Cultural Historical Anthropology of the “Barbarian” Europe In The “First Millennium” Ad: Aron Ia. Gurevich and Karol Modzelewski

Abstract

The article analyses key monographs and articles by Aron Ia. Gurevich and Karol Modzelewski, which formed the basis for studying the so-called “ ar arian societies” of Europe in late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages using methods of cultural historical anthropology. The first is “Pro lems of the Genesis of Feudalism in Western Europe” of 1970 by Aron Gurevich. The second, in many ways a successor to the Gurevich’s methods, is K. Modzelevsky’s “Bar arian Europe” of 2004. In the second half of the 20th century, within the framework of the historical anthropology of “ ar arian societies” of the 1st century BC — 12th century AD, two research programs have developed, the first of which can be called cultural anthropology, and the second – social and political anthropology. The first is aimed at studying traditional semi-peripheral societies of Europe as if “from the inside”, the second – in a broad comparative plan. If Aron Gurevich worked within the framework of cultural anthropology, completely “not noticing” the social and political, then K. Modzelewski, completely remaining in the paradigm of cultural anthropology, nevertheless recognized the heuristic of an alternative direction. In modern historiography, communities without developer writing culture of the 1st century BC — 12th century AD began to
be studied to a greater extent with the involvement of the conceptual and terminological apparatus of social and political anthropology, i. e. in a paradigm that can be designated as neo-evolutionary comparative-historical socio-cultural anthropology, however, the methods of cultural historical
anthropology remain in the arsenal of studying archaic and traditional societies.