Контуры многоцивилизационного мира

Abstract

Since the beginning of the 21st century an objective process of the formation of a “plurilat­eral world order” has been starting in the non-Western world (China, Russia, India). It is based on new world structures – “Сivilization-States”, which fixed the “split of moder­nity”, the new challenge for the European modernity as a non-alternative universal develop­ment model. This process coincides with the logic of F. Braudel, who argued for the exis­tence of self-sufficient “World-Civilizations” (Russia, China, India, Turkey) which were up to now “zones of silence”, “sleeping” civilizations. This approach justifies the equality of these civilizations with the Euro-Atlantic civilization, whose only benefit consists of thorough “historiographical” study of this civilization in comparison with others. The essential characteristics of the Euro-American “World-Civilization” include the suc­cessive displacement of the center and the periphery, which culminated in the rise of the USA; the idea of a “blank slate”, “empty” space as a source of the American na­tion’s exclusivity and messianism; the category of “frontier”, coupled with the principle of “cleaning out the territory” as a basis of the modern American conquest policy; imple­mentation of the “terra nullius”, “nobody’s land” principle for the transformation of the global frontier into an open space of imperial sovereignty; a rigid division of peo­ples within the “civilization” – “barbarism” dichotomy. According to the historical logic and methodology of F. Braudel, Euro-American “World-Civilization” has stable material and cultural-identical limits of spread. At the same time Russian, Chinese, Indian civilizations preserve their identity through “civilizational” or “long-term” refusals. The main task of Russia is to find a new energy impulse for self-identification based on a change of the ontological vector of development, formulated by N.S. Trubetskoy in the concept of “geopolitical task” of the people. Today it may be implemented by the idea of the “Russian North” and “Northern Eurasia”.