РЕВОЛЮЦИИ И РЕЛИГИИ: ОПЫТ СРАВНИТЕЛЬНОЙ МОРФОЛОГИИ

Abstract

The notions of Revolution and Religion are understood as designations of two different basic human projects piercing the whole history of the last half-millennium from the very period of Reformation up to now. It may seem, these two projects have some kind of opposite directions: Revolution is directed towards short-term social and political changes, while Religion is directed towards far-reaching transcendent values and notions. But, actually, both these phenomena (Revolution and Religion) continually provoke one another in a long and complex historical and social interplay, sometimes in very unusual and paradoxical situations. Moreover, it is difficult to understand the entire complex of the present-day regional as well as global social and political shifts without taking this interplay into account. This paper, partly appealing to the theoretical heritage of Giambattista Vico, leans on the Weberian framework of historical morphology of great socio-cultural movements, partly refined by Samuel Eisenstadt: collective frustration – protest – charismatic animation – institutional adaptation to real historical, social and cultural milieu – bureaucratic institutionalization and routinization – gradual enfeeblement. However, one of “surprises” sprung in the 20th and 21st century may be the trend of inner renovation and interplay of old, seemingly obsolete great historical movements, including those of religious search and revolutionary protest. All these renovation processes could partly explain many features of political dynamics in the present-day world. Thus, the “Second Coming” of movements and ideas sometimes perceived as ideologically and politically exhausted and obsolete is one of the striking marks of the present “post-modern” and “post-secular” epoch.&nbsp