DICTIONARY: Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere, Gumilev

Explanatory Dictionary of Concepts and Terms, (I should have uploaded this a long time ago - my apologies.)

In 1976 the author of this book wrote: "Unfortunately, we cannot immediately offer precise definitions, which, generally speaking, greatly facilitate research, but we at least have the opportunity to make primary generalizations. And this was quite natural: to give a definition is to reduce the phenomenon to simpler and more obvious forms, reflecting the patterns of its development.

However, in the mid-seventies, the regularities of ethnogenesis had yet to be described and understood. The first three issues of our work were devoted to such an empirical generalization. It is only now, almost ten years later, that we can define the basic terms and concepts of ethnology.

The need for such definitions is obvious. First, it is necessary to define the basic concepts of ethnology in order to develop it further.  Secondly, definitions are necessary in order to avoid possible future misunderstandings with opponents when interpreting the basic concepts of ethnology. Finally, thirdly, ethnology has evolved over the past decade and already requires clarifications in the conceptual apparatus reflecting this development. In this sense also the following definitions, of course, do not claim to be definitive.

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Abyss - an emptiness or vacuum that is not part of the material world.

Acmatic phase - fluctuations of passionarity tension in the ethnic system after the rise phase at the maximum level of passionarity for a given system.

Acts - deeds, which are the result of free choice (conscious activity) of a person (as opposed to phenomena).

Actualism - a sense of time in which the present is perceived as the only objective reality.

Adaptation in ethnogenesis, is the adaptation of an ethnos to the landscape, which takes place through the development of altered behavioral stereotypes.

Aging - loss of inertia of the passionary push in the ethnic system at the personal and ethnic level.

Annihilation - disintegration at the subatomic level with irreversible loss of light energy going into the intergalactic vacuum.

Anthropogenic succession - gradual change of the host landscape, introduced by the adapting ethnos, occurring simultaneously in the same landscape region and manifesting itself in history as a mosaic integrity.

Anti-egoistic or altruistic ethics - ethics in which an individual's ethnic collective interests take precedence over his or her own.

Anti-system - systemic integrity of people with a negative worldview.

Attraction - attraction to abstract values of truth, beauty, and justice.

Band of freedom is a set of situations in which free choice is possible. This is where an individual's right to choose a developmental trend is exercised (see Biopolarity).

Beauty - a complex of forms liked without prejudice.

Behavioral imperative - ideal principle of ethnic collective's attitude towards the individual, whose predominance in the stereotype of ethnos' behavior is connected with the phase of ethnogenesis or the change of phases.

Behavioral imperative is positive - the desire to complicate the system.

Behavioral stereotype - is a time-varying set of behavioral skills of members of the ethnic system, transmitted by signal heredity.

Biochemical Energy - see Biochemical Energy of Living Matter.

Biochemical energy of living matter - free energy produced by living organisms in the process of metabolism.

Biosphere - a shell of the Earth consisting of living matter and the products of its activity, which has anti-entropic properties.

Biosphere's fluctuations - localized in space and time changes of biosphere's living substance energy amount as a result of passionate shocks.

Bipolarity - possibility of development of systems in two directions - towards complication and towards simplification with limit in the vacuum.

Chimera - the coexistence of two or more alien super-ethnic ethnic groups in one ecological niche.

Complication - increase in the density of systemic connections in the ethnic system.

Complimentarity - positive (negative) - the feeling of subconscious mutual sympathy (antipathy) of individuals, which determines the division into "their own" and "alien".

Conscious impulse - an egoism that requires reason and will (as opposed to attractionality) to realize itself as a goal.

Consortium - a group of people united by one historical destiny, often ephemerally for a short time.

Constellation in a super-ethnos - the similarity of the tendencies of development of ethnoses within a super-ethnos due to origin from a single passionate push.

Contact potential difference - is the difference in passionarity (biochemical energy) that occurs when two or more super-ethnoses come into contact with each other.

Conviction - is a group of individuals with the same characteristic life and family ties, the lowest taxa of the ethnic hierarchy.

Creativity - the orientation of behavior arising in a population as a result of a passionate impulse.

Cultural history - the collective memory of ethnic groups about their cultural traditions.

Death is a mode of existence - of biospheric phenomena in which there is a separation of space from time.

Diachronic scale - a system of time counting from the triggering moments of different ethnic systems for their comparison by phases of ethnogenesis.

Discreteness of ethnic history - discontinuity of cause-and-effect relations, determining the beginnings and ends of ethnogenesis.

Displacement or result of contact - disruption of the programmed course of ethnogenesis process due to external influence.

Diversity of the ethnosphere is the inequality of the energy potentials introduced into the historical time by the passionarial impulses.

Egoistic ethics - ethics in which the interests of the individual and his or her family take precedence over the interests of the ethnic collective.

Entropic process - irreversible process of energy loss.

Ethnic contact - is a process of interaction between two or more ethnic systems of the same or different ranks of ethnic hierarchy.

Ethnic contacts - in the aspect of the ethnic field is the interference of the vibrations of ethnic fields.

Ethnic Diagnosis - A way of distinguishing ethnic groups by stereotype of behavior and affiliation with an ethnic tradition.

Ethnic divergence - disintegration of ethnic system integrity with the loss of a sense of complementarity at a given level of ethnic hierarchy.

Ethnic dominance - a phenomenon or set of phenomena (religious, ideological, military, domestic), which determines the transition of the initial ethnocultural diversity for the process of ethnogenesis into a purposeful uniformity.

Ethnic field - is a field of behavior and attraction of the members of the ethnic system that emerges on the basis of the passionary field.

Ethnic hierarchy - is a dynamic co-subordination of ethnic systems of different taxonomic levels (ranks) in the process of ethnogenesis.

Ethnic history - is a function of ethnogenesis and ethnic contacts over periods where events are recorded by sources.

Ethnic homeostasis - or homeostatic level or static state of the ethnos is a stable state of the ethnic system (structure) in which fluctuations of biochemical energy - passionarity take place within limited limits, determining ethnolandscape equilibrium and absence of change of phases of ethnogenesis.

Ethnic regeneration - restoration of ethnic structure after upheavals.

Ethnic stereotype structure is a strictly defined norm of relations between a) an ethnic group and an individual; b) individuals among themselves: c) subethnos among themselves; d) ethnos and subethnos among themselves.

Ethnic substratum - the original ethnic components (two or more) integrated due to a passionate push into a new ethnos.

Ethnic system's dynamic state - is such a state of ethnic system in which, due to a passionary push, fluctuations of biochemical energy - passionarity lead to a change of phases of ethnogenesis and an active transformation of the ethno-landscape environment (as opposed to homeostasis).

Ethnic tradition - the sum of behavioral stereotypes transmitted by the mechanism of conditioned reflex.

Ethnocenosis - is a geobiocenosis in which the development of a given ethnos occurs, mediated by the process of its adaptation.

Ethnogenesis - the moment of emergence and the whole process of disappearance of an ethnic system under the influence of entropic process of loss of passionarity.

Ethnogenesis in the aspect of ethnic field - the dynamics of oscillatory movement of ethnic field.

Ethnology - geographical science that studies the formation of the Earth's ethnosphere as a result of ethnogenesis processes in historical epoch.

Ethnopsychology - is a science about the change of ethnos' stable attitudes, manifested in ethnic history, depending on the phase of ethnogenesis.

Ethnos - is a naturally formed collective of people based on an original stereotype of behavior, existing as an energy system (structure), opposing all other such collectives, based on a sense of complementarity.

Ethnosphere - is the Earth's envelope, which is a mosaic of anthroposphere ethnically composed of the whole totality of the Earth's ethnocenoses.

Event - the breaking of systemic connections.

Falsehood - a conscious distortion of the truth.

Futurism - a sense of time in which the future is perceived as the only objective reality.

Genetic "drift", is the phenomenon of dispersal of the passionary trait outside the population by random connections.

Geobiocenosis, or biocenosis: a regular complex of forms, historically, ecologically and physiologically connected into a single whole by common conditions of existence.

Geochorus: an area of the earth's surface that is homogeneous in its ecological features and differs in these features from adjacent areas.

Harmonious individuals - individuals whose passionary impulse is equal in value to the impulse of the instinct of self-preservation.

Historical destiny - chains of events causally connected by their internal logic. 

Historical time - the process of managing energy potentials between the elements of the ethnosphere, disrupted by passionary thrusts.

History of anthropogenic landscapes - the history of interaction between society and nature through the mechanism of the ethnic system.

Ideal - a distant prediction perceived intuitively.

Incubation period - part of the rise phase from the moment of the passionary impulse or the beginning of genetic drift to the emergence of ethnos as a new ethno-social system.

Incubation period explicit - that part of the incubation period in which the growth of passionary tension already causes contemporaries to fix events, but does not yet lead to ethnic divergence and the emergence of a new ethno-social system.

Incubation period latent - that part of the incubation period in which the growth of passionary tension does not lead to the fixation of events by contemporaries.

Inertial phase or inertia phase - a gradual decrease in the ethnic system's passionarial tension after the phase of overturning.

Instinct impulse - see Instinctive behavior impulse.

Instinctive behavioral impulse (instinct) - an innate behavioral impulse aimed at personal and species self-preservation.

Justice - the conformity of morality and ethics.

Knot Phase (Fracture) - is a sharp decrease in the level of passionarial tension after the acmatic phase, accompanied by a split of the ethnic field.

Level of ethnic contact - the rank of contacting systems in the ethnic hierarchy.

Logic of events - the cause-and-effect relationships between events, determining the further course of the events themselves.

Measure of ethnos' stability - is an indicator of the density of ethnic ties of different weights and signs (in the cybernetic sense), determining the degree of ethnos' resistance to external influences.

Memorial phase - is the state of ethnicity after the phase of obscuration, when its individual representatives retain a cultural tradition.

Mosaic ethnos - heterogeneity of internal structure, necessary to maintain ethnic unity.

Negative behavioral imperative - is an aspiration to simplify the system.

Negative worldview - attitude to the material world, expressed in an aspiration to simplify systems.

Nostalgia - the feeling of incompatibility with a different ethnic field.

Obscuration phase - is a decrease in the passionary tension below the level of homeostasis, accompanied by either the disappearance of ethnicity as a system or its transformation into a relic.

Overexertion - purposeful effort necessary and sufficient to disturb the aggregate state of the environment.

Passionaries - individuals whose passionary impulse of behavior exceeds the value of the impulse of the instinct of self-preservation.

Passionarity as a characteristic of behavior - an excess of biochemical energy of living matter, generating sacrifice for an illusory goal.

Passionarity as energy - an excess of biochemical energy of living matter, the opposite of the instinct vector and determining the ability to supercharge.

Passionary field - the field due to the presence of biochemical energy of passionarity.

Passionary impulse - see Passionary impulse of behavior.

Passionary impulse of behavior or passionate impulse - behavioral impulse directed against the instinct of personal and species self-preservation.

Passionary induction - the phenomenon of transformation of behavior of harmonious individuals and sub-passionarians in the presence of passionarians under the influence of the passionary field.

Passionary push - is a micro-mutation that causes the appearance of a passionary trait in a population, and leads to the emergence of new ethnic systems in certain regions.

Passionary Tension - see Level of Passionary Tension of Ethnic System.

Passionary trait - recessive genetic trait that causes increased absorption by individuals of biochemical energy from the external environment and release of this energy in the form of work.

Passionism - a sense of time in which the past is accepted as the only objective reality.

Persistence (isolates, static ethnic groups, relics) - ethnic systems in ethnic homeostasis. These terms are synonymous in the context of the work.

Phase of ethnogenesis - is a set of such levels of passionary tension of the system, each of which determines the dominance of a single behavioral imperative for the whole set of levels in a given direction of ethnogenesis process.

Phenomena - are the results of the biosphere's influence on human and ethnic collective behavior.

Place-development or homeland of ethnos - is a unique combination of landscape elements, where ethnos first formed as a system.

Population: a set of individuals inhabiting a certain territory for a number of generations, within which free interbreeding takes place.

Positive worldview - is an attitude towards the material world, expressed in an aspiration to complicate systems.

Principle of uncertainty in ethnology - is an objective limitation of the researcher's ability to observe the sequence of events, which allows describing them only in one aspect: either social or ethnic (natural).

Proximity aberration, is an exaggeration of the grandiosity of recent events compared to earlier ones.

Range aberration, is the blurring of distant phenomena, which creates a false impression of their insignificance.

Reasoning - the ability to freely choose a reaction under conditions that allow it.

Rhythm of the ethnic field - is the frequency of fluctuations of the ethnic field, to which the ethnic system has adapted through stereotypical behavior.

Rise phase - is a period of stable increase in the level of system's passionary tension due to a passionary push or genetic drift.

Self-regulation of ethnicity is the ability of ethnic system to evolve in the direction that ensures the reduction of biochemical energy expenditure of passionarity while maintaining the existence and adaptation to the environment. 

Signal heredity - transfer of skills to offspring through conditional imitation reflex, which forms behavioral stereotype as the highest form of adaptation.

Simplification - a decrease in the density of system ties in the ethnic system.

State aberration, is the observer's perception of the dynamics of a long-running process as a set of static states due to the slowness of human perception of the process.

Static sense of time - a perception in which time is ignored as reality.

Sub-ethnos - ethnic system, which is an element of ethnos structure.

Subpassionarians - are individuals whose passionary impulse is less than the impulse of the instinct of self-preservation.

Symbiosis - coexistence of two or more ethnic groups in one region, when each occupies its own ecological niche.

System's level of passionarity tension, or passionarity tension - is the amount of passionarity available in the ethnic system, divided by the number of individuals that make up the ethnic system.

The logic of events - the cause-and-effect relationships between events, determining the further course of the events themselves.

Tradition of culture - is the sum of knowledge and perceptions transmitted in the course of time from ethnos to ethnos.

Triggering moment - the moment of the passionate push in the absolute timeline, which is the point of reference "0" for the diachronic scale.

Truthfulness - a judgment adequate to a given sum of observed facts, where the error does not exceed a given tolerance.

Vacuum zero oscillations - the instantaneous process of the emergence and annihilation of virtual particles in a vacuum (the void).

Vacuum. - See Abyss.

Variation in ethnic contact - differences in the way ethnic systems interact.

Will - the ability to produce actions according to freely made choices.

World-perception - the passage of the impulse of passionarity (biochemical energy) reflected from the vacuum and fixed in the consciousness, expressed in relation to ideal abstract values and the material world.

Xenia - lit. "guest" - a variant of symbiosis in which a small group of representatives of a different ethnos lives in isolation among the aborigines and does not mix with them.