Personality in history

The initial awareness of the place of man in antiquity was based almost exclusively on the mythological basis, in particular, it sanctified and fixed the well-established social practices: the divine purpose of the pharaohs and other rulers of the states of the Ancient East ; mediation between gods and people, which was assigned to the caste or layer of priests ; the definition of service to rulers is due only to officials and warriors (for example, the ancient Egyptian teachings to pupils of scribes, in which the privileged position of the scribe in the society at that time), and of unfree labor to slaves , are known. At the same time, man acted only as the smallest particle of the indivisible social whole of the ancient Eastern societies. However, even the mythological consciousness endowed a number of legendary or semi-legendary characters with exceptional abilities and special purpose ( Gilgamesh , Prometheus ), expressed an initial understanding of the variability of human roles on the scene of history.

A significant change in the historical consciousness occurred in the era of antiquity , in particular during the times of ancient Greece . A rich and rich “spatial history” of more than 600 state entities within a relatively small space and time (it is believed that only Aristotle with a group of students studied the state of 158 states), the transience of political life (from monarchy to democracy or, on the contrary, from democracy to oligarchy ) , the extreme intensity of cultural and spiritual life led to the formation of the ancient type of person - a citizen , which was characterized by a variety of social roles. Therefore, the personality, although it was considered as part of the ancient Cosmos , was already perceived as an amateur being. Consequently, the predetermination of the habitual scenarios of being was noticeably transformed, since it was increasingly associated with personal qualities and traits of a particular personality , its actions and actions that were condemned or, on the contrary, chanted, were recognized as exemplary, worthy of imitation in the written tradition. For example, the actions of the strategist Pericles are often identified with the whole era of the heyday of Athenian democracy - the “times of Pericles” (“the age of Pericles”). At the same time, personal life scenarios were associated with certain socio-and ethnocultural dimensions that reflected the conflicts of the Hellenic and barbaric worlds, political and cultural traditions, social practices, and the like. For example, the description by Herodot of the murder by the Scythians of his king Skil , who borrowed the ancient Greek customs and thereby trampled upon the local culture, is well known. The mixture of cultural traditions in the era of Hellenism and the Roman era markedly changed the habitual life scenarios of the personality, which sometimes reached the heights of power from the lowest layers. So, the future Roman emperor Guy Aurelius Valery Diocletian was the son of a freedman, that is, a slave who was given freedom. In the era of antiquity, certain canons of the coverage of the acts of prominent personalities, as a rule, emperors, kings, rulers, were formed. For example, Plutarch, with his famous comparative life stories and Guy Suetonius Tranquil, with the work of the life of the Caesars, introduced moralistic reasoning, instructive excursions, aesthetic sketches, pathetic inclusions, anecdotal details, etc. into the written tradition.

A new coordinate system for understanding the place and role of the individual in history has introduced Christianity . In fact, Christianity divided the world of history into God's and human levels: sacred , sacred and ordinary, profane; in particular, it transformed the historical consciousness itself, which became teocentric . The life path of the individual was considered, interpreted and evaluated from sacred canons. Therefore, a special kind of church literature appeared - hagiography - biographies of canonized secular and clergymen, accompanied by Christian teachings, prayers, and the like. In particular, on the territory of Kievan Rus, there were spread both transferable Byzantine and South Slavic hagiographies ( Theodore Studite , Stefan Surozhsky , Ioann Gottsky , etc.), as well as local lives of Princes Boris and Gleb , Grand Duke of Kiev Vladimir Svyatoslavich , Grand Duchess of St. Petersburg and the Holy Fears , St. Petersburg and St. Petersburg , St. Petersburg , St. Petersburg , St. Petersburg , St. Petersburg and St. Petersburg , St. Petersburg , St. Petersburg , St. Petersburg , St. Petersburg , St. Petersburg , St. Petersburg and St. Petersburg , St. Glavsky , Grand Duke of Kiev Vladimir Svyatoslavich , Great St. etc. In the end, the essence of a medieval person was seen in that part of the spiritual, God's fire, which overcomes the limits of the physical shell and sanctifies it. During the Middle Ages , the version of the life scenarios of the then personality, which largely depended on its place in the estate hierarchy, significantly narrowed. The figures of European monarchs , prosperous aristocracy, the highest strata of the clergy, whose actions were most fully covered in the chronicle tradition, came to the fore. But the lower classes of the population occupied the position of a “silent majority” (the term of the Russian medievalist A. Gurevich), the names of which some representatives only occasionally and accidentally made their way into annals , chronographs and chronicles.

A new fracture of historical consciousness occurred in the Renaissance , which was distinguished by the formation of individuality in culture and spirituality, which seeks to express its “I”. At the same time, the reflective components of socio-humanitarian knowledge were spread, thanks to which a person sought to comprehend individual actions and collective reactions at the forefront of history, in particular their retrospectiveness , the distinction of different historical eras ( F. Biondo , L. Valla , F. Guicciardini , N. Machiavelli , etc.) . Moreover, the purpose of history, along with philosophy and rhetoric, was seen in bringing up, developing personality. Therefore, the person appeared as a spiritual and cultural entity, logically and rationally thinking and occupying a certain position in society, that is, is a social person. At the same time, the group consciousness of the intellectuals of the Renaissance epoch arose, which united the common cultural, spiritual and mental components of consciousness. It is believed that the very concept of “personality” appeared in Western Europe not earlier than the 17th century as a result of an awareness of the social and spiritual nature of man, more precisely, of her social and cultural practices. In Russia, the term was introduced by the historian N. Karamzin .

In the era of the Enlightenment, man was perceived in the context of natural-law thinking, in particular, the universal Mind and Naturalistic Right . Therefore, the outstanding figures of the past were considered from the perspective of moralistic examples or pragmatic strategies of behavior, since history had to become a peculiar teacher of life. Therefore, the attention of well-known educational thinkers and intellectuals focused on the problems of the life of an individual, or on the ideal tasks of all mankind. But the unique phenomena and controversial figures of the past mostly remained outside the limits of rationalistic historiography. However, late educational ideas raised the age-old foundations of estate and hierarchical society. They led to discussions about the conflict of the “natural state” with civilization , that is, the primitive man and the developing personality, the spread of the ideals of personal autonomy, the social environment of human existence, the people's government (democracy), etc. In general, educational criticism was directed against obscurantism , ignorance, prejudices, scholastic dogmas, with which moral virtues of a person were associated (for example, excessive asceticism ). But the opinion about personal merit was maintained as a criterion of the honor and dignity of a human citizen. In fact, the Enlightenment fostered the ideal of the “educational owner” . A supporter of such views was the famous Ukrainian church leader Feofan (Prokopovich) . In the end, thanks to the educational ideas of the medieval Citizen turned into a citizen. And the reception of the historical Man in time and space within the framework of educational understanding of the world was characterized by the monotony and schematism of the presentation, for example, this was his idea of cosmopolitanism . However, skepticism about ideas of the homogeneity of human nature as part of the general universe, which was represented by the YHG preromantika, was already growing within the limits of Late Propagative rationalism . Herder , J.-J. Rousseau et al.

In the post-Napoleonic time of European history, romanticism spread, which produced a transfer of priorities from the self-contained cult of Reason to the originality and plurality of cultural-national lifestyles, from the apology of the immutability of the historical person to the ubiquitous color of the place and time typical of each era, and therefore the individual. And most importantly - in the field of romantic systems of world outlook there turned out to be a person with diverse and unique manifestations of national and social being, original, individual reactions, which finally destroyed the logical and universal schemes. Consequently, a new personality type entered European historiography - a romantic hero who often had a certain messianic purpose (to save the people from foreign invaders, to overcome the injustice of the nobility, to protect the ethno-national identity and the like). However, if the idea of ​​awareness of the actions of the personality circulated in the educational views, then in the romantic view the thesis about its instinctive aspirations was quite often present, the domination of the color of place and time was imposed. An example of this approach is the “History of the Dukes of Burgundy from the House of Valois” by the French historian P. de Barant. A number of historical concepts appeared that interpreted the role of history in the individual in the proper spirit, for example, the famous vision of the “cult of heroes” of the English philosopher T. Carlyle . There were questions about the correlation of the rhythm of being, of historical time, not only with the mass, collective hero - the people / nation, but also with the life of an individual, her complex outlook and reactions.

The fundamental transformation of ideas about the role of the individual in history is associated with the wave of the first positivism of O. Comte and G. Spencer , who advanced the thesis of extreme faith due to knowledge and human reason, which is supposedly able to comprehend all the secrets of nature and social development. Consequently, the life scenarios and social practices of the individual in the positivist worldview obeyed the logic of general social laws or determinism . According to positivist strategies of action, in the end, the social practices of the individual should be reduced to the corresponding trends, factors and prerequisites. For example, the well-known thesis of O. Comte about the “history without names” is quite common, although such an idea was not very popular among historians of the positivists.

At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, European sociogumanitariness reverted to the idealistic, irrational strategies for explaining historical being, and by and large to the intuitive way of thinking. There was a personification of historical personalities who now represented spontaneous desires, instincts, collective will, and emotional experiences of certain social communities in the neo-romantic views of history that gained incredible popularity among "non-state" or "offended" nations.

In the 1st third of the 20th century, sociogumanitariness got into the power fields of neo-Kantian and sociological branches, which significantly changed the palette of ideas about the personality and its role in historical spaces. Opposite variations of such ideas were usually embodied in the concepts of singularism (“social atomism”), that is, the interpretation of society as a set of individuals, and universalism (“collectivism”), which interpreted societies as communities that cannot be reduced to individual individuals. With the spread in the 1920s. the dogmas of Marxism and Marxism-Leninism in the USSR moved to the concept of "mass man" included in certain processes or phenomena. During the time of the Stalinist regime, the social practices of the individual were leveled to the well-known model of the “social screw” of the general system. After 1945, philosophical trends ( existentialism , personalism , etc.) spread, aimed at the comprehensive disclosure of the cultural and spiritual potential of the individual, in particular with regard to the reappraisal of its social practices, life scenario, eventually even minor roles (so-called micro roles) on historical stage.

At the turn of the 1950-60s. The anthropological turn made a powerful influence on Western historical thought, which forced humanities, in particular historians, to consider personality in the newest contexts: the construction of relevant institutions and structures, the environment of existence and even consciousness, mentality, hierarchy of values. Now, in Western sociogumanitaristics, issues related to discursive practices, role models, personal lifestyles of the individual in the post-industrial and globalist era, in particular with a postmodern turn, are intensely debated. The postmodern situation predetermines the unprecedented synchronization of historical time, at least its subjective temporal dimensions. An example of this is the simultaneous coexistence of individuals in a single globalistic space, included in various temporary roles: the Shari'a Court and international space missions , jihad and genetic research , caste separation and total cosmopolitanism associated with the primitive rituals of Aboriginal social practices and the use of the Internet, etc. .

• O. V. Yas . Singularity in the History // Encyclopedias of the History of Ukraine : 10 tons / editor: V.A. Smoliy (head) and in. ; Institute of History of Ukraine NAS of Ukraine . - K. : Sciences. Dumka , 2010. - T. 7: Ml - O. - p. 665. - ISBN 978-966-00-1061-1 .