world civilizations. Presentation for the lesson "ancient and medieval civilizations of Africa"

African civilization-- according to the geo-political scientist Huntington, one of the opposing civilizations on the world stage, along with Western, Islamic, Latin American, Orthodox, Sino-Chinese, Hindu, Buddhist and Japanese. Includes sub-Saharan Africa, except for South Africa, which is often referred to as Western civilization. The religion of African civilization is either Christianity “brought” by European colonizers (more often Catholic or Protestant, but also sometimes Orthodox: see the Alexandrian Orthodox Church), or local traditional beliefs: shamanism, animism, paganism. North Africa (Maghrib) is dominated by Islamic civilization.

The first country of African civilization was Ancient Egypt. Then Nubia, Songhai, Gao, Mali, Zimbabwe. The last, already in the 18th century, were Zululand and Matabeleland. All these African states were first weakened as a result of civil strife, and then captured by foreigners (Ancient Egypt was conquered by the Roman Empire, the state of the Zulus by the British). By 1890, 90% of Africa was controlled by European colonial empires, often in conflict, including over colonies on this continent (see Fight for Africa), and there were only two independent states - Liberia and Ethiopia. But already in 1910, South Africa received autonomy as part of the British Commonwealth, in 1922 Egypt, in 1941 the British expelled the troops of Fascist Italy from Ethiopia. However, large-scale decolonization began only after the end of World War II. At the moment, almost all countries are formally independent from their former mother countries; however, in practice, they are still heavily dependent on them economically, as most of them are very poor (Africa is the poorest continent in the world, the only developed country is South Africa). At the moment, the prospects for the development of African countries are very vague. Experts argue that the population continues to grow due to the traditionally high birth rate, and the economy is very weak and will not be able to feed such a large population. This is what Malthus predicted for mankind.

African culture and civilization are very different from Western (European) with its pronounced individual beginning. At the same time, it is close in this regard to Indian and Chinese cultures, in which the principles of "collectivism" are reflected. "The community of people is one of the core values ​​in Africa." At the same time, collectivism in Africa is understood very broadly - not only as a community of people. Man is given an equal place in the most complex African community, along with a “higher power” standing high above all the various spirits (including human spirits who have long died), the animal and plant world, as well as inanimate nature. The unity of man and nature in Africa has also directly affected man. There are also specific features of the African character. According to scientists, this explains African sociability and goodwill, amazing natural rhythm, but at the same time impulsiveness. This also explains inertia, apathy, a weakly expressed desire to change something. Remember that the Indians in America, for the most part, were ready to go to death rather than live and work in captivity. Only Africans were able to survive in these inhuman conditions. According to African views, a person as a person can exist only in “an inextricable connection with the dead and the unborn. It is a single thread of life - so they say in Africa. The dead are buried very close to the house, or even inside it.

Most leading civilizational scholars other than Braudel do not recognize a separate African civilization. The north of the African continent and its eastern coast belong to the Islamic civilization. Ethiopia historically constituted a civilization in itself. In all other countries, European imperialism and settlers brought elements of Western civilization. In South Africa, settlers from Holland, France, then from England planted a mosaic European culture. Most importantly, European imperialism brought Christianity to much of the sub-Saharan continent. Tribal identification is still strong throughout Africa, but a sense of African identification is rapidly growing among Africans, and it appears that sub-Saharan (sub-Saharan) Africa could become a civilization of its own, probably with South Africa as the core state.

Religion is the central, defining characteristic of civilizations, and as Christopher Dawson said [ c.59] "Great religions are the foundations on which great civilizations rest." Of Weber's five "world religions," four—Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Confucianism—are associated with major civilizations. Fifth, Buddhism is not. Why did it happen so? Like Islam and Christianity, Buddhism split early into two currents and, like Christianity, did not survive in the land where it originated. Beginning in the first century AD, one branch of Buddhism, the Mahayana, was exported to China, then to Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. In these societies, Buddhism was adapted to varying degrees, assimilated into local cultures (in China, for example, into the form of Confucianism and Taoism) or banned.

Thus, while Buddhism remains an important part of the culture in these societies, they are not part of the Buddhist civilization and do not identify themselves in this way. However, in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, there is what can rightly be called the Theravada Buddhist civilization. In addition, the populations of Tibet, Mongolia, and Bhutan have historically adopted the Lamaist variant of the Mahayana, and these societies form the second region of Buddhist civilization. Most important, however, is the fact that there is a clear difference between the Buddhism adopted in India and its adaptation into the existing culture in China and Japan. This means that Buddhism, being one of the main religions, did not become the basis for any of the main civilizations. *** , 20 .[ c.60]

Relationships between civilizations Random encounters. Civilizations before 1500 AD

The relationship between civilizations has already evolved through two phases and is now in the third. For more than three thousand years after civilizations first appeared, contacts between them, with some exceptions, either did not exist at all and were limited, or were periodic and intense. The nature of these contacts is well expressed by the word used by historians to describe them: “chance encounters.” 21 . Civilizations have been separated by time and space. Only a small number of them existed at the same time, and, as Benjamin Schwartz and Shmuel Eisenstadt argue, there are significant differences between axial and pre-axial civilizations in terms of whether they could know the difference between "transcendent and mundane." Among the axial civilizations, in contrast to their predecessors, myths were spread by a separate intellectual layer: “Jewish prophets and preachers, Greek philosophers and sophists, Chinese poets, Hindu Brahmins, Buddhist Sangha and [ c.61] Islamic ulema” 22 . Some religions survived two or three generations of related civilizations, when one civilization died, followed by an “interregnum” and the birth of another successor generation. On fig. Figure 2.1 shows a simplified diagram (taken from Carroll Quigley) of how the relationship between the major Eurasian civilizations changed over time.

Figure 2.1.(c.63)

Civilizations of the Eastern Hemisphere

Source: Carroll Quigley. The Evolution of Civilizations: An Introduction to Historical Analysis, 1979.

Civilizations were also separated geographically. Until 1500, the Andean and Mesoamerican civilizations had no contact with other civilizations and with each other. Early civilizations in the valleys of the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, Indus and Yellow River also did not interact with each other. Over time, contacts between civilizations began to multiply in the Eastern Mediterranean, Southwest Asia and Northern India. However, communications and commercial relationships were hampered by the distances separating civilizations and the limited number of vehicles capable of crossing those distances. While some trade was still going on in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, “cross-steppe horses, caravans, and river fleets were the only means of transportation by which civilizations in the world, as it was before 1500 AD, were bound together—to the small extent that they kept in touch with each other” 23 .

Ideas and technologies were transferred from one civilization to another, but often it took centuries. Perhaps the most significant non-conquest cultural diffusion was the spread of Buddhism to China, six centuries after its emergence in northern India. Typography was invented in China in the eighth century AD, movable type printing presses in the eleventh century, but this technology did not reach Europe until the fifteenth century. Paper appeared in China in the second century AD, came to Japan in the seventh century, then spread [ c.62] west to Central Asia in the eighth, reached North Africa in the tenth, Spain in the twelfth, and northern Europe in the thirteenth. Another Chinese invention, gunpowder, made in the ninth century, made its way to the Arabs a few hundred years later and reached Europe in the fourteenth century. 24 .

The most dramatic and significant contacts between civilizations took place when people from one civilization conquered, destroyed or enslaved the peoples of another. As a rule, these contacts were bloody, but short, and were episodic. Beginning in the seventh century AD, relatively long and at times strong intercivilizational contacts began to emerge between the world of Islam and the West, as well as Islam and India. Mostly commercial, cultural and military relationships developed within [ c.63] civilizations. And if India and China, for example, were sometimes raided and conquered by other peoples (Moghuls, Mongols), then both of these civilizations also knew long periods of wars within their civilization. Same thing with the Greeks - they traded and fought with each other much more often than with the Persians and other non-Greeks.

In the 6th-5th millennium BC. e. in the Nile Valley, agricultural cultures (Tasian culture, Faiyum, Merimde) are formed, on the basis of which in the 4th millennium BC. e. There is an ancient African civilization - Ancient Egypt. To the south of it, also on the Nile, under its influence, the Kerma-Kushite civilization was formed, which was replaced in the 2nd millennium BC. e. Nubian (Napata). On its ruins, the states of Aloa, Mukurra, the Nabataean kingdom, and others were formed, which were under the cultural and political influence of Ethiopia, Coptic Egypt and Byzantium. In the north of the Ethiopian highlands, under the influence of the South Arabian Sabaean kingdom, the Ethiopian civilization arose: in the 5th century BC. e. immigrants from South Arabia formed the Ethiopian kingdom, in the II-XI centuries AD. e. there was the Aksumite kingdom, on the basis of which the medieval civilization of Christian Ethiopia (XII-XVI centuries) is formed. These centers of civilization were surrounded by the pastoral tribes of the Libyans, as well as the ancestors of the modern Cushite- and Nilotic-speaking peoples.
On the basis of horse breeding (from the first centuries AD - also camel breeding) and oasis agriculture in the Sahara, urban civilizations (the cities of Telgi, Debris, Garama) were formed, and the Libyan letter appeared. On the Mediterranean coast of Africa in the XII-II centuries BC. e. the Phoenician-Carthaginian civilization flourished.

In Africa south of the Sahara in the 1st millennium BC. e. iron metallurgy is spreading everywhere. This contributed to the development of new territories, primarily tropical forests, and became one of the reasons for the settlement of Bantu-speaking peoples in most of Tropical and South Africa, pushing the representatives of the Ethiopian and capoid races to the north and south.
The centers of civilizations in Tropical Africa spread in the direction from north to south (in the eastern part of the continent) and partly from east to west (especially in the western part) - as they moved away from the high civilizations of North Africa and the Middle East. Most of the large socio-cultural communities of Tropical Africa had an incomplete set of signs of civilization, so they can more accurately be called proto-civilizations. Such, for example, were the formations in Sudan, which arose on the basis of trans-Saharan trade with the countries of the Mediterranean.
After the Arab conquests of North Africa (7th century), the Arabs for a long time became the only intermediaries between Tropical Africa and the rest of the world, including across the Indian Ocean, where the Arab fleet dominated. The cultures of Western and Central Sudan merged into a single West African, or Sudanese, zone of civilizations that stretched from Senegal to the modern Republic of Sudan. In the 2nd millennium, this zone was united politically and economically in Muslim empires, such as, for example, Mali (XIII-XV centuries), to which small political formations of neighboring peoples were subordinate.
South of the Sudanese civilizations in the 1st millennium CE. e. the Ife proto-civilization is taking shape, which became the cradle of the Yoruba and Bini civilization (Benin, Oyo); neighboring nations also experienced its influence. To the west of it, in the 2nd millennium, the Akano-Ashanti proto-civilization was formed, which flourished in the 17th - early 19th centuries. In the region of Central Africa during the XV-XIX centuries. various state formations gradually arose - Buganda, Rwanda, Burundi, etc.
Since the 10th century, the Swahili Muslim civilization flourished in East Africa (the city-states of Kilwa, Pate, Mombasa, Lamu, Malindi, Sofala, etc., the Sultanate of Zanzibar), in Southeast Africa - the Zimbabwean (Zimbabwe, Monomotapa) proto-civilization (X-XIX century), in Madagascar the process of state formation ended at the beginning of the 19th century with the unification of all the early political formations of the island around Imerin, which arose around the 15th century.

Most African civilizations and proto-civilizations experienced an upswing in the late 15th and 16th centuries. From the end of the 16th century, with the penetration of Europeans and the development of the transatlantic slave trade, which lasted until the middle of the 19th century, their decline took place. All North Africa (except Morocco) became part of the Ottoman Empire by the beginning of the 17th century. With the final division of Africa between the European powers (1880s), the colonial period began, forcibly introducing Africans to industrial civilization.

(orange), Islamic culture (green), Orthodox culture (turquoise), Buddhist culture (yellow) and African culture (brown)

African Civilization- according to the geo-political scientist Huntington, one of the civilizations opposing on the world stage, along with Western, Islamic, Latin American, Orthodox, Sino-Chinese, Hindu, Buddhist and Japanese. Includes sub-Saharan Africa, except for South Africa, which is often referred to as Western civilization. The religion of African civilization is either Christianity “brought” by European colonialists (more often Catholic or Protestant, but also sometimes Orthodox: see Alexandrian Orthodox Church), or local traditional beliefs: shamanism, animism, paganism. North Africa (Maghrib) is dominated by Islamic civilization.

Story

The first country of African civilization was Ancient Egypt. Then Nubia, Songhai, Gao, Mali, Zimbabwe. The last, already in the 18th century, were Zululand and Matabeleland. All these African states were first weakened as a result of civil strife, and then captured by foreigners (Ancient Egypt was conquered by the Roman Empire, the state of the Zulus was British). By 1890, 90% of African territories were controlled by European colonial empires, which often came into conflict, including over colonies on this continent (see Fight for Africa), and there were only two independent states - Liberia and Ethiopia. But already in 1910, South Africa received autonomy as part of the British Commonwealth, in 1922 Egypt, in 1941 the British expelled the troops of Fascist Italy from Ethiopia. However, large-scale decolonization began only after the end of World War II. At the moment, almost all countries are formally independent from their former mother countries; however, in practice, they are still heavily dependent on them economically, as most of them are very poor (Africa is the poorest continent in the world, the only developed country is South Africa). At the moment, the prospects for the development of African countries are very vague. Experts say that the population continues to grow due to the traditionally high birth rate, and the economy is very weak and will not be able to feed such a large population. This is what Malthus predicted for mankind.

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• Clash of Civilizations by Huntington. Huntington S.. - M .: AST, 2003. - ISBN 5-17-007923-0

An excerpt characterizing African civilization

The vision is gone. And I, completely stunned, could not wake up in any way to ask the North my next question ...
Who were these people, Sever? They look the same and strange... They seem to be united by a common energy wave. And they have the same clothes, like monks. Who are they?..
- Oh, these are the famous Cathars, Isidora, or as they are also called - pure. People gave them this name for the severity of their morals, the purity of their views and the honesty of their thoughts. The Cathars themselves called themselves "children" or "Knights of Magdalene" ... which in reality they were. This people was truly CREATED by it, so that after (when it no longer exists) it would bring Light and Knowledge to people, opposing this to the false teaching of the “most holy” church. They were the most faithful and most talented disciples of Magdalene. An amazing and pure people - they carried HER teachings to the world, devoting their lives to this. They became magicians and alchemists, wizards and scientists, doctors and philosophers... The secrets of the universe obeyed them, they became the keepers of the wisdom of Radomir - the secret Knowledge of our distant ancestors, our Gods... And yet, they all carried in their hearts an unquenchable love for their "beautiful Lady"... Golden Mary... their Bright and mysterious Magdalene... The Cathars sacredly kept in their hearts the true story of Radomir's interrupted life, and swore to save his wife and children, no matter what it cost them... For which, later, two centuries later, every single one paid with their lives... This is a truly great and very sad story, Isidora. I'm not sure if you need to listen to her.
- But I want to know about them, Sever! .. Tell me, where did they come from, all gifted? Not from the valley of the Mages, by any chance?
– Well, of course, Isidora, because it was their home! And that is where Magdalene returned. But it would be wrong to give credit only to the gifted. After all, even ordinary peasants learned reading and writing from the Cathars. Many of them knew the poets by heart, no matter how crazy it sounds to you now. It was a real dreamland. Country of Light, Knowledge and Faith created by Magdalene. And this Faith spread surprisingly quickly, attracting into its ranks thousands of new "cathars" who were just as ardently ready to defend the Knowledge they gave, as they were the Golden Mary who gave it ... The teachings of Magdalene swept through the countries like a hurricane, one thinking person. Aristocrats and scientists, artists and shepherds, farmers and kings joined the ranks of the Cathars. Those who had, easily gave their riches and lands to the Qatari “church”, so that its great power would strengthen, and so that the Light of its Soul would spread throughout the Earth.
– Forgive me for interrupting, Sever, but did the Cathars also have their own church?.. Was their teaching also a religion?
– The concept of “church” is very diverse, Isidora. It was not the church as we understand it. The Church of the Cathars was Magdalene herself and her Spiritual Temple. That is, the Temple of Light and Knowledge, as well as the Temple of Radomir, whose knights were the Templars at first (King of Jerusalem Baldwin II called the Templars of the Knights of the Temple. Temple - in French - the Temple.) They did not have a specific building in which people would come to pray . The Church of the Cathars was in their soul. But it still had its own apostles (or, as they were called, the Perfect Ones), the first of which, of course, was Magdalene. Perfect people were those who reached the highest levels of Knowledge and devoted themselves to its absolute service. They continuously perfected their Spirit, almost giving up physical food and physical love. The Perfect ones served people, teaching them their knowledge, healing the needy and protecting their wards from the tenacious and dangerous paws of the Catholic Church. They were amazing and selfless people, ready to the last to defend their Knowledge and Faith, and the Magdalene who gave it to them. It is a pity that there are almost no diaries left of the Cathars. All that we have left is the records of Radomir and Magdalene, but they do not give us the exact events of the last tragic days of the courageous and bright Qatari people, since these events took place already two hundred years after the death of Jesus and Magdalene.

The European colonialists treated African civilization unfairly. They destroyed it at the very beginning of its development, not allowing it to flourish, and centuries later they declared that it had always been like this. Backward, they say, peoples. Third World countries. What to take from them?

SENSATIONAL FINDINGS

But on the territory of the Black Continent, many centers of highly developed culture were found. So, on the border of Tanzania and Kenya, the ruins of the ancient city of Engaruki were discovered, with the remains of ancient monumental structures, mines, forges, and even a complex irrigation system.

An even greater sensation was caused by excavations on the territory of Zimbabwe: archaeologists found thousands of depleted deposits of gold, copper, iron ore, and zinc there. But the most interesting of all are the majestic stone structures erected by the ancestors of the Shona people. In the 11th century, on the territory of modern Central Mozambique and Zimbabwe, they created such a rich and prosperous state that they could afford to erect majestic stone walls around the buildings, the so-called Zimbabwe (hence the modern name of the country).

In the 14th century, a powerful state of Monomotapa developed around Great Zimbabwe - a huge, stone-walled complex of structures located near the modern city of Masvingo. The height of the walls of Great Zimbabwe reached 9 meters, at the base their thickness reached 8 meters, and the royal residence itself consisted of 900 thousand stone blocks. Crafts and trade flourished in Monomotapa (during the excavations, Chinese porcelain and glass vessels of Arab and Persian production of the 13th century were found), taxes were collected, and there was even a customs office.

Skillful bronze bas-reliefs of the ancient masters of Benin and jewelry that delighted Europeans have survived to this day.

Alas, the example of Benin makes it clear how the Negro states fell into decay: they fell victim to the temptations that are inevitable when confronted with a technogenic civilization. The rulers of Benin tried to profit from the exchange of slaves for firearms, but these transactions weakened the state, and internecine wars completed the disaster ...

Moreover, Europe, which was 3 or even 4 centuries ahead of the African continent in technical development, did not need to burn cities and destroy kingdoms. It was enough to announce that guns and other products of advanced technology were offered for exchange. The only pay is people.

ALL AGAINST ALL

What happened next is well known. At first, petty feudal lords and big lords were glad to float the criminals away. Then raids began on neighboring lands to capture prisoners. After 100 years, the war of all against all was already going on on the continent. Criminal law was adjusted to the needs of the slave trade. Any crime and even a minor offense was punishable by sale into slavery, and along with the guilty, all members of his family were seized.

History does not have a subjunctive mood, but imagine for a moment that everything happened the other way around and in the 10th century Africans owning weapons sailed to the shores of Europe ...

Ships full of prisoners set sail from the shore. The French are sailing into slavery, who will never have the Notre Dame Cathedral and the Eiffel Tower, Voltaire and Napoleon. The English, from whom Shakespeare and Byron were stolen, the Russians, who were not destined to build Petersburg and send a man to
space.

But what are we talking about? What are the French and Italians? At the beginning of the 2nd millennium, nations in the current sense were only taking shape. Saxons, Drevlyans and Franks would be loaded onto ships.

And somewhere across the ocean, the planter would talk in a circle of friends as arrogantly as white people in real history spoke about Negroes:

I don't have any slaves. Swabians are the best, they cultivate the land well and are intelligent. Vyatichi are excellent fishermen and hunters, but they are capricious and often run. The Normans are too warlike, they need an eye and an eye. The Sicilians are lazy as the world has never seen, but their women are fertile...

But let's leave social fiction. Let's see how, for example, the collapse of civilization in the Congo took place.

KINGS WITHOUT SUBJECTS

The Portuguese did not seek to look like enemies of the local rulers. They were even ready to render brotherly help to the blacks. The King of Portugal sent masons, roofers and carpenters to Africa, who skillfully reconstructed the capital of Mbanza Kongo. States exchanged embassies. The missionaries converted the leader and his subjects to Catholicism. Soon the capital was renamed San Salvador, and the children of the Congolese nobility went to study in Europe. The courtyard was unrecognizable.

Where are the ivory bracelets and palm-leaf headdresses? Newly minted Negro dukes and marquises dressed in Portuguese fashion! The black king Affonso I was in constant correspondence with the white king João III. In his messages, Affonso complained about the slave traders, because of which his possessions were losing people. However, he realized it too late: with his knowledge, the Portuguese had already built both missions and fortified forts. And instead of golden sand and ivory, they demanded more and more insistently labor.

Having got rid of illusions, the ruler of the Congo banned the export of slaves. But the state has already fallen into a vicious circle. The country weakened, and neighbors invaded its borders. To fight back, it was necessary to attract mercenaries with firearms. What to pay? Of course, slaves. In a word, the Negro state is addicted to the slave trade like a drug. In gratitude for the Portuguese military assistance, restrictions on the sale of people had to be lifted. The territory was shrinking like shagreen leather. Rulers became kings without subjects...

GENOCIDE

Historians have estimated that between 100 and 150 million people died during the period of colonization on the continent. It was the real genocide. The consequences of the massacre of black civilization are still felt today. Centuries of gang domination has led to a crisis of all systems. By the 19th century, the economy and culture were in ruins, and the population was corrupted by the cult of power. Those who knew how to kill, steal, and rob survived.

WAR IS A PROFITABLE BUSINESS

Before the arrival of Europeans, African rulers received income from peasants and artisans. That is why they were interested in the development of production and took care of the safety of their subjects. The slave trade suspended the development of statehood. The most successful leaders quickly realized that it was possible to live in clover at the expense of wars. They raided the neighbors.

Their predatory squads burned villages and enslaved those who could not escape. There was a systematic extermination of entire regions. The craft was in decline. The products of black craftsmen were much worse and more primitive than the objects of 500 years ago!

When there was progress in the agrarian field all over the world, Africa managed with a hoe and could not even dream of cultural cultivation of the land, and the constant threat of a raid deprived the peasant of any incentive to work. And in the Age of Enlightenment, African civilization was already in ruins. The capitals of large states turned into large villages, and even their inhabitants did not know what was here 3 centuries ago.

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