The fundamental three-volume work of Fernand Braudel is a comprehensive study of the economic life of mankind in the era of the formation of capitalist relations that was crucial for its fate. The first volume, entitled "The structures of everyday life. Possible and impossible", is devoted to various spheres of material life. The work is replete with the richest material concerning various aspects of the everyday life of people of the late Middle Ages and early modern times, both in Europe and far beyond its borders.
The book will be of interest not only to specialists in the field of history and economics, but also to the widest circle of readers.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
FERNAND BRODEL AND HIS VISION OF HISTORY 5
TO THE SOVIET READER 29
INTRODUCTION 33
FOREWORD 37
Chapter 1. BURDEN OF QUANTITY 41
- World population: numbers that have to be invented 42.
The ebb and flow system 42. Lack of numbers 45. How to count? 49. Equality between China and Europe 49. World population as a whole 51. Controversial figures 52. Centuries in comparison with each other 57. Insufficiency of old explanations 58. Climatic rhythms 60.
- Reading scale 62.
Cities, armies and fleets 63. Prematurely overpopulated France 66. Population density and levels of civilization 68. What other ideas does Gordon Hughes' map generate 74. Book of Wild Men and Beasts 76.
- Completion of the biological Old Order with the onset of the 18th century. 84.
Equilibrium always triumphs in the end 84. Hunger 87. Epidemics 93. Plague 97. Cyclic history of diseases 102. Biological Old order within a long time span: 1400-1800. 104.
- Numerous against the weak in number 107.
Against the barbarians 108. The gradual disappearance of "pure" nomads until the 17th century. 109. Conquest of spaces 112. When cultures resist 115. Civilizations against civilizations 117.
Chapter 2. BREAD BREAD 118
- Wheat 122.
Wheat and minor cereals 123. Wheat and crop rotations 128. Low yields, compensation and disasters 135. Increased yields and expanded cultivated areas 137. Local and international trade in bread 139. Bread and calories 144. Grain prices and living standards 148. Bread of the rich , bread and cereals of the poor 151. Buy bread or bake your own? 154. So, bread reigns 158.
- Figure 160.
Dry rice and irrigated rice 161. The miracle of rice plantations 164. The responsibility of rice 169.
- Corn (maize) 174.
Its origin is finally clarified 174. Maize and American civilizations 176.
- Food revolutions of the 18th century. 179.
Corn outside America 180. Potatoes are even more important 184. Unaccustomed bread is difficult to eat 188.
- What about the rest of the world? 190.
Hoe farmers 191. But what about primitive peoples? 195.
Chapter 3. EXCESSIVE AND REGULAR: FOOD AND BEVERAGES 199
- Table: luxury and mass consumption 203.
And yet a belated luxury 203. Carnivorous Europe 206. Reduction of meat ration since 1550 211. Still privileged Europe 216. Eating too good, or Feast fads 219. Table setting 220. Slowly instilling good manners 224. At the table Khristov 225. Everyday food: salt 226. Everyday food: dairy products, fats, eggs 227. Everyday food: seafood 231. Cod fishing 234. After 1650, pepper is out of fashion 238. Sugar conquers the world 243.
- Drinks and "energizing" 246.
Water 246. Wine 251. Beer 257. Cider 260. The Belated Success of Alcohol in Europe 260. Alcoholism Outside Europe 266. Chocolate, Tea, Coffee 268. Arousals: The Greatness of Tobacco 280.
Chapter 4. SUPERIOR AND REGULAR: HOUSING, CLOTHING AND FASHION 286
- Houses around the world 286.
Building materials for the rich: stone and brick 287. Other building materials: wood, earth, textiles 291. Rural housing in Europe 295. Urban houses and apartments 298. Urban villages 301.
- Interiors 303.
Unfurnished poor 303. Traditional civilizations, or Unchanging interiors 305. Two-sided Chinese furniture 308. In Black Africa 312. West with its variety of furnishings 314. Floors, walls, ceilings, doors and windows 315. Fireplace 319. Stoves and stoves 321. Furniture makers before the vanity of buyers 324. Only ensembles are important 327. Luxury and comfort 332.
- Costumes and Fashion 333.
If society were motionless 333. If there were only poor people 335. Europe, or the Madness of Fashion 338. Was fashion frivolous? 344. Two words about the geography of fabrics 348. Fashion in a broad sense and their fluctuations within a long time span 350. What to say in conclusion? 355.
Chapter 5. DISTRIBUTION OF TECHNOLOGY: SOURCES OF ENERGY AND METALLURGY 357
- Key issue - energy sources 359.
Human drive 360. Animal muscle power 364. Water engines, wind turbines 376. Sail: an example of European fleets 386. Everyday energy source: wood 386. Coal 392. And to finish ... 395.
- Poor relative - iron 397.
The initial stage of the simplest metallurgy (with the exception of China) 399. Achievements of the XI-XV centuries: Styria and Dauphiné 402. Episodic concentration of production 405. Few numbers 407. Other metals 408.
Chapter 6. TECHNICAL REVOLUTIONS AND TECHNICAL LACKING 410
- Three great technical innovations 411.
The invention of gunpowder 411. Artillery becomes mobile 412. Artillery on board ships 414. Arquebusses, muskets, shotguns 417. Production and budget 418. Worldwide artillery 421. From the invention of paper to printing 423. The invention of movable type 424. Typography and great history 427. Exploit of the West: sailing in the open ocean 428. Fleets of the Old World 428. Sea roads of the world 431. A simple problem of the Atlantic 434.
- Slowness of messages 440.
Stability of routes 441. The vicissitudes of the history of roads: their significance 445. River navigation 446. Archaic transport means; constancy, lag 448. In Europe 449. Ridiculous speeds and capacity of roads ... 459. Carriers and transportation 452. Transport as a brake on the economy 456.
- Slow Technique History 457.
Technique and agriculture 457. Technique as such 458.
Chapter 7. MONEY 464
- Imperfect economic and monetary systems 469.
Primitive money 470. Exchange trade in the very center of the monetary economy 473.
- Outside Europe: economies and metal coin in infancy 477.
In Japan and the Turkish Empire 477. India 479. China 481.
- Some rules for the functioning of money 486.
Dispute between precious metals 487. Leakage, accumulation and thesaurus 492. Settlement money 494. Stocks of metals and the speed of money circulation 497. Outside the market economy 499.
- Paper money and credit instruments 500.
This is an old practice 502. Money and credit 504. Let's follow Schumpeter: all-money and all-credit 506. Money and credit are a specific language 507.
Chapter 8. CITIES 509
- The city itself 509.
From the insignificant role of cities to their global importance 510. The constantly renewed division of labor 514. The city and alien people, especially the poor 520. The arrogance of cities 522. In the West: cities, artillery, crews 528. Geography of cities and their connections 531. Hierarchy of cities 536 Cities and Civilizations: The Muslim World 537.
- The originality of the cities of the West 541.
Free worlds 542. The novelty of cities 544. Are shapes amenable to modeling western city? 547. Other options for development 553.
- Major cities 558.
On whose conscience is this? Responsibility of States 558. What have capital cities served? 560. Worlds that have lost their equilibrium 561. Naples: from Palazzo Reale to Mercato 564. St. Petersburg in 1790 567. The penultimate journey: Beijing 573. London: from Elizabeth to George III 581. Urbanization - a harbinger of a new man 590.
INSTEAD OF CONCLUSION 593
GRAPH LIST 599
LIST OF MAPS AND SCHEMES 600
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 601
INDEX OF NAMES 605
GEOGRAPHICAL NAME INDEX 610

Fernand Braudel (FR.Fernand Braudel, August 24, 1902 - November 27, 1985) - French historian. He revolutionized historical science with his proposal to take into account economic and geographical factors when analyzing the historical process. A prominent representative of the French historiographic school "Annals", engaged in a thorough study of historical phenomena in the social sciences. Exploring the origin of the capitalist system, he became one of the founders of the world-system theory.

Born into the family of a mathematics teacher in the small village of Lumeville-en-Ornoy near the German border in Lorraine. Peasant childhood played a role in shaping his worldview. In 1909 he entered elementary school in the Parisian suburb of Meriel, where he studied with the future actor Jean Gabin, and then - at the Voltaire Lyceum in Paris.

He received his higher education at the Sorbonne at the Faculty of Humanities. “Like all leftist students of that time,” he was attracted by the French Revolution, and as a topic thesis he chose revolutionary events in the town of Bar-le-Duc closest to his native village. He spent the next decade teaching history at a college in Algeria, with a break from military service in 1925-1926. The years in Algeria were of great importance in defining his work. In 1928, he published his first article.

In 1932 he returned to Paris to teach at the Lycée Condorcet, and then at the Lyceum of Henry IV. During this time, he met his colleague Lucien Febvre. Already in 1935, he and the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss were invited to teach at the newly created University of São Paulo in Brazil, and Braudel spent three years there.

At the beginning of World War II, as a reserve lieutenant, he was mobilized and went to the front in an artillery unit. Having taken part in the battles, after the signing of the armistice in the summer of 1940, together with the remnants of his military unit, he was captured, in which he spent almost five years - first in a prisoner of war camp for officers in Mainz, and since 1942 in a special regime camp in Lubeck.

In 1947 he defended his dissertation. Since 1948, Braudel directed the French Center for Historical Research. In 1949 he became a professor at the College de France, occupying the chair of modern civilization, and also headed the jury for the defense of historical dissertations.

Corresponding Member of the British Academy (1962). Honorary Doctor of the Universities of Brussels, Oxford, Geneva, Cambridge, London, Chicago, etc.

The most famous work of Braudel is considered his three-volume "Material civilization, economy and capitalism, XV-XVIII centuries", published in 1979, devoted to the transition from feudalism to capitalism.

Fernand Braudel is a renowned proponent and promoter of an interdisciplinary approach.

Books (9)

The grammar of civilizations

The work of the outstanding historian Fernand Braudel, the largest representative of the French historical school "Annals", is devoted to the development of civilizations of the West and the East.

The Grammar of Civilizations was written in 1963 and was conceived by the author as a textbook for the secondary education system in France. However, it turned out to be too complicated for a textbook, but it was met with great interest by scientific circles of the world, as evidenced by translations into many languages.

Unlike other fundamental studies of the author, it is written in a much more accessible form, which makes it easier for the perception of Braudel's concept not only by specialists, but also by a wide readership.

Material civilization, economy and capitalism, 15th - 18th centuries In three volumes. Volume 1. Structures of everyday life: possible and impossible

"Material civilization, economy and capitalism, XV - XVIII centuries." - a fundamental three-volume work by F. Braudel, one of the greatest masters of historical research.

This work is the highest achievement of the French historical school "Annals" in the desire of scientists of this historiographic trend to carry out the historical synthesis of all aspects of society. The object of the study of "Material Civilization" is economic history on a worldwide scale from the 15th to the 18th centuries.

The first volume explores "historical tranquility", unhurried, repeating from day to day human deeds to get their daily bread.

Material civilization, economy and capitalism, XV - XVIII centuries In three volumes. Volume 2. Exchange Games

Exchange Games are complex world economic communications. Fernand Braudel explores the various levels of business - hauler, long-distance trade, international stock exchanges and lending institutions. He traces how their complex interactions influenced society, social hierarchy and entire civilizations.

One of Braudel's main tasks is to compare the market economy and capitalism, to determine their points of contact, the degree of independence and the nature of the confrontation.

Material civilization, economy and capitalism, XV - XVIII centuries In three volumes. Volume 3. Time of the world

In the third volume - "Time of the World" - the task is to "organize the history of the world" in time and space, to reveal such realities in economic life, which acquire a world sound, set the rhythm for all mankind.

The author analyzes the reasons for the ups and downs of world economies, the formation of national markets, the history of the industrial revolution, verifies in a concrete historical chronological sequence his main hypotheses set forth in the first two volumes.

History essays

The book combines several articles on the nature of history that the famous French historian from the Annals group, Fernand Braudel, published between the 1940s and early 1960s.

The author compares history with other human sciences in order to determine the possibilities of their mutual enrichment. In his generalizations, he outlines the paths of convergence of the human sciences, the place of the idea of \u200b\u200blongevity (la longue duree) as the essence of the historical process, the role of mathematics and computers in social and scientific cognition.

The book can be interesting for representatives of all social sciences, as it clearly presents the problems, the answer to which was the formation of postmodern ideology.

The Mediterranean Sea and the Mediterranean World in the era of Philip II. Part 1. The role of the environment

The classic work, which made the French historian famous, was first translated into Russian.

The first edition of the work devoted to the history of the Mediterranean in the second half of the 16th century (but far beyond these chronological and geographical limits) appeared in 1949.

It attracted attention by summarizing the experience of several generations of historians from different countries, including the innovative research of the "Annals" school, as well as by the originality of Braudel's historical method. He introduced into everyday life the concepts of historical segments of great duration, structures and conjunctures, against the background of which specific events are considered, “the dust of everyday life”.

A pioneering approach was also a comprehensive approach to the study of the whole region, which at that time for Europeans was the focus of the whole world, in its entirety, going beyond the usual political framework and historical stereotypes, and most importantly, in interaction with the natural environment.

The Mediterranean Sea and the Mediterranean World in the era of Philip II. Part 2. Collective destinies and universal shifts

In the second part of F. Braudel's monograph, a detailed picture of the life of Mediterranean societies is drawn, and its main aspects are described in detail: economic, political and civilizational.

This is the largest section of Braudel's three-part work, the richest in original material and most fully reflecting the author's historical preferences.

In contrast to the 1st part, which describes the Mediterranean geographic environment, and the 3rd, devoted to the "eventful" history, here both stable social structures and the dynamics of various processes are investigated; their detailed quantitative characteristics are given, a peculiar view of the Mediterranean civilizations is expressed.

The Mediterranean Sea and the Mediterranean World in the era of Philip II. Part 3. Events. Politics. People

The last volume of F. Braudel's trilogy, dedicated to Mediterranean Sea, tells about the events of the traditional, in the understanding of the author, mainly political history of the second half of the XVI century.

Despite the French historian's dislike of the narrative form, this section of his work is read with enthusiasm and will be interesting not only for scientists, but also for a wide range of history lovers.

Our reader is offered the second edition of the Russian translation of the three-volume work of F. Braudel, published in France in 1979, "Material civilization, economics and capitalism, XV-XVIII centuries." This is the second major study by F. Braudel. The first - "The Mediterranean Sea and the World of the Mediterranean in the Age of Philip II" - was published in 1949. During the thirty years separating these two dates, F. Braudel occupied a central place in French historiography. After Mark Block (1886-1944) and Lucien Febvre (1878-1956) - the founders of the historical school "Annals" - F. Braudel, becoming the generally recognized leader of this scientific direction, continued their "battle for history", the purpose of which, as they believed, it was supposed to be not a simple description of events, not a carefree narration about them, but penetration into the depths of the historical movement, the desire for synthesis, for the coverage and explanation of all aspects of society in their unity.

Over the twenty years that have passed since the publication in Russia of the first volume of F. Braudel's capital work "Material civilization, economy and capitalism, XV-XVIII centuries", the name of Braudel in the minds of the domestic reader has firmly become one of the most significant, cult names of historians of the XX in. His works, his idea of \u200b\u200bglobal history, the concepts he created - historical durability (la longue durée), world-economy (économies-mondes), different speeds of historical time, and finally, capitalism - had a fruitful influence on the renewal that took place in these years. humanitarian knowledge in our country and contributed a lot to the formation of a new paradigm of social sciences. In addition to their epistemological significance, the ideas of Braudel's synthesis and echeloning of historical time - space were a powerful factor in the transition to a new type of historical writing and, moreover, had a serious impact on modern history education. Indeed, today it is impossible to imagine courses of theoretical-methodological or historiographic content, which would not pay fundamental attention to the contribution of the "new historical science", its desire to overcome not only the positivist heritage, but also criticism of structuralist explanatory models, its relation to Marxist schemes of the historical process and the economic theory of Marx, its role in creating a new quality of social and economic history, and finally, the complex struggle between history and sociology in the general field of the humanities. Meanwhile, all of the above points are in one way or another inextricably linked both with the creative innovations of Braudel himself, this "prince" of French history, and with his colossal organizational and administrative activities in those key posts that he held in different years in the institutional space of the scientific world of France ...

The problems of his works, the questions that he raises in his studies, are large-scale and invariably relevant, because they do not have an unambiguous solution: on the one hand, his efforts are aimed at presenting the typology of civilizational models, at studying the exceptional role that the Mediterranean has played in world history , on the other hand, he is busy searching for a theoretical and historical explanation of the fundamental structures of capitalism, the origins of our modernity, the deep reasons that led to the expansion of European civilization across the entire surface of the globe, as well as identifying probable scenarios for future, and now real, radical movements aimed at displacing or moving the world center to achieve a new alignment and a new hierarchy of modern worlds-economies at the planetary level. Today we can say with confidence that Braudel's two main books - "The Mediterranean Sea and the World of the Mediterranean in the Age of Philip II" and "Material Civilization, Economy and Capitalism, XV-XVIII centuries." represent for the majority of researchers and practitioners who work in the field of the humanities and social sciences, a mandatory and necessary starting point, an indispensable reference point or measure of their own cognitive and other activities, allowing them to carry out methodological reflection in a situation of changing configuration of modern sciences about man and society ... As the author of an original methodological perspective - the perspective of historical durability, the famous longue durée - Braudel changed our usual vision of historical facts, events and social changes, proposing a new type of approach to realities that somehow constitute the social dimension of history. However, what exactly is valuable in the legacy of this outstanding scientist today, and why in the changing historiographic situation at the turn of the century, Braudel's figure continues to remain an uncontested constant?

In order to understand the originality and essential features of Braudel's creative method, it is important to recall, at least in dotted lines, some of the stages of his biography - by the way, quite well-known - because during his life, his personal history, Braudel had to go through an exceptional experience in some sense and visit in very dramatic circumstances, which could not but influence the formation of his, also exceptional, personality. The first thing to note is that by his birth, as well as by the impressions of early childhood, he was, if one may say so, a "border guard" - in the sense that he spent the first seven years of his life in a small town in French Lorraine , where he felt the influence of a multicultural environment and was imbued with the idea of \u200b\u200ba variety of cultural experience, and also found himself in contact with the German language, which further facilitated his acquaintance with the achievements of German and Austrian scientific thought, which developed so rapidly in the period between the two wars, opened up to him the door to the market for German-language products in the social sciences and ensured the fruitful interaction of these elements with the lines of force and the achievements of Mediterranean culture, which to a large extent laid the foundations for the complex edifice of Braudel's creativity.

At the same time, the childhood years spent in a small village allowed him to directly observe the realities of village life and subsequently had a serious impact on the formation of his theoretical ideas. It was then, being in direct contact with these rural realities, unfolding in a slow temporal mode, in a temporality characterized by the repetition and reproduction of stereotypical behavioral patterns and customs rooted in time, Braudel acquired a special taste and sensitivity, as well as the ability to refined perception and understanding of the various structures of historical duration. In addition, his knowledge of village life allowed him to masterfully change the scale of the historical narrative, moving from broad generalizations to describing the picturesque details of the very material life, the study of which he devoted himself. Once he said to one of the PhD applicants, returning his dissertation to him for revision: "Monsieur, it does not give enough manure!"

To continue the theme of Braudel's "borderline", let us also recall that his intellectual maturation took place in the exceptional situation of interwar Europe. It was this Europe that became that “environment” and “era” in which the initial period of its formation as a historian and practice of social sciences fell. Indeed, the First World War, the victory of the Bolshevik revolution, the loss of Europe's hegemony in the Western "world-economy" and the transition of this hegemony to the United States, the crisis of 1929, the coming to power of fascists and Nazis, and finally, the inevitability of the approach of the Second World War - All this created a number of conditions that made Europe look closely into the mirror and radically question everything that until recently seemed obvious and unshakable. For example, the attitude that turned into an indisputable postulate the mythological idea of \u200b\u200bthe universality and irreversibility of human progress.

The situation of the 1920s-1930s, marked by a deep crisis of European consciousness, left its imprint on all those theses that Braudel developed during his life and which are inscribed in the main objects of his research, in particular: not old Europe, viewed from the point of view of traditional Eurocentrism, and the Mediterranean, raised in the Braudelian concept to the rank of a new world "center" and subject of world history. This interwar intellectual and cultural conjuncture, characterized by pluralism and the flowering of critical reflections, the desire to problematize various manifestations of European reason in a new way, is visibly present in his non-standard concept of time, breaking with his contemporary views on temporality, and later transformed by him into a new and original the theory of different temporal speeds or historical durations.

We find the influence of the interwar historical context in Braudel's concept of "human civilizations", in a radical reassessment of the role of elements of the natural-geographical environment, in his special approach to the study of capitalism, based on the everyday levels of material civilization, or, also, in his special, heretical vision the world, running counter to the dominant in the "episteme" of social sciences of the twentieth century. configuration.

Without setting ourselves the goal of covering all stages of Braudel's biography, let us also say that in his individual experience there were both extreme pages and situations of existential shock, which also could not but leave an imprint on his formation as a historian and as an intellectual. For example, the long five years that he spent in captivity during the Second World War.

In 1939, F. Braudel was ready to start writing a book about the Mediterranean. It seemed that everything necessary for the implementation of this plan was in place: a year before that he had received an appointment to the Practical School of Higher Studies in Paris, preparatory work has been completed. But the war began, and F. Braudel was at the front. After the defeat of the French army, he was captured and spent time from 1940 to 1945 in prisoner-of-war camps; at first he was in Mainz, and from 1942 he was transferred to a special regime camp in Lübeck.

All these years, F. Braudel lived an intensely intense intellectual life. It was a time of reflection when his vision of history was taking shape. Not having the necessary materials at hand, but possessing a phenomenal memory, he worked hard, writing one school notebook after another and regularly sending them to L. Fevre. As a result, he wrote the first version of a huge volume (1160 pages) and fascinating content of a book on the history of the Mediterranean.

Braudel's vision of history from that time was determined primarily by the desire to understand human achievements and make them understandable to others. True, under the influence of the terrible situation in which the whole world found itself, under the influence of the painful events of those years and on the basis of the thoughts about history that had already formed in him by that time, this aspiration was refracted in a very peculiar way. Braudel wanted with all his might to move away from the events of the war, from the everyday life of those difficult years, but not to turn away from them, as if these events did not exist at all, but to rise above them, look at them somewhat from the outside, see behind them those deep forces, having understood and appreciated it would be possible not to prevent their repetition, but at least not to do what is not worth doing. This is where the at first completely incomprehensible desire of F. Braudel to a non-event history at the very time when exactly events tormented the whole world, and himself, this is where, again, inexplicable at first glance, his mental immersion, for the entire time of his stay in the camp in the 16th century.

The phenomenon, in fact, is not quite ordinary: from the special regime prisoner of war camp there is a stream of school notebooks with strange names: "In the heart of the Mediterranean", "Share of the environment", "Collective destinies and common movement", "Human unity. Ways and cities ". “I had to believe,” writes F. Braudel in this regard, “that history, that the destinies of mankind take place at a deeper level ... In an unimaginable distance from us and from our everyday troubles, history was created, making its unhurried turn, such as unhurried as that ancient life of the Mediterranean, whose immutability and a kind of stately immobility I so often felt ”.

It took about 20 years from the thought of the research topic to the publication of the book on the Mediterranean. In 1947 Braudel defended his dissertation, and in 1949 a book was published, which both in form and in content fit into the historiographic direction presented by the Annals. In her, as L. Febvre wrote, everything “which for 20 years has been achieved by all of us, whether it is Marc Bloc, Henri Pirenne, Georges Espinas or Andre Sayu, Albert Demanjon, Henri Ause or Jules Sion - I name only the dead, - in our striving to create a history that is more lively, more thoughtful, more effective, more adapted to the needs of our era ”.

The construction of a typology of various periods of history and various socio-historical durations was a kind of rejection reaction to the horrors of the surrounding reality. As Braudel himself later said, he felt then the need to go beyond the immediate reality of wartime events - irrational events. It was this need that made him search for and try to identify other time registers and dimensions, in particular, to develop his own long-term vision of the deep history that unfolds over a period of long time duration.

This desire to distance himself from the realities and time frames of event history, forced by external circumstances, allowed Braudel not only to discover the middle and long time, respectively, inherent in conjunctures and structures (in his terminology), but also to debunk the concept of temporality that dominated at that time. The idea of \u200b\u200ba plurality of historical and social durations proposed by Braudel, corresponding to historical phenomena of different nature, but capable of articulating in a common register of physical time and subject to a complex dialectic of simultaneity and multiphase, sometimes leading to layers, seems to be quite simple in appearance. Nevertheless, in essence, it meant a radical criticism of the main parameters of the then self-evident model of modern temporality and the development of a more subtle and hitherto unseen modality, in which from now on it was proposed to re-model the concept of time.

In 1958, F. Braudel's article “History and Social Sciences. Long time duration ", this article is, on the one hand, a summing up and theoretical generalization of concrete historical research both by the founders of the" Annals "and the author himself, and on the other, a kind of program that largely determined the originality of F. Braudel's work ... The article says that since about the 30s, the concept of historical time has radically changed in French historiography. Previously, it was perceived simplistically and unambiguously, as a uniformly flowing calendar time, as a predetermined scale or axis, on which the historian only has to string facts-events of the past. To replace the idea of \u200b\u200btime as a meaningless duration of the past, the idea of \u200b\u200ba social, meaningful-definite time, or rather, a plurality of times, various temporal rhythms inherent in various kinds of historical realities, of discontinuity during social time.

This more complex and at the same time more consistent with objective reality understanding of time was embodied in different ways in the works of French historians. The works of F. Braudel himself are permeated with the idea of \u200b\u200bdialectics of three different temporal dimensions, each of which corresponds to a certain deep level, a certain type of historical reality. In its lowest layers, as in the depths of the sea, spaces, stable structures dominate, the main elements of which are man, earth, space. Time passes here so slowly that it seems almost motionless; the ongoing processes - changes in the relationship between society and nature, the habits of thinking and acting, etc. - are measured in centuries, and sometimes millennia. This is a very long time span. Other realities from the field of economic, social reality, like the ebb and flow of the sea, have a cyclical nature and require other time scales for their expression. This is already a "recitative" of socio-economic history; societies and civilizations differ in these temporal characteristics. Finally, the most superficial layer of history: here events alternate like waves in the sea. They are measured in short chronological units; it is a political, diplomatic, and the like "eventful" story.

The schematization reproduced by Braudel in the article is a simplification of historical reality, in which, in his opinion, dozens, hundreds of different levels and corresponding temporal rhythms can be distinguished. In addition, within each given level of historical reality, several temporal lengths can coexist, intertwine, overlap one another, like a tile on a roof, since they are nothing more than forms of movement of various areas of social reality. Coordination of times, a meaningful explanation of true temporal rhythms is, according to F. Braudel, the most reliable means of penetrating into the depths of historical reality.

Thus, already in his first big book "The Mediterranean Sea and the World of the Mediterranean in the Era of Philip II" (1949) Braudel seems to be at the crossroads of two main historical coordinates: time, which became for him that key period for European history, which was so called "long" XVI century, when, strictly speaking, the birth of world history took place, and spatial, represented by the Mediterranean, around which numerous civilizational movements take place and to which historical waves of various peoples of the Old World flow.

Historical analysis carried out in the work "Material civilization, economy and capitalism, XV-XVIII centuries." (1979), radically pushes the chronological and spatial framework of the study to a time interval of almost a thousand years, embracing the processes, the beginning of which can be attributed in one case to the 11th century, in the other - to the 18th century and the echoes of which can be caught in the 20th century. Following the lessons learned from L. Febvre, Braudel believes that the specific spatial-temporal dimension of research is dictated by the "historical problem" posed in it. The spatial framework for considering such a global problem as capitalism and the emergence of "modernity", or, as we would say, modern industrial society (modernité), expand to the boundaries of the Old World, and in essence - to planetary scales.

Thus, we can state a clear, direct connection between these two works, with the first appearing as a kind of huge, unlimited chapter of the second. However, there is another, possibly deeper - theoretical and conceptual - connection between them, which consists in a new appeal to the themes and models of explanation, developed back in 1949, and their enrichment and rethinking 30 years later. So, for example, the model of material civilization is a theoretical element built on top of the theory of geohistory, and modeling of typical elements of the world economy is nothing more than a generalization of the lessons learned from the study of a specific "case" of the European world-economy of the "long" 16th century. The study of the general laws of the functioning of capitalism and the behavior of capitalists undoubtedly follows from an earlier study of their behavior and role in the civilizations of the Mediterranean.

"Material civilization, economy and capitalism, XV-XVIII centuries", which is 30 years distant from the "Mediterranean", repeated and actualized the success that fell to the lot of this earlier work, but also confirmed Braudel's place as one of the first masters in the post-war international of historians. Both the first and the second works matured and were processed for more than twenty years before they came out from under his pen in a finished form - "extremely simple and clear." The first became a school for historians, contributing to the gradual establishment in a professional environment of a certain way of thinking and writing history. Can the same be said about the "Material Civilization"? The main goal of the entire study is formulated in the preface prefaced to the first volume of the 1967 edition. Noting already at the very beginning of the preface that general history always requires some general scheme, in relation to which the whole explanation is built, F. Braudel writes: “Such a scheme inevitably imposes itself: from the 15th to the 18th centuries. the life of people was marked by some progress, unless, of course, this word is understood in its modern sense of continuous and rapid growth. Long time there was a slow, very slow progress, interrupted by quick backward movements, and only during the 18th century, and again only in a few privileged countries, was it found, never to be lost from sight, a good road ... this progress, the discussions that it causes, the reflections that illuminate it, obviously, and will be located along the main axis of this work ”; “How that system, that complex system of existence, which is associated with the concept of the Old Order, how it, if viewed on a global scale, could become worthless, burst; how did it become possible to go beyond its limits, to overcome the obstacles inherent in this system? How was it broken, how could the ceiling be broken? And why only for the benefit of some who find themselves among the privileged on the entire planet? "

In the first two volumes - "The structures of everyday life: the possible and the impossible" and "Games of exchange" - such elements are revealed overall structure the world economy of the 15th-18th centuries, which acted as a stimulus or a brake on the historical movement. The first volume is "weighing the world", "an attempt to identify the limits of what is possible in the pre-industrial world." F. Braudel examines the most diverse spheres of the material, everyday life of people - food, clothing, housing, technology, money - and always with one goal: to find "the rules that have kept the world in a rather difficult to explain stability for too long" (T. IP 38) ... This volume also carefully examines those slow changes in individual elements of the structure of the world, accumulation, uneven progress, which imperceptibly, but nevertheless created that critical mass, the explosion of which in the XVIII century. changed the face of the world.

In the second volume ("Games of Exchange") "a confrontation" between "market economy" and "capitalism" is made, an explanation of these two layers of economic life is given by revealing how they mix with each other and how they oppose each other.

This division of economic life into a market economy and capitalism, as F. Braudel himself believes, will probably be considered by readers as the most controversial point in his work. Is it possible, he himself formulates the alleged opponent's question, not only to oppose the market economy and capitalism, but even to draw a clear distinction between them? After long hesitation, F. Braudel admits, he nevertheless came to the conviction that the market economy was developing in the period under review, encountering opposition both from below and from above, i.e., on the one hand, a huge mass remained beyond its reach. infraeconomics - material, everyday life, which the market economy could not grasp, and on the other hand, the market economy opposed capitalism, which at that time (as, by the way, in the author's opinion, and now) did not cover the entire economic life of society.

In the third volume - "The Time of the World" - the task is to "organize the history of the world" in time and space in such a way (of course, while simplifying it, as F. Braudel himself admits), in order to "arrange the economy next to, below and above other accomplices in the division of this time and space: politics, culture, society ”(T. III. P. 8-9). In the course of the implementation of this concept, the third volume became a kind of crossroads, at which general spatio-temporal characteristics from the theoretical arsenal of F. Braudel met with specific realities from the period under consideration. The ebb and flow in the history of the world economy, the interdependence of production and material goods in different regions are manifested either in the form of relatively short-term events lasting 3-4 years, 10, 25-30 years, or in the form of secular cycles with crisis peaks in 1350, 1650, 1817 years, then as a vector of an even longer time span.

All these shifts at the level of economic history, superimposed on the common axis of time, sometimes combine and complement one another, sometimes, on the contrary, collide and break up against each other.

In full accordance with this general orientation, the main question formulated by F. Braudel in the preface to his work is solved. Slow accumulation of not only (and not mainly) wealth, but above all skills, technical solutions, the corresponding ways of thinking, as well as structural transformations in the relationship between man and nature, between the market and capital, capital and the state, etc., which were just as slow in the course of traditional growth, prepared the conditions for the industrial revolution. All these slow accumulations and structural transformations fit into a longue duree perspective. As for the social and industrial revolution, during which the breakaway took place, the transition (take-off) to the modern type of economic growth, is an opportunistic moment, the lot of a relatively short time and a confluence of completely different circumstances, different from those that originate at least in the XIII, and even in the XI century.

"Material Civilization" is a work that itself is the result of the research and discussion of a lifetime. But this result cannot be considered final, because, like the Mediterranean, it represents a sufficiently flexible framework that allows changing and adjusting individual elements without questioning the weight of the whole. It is also interesting that this book, begun during a period of relatively prosperous development of industrial countries, ended and was partially altered by Braudel against the backdrop of a systemic crisis that began to sweep the whole world and hit the very foundations of the modern world economic system. It so happened that the appearance of this work, in a sense, marked one of those “age-old turns” with the help of which capitalism survives and transforms, making the necessary changes and amendments and redistributing forces and means: “The age-old crises are the payment for the ever-increasing inconsistency between the structures of production, demand, profit, employment, etc. " (T. III. P. 543-544).

So, having briefly reviewed Braudel's professional path and intellectual legacy (of which there is a solid literature), let us think about what is connected with such a strong popularity of his ideas, such a long fame of their author and a persistent, unremitting interest in his works, which, despite the fact that they were written in the best traditions of academic historiography, have been among the bestsellers for many years. Braudel's legacy has become an integral part of the French social sciences, including in institutional terms (let's not forget that the three main structures at the origins and at the head of which Braudel stood - the House of Human Sciences, the School of Higher Social Research and the editorial board of the Annals - personify a significant part of the best that has been created by the French intellectual elite over the past fifty years) and has long stepped over the boundaries of the French hexagon. Braudel's two main books have been translated into more than 20 languages, including Russian and Korean. This means that references to his concepts, models, theories and hypotheses have become the generally accepted norm in historical discussions and writings on history.

The reasons for this lie, on the one hand, in the universality of the problems to which his work is devoted, on the other, in the radically innovative nature of the solutions he offers and explanations of the causes of the described phenomena. Indeed, Braudel was concerned with both the history and modern state of capitalism and what is capaciously signified by the word modernite, as well as the role of the world "center" that the Mediterranean space played at one time. Trying to find the key to understanding the special place of European civilization, exploring the various dimensions of material civilization and everyday life, studying the role of the geohistorical base in the development of civilizations, as well as the complex dialectics of their historical destinies, Braudel, one way or another, touched upon topics of universal significance. In other words, the plots developed by Braudel are of interest to everyone, no matter what national historiography they are placed in.

Along with this obvious universal dimension of Braudel's legacy, which attracts a wide variety of readers around the world, whether they are historians, social scientists, or simply educated people, his work contains a range of unrelenting and sometimes unexpected prospects of scientific research. These radically innovative perspectives are associated, firstly, with a new vision of the colossal and eternal problem of temporality and the most acceptable forms of its comprehension, as well as with various ways of human perception of such a complex reality as time and its specific implications, and, secondly, with new opportunities in the approach to the study and deciphering of the social, and, consequently, in new ways of building an integral system of our knowledge about society.

Yu. N. Afanasiev

Other chapters from this book

• The second Russian edition of the fundamental work of Fernand Braudel "Material civilization, economics and capitalism, XV-XVIII centuries." carried out twenty years after the first volume of the first edition appeared in the Progress publishing house, and fourteen years after the first ...
• The fact that this voluminous book - "Material Civilization, Economics and Capitalism" - is being translated into Russian is both honor and joy for me. I expect a lot of criticism about her, but also a lot of agreement with her. The only thing,...
• When, in 1952, Lucien Febvre entrusted me with writing this work for the series "The Destiny of the World" which he had just begun, I, of course, had no idea what endless enterprise I was getting myself into. In principle, it was about a simple generalization of data from works devoted to the economic history of pre-industrial ...
• And here I am on the threshold of the first book - the most difficult of the three volumes of this work. The point is not that each of its chapters by itself may seem inaccessible to the reader. Complexity imperceptibly arises from the multiplicity of goals, from difficulties ...
• Wheat, rice, maize - this staple food for most people is still a relatively simple problem. But things get more complicated as soon as you turn to less common types of food (and even to meat), and then to a variety of needs - clothing, housing. For in these areas they always coexist and ceaselessly ...

The combination of two fundamental concepts - culture and civilization - in the history of cultural studies has caused a lot of controversy, discussions, led to the emergence of opposing points of view. The desire to join the global stream, to acquire the features of a common human civilization is widely discussed by our contemporaries. Along with this, there are fears of the loss of the nationally distinctive features of culture, uniqueness, which may dissolve and melt in the process of "technization" and "Westernization". Violent denunciations by O. Spengler, A. Schweitzer, J. Huizinga of the “machine civilization” with its catastrophic urbanization, ecological crisis, insane militarization, primitive spiritual interests, wastefulness and neglect of the individual find support among many theorists.

There is a desire to return "back to nature", to limit consumption and comfort, to live a "simple", unpretentious life.

In the social sciences, the concept of civilization was supplanted by the theory of socio-economic formations that determined the ascent along the path of progress, although the historical material “resisted” the schemes and conventional constructions. Despite the economic determinism so widespread in methodology, knowledge about the development of the material life of society turned out to be extremely poor and limited.

That is why F. Braudel's work “Material civilization. Economy and capitalism of the 15th-18th centuries ”1, in which the problems of the relationship between culture and civilization are considered on the basis of extensive historical material.

F. Braudel dedicates an appeal to the reader in connection with the translation of the trilogy into Russian to the Russian historians A. A. Huber,

1 Braudel F.Material civilization. Economy and capitalism of the XV-XVIII centuries: In 3 volumes. M., 1988-1993.

B. N. Porshnev, E. A. Zhelubovskaya,MM Shtrange, A. 3. Manfred, whose works were known to him, and notes the importance of historical research of culture and civilization. He insists on interdisciplinary interaction of scientists of different specialties, believing that various sciences about man "shake" history.

Social sciences cannot give fruitful results if they proceed only from the present, which is not enough to build them. This position sounds especially important for cultural studies.

About the biography of the scientist

Let's look at some of the main events life path this eminent historian of our time.

Fernand Braudel (1902-1985) was born in 1902 in a small town in Lorraine, in eastern France. He recalled that in those years he still found a village blacksmith and a cart at work, knew how hemp was soaked in a meadow lowland, he saw wandering lumberjacks. A stone path, as ancient as the world, lay in front of his house. These are archaic for the XX century. the forms of everyday material life more than once came to his memory when he studied the history of European civilization. Even in modern economic systems, as Braudel later wrote, there are residual forms of material culture of the past. They disappear before our eyes, but slowly, and it never happens the same way.

The material life of society is multi-layered, and changes paint a picture of a long time duration, permeating the silent thickness of the centuries. “Primary” elements of civilization are visible in every culture, forming the basis of the daily life of the people. They evolve little by little, transforming into new forms, but they still accompany a person, forming his powerful "root" system, giving stability to being.

It is these problems of numerous interweaving in economics that will become the object of philosophical and cultural reflections for Braudel.

Fernand Braudel graduated from the Voltaire Lyceum in Paris and continued his education at the famous Sorbonne. Having become a professional historian, he taught in lyceums for almost 10 years (with the exception of 1925-1926, when he served in the army), working in Algeria, studying in the archives of European countries. Already in those years he was imbued with a deep love for the Mediterranean, which in the future became the topic of his dissertation.

In 1937, Braudel was assigned to the School of Practice for Higher Studies in Paris. During these years, a group of historians who rallied around the French journal Annals: Economics. - Societies. - Civilization ”, which was founded in 1929 by Mark Block (1886-1944) and Lucien Febvre (1878-1956). Their views turned out to be very close to Braudel, and since 1932 he was linked with February by friendly relations.

The Annals school (this name was later consolidated) was distinguished by a new methodology for the study of world history. Opposing "eventful" history as the only possible one, theorists proposed to restore the entire volume of historical life, including changes in the value system, differences in the rhythms of changes in material life. The focus was on everyday life, which has inertia, duration and stability. From this position, Braudel began writing a book about the Mediterranean.

His studies were interrupted by the Second World War. Braudel was at the front. During the defeat of the French army, he was captured and from 1940 to 1945 was in a prisoner of war camp: first in Mainz,and from 1U42 - in a special regime camp in Lubeck. It is difficult to imagine, but it was during these years that Braudel wrote a huge and original work in 1160 pages - "The Mediterranean Sea and the World of the Mediterranean in the Era of Philip II", practically relying only on his phenomenal memory, without having any books or any historical materials at hand.

The school notebooks in which this study was written, he passed from the camp to his friend the historian Febvre, who carefully preserved them. After the end of World War II, Braudel was able to defend his dissertation on this manuscript, and in 1949 he published a book. In the same year he became the head of the department of modern civilization at the Collège de France, and from 1956 to 1970 he headed the journal "Annals", continuing the line of M. Blok and L. Fevr in the study of the history of culture.

In 1952, he accepted February's offer to write a book for the Fate of the World series on the economic history of preindustrial Europe between the 15th and 18th centuries. This research fascinated Braudel very much, and as a result of many years of work, three fundamental volumes “Material Civilization. Economy and capitalism of the 15th-18th centuries ”, which became a major event in world historical science.

The book describes the original concept of the evolution of the material culture of society, the problems of preserving and transforming archaic forms, the emergence and spread of new formations, traced the connections and interdependence of the material and spiritual life of society.

Does the book contain more than 500 first-class illustrations, maps, graphs, diagrams? prints, photographs, and the bibliography includes 5500 on-. naming conventions. All this makes scientific work extremely interesting and fascinating, viewing paintings made by famous masters with the highest taste and reliability is a pleasure.

The abundance of factual material in the books gave rise to many contemporaries to call Braudel "a miracle of historical erudition." The theoretical concept is interesting, easy to understand, well presented literary style... This contributed to the fact that soon all three volumes gained wide popularity, were published in many countries, and in 1988-1992 gt. were published in Russia. Each volume is a unique study of the history of the material civilization of Europe: Volume I - “The structures of everyday life: the possible and the impossible”; II volume - "Games of exchange"; Volume III - "Time of the World". We have yet to return to this amazing trilogy.

I would like to draw attention to the portrait of Braudel: the photograph captures the image of an unusually hardworking, enthusiastic historian, with a shrewd, benevolent look and appearance of an intellectual, innovator and organizer of scientific research.

In 1962, Braudel created the House of Human Sciences in Paris and directed it until his death. He was elected a member of the French Academy, an honorary doctor of the universities of Brussels, Oxford, Madrid, Geneva, Warsaw, Cambridge, London, Chicago, and a Research Center in the USA was named after him.

Fernand Braudel died in 1985 at the age of 83, having lived an incredibly eventful life, having received recognition and authority in world historical science.

The structures of everyday life

Let's focus on the main frame of the historical concept and present in more detail some of the plots of Volume I - “The Structures of Everyday Life: Possible and Impossible”. In this title, every word is important, for it has a deep meaning. The concept of “everyday life” is of key importance. It expresses the main methodological orientation of the "Annals" school. History does not happen from case to case, not from event to event, not from one form of government to another, but daily. Life is made up of a huge number of "fleetingness" that people often do not notice, they are so familiar and perceived as "happening by itself" or "for granted."

It is precisely this meaning that Braudel puts into the "basic" activity that is found everywhere and the scale of which is almost fantastic.

For lack of a better designation, I named this vast area at the ground level, material life,or material civilization ^.

Material life, as Braudel explains, is people and things, things and people. Food and drink, housing and building materials, furniture and stoves, costumes and fashion, transport and energy sources, luxury goods and money, tools and technical inventions, diseases and methods of treatment, plans of villages and cities - everything that serves people, that is connected with him in everyday life.

C This "opaque" for the view zone is not only vast, but inert, changes in it occur extremely slowly.

Above the lower "floor" rises a more mobile zone, the so-called market economy, the mechanisms of production and exchange associated with the activities of people in agriculture, with workshops, shops, stock exchange, banks, fairs and markets. The construction is completed by the third "floor", where transnational forces operate, capable of distorting the course of the economy, and undermining the established order.

They create anomalies and “eddies” and create an upper limit to the “possible and impossible”.

Thus, a diagram emerges where all three floors are in close contact with each other, like a roof tile. This is

1 Braudel F.Material civilization ... T. I. Structures of everyday life: possible and impossible. P. 7.

allows Braudel to conclude that “there is no one,and someeconomies ". And this is typical not only for the distant historical past, but also for modern society.

All floors of the "building" have their own lower and upper limits, which form the boundaries of the "possible and impossible". The lower zone is especially large, covering a significant number of the population. This is a sequel " ancient economy", Because the former skills, abilities and procedures prevail in it: the grain is sown in the same way as always, the rice field is leveled in the same way as always.

Each "floor" lives not only according to its own laws, but also in accordance with its own rhythms. There are ebb and flow, long or short-term cycles, waves of rise and fall roll over each other, creating unique configurations of material lifein space andtime. The analysis of these processes allows us to observe how equilibrium was achieved in history, why it began to collapse, and how crises arose.

In everyday life, “daily bread” plays an important role. This is the title of one of the chapters of Volume I. Braudel cites the famous proverb: "Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are," for food testifies andabout the culture of a person, his social rank, material capabilities, national habits, the level of civilization, age, taste preferences.

Wheat, rice, maize, soybeans, corn were the "plants of civilization", they were the signs of a settled life. It was necessary to possess the skills of farming, to know the usefulness of cereals, the ways of their use in food.

Braudel investigates in detail the ways of distribution of these cereals, the types of "bread" widespread in different countries, yield and prices, cooking andthe production of bakers, the emergence of mills and bakeries, scientific agriculture and diet.

"History of mankind unitedin their renewal over the millennia and in their treading on the spot, synchrony and diachrony are inextricably linked with each other, "concludes Braudel 1.

Recall that Braudel conducts research into the phenomena of material culture within the framework of the "possible and the impossible", the boundaries of "bottom and top", "poverty andluxury ".

The established boundaries are very flexible: what was a luxury yesterday is becoming commonplace, mass today:

Braudel F.Material civilization ... T. I. P. 47.

“When any food, which has been rare and longed for for a long time, finally becomes available to the masses, there follows a sharp jump in its consumption, like an explosion of a long suppressed appetite. But, having turned out to be "popularized", this type of food quickly loses its attractiveness, and a certain saturation is planned.

The rich are condemned to prepare the lives of the poor in the future - such is the trend of the spread of culture and civilization. It is difficult to define once and for all luxury that is changeable in nature, elusive, multifaceted and contradictory, ”concludes F. Braudel 1.

He gives many examples from the history of culture, showing how a surplus or rare product becomes common and everyday. For example, sugar was a luxury until the 14th century; up to the XVI-XVII centuries. very rarely used a fork while eating; luxury items were a handkerchief, shallow and deep plates.

Luxury is a reflection of the difference in social levels, but it constantly exists as an external limit of desires, thereby stimulating production.

Braudel gives a huge amount of information about the peculiarities of cooking in China and India, Arab countries and Europe, about the distribution of various "exciting" drinks - wine and beer, coffee and tea, the customs of their use.

As Braudel notes, the home is characterized by traditional constancy. The house is stable in history, almost does not change over the centuries and invariably testifies to the slow pace of development of civilizations and cultures that stubbornly strive to preserve, maintain, repeat those techniques, materials, technologies that have stood the test of time.

Hewn stone, brick, wood and clay, as well as felt, cloth, reed or straw are the main building materials. The houses of the poor and the rich, rural and urban residents differed; the dwelling of the nomads was different from that of the sedentary population; in the North they were built differently than in the East or South.

Traditional civilizations were distinguished by the constancy of the interior of the houses. For a long time, people did not know chairs, they were replaced by benches, barrels or other seats. There was almost no heating in the houses, the kitchen hearth and brazier served as the only sources of heat. In the countries of the East, the dwellings inside were filled with numerous

In the same place. P. 200.

pillows, mattresses, carpets, which were spread in the evening and rolled up in the morning.

In China, houses were distinguished by exquisite furniture made of precious woods; lacquer, inlay complemented the decoration. In Africa, earthen huts were built, made of poles and reeds, round "like dovecotes", occasionally smeared with lime, without furniture, except for clay pots and baskets, without windows, every evening carefully fumigated with smoke from mosquitoes.

The interior and decoration of the European house also has a long history. The floor on the first floor was made of tamped earth, patterned slabs began to be used from the 16th century, and wooden parquet became common only by the 18th century, and then in rich houses. The walls were covered with wallpaper fabrics; by the end of the 17th century. paper wallpaper spread, which also symbolized luxury. Only in the XVI century. transparent glass appeared, and before that the window openings were covered with parchment, cloth, oiled paper, plaster strips. That is why the window frames were with frequent wooden frames.

Over the centuries, carpenters have built houses and furniture: heavy wardrobes, huge tables, benches and chairs - everything was stable and heavy. In every house there was a wooden chest, fastened with iron strips, roomy and monumental.

The history of furniture items makes it possible to reproduce the atmosphere of life, its way of life, the manner in which people communicate; imagine how they ate, slept, played, worked in this separate world.

What was the owner of this House like, how did he dress, did he follow fashion as an opportunity for renewal? Braudel devotes his chapter "Costumes and Fashion" to these problems. The history of the costume is considered in a wide social and cultural context: types of fabrics, their production and distribution, social hierarchy that strictly regulates the appearance of estates, national characteristics of clothing, its seasonal nature, splendor and demonstrative wealth of toilets, festive and everyday outfits.

The costume often played the role of a kind of social mask - a priest, artisan, courtier, peasant. Thanks to this, he became "recognizable" by those around him. Everywhere the traditional style of clothing was preserved, the festive attire passed from parents to children, was removed from the chests at a certain time.

Japanese kimono, Indian sari, Spanish poncho have hardly changed. Fashion means not only abundance, excess, insanity, but also the rhythm of change. Until the beginning of the XII century. the costume in Europe almost did not change: chitons to the heels of women, to the knees - of men. But in general - centuries and centuries of immobility.

The first appearance of Braudel's fashion dates back to the XIV century, when the rule of changes in clothing begins to operate, although it operates very unevenly, does not cover all layers, meeting initial resistance. National centers of fashion appear, gradually its samples are accepted in other countries.

So, in the XVI century. among the upper classes, the black cloth suit, introduced by the Spaniards, became fashionable. This can be seen in many paintings. It replaced the sumptuous costume of the Italian Renaissance. But in the 17th century. the French costume with bright silks and loose fit triumphed. Fashion spread from Paris to all parts of Europe. Unaccustomedness in clothing was often ridiculed. The unreasonable height of women's hairstyles, figs, flies on the face, the diversity of men's suits were symbols of fashion trends. Fashion meant the search for a new language, it was a way to fix the differences from previous generations. The secrets of fabric production were jealously guarded from competitors. It took silk centuries to come from China to Europe; no less lengthy were the wanderings of cotton, flax and hemp only gradually penetrated into other countries.

Fashion reigned not only in clothing, it encompassed the style of behavior, the manner of writing and speaking, receiving guests and the daily routine, body care, face, hair. The appearance made it possible to judge the era, social status, professional occupation, age and gender, material wealth, tastes and national identity.

** These are the realities of material life. Writing, drinks, living quarters, clothes, fashion - this is the reality in which a person lives on a daily basis. It constitutes the language of culture, the combination of "things and words", symbols and meanings that a person possesses, becoming their "captive".

Within the framework of individual societies, these things and languages \u200b\u200bconstitute a whole. Civilizations are strange collections of material values, symbols, illusions, quirks, and intellectual constructs.

Technical inventions

An equally vast layer of technical inventions, energy sources, means of transportation, forms of monetary exchange closely interacts with the lower "floor" of everyday life. This is what Braudel devotes to the following chapters.

Mechanical means and instruments of the material life of society have existed for a long time. Inventions appeared, but very slowly conquered the world and gained universal significance. Arabic numerals, gunpowder, compass, paper, silk, typography were by no means approved by a "gallop"; it took a considerable time for them to be adopted. Any invention had to wait years or even centuries to enter or be implemented in real life.

\u003e "F. Braudel analyzes the historical process of the movement of three great innovations, sometimes called technical revolutions. These include: 1) the invention of gunpowder;2) typography;3) swimming in the open ocean.

It is difficult to compare these technical achievements with each other - the first contributed to the improvement of artillery and was a weapon of war; the second led to the spread of enlightenment and education; third, it changed the sea routes of the world, made cultural contacts real. Let us dwell in more detail on the meaning of book printing.

Paper came to Europe from China through the Muslim countries of the East. The first paper mills started working in Spain in the 12th century. But European papermaking really began to develop in Italy at the beginning of the XIV century. Old linens were used as raw materials, and the profession of a rag-picker became very popular. China knew printing from the 9th century, Japan from the 11th century. It was carried out from wooden planks, each of which corresponded to one page. It was an extremely long undertaking.

Then ceramic letters were invented, which were attached with wax to a metal mold. Then the letters were cast from tin, but they wore out quickly. At the beginning of the XIV century. movable wooden letters were used. Only from the middle of the 15th century. typographic set and movable type appeared, invented by Gutenberg, a master from Mainz, Germany. This font remained almost unchanged until the 18th century. The invention spread quickly - by 1500, 236 European cities had their own prints, in the 16th century. about 140-200 thousand books were published.

The old handwritten book was gradually replaced by the printed one. With the distribution of books, the opportunities for scientific contacts have significantly expanded, the level of education has increased. So technical inventions had a significant impact on the spiritual life.

Braudel analyzes in detail the technical innovations that ensured long voyages and great geographical discoveries, the successes of shipbuilding and trade expeditions.

However, land transport, as Braudel notes, was as if he were "paralyzed." Everything in it remained the same: poor road structure, constancy of routes, low speeds, archaic vehicles. The poet Paul Valery said that "Napoleon walked as slowly as Julius Caesar."

In Europe, carriages appeared at the end of the 16th century, postal stagecoaches only in the 17th century, only a narrow strip was paved on large roads, and two carriages could hardly part ways.

The technical development of transport was slowly accelerating. Ultimately, at one point or another, everything begins to depend on the achievements of technology.

Money and financial calculations

In the material culture of society, Braudel includes the monetary system, calling it an "ancient technical means", an object of desire and interest of people. Currency circulation appears as an instrument, structure and deep regularity of any slightly advanced system of exchanges. Money is superimposed on all economic and social relations.

This is a "wonderful indicator" that allows you to judge all the activities of people, down to the most modest phenomena of their life. Hardcoins in a thousand ways are being introduced into everyday life: rents and loans, duties and taxes, market prices and wages - networks are scattered everywhere.

Money is "the blood of the social organism", it helps the circulation of goods, accumulates capital, testifies to poverty and wealth. Monetary systems are diverse and mysterious. These are the original "languages" of culture and civilization, calling for knowledge and dialogue. Money is the standard in the implementation of the exchange of goods.

Already in ancient times, “primitive” money existed in different countries. It could be salt, cotton cloth, brass

years, beads, golden sand by weight, corals and precious stones, shells, animals, birds, dried fish - there is no counting. Such archaic forms of exchange persist for a long time under the thin "skin" of developed monetary systems and, in the event of crises or changes in the economy, revive again in the form of "barter transactions" and natural exchange.

Metal money, gold, silver, copper were built over these primitive forms. Each of these types had its own coverage area - for large, medium and small transactions and settlements. Coins accelerated money circulation, accumulated in the form of values, flowed in a stream to different countries, increased in value and fell, changed their owners.

Then payment orders, obligations, receipts, credit, bills began to participate in the exchange.

For centuries monetary system gradually became more complicated: “the more economically developed a country became, the more diverse its monetary and credit instruments were, stimulating production and consumption. Money is not only a means of economic exchange, it has a socio-cultural value, creating images of stinginess and waste, wealth and poverty, defining the limits of the possible and the impossible.

The city as the center of civilization

In the final chapter of volume I, Braudel views the city as the center and embodiment of civilization with all positive and negative features and consequences. Cities are like electrical transformers: they increase the voltage, speed up the exchange, they constantly shape the lives of people.

Braudel analyzes a number of ways to classify cities according to various criteria: the political approach distinguishes capitals, fortresses, administrative centers; economic - ports, caravan trade centers, trading cities, industrial cities, financial centers. The social approach presents a list of cities - rentiers, church, princely residences, craft centers. You can continue such a classification according to cultural, religious, scientific and other characteristics.

There are cities open, connected to the nearest rural environment, or closed, closed within their borders. Depending on the situation, the pace of development of cities, the prevailing types of occupation and even their fate changed.

The open system was the ancient polis, Greek or Roman. From the outskirts, people gathered in the square to solve common affairs, they took refuge in it in case of danger.

The medieval city was a closed and self-sufficient unit. Walking behind its walls is like crossing the state border. There were two categories among citizens; the first consisted of "partial" ones, who had to live at least 15 years in the city to become a city dweller. The second category consisted of "full-fledged" with at least 25 years of permanent residence. They had privileges, were a minority, "a small town in the city itself."

In Marseille of the 16th century, in order to obtain citizenship, one had to have "ten years of permanent residence, own real estate, marry a city girl." In these cities, dynasties of artisan and merchant nobility - clothiers, grocers, furriers, hosiery - had great power.

The cities under the tutelage of the central government are royal residences, centers of the Catholic Church. They owned the money, the distribution of privileges and honors.

Capitals are a special type of cities: they grew rapidly economically, became populous, created a powerful national market, attracted artisans and artists for decoration, and were famous for the contrasts of wealth and poverty.

Describing the life and everyday life of many large cities of the world, Braudel devotes a special section to St. Petersburg in 1790, citing various information from the guidebook of I. G. Georgi, who lived in the era of Catherine II.

St. Petersburg was founded by Peter I in 1703, but the chosen location was extremely inconvenient for building. It took an unbending will to create a city on swampy lands and numerous islands. The alarming water level, floods created a continuous threat. Cannon shots, white flags during the day, lighted lanterns, continuous bell ringing complemented the city's appearance. The city had to rise above mortal danger. Therefore, stone foundations were needed, embankments fortified with granite, specially dug canals, cobbled streets.

It was a colossal and very expensive job. St. Petersburg was a busy construction site. Barges, loaded with lime, stone, granite, floated along the Neva.

pom forest. The stock exchange and customs, Nevsky reach have turned into a busy port by the sea. The Neva was the main thoroughfare of the city. She gave drinking waterthat was flawless; in winter it turned into a toboggan run and a place of folk festivities. There was even a special profession of "ice cutters" to supply the cellars located in the first floors of houses.

In 1789, almost 218 thousand people lived in St. Petersburg, and there were twice as many men as women. It was the city of the court aristocracy, army youth, service people. Orthodox churches coexisted with Protestant and Catholic churches, prayer houses of schismatics. There is no other city in the world where every inhabitant would speak so many languages. Even among the servants of the lowest rank, there were not those who would not speak not only Russian, but also German and Finnish, and among those who received some kind of education, there were often those who spoke eight or nine languages ... Sometimes of these. languages \u200b\u200ba rather amusing mixture was created - such was the capital of St. Petersburg of the 18th century.

Big cities are a kind of test that shows the level of development of culture and civilization. They create a modern state, but they themselves are the result of the economic and social development of society. The world of the old order was gradually or rapidly changing in them, a new type of city dweller arose, with a special character and lifestyle. Braudel notes that the Petersburger is inherent in the tastes of a metropolitan, formed in all respects in the image and likeness of the tastes of the courtyard. The latter set the tone with his inquiries, festivities, which were equally general celebrations, with magnificent illumination on the Admiralty building, on official buildings, on wealthy houses.

Not only the national character is inherent in a person, but the city also brings special features to his mentality, imparting originality to communication manners, the way of perception of the world, the style of speech, thereby increasing the real diversity and uniqueness of the personality.

Concluding the review of the plots that were the subject of Brodel's analysis, it is necessary to emphasize that the concept of material culture and civilization is modern, because the problematic of the 20th century is constantly felt in it: the combination of inertia and acceleration, the duration of changes, a combination of archaic forms and innovative achievements. The choice of alternative ways of development increases the responsibility of a person for the fate of culture and civilization.

The variety of forms of material culture makes it possible to build a model (or even a "grammar") of the economic life of society.

Braudel repeatedly returns to the image of the House. If the first floor is still a solid, traditional foundation, then two floors rise above it. The upper "floors" are based on the lower ones, which form the thickest layer within the framework of one social reality. It should be borne in mind that the contact between "floors" materializes in a thousand inconspicuous points: markets, shops, fairs, warehouses, shops, wholesale and retail trade - everywhere their contact, rivalry and competition are revealed. On the upper "floor" - exchange transactions, banking settlements - the "shadow zone" of powerful capital begins.

Name:	The structures of everyday life: the possible and the impossible
	Braudel Fernand
Book series:	Material civilization, economy and capitalism, XV-XVIII centuries , Material civilization, economy and capitalism, XV-XVIII centuries.
Genre (s):	Science, Education, History
Publisher:	Progress
The year of publishing:	1986
ISBN:	2-253-06455-6
"Material civilization, economy and capitalism, XV-XVIII centuries." is a fundamental three-volume work by F. Braudel, one of the greatest masters of historical research. This work is the highest achievement of the French historical school "Annals" in the desire of scholars of this historiographic trend to carry out the historical synthesis of all aspects of society. The object of the study of "Material Civilization" is economic history on a global scale from the 15th to the 18th centuries. The first volume explores "historical tranquility", unhurried, repeating from day to day human deeds to get their daily bread.

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