DOI: 10.25136/2409-7144.2021.3.32900

Abstract: The goal of this research consists in demonstration of transitional periods in the dynamics of European culture, defined as sociocultural transformation, as the basis for its periodization. The article indicates that namely sociocultural transformations, i.e. transitional eras, play a crucial role in the historical-cultural process. In the dynamics of European (Euro-Atlantic) culture, the author determines the three sociocultural transformations: late Hellenism, Renaissance and Reformation, avant-garde and postmodernity. They divide the cultural continuum of the countries of European (Euro-Atlantic) civilization into three stages of gradual development: antiquity, medieval, and modern European. The key research method is the philosophical interpretation of the knowledge on cultural heritage of the European (and later Euro-Atlantic) culture. It is underlined that sociocultural transformations manifest as a condition for the creative process in its classical meaning (emergence, consolidation, and distribution of the new), and the key for cultural continuity, although the contemporaries often consider it as “shifting away from the norm”. In the intervals (sociocultural transformations) of gradualism (cultural systems) underlies the guarantee of continuity of the historical-cultural process.

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0625.2020.8.32902

Abstract: The subject of this research is the conditions, under which in the transitional periods that are defined by the author as “sociocultural transformation”, is carried out the selection of cultural-dominant characteristics forming the essence of the next gradual stage in the dynamics of culture. These conditions are determined based on the analysis of the dynamics of culture of the European (Euro-Atlantic) civilization. The author considered such transitional periods as Late Hellenism, Renaissance and Reformation, avant-garde and postmodernism, which represent the sociocultural transformation between Antiquity, Middle Ages and Modern Age respectively. The method of philosophical interpretation of the cultural phenomena of European (Euro-Atlantic) civilization became the key method for this research. The main conclusion of this work consists in description of  such semantic vectors of sociocultural transformation as relativization of meanings, paralyzation of meanings, principle of doubt and uncertainty, and separation with the preceding cultural tradition. These semantic vectors orient towards upward tendency of cultural development.