".

        History is a special science. It is always tied to politics and ideology. For example, mathematicians or chemists are easier, while historians are always under pressure from the existing authorities, the dominant ideology, "public opinion" and more. Therefore, to become a true historian requires a firm worldview and a certain amount of courage. Being a historian is a service.

         When you chew over what has long been known to everyone, Gumilyov said, you are praised, but when you discover something completely new, you are scolded and even beaten. As a typical Soviet researcher reasoned: "The principle of science: the same soup, but pour me more"! The dissertation must be written, of course, but in such a way that the opponents recognize their own thoughts in it, the scientific council is bored, and the dissertant (researcher) has only to bow and thank."

        "A treasure trove of science is a synthesis of accumulated knowledge in a system of aspects that allows one to view the subject of study in its entirety and then bring it to the reader”. In other words, these are monographs, treatises of "general history," global geographical descriptions, etc. To write such a work, one must master the subject and feel the topic, and to make it accessible to the reader, one must open his vein and write each line in his own blood, figuratively of course. Otherwise, the author risks being the only reader of his book. And the more "blood" one pours into the printed lines, the more the reader loves the book, and sometimes even is grateful to its author.

        This act of "blood transfusion" usually gives the author nothing but moral satisfaction. However, this satisfaction is such that for the sake of it, is worth living, even sacrificing convenience, office trouble, and the intrigues of envious and ill-will of colleagues.

        So said Gumilev.

Get to the root!

 К. Prutkov

                                               Passionarity

          Passionarity (from Latin passio - passion) means super energy.         "Passionarity," Gumilev wrote, "is an unconquerable internal desire (often unconscious) for activity, aimed at the implementation of a goal”. This goal seems to the passionate individual more valuable even than his own life, and even more so than the lives of his fellow tribesmen and contemporaries.

         In other words: "Passionarians are people endowed with excess energy, the impulse of which exceeds the impulse of the instinct of self-preservation, due to which the passionarians are capable of sacrificing their lives for an idea (often illusory idea)".

         Passionaries are individuals possessing the innate ability to absorb more energy from the environment than is required for personal and species self-preservation and to release that energy in the form of purposeful work to change the environment. Moreover, mental and intellectual activity requires energy in the same way as physical activity, but this energy is in a different form and is more difficult to register and measure.    

         Passionaries are always a minority within an ethnos, but they make up the core on which the entire ethnic system rests. "It is the motor that moves everything." Of course, Gumilyov wrote, passionarity is a deviation from the species norm, it is probably a mutation, but a small mutation that does not lead to pathology. Although normal people (who believe that if you risk your life, often for a lot of money), often call passionarians fanatics and madmen.  

         Gumilyov recalled that when he first came out with a description of this phenomenon, he was immediately scolded in the journal Questions of History and accused of departing from materialism. And then he was summoned to the editorial board and asked: "What is this quality that you call 'passionarity' that prevents people from making the best of their lives?

          I began to explain to them - a long, scientific explanation. I saw that the editorial board didn't understand a thing.  I was told, "All right, that's enough, that's enough," as if you don't know how to explain.

         "No, wait a minute! Understand, not all people are skunks! There are people who sincerely and unselfishly value their ideal and are willing to sacrifice their lives for it. And if that weren't the case, the whole story would have gone differently!"    They say, "Ah, that's optimism. That's good."...

         Passionarity manifests itself in a variety of character traits. It can be pride, vanity, greed, lust for power, jealousy.  "The passionarity of an individual can be combined with any abilities: high, medium, small, it does not depend on external influences, being a feature of the psyche of a given person; it has nothing to do with ethics, equally easily generating exploits and crimes, creativity and destruction, good and evil, excluding only inaction and indifference."

        That is, a passionarius can be a great commander, a sacrificial scholar, a robber and a revolutionary. Hitler, too, was a passionary, with his illusory idea. Gumilyov gives the following explanation of this phenomenon: "...all energy has two poles and passionary energy (biochemical) - is no exception. Bipolarity affects the ethnogenesis by the fact that the behavioral dominant can be directed in the direction of complicating systems, that is, creating, or simplifying them.

        For example, the ideology of Nazism aimed to exterminate and enslave most peoples as inferior, and this meant simplifying a complex planetary system consisting of different ethnicities, states, cultures, religions. Hitler was a typical passionary with a negative sign. A large part of the Marxist revolutionaries and modern globalists can also be referred to the same kind of anti-systemic passionarians, as their ideologies directly speak of the fusion of all the nations on planet Earth into one global ethno-cultural mess.

         To illustrate the phenomenon of passionarity, Gumilyov gives the example of two passionaries with a high degree of passionarity - Alexander of Macedon and Napoleon Bonaparte. Having reached the heights of power, they had everything: money, fame, reverence. Why didn't they sit at home and enjoy life? Why did they need to throw their armies into unnecessary, pointless campaigns (the Indian campaign of Alexander, the Russian and Spanish campaigns of Napoleon). For most contemporaries, Gumilyov wrote, the impetus for their activities remained a mystery. When, after conquering almost all of Asia, Alexander invaded India, his soldiers and commanders couldn't stand it: "King, where are you taking us? What do we need these Hindus for?

We can't even send the spoils we take here home to Greece. We will all be slaughtered here, lead us back ... King, we love you, but enough!" Few went back, and Alexander himself died on the road.

         And when Napoleon lost and the Russian troops entered Paris in 1814, the French bourgeois cried out, "We don't want war! We want to trade!"

         What compelled these men, Napoleon and Alexander, to act so irrationally? Only one thing-an irrepressible thirst for action!

         Clearly expressed passionaries: Joan of Arc, Nicholas Copernicus, Patriarch Nikon, Sergius Radonezhsky, Ataman Yermak, Yemelyan Pugachev, Alexander Suvorov, Joseph Stalin. However, not only great generals, heroes, and rulers can be passionate. "Passionary leaders," said Gumilyov, "are only the visible top of the passionary people of an ethnos. A simple soldier can also be passionate. For example, Vasily Terkin in Tvardovsky, or the armored man Lopakhin in Sholokhov. People of this type are not so much "leading" as "pushing" everyone else. They kind of wind up those around them with their excessive energy.

         Passionaries were explorers, missionary monks, merchants-travelers. For example, simple Byzantine monks reached China with the preaching of Christianity. They were in constant danger along the way, many died, but they still went on and on, and nothing could stop them. We see a lot of passionarians also among creative people - artists, writers and poets: "Talent is passionarity at the individual level.

         In general, passionarians are characterized by a clear predominance of social (leadership) and ideal needs (religion, ideology, culture), over biological ones, although biological needs can also be pronounced.

         Passionarity has one important property - it is contagious. This means that normal people (and to an even greater extent, impulsive people), being in close proximity to passionarians, begin to behave like passionarians. This has long been used in warfare. Passionaries either gathered together and formed shock troops, or distributed in the mass of soldiers to raise the military spirit. Practice shows that two or three passionaries can boost the combat effectiveness of an entire company of 100-120 men. What is this induction of passionarity connected with? Apparently, with the same force field (biofield) of the passionary, which Gumilyov called the passionarial field. When they talk about "charisma" today, they mean this very phenomenon.

         Gumilyov gives this example. In 1880, F. M. Dostoevsky gave his famous speech about Pushkin. The success was, according to the recollections of eyewitnesses, tremendous, several people fainted. However, this speech did not make a special impression in the reading. Apparently the effect of Dostoevsky's personal influence on the assembled people was decisive.

         But where do passionaries come from? Gumilyov puts forward the hypothesis that passionarii appear as a result of mutations, which, in turn, occur under the influence of some cosmic radiations - passionarial impulses. They are quite rare (two to three per millennium) and are located on the surface of the Earth in narrow strips about three hundred kilometers wide: "As if someone is whipping the planet. These bands never go to the backside of the globe. If the line of the passionate push affects two or more ethnoses that are static (or, much less often, dynamic) and live at the junction of different natural landscapes, a new ethnos is born.

         "Each passionary push," said Gumilyov, "shuffles the population; as a result, as from a shuffled deck of cards, a new combination is created.

         For example, Velikorosses, or Russians, were born of three main parents: Eastern Slavs, Finno-Ugrians and Tatars (plus some Lithuanians and Polovtsians). Little Russians or Ukrainians - from Slavs, nomadic Torks, Polovtsians, (plus Lithuanians and Crimean Tatars). Belorussians - mostly from Slavs and Lithuanians. The Belarusians lived in forests and swamps, so there was relatively little ethnic mixing: the Belarusians are "by blood" closest to their Slavic ancestors.

         Gumilyov said: "Man is a part of the biosphere.  It is not only the biomass of all living beings, but also the products of their vital activity: soils, sedimentary rocks, oxygen.  We draw from two sources - the corpses of animals, plants, microorganisms, and from the air - we breathe oxygen.

         And on the other hand, we draw from three sources of energy, which come to Earth and have very different meanings.

         The maximum amount of energy that the Earth consumes is the energy of the Sun, which makes photosynthesis possible. The second kind of energy is the energy of the decay of radioactive elements inside the Earth.  This phenomenon has a great impact on us, but it is local.

The fact is that clusters of uranium ores are not located all over the Earth. There are areas where radioactivity is negligible, and there are places where it is close to the surface, and therefore the impact of this type of energy on living organisms, including humans, is very strong.

         And there is a third type of energy that we receive in small portions from space. These are some beams of energy coming from the depths of the Galaxy, which hit our Earth... embracing some part of it, and lightning-fast produce their energetic effect.

        This latter kind of cosmic energy has only recently begun to be explored. And so those scientists who are used to thinking of the Earth as a completely closed system, they cannot get used to the fact that we do not live disconnected from the whole world, but inside a huge galaxy, which affects us in the same way as all other factors that determine the development of the biosphere.  

         When dissatisfied with this explanation, acquaintances in a tight circle asked Gumilyov: "Well, still, where do these amazing people - passionarians - come from? What is the root cause?", he answered, "God's will!"...

         Gumilyov's "cosmic" hypothesis (which is often confused with the "solar" one) caused and continues to cause both criticism and outright ridicule. However, the fact remains that mass micro-mutations occur. And from time to time, within quiet ethnic groups emerge people who are super-active, striving to change the world around them. They are the yeast. The first 450 - 550 years the number of such people in the ethnic group increases, then - decreases, and in some periods very dramatically. On the subject of "where do they come from?" - can be debated. The main thing is that they appear and often become the core of new, energetic ethnic groups.

        It is possible to take the liberty of assuming that a passionate push does not necessarily result in the birth of a new ethnos. Perhaps this is not the case. The impulse can simply wake up a slumbering static ethnos, charging it with new energy and giving it a powerful impetus in its development. The Chinese come to mind. Over four thousand years they have had several passionate ups and downs. Before our eyes, China is experiencing another upsurge. Is this the birth of a new ethnos? Or, perhaps, a renewal of the old one? (The stereotype of behavior, of course, in modern Chinese is renewed, but the mentality is rather the old one.)

        It is important to note that the level of passionarity of an ethnos can increase not because of a passionate push, but as a result of passionarity drift, i.e. when one, passionate people transfer their gene pool to other, weakly passionate people. This happens during wars, invasions or intensive migrations. For example, the inhabitants of Sogdiana (Central Asia) in the eighth century received passionate gene pool from the conquerors - the Arabs, and with them entered the phase of breakdown in the tenth century. The Lithuanians transmitted their passionarity to the Poles, Belarusians and, partly, Russians in the XV - XVI centuries. And Protestants, who fled from France in the 16th century, to the eastern Germans. Mongols scattered passionarity over the vast expanses of Eurasia, stirring up in one way or another almost all the conquered peoples.

        And one more peculiarity. In the course of ethnogenesis there is always a process of displacement of passionarity at the edges of the range of the ethnic system. This corresponds to the law of displacement of recessive traits, discovered by Vavilov. In practice, this means that in the last phases of ethnogenesis more passionate and healthy, (morally and physically) people are preserved in the remote province than in the historical center.

         Passionarity is an inherited trait. That is, it is fixed in the genes and is inherited. And not always directly - from father to son. It is known that "nature rests on children". (Gumilyov does not specify this.) But, one way or another, this trait is transmitted to descendants; either - through a generation, or - one of several children. Since many young passionaries die in wars before leaving their offspring, the ethnic system is gradually losing its passionarity. However, the passionary tension continues to decline in times of peace. During wars, Gumilyov wrote, women appreciate heroes, so they have time to leave offspring before they die, and not always in a legitimate marriage. (That is why passionarians are born in all classes of society.) And, on the contrary, in quiet epochs, the moderate and careful family man becomes the ideal. Passionarians often do not find a place in life and are looked upon as losers. Women do not want to marry them. A typical example is Chatsky from the comedy "Woe from Wit. The passionate Chatsky loves Sophia, but she prefers the opportunistic Molchaline to him. Sophia sincerely believes that this gray but industrious official will give her a quiet life and provide for her family.

         In such periods, it is the philistine, or, according to Gumilyov, the harmonious man, who actively breeds.

                                    Harmonious people (normal).

         They make up the vast majority of a healthy ethnic group. They are "individuals of energetically balanced type. The impulse of passionarity in harmonious people is equal to the impulse of the instinct of self-preservation. Harmonious people are physically and mentally full-fledged, efficient, but not super-active. Sacrifice is not peculiar to them. Such people are alien and antipathic to the burnout of passionarians. The petty bourgeois motto: "My house is on the edge..." is very often understood by a harmonious person. Therefore, in order to move him out of his usual circle of "home-family-work-beer-football" some push from outside is necessary.

        "However, people of this kind are an extremely important element in the body of the ethnos”. They reproduce it, moderate outbursts of passionarity, when passionarians go beyond expediency and begin not to create, but to destroy (in "overheating"), they multiply material values according to already created patterns. -

        Harmonious people play an important role as a "stabilizer" that maintains ethnic tradition (i.e., stereotype behavior and cultural codes). In addition, by producing the work necessary for the existence of an ethnos, they connect the ethnos with the nurturing landscape, which is a prerequisite for the preservation of ethnic identity. A sufficient number of harmonious people within an ethnos is a guarantee of its internal stability.

         Sometimes, when describing historical processes, Gumilyov included among the harmonious people passionarians with low degrees of passionarity, striving for success and prosperity without risk to life (see Appendix A). This is the well-known type of the turnaround fist - the businessman of the middle class. Or a "careerist" from the "middle class”.  

         In general, harmonious people can do quite well without passionaries, but as long as there is no external (or internal) enemy. Gumilyov gives this example. In Iceland, the descendants of the warlike Vikings gradually lost their passionarity. In the XII century they stopped overseas campaigns, in the XIII century the internal strife ended. And when in the seventeenth century Algerian pirates landed on the island with two ships, they met no resistance. The peaceful Icelanders allowed their homes to be burned down, their wives to be raped, their children to be taken as slaves, but they found no resolve to take up arms. There was simply no one to organize them and throw them into battle.

Sub-passionarians

          These are people with negative passionarity, their actions are controlled by impulses opposite to passionarity - instincts. They are homeless people, "drunks," petty criminals ("I stole, I drank, I went to jail"), professional beggars and just idlers. They may even be hired soldiers - but bad ones, they are recruited when there are no others. They are looters, robbers and bandits who "plunder the civilian population and pick the pockets of the murdered”. In troubled times, as in times of decline, they become especially numerous.

         Gumilev cites the example of the Roman "mobs" in the last centuries of the empire. The Icelanders, Gumilyov wrote, had not lost at least the ability to actively work, but the decayed descendants of Roman citizens, piled up in Rome in the first century, revealed a far worse version. They did not want to work, they did not want to fight, they wanted "bread and circuses”. And all this, the government gave them, fearing that the sub-passionate crowds would support any passionate adventurer who wanted to stage a coup if he promised them extra bread and a more posh show in the circus. Their mottos are: "Live for yourself, and today, not tomorrow," and "Don't strive for anything you can't eat or drink”. Sub-passionarians are lazy, passive, and fundamentally selfish. They do not change the world as passionarians do, nor do they preserve it as harmonious people do, but exist as parasites at its expense.

         The result of the decline in passionarity was the capture of Rome by the Goths in 410 AD (Alarich), and there were far fewer Goths than combat-ready Romans, not to mention all of Italy. It is quite revealing, Gumilyov observed, that when the Goths left, the citizens of Rome brought the question to a general assembly not of how to build up their defenses, but of holding performances in the circus! In 455, the Vandals (Genserich) easily massacred the Roman sub-passionarians, "whom somehow one does not want to pity." After the Vandal pogrom, Rome no longer recovered.

         The same, Gumilev wrote, happened in Byzantium when it entered an era of decline. In 1203 a small band of crusaders, only 20,000 men, easily captured Constantinople. The Greeks could have put up 70,000 soldiers, but they did not resist, leaving a handful of brave men who came out on the walls unaided.

And in 1204 the city was retaken, and terribly destroyed. Most of the inhabitants perished... But when a more passionate province later entered the war, Constantinople was liberated, only to fall again in 1453 under the same circumstances. The populations of metropolitan capitals degenerate faster.

          Such are the consequences of the loss of the passionary tension of the ethnos, that is, the reduction in the number of passionaries, almost completely replaced by sub-passionaries. Slogans "live one day!" and "take everything from life”! - is the road to destruction.

          When the ethnos is young and strong, sub-passionarians are almost invisible, passionarians and harmonious people do not allow them to be outrageous, and if anything, send them to correctional work or to prison. But when the ethnos grows old (or sick), the sub-passionarians come out of all the cracks and begin to tell the others how to live.

        Thus, Gumilev outlined three gradations of decreasing passionarity. Although, if necessary, he specified, the division can be more fractional. For example, the first type - passionaries - can be conditionally divided into three groups: 1) passionarians with a very high degree of passionarity (sacrifice), 2) high degree of passionarity (ideal of victory, success), 3) medium degree of passionarity (career growth, business activity, creativity). And all of them would be passionarians. For example, superpassionarians - Protopopop Avvakum, Copernicus, Che Guevara. Classic passionarians - Stalin, Churchill, Mussolini, Marshal Zhukov, Academician Korolev. Just passionarians - well, there are thousands of examples, both in history and in modern times - from cultural figures, business and sports to the leaders of parties, social organizations, criminal groups and even - individual deputies.

        In this case, again, many passionaries in peacetime are not visible, because they can't find a decent application for themselves. These are non-systemic, for the most part - ideological passionaries (with both "plus" and "minus" signs). They manifest themselves during wars, revolutions and turmoil. They make history at its turning points, because ideological people, all things being equal, always win over non-ideological ones.

        Obviously, along with the three-tiered types proposed by Gumilev, intermediate types - between passionarians and harmonious, harmonious and sub-passionarians can be found. That is, our division on the basis of passionarity is quite conditional, there is no ironclad framework.

        At the same time, we should not confuse the mentioned gradations with class and class divisions, any class can include all three types of passionarity. For example, if we take a closer look at most of Chekhov's characters, including the weeping intellectuals and noblemen from The Cherry Orchards, we see that they are very much like subpassionaries. Of course, they are not at all Gorky's bums and alcoholics from the play At the Bottom. They are, one might say, aristocrats among sub-passionarians. They even have passionary intentions, as Gumilev noted, "We will start a new life! We will work, work!!!" or "Let's go - to Moscow, to Moscow!!!" But for all their dreams they do not want to move, but only whine all the time and engage in masochism. And they are all unbearably bored.

        This is how the gradual degeneration of ethnos happens. And it is the "head" - the political elite and intellectuals - that begins to rot faster than others. Therefore, the ruling class has to be periodically purged, and sometimes - completely renewed. Oblomov, a nobleman, is a sub-passionarian, but his ancestors, the servile nobility, were typical passionarii. They conquered and developed the lands, which, several centuries later, were lost by their weak-willed descendants.

         There are a number of signs by which, looking at this or that nation, you can almost unmistakably determine its level of passionarity.  The most striking signs of a high level of ethnos (super-ethnos) passionarity are: 1) militancy, striving for expansion; 2) high religiosity (or ideology); 3) active reproduction.

         In addition, it is the reliance on their own, national culture, with reasonable (sometimes unreasonable) borrowing from other cultures. As well as the reliance on traditional, "patriarchal" values - a strong family, collectivism, love for their homeland and a readiness to die for it.

        High passionarity is the severity of manners and the concept of honor, which is not for sale for money.  Of course, all this taking into account the national religion, culture, geographical location of the ethnic group, and today also the factor of globalization.

         Signs of low or negative (below zero) passionarity - all the same, but with the opposite sign. Here, as a rule, the pattern is simple - the more individualism, "tolerance," feminization, homosexuality and desire for material goods - the lower the passionarity. And vice versa. 

        For example: the Persians, Arabs, Vietnamese, Koreans have high passionarity; the Turks, Serbs, Kazakhs - medium; the French, the Dutch, the Swedes - low, and somewhere already negative.  In Russia: Chechens have high, Tatars have medium, Evenks have zero.  And what about the Russians? - The reader will ask. But more about that below.

                The Ages of Ethnicity and the Diversity of Ethnic Histories

        So, ethnic groups, like people, are born and die. The life span of an ethnos, super-ethnos, is 1200 to 1500 years. After that ethnos disappears or turns into a relic, a small nation with zero passionarity, which can live a long time, if no one touches it (Chukchi, High Altai, Eskimos, Bushmen, etc.).

         In the process of ethnogenesis ethnoses sequentially pass through phases: ascent, acmatic (maximum passionarity), breakdown, inertia and obscuration (see Appendix A).

         The proposed ethnogenesis curve is a generalization of 40 individual ethnogenesis curves that Gumilyov built for different ethnic groups that appeared in the historical period, because of different passionaric impulses. The dotted curve marks the course of changes in the density of sub-passionarians in the ethnic group. Incubation (latent) period is about 150 years.

         -This is the curve of igniting and cooling down fire.

         -Ethnogenesis, like any natural process, is subject to the law of entropy. The stock of energy, initially large, dissipates over time, reaching zero (homeostasis).

        Historical time," Gumilyov wrote, "is like the sound of a string that has been plucked and is slowly fading away. The development of ethnos and the development of people goes neither forward nor backward, and not in a circle, but staying in one place, and constantly vibrating, like a string." (What about progress? - the reader will ask. And in ethnogenesis, said Gumilyov, there is no progress, there is only progressive paralysis).

         "All ethnogenesis is programmed, but ethnic histories are extremely diverse," stressed the scientist. In each individual ethnogenesis, zigzags and deviations from the generalized curve are possible. And also - exceptions. For example - the Jewish super-ethnos. It has been living for about two thousand years and has no thought of dying. (We must separate the legendary proto-Jews of Abraham, who emerged in the 18th century BC from Sumer, the ancient Old Testament Jews of Moses (ethnos from the 14th century BC to the 1st century AD) and modern Talmudic Jews (super-ethnos). The Passionarity of the Jews to this day is high.

Why is this the case? Gumilyov gives the following explanation. The ancient Jewish ethnos, being already old, non-dynamic, received a powerful new passionarity charge as a result of the shock of the Ist century AD. (see Appendix B). In Palestine, everything stirred up again. In the second century A.D., the Romans, after a persistent and bitter war, drove this small but vigorous people from their land, and the Jews were forced to settle among other ethnic groups. But since they were not given land in a foreign land, the Jews had to develop not natural landscapes (agricultural), but anthropogenic landscapes, i.e. cities and caravan centers. They directed their energies into crafts, trade, and banking. All the more so, as their ancestors had gained such experience in antiquity, during the Babylonian captivity and subsequent migrations-settlements all over the oikoumene, (“house,” “family,” “people,” or “nation”; oikoumenē, “the whole inhabited world”) At the beginning of the second century AD there were far more Jews in the Diaspora than Palestinians.

        Thus the Jews preserved their high passionarity and preserved it almost without wasting it like all other peoples - for external wars, border protection, development of new territories, internal quarrels, etc. This is how the Jews turned from an ethnos into a "wandering super-ethnos" with a rigid internal structure. They divided into Western (Ashkenazi), Asian (Sephardi), African (Falasha), and eventually formed a diaspora, scattered around the globe.

         At the same time, the Jews were ethnically insular, and did not mix with any outsiders. And if they joined in marriages, as a rule, with local passionate aristocracy. That is, they were drawing energy from the outside, thus maintaining a high level of passionate tension in their super-ethnos.

This was the case, for example, in Spain in the 14th and 15th centuries, when beautiful Jewish women from wealthy families married Spanish grandees who needed money. And according to Jewish law, their children were considered Jewish because the lineage was passed down through the mother and not the father. ("No one can discover: the mark of the serpent on the rock, the water in the sea and the man in the woman.") After the persecutions of the Spanish Inquisition, the Jews migrated to Northern Europe, where at that time "the passionarity was great, and with the marriage right they had, one could always get passionate males. And they (Jews) exist - until now," said Gumilyov.

        To this we must add that the longevity of the Jews was greatly assisted by the passionary push of the 13th century, which passed through modern Belarus and Ukraine. As a result of this shock, the last, third in a row, the Jewish ethnos - the Hasids appeared. (Gumilyov spoke about the Hasids in only one of his last interviews.) Representatives of this small ethnos have developed "a very special Jewish frame of ethnic mentality".

That is - different from the traditional Jewish, to the 19th and 20th centuries already weakly religious and heavily "capitalized”. (And purely outwardly Hasidim differ from the "old" Jews.)

       With Hasidim in the beginning they lived in seclusion and for a long time were considered a sect in Judaism. Over time, they began to disperse; as a result, first into European, and then into world Jewry, a new passionate group of Jews who used to be called Polish or Russian. Some of them in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were not included in this group. In the XIX - early XX centuries, they emigrated to America, the other part actively participated in the Russian revolutions of 1905 - 1917, and, well, the third, the most orthodox part, was the initiator of the State of Israel.  Today, the religious Hasids (ultra-Orthodox) are the "vanguard" of world Jewry, and, knowing the theory of ethnogenesis, we can predict that their influence will grow. Ideological passionaries, as we know, are always stronger than non-ideological ones (the Zealots are stronger than the Sadducees).

        "The ideal regularity is in fact constantly disturbed by external influences relative to a given ethnos," emphasized Gumilyov. For example, the Spaniards, conquering Mexico and other territories, dramatically disrupted the course of ethnogenesis of local Central American ethnoses. It was a zigzag of three hundred years in length. During the XVI - XVIII centuries a new super-ethnos - the Latin American one - was formed on the basis of two ethnoses: Spaniards and Indians, which turned out to be complementary. And, eventually, the direction of ethnogenesis returned to its course. Today, South and Central America is going through an acmatic phase. The level of passionarity there is very high. Charismatic leaders like Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and Hugo Chavez are no coincidence. Latin America has been in turmoil since the beginning of the 19th century (since the days of Simón Bolívar) and will probably continue to be in turmoil for a long time to come. At the same time, further consolidation of the Latin American super-ethnos will continue, especially since they now have one common adversary: the United States.

        At the same time, it should be noted that Brazil, Cuba and several countries of the Caribbean stand out from the general number of Latin American countries. Gumilyov did not write about this, but here, too, we see "external to this ethnic group influence" from the descendants of the Negro slaves. And to all appearances, while this impact prevents the consolidation of the Latin American super-ethnos, leading to certain deviations from the normal course of ethnogenesis. Which, in turn, leads to the aggravation of social, cultural, religious and other contradictions, - up to "gender". (We see something similar in the U.S.)

        Another example of a violation of the ideal pattern of ethnogenesis is the Hungarians. Originally they were a nomadic horde and lived in the steppes of the Southern Urals. Having settled in the beginning of X century on the territory of modern Hungary, they began to fight against all neighbors: Byzantine Empire, France, Italy, Germany, against the Slavic tribes and even reached Spain. The Hungarians were real heroes, and at first they were lucky. From all their campaigns they brought a huge number of prisoners and captives. They made prisoners as concubines. The concubines gave birth to their children. As a result, "there turned out to be a large number of people in Hungary who spoke Hungarian, but they were half-French, half-Italian, half-Spanish, half-Slavic, and all Christian (because their mothers were Christians). It turned out that the Hungarians dissolved themselves. The name was preserved, but a single people did not exist. And Hungary became a second-rate European kingdom, which eventually lost its independence for a long time.

         "Everyone has ancestors, but not everyone inherits an ethnic tradition from his ancestors," Gumilyov wrote.  

          Describing the natural regularity of ethnogenesis, Gumilyov emphasized that not every ethnos necessarily survives to its natural end. In ethnic history, there are discontinuities of ethnogenesis at different ages. The most dangerous are the periods of transition from one phase to another. Especially the third transition, from the acmatic to the fracture phase. It was during this period that the first Arab-Islamic super-ethnos disintegrated in the tenth century. "Ethnic processes," Gumilev wrote, "involve two leading factors: the loss of inertia of the initial impetus - aging; and the violent impact of neighboring ethnoses, or other forces of nature - displacement. The latter always deforms the ethnogenesis programmed by nature itself, but only at the moment of phase transitions displacement can be catastrophic".

         Let us add, however, that today it is necessary to make a serious adjustment for the latest factors: globalization (supranational structures, etc.) scientific and technological progress and, above all, the information revolution. Gumilyov did not specifically address these issues, but it is obvious that the unprecedented development of technology, on the one hand, and the emergence of new, supranational control centers, on the other, significantly affects the natural process of ethnogenesis.

For example, in our time even a weak-passionary ethnos (super-ethnos), possessing modern weapons (including information, organizational), is able to strike a blow against a highly passionary, but militarily and technologically backward people. Today it is possible to bomb a country without even entering its territory, as happened in Yugoslavia in 1999.

         At the same time, we should not exaggerate the importance of supranational and scientific and technological factors in modern wars and "global special operations", as technocrats do. Finances, control structures and technology - of course, are important, but the human factor, i.e. the passionary factor is more important! It is possible to win a war, but not to defeat the people, as happened after 2003 in Iraq and then in Afghanistan. It is possible to have color revolutions in Islamic countries, but not to subjugate their ruling elites, as happened after the "Arab Spring" in 2011. It is possible to finally take control of the Big Country, but not to hold it.

          In all of his books, Gumilyov attributes the last passionate push to the XIII century (see Appendix B). However, shortly before his death, the scientist postulated that the last, tenth tremor could take place in the mid-to-late 18th century - the axis of tremor, touched Japan, China, India, and went south. Then I made a correction - the axis of the shock went from Japan through North India to the west - through the Middle East to North Africa. (This question was developed by V.A. Michurin, a disciple of Gumilyov, who published an article on the Passionary rise in modern Iran in 1992. And then, in 2002, a great article "Are we in danger of a new Great Migration of Peoples. (Passionary impulse of the 18th century A.D. and its consequences)").

        Today there is no doubt: the ferment experienced by Muslim countries in the Near and Middle East is the result of a passionate upsurge. This can be clearly seen by comparison. Not long ago, in the 19th century, most Muslims were in hibernation (the incubation period), and they were robbed just like the Chinese. In the 20th century, everything changed abruptly. With the growth of passionarity in the Muslim countries, a broad national liberation movement unfolded and the first victories were achieved by the middle of the XX century. At the same time a new Arab-Islamic super-ethnos began to take shape. At the same time, radical ("passionary") Islam, which had emerged in the early 19th century, sharply strengthened, immediately opposing the traditional ("harmonious") Islam. (Today, this excess passionarity is skillfully directed by the globalizers against the very Muslims. And the main tool in this war are the anti-systemic militant organizations arranged on the type of radical sect.) 

       It remains to be added that the causes of the "Japanese miracle", the "North Korean Juche", the rise of China and the consolidation of India are of the same ethnic nature. The passionary push of the 18th century gave a new impetus to the movement of world history and radically changed the geopolitical balance of power on the Eurasian continent.

        Knowing the theory of ethnogenesis, we can state: the XXI century will be the century of Asia. Greater Asia.  Someone will ask: what about the "end times" and the projected "world concentration camp"? - Let us answer with the words of the Orthodox elder John Krestyankin:  "Do not panic prematurely".

                                                  The boiling ferment and fervent ...activity...   

                                                   the youth of all nations. 

                                                                                              А. С. Pushkin

                                        The phase of ascent (expansion).

         Each phase, emphasized Gumilyov, is determined by the predominance of a generation of people with a new stereotype of behavior. For the young dynamic ethnos, the main role is played by the category of duty to the collective - the imperative: "You must!". In this phase, as a rule, there are no rights, there are only duties, for which a reward is due. "The bad king must be killed, the bad knight banished, the bad servant flogged." In such epochs, people who are stern, strict, demanding of themselves and others come to the fore. They strengthen discipline and build a clear hierarchy, for if there is no rigid co-subordination, the young system will collapse when confronted either by an external enemy or by fellow tribesmen who prefer the old order.

         The rising phase, Gumilyov wrote, begins with the emergence of very restless and "discontented" individuals within the calm population. Their motto: "We must fix the world, for it is bad!" and "We want to be great!" The number of passionarians in this phase increases dramatically (see Appendix A). This was the case at the founding of Rome, when the Latin natives united and went to war with their neighbors. Such were Muhammad's companions, who laid the foundation of the first Arab super-ethnos. Passionary communities were the early Christian communities, which became the nucleus of the Byzantine super-ethnos. In young Europe - the Vikings, "Knights of the Round Table", barons and earls of Charlemagne. A striking example of a passionate nucleus is the "people of long will", united around Genghis Khan.

          The rising phase is associated with expansion ("as a heated gas expands"). The young ethnos, charged with passionarity, begins to fight for a place in the sun. This translates into wars with neighbors, development of new territories, strengthening of the state. The political structure during this period, as a rule, is rigid, mobilizing. The legislation is harsh. The ideology is strong.

         The creator of the great empire Genghis Khan said shortly before his death: "Steppe peoples, whom I submitted to my power, theft, robbery and adultery were an ordinary phenomenon. The son did not obey his father, the husband did not trust his wife, the wife did not consider the will of her husband, the junior did not recognize the senior, the rich did not help the poor, the lowest did not respect the highest, and everywhere reigned the most unrestrained arbitrariness and boundless willfulness. I put an end to all this and imposed law and order.

        Let us look at the ethnic history of Western Europe. After the collapse of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, Europe was in total chaos. It was attacked from all sides, and the local population was totally incapable of resisting even a few bands of plunderers. This continued until, at the end of the eighth and beginning of the ninth century, a passionate jolt passed through Europe. It affected Scandinavia, France (the area of Paris and Orleans, where the Franks lived), and Northern Spain (see Appendix

B). This shock triggered a movement of warlike Vikings and marked the beginning of European consolidation. From then on, Europeans actively resisted attacks from outside. And then began to restore order within their own countries. Gumilyov even names the year Europe was born: "Louis the Pious had three sons, and they fought among themselves. The two attacked the eldest son, Lothair, who bore the title of emperor, and defeated him in 841. This is the year Europe was born. Let me explain why. Lothar fled, but what was strange, and even the chroniclers note this: usually after big battles, the victors would kill the wounded and defeated, but here - they said, "Why are we fighting, after all! Our principles are different.... But we are not strangers anyway. And they would carry water to the wounded enemies.

         Thus, the rising phase in Western Europe begins at the end of the VIII century and lasts until the end of the XI century (300 years). This is the time of formation and strengthening of feudal states and formation of modern European ethnic groups: Spaniards, Franks (French), Saxons (Germans), Scandinavians. Europe transformed from amorphous and weak to strong - chivalrous. In order to maintain an army of knights-passionarians (who had to be paid, and there was nothing to pay them with), serfdom is introduced. This is how feudalism emerges. By the end of the 11th century, Western Europe is "swollen with passionarity. Passionarians become so numerous that they become crowded at home. As a result, the excess energy pours out of Europe - into the Crusades.

         And how did it happen in our country? In Russia, the phase of the rise takes the period from the 13th to the beginning of the 16th century (passionary impulse of the 13th century). From Alexander Nevsky to Basil III (approximately 300 years). On the wreckage of the old Kievan Rus', which began to self-disintegrate long before the arrival of the Mongols and Tatars, emerges an entirely new ethnos - Great Russian, with its own ethno-social system - Moscow Rus'.

        Gumilyov stressed that the ethnic history of Russia, unlike the history of Russian culture, is not "a linear process that goes from Rurik to Gorbachev. It is divided into two histories, two ethnogenesis of different super-ethnoses - Slavic and Russian. (Which, alas, many do not understand.) Therefore, we must distinguish between the history of Kievan Rus' (from the ninth to the thirteenth century) and the history of Moscow Rus' (from the fourteenth century to the present day). The key is the period of the XIII - XV centuries. "At this time, the final phase of the ethnogenesis of Kievan Rus' is combined with the initial, incubation period of the history of the future Russia.

         The Mongol-Tatars came at a time when Ancient Russia was already preparing for its natural death. The brutal wars between principalities and the growing fragmentation of principalities within themselves are indicators of the approaching end. When an ethnos loses its internal unity, i.e. those very "kinship" ties, the war is waged differently, its goal is not victory, but the destruction and enslavement of the enemy.  Former "insiders" are fighting each other as outsiders. As they used to fight only with external enemies.

        "A striking example of the loss of ethnic complementarity," Gumilyov wrote, "was the act of Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky. In 1169, after capturing Kiev, Andrei gave the city to his warriors for three days of looting. Until that moment it was a tradition in Russia to deal in such a way only with foreign cities. On Russian cities, in no internecine strife, such practice had never been extended. The order of Andrei Bogolyubsky shows that for him and his cohorts in 1169 Kiev was as foreign as any German or Polish castle.

         Another clear sign of the degeneration of the East Slavic ethnos was the decline of morals, i.e., the rejection of the traditional Old Russian ethics and morality. Debauchery, venality, deceit, and perjury became the norm of behavior. Murder and patricide in the princely environment nobody was surprised any more. The principle "every man for himself!" triumphed. Veche democracy at this time finally degenerated into the princely-boyar oligarchy.

          In 1097 the princely congress in Lyubechi took place which decided that "each one must hold his own fiefdom". Russia began to turn into a confederation of independent states. The princes swore on the cross not to be at enmity with each other. But as soon as the convention was over, one of the princes - Davyd Igorevich - seized prince Vasilko Terebovalsky and ordered to blind him. Nothing like this had ever been heard of in Russia.

         "Before Ivan Kalita our fatherland resembled a dark forest rather than a state: force seemed right, who could do it, robbed, not only others, but also their own, there was no security neither in the way nor at home, robbery became a common plague of property," wrote historian Solovyov. To this we can add that during the internecine wars between the principalities even churches and monasteries were robbed. The Orthodox plundered the Orthodox shrines! Ethnos finally ceased to exist as a system - their own became strangers.

          Events of XII century are completely stacked in a natural law of ethnogenesis: east Slavs, being a part of Slavic super-ethnos, lived by then approximately 1200 years (push 1st century AD, see Appendix B) and were already in a phase of obscuration. The Tatars, having intervened in Slavic ethnogenesis, sharply accelerated the sluggish decay (which we call feudal fragmentation). This change of epochs, emphasizes Gumilyov, was reflected in the name. Since the XIV century, the new community became known as "Holy Russia. And Russians after the disintegration of Kievan Rus ceased to be Europeans (Easterners) in the full sense of the word.

        Of course, the reign of the Mongols was a heavy burden for the Russian people, but a much greater danger threatened Russia from the West. At this time the Roman pope declared a crusade against the schismatics, that is, the Orthodox. The purpose of the campaign was the conquest and total occupation of northeastern Russia, the destruction of the Orthodox Church and the conversion of the survivors to Catholicism. And this meant not only the destruction of Russian culture, it meant the destruction of the Russian soul. If the Catholics had won then, the new Moscow state would never have emerged.

         The first attempt of the crusaders was successful; they captured Pskov and Izborsk in 1240. The far-sighted Alexander Nevsky was the first Russian prince to understand that an agreement had to be reached with the Tatars, thereby ensuring their support in the fight against Western aggression. The Tatars were bowed. After that, the Khan sent troops, and the crusade in 1242 stalled. (Few people know that in the "Battle of the Ice" participated light Mongolian cavalry, armed with powerful bows, which drove the heavily armed knights on the thin ice.) And in the 70s of the XIII century with the help of the Tatars, it was protected from the Lithuanians at Smolensk.

          The same Russian principalities that refused an agreement with the Tatars were captured by Lithuania and Poland. (Daniel of Galicia then staked on an "alliance with Europe" and accepted the "royal" crown from the pope). The fate of these southwestern principalities was very sad. Orthodox Rusichs were strangers in the Western European super-ethnos, so they found themselves in the Polish-Lithuanian state in the position of second-class people. Under Polish rule, in addition to social discrimination, they were subjected to the cruelest religious discrimination. The history of Russian Ukraine since then is the history of the struggle for liberation from the Polish Catholic yoke. This is the main point and the main nerve of the history of the Ukrainian people. (About Ukraine in a separate chapter.)

         Gumilyov wrote: "The Russian land, which entered the phase of obscuration, was torn in two by the mighty forces of passionarity of the West and the East. But the lesser of two evils were the Mongol-Tatars.

They did not touch the Orthodox Church, in fact - they exempted it from tribute, the territory was not occupied, in the internal life of the Russian principalities they did not interfere. They only demanded payment of tax (tribute), which went to the maintenance of the Tatar army.

         Gumilyov singles out the main thing: "The merit of Alexander Nevsky was that he with his farsighted policy protected the nascent new Moscow Russia in the incubation phase of its development (in the period from "conception to birth"). And after the birth on the Kulikovo Pole (1380) of the new Russia, the enemies had no fear for it".

         The scientist refers Alexander Nevskiy to "a generation of new people" with whom Russian ethnogenesis proper began. He is not just an appendage prince of Ancient Russia, he is the first prince of the future Velikorossiya: "Sacrificial behavior of Alexander Yaroslavich and his colleagues differs too strikingly from the morals of old Russian appendage princes. Altruistic patriotism, the dominant behavior formulated by Alexander, determined the principles of Russia's organization for several centuries ahead. Traditions of union with the peoples of Asia, based on national and religious tolerance, established by the prince, until the XIX century, attracted to Russia the peoples living in neighboring territories.    

          Since the beginning of the 14th century, Moscow has been the center of unification of the Russian lands. The rise of Moscow was caused not only by a convenient geographical location (Tver was also "in the center"), but by three more important factors: 1) the move to the future capital of the metropolitan - the head of the Russian Orthodox Church (from Vladimir); 2) a more flexible policy of Moscow princes, focused on the alliance with the Horde; 3) the attraction of capable people from other principalities into military service on favorable terms.

         The number of passionaries in this era increases dramatically. Moscow becomes the center of attraction for many of them. And not only Russian.  Military service to the Moscow prince came from the Golden Horde and Lithuania. They necessarily embrace Orthodoxy and rather quickly put down roots on Russian soil, marrying Russian women. In Moscow, more than in any other principality, the principle of ethnic tolerance is accepted. Mixing occurs surprisingly easily, especially with the Tatars. (Unlike, for example, the Germans, who since the 16th century had lived in Russia as isolated colonies and almost never mixed with the Russians.) Thus "Tatar" surnames appeared in Russia: Apraksin, Arakcheev, Berdyaev, Bulgakov, Bunin, Gogol, Godunov, Karamzin, Kutuzov, Michurin, Rachmaninov, Tatishchev, Timiryazev, Turgenev, Tyutchev, Chaadaev, Sheremetev... and many others.

          Gumilyov wrote: "Ethnic synthesis, which occurred in the Moscow land in the phase of passionate rise, was the decisive factor. The passionate potential of Moscow "prevailed" over the wealth of Novgorod, the prowess of Tver, and dynastic pretensions of Suzdal. As early as the first half of the 14th century Ivan Kalita, supported first by Khan Uzbek, and then by his son Dzhanibek, took upon himself the function of paying tribute for all of Russia.

         Since the fourteenth century Moscow no longer continues the traditions of Kiev, as Novgorod did until the end of the fifteenth century. On the contrary, the Moscow government destroys the anarchic traditions of veche freedom and princely internecine strife, replacing them with stricter norms of behavior, largely borrowed from the Mongols - a system of rigid hierarchy, severe discipline, the principles of obligatory mutual aid and collective responsibility.

         Thus, the phase of the passionary rise in Russia is the unification (often violent) of lands around Moscow, the centralization of power, an increase in the military estate and strengthening of the army.

         Since the political history of this period is well known, we will not repeat ourselves, but dwell on those moments that reflect the change of ethnic dominance in the phase of the rise.

         During this period we observe the moral recovery of society, a return to traditional morality and ethics. Gumilyov does not talk about this in detail, but we know that family mores become more severe and strict. This reflects the rigid organization of the young ethnic system. "To the wives the husband is the head, to the husband the prince, and to the prince the god," reads the law. This new order was finally established in "Domostroy" (the 16th century), which gave clear instructions for the conduct of all family members, especially wives: "Every day a wife should ask her husband about everything and consult him about everything: how to go out in public and whom to invite, and what to talk about with guests and how to behave". Another article reads: "... and no man should be taken in the house alone, and if a husband notices that his wife looks at other men, or talks to someone without asking, or is alone with a man, then he should punish his wife severely, and if necessary, he should beat her. And then follows an explanation of how to beat: "... do not beat on the ear or in the eyes... do not kick or beat with a stick... Beat with a lash only for serious disobedience and negligence, and in other cases to whip quietly... and, having punished, pity".

         The same strictness was adopted in the upbringing of children, who had to submit unconditionally to the will of their parents. "If any man condemn or insult his parents, or curse them, he is sinful before God and cursed by men; he who beats his father and mother, let him be excommunicated, and let him die a fierce death, for it is written, 'The father's curse dries up, but the mother's curse eradicates'. In the upper and middle classes of society, it was customary to keep women, and especially girls, out of sight, in the women's quarters. She had no right to sit at the same table with men (at the feast). At family feasts, when relatives gathered, a separate table was set for women. In addition, a woman had no right to sit under the images in the Red Corner, and on "famous days" she could not sit at the common table at all. Adultery was considered a terrible crime. The reason for divorce, which was very difficult and was allowed only in exceptional cases, could become simply "the wife spending the night in the house of strangers".....

         There was no such thing in Kievan Rus', with its "freedom of manners.

          What always happens when a new ethnos is formed is that the stereotype of behavior has changed. And it's not just a Tatar influence (although it was), but the fact that in the harsh times of passionate upsurge, there simply cannot be any other way. In all healthy, passionate populations the family is built on a hierarchical principle, and family relations are strictly regulated. This concerns first of all the attitude to the woman, who, as a creature more susceptible to all kinds of temptations and temptations, is always restricted in her freedom of action. We observe it in all traditional religions and in all passionate peoples, except for "civilized", i.e. degenerate ones. Of course, here it is necessary to take into account the specificity of this or that culture and its inertia, because traditions always influence the formation of a new stereotype. But the age factor is paramount. If, for example, in medieval Europe someone had spoken seriously not even about feminization, but about the harmless emancipation of women, he would immediately have been brought to trial, and most likely burned at the stake.

        In general, family relations, especially the degree of women's freedom and the "rights of the child," are among the most obvious indicators of the level of passionarity. This is something that immediately catches the eye and as an indicator shows this or that state of the ethnic system. (Again, adjusted for cultural peculiarities, urbanization, and today also for Sodomite globalization.)   

        The next most important aspect is religious. Along with the growth of passionarity in the phase of the rising, "religious tension" (Gumilyov's term) grows. The authority and influence of the Orthodox Church is noticeably increasing, it becomes the center of unification of Russian people.

        "The growing passionarity ... turned out to be directed by orthodoxy toward the common goal of building Holy Russia," Gumilyov wrote. After the death of Ivan Kalita, Metropolitan Alexei becomes the de facto head of state. And Moscow essentially becomes a "unifying theocratic monarchy. As head of the Russian church, Alexei has quite real power over all Russian princes without exception. In the remaining fragmentation the only thing that firmly binds Muscovites, Tver, Ryazan, Suzdal, Novgorod - is Orthodoxy. And it is rapidly gaining strength in this harsh, heroic era.

         What does high religious tension mean? It is not just faith, but a fervent, ardent faith. When a person wakes up thinking about God and falls asleep thinking about God. And he is ready to give his life for faith. For the meaning of his life is not in pleasures, but in the salvation of the immortal soul... History teaches us that a people who believe like this cannot be defeated. Not under any circumstances. They can only be killed.

        Gumilyov wrote: "Salvation of the soul is repentance, or rather, independent rethinking of their actions and their motivations. It is possible only at high spiritual heat. Where in the soul there is cold ashes ... there is no passionate energy".

        In Moscow in the XVI century there were about 2,000 churches (including house churches), so that every five houses had a temple. Church services were very long - a few hours - and people stood them patiently. Outside the temple, the Russian man prayed throughout the day. When he woke up, he would look for an icon and be baptized. After washing and dressing, he prayed thoroughly. Then a short prayer before breakfast, after breakfast, before work, before dinner... and so throughout the day. In the evening, a long prayer before going to bed. On the nights before major church feasts, Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and during fasts, the spouses slept separately. It was customary on such nights to rise from sleep and pray silently - night prayer was considered more pleasing to God... After a night spent together, spouses should wash in the bathhouse, and only after that should they approach the icons.

        Marriage to non-believers was strictly forbidden. A woman who had an affair with a non-Christian was severely punished. While adultery with a fellow believer was considered a serious crime, adultery with an outsider was considered a grave sin.

        Before any great undertaking, such as sowing in the fields or building a house, the Russian people went to church and prayed a long time, and before dangerous undertakings they confessed and took communion. The fasts were observed very strictly. In all, there were more than half of the fasting days of the year, together with Wednesdays and Fridays. On the first two days of Lent even the Tsar did not eat anything, "on Wednesday he ate a piece of bread and fasted again until Saturday."....

         There was no such religious tension in the relaxed-democratic Kiev period!

         I must stress once again: to observe all these restrictions, not to mention the more serious prohibitions, one needed the power and needed the will; that is passion. Therefore, as it grew, the number of people able not only to observe the strict religious rules, but also willing to completely abandon the "worldly pleasures" and join the monastic path of sacrificial service to God, became more and more numerous. Gumilyov wrote: "The founder of the first monastery with the strictest monastic regulations was the great Russian ascetic Sergius of Radonezh.  An aura of holiness and respect was created around the monastery of Sergius, and the ascetic's disciples began, with his blessing, to found monasteries. The effectiveness of this kind of spiritual expansion was enormous. Each monastery played the role not only of a church, but also of a hospital, a school, a library... The influence of the abbots and monk-advocates grew. People who came to the monastery began to believe that Orthodox Russia could live, helping itself, without relying on the forces of the Tatars or Lithuanians."

        It is in this era that we have the greatest number of holy elders. And it is no coincidence that it was in the phase of the rise, and the beginning of the acme phase (in the XIV-XVI centuries) that the greatest number of monasteries was founded in Russia. Neither before, nor after that so many were built.

         And Moscow, from the beginning of the XVI century, began to be called the "Third Rome". For after the fall of Constantinople, the Moscow kingdom was the only independent Orthodox state in the entire world. All other Orthodox nations were conquered or oppressed by their enemies. Western Christians, on the other hand, long ago betrayed true Christianity and fell into the Roman Reformed heresy. "Two Romans have fallen, the third, Moscow, stands, and the fourth is not to be!" wrote the elder Philotheus.

        It was no longer just "Russia," it was "Holy Russia." The successor and guardian of the true, uncontaminated Christian faith - Orthodoxy!

         As for the question of the influence of the Mongol-Tatars on Russian history, Gumilyov gives an unambiguous answer: the Tatars helped us in creating a new Moscow state. And whether they wanted to or not, so it turned out. The Tatars did the most important thing - they helped protect northeastern Russia from the aggression of the Catholic West. In doing so, of course, they pursued their own interests. The Mongol Tatars, according to Gumilyov, helped the Russians fight off the Germans and Lithuanians, not because they loved everything Russian, but because they simply "guarded their flocks from wolves, so they could milk and shear them.

         However, at the same time, the Russian-Horde relations also had their unifying moments. First of all, the fact that the Catholic West was just as much of an enemy for the Mongols and Tatars as it was for the Russians, both on the level of geopolitics and mentality. Therefore one can generally agree with the scholar that before the end of the 14th century (before the destruction of Moscow by Tokhtamysh in 1382) an "unequal alliance" existed between the Golden Horde and the Russian principalities. (Concluded on the principle: "Against whom shall we be friends?") Well, after the relations between them deteriorated, nothing could prevent the formation of a new Moscow state. A strengthened Russia began to gain strength, while the Horde became weaker. It was a matter of time before Russia gained full independence.  

         Thus, the Mongol-Tatars, by including in the 13th century the northeastern part of the former Kievan Rus' into their own state, in the end did more good for the Russians than bad. First, they brought relative order to the new Ulus, ending the spontaneous internecine strife between the principalities. Secondly, and most importantly, the Tatars gave a clear example of strict legislation and a strong centralized state, the Golden Horde, which became a model for the construction of the new Moscow Empire.

        And the Tatars also taught the Russians how to fight. The Mongol army in the 13th and 14th centuries was the best army in the world: disciplined, well-trained, and well-managed.

The Mongol Tatars, who in considerable numbers entered the service of the Moscow princes beginning in the 14th century, passed on their military experience to the Russians: the tactics of quick transitions, ambushes, flank strikes, false retreat (luring the enemy into a trap), reconnaissance skills, and much more. For example, the victory in the Battle of Kulikovo was achieved through a surprise attack of the ambush mounted regiment, the backbone of which was baptized Tatars. Suvorov's tactics - "Like a snowball on your head!", and Kutuzov's - luring the enemy deep into the territory - are purely Mongolian, Eurasian tactics.

        In addition, the Mongol-Tatars gave the Russians the world's best weapon - a light curved saber, which can cut and chop, and a fighting bow, which hits at 700 meters (the best in Europe English bow hit at 450 meters). A fifteenth-century Moscow warrior is a replica of a Tatar warrior. The Moscow army was the most efficient army. Muscovites several times smashed to pieces much superior in number Novgorodians (separatists), which, being the last fragment of Kievan Rus, by the XV century already lost passionarity and the learning to fight.

          But still the most important thing, said Gumilyov, that the Mongol-Tatars gave the Slavs is their passionary genes. And this, mostly Turkic, "genetic drift" has affected the service military caste, which subsequently formed the basis for Russian nobility. Thus Turkic-Tatars were directly involved in the Russian ethnogenesis - birth and maturation of a new ethnos - Great Russians. And this young, passionate ethnos created a new strong state - Moscow Russia, which over time evolved into the mighty Russian Empire.

        From a Western European perspective - for 500 years now! - Russians are a barbaric mixture of "underdeveloped" Slavs and wild nomads of Asia.

        From the Eurasian point of view, Russians are a great people who created a powerful and highly cultural civilization.

         From the point of view of world history - such imperial-creative peoples in the history of mankind can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

        From the spiritual point of view, Russians are the last Christian people keeping the world from falling into the kingdom of Antichrist. Until the Second Coming and the Last Judgment.

         Gumilyov names the date of birth of the Russian people. This is the year 1380. The year of the Battle of Kulikovo. "The ethnic significance of what happened in 1380 on the Kulikovo field turned out to be enormous.  The people of Suzdal, Vladimir, Rostov, Pskov went to fight at the Kulikovo field as representatives of their principalities, but returned from there as Russians, though living in different cities. And so in the ethnic history of our country the Kulikovo battle is considered as the event, after which a new ethnic community - Moscow Rus' - became a reality, a fact of world-historical significance.

Hooray! We break; and the Swedes bend...                                                                              

                                              А. С. Pushkin

                                      Acmatic (overheating) phase

        The acmatic phase, or overheating phase, is characterized by the highest rise of the passionary tension. The number of passionaries during this period reaches its peak. (Gumilyov did not calculate the percentage ratio of passionaries in the different phases, and it is hardly possible. But at one of his lectures he noted that in Europe, in the phase of overheating one in ten was a passionarius).

         The ethnic system in the acmatic phase is almost irresistible. At this time expansion, foreign wars, and colonization continue. However, at the same time, the internal struggle in society intensifies - so many passionaries accumulate that they begin to actively destroy each other. This often results in internecine strife and other troubles.

        In this phase, the power of duty is replaced by the right of force, individualism grows, which leads to a clash of active individuals. ("Exploding selfisms"). As most of the task of creating and strengthening the new system has been accomplished, duty begins to weigh on people, and a new behavioral principle emerges: "Be yourself!" "The squire wants to be not only the squire of the prince, but Peter or Ivan, the monk not just reads texts of scripture, but also comments on them, the merchant calls the firm by his name," Gumilyov wrote.

        Ups in this phase alternate with declines - after the death of passionate fathers (there’s a decline), their children and grandchildren (often illegitimate) grow up, which again brings the system out of a state of semi-disintegration. But once the stock of passionarity is not enough to bring the system out of another depression, then the recession becomes a collapse. This is the next phase - the breakdown. (See Appendix A)

        In Europe, the acmatic phase takes place in the 12th-15th centuries. This is the period of the Crusades, the Hundred Years' War between England and France and other foreign wars. It is endless internecine strife, the fires of the first Inquisition and the struggle between the secular and papal powers. Europe at this time is bursting with internal energy. Gumilyov wrote: "The Hundred Years' War between England and France had no serious causes, but was fought with amazing persistence. When it finally ended, the English feudal lords, who had been driven out of France, were not pacified. They immediately started a new war between them for 30 years - the War of the Scarlet and White Rose. The future King of England, Edward IV, shouted to his warriors: "Spare the commoners, beat the nobles!" Because almost all the passionaries had already acquired coats of arms and declared themselves nobles, and he needed to reduce the number of irrepressible feudal lords in his kingdom, otherwise he could not rule them. And so it was throughout Western Europe. In the fifteenth century France was united by Louis XI, who eliminated all feudal chieftains and created a single kingdom with "one faith, one law, one king."   

        "The Crusades," Gumilev wrote, "were seen by Catholic priests as the result of religious enthusiasm, by Protestant priests as the result of papal self-interest, by Enlighteners as the madness of uneducated people, by economists as the result of the crisis of the feudal economy of Western Europe. In fact, the slogan "Liberation of the Holy Sepulchre" was only a slogan. They went because they wanted to go. And they would have gone anywhere else, with any other slogan, because they were bursting with internal energy. Out of 110 thousand, about 20 thousand (!) people made it to Jerusalem. As Gumilyov said: "Any event can be realized if you don't consider the costs. You can, for example, when there are no matches but you really want to smoke, pay 50 rubles for a box. In other words, if you really want to fight, there is always a reason.

         European states became stronger only after they got rid of the passionate overheating, i.e. at the end of the 16th-17th centuries, when it was easier to coordinate forces. That is when colonial expansion unfolded.

         In Russia the acmatic phase covers the period from XVI to early XIX century (almost 300 years). Roughly, from Vasily III (died in 1533) to the Decembrist uprising in 1825. During this time, Russia, from a small kingdom at the back of Europe, transformed into a huge Eurasian empire.

         After the collapse of the Golden Horde in 1502, Russia finally achieves political and economic stability and becomes a monolithic country. Under Ivan III the territory of the state increases fivefold! During the first fifty years of the 16th century the population of the Moscow kingdom grew by half, reaching 9 million people!

         Passionarians now rush not only to Moscow (in the 16th century one could make a career only in public service), but also to the outskirts - mainly to the Don and the Volga region.

Up to the 18th century, when Russia began to reach its natural, geographical borders, "the most active individuals joined the ranks of defenders of the borders of the Fatherland”. These are, first of all, dashing shirts - military nobles and, later, Cossacks.

         Under Ivan IV the Terrible (1530-1584) Russia makes a powerful breakthrough. The territory of the country almost doubled. It begins the incorporation of Siberia. The central power strengthens. During the oprichnina (purges) period is the first mass "purges" of the ruling elite - the aristocracy of princes and boyars who resisted the strengthening of central state power. The boyars and princes are clinging to the remnants of their independence, left over from the times of their ancestors, when their ancestors were masters of their own fiefdoms. (And although Gumilyov assesses the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible very negatively (refers to oprichniks as anti-system), it is clear that this was not a random repression unleashed by half-mad tsar.

         Gumilyov himself wrote that "the increased passionarity of the ethnic, let alone super-ethnic system yields the result (success) if 1) there is one dominant-symbol, not several, and 2) overcoming the anarchy, inevitably arising from egoism and uncontrollability of the set of passionaries, which is very difficult to pacify or intimidate, sometimes easier to kill".

The Boyars, who opposed the strengthening of the power of the Tsar, were mostly such unruly passionaries’.  Another thing is, that along with them died innocent people. But unfortunately this is the case with any mass repressions, because for the dirty work ("execution and punishment") they mainly recruit rabble.

        Breakthrough, which Russia makes in the 16th century, was achieved at great cost. And after the era of Ivan the Terrible super-tension follows the inevitable decline - the Time of Troubles in the early 17th century. (After such breakthroughs we always have recession: also it was the same after the Terrible, after Peter, after Stalin).

        Gumilyov explains the Troubles by the aggravation of the center's struggle with the outskirts. On the southern and southeastern borders of the Moscow kingdom were three militant sub-ethnoses: the Sevruks, the Donts, and the Ryazans. "It was they, dissatisfied with subordination to Moscow, who consistently supported, following the first impostor and the second”. When the weakness of the central government was revealed ... peripheral sub-ethnoses began to claim the leading position in the Russian ethnos and the Russian super-ethnos. It was the scramble for power between representatives of different sub-ethnoses of the north and south of the country, which was in the acmatic phase of ethnogenesis, that caused the first Russian Distemper. Ultimately, in this stubborn struggle, Velikorossiya won. Bolotnikov, who led the movement of the outskirts, was driven away from Moscow. Well, the Cossacks, after looting and raging for a few more years, returned home. They then will rebel again many times (Razin, Pugachev, etc.), but this will be a passionate inertia.

        In terms of ethnogenesis, Gumilyov wrote, the Time of Troubles is no accident, and that blood that was shed, those fires that burned our land, were the consequences of passionate depression after the overheating of the mid-16th century.

         The period from Basil III to the beginning of the reign of Mikhail Romanov in 1613 represents the first maximum of passionarity in the acmatic phase - a sharp rise and fall (see Appendix A).

        Thus, based on the theory of ethnogenesis, we can conclude that the Distemper of the early 17th century was a systemic crisis of a special type. It was a crisis of growth. The growth of passionarity. And the growth of the future empire.

        The new rise was marked only 10 years later, in the 20s of the XVII century. Gumilyov in this regard gives a curious example. In the reign of Mikhail Romanov there was only one serious protest of the peasants. Twenty thousand people came to Moscow and presented a ridiculous (from a modern point of view of the demand). They demanded that the government enroll them in the military service. The peasants did not want to dig in - they wanted to fight. The peasants reasoned: "Of course, they might get killed in the war or on the border, but it's more fun and a career". Of course, the peasants were dispersed, but this episode is very typical of the heroic era of the 16th-18th centuries. Back then it was more prestigious and exciting to fight, not to trade.

         Gumilyov does not write (in detail) about the second maximum of passionarity, but it is obvious that it falls in the second half of the XVII and the first quarter of the XVIII centuries. According to the same scheme - gathering strength, spurt, roll back. The peak was the transformations of Peter I.

         Gumilyov stressed that the reform of Peter was not unexpected, it was a continuation of the policy of Westernization, which began under Alexei Mikhailovich. It was then that Polish and German caftans entered the court fashion, and with them the Polish and Latin language. Foreign specialists arrive in Moscow, and regiments of the foreign system are brought in.

However, the attitude of Russians toward Europeans remains extremely distrustful. Decree of Alexei Mikhailovich of May 1661 says: "Various heretics and Germans started to come to Moscow and ask for tsar services and we gathered the Duma and put the Duma people: do not send them, sons of bitches, Germans to provinces and do not appoint them to provinces, and let them be only in Moscow ... and join the service of our tsar on the need, in warlike times". (But already in 1670 we see "German" officers and sailors in Astrakhan where during Razin's revolt they were killed in the first place).

        Under Peter the Great, as we know, the situation changes. Foreigners were welcomed with open arms, and not only for military service. Well, after Peter "breaks through the window to Europe" (borrowing from the Europeans in one go what is necessary and also what is not), the ruling class of society - the nobility - begins to rapidly break away from its national soil and become Europeanized. "Worship of the West" has its roots in those times.

         Let us highlight the main point. The most unpleasant consequence of the reforms of Peter the Great, in terms of ethnogenesis, was the loss of ethnic system integrity and unity. Western influence, from which Russia was firmly defending itself for several centuries, (especially successfully under Ivan the Terrible), destroyed the inner harmony of the old Moscow Rus' in XVIII century. The crack that appeared in the Russian ethnos in the seventeenth century (the church schism) turned into a rupture after Peter. It is from this moment that the anti-patriotic, pro-Western party in the Russian ruling stratum begins to gain strength. In 200 years, this party will overthrow the Tsar.

        Gumilyov wrote: "Peter's reforms were deeper than all previous ones in their influence on the stereotypes of behavior, for in the early 18th century the level of passionarity of the Russian super-ethnos was already lower than in the 16th - 17th centuries.

        From an ethnological point of view, the emergence of Peter's dream of transforming Russia into a "civilized" "European" power is quite natural. Quiet, comfortable and well-fed life in Western Europe, which was already in the inertial phase of ethnogenesis, seemed to the young and very impressionable Peter almost a fairy tale. "Peter's desire in late seventeenth - and early eighteenth-century Russia, to imitate the Dutch resembles the act of a five-year-old girl putting on her mother's hat and painting her lips to resemble her beloved mother. But just as a hat and lipstick do not make a child a grown woman, so the borrowing of European manners could not change the phase of Russian ethnogenesis."

        It remains to add that the radical transformation of Peter the Great required enormous efforts and colossal funds. Taxes were sharply increased, a brutal per capita tax was introduced. All the juice was squeezed out of the people. As a result, the loss of population during the years of Peter's rule (1689 - 1725) was about 20% (!). In percentage terms, these losses far exceeded the losses the country suffered during Stalin's "Great Leap Forward" of the 1930s. Today many have already forgotten that the city of St. Petersburg "stands on those bones".

         And there was a legend about Peter, that he was not a real tsar, but a "switched tsar" (a German kid was thrown into the cradle and the real one was strangled!). For the real Tsar would not dare to make such a mockery of the Orthodox Church and Russian antiquity. Another legend says that Peter was born to the young Tsarina Natalia Kirillovna not from an elderly Alexei Mikhailovich, but from a visiting German. Everything indeed matches: from childhood the prince ran to the German Quarter as if it had honey on it, his first love was the German Anna Mons, his best friend was the Swiss Lefort, he banished his Russian wife and married a German, or a Chukha from the Baltics. His son, who stood for the antiquity, was put to death. He allowed marriages with non-Christians!

         Old Believers were so amazed by non-Russian, non-orthodox behavior of the Tsar, that they declared Peter the Antichrist: "Not for nothing does he bang his head and stumble with his foot", it is the devil who breaks him! (Peter had nervous spasms.) Great resonance in Russian society was caused by the so-called "all-conquering and all-drunken councils". For example, at one of such blasphemous "cathedrals" during the "consecration" of Lefort's palace a jester disguised as a priest pumped tobacco smoke and two crossed smoking pipes (!) were used instead of a cross. Many rumors about Peter's disgusting behavior and his "friendship with the unclean" generated secret meetings of the "Neptune Society" held in Sukharev Tower by Scottish Freemason Bruce. At these meetings, in addition to Peter attended by his foreign friends: Lefort, Gordon and others.

         In general we can agree with the Eurasianist Trubetskoy, who wrote: "... military might was bought at the cost of a complete cultural and spiritual enslavement of Russia by Europe".

And here we must emphasize - "spiritual enslavement" ... Trubetskoy believed that "only non-Russians could follow Peter, the foreigners invited to his service, or Russian opportunists, unprincipled careerists, chasing ... for a profit ...". Indeed, the famous "chicks of Petrov's nest" turned out to be mostly incorrigible swindlers and rogues. So it is no coincidence that Peter did not have worthy successors. All this gave Trubetskoy grounds for calling the Russian empire, in which noble Westernism triumphed, "an anti-national monarchy".    

        In all fairness, however, it should be noted that in those extreme conditions, when it was once again necessary to catch up with Europe (in order to defend oneself against it), it was hardly possible to carry out such a grandiose modernization without losses and costs. Although, of course, the costs were large. Chief among them was the spread of the German virus of Protestantism, an ideology foreign to the Orthodox spirit and based on bourgeois individualism, rationalism, and, ultimately, atheism.

          After Peter's death in 1725 there was a natural depression. It was necessary to rest and recover. It took quite a long time to recover - twenty years.   During the reign of Anna Ioannovna (the "Bironovshchina"). Under Elizabeth Petrovna they started to gather their forces. Under Catherine II again ran forward. And here we must emphasize that Catherine II received the title of "Great" not because she really was a great empress, but because she simply "got" in an era of boom - the last maximum of passionarity.  During such periods, it is enough not to interfere with history to move where it wants to move. That is, to have common sense and a certain flexibility. (Which she certainly had.) And the passionate environment will do its job. The second half of the 18th century is a time of great deeds of Potemkin, Rumyantsev, Suvorov, Ushakov, and many other Russian passionaries - conquerors and empire builders. This is the time of the annexation of vast territories in the south of Russia, and the return of the ancestral western lands. 

        However, it should be noted that Catherine, not going directly against the course of Russian history (as tried to do her foolish husband, Peter III), yet, as best she could, the Russian history was harmed. The German Catherine, unlike the Russian Peter, who had acted with a whip and axe, was more subtle in her further Europeanization. Remaining at heart a typical Protestant "she struck a blow to Russian culture with secularization of 80% of the monasteries, which were the repositories of chronicles and ancient icons. She established closed educational institutions, which, according to Gumilyov, "turned the most able Russians into second-rate Europeans. This implied the oblivion of tradition, and it was impossible to make a German out of a Russian." But, we should add, the "enlightened" Catherine, who corresponded with European "philosophers," really wanted to.

        In addition, the mother empress, experiencing an inferiority complex before the cultural West, established the magazine and book business. Private publication of periodicals was allowed, which were arranged on the English liberal-satirical model. Many of them quickly turned into "opposition media" and became breeding grounds for Freemasonry. At the same time, Russia was flooded with European, primarily French, literature. There was almost no Russian literature of our own. And people already learned how to read. As a result, women received soap-and-love novels "for the soul", and men received French enlightenment nihilists "for the mind". On this alien to the Russian spirit of literature, was brought up several generations of our nobility. It turned out, as already said, a bad mixture of "French and Nizhny Novgorod.

        We observe the same motives in the economy. Born and brought up in a Lutheran-bourgeois environment, Catherine began to actively implant capitalism in a country absolutely unprepared for capitalism. As a result, the infamous "economic boom" cost Russia its financial independence (loans from Europe), an imbalanced budget, and a depreciating ruble. (Yes, yes, all this began back then...!) It remains to add that, in addition, huge sums of money were spent on women's pleasures, i.e. on numerous favorites and casual lovers of the empress. It is known that female rulers are usually expensive for any state, but Mother Catherine outdid everyone!

        Also Catherine II, fearing another palace coup, greatly spoiled the nobility, especially its highest stratum - the aristocracy. Not only did she confirm the decree of Peter III, which allowed the nobility not to serve, but she went further, giving the nobility such privileges that expanded their rights to absurd limits. All this greatly weakened the institution of royal power. So much so that her son Paul I tried to impose discipline on the aristocracy (in the German way!), received in return an aristocratic conspiracy, and was assassinated.

        Such consequences are caused by an extraneous ethnic interference in the natural course of ethnogenesis. Let us repeat, not political, not military or even cultural, but ethnic interference, when an alien mentality invades the natural course of things! (Which, alas, historians until Gumilyov almost never paid attention to.) The result was a double blow to Russia. The first - on the Church - the spiritual foundation. The second - on the brains of the nobility - the basis of the state. A hundred years later it backfired.

         So, the third maximum of passionarity in the acmatic phase occurred in our country in the second half of the XVIII - early XIX centuries, from Elizabeth Petrovna to Nicholas I. The last, powerful surge of passionarity, we observe during the Patriotic War of 1812.

         Napoleon's army, the best in the world, outnumbered the Russian army by more than two to one, but was defeated. The French, when they came to Russia, were first surprised and then confused: why were the Russians not fighting by the rules? In Europe, which was in a phase of inertia, they had long been fighting by the rules: only armies fight, the population sits at home and waits to see who wins. (Especially since these were wars within "their" super-ethnos.) But in Russia, simple men suddenly grabbed axes and began to beat the invaders. Moreover, when retreating, the Russians used a tactic completely unfamiliar to Europeans - they burned and destroyed everything that Napoleon's army needed: bread, cattle, fodder, their own homes. Peasants went into the woods in whole villages, became partisans. Moscow, occupied by Napoleon, was set on fire by order of the Russian command.

         The French were so amazed and discouraged by the behavior of the Russians who had taken up the "stick of the people's war" that they found nothing cleverer than to announce to the world that all their troubles were the fault of the terrible "Russian cold".

         We conclude. If we look at the whole acmatic period of XVI - XVIII centuries we will see that during this time a tremendous amount of work has been done, colossal energy has been spent, and great victories have been won! From the small state of Moscow grew a powerful Russian Empire.

        No other nation in history has achieved such a sweep in the development of space. The whole of Siberia was explored in less than a century. By the end of the seventeenth century Russia had firmly entrenched itself on the coast of the Pacific. At the same time after the wars with Poland Eastern (Left Bank) Ukraine was finally annexed. In the 18th century. conquered: The Baltics, Belarus, Right-Bank Ukraine, the Black Sea coast, and the Crimea. In the XIX century. The Caucasus and Central Asia were also joined (by inertia).

         Of course, such a powerful expansion was also facilitated by the geographical position. In contrast to the cramped Western Europe, where excessive passionarians were elbowing and killing each other, our passionarians rushed into the sparsely populated outskirts - the Don, the Volga, in Siberia - up to Alaska. Therefore, in Russia in the acmatic phase was not such a long and intense struggle between the feudal nobility, as in Western Europe. In our country internecine strife was limited to the pogroms of the Oprichnina and the pillage of the Time of Troubles.

        However, in the middle of the 17th century strife shook the spiritual foundation of the state - the Orthodox Church. (And here we can draw a parallel with the history of Byzantium, where severe theological battles with heretics (Ecumenical Councils of the 4th-7th centuries) were in the acmatic phase.)

In 1653, Patriarch Nikon conducted a church reform, whose purpose was to correct the rites and liturgical books according to the Greek (Ecumenical) model. First of all, instead of the bicuspid, the triplet was introduced. In the opinion of a modern person it is no big deal, a reform as a reform: we were baptized with two fingers, now we will be baptized with three. But at that time this caused a storm. The phase was acute, the religious tension was the highest. As a result, faith in Holy Russia - "Third Rome". - faltered. Many people refused to accept the new order, and went into the woods. Thus came the Old Believers. Their spiritual leader was the "rabid protopop" Avvakum. The dissenters responded to persecution by the authorities by self-immolation. They closed in wooden churches and all, from small to large, received "fiery baptism.  During the period 1670-80s about 20,000 people died (!) from "burning" and "self-immolation". After long persecutions, Avvakum himself was also executed. He was burned in a blockhouse.

         Gumilyov refers to the Old Believers as a sub-ethnos. But, obviously, if it was a sub-ethnos, it was very peculiar: the Old Believers were strikingly different from such sub-ethnoses as the Cossacks or the Pomors. A large part of the Old Believers, in fact, fell out not only of the social, but also out of the ethnic system, as they strongly opposed all other Russians. Hiding in the woods (Nepopovtsy), they stopped working for the common cause: they did not serve in the army, they did not want to pay taxes, they considered the Tsar as the Antichrist, and the entire Orthodox world as sinful.

Moreover, the Old Believers took an active part in all anti-government rebellions - from the Roma revolt of 1670 to the revolutions of 1905 - 1917. It is known that in the early 20th century millionaires Morozovs, Mamontovs and Ryabushinskie were sponsors of the revolutionary terrorists, and Guchkov, a native of the Old Believers, led a conspiracy against the Tsar!

        It turned out that together with the dissenters the Russian ethnos not only lost a significant portion of its passionarity (as a system), but also gained the first serious dissidents (in its radical part - the anti-system). Church reform had to pay a heavy price. Again, the split of the Russian ethnos, which led to a series of revolutions of the early 20th century, has its roots in that distant, pre-Petrine era.

        But "the interesting question is ... why was Nikon's policy supported by the majority of the congregation, the cathedral, and Tsar Alexei? From an ethnological point of view, the answer is very simple. Avvakum's supporters defended the superiority of the local version of Orthodoxy, which developed in Northeastern Russia in the 14th century, over the tradition of Ecumenical (Greek) Orthodoxy. "Ancient piety" may have been a platform for narrow Moscow nationalism.  From Avvakum's point of view, the Orthodoxy of the Ukrainians, Serbs, and Greeks was inferior. Otherwise, why else would God punish them by putting them under the rule of non-believers? Avvakum's Orthodoxy, therefore, could not be a binding basis of super-ethnos, as a cluster of close, but different peoples. And the Tsar and the Patriarch were well aware of this subtlety. Therefore, seeking to grow and expand their power, they focused on universal Orthodoxy, in relation to which the Orthodoxy of Russians, and the Orthodoxy of Ukrainians, and the Orthodoxy of Serbs were no more than admissible variations.

        It is in establishing the universal character of Russian Orthodoxy that is the historical merit of Patriarch Nikon."  

        However Nikon himself ended badly. Typical passionary, like Avvakum, he had a strong temper and infinite ambition for power. He wanted to become equal in power to the Tsar. More than that, he wanted to exalt "the priesthood above the kingdom"! Nikon did not want to understand that his idea of theocracy blended in with neither the Orthodox tradition of the "symphony of powers," nor with Russian reality, which required the strengthening of the state. It was a case where excess energy took over reason.  Acting on the passionary principle of "either all or nothing", Nikon left the seat of the patriarch (but did not abandon the patriarchal regalia) and retired to a nearby monastery. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, although he had a nickname "The Silent One," did not go to see him. Nikon's struggle for patriarchy continued for many more years. In the end he was deprived of his ministry and exiled to a northern monastery as a simple monk.      

        Excessive passionarity in the XVII century was aimed not only at wars of conquest, exploration of new territories and clashes on religious grounds. Russian people then loved to rebel. And sometimes even to bandit. Not for nothing XVII century is called "rebellious. This is "Salt", "Copper", "Streletsky" riots in the capital, and the Cossack-peasant war led by Stepan Razin on the Volga. Then, in the XVIII century, a powerful speech of Kondrati Bulavin and terrible revolt of Yemelyan Pugachev.  It was a struggle not for freedom, but for "the will" - it was a riot of the people's element. "On one edge - the axe, on the other - the icon" - told about the Russian man in the hot acme phase.

        All these upheavals put a deep imprint on the character of the Russian people. And when they tell us about the contradictory nature of the Russian soul - anarcho-statist in its structure - we must remember that the roots of this apparent contradiction goes back to that very era. The Russian peasant endured the oppression of the state to the last, but if he threw off the yoke, he turned into a fierce beast - in looting and pogroms he reached frenzy. Then, tired of the rampage, the repentant peasant surrendered to the authorities and, after a whipping, was again harnessed to the same yoke. The most disobedient, i.e. passionate, either lost their heads, or fled further - to the southern and eastern outskirts, to Siberia, all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Where "to the God is high, to the Tsar is far..." (It is to the question of "spontaneous colonization" of the free lands).

        So, using Gumilyov's methods, we can state that in the revolts and disturbances of the XVII-XVIII centuries there is a clash of two forces, two passionate potentials - the state (the ruling noble class) and the most active part of the people (mostly Cossacks). The state in this struggle naturally defeats semi-anarchic voluntarism - it is stronger.

        However, already in the 19th century the picture changes. The state begins to give up its position - the passionate tension in the ruling class decreases sharply (in the long, historical time). If in 1812, Russian nobles are still great at fighting, by the end of the 19th century, they are no longer the same.

Instead of serving the Fatherland diligently, or engaging in household chores, many noblemen become bored and ask "Russian" questions: "Who is to blame?", "What is to be done?", "Where is to go"? They stop believing in God and begin to believe in "progress." And some even believe in "liberation." (Like, for example, the Russian Westerner Turgenev.) But these are still the most active. But most of them end up ingloriously on Oblomov's sofas or in Ranevsky's abandoned gardens. As you know, the fish rots from the head.

        In the end, state power loses its former strength, and the old noble elite naturally swept away by a powerful passionate wave that rose in 1917. But we skipped ahead. This refers to the next phase.

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