On the “Catching Up†Model of Self-awareness of Russia as a Civilization

The article reveals the problem of “catching up†with the model of self-awareness and delayed worldview re­flection in connection with the historioso- phical concept of pseudomorphosis proposed by Oswald Spengler. The problem is inves­tigated in the optics of a new methodology of tradition-civilization as an indissoluble sociocultural complex. The article shows that the Russian philosophical and social thought proposed two large-scale programs to overcome the pseudomorphological type of development: Pochvennichestvo in the 19th century and Eurasianism in the 20th century. The creation of such programs represented a kind of jerks provoked by an identity crisis. Pochvennichestvo has ad­vanced from its environment and defended the original theory of civilizations (cultural and historical types) of Nikolai Danilevsky. This program and N. Danilevsky's system were a reaction to Russia's defeat in the Crimean War and the collapse of the illu­sions of Eurocentrism and Russia's organic entry into the family of European states. In turn, Eurasianism was formed as a world­view response to the cascade of revolutions of the early 20th century and the continua­tion of a radical Western pseudomorphosis at a different level. The proposed two pro­grams were not only reactive, but also pro­active: they comprehended the historical traumas experienced by Russia, and at the same time forecasts and scenarios of the fu­ture were built, and an impulse was given to a comprehensive scientific study of Russia as a civilization.