Античность как геном европейской и российской культуры

Русская культура относительно античной традиции может, в той или и ной степени, оперировать категориями «совпадения» и «по вторения», но уж никак не «изоморфности». Российское общество и русскую культуру отнюдь не пронизывает тот же тип общественно-исторического и культурного развития, что и Европу, именно потому, что внутренняя макроформа русской культуры не воспроизводила соответствующие свойства внутренней макроформы античной культуры (в частности, культуры римской). Все рецепции античности, осуществлявшиеся русской культурой на всем протяжении ее развития, были вторичными и третичными, многократно опосредованными другими, в том числе и не европейскими культурами. «Русская античность» во всех ее исторических версиях – это псевдоморфозы античной культуры в формах русской культуры, обусловленные самим культурным и цивилизационным ее кодом, в котором пропущены основополагающие звенья – античности и Возрождения. Поэтому все поиски «своей античности» в русской культуре были утопией, великой иллюзией искомого, но так и не обретенного европеизма.

Впрочем, только на почве культуры, лишенной античных корней, отрешенной от процессов Ренессанса, развивавшейся на путях тупиковых культурных исканий было возможно возникновение и длительное развитие советской культуры, а вслед за ней – и культуры постсоветской, не вписывавшихся в европейскую традицию.

V.P.Shestakov Agon as the greek «genome» to the european culture

Two controversial views on the human being exist in contemporary social science. Te frst one understands human as a “naked ape”, as an aggressive animal, with the domination of the instincts of violence. Konrad Lorenz, who spent four years in Russian prison as a Nazi, wrote the book “Introduction to Ethology”, which got a Nobel Prize in 1973. Te book is focused on animal behavior, but includes also some sentences about human beings. Lorenz considered that tendency to aggression was based on biological nature and could not be controlled by social power. He suggested that aggression, division on aggressors and victims, is deeply rooted in human nature.

Te second view shows that human aggressiveness is a rudiment of archaic history, which had a great infuence on history, but could be somehow controlled and transformed by culture and social institutions. Tere are a number of authors with such ideas, who applied it to Greek history. Tey used an idea about “agonistic” traits of Greek culture.

Te frst one, who developed a notion “a g o n” and applied it to cultural history was Jacob Burkchard. In his lectures on Greek civilization, which followed his world known book “Culture in the History of Renaissance”, he wrote: “All high life among the Greek, active as well as spiritual, took on the character of the agon. Here excellence and natural superiority were displayed, and victory in the agon, that is noble victory without enmity, appears to have been the ancient expression of the peaceful victory of an individual”.[144]

Tose two opinions are easily to fnd in many historical and cultural studies. Homer’s poems demonstrated a lot of violence and aggressive ness. But classical Greece showed a new cultural phenomenon: instinct of struggle survived, but from real battles and violent of wars it transformed aesthetically to peaceful competition. As Burkchardt wrote, agonale man belonged only to Greece, agon is a distinguished feature only for a Greek culture. “Agon ist Triebkraf, die kein anderer Volk kennt”. (Agon is an inner power, which does not exist in any other nations). Only classical Greece produced “agonale Man”. We can not fnd agon in Oriental culture. Agon is a historical result of a new period of Greek history, which followed afer archaic. It became at the time, when wars were ended, and opportunities were opened for peaceful competitions. War and agon are diferent social events. As Burkchardt said, “Wer den Krieg hat, bedarf des Turniers nicht”. (Who run a war, does not need tournaments).

Tis agonistic phenomenon exists in every segment of the Greek culture: in philosophy, drama, music, poetry, visual art, sports. Agon – the place for wrestling, boxing and athletics – became the pra-phenomenon of this culture. Here aggressiveness transformed into play, violence to competition, struggle and sufering to catharsis.