Tokarev, Sergey Alexandrovich

Born in the family of the director of the gymnasium. In 1917, he began working as a teacher at the school. In 1921 he entered the Faculty of Social Sciences , and in 1925 he graduated from it. Since 1927 he worked as a researcher at the Central Museum of Ethnology, where in 1932 he headed the sector of the North. He also worked as a researcher at the Moscow Public Library of Teachers of the Communist University of the East named after I.V. Stalin (KUTV), the State Academy of the History of Material Culture (GAIMK) and the Central Anti-Religious Museum . During the years of evacuation, he headed the Department of History of the Abakan Teachers' Institute .

In 1943 he was invited to the Institute of Ethnography (now the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology ) created in the system of the USSR Academy of Sciences . N. N. Miklouho-Maclay as head of the sector of the peoples of America , Australia and Oceania . Since 1961, he headed the sector of ethnography of the peoples of foreign Europe. At the same time from 1956 to 1973 he headed the Department of Ethnography of the History Department of Moscow State University .

Sister Vera (1902-1994) - a teacher of singing, in the 1920s she was the first wife of the literary critic G.N. Pospelov . The daughter of Eugene is a historian-religious scholar ^[1] .

In 1935 he received a Ph.D. in historical sciences without defending a dissertation. In 1940 he defended his doctoral dissertation "The Social System of the Yakuts in the XVII-XVIII centuries." In 1943 he was awarded the title of professor.

Starting with the ethnography of Turkic-speaking peoples ( Altai , Khakass , Yakut ) S. A. Tokarev later became interested in the social organization and cultural history of Australian Aborigines , Native American peoples , ethnography of the peoples of Foreign Europe, ethnogenesis, material and spiritual culture of the peoples of the USSR. Such a variety of scientific interests was determined by the universally recognized encyclopedia of the scientist.

Another area of ​​scientific interest of S. A. Tokarev was the history of Russian and foreign ethnography. The result of his many years of work was a series of monographs, which still have not lost their significance.

An important place in the life of a scientist was occupied by publishing, focused on the interests of a wide range of readers. Under his editorship were the works of numerous foreign authors: J. J. Fraser , Te Rank Hiroa (Peter Buck), A. Elkin, J. Lips, T. Heyerdahl , P. Worsley and many others. Tokarev was a member of the editorial boards of the multi-volume editions “Tales and Myths of the Peoples of the East”, “ Studies on Folklore and Mythology of the East ”, the 20-volume “ Countries and Peoples ”, scientific editor and author of articles in the two-volume encyclopedia “ Myths of the World's People ”, one of the authors " Atheistic Dictionary ."

In his writings, Tokarev relies on colossal ethnographic material and considers the features and content of religious beliefs, the conditions for their appearance and development, and also describes the historical circumstances of the emergence and distinctive features of various religions, their influence on the formation of the worldview at different stages of the evolution of society. In addition, the merit of S. A. Tokarev can be considered a discussion in the framework of his work and many issues of the sociology of religion. Tokarev's ideas influenced the formation of the views of such famous ethnologists and religious scholars as T.V. Zherebina , L. B. Zasedateleva, Yu. V. Knorozov , M. G. Pismanik .

Sam S.A. Tokarev called his scientific means the comparative ethnographic (historical-ethnographic) method and in the article “On the cult of the mountains and its place in the history of religion” he contrasted it with the semiotic method of V.N. Toporov . According to Tokarev, the most acceptable approach to the analysis of religion is the materialistic approach: on the example of the study of the mountain mythology, he reveals a direct dependence of the forms of religious and mythological representations on the historically and environmentally determined living conditions of people and on the forms of their material activity. The semiotic approach, which, in turn, refers to the identification of relationships in sign systems, is limited to a purely speculative level, and the researcher resorting to this approach risks not talking about the specific content of concepts, but about nominal notation. For example, revealing the most abstract connection between the concepts of “mountain” and “tree of life” leads to neglect of the actual content of these concepts, which, from Tokarev’s point of view, hinders the understanding of individual forms of the history of religion.

The system of classification of religion created by Tokarev is called morphological. Analyzing the constituent elements of historical religions, the researcher notes that they can be reduced to the primitive beliefs and cults of those tribal groups that made up the ethnogenetic canvas of this nation or state. The basic principles of the morphological classification of religion are as follows:

1. It should be built on the basis of the essential attributes of religion.
2. The main of the classification features should be those that are more visual, easier to objectively observe and analyze.
3. Classification should be appropriate to religion as a manifestation of human social life.
4. The classification of religious forms should be historical, that is, it should show the correlation of forms of religion not in statics, but in dynamics, in development, in historical connection between themselves.
5. The classification should not be purely formal, it should lead the researcher to the question of the genesis of individual forms of religion, of their material conditionality.

Based on the above principles and a broad empirical base, Tokarev proposes the following concept: “Apparently, the most ancient forms of religion can be attributed to:

• totemism ;
• witchcraft , malicious rites;
• quackery ;
• erotic rites;
• funeral cult ;
• early tribal cult ( initiation );
• field cult;
• family-clan cult of shrines and patrons;
• patriarchal family-tribal cult of ancestors ;
• shamanism ;
• nagalism (cult of personal patron spirits);
• cult of secret unions;
• cult of leaders;
• cult of tribal god;
• agricultural cults. "

As part of a study of the genesis of religion, Tokarev raises the question of the nature and origin of magic . According to his works, magic is one of the essential, organic parts of any religion, moreover, it is the most tenacious aspect of religious beliefs. The objective content and meaning of magical acts is completely different, heterogeneous, but combines them and allows us to distinguish the subjective psychological factor from other forms of religion. The specific roots of different types of magic are in the corresponding types of human activity. They arose and persisted when a person felt helpless in front of the forces of nature or in front of social forces.

The source of the cult , according to Tokarev, is fear. He states that socially mediated fear of the dead creates the basis for the cult of ancestors. Fear of the deceased, from the point of view of the researcher, is not a biological fear of death, but awe of those whom they feared in life. This explains the rites of "neutralizing the dead": binding, breaking bones, etc. .. Fear marks the helplessness of a person in front of the outside world and is developed in personifications: spiritualization of the dead, evil spirits, and subsequently gods.

Together with colleagues S.P. Tolstov , N.N. Cheboksarov , B.O. Dolgikh , V.I. Chicherov - he formed an ethnographic education system, thanks to which the Department of Ethnography of Moscow State University for a long time received the status of a leading educational institution in this field. Tokarev taught fundamental courses: “History of primitive society and the foundations of ethnography”, “History of religions”, “Historiography of ethnography”, “Ethnography of Australia and Oceania”, “Ethnography of America”, “Ethnography of Foreign Europe” and a number of others.

• 2 orders of the Red Banner of Labor (06/10/1945; 12/29/1979 ^[2] )
• Order of Friendship of Peoples (1975)
• medals
• USSR State Prize (1987, posthumous) - for the 12-volume work “Countries and Peoples” (1978-1985)

Copyright Monographs

Editing and participating in collective works

Articles

The author of more than 200 articles and introductions to various historical and ethnographic publications.

• Tokarev S. A. Problems of periodization of the history of religion // Questions of scientific atheism . Vol. 20. Actual problems of the history of atheism and religion / Redkol. A.F. Okulov (ed.); Acad. societies. Sciences of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Institute of Scientific Atheism. - M .: Thought , 1976. - S. 62-87. - 327 s. - 19,200 copies.

• An article on the IEA RAS website
• An article on the site “Domestic Ethnographers and Anthropologists. XX century "