Kofman A.F. Spanish conquistador in the stream of history

Abstract: The article discusses the features of historical thinking of the Spanish conquistadors — people, who were born in the crossing of epochs, spaces and cultures, and who embodied the traits of a crucial era of the Middle Ages to the New Era. As heirs of the medieval way of thinking and culture, they verbally professed Christian fatalism, which was inseparable from the faith in God’s favor and miracle. In fact, by personal example they have asseverated the effectiveness of individual effort and goal setting, which opened a vast aria for personal initiative, and was embodied in the act that summed anthropocentric concepts and ideas that fed the spirit of the Renaissance. They understood the course of historical process, and themselves as its driving force, and they have become outstanding representatives of the Renaissance type of person.

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