In mid-March 1519, a Spanish detachment led by Hernan Cortes, who had left the island of Cozumel shortly before, reached the mouth of the Tabasco River and proceeded to conquer the mainland of Mesoamerica.
After Scandinavian navigators stopped visiting the Western Hemisphere, the first European to reliably reach America was Christopher Columbus. Discussions about whether the great traveler himself realized in 1492 that he discovered the New World, or not, are being conducted by scientists to this day. Be that as it may, but it was with the travels of Columbus that the mass enslavement and destruction of the Indian population living on the islands of the Caribbean began. Even during his first expedition, Columbus noted that the locals were very friendly, and that they would be easy to conquer.
The colonists who arrived with Columbus on the islands during his second expedition began to kill the Indians for entertainment and feed them with their dogs' children. And in 1498, the Indians at the legislative level were forced to work for the Spaniards. Weakened by hunger and deprivation, the natives died en masse from infections introduced by Europeans. As a result of monstrous murders and epidemics, in just 30 years, the multi-million indigenous population of the largest Caribbean islands practically ceased to exist. It was the turn of the continent itself. Columbus, during his travels, reached the shores of the "mainland" of America, but its "organized" capture was postponed by the Spaniards for a quarter of a century.
In 1518, the former alcalde of Santiago de Cuba, a native of a poor noble family, Hernan Cortes, through intrigue, knocked out for himself the place of the leader of the expedition to the shores of Mesoamerica, officially considered an island. For the sake of organizing the campaign, Cortes sold or mortgaged all his property. On February 10, 1519, he, at the head of a detachment of several hundred infantrymen and sixteen horsemen at arms, landed on the Mayan island of Cozumel off the coast of Yucatan, where he destroyed an Indian sanctuary and installed an altar in its place. And already on March 14, members of the Spanish expedition landed at the mouth of Tabasco, thereby starting the process of conquering Mexico.
The locals greeted the Spaniards wary, but generally friendly. One of the Mesoamerican deities was Quetzalcoatl, described in some legends as a light-skinned, bearded man who went to sea on a raft, but promised to return. According to some researchers, the Indians could identify Cortes either with Quetzalcoatl himself, or with one of his servants. The head of the expedition received generous gifts from local leaders - gold jewelry and twenty young women. One of them was Malinche, who later became a translator, assistant and mistress of Cortes, who pointed out to him the vulnerabilities of local states.
In April, the Spanish moved along the coast and founded modern Veracruz.
In the XV - XVI centuries, a significant part of Mexico was under the rule of the Aztec Empire - a powerful people who conquered most of their neighbors and waged bloody wars with the rest. Cortes quickly realized that local contradictions could be played on. By blackmail and hidden threats, he forced the Aztec tlatoani (emperor) Motekusoma II to let the Spaniards into his capital - Tenochtlitlan (modern Mexico City). Motekusoma tried to buy off Cortes by sending him expensive gifts, but the appetites of the conquerors only grew from gold and jewelry.
The arrival of Europeans in the capital of the empire caused strong dissatisfaction among the Aztecs, but Cortes, having taken the Tlatoani hostage, for some time managed to control the situation in the city. Having searched the imperial palaces, the Spaniards discovered the "gold reserve" of the head of the Aztec state, and were beside themselves with delight. However, at that time, the Cuban authorities considered Cortes, who had "gone on his own voyage", to be a rebel and sent a punitive expedition against him. Cortes with a part of the soldiers urgently departed for the coast, where he defeated Narvaez, who was sent to arrest him, and lured his companions to his side. However, in Tenochtlitlan, at that time, an uprising began against the Spanish garrison, who was trying to interfere with human sacrifices. The soldiers barely held out until the arrival of their commander.
By this time, tens of thousands of Aztec warriors had been pulled into Tenochtlitlan. Motekusoma, who was trying to persuade his subjects to submit to the Spaniards, died under unclear circumstances (either he was killed by the Aztecs themselves, or died at the hands of the Spaniards). Cortes quickly realized that things had taken a bad turn, and tried to hastily leave the Aztec capital with the treasury of Motekusoma, but it was not there.
Tenochtlitlan was on an island in the middle of a lake, and the Indians managed to dismantle the bridges on the dams leading to the mainland. The Spanish detachment, which had left the well-fortified palace, was attacked by superior forces of the Aztecs. In this battle, also known as the “Night of Sorrows” (from June 30 to July 1, 1520), Cortes lost more than half of his detachment, part of the horses and gold of Motekusoma. The remaining conquerors fled, using the bodies of their dead comrades as bridges. It seemed that one blow was enough to end them completely. Cortes was saved only by the fact that he was able to kill the commander of the Aztec army, Sihuac, in the battle of Otumba, which took place shortly after the flight from the capital. The remnants of the Spanish detachment retreated to Tlaxcala, a city-state that had been at enmity with the Aztecs for many years.
At the same time, a terrible epidemic of smallpox introduced by the Spaniards began in Tenochtlitlan. A significant part of the inhabitants of the city died, the rest were weakened by illness and demoralized by mystical horror. Cortes, with the help of the inhabitants of Tlaxcala, built a flotilla of small ships armed with cannons, and delivered them to the salt lake near Tenochtlitan.
Despite the epidemic, shelling from the lake and the lack of fresh water (the Spaniards destroyed the water conduit leading to the city), Tenochtlitlan held out for three months. He fell on August 13, 1521. The great empire perished, the capture of America began.
The detractors of Cortes in the colonies suffered a serious moral defeat. In 1522, Cortes became governor and captain-general of "New Spain" - modern Mexico.
Despite all the cruelty of the Spaniards, who enslaved the Indians and forced them to hard slave labor, the indigenous population of Mexico largely survived. Today, Indians make up 30%, mestizos - 60%, and whites - only 9% of the total population of the country.
However, the success of the Spaniards forced other European nations to follow their example. The British, French and Dutch began to colonize the territory of the modern United States and Canada, destroying at least 90% of the Indian population living there. Today, Americans and pro-American figures in other countries often blame the mass death of the Indians on the disease, and try to convince the world community that the European colonists, and then the Americans who gained independence from Great Britain, fought with the Indians according to all the rules of that time, and did not commit nothing to blame. Although it was on their actions to destroy the Indians that Adolf Hitler himself studied.
The legitimate owners of the continent were infected with various diseases, poisoned, slaughtered by entire tribes, paid money for their scalps and starved. They tried with all their might to "Europeanize" those who remained, giving them working professions.
It is curious what modern Americans and Europeans would say, justifying the colonial policy of their ancestors, if someone powerful today would behave with them according to the same “patterns”? Would you recognize the validity of the approach?
Svyatoslav Knyazev
On October 17, revolution number one began - no, this is not about the "Great October Socialist", it happened four centuries earlier. Exactly 500 years ago, on the last day of October 1517, in the center of Germany, a local university professor and passionate monk, Martin Luther, nailed to the church gates a long set of objections to the sale of papal indulgences.
With the words "In the name of the love of truth ...", 95 theological theses set out in Latin began. After reading them, a modern person, most likely, will visit one thought - how can some 29th thesis (“Who knows if all the souls that are in purgatory want to be redeemed ...”) influence our modernity? Nevertheless, what was said in October 1517 has been affecting life and the entire economy of our planet for 500 years now.
Capitalism is born in a mine
It is well known that capitalist relations originated in the "city-states" of medieval Italy. But modern historical science highlights another of their cradles - the southeast of Germany in the 15th century. It was this region - from Saxony to the Austrian Alps - that was the main center of metallurgy for Western Europe. All the metals known to mankind at that time were mined here - from iron to silver, gold, tin and copper. Iron was already at that time the backbone of the economy, and local mines before the discovery of America served Europeans as the main source of precious metals.
It is no coincidence that the mountain range that divides today Germany and the Czech Republic (and five centuries ago - Saxony and then still German Bohemia) is called the "Ore Mountains". The concentration of metal ores lying almost on the surface here was prohibitive. There was nothing like it in Eastern Europe, from the Dnieper to the Volga - all the richest deposits, like the Kursk magnetic anomaly, lie at a depth of hundreds of meters, which will become accessible only to the technology of the 19th century.
So, if you want to find the origins of the Eastern European economic lagging behind the western half of the continent, you should start with a map of metal ores. In Kievan and Muscovite Rus, grains of surface "swamp iron" scattered throughout the vast forests were collected by a few craftsmen. Whereas in the southeast of Germany (at that time the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation") at the beginning of the 16th century, concentrated deposits of ore in shallow mines were mined by more than 100 thousand professional miners - a fantastic figure for that era!
In the family of one of these miners, “bourgeois revolutionary No. 1” was born - this is what Marx would call Martin Luther centuries later. However, the revolutionary role of Luther in the history of European civilization is recognized by no means only by Marxists. Suffice it to recall the famous work of Max Weber “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” or the words of the leading American literary critic of the 20th century, Vernon L. Parrington: “Luther’s teaching was stuffed with gunpowder - it produced an explosion that broke gaping gaps in the seemingly unshakable fortress walls of feudalism.”
But let's get back to the medieval German miners, who imperceptibly dug European capitalism out of their mines. Their numbers and concentration inevitably led to new socio-economic forms of life.
Peasant - proletarian - capitalist
In the autumn of 1483, a young German peasant, Hans Luther, and his pregnant wife moved from the village to the mines of the Mansfeld county in Saxony in search of a livelihood. Already in November of that year, a son named Martin was born to a novice miner. While the boy was growing up, his father stubbornly hammered the breed and just as stubbornly saved up money. The abundance of mines, ore and workers, together with the high demand for iron, gave yesterday's peasant a chance to rise to a new level.
And Hans Luther did not miss his chance: after working in the mine for seven years, he organized a mining partnership. Such partnerships, Gewerkschaften, which then arose everywhere in the mining trade, were the first truly capitalist industries. By the beginning of the 16th century, Martin Luther's father was already a well-established "capitalist", profiting from the ownership of shares in eight mines and three smelters. Of course, with his 1250 guilders of capital, he was far from the Fuggers and Welsers, the largest merchants and bankers in Germany of that era. The Fuggers and Welsers will soon buy the lands of today's Venezuela from Emperor Charles V for an amount 300 times greater than the capital of Luther Sr.
But even a thousand guilders then allowed for a whole year to pay for the work of almost a hundred craftsmen. In a word, from the “little” Luther to the “big” Fuggers and Welsers, this is already the real early capitalism. True, this capitalism has to work in the bowels of classical feudalism - "The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" five centuries ago was a reference illustration for a school textbook on the history of the Middle Ages. Feudal fragmentation, feudal freemen and the "feudal ladder" - from simple knights to counts and kings, and above, above the three kings, an almost powerless emperor. And all this is spiritually “nurtured” by the Catholic Church – the only permitted ideology, besides being the largest feudal lord itself. Almost a third of the lands and possessions in that Germany belonged to bishops and monasteries.
It is in such conditions that the “capitalism” of the Luthers, father and son, is born. By the way, much in that story five centuries ago echoes the prehistory of the Russian revolution 100 years ago. The same newborn and rapidly growing capitalism, crushed by mighty feudal remnants. Even the driving force is the same - yesterday's peasants, townspeople of the first or second generation, who have become the "proletariat" and "bourgeoisie", and their children.
Capitalism is born in typography
One more condition also coincides - both social breakdowns occur in connection with a more or less massive spread of literacy and an increase in the number of intelligentsia. The son of Hans Luther, yesterday's peasant who has grown from a miner into a capitalist, receives a very solid university education.
A peasant son learns Latin and Greek, a “capitalist” father reads Martin into a lawyer, fortunately in the patchwork “Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation”, consisting of many separate possessions and intricate hierarchies, legal chicanery is in great demand. But the future accuser of the Pope goes to a monastery - as we would say today, he prefers scientific activity to commercial practice (taking into account the fact that all "science" then is thoroughly religious). Martinus is more attracted to philosophical studies, and soon the Catholic monk Martinus Luder teaches theology in divine Latin in the city of Wittenberg, one of the new universities in Saxony. A good career for a peasant grandson, but not the ultimate dream for the son of a co-owner of eight mines.
The end of the 15th - the beginning of the 16th century for Germany was also the time of scientific flowering (already in the modern understanding of science). It is no coincidence that it was there and then that Johannes Gutenberg invented printing, and in Nuremberg in 1477 the world's first pocket watch was made - inventions so epoch-making and iconic that they do not require further explanation. Short lines of late medieval statistics speak for themselves - by the beginning of the 16th century there were 16 printing houses in Basel, 20 in Augsburg, 21 in Cologne, and 24 in Nuremberg. cities. So the future capitalism is born not only in mines, but also in universities with printing houses.
Encounter with the Renaissance and Pardoners
In 1511, Martin Luther, a member of the Augustinian monastic order and still a faithful son of the Catholic Church, travels to Rome. In those days when the 28-year-old doctor of theology is in the Eternal City, Michelangelo is working on the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, and Raphael is painting the walls of the papal chambers. However, neither Martin Luther nor the general public will then see these masterpieces - they were intended to please the highest ranks of the papal curia. Of all the works of Raphael, a provincial monk (for Rome, "wild" Germany is still a remote province) will be able to see only a fresco painted by him in honor of the recently deceased papal elephant. For the pious and inquisitive Luther, such a "Renaissance" is only a symbol of the depravity of the snickering church leaders.
However, the spirit of the real Renaissance is already wandering around. Naturally, among the closest friends of Martin Luther at the university is Philipp Schwarzerd, a teacher of Greek and a lover of ancient philosophy. It was Schwarzerd, who changed his surname to the Greek manner - Melanchthon ("Black Earth", a literal translation from the German Schwarzerd), will become the first codifier of Lutheranism and the ideas of the Reformation, marrying Luther's teachings with the ancient humanistic heritage.
The turning point in the fate of Luther and the world is October 1517. A papal bull comes to Germany on the mass sale of indulgences, as the text of the message says - to "assistance in the construction of the church of St. Peter and the Salvation of the Souls of Christendom".
“Saving the soul” in exchange for money is a cynical practice to the limit, but consecrated by centuries of church authority. Martin Luther, the son of a mining "capitalist", however, has a personal account for indulgences - back in 1508, Hans Luther, who made up initial capital with fanatical hoarding and frugality, saving even on his own children, nevertheless paid an impressive amount for such an indulgence. For Luther the son, stubborn saving was a blessing, a respected goal, but the purchase of "absolution" seemed both worldly stupidity and a violation of religious meaning. And the indignant Luther rushed to write his arguments against "indulgences". So on the last day of October 1517, 95 theses appeared on the doors of the church in the castle of the city of Wittenberg, which soon turned the world upside down.
The first "undefeated heretic"
Naturally, the theologian Luther did not think about any "capitalisms" and social changes. Then people thought exclusively in religious categories, and the “95 Theses” is a purely theological dispute, sometimes incomprehensible, sometimes ridiculously naive for people of our time. But for intellectuals (and even more so for non-intellectuals) 5 centuries ago, everything was brutally serious. Brutal - literally. For Luther, in fact, an ordinary, albeit very literate, monk, challenging the authority of the pope was a direct path to the stake. The fate of Jan Hus, who was burned a century ago, was then well known to him and those around him.
However, everything happened quite differently and amazingly even for Luther himself. The word of his sermon fell successfully on the prepared soil. It really turned into a spark, from which gunpowder detonated, "breaking gaping gaps in the seemingly immutable walls of feudalism."
In short and simplified, the main idea of Luther's 95 Theses is the free will of man. The salvation of every believing Christian can only be the result of his personal faith, personal efforts, and does not depend on the decisions of some earthly authority and earthly hierarchy. It was Luther who "liberated man from outward religiosity," as Marx aptly summed it up. But it was precisely this “external religiosity”, the Catholic Church that dominated for centuries, and was the ideological foundation of European feudalism.
The Pope and the imperial authorities of Germany will not be able to arrest the "heretic", even after excommunicating him from the church. On the contrary, feeling the support of those around him, Martin Luther in 1520 solemnly burns the papal bull. In general, the fate of the “heretic” and “revolutionary” will develop surprisingly well in the future - he will die in his own bed as a respected prophet at the age of 63. That is, he will live a long and happy life for that era, although filled with passions - what is the story of the marriage of the former monk Luther to a young noblewoman, whose escape from the monastery he will arrange.
So Martin Luther will become the first "undefeated heretic" in the history of Western Europe. And his sermons, born in October 1517, will find sympathizers in all social strata - in a matter of years, entire regions in the center of Europe, moreover, the richest and most economically developed, will be laid aside from the "Roman throne". The urban intelligentsia that supported Luther would quickly form the foundations of Protestantism, in fact, a new world religion. But he himself was completely far from social and economic concepts. Luther sincerely believed that he was only returning to the “purity” of original Christianity, and for the rest of his life he was only a spiritual authority, a pure ideologist, but by no means a politician or a party leader. Equally far from "capitalist progress" were the powerful feudal lords, who immediately supported Luther's sermons. For many rulers in the center of Europe, the ideas of October 1517 became only a convenient pretext for a completely “raider” seizure and redistribution of gigantic church property.
"Luther's teaching seems much closer to the truth"
Even during Luther's lifetime, religious fanatics and political cynics, excited by his ideas, would challenge the former ecclesiastical and secular authorities from France to Poland, and in a matter of decades his followers would take power from Sweden to Switzerland, from London to present-day Tallinn - about such a "world revolution" the Bolsheviks 1917 could only dream of. Even in Moscow Russia, which is very far from Catholicism and capitalism, the young Tsar John, not yet nicknamed the Terrible, having read the translation of Lutheran catechisms, remarks not without a smile: “Luther’s teaching seems much closer to the truth than the Roman one.” The tsar, who was not distinguished by tolerance, would allow the Lutherans to build a temple in Moscow - it would appear approximately in the same year when the Russian army took Kazan.
However, there were quite utilitarian reasons for such religious tolerance - for example, the first printing house in Moscow was created by Lutherans. The famous "first printer" Ivan Fedorov bears this title only because the books printed by him and marked with his name have been preserved. In fact, Fedorov was a student of Hans Bockbinder ("Binder"), a Lutheran master invited by Ivan the Terrible to Moscow to organize the first "printing".
In the future, it was Lutherans who would make up the bulk of the foreign specialists who served the Moscow tsars. As well as the main international trade of Muscovite Russia with Western Europe will be conducted mainly by Protestant merchants and through Protestant countries. Starting from Ivan the Terrible and up to Peter I, it is the descendants of Luther who will become the source of European technologies for the modernization of Russia.
But even the first Lutherans themselves, fiercely scolding and fighting with the Catholics, showed demonstrative compliments to the Orthodox. The same Philip Melanchthon, Luther's friend and first successor, sent to the Orthodox patriarchs his translations into Greek of Protestant catechisms and writings, assuring that the Lutherans had much in common with the "Greek Church." Even when a considerable dogmatic divergence of the two religions was revealed, the controversy between the Orthodox and Lutherans was conducted much more respectfully than the ideological war of both with the Catholics. In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, local "dissidents" - Orthodox and the first Protestants - will often unite against a common enemy in the form of dominant Catholicism. It is this union that the Latin term "dissident" itself will introduce into the Russian language.
Strange Times by Martin Luther
In the 21st century, there are more than 800 million people on Earth who profess one form or another of Protestantism, born in 1517 with the theses of Martin Luther. The most powerful state on the planet - the United States - was born from Protestant sects. The Bibles that all the presidents of the United States invariably swear on are the Protestant translations of the Holy Scriptures.
But Martin Luther's translation of the Bible from Latin into German in modern Germany is rightfully considered the beginning of the literary German language. In general, the cultural influence of the first revolutionary of 1517 on the largest country and the largest ethnic group in Central Europe is a separate big story. Luther left a mighty mark even in music - he composed verses for prayer chants and selected melodies for them, becoming the forerunner of German classical composers. Johann Sebastian Bach was both a religious and cultural follower of Luther.
However, the anti-Semitism of Hitler's Nazis also appealed to one of the aspects of Luther's legacy. Initially, the preacher of 1517 was tolerant of the Jews, but when they refused to follow his teaching, he was so offended that he burst out with a pamphlet "On the Jews and their lies", becoming the ideological ancestor of anti-Semitism in Germany.
Luther's legacy sometimes manifests itself in the most unexpected moments. For example, among his acquaintances and neighbors in the city of Wittenberg there was a certain doctor Johann Faust, who three centuries later became the prototype of the protagonist of Goethe's famous tragedy. Luther often used the word "trotz" - "in spite of" - in his sermons in German. And this was reflected in the choice of a pseudonym by one of the most important revolutionaries of the 20th century - Lev Bronstein became Trotsky not without the influence of the history of Luther.
In general, the first Marxists highly valued the heritage of 1517. Considering that socialism is born out of capitalism, they could not but appreciate the first prophet of world capitalism.
Luther's sermon indeed gave birth to the first revolutionaries of Europe even during his lifetime. In our country, thanks to the school history course, Thomas Müntzer is better known - an acquaintance and follower of Luther, the leader of the largest peasant uprising in German history (which Luther himself, by the way, strongly condemned). But much more interesting is the ideological legacy of Michael Gaismair, the leader of the Protestants in Bavaria and Austria. It was he, also inspired by Luther's sermon, who, as early as 1526, was the first to formulate the idea of a "state of workers and peasants", understanding by workers precisely the numerous miners like Luther the Father.
Long before Marx, this radical follower of Lutheranism formulated the ideas of a fully state-owned economy of universal equality. And to increase equality, Geismire proposed to liquidate the largest cities, "so that no one rises above the other and complete equality is ensured", thereby anticipating the "ideas" of Pol Pot.
In 1983, "socialist Germany" - the GDR - celebrated the 500th anniversary of the birth of Luther at the highest state level. The head of state and the ruling party, Erich Honecker, then devoted several publications and speeches to the "bourgeois revolutionary No. 1" - as if Leonid Brezhnev had delivered a couple of laudatory speeches about "Archpriest Avvakum" at the CPSU congress.
Today in Germany there is no Karl-Marx-Stadt, but a number of cities carry the honorary prefix Lutherstadt in their names. Luther himself called his era wunderliche zeytten - "a strange time." And, looking back at the five centuries that have passed since October 31, 1517, we must admit that we are still living in the strange time of Martin Luther.
And today, when it comes to the "discovery" of America, many still look at this event through the eyes of the Europeans of 1500. But if this is so, then in the innermost corner of his consciousness such a person will find - on the threshold of the XXI century! - contempt for the American natives and admiration for the Europeans.
Indian resistance (Latin American concept). Some researchers, primarily in the countries of Latin America, consider the landing of Europeans on the American continent as an attempt to subjugate the culture of one people to the culture of another, brought from Europe. From this point of view, the celebration of the 500th anniversary is an insult to the indigenous population of America, a denial of the culture of pre-Columbian civilizations. Proponents of this approach want to call on the world community to stigmatize the violence that began five centuries ago and is called colonization. They define colonization as the extermination of the indigenous population, the violation of human rights, the denial of the right to use their property, the enslavement of the Indians, the defeat of the culture of the ancient civilizations of the continent.
It will not be difficult to check with the sources and tell about the horrors that the European conquerors of America were capable of. But within the framework of this article, there is no need to delve into these studies, much less to take on the role of a judge. While recognizing the reality of these facts, at the same time, we must first of all pay attention to the consequences arising from the Latin American concept and their significance for today.
The enslavement of the American peoples by European states was an expression of the main social goal - robbery for the initial accumulation of capital and further colonization of the lands. It was carried out under the guise of obscurantist views and ideas of Christianization on other continents, but in America it manifested itself with particular force. However, let us remember: the European peoples were in those days under the same yoke as the American natives they conquered. Galleons carried gold only for the senior elite of Europe.
Therefore, even leaving aside the demand of the supporters of the Latin American concept for a strong condemnation by the world community of the actions of Europeans in America (which is practically impossible), it should be recognized that the support of this concept, as well as the Europocentric one, is an anachronism. This is a view from the past that does not recognize or accept everything that has happened in America for five centuries.
Can such an approach, in today's multicultural and multiethnic America, help preserve ethnic and cultural diversity and at the same time help integrate America's ethnic groups into the world community? This question should be answered in the negative. At the same time, the Latin American concept does nothing for understanding and solving the problems of the future of Latin America. On the contrary, such a position, driven by the rejection of everything European, predisposes to violent actions that do not carry any constructive beginning.
The meeting of two worlds and two cultures (conciliation concept). The celebration of the 500th anniversary as a "Meeting of two civilizations", or two cultures, at first glance seems to be the most reasonable in comparison with the previous, diametrically opposed concepts, since it is based on an attempt to overcome the contradictions between them. However, this definition requires at least three comments. Firstly, it is necessary to explain what is meant by the word "meeting", secondly, why we are talking about only two cultures, and thirdly, the ethical and psychosocial aspects of this concept need to be clarified.
- 1. When it comes to the "meeting" of two or more groups, we imagine that each of them went out from somewhere and met the other, either accidentally or deliberately, on their way. But is it possible to define by the term "meeting" such an action when one of its "participants" comes to the house of another and forcibly seizes it? Here you can see, to put it mildly, hostility, in this case to the American natives. In addition, the Europeans came to the new continent not for the purpose of "meeting" the Americans, but seeking to use them for their own enrichment. Therefore, the term "meeting" of two cultures is a stretch, primarily in the semantic sense.
- 2. It is said about the meeting of "two cultures". But what can tens of millions of African Americans, descendants of Africans brought to America as slaves to replace the destroyed local "labor force" think about this? Didn't their culture and human experience, their beliefs, rituals, arts become an integral part of American civilization in the very first centuries of its formation? Later, Asian and Arab immigrants also took root in Latin America, and their descendants today have become presidents in countries such as Peru and Argentina. Is it fair, taking into account the above, today to talk about honoring the "meeting of two cultures"?
- 3. In the socio-psychological sense, history cannot be erased, even with the best of intentions. In the mutual experience of relations, conflicts take too much place, reflected in the psychology of peoples, and if they are incorrectly resolved and perceived by the collective psyche, they will result in fear, distrust and disharmony in the future. From this point of view, to speak of a "meeting" of the two worlds is to tacitly justify the form and content of the conquest of America, legitimizing the past mechanisms of relations. The past and what it means for peoples must neither be hushed up nor forgotten, it must be recognized.
Of course, the conciliatory spirit contained in the concept of "meeting" is worthy of all praise, but reconciliation cannot be built on ignorance of historical facts and the human actions that underlie them. Therefore, the psychosocial aspects of the upcoming anniversary must be analyzed.
As you can see, each of the concepts presented here suffers from a certain narrowness of view. This shortcoming can be avoided if we approach the 500th anniversary from the standpoint of the philosophy of humanism.
A look towards the future. Nations that are unable to learn anything from the lessons of their own history are doomed to repeat it. Mankind does not have the luxury of celebrating the 500th anniversary without deeply understanding the previous historical experience.
If the forms of social relations of a certain historical time were inherent only to this time and undesirable for transfer to other historical times, then we must understand that our future depends on the attitude to the past. Therefore, assessing the past in a discriminatory way, with expressions of hatred or a naive desire for reconciliation does not provide a solid basis for building a desirable future.
Today, in our increasingly interdependent world, any concept that divides people according to their origin - race, sex, age, culture, religion, etc. - is a return to the past. It is not these minor features that characterize a person as such, but his ability to freely express his will, his purposeful actions in the world space. Man, by his nature, is a creator and a transformer of the reality around him, which applies to both natural and social conditions in which he is destined to be born and live. In this sense, today it has been possible to overcome the content of social models inherent in the 15th-16th centuries, but the form of these models, since there is still a division of people and the violent nature of their social relations, has largely been preserved. That is why we warn about the danger posed by the three concepts mentioned above that keep this approach. Human consciousness is not passive or inert, it is active. The researcher, considering the past, brings his mentality, uses certain social categories as a tool of knowledge and considers the past, based on the present. The historical process is understood as the result of a purposeful desire of peoples to overcome the influence of the causes that determine it, and not as a process of progress and regression in a historical movement resembling a pendulum.
But based on the present, we think about the future. Exploring the history of five centuries ago and encountering obstacles encountered on this path, a scientist in his understanding of history "from man" must be based on the following provisions:
- 1. Recognition, not denial of the facts, as a result of which the development of pre-Columbian civilizations was interrupted. Suppression of peoples' desire to realize their destiny, racial, economic, political and religious enslavement are the mechanisms of expansion and conquest and seem to us today deeply reactionary.
- Before interpreting the facts, it is necessary to understand that there are various interests that predetermine the emergence of various concepts. One must be able to describe the intentions and motives of the actions of individuals and social processes, to understand that the arguments of each actor were true for him at the moment of action. There was not and does not exist a single truth for all. For Columbus and his society, their truth was true because it served their interests. However, the American natives could not accept this "truth".
- 2. Cooperation between peoples called upon to solve the problems of man and society by joint efforts, to reduce the gap in social development, technology and science that exists today between developed and developing countries.
- 3. Solidarity between peoples and readiness for non-violent resolution of all conflicts; the necessary revision of the concept of military confrontation in this regard and the growing reduction in the huge resources intended for the military-industrial complex.
- 4. Consideration of history in terms of a model of the future that we are striving to build. This model should serve as a starting point in the process of change we experience. In other words, it is necessary to change the conditions in the world that lead to violence, in which, until today, a historical process has been carried out based on gigantic antagonisms or the imposition of one development model to the detriment of another.
All these arguments may seem abstract, but in fact, in our critical era, they become very topical.
Thinking about a date that is five centuries away from us, one should discard the straightforward and causal concept of history, consider the historical process from the standpoint of human internationality. It means looking at history from the point of view of a world that is not divided by borders, with the diversity of races and cultures that exists in it, at the center of which there is a person; a world striving for the formation of a great planetary human nation.
500 YEARS AGO
It has been 69 days since they sailed from Palos, and all this time they sailed west, except for a brief stop to resupply food in the Canary Islands. Now they have arrived in India.
Pablo Diego reproaches himself for not trusting the captain. It was impossible to say for sure whether the swimming was really reckless. They just kept sailing west - in the wrong direction for the journey to India - to the ends of the earth, perhaps to get stuck in seaweed or be eaten by sea monsters. They could tell how far north or south they were by measuring the angles of the stars, but they had no way of telling how far west they had swum. On several occasions, he and the crew were on the verge of mutiny.
However, they were wrong, and now they are here, safe under palm trees on a warm beach, while close to the shore, three majestic ships lie motionless at anchor. This is India, which has become a mystery to Pablo. It is quite obvious that this is not the Asian mainland, but one of the islands located at a distance, possibly Japan.
But where are those incredible treasures, gold and gems that were promised? Friendly or not, but the gifts that the Indians bring are rubbish: beads and birds of strange colors. However, they do have golden nose rings; so there is wealth somewhere.
If there is, why don't the Indians use them? They seem to have nothing, living in grass huts and growing strange plants for food. Pablo doesn't care. The captain said that after a short rest they would sail around many of these islands. He must be sure that further west lies the mainland - a civilized mainland of civilized people who know what to do with their wealth.
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The main square of the Venetian ghetto. Didier Descouens/CC/Wikimedia Commons
On March 29, 1516, the Senate of the Venetian Republic announced that 700 Jews who lived at that time in the "Most Serene" Republic of St. Mark should move to a strictly designated part of the city. She will be guarded and locked up at night. The quarter was called the "ghetto". The word turned out to be of the most peaceful etymology: there were copper foundries nearby, “jetto”. The new "jetto" became the first place in history of religious segregation. And at the same time a model for all subsequent ghettos, up to the 20th century. On a religious and ethnic basis, they settled together, of course, before, but there was no way to lock them up at night and punish if you find yourself outside.
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Exactly 500 years ago, the inhabitants of Venice, who professed Judaism, found themselves in a quarter locked with a large city key, began to live separately and, of course, eat separately from other inhabitants of the city.
Today, the ghetto no longer exists in Venice or in other Italian and European cities. Only images of seven-candlesticks, carved into the stone of houses, and street names. “Jewish Street” or “Synagogue Street” is a sure indication that a ghetto existed on this site in the Middle Ages. Sometimes there are other material signs. In Strasbourg, for example, the bell still rings in the evening. Almost no one remembers that he indicates the hour when it is time for the gates of the ghetto to close. It's time for the Jews to finish their business and return to themselves. Venice also had a bell, but it has not been preserved.
The Venetian ghetto served as a model for all subsequent ones, up to the 20th century. wikimedia.org/Andrea56
The cuisine of the Jews from the ghetto is a huge layer of the entire Jewish cuisine. But not only Jewish. It also influenced how their Christian neighbors cooked. Many dishes of European countries still bear traces of food prepared according to the laws of kashrut. If only because many Jews were hawkers of cheap street food, this was one of the professions allowed for the inhabitants of the ghetto. Spain, Germany, France, from Alsace to the Pyrenees, and of course Italy, from Piedmont to Sicily, can rummage through their own culinary stocks to discover local varieties of "sweet meat", cholent, caponata, and, of course, sweet dishes with an elusive oriental flavor. aroma.
The Venetian ghetto gave its name to everyone else. Perhaps because it was not only the first, but also the most cosmopolitan of all the Jewish quarters in Italy. Many Italian, German or Provencal cities were separate states at that time, and, fleeing persecution in one of them, the Jews moved to another, taking their own culinary habits with them. Each ghetto has developed its own culinary style, united, of course, by the general rules of kashrut, but determined by local ingredients.
First, Ashkenazi Jews arrived in Venice - refugees from Germany (the word "Ashkenazi" itself is translated as "Germans"). It was they who remade the Italian word "jetto" into the guttural "ghetto". In the 15th and 16th centuries, Jews from Provence and from the regions surrounding Venice joined them, and then an exodus began from Spain and Portugal, where Jews had long been offered the choice of converting to the Christian faith or leaving in all four directions. However, there were not so many hosts, one of them was Venice. The last and perhaps the most numerous were the waves of refugees from the Maghreb and the Middle East (Egypt, Syria), as well as from Turkey.
Eggplant forever remained a "Jewish" vegetable. Getty Images/Sheila Paras
Places became less and less, as well as opportunities to find work. It was the recipes from the ghetto that formed the basis of the Italian cucina povera, which we love so much today: real cuisine from an ax, from nothing. The modesty of possibilities and ingredients was made up for by the creative talents of housewives. Moreover, each nation brought with them from the countries of exile their own recipes. Rice with raisins came from the Levant to the Venetian ghetto, which was cooked here and eaten cold, as in Istanbul. The inhabitants of the Iberian peninsula taught their tribesmen to soak salted cod and cook bacalao. Frittatas and frittos mistos - battered vegetables - were the cheap street foods that Jewish vendors peddle to the Venetians. And, of course, spices, almond biscuits and oranges were the heritage of the far East, with which the Jews continued to maintain trade relations. Trade was also one of the permitted activities.
Thanks to the Jewish ghetto, the Venetians tried foie gras, stuffed goose necks and beef sausages, the skill to cook them was brought from Germany, as well as stuffed carp, as well as veal legs and other dishes in jelly. Kneidlach, that is, dumplings, have turned into a Venetian specialty cugoli - gnocchi made from bread crumbs. Pirozhki, similar to the Armenian berek, but with minced fish and hard-boiled eggs, reminiscent of Spain, is a sign of a local forced, but ultimately successful culinary fusion.
Strange as it may seem, the disenfranchised residents of the ghetto ate at that time more varied than the Venetians themselves. Everything unnecessary and incomprehensible was thrown to the gates of the ghetto. Among all these ingredients was eggplant, forever remaining a "Jewish" vegetable. Bitter, and even black, brought from non-Christian countries, he scared away rather than attracted. Its Italian name melanzana was understood as "harmful apple": the Venetians did not yet know how to cook nightshade.
In June, an exhibition dedicated to the history of the ghetto will open in Venice. Her curator, Donatella Calabi, tells how five synagogues operated in the tiny square of the ghetto: each community adhered to its own. But the cuisine inevitably mixed, giving rise to the variations that Venetian gastronomy is famous for today.
Today, only menorah candles and street names remind of the ghetto in Venice. wikimedia.org/Anton Nossik
On March 29, the days dedicated to the Venetian ghetto began with a concert at the opera with the participation of the Israeli conductor Omer Meir Wellber. On the central square every day there will be performances of Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice", written at the end of the sixteenth century, that is, almost immediately after the formation of the ghetto, and based on an even earlier Italian novel. It was here that the action itself took place: before our eyes, the Jewish moneylender Shylock would demand from the merchant, in payment of his debt, a pound of meat cut from his own thigh. Accused of an attempt on the life of a Christian, he will lose his fortune and will be forced to be baptized.
The head of the Union of Italian Jews, Renzo Gattegna, says that “we Jews, of course, do not feel any nostalgia for the ghetto. For us, this is a symbol of experienced deprivation and contempt. Less than 500 Jews live in Venice today, descendants of a large Jewish community. Some families know their ancestors right up to that same 16th century, that is, from the founding of the ghetto. Five synagogues still testify to the cultural layers, the heirs of which are the Venetian Jews. The site continues to offer kosher meals, and there is a culinary school in the ghetto. Ghimel Garden Kosher Restaurant serves Jewish dishes from a wide range of countries - hummus and falafel side by side with pasta and lasagna. 500 years of the ghetto is, of course, not a holiday, but they sit down at the table just on the day of remembrance.
