History, culture and traditions are inextricably linked. Each of these concepts follows from the other, they are formed, being under mutual influence. But, in addition to history, the geographical factor also has a huge influence on how the culture and traditions of peoples are formed.
It is impossible to imagine a situation in which the Papuans of New Guinea or the inhabitants of the Arabian desert, for example, are making snowmen. The reverse situation is also unlikely, in which residents of the Far North, for example, arrange dwellings on trees. The formation of customs, the formation of a culture of the people, as well as everyday life, is determined by the conditions in which people live, what they observe around them.
What does the word culture mean?
The word "culture" itself has a Latin origin. In Latin, it sounds like this - cultura. The meaning of this term is quite a lot. It is used not only to characterize certain societies, but also to indicate varieties of cultivated cereals or other plants. It is also used in relation to other concepts, for example, “archaeological culture” - the term refers to the totality of historians' finds relating to a certain period.
There are also some kind of sub-concepts, that is, for example, “information culture”. This phrase denotes the interaction between different ethnic or national cultures, the exchange of information.
What it is ?
Traditions and culture are two inextricable characteristics of human life. The term "culture" refers to the totality of life experience accumulated by people, manifested:
- at home;
- in cooking;
- in clothes;
- in religious beliefs;
- in art;
- in crafts;
- in philosophy, that is, self-expression and self-knowledge;
- in the features of linguistics.
This list can be continued, since the concept of "culture" includes absolutely all manifestations of human activity as an individual, as well as objective skills of the society as a whole.
How does culture develop?
The traditions of national cultures are a kind of set, a list of the conventions of human life that have developed over time, which are characteristic of a single society. The development of cultural skills is evolutionary, as is humanity as a whole.
That is, the culture of an individual society or humanity as a whole can be represented as a kind of abstract set of rules or codes that are initially simple. As life becomes more complicated, which is an inevitable condition for the development of society, each subsequent generation has a greater amount of accumulated experience and knowledge compared to the previous one, the set of "cultural codes" grows.
The traditions and culture of each subsequent generation, along with the preservation of the primary experience inherited from the ancestors, acquire their own ways of self-expression. That is, cultural strata differ from each other in each time slice. For example, the culture of the inhabitants of Russia in the X century, in the late Middle Ages and now has something in common, but it is also very different.
What is cultural heritage?
The inherited part of cultural skills is a kind of core, basis, direction of development of society, it is unchanged. The remaining elements that make up the culture of a people can change, develop, die, and be forgotten. That is, the culture of each society is characterized by two values - invariable, pivotal and mobile, living parts. Their combination is the development of culture, the source of its constant self-reproduction with concomitant development, absorbed by new experience and skills. In the absence of any of the characterizing quantities, the culture fades, ceases to exist, and with it the society that gave rise to it disappears. There are many examples of this phenomenon in the history of mankind: Ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire, Babylon, Vikings.
What are traditions?
The theme "folk culture and traditions" is eternal - these are inextricable concepts. The word "tradition" itself is also of Latin origin. In Roman, the concept sounds like this - traditio. From this word comes the verb tradere, which literally means “transmit”.
Traditions are understood as the totality of habits that have developed over time and are used in a social or other form of life. In essence, traditions are regulators, limiters of social activities and manifestations of character, human behavior. They dictate the accepted norms in public life and the idea of each individual person about the admissible and unacceptable within the framework of a separate society.
Tradition is a feature of culture that relates to its core values, constant phenomena.
What are customs?
A custom is a stereotype of behavior characteristic of an event. For example, serving loaf of bread with salt when meeting an important person is a custom. The culture and traditions of Russia, as well as other countries, consist of a combination of many customs.
Customs pierce all facets of life - from everyday life to celebrations, they are also the basis of the so-called omens. For example, there is a sign prohibiting washing floors in the event that one of the household members left for a short time. The sign says that in this way a person is "swept" out of the house. The habit of following it is already a custom. The same applies to the passage of the road by a black cat and to many other conventions.
The custom is the order of pronunciation of toasts at the celebrations and the list of served dishes. New Year's Eve fireworks are also a custom. Accordingly, customs should be understood as the totality of habitual actions committed over time or inherited from ancestors.
What is the difference between customs and traditions?
Traditions, customs, culture are inextricable concepts, but this does not mean at all that they are similar.
Customs can change under the influence of any factors, and tradition is a constant value. For example, in the tradition of the natives of the islands of Polynesia and several other tribes cannibalism is laid down, but in Russia there is no such tradition. This invariable idea, no matter what happens, cannibalism will not become traditional for Russians just like baking bread and farming - for ethnic groups living in equatorial forests or in swampy jungles.
Customs can change even during the life of one generation. For example, the custom of celebrating the anniversary of the revolution ceased to exist with the Soviet Union. Also, customs can be adopted from other ethnic groups. For example, the custom of celebrating Valentine's Day, which has spread in recent decades in our country, has been adopted from Western culture.
Accordingly, traditions relate to permanent, unshakable cultural components, while customs are living, changing its components.
How does history affect culture?
The historical features of the development of the ethnos have the same decisive influence on the culture of the people, as well as geographical conditions. For example, Russian culture and traditions have largely developed under the influence of the many defensive wars experienced by our country.
The experience of generations leaves an imprint on the priorities in the social life of society. In Russia, the army and military needs have always been a priority in budget allocation. This was the case under the tsarist regime, during the time of socialism, and this is typical for today. Whatever the power or government system in our country, Russian culture and traditions will invariably prioritize army needs. It cannot be otherwise in a country that has survived the Mongol-Tatar occupation, the invasion of Napoleon’s troops, the struggle against fascism.
Accordingly, the culture of the people absorbs historical events and reacts to them by the emergence of certain traditions and customs. This applies to all areas of human life, from national to everyday, everyday. For example, after the reign of Princess Sophia in the Russian lands there were a lot of Europeans, especially Germans, some of the foreign words entered the linguistic set of Slavs. Language, namely colloquial speech, which is also part of culture, reacts most quickly to historical features.
A rather striking example is the word “shed”. This word is tightly used by all Slavs from the Far North to the Crimea, from the Baltic to the Far East. And it came to speech solely because of the war with the Mongol-Tatars and the occupation of Slavic lands. In the language of the invaders, it meant "city, palace, residence."
The history of the development of the nation has a direct impact on the characteristics of culture at all levels. That is, historical influence is not only wars, but absolutely any events taking place in the life of society.
What kind of culture can it be?
Culture, like any other concept, consists of several main components, that is, it can be divided into specific categories or directions. This is not surprising, since traditions and culture cover all areas of life as an individual, individuality, and society as a whole.
Culture, like its traditions, can be:
- material;
- spiritual.
If we approach the understanding of this division in a simplified way, then the material component includes everything that you can touch, touch. The spiritual part is a combination of intangible values and ideas, for example, knowledge, religious beliefs, methods of celebration and grief, the idea of acceptable or impossible behavior, even the style and techniques of speech and gestures.
What is material culture?
The material component of any culture is, first of all:
- technology;
- production and working conditions;
- material results of human activity;
- household habits and much more.
For example, cooking dinner is part of material culture. In addition, the material part of cultural values is also all that relates to the reproduction of the human race, the education of descendants, the relationship between a man and a woman. That is, for example, wedding customs are part of the material culture of society as well as methods of celebrating a birthday, anniversaries, or something else.
What is spiritual culture?
Spiritual traditions and culture are the totality of life manifestations of both individual people or their generations, and society as a whole. They include the accumulation and transfer of knowledge, moral principles, philosophy and religion, as well as much more.
The peculiarity of spiritual culture lies in the fact that it needs the mediation of material components, that is, books, paintings, films recorded in notes of music, a code of laws and legal acts, and other options for consolidating and transmitting thoughts.
Thus, the spiritual and material components of each culture are inextricably linked. Moreover, they mutually “push” one another, ensuring uniform development and progress of human society.
What is the history of culture?
The history of culture is similar to any other, that is, each time era has its own characteristics, characteristic features and other signs. Like a general story, a cultural one is composed of a sequence of human actions.
The activity of people, which, like building a house, is a building block in cultural history, can be:
- constructive;
- destructive;
- practical;
- intangible.
Each person who creates something or, conversely, destroys, contributes to the general culture. It is from the many such contributions that the culture of society as a whole grows, and hence its history. Human activity, affecting the history of culture, is a combination of social forms of activity, the consequence of which is the transformation of reality or the introduction of something new into it.
