Traditions and culture: history, features, customs

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:41

History, culture and traditions are inextricably linked. Each of these concepts follows from the other, they are formed, being under mutual influence. But, in addition to history, the geographical factor also has a huge influence on how the culture and traditions of peoples develop.

It is impossible to even imagine a situation in which the Papuans of New Guinea or the inhabitants of the Arabian Desert, for example, make snowmen. The reverse situation is also incredible, in which the inhabitants of the Far North, for example, arrange dwellings in trees. The formation of customs, the formation of the culture of the people, as well as life, is determined by the conditions in which people live, by what they observe around them.

What does the word "culture" mean?

The very word "culture" is of Latin origin. In Latin, it sounds like this - cultura. This term has many meanings. It is used not only to characterize certain societies, but also to designatevarieties of cultivated cereals or other plants. It is also used in relation to other concepts, for example "archaeological culture" - the term refers to the totality of finds of historians relating to a certain period.

There are also some kind of sub-concepts, that is, for example, "information culture". This phrase refers to the interaction between different ethnic or national cultures, the exchange of information.

What is this ?

Traditions and culture are two inseparable characteristics of human life. The term "culture" refers to the totality of life experience accumulated by people, manifested:

• in everyday life;
• in cooking;
• dressed;
• in religious beliefs;
• in art;
• in crafts;
• in philosophy, that is, self-expression and self-knowledge;
• in the peculiarities of linguistics.

This list can be continued, since the concept of "culture" includes absolutely all manifestations of a person's activity as a person, as well as the objective skills and abilities of society as a whole.

How does culture develop?

Traditions of national cultures are a kind of set, a list of conventions of human life that have developed over time, characteristic of a particular society. The development of cultural skills is evolutionary, like that of humanity as a whole.

That is, the culture of a particular society or humanity as a whole can be represented as some kind of abstract set of rules or codes that initiallyare simple. As life becomes more complicated, which is an inevitable condition for the development of society, each subsequent generation has a greater amount of accumulated experience and knowledge than the previous one, the set of "cultural codes" grows.

The traditions and culture of each subsequent generation, along with the preservation of the primary experience inherited from the ancestors, acquire their own ways of self-expression. That is, cultural layers differ from each other in each time slice. For example, the culture of the inhabitants of Russia in the 10th century, in the late Middle Ages and now has something in common, but is also strikingly different.

What is cultural heritage?

The inherited part of cultural skills is a kind of core, basis, direction of the development of society, it is an unchanged value. The rest of the elements that make up the culture of the people can change, develop, die off, be forgotten. That is, the culture of each society is characterized by two values - an unchanging, pivotal and mobile, living parts. Their totality is the development of culture, the source of its constant self-reproduction with concomitant development, absorbed by new experience and skills. In the absence of any of the characterizing values, culture fades, ceases to exist, and with it the society that gave birth to it disappears. There are many examples of this phenomenon in the history of mankind: Ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire, Babylon, the Vikings.

What are traditions?

The topic "folk culture and traditions" is eternal - these are inseparable concepts. The word "tradition" itself is also of Latin origin. Roman stylethe concept sounds like this - traditio. From this word comes the verb tradere, which literally means “to transfer.”

Traditions are understood as a set of habits that have developed over time, techniques used in social or other forms of life. In essence, traditions are regulators, limiters of social activity and manifestations of character and behavior of people. They dictate the accepted norms in public life and the idea of each individual about what is acceptable and unacceptable within a particular society.

Tradition is a feature of culture, which refers to its core values, constant phenomena.

What are customs?

A custom is a stereotype of behavior characteristic of an event. For example, serving a loaf of bread with s alt when meeting an important person is a custom. The culture and traditions of Russia, like other countries, consist of a combination of many customs.

Customs pierce all facets of life - from everyday life to celebrations, they are also the basis of the so-called signs. For example, there is a sign that forbids washing floors if one of the household leaves for a short time. The sign says that in this way a person is “swept out” of the house. The habit of following it is already a custom. The same applies to the crossing of the road by a black cat and to many other conventions.

The custom is the order of pronunciation of toasts at celebrations and the list of dishes served. Fireworks on New Year's Eve - toocustom. Accordingly, customs should be understood as a set of habitual actions performed over a long period of time or inherited from ancestors.

What is the difference between custom and tradition?

Traditions, customs, culture are inseparable concepts, but this does not mean at all that they are similar.

Customs can change under the influence of any factors, but traditions are a constant value. For example, in the tradition of the natives of the islands of Polynesia and a number of other tribes, cannibalism is laid down, but in Russia there is no such tradition. This is an invariable idea, no matter what happens, cannibalism for Russians will not become traditional in the same way as baking bread and farming - for ethnic groups living in the equatorial forests or in the swampy jungle.

Customs can change even within a single generation. For example, the custom of celebrating the anniversary of the revolution ceased to exist along with the Soviet Union. Customs can also be adopted from other ethnic groups. For example, the custom of celebrating St. Valentine's Day that has spread in our country in recent decades has been adopted from Western culture.

Accordingly, traditions are permanent, unshakable cultural components, and customs are its living, changing components.

How does history influence culture?

The historical features of the development of an ethnic group have the same decisive influence on the culture of the people, as well as geographical conditions. For example, Russian culture and traditions have largely developed underthe influence of numerous defensive wars experienced by our country.

The experience of generations leaves an imprint on the priorities in the social life of society. In Russia, the army and military needs have always been a priority in the distribution of the budget. So it was under the tsarist regime, in the days of socialism, and this is typical of today. Whatever the power or state structure in our country, Russian culture and traditions will invariably prioritize military needs. It cannot be otherwise in a country that has survived the Mongol-Tatar occupation, the invasion of Napoleon's troops, the fight against fascism.

Accordingly, the culture of the people absorbs historical events and reacts to them with the emergence of certain traditions and customs. This applies to all areas of human life, from national to domestic, everyday. For example, after quite a lot of Europeans, especially Germans, appeared in the Russian lands during the reign of Princess Sophia, some of the foreign words entered the linguistic set of the Slavs. Language, namely colloquial speech, which is also part of culture, most quickly responds to historical features.

A rather striking example is the word "barn". This word is tightly used by all Slavs from the Far North to the Crimea, from the B altic to the Far East. And it came into use solely because of the war with the Mongol-Tatars and the occupation of the Slavic lands. In the language of the invaders, it meant "city, palace, residence."

The history of the development of the nation has a direct impact oncultural features at all levels. That is, the historical influence is not only wars, but absolutely any events taking place in the life of society.

What culture can be?

Culture, like any other concept, consists of several main components, that is, it can be divided into peculiar categories or directions. This is not surprising, since traditions and culture cover all areas of life as an individual, individual, and society as a whole.

Culture, like its traditions, can be:

• material;
• spiritual.

If we approach the understanding of this division in a simplified way, then the material component includes everything that can be touched, touched. The spiritual part is a set of non-material values and ideas, for example, knowledge, religious beliefs, ways of celebrating and mourning, an idea of acceptable or impossible behavior, even the style and techniques of speech and gestures.

What is material culture?

The material component of any culture is first of all:

• technology;
• production and working conditions;
• material results of human activity;
• household habits and more.

For example, cooking dinner is part of material culture. In addition, the material part of cultural values is also everything that concerns the reproduction of the human race, the upbringing of descendants, relationshipsbetween man and woman. That is, for example, wedding customs are part of the material culture of society, as well as ways to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, or something else.

What is spiritual culture?

Spiritual traditions and culture are a set of manifestations of the life of both individuals or their generations, and society as a whole. They include the accumulation and transmission of knowledge, moral principles, philosophy and religion, and much more.

The peculiarity of spiritual culture lies in the fact that it needs the mediation of material components, that is, books, paintings, films, music recorded in notes, a code of laws and legal acts, other options for fixing and transmitting thoughts.

Thus, the spiritual and material components of each culture are inextricably linked. Moreover, they mutually "push" one another, ensuring uniform development and progress of human society.

How is the history of culture developing?

The history of culture is similar to any other, that is, each time period has its own characteristics, characteristics and other features. Like general history, cultural history is made up of a sequence of human actions.

People's activities, which, like building a house, are building blocks in cultural history, can be:

• creative;
• destructive;
• practical;
• intangible.

Every person who creates something or vice versadestructive, contributes to the general culture. It is from the multitude of such contributions that the culture of society as a whole grows, and hence its history. Human activity, influencing the history of culture, is a set of social forms of activity, the consequence of which is the transformation of reality or the introduction of something new into it.

What influences cultural characteristics?

Life, culture, traditions of the people and their distinctive features, that is, features, depend on many factors. The main nuances that affect how the culture of the people becomes are:

• geographical and climatic conditions of residence;
• isolation or closeness with other ethnic groups;
• size of occupied territory.

That is, the more space a certain ethnic group has, the more moments connected with roads, overcoming distances will be present in its culture. These can be proverbs or sayings, the way horses are harnessed, the shape of carriages, the themes of paintings, and so on. For example, troika riding is an integral part of Russian culture. This is a unique feature of the Russian ethnos, this element is not found in any culture other than Slavic. The emergence of this feature is due to a large territory and the need to quickly overcome significant distances, while having the opportunity to fight off predators. For example, wolves do not attack three horses, but wagons harnessed by one filly are attacked.

Remoteness from other ethnic groups is becomingthe reason for the special formation of language, traditions and other cultural nuances. A people that is not subject to close and constant contact with other ethnic groups has unique traditions, customs and mentality. The most striking example of such a country is Japan.

Climate and landscape also have a direct effect on cultural characteristics. This influence is most noticeable in national costumes and everyday clothes, in traditional occupations, architecture and other visible manifestations of the culture of peoples.