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There's a lot of talk about how civilisation lifecycles lately, and articles, books coming out, and yet one of the best works in this space goes completely unno

There's a lot of talk about how civilisation lifecycles lately, and articles, books coming out, and yet one of the best works in this space goes completely unnoticed and unread, it seems, at least in anglosphere: Lev Gumilyov's Ethnogenesis. May be it's because he worked in Soviet Union, where there were not much interaction between historians on different sides of the Iron Curtain, or may be there's still no good translation to English; anyway, if you're interested in these matters, I highly recommend his books and theories. I'm absolutely not saying that he's right in everything he says, of course — there's plenty of backwards or outright bigoted opinions in his works — but his theory is so unorthodox and interesting that it should at least be an important part of the conversation.

082349872349872 6y ago
Could you please summarise "passionarnost, ethnos, and phases of ethnogenesis" for those of us who might be willing to read more if we were convinced there was a there, there?
- golergka 6y ago
  I'll try, although I don't think I'm qualified enough. First of all, what he's talking about is usually described as different stages of _civilisations_ in english literature. However, he goes into much length to explain why he talks about ethnoses instead: in sub sense, it's a different definition, and a group which is smaller than what you usually call a "civilisation", so this distinction is important. It's derived from the word "ethnic", but again, he's very particular that it's not exactly the same as ethnical group in a genetical sense, although one usually correlates to another. In general, it's very hard to summarise his work, because he goes into a lot of details that are really important to understand his ideas correctly. Unfortunately, it's very easy to misunderstand them, and sometimes in some very awful ways, if you just assume that the words he uses have meanings that you usually ascribe to them. Then, he describes different stages of lifecycle of ethnos. Once again, there are stages that you would expect, from birth to death, but he adds a lot of detail, describing how an ethnos can be both in a dynamic arc going from beginning to an end, but also in a static, balanced state that can continue, without outside interference, for an eternity. He's a historian with a deep knowledge of very wide array of different human eras and places, and draws a lot of examples to make his point from all over the human history. After that, he tries to describe the underlying forces that influence this process. He goes through all possible theories and finally arrives at his concept of "passionarnost" (derived from passion) to describe the cultural energy that drives these transformations. After reading other contemporary books on the matter, such as Guns, Germs and Steel, and Neil Ferguson's Civilization, as well as dozens of articles and blog posts discussing these things, I think that his analysis and thoughts are one of the most interesting and engaging ideas about it.

082349872349872 6y ago

Could you please summarise "passionarnost, ethnos, and phases of ethnogenesis" for those of us who might be willing to read more if we were convinced there was a there, there?

golergka 6y ago
I'll try, although I don't think I'm qualified enough. First of all, what he's talking about is usually described as different stages of _civilisations_ in english literature. However, he goes into much length to explain why he talks about ethnoses instead: in sub sense, it's a different definition, and a group which is smaller than what you usually call a "civilisation", so this distinction is important. It's derived from the word "ethnic", but again, he's very particular that it's not exactly the same as ethnical group in a genetical sense, although one usually correlates to another. In general, it's very hard to summarise his work, because he goes into a lot of details that are really important to understand his ideas correctly. Unfortunately, it's very easy to misunderstand them, and sometimes in some very awful ways, if you just assume that the words he uses have meanings that you usually ascribe to them. Then, he describes different stages of lifecycle of ethnos. Once again, there are stages that you would expect, from birth to death, but he adds a lot of detail, describing how an ethnos can be both in a dynamic arc going from beginning to an end, but also in a static, balanced state that can continue, without outside interference, for an eternity. He's a historian with a deep knowledge of very wide array of different human eras and places, and draws a lot of examples to make his point from all over the human history. After that, he tries to describe the underlying forces that influence this process. He goes through all possible theories and finally arrives at his concept of "passionarnost" (derived from passion) to describe the cultural energy that drives these transformations. After reading other contemporary books on the matter, such as Guns, Germs and Steel, and Neil Ferguson's Civilization, as well as dozens of articles and blog posts discussing these things, I think that his analysis and thoughts are one of the most interesting and engaging ideas about it.