ETHNIC FUNCTIONS OF CULTURE: SOCIAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS OF ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

Abstract

The article analyzes the phenomenon of culture from a socio-philosophical point of view. According to the authors’s view, it is understood as a creative activity of people, because its ethnic functions are manifested in the most diverse spheres: from material production to the spiritual life of society. Usually, when characterizing the ethnic properties of culture, the focus is on those that perform an ethno-differentiating role. And it has certain reasons. However, it would be wrong if such an approach completely overshadowed the ethno-integrating functions of culture. After all, even if properties that distinguish each ethnos among other similar communities are important, the integrating functions of culture remain an indispensable and most important condition for its existence as an integrated system. Due to the interaction of cultures, as well as a certain cultural convergence in the development of peoples, as a rule, the predominant part of ethnic characteristics in the sphere of culture is relative. They act as a common property of several ethnic units, simultaneously distinguishing all of them from some other units of the same type. If we approach this issue abstractly, then, ultimately, it is necessary, almost every component of the culture to consider as relatively specific. Therefore, it is obvious that practically the features that distinguish it primarily from the ethnic communities with which it is in relatively constant contact should be considered as relatively specific features of this or that ethnic community. One more feature of the ethnospecific features of culture that would be worth bearing in mind.: some of them are objectively such a type, some are classified as ethnic self-awareness by this category, playing an important role in the ethnic identification of people. Often, objectively existing ethnically specific properties of a culture and subjectively distinguished ones coincide. However, this is not always the case, because ethnic self-consciousness is often inclined to absolutize the ethnic specificity of individual cultural elements.