Russian Society's Civilizational Transit

This paper deals with the issue of specific civilizational process formation in Russia as a new figuration and configuration of the forms of modernity. It is argued that explanations of the dynamics of Russian society are often based on the idea of predestination of the trajectory of its development (path dependency) that is caused either by the universal logic of modernization and globalization or by persistence of the basic cultural program or matrix which is reproduced in social practices. A civilizational transit of Russian society phenomena is discussed within multiple modernities theory as a new perspective that allows overcoming some of the problems with the predominant approaches to Russian modernization. Civilizational approaches to analyses of Russian culture, politics and society have been associated mostly with theories of ‘historical cycles’ worked out in late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. More recently a considerable attention has been devoted to different versions of ‘neoEurasianism’. In addition, the notion of ‘clash of civilizations’ proposed by Samuel Huntington became prominent in the political discourse in Russia at the end of 1990s. At the same time, the concept of civilization is discussed widely in today’s historical sociology. A specific school of ‘civilizational analysis’ that draws on the ideas of Shmuel Eisenstadt emerged at the end of the 1990s. This perspective has already influenced some new trends in sociology of religion, political sociology and international relations theory. The panel seeks to demonstrate the relevance of a new wave of civilizational analysis for understanding contemporary Russian culture, politics and society.


Introduction
The turn held in the last quarter of the XX-beginning of XXI century to the analysis of the development of civilization in world history and modern societies denotes a continual breakaway from classical schemes and designs disciplinary socio-humanitarian knowl- and humanities. Socio-humanitarian knowledge lags behind in understanding the complexities of identity, crises and conflicts of modern life at both the regional and global levels.
Firstly, a broad palette and disciplinary nature of social knowledge turned out to be very hard to explain the limiter problems that go beyond the scientific field of a particular discipline. Progress in the emergence and strengthening of a plurality of paradigms and approaches in the social sciences was temporary, and brought another Second, the pursuit of social scientists to give a universal explanation of the sociocultural processes on the basis of allocation of key concepts, such as the widely understood social structure, culture, institutions, and networks sets a fairly narrow corridor in the description of communities and individual fragments of changing social reality. The principle of multilevel (from macro to micro level) in the social sciences allows only opportunistic remove of contradictions and gaps in understanding the mechanisms and the determination of large-scale change, regional and global transformations, for example, modernization of individual societies.
In other words, the social sciences and humanities were unable to progress profound changes both within individual countries and in the planetary scale. This syndrome is lagging socio-humanitarian knowledge and it can hardly be considered as overcome at the beginning of XXI century. Neither mono-or multiparadigm of the social sciences development, no their disciplinary progress has led to a satisfactory explanatory and predictive potential.
Of course, social sciences and humanities have been an essential element of a holistic societal world and national process. However, their contribution to the economy and management of, various industries at local and regional level was significantly lower in comparison with natural, technical sciences and health sciences. Utility and professional suitability as the socio-humanitarian knowledge and expert reviews in the field of Information Sciences are constantly exposed to criticism and revision. Since the end of the twentieth century, crisis of the social sciences, their weakness and peripherals

Methodology and Methods
An example of the use of the civilizational approach is the study of the transformation of social inequalities in the context of multiple modernities based on the concept of Norbert Elias [17]. Civilizational approach of Norbert Elias [17], S. Eisenstadt and the concept of multiple modernities by J. Arnason [1], P. Wagner [8],  There is a need for a world language, world economy, world government, world religion, international law, the world of science and the world of art, etc. The internal space of national cultures flows into the environment where global and local culture co-exists.

Results / Findings and Discussion
We can conclude that the imminent modernization, stagnation and loss of traditional forms of Russian culture and civilization emerge in the beginning of the XXI century [9].
Quasi-natural changes in the socio-cultural and civilizational development of Russian society can hardly elude the global trend [11,12]. The autonomous existence of sociocultural types ended with the destruction of the national government, political, and economic boundaries. Economic, financial, migration flows in different regions of the world are the direct evidence of folding a new civilizational order based on mixing and coexistence of different cultures and forms of civilization [16]. In particular, the observed types of regional and global integration demonstrate the dynamic cultural and civilizational exchange.
The emerging global space of human resources (migration, outsourcing, and transnational networks) in business, politics, science and education can be considered as formation of a new socio-cultural and civilizational shift map of the Russian society [13][14][15]. The main task is to study these new phenomena.
Modern societies are in the grip of permanent transformation, continuous innovation and undulating crises. These facts were noted PA Sorokin in the concept of social and cultural dynamics [18]. Globalization, post-modernization and virtualization recede into the background, because they only aggravate the frantic search for answers to situational and strategic problems [8]. The global nature of the economic and financial turmoil dramatically increases the cost and risks of taking the political and economic decisions. There has been an obvious failure of civilization as well as quite stable socio-cultural matrix of modern society such as 'risk' , 'second modernity' , 'consumption' , 'knowledge' and 'creative actions' to social order new forms.
There is a powerful transformation of the civilized world order, which will draw into it the largest possible number of participants. The majority of people faces different kinds pf transformations such as ecstasy of omnipotence and impotence of political power, fascination with the power of transnational networks and the weakness in the economy and culture, the magic of personal will and lack of will, faith and fanaticism of unbelief.
Modern Russia faces all these problems.
Some scholars write about overweighed interpretation of civilization. [3,4] Meanwhile, Ferguson [10] develops an understanding of civilization as (trans) forming process based on its own socio-cultural grounds. Features of cultural and spiritual situation manifest in the rate, and the nature of the structural change. Political and economic changes in the Russian society is hampered by mental structures, legal and value systems, patterns of behavior and ideologies. In general, the whole range of cultural and spiritual practices accumulated in the Russian society and the authorities, significantly modifies the social structures, institutions, and actions and gives national and regional specificities of social life, economy, law and government.

Conclusions
The research has shown that the turn held in the last quarter of the XX-beginning of XXI century to the analysis of the development of civilization in world history and modern societies denotes a continual breakaway from classical schemes and designs disciplinary socio-humanitarian knowledge. Linear, structuralized, constructivists, phenomenological focus on the construction of certain important aspects of the social changes of different levels are one-sided and even false in their explanation and unproductive in the projections.
There is a powerful transformation of the civilized world order, which will draw into it the largest possible number of participants. The majority of people faces different kinds pf transformations such as ecstasy of omnipotence and impotence of political power, fascination with the power of transnational networks and the weakness in the economy and culture, the magic of personal will and lack of will, faith and fanaticism of unbelief.
Modern Russia faces all these problems.
In Russia the evolution of civilization is based on co-existing or competitive contemporary forms of sociality and culture. Adequate diagnosis sociological modes of modern Russian society civilized order and assessments of various social, economic and cultural practices is possible only in the broader context of world civilization sociocultural processes.

Funding
The paper was funded by RFBR according to the research project No.18-011-01254.