The development of geographical knowledge in the era of the Middle Ages (III - the end of the XV centuries) is characterized by the development of almost exclusively regional studies. Other areas related to mathematics and fundamental natural sciences have not received any development and have even been largely forgotten.
Only in the Arab world were some ideas of antiquity preserved, without, however, receiving further development. The main carriers of geographical knowledge were merchants, officials, military men and missionaries, for whom regional knowledge was the basis of their practical activities or public service.
The greatest development of country studies (mainly in the form of special geographical works) was received in the Arab world. This was due to the vastness of the Arab Caliphate, which, starting from the 8th century, gradually expanded from Central Asia to the Iberian Peninsula. One of important factors The development of regional studies was the intermediary nature of Arab trade between East and West in their traditional sense.
Arabic geographic works were of a reference nature, they provided information about peoples, wealth, crossings, settlements and trade items. An example is the earliest summary of this kind, dating back to the middle of the 9th century, - "The Book of Ways and States" by Ibn Hardadbek, an official under the Caliph of Baghdad. Such is the most complete multi-volume "Geographical Dictionary" of the first quarter of the 13th century, written by a Muslim from the Byzantine Greeks, Yakut (1179-1229)14.
One of the greatest connoisseurs of Arabic geographical literature, Academician I. Yu. Krachkovsky, characterizes the scientific significance of the traveller's notes in this way: This may be why his book turned out to be the only one of its kind description of Muslim and Eastern society in general in the 14th century. This is a rich treasury not only for the historical geography of its time, but for the entire culture of that era "15.
The ecological direction of geography among the Arabs had the character of vulgar determinism, praising the climate of the Arabian Peninsula, one of the seven "climates", which, in contrast to the latitudinal climates of the Greeks, meant major regions peace.
Some of the great Arab scientists rose to the level of genetic and cosmogonic reasoning, but they also failed to rise to the level of ancient Greek scientists. So, the Baghdad Arab Masudi, in the X century. visited the Mozambique Channel, made the first description of the monsoons, and also wrote about the evaporation of moisture from the surface of the water and subsequent condensation in the form of clouds. The great Khorezm scientist-encyclopedist Biruni was also the greatest geographer of the 11th century. During his long travels he explored the Iranian Plateau and much of Central Asia. Accompanying the conqueror of Khorezm, the Afghan sultan Mahmud Ghaznevi, on his devastating campaign against the Punjab, Biruni collected extensive materials on Indian culture there and put them, together with personal observations, into the basis of a great work on India. In this work, Biruni, in particular, writes about erosion processes, about the sorting of alluvium, about finds sea shells high in the mountains. He gives information about the ideas of the Hindus about the connection of the tides with the moon.
The outstanding scientist, philosopher, physician and musician Ibn Sina (Latinized Avicenna) (c. 980-1037) wrote about denudation processes. He described the results of his direct observations on the development of the valley by the large rivers of Central Asia and, on this basis, put forward the idea of the continuous destruction of mountainous countries. He pointed out that the mountains begin to wear down in the process of uplift and that this process goes on continuously. But, despite these (and other) individual achievements, Arabic geography in the sense of theoretical concepts has not advanced further than the ancient geographers. Her merit lies mainly in expanding the spatial horizons and in preserving the ideas of antiquity for posterity.
The maps of the Arabs, which until the 15th century, also speak of a low level of theoretical ideas. built without a grid. On these maps for the image geographical objects regular geometric shapes were used - circles, straight lines, rectangles, ovals, which unrecognizably changed nature. "Out of fear of idolatry, the Koran forbade the depiction of people and animals. This prohibition was also reflected on geographical maps ah, which were drawn like diagrams with a compass and straightedge.
The exception is the maps of al-Idrisi (1100-1165). In 1154 his "Geographical Entertainments" appeared. This book, in contrast to the purely descriptive geography reference books of other Arab authors, contained the verification of Ptolemy's ideas and the correction of his errors on the basis of the latest information. In addition, the book included two maps of the world, circular and rectangular, on 70 sheets. It was these maps that departed from the Arabic canons in that geographical objects were depicted on them in natural outlines. True, these maps were also built without a degree grid, i.e., in terms of mathematical justification, they were inferior to the Ptolemaic ones, but in the nomenclature part they were significantly superior.
Now let us turn to the early Middle Ages in Europe, which is characterized in general by the decline of science. Of the geographical writings of this time, Kozma Indikoplov's "Christian Geography" (6th century) is usually mentioned, where country-specific information is given on Europe, India, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia. The book was widely known for its emphatic rejection of the sphericity of the earth as a fallacy.
The dominance of subsistence farming in medieval Europe sharply narrowed the importance of geographical knowledge. Only thanks to the crusades of 1096, 1147-1149 and 1180-1192. Europeans began to need geographical information, and also got acquainted with Arab culture.
Subsequently, significant geographical information was obtained as a result of the embassy missions of the Catholic Church to the Mongol khanates, which flourished most in the 13th century. Among these embassies, the first of such ambassadors is singled out - the Italian, the Franciscan monk Plano Carpini (1245-1247) and the Fleming Guillaume Rubruk (1252-1256), who reached the capital of the great Khan Karakorum in different ways, collected significant ethnographic, historical , political and regional studies material. Of particular interest is Rubruk's account of his embassy mission. He was the first to correctly outline the outlines of the Caspian Sea, according to some experts, he was also the first to establish the main features of the relief of Central Asia, and the fact that China is washed by the ocean from the east. P. Carpini and G. Rubruk "gave Western Europe the first truly reliable description of Central Asia and the Mongolian peoples and thereby opened up a whole new area for research ... This alone gives their works great value, and, in addition, they were pioneers in the movement that opened up Asia, albeit on a short time for relations with Europe.
An outstanding geographical phenomenon of the XIII century. one should name the book of the Venetian merchant Marco Polo (1254 - 1344) "On the Diversity of the World" or, as it is usually called now, "The Book of Marco Polo"18. This merchant made a long journey to East Asia (1271-1295), served for a long time with Kublai Khan in Beijing, which gave him the opportunity to become widely acquainted with the life of peoples East Asia. In his book, in addition to a fairly truthful description of many places visited, Marco Polo mentions Japan and the island of Madagascar. Thus, he significantly expanded the spatial horizons of Europeans, for the first time widely and easily introduced them to the riches of the East.
It is characteristic that in 1477 the first printed edition of this book appeared in German translation and it was one of the first printed books in Europe.
Literature of this kind also includes "Journey Beyond Three Seas" by the Tver merchant Athanasius Nikitin, who traveled in 1466-1475. along the south and southwest Asia lived in India for a long time. True, his book was discovered and published only in the 19th century, but as an indicator of the level of development and interest in geographical information, the work of A. Nikitin is deservedly mentioned in history. geographical science. He "was the first European who gave a completely truthful, of great value description of medieval India, which he described simply, realistically, efficiently, without embellishment. By his feat, he convincingly proves that in the second half of the 15th century, 30 years before the Portuguese "discovery" India, even a lonely and poor, but energetic person could make a trip to this country from Europe at his own peril and risk, despite a number of exceptionally unfavorable conditions.
At the end of the period under review, geographical travel began to be undertaken purposefully. In this regard, the activities of the Portuguese prince Enrique (Henry), nicknamed the Navigator (1394-1460), who in 1415 founded a nautical school and an observatory in the city of Segris in the south of Portugal, can be called outstanding. The captains of Enrique the Navigator, step by step, discovered the western coast of Africa, and their geographical discoveries continued until, on the eve of the Age of Discovery, in 1487, Bartolomeu Dias reached the Cape of Good Hope.
A characteristic type of geographical literature of the period under consideration is the so-called commercial geography. In 1333, the "Practice of Trade" by the Italian Pegoletti appeared, which contained information about the quality and technology of manufacturing the most important goods, about units of weight and measure, the monetary units of countries, a description of duties and transport costs, as well as a caravan road from the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov to China. Starting from the thirteenth century, a certain semblance of a "quantitative" description of states appeared (in the services of governors and diplomatic agents of Italian city-states). To a certain extent, they contained some of the origins of economic geography.
In the field of cartography important point the appearance of the compass should be considered, which caused the creation of the so-called portalans - compass maps, where the degree grid was replaced by intersecting compass points, which determined the courses of ships. After the advent of the art of copper engraving, these portals became available to a wide range of interested parties. Although they did not have a mathematical basis, the depiction of coastal objects was quite complete and satisfied the unpretentious needs of contemporaries.
Thus, partly speculatively, partly empirically and mathematically justified, the ancient natural philosophers and their Arab commentators laid the foundations for the main modern trends in the natural science branch of geography. However, their systems, closely related to history and ethnology, were of a humanitarian nature, and therefore in their works one can find thoughts related to the social science branch of geography.
Of course, other outstanding travels and geographical discoveries were made in the Middle Ages, but many of them, for a number of reasons, did not influence the development of human civilization, the development of sciences and, in particular, geography. Among them, the most significant were the voyages of the Normans in the 7th-11th centuries, during which they visited the shores of the White Sea, discovered Iceland, Greenland, and a significant part of the eastern coast of North America. Such journeys obviously include the travels of Chinese officials to Central and Southeast Asia, the voyages of the Polynesians in the Pacific Ocean, etc. common cause The little known of these outstanding achievements in the world is their economic prematurity. Language barriers, lack of international design also mattered. scientific knowledge(for example, in Latin, as was the case in Europe).
The scientists of the period under review described the variety of objects of geography in a certain unity. The integrity of their thinking was manifested in the unification of many aspects of philosophy, history, mathematics, natural science, politics, medicine, ethnography and the beginnings of other sciences. Geographical ideas, not excluding rare works on geography that have come down to us, unfolded in the unity of these views, without constituting anything sharply specific - geographical material was connected, and in many cases, dissolved in other materials. "I believe that the science of geography, which I have now decided to deal with, as well as any other science, is included in the scope of the philosopher's studies," he wrote in the 1st century. AD Strabo (1964, p. 7). One could also say this: geographical knowledge is one of the first forms of human reflection environment, and at the same time geographical objects (mountains, rivers, settlements etc.) are easily perceived by human physiological receptors, and geographical information is necessary for everyone - hunters, farmers, military, merchants, politicians. Therefore, it is not surprising that geography played an important role in the abstract-holistic constructions of ancient scientists.
Topic 1. The main stages in the development of geography
The study of the content of the paragraph provides an opportunity
Ø supplement ideas about the origins of geographical knowledge;
Ø to study the stages and features of the development of geographical knowledge at each of the historical stages of the development of society;
initial stage in the history of the development of geographical science are the geographical knowledge of primitive peoples. Geographical knowledge they needed in Everyday life, and the direction of knowledge was determined by the nature of the classes. They were associated with the need to find and locate the best pastures, soils, hunting and fishing grounds, and settlement sites. Geographical knowledge was based on intuition, observation, knowledge of natural phenomena and the ability to see their relationships and patterns. Thanks to writing, geographical knowledge of the peoples of ancient civilized countries (Egypt, Mesopotamia, Sumer, Babylon, China) has reached our time. ( Recall what research has been done in these countries?).
Geography of Antiquity. The geography of ancient times covers the VI century. BC e - IV c. e., and it distinguishes the ancient Greek (VI-I centuries BC) and ancient Roman (I-IV centuries AD) periods.
Ancient scientists tried to create a theory about the origin and structure of the surrounding world, to depict the countries known to them in the form of drawings. The results of these searches was the idea of the Earth as a ball, and then its scientific proof; creation of maps and determination of geographical coordinates, introduction of parallels and meridians, cartographic projections.
Summarizing ideas about the Earth and solar system, the Greeks created a system of knowledge called musical-numerical system of the Universe. The name is due to the fact that the sequence of removal of the planets from the Sun and the distance between them was equated to the musical scale. Later appeared geocentric and heliocentric models of the Universe (Remember from the course of history, what are these models of the Universe?).
The main source of geographical information and geographical knowledge for the ancient Greeks was land and sea travel. The Greeks called the description of sea voyages "peripluses", and land "perieges". The performers of the perieges were "logographs" who traveled over land and made a description of everything that they observed in nature, but Special attention devoted to the customs and life of the population.
Of the scientists of this time who contributed to the development of geographical thought, Thales, Aristotle, Eratosthenes, Strabo and Ptolemy should be distinguished ( Remember from the history course when these scientists lived?).
At the beginning of a new era, the geographical knowledge of Greek scientists was systematized by the ancient Greek scientist Strabo. He argued that the surface of the Earth is constantly changing, and the distribution of land and sea is the result of ups and downs of the seabed.
Ancient geography ends with works Claudius Ptolemy. It is known that Ptolemy is the author of the Almagest, a classic astronomical work in which the Earth was proclaimed the center of the Universe. Ptolemy did a lot for the development of cartography. He calculated the coordinates of 8000 geographical points. Created about 30 geographical maps of various areas of the earth's surface.
Thus, already in ancient times, the future began to emerge within geography. regional studies(Strabo), mathematical geography(Eratosthenes, Ptolemy) and some other natural geographical sciences.
Geography of the Middle Ages (VI-XV centuries). During the Middle Ages, under the strong influence of religion, many of the materialistic views of ancient scientists were forgotten or rejected as anti-religious. But, despite the general stagnation in the development of science, culture, education, inherent in the Middle Ages, some geographical discoveries took place at that time. First of all, they were associated with the campaigns and discoveries of new lands by the Scandinavians and the geographical discoveries of scientists from the Arab countries (scientists and travelers Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Biruni, Idrisi, Ibn Batuta). ( Remember from history when and where these scientists lived?).
The Vikings discovered and then founded in the IX-XI centuries. the first settlements in Iceland, Greenland and North America.
Arab scholars in the X century. created the first climate atlas of the world, highlighting 14 climatic zones on the planet and establishing that the climate changes not only in latitudes, but also from west to east.
Arabic medieval geographical literature is diverse. Known are such works of medieval Arab scholars as "The Book of Ways and States", "Wonders of the Countries" or "Wonders of the Earth", as well as geographical sections in historical writings.
During the Middle Ages, relatively high level science and culture was preserved in Byzantium. This is explained by the fact that Byzantine scientists were able to adopt and develop many traditions of ancient geographers.
The era of the great geographical discoveries. The most significant discoveries on land and at sea, made in the XV-XVIII centuries, are called Great geographical discoveries. The era of the great geographical discoveries is the flourishing of geography against the backdrop of a general rise (revival) of culture and science. The era of the Great Geographical Discoveries was marked by grandiose achievements, both in the field of territorial discoveries and in the field of scientific theories and research methods.
The search for new lands and routes was carried out on a state scale. The fixation of acquired knowledge, mapping and generalization of the information received has become more important ( What role did F. Magellan, H. Columbus play in the discovery of new lands during this historical period).
When new lands were discovered, a need arose for their cartographic representation and description. This led to the formation scientific cartography. Flemish cartographer Gerhard Mercator(1512-1594) created the first cylindrical conformal projection of the world map, which is still used today and bears the name of Mercator. He also developed a method for using isotherms for climate mapping and hypsometric curve method to characterize the relief, he compiled a collection of maps and descriptions of European countries, which, when published in 1595, was called the Atlas.
Questions and tasks:
1. What determines the main differences between the geography of antiquity and the geography of the Middle Ages?
2. Why do you think it was in the Arab countries that geography developed especially rapidly in the Middle Ages?
3. What achievements in other fields of knowledge contributed to the development of geography?
4. * What needs of society did geography satisfy in the era of the Great Geographical Discoveries?
In the Middle Ages, the slave system was replaced by a more progressive feudal system. But at the beginning of the Middle Ages, the productive forces were underdeveloped, and religion had a significant influence on science. At this time, the materialistic views of ancient scientists were forgotten, the idea of the Earth's sphericity was rejected. Cosmas Indikoples (6th century), author of The Christian Topography of the Universe, claims that the Earth has the form of a tabernacle, that is, it is a quadrilateral, resembling a box, which is surrounded by an ocean. The ocean invades the land by the Roman (Mediterranean Sea), Arabian, Persian, and Caspian Gulfs. Other geographical views of this merchant, and then a monk, are just as absurd. These and similar judgments were closely connected with Christian concepts. They were also reflected on the maps of that time, in the center of which was Jerusalem, to the east of it - paradise, etc. However, religion also had positive influence on the development of science: chronicles were kept in the monasteries, descriptions were created, books were collected and printed. The main feature of the feudal period is the isolation, disunity of people.
The main achievements of geography in the period from the 5th to the 15th centuries. reduced to territorial openings. There was no forward movement of theoretical thought, moreover, in many respects, in comparison with the geography of ancient times, a step was taken back. Of the territorial discoveries, we will focus on the travels of the Normans, Arabs, Marco Polo, as well as on the development of the regions of the north by the Russians.
The inhabitants of Scandinavia are called Normans. They lived near the coast and were skilled seafarers, raided England, Holland, France, even reached Constantinople and North America. The northern France they captured was given the name "Normandy" that still exists. The time when the Normans lived is sometimes also referred to as the "Viking Age". According to one interpretation, the word "Viking" means "man from the bay." Indeed, in Scandinavia there are many long winding bays - fjords.
Starting from the 8th century the Normans raided the Orkney, Faroe, Shetland Islands, located near Britain. In 867, Norman Naddot discovered Iceland, however, it received such a name later (Iceland - “Ice Country”), and the colonists founded the village of Reykjavik (now the capital of this country). In 985, the Norman Eric the Red discovered Greenland (“Green Country”), and after a while a colony arose on the south coast. Further voyages of the Normans (Bjarni and Leif the Happy) to the west led to the discovery of North America. This happened between 987-1000. There are no exact indications of which places in North America the Normans visited. Whether they visited Labrador, or Newfoundland, or other places, historians of geography cannot say for sure. With greater certainty they speak of the territory called Vinland by the Normans; apparently, this area is located south of New York. The doubts of historians of geography are explained by the fact that the Normans, giving their names to the territories they discovered, did not indicate their exact geographical position. But the very fact that the Normans discovered North America long before Columbus does not cause controversy.
At first glance, the ease with which the Vikings reached very remote and at that time inaccessible territories, overcoming large expanses of the North Atlantic, is striking. Without detracting from the courage and resourcefulness of the Normans, their art of building strong, well-kept ships, it should nevertheless be noted that they would hardly have been able to achieve such success if they had not been promoted natural conditions. X - XII centuries. - this is the time of the climatic optimum of the historical period, i.e. the climate then was milder than now, and the ice cover of the seas was less. If not for these natural conditions, the Vikings would hardly have been able to swim in the region of the 65th parallel. Recall that they: called Greenland the “Green Country”, it is known that the colonists were engaged in cattle breeding, that is, there were pastures here. Only later did these areas become covered with ice. in the Icelandic sagas. (tales) ice as obstacles to navigation are not mentioned. Until about 1200, whale and seal hunters sailed to the shores of Svalbard and Novaya Zemlya.
Thus, during the Viking Age, there were fewer multi-year ice, than now. Findings confirm this; on Svalbard among the deposits of the glacier of tundra plants belonging to this period. Warmer climate X - XII centuries. had an impact on landscapes and human activities, especially in the northern regions.
Subsequently, the discoveries of the Normans were forgotten, and they did not have a scientific impact. But the Vikings explored new routes, which were later used both for military and commercial purposes, for example famous way"From the Varangians to the Greeks".
During the Middle Ages, a prominent role in the geographical; science was played by Arab scientists. Starting from the 7th century the Arabs who lived on the Arabian Peninsula intensively expanded their possessions and created a powerful state (caliphate), the cultural centers of which were Baghdad in the east and Cordoba (in Spain) in the west. Having attached Syria and other countries to their possessions, they got acquainted with the works of ancient scientists, preserved by the bishop of Constantinople; Nester and his followers.
The geographical outlook of the Arabs was broad: they traded with many Mediterranean, Eastern (including: China), African countries. Arab travelers wandered across the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, India, Central and Central Asia, Indonesia, etc. The works of Arab geographers and travelers can be found in the works of the famous Soviet orientalist-Arabist, acad. I. Yu. Krachkovsky.
One of the first geographers of this period was Ibn Khordadbeh (c. 820/826-912/913). On the basis of archival data and reports of officials, he compiled the “Book of Ways and States”, which contains information about the Baghdad Caliphate, describes trade routes to India, Egypt and other countries.
Ibn Sina (Avicenna, 980-1037), who lived most of his life in Bukhara and Gurganj (present-day Urgench) and only at the end moved to Persia, is a prominent scientist and encyclopedist of the Middle Ages. The range of his interests was unusually wide and covered philosophy, natural science, medicine, geology, etc. In the "Book of Healing", along with other issues, he writes about the origin of the animal world, the formation of mountains, plant life, etc. The classification of mineral bodies proposed by the scientist included stones, fusible bodies (metals,) sulfuric (combustible) substances, salts. It was recognized by scientists until the middle of the 18th century.
A great contribution to the development of mathematics, astronomy, botany, geology, ethnography and other sciences was made by the remarkable Central Asian scientist-encyclopedist Biruni (973-1048). He traveled extensively in the Iranian Plateau, Central and Central Asia, and India. Biruni is the author of the well-known work “Kanon Masud”, in which he described the trigonometric method for measuring geographic longitudes, in principle similar to the modern geodetic method, spoke about Nepal, Tibet, and the routes from Fergana to East Turkestan. Among medieval scholars, Biruni was the first to express; the idea of the possibility of rotation of the Earth around the Sun, measured the circumference of the Earth. Interesting considerations of the scientist about changes in the direction of the channel of the Amu Darya in the geological past. He also wrote the "Book of summaries for the knowledge of jewelry", in which he placed information on more than 50 minerals, ores, and metals.
Famous geographer of the XII century. Idrisi (1100 -1161/1165) traveled in North Africa, Spain, Portugal, France, Asia Minor. Based on his impressions and on many literary sources, he wrote the essay “Entertainment of the Longing for Traveling Through the Regions”, which contains: information about the Arab countries, as well as about Italy, France, Germany. Idrisi made two maps: round and square. The maps do not have a degree grid, and they are not very accurate. But they testify to the broad outlook of the author: they Eastern Europe shown up to the river. Pechory. Idrisi knew the lake. Baikal, r. Amur, Tibet. He divided the earth into seven climates, and each of them into 10 parts.
The best representatives of Arabic science (Biruni, Ibn Sina, Idrisi, etc.) based their works on the sphericity of the Earth, and maps were compiled using the principles of the ancient scientist Ptolemy and his cartographic projections - conical and stereographic. Without introducing anything fundamentally new into the theory of geography, they preserved for posterity the ideas of the ancient world. Arab scientists made a greater contribution: to regional studies.
The Middle Ages (V-XV centuries) in Europe are characterized by a general decline in the development of science. The feudal isolation and religious worldview of the Middle Ages did not contribute to the development of interest in the study of nature. The teachings of ancient scientists were uprooted by the Christian church as "pagan". However, the spatial geographical outlook of Europeans in the Middle Ages began to expand rapidly, which led to significant territorial discoveries in different parts of the globe.
Normans(“northern people”) first sailed from southern Scandinavia to the Baltic and Black Sea(“the path from the Varangians to the Greeks”), then to the Mediterranean Sea. Around 867, they colonized Iceland, in 982, led by Leif Erikson, they opened the east coast of North America, penetrating south to 45-40 ° N. latitude.
Arabs, moving to the west, in 711 penetrated the Iberian Peninsula, in the south - in Indian Ocean, up to Madagascar (IX century), in the east - to China, from the south they went around Asia.
Only from the middle of the XIII century. the spatial horizons of Europeans began to expand noticeably (journey Plano Carpini,Guillaume Rubruk, Marco Polo and others).
Marco Polo(1254-1324), Italian merchant and traveler. In 1271-1295. traveled through Central Asia to China, where he lived for about 17 years. Being in the service of the Mongol Khan, he visited different parts of China and the regions bordering it. The first of the Europeans described China, the countries of Western and Central Asia in the "Book of Marco Polo". It is characteristic that contemporaries treated its content with distrust, only in the second half of the 14th and 15th centuries. they began to appreciate it, and up to the 16th century. it served as one of the main sources for compiling the map of Asia.
A series of such trips should also include the trip of a Russian merchant Afanasia Nikitina. In 1466, with trading purposes, he set off from Tver along the Volga to Derbent, crossed the Caspian and reached India through Persia. On the way back, three years later, he returned through Persia and the Black Sea. The notes made by Afanasy Nikitin during the trip are known as "Journey Beyond the Three Seas". They contain information about the population, economy, religion, customs and nature of India.
§ 3. Great geographical discoveries
The revival of geography begins in the 15th century, when Italian humanists began to translate the works of ancient geographers. Feudal relations were supplanted by more progressive - capitalist ones. In Western Europe, this change occurred earlier, in Russia - later. The change reflected an increase in production that required new sources of raw materials and markets. They presented new conditions for science, contributed to the general rise of the intellectual life of human society. Geography also acquired new features. Travel enriched science with facts. Generalizations followed. Such a sequence, although not marked absolutely, is characteristic of both Western European and Russian science.
The era of great discoveries of Western navigators. At the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, outstanding geographical events took place over three decades: the voyages of the Genoese H. Columba to the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti, the mouth of the Orinoco River and the coast of Central America (1492-1504); Portuguese Vasco da Gama around South Africa to Hindustan - the city of Kallikut (1497-1498), F. Magellan and his companions (Juan Sebastian Elcano, Antonio Pigafetta, etc.) around South America in the Pacific Ocean and around South Africa (1519-1521) - the first circumnavigation.
The three main search routes - Columbus, Vasco da Gama and Magellan - ultimately had one goal: to reach by sea the richest space in the world - South Asia with India and Indonesia and other regions of this vast space. In three different ways: straight to the west, around South America and around South Africa - the navigators bypassed the state of the Ottoman Turks, which blocked the land routes to South Asia for Europeans. It is characteristic that the versions of the indicated world routes for circumnavigation around the world were subsequently used many times by Russian navigators.
The era of great Russian discoveries. The heyday of Russian geographical discoveries falls on the XVI-XVII centuries. However, the Russians collected geographic information themselves and through their western neighbors much earlier. Geographical data (since 852) contains the first Russian chronicle - “The Tale of Bygone Years” Nestor. Russian city-states, developing, were looking for new natural sources of wealth and markets for goods. In particular, Novgorod grew rich. In the XII century. Novgorodians reached the White Sea. Sailing began to the west to Scandinavia, to the north - to Grumant (Svalbard) and especially to the northeast - to Taz, where the Russians founded the trading city of Mangazeya (1601-1652). Somewhat earlier, movement began to the east by land, through Siberia ( Ermak, 1581-1584).
The rapid movement into the depths of Siberia and the Pacific Ocean is a heroic feat of Russian explorers. It took them a little more than half a century to cross the space from the Ob to the Bering Strait. In 1632, the Yakut prison was founded. In 1639 Ivan Moskvitin reaches the Pacific Ocean near Okhotsk. Vasily Poyarkov in 1643-1646 passed from Lena to Yana and Indigirka, the first of the Russian Cossack explorers sailed along the Amur Estuary and the Sakhalin Bay of the Sea of Okhotsk. In 1647-48. Erofey Khabarov passes the Amur to the Sungari. Finally, in 1648 Semyon Dezhn e in goes around the Chukchi Peninsula from the sea, opens the cape that now bears his name, and proves that Asia is separated from North America by a strait.
Gradually, the elements of generalization acquire great importance in Russian geography. In 1675, a Russian ambassador, an educated Greek, was sent to China. Spafari(1675-1678) with the instruction “depict all the lands, cities and the path to the drawing”. Drawings, i.e. maps were documents of national importance in Russia.
Russian early cartography is known for the following four of its works.
Big blueprint Russian state. Compiled in one copy in 1552. The sources for it were “scribe books”. The Great Drawing did not reach us, although it was renewed in 1627. The geographer of the time of Peter the Great V.N. wrote about its reality. Tatishchev.
Big Drawing Book- text to the drawing. One of the later copies of the book was published by N. Novikov in 1773.
Drawing of the Siberian land compiled in 1667. It has come down to us in copies. The drawing accompanies the "Manuscript against the drawing".
Drawing book of Siberia compiled in 1701 by order of Peter I in Tobolsk by S.U. Remizov and his sons. This the first Russian geographical atlas of 23 maps with drawings of individual regions and settlements.
Thus, and in In Russia, the method of generalizations became first of all cartographic.
In the first half of the XVIII century. extensive geographical descriptions continued, but with an increase in the importance of geographical generalizations. It is enough to list the main geographical events in order to understand the role of this period in the development of Russian geography. First, the extensive long-term study of the Russian coast of the Arctic Ocean by detachments of the Great northern expedition 1733-1743 and expeditions Vitus Bering And Alexey Chirikov, who, during the First and Second Kamchatka expeditions, discovered the sea route from Kamchatka to North America (1741) and described part of the northwestern coast of this continent and some of the Aleutian Islands. Secondly, in 1724 the Russian Academy of Sciences was established with the Geographic Department as part of it (since 1739). This institution was headed by the successors of the affairs of Peter I, the first Russian scientists-geographers V.N. Tatishchev(1686-1750) and M.V. Lomonosov(1711-1765). They became the organizers of detailed geographical studies of the territory of Russia and themselves made a significant contribution to the development of theoretical geography, brought up a galaxy of remarkable geographers-researchers. In 1742, M.V. Lomonosov wrote the first domestic essay with a theoretical geographical content - “On the layers of the earth”. In 1755 two Russians were published classical regional studies monographs: “Description of the land of Kamchatka” S.P. Krashennikova and “Orenburg topography” P.I. Rychkov. The Lomonosov period began in Russian geography - a time of reflection and generalizations.
ON BOATS, IN THE SADDLE AND ON FOOT
A number of scientists tend to consider the beginning of the early Western European Middle Ages of the 3rd century BC. n. e. One can agree with R. Hennig that the end ancient geography should be dated to the end of the second century. n. e. He writes: “... it was in the 2nd century that the Roman Empire reached the apogee of its power and territorial expansion... The geographical horizons of the people of this era reached a breadth that remained unsurpassed until the 15th century, if we exclude the study of the northern countries ... When the limits of the world known to the ancients expanded as much as possible, the great genius of Ptolemy 1 united the entire body of geographical knowledge into a single whole and filed them in a brilliant frame of broad generalizations ... Over the centuries that have elapsed between the activities of Ptolemy and Columbus (i.e., from the 3rd to the 15th centuries - A.D.), in the overwhelming majority of cases, research expeditions only led to the re-conquest for geographical science of those countries that were already known and were often visited in antiquity” (Hennig, 1961, vol. II, p. 21).
However, one cannot fully agree with the last statement of the scientist, since in the Middle Ages Western Europeans had the opportunity to get acquainted not only with the northern regions of Europe and the regions of the North Atlantic, unknown to the ancient peoples of Greece and Rome, but also with the unknown vast expanses of Europe, with its northern outskirts, with regions of Central and East Asia, with the western shores of Africa, about which the ancient geographers had almost no idea, or had vague and half-legendary information. The Middle Ages, in particular Western Europe, contributed to the expansion of spatial horizons through numerous land campaigns and sea voyages.
The Turin wheel map of 1080 can serve as an example of maps (drawings) made in monasteries as illustrations of biblical writings. It is kept in the library of the city of Turin. It depicts the continents of Africa, Europe and Asia, separated from each other by the Mediterranean Sea and the rivers Nile and Tanais (Don), which are located in the form of a capital letter T of the Latin alphabet. The outer circle, in which the letter T is inscribed, corresponds to the ocean surrounding the entire land. Such a layout of the continents, as the researchers suggest, was first proposed by the Spanish encyclopedist, Bishop of the city of Seville Isidore, the author of the famous Etymology in the Middle Ages. The map is oriented to the east: Asia is placed in the upper half, Europe is in the lower left part of the map, Africa is in the lower right part of the map. This arrangement was based on the religious conception of Christians: the East, i.e. Asia, where the "holy places" of Palestine and the "Holy Sepulcher" are located, as it were, crowns the map. At the very top of the map, the figures of Adam and Eve symbolized the biblical paradise; in the center of the map is the city of Jerusalem. On the Turin map, as well as on the oval map compiled around 776 by the monk Beat, another fourth is depicted, southern mainland(south of Africa), inhabited by antipodes, is an undoubted echo of ancient ideas.
If in ancient times the main factors that contributed to the expansion of spatial horizons and led to territorial geographical discoveries, there were military campaigns (Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC to the Near East and Central Asia and India, Roman legionnaires across the Sahara and Nubia, military expeditions of Julius Caesar to Gaul and Britain in the 1st century BC and etc.), as well as trade relations between the Greco-Roman world and other peoples (Gippal’s voyage to India and his “discovery” of periodically changing winds - monsoons, the voyage of Greek and Egyptian sailors to the coast of Indochina, which was reflected on the map of Ptolemy, or the journey of Pytheas from Massalia to the North Atlantic, etc.), then in the early Middle Ages another factor begins to acquire a certain significance, namely, the spread by Christian missionaries of their teaching among the pagan peoples of Europe, Northeast Africa, Western, South and East Asia .
Of course, this factor could not be as decisive as K. Ritter imagined it, noting that "the history of the spread of Christianity" in medieval Europe "is at the same time the history of discoveries and successes in the field of geography" (1864, p. 117 ). To some extent, he was echoed by A. Gettner, who wrote that "... the spatial expansion of geographical knowledge approximately coincides with the spread of Christianity" (1930, p. 36). Moreover, Gettner argued that the clergy were the only carriers of science in that era. However, at the same time, he noted that the main factor in the spread of Roman Christianity was that it spread from the Mediterranean region to the north, covering all of Western Europe, while North Africa turned out to be inaccessible to him due to the spread of Islam among the Arabs in the 7th century. A. Gettner draws attention to the fact that numerous pilgrimages to Rome and Palestine contributed to the spread of geographical knowledge in the states of Western Europe. Several descriptions of this kind of travel have survived to our time. C. R. Beasley (1979) also believes that medieval pilgrims had a large role as discoverers, especially from the time of Charlemagne to the Crusades.
Apparently, the factor of the spread of Christianity cannot be underestimated, since the pilgrimage to the largest religious centers of the Christian world played a big role in the history of medieval trade, since the pilgrims themselves often performed the functions of small merchants, and their routes served as the basis for the emerging network of trade routes.
Pilgrimages to Palestine, to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea with the aim of visiting the “Holy Sepulcher” and other “holy places” that are described in the Bible, played a completely definite role in expanding the spatial horizons of Western Europeans in the southeast direction. According to Beasley, these pilgrimages began from the time of Emperor Constantine
"Map of the whole world" by the Roman geographer Pomponius Mela (43).
(who made Constantinople the new capital of the Roman Empire in 324-330). His mother Helena, through her visit to Palestine, the construction of a Christian church in Bethlehem, and the “finding” of relics in Jerusalem (the remains of the cross on which Christ was crucified) contributed to the fact that the pilgrimage began to be considered the dominant fashion.
A. Gettner showed that the Greek, or Byzantine, East in the early Middle Ages was a completely different cultural area, separated from the Western Roman Empire after the division in 395 of the once united Roman Empire into two independent states. In Byzantium they spoke a different (Greek) language than in the countries of Western Europe, they also adhered to a different religion - Orthodox, and not Catholic, characteristic of the Western Roman Empire; here, in Byzantium, there was also a different geographical outlook, since a lively trade was maintained with Asia Minor.
In 569-571. Byzantine ambassador Zimarch made a trip to the Altai Turks. The description of this journey, during which the Aral Sea was discovered as an independent basin, has come down to us in the historical work of Menander Petiktor (who lived in the second half of the 6th century) “On the reign of Emperor Justinian”. Also in the VI century. a voyage to India was made by Constantine of Antioch (who, after being tonsured a monk, took the name of Cosmas Indikoplova). As a merchant and engaged in trade, Constantine sailed in three seas: Roma (Mediterranean), Arabian (Red) and Persian (Persian Gulf). In the Eritrean Sea, as the Indian Ocean was called at that time, Constantine was caught in a severe storm. Whether he reached Hindustan is unknown, but he undoubtedly visited the island of Taprobana (Ceylon, modern Sri Lanka), which is described in the XI book (chapter) of his work. In 522-525. Constantine visited Ethiopia and the Somali Peninsula (where the "Land-Bearing Land" was located). He may have visited the source of the Blue Nile, which rises from Lake Tana in the Ethiopian highlands. He knew the Sinai Peninsula. Researchers believe that he took the veil in Sinai, where he graduated life path his companion and friend Mina. Becoming a monk, Cosmas wrote "Christian Topography" (c. 547-550), which, on the one hand, provides important information about distant countries, and on the other hand, draws a completely fantastic picture of the world, which caused criticism of the Armenian scientists of the 7th century. and Patriarch Photius of Constantinople. It is known that Cosmas was familiar with the Persian Mar Aba, who mastered the Syrian and ancient Greek culture. From him he borrowed his cosmographic views of the Nestorian Christians.
"Christian topography", widespread in Byzantium and known in Armenia, remained unfamiliar to Western European figures for a long time. In any case, the name of Cosmas Indikoplova is found only in a parchment list of the 6th century, stored in Florence in the Laurentian Library. The authors of the early Western European Middle Ages do not mention the name of Cosmas.
Except for the already mentioned travels in the east direction - Kosma Indikoplova to India and East Africa and the embassy of Zimarch to the Altai through Central Asia, the earliest journey to the East from Byzantium was the overland journey of two Christian monks around 500 to the country of Serinda, sent by Emperor Justinian for silkworms. The story about this is contained in the work of the historian Procopius from Caesarea "War with the Goths." This journey was very important from an economic point of view, since before that time in Europe they were not engaged in sericulture and were forced to buy Chinese silk (through the Persians or Ethiopians) at a high price. True, it still remains unknown where exactly the country called by Procopius “Serinda” was located, since this geographical name is not found anywhere else in the literature of that time. Some researchers localize it with China or Indo-China, but others, in particular R. Hennig (1961), convincingly show that the monks sent by the emperor did not visit China, but Sogdiana, that is, in the area lying between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers , with its capital in Samarkand, where, according to some historical sources, in the VI century. raised silkworms and produced silk. The monks secretly smuggled grenae of silkworms in their staffs to Byzantium and thus created an opportunity for the production of silk here.
In 636 the Christian missionary Olopena (Alopena) traveled to China. This is evidenced by a stone stele with a text in Chinese and Syriac, installed in one of the Chinese cities around 780. This journey in time coincides with the spread of Nestorian Christianity in China, brought to this country as early as the 7th century. Nestorian monks. There it flourished for about 200 years, during which churches were built in many cities. According to scientists, the establishment of a stone stele speaks of fairly close ties between the East and West of the ecumene of that time.
It should be said that Christianity in Western Europe spread quite quickly. Already by 380, a significant part of the vast Roman Empire (before its division into Eastern and Western) was considered Christian. After Christianity was recognized as the official religion in the empire by the edict of Emperor Constantine in 313, this religion began to spread among other, non-Roman peoples.
So, in 330, the Iberians, the inhabitants of Western Transcaucasia, were converted to Christianity, and soon the first Christian church on the southern slope of the Caucasus Range. In 354 the monk Theophilos spread Christianity in South Arabia. In Aden, Jafar, and Oman, Roman merchants kept merchants, many of whom were Christians. Somewhat earlier, in 340, the missionaries Frumentius and Edesius preached their religion in the Aksumite kingdom - ancient state in what is now Ethiopia. Their writings (which have not come down to us) served as the basis for a chapter on the planting of Christianity in Northeast Africa, which was included in the "History of the Church" by Rufinus of Turan. This work supplemented the work of the same name by Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, written in the 4th century BC.
From the beginning of the 4th c. began the spread of Christianity in the territory of Armenia. In 301, the baptism of King Trdat (Tiridate) III and his court, along with the troops stationed there, took place in Bagavan, carried out by presbyter Gregory the Illuminator.
100-150 years later, the Christian religion spread from Gaul throughout Western Europe and penetrated into the British Isles. Around 450, a British resident Patrick became an Irish bishop, whose letters contain, perhaps, the first geographical description islands of Ireland. It names some mountain ranges (for example, Antrim), lakes (Lochney and others), rivers (Shannon and others). True, some modern researchers dispute the authenticity of Patrick's letters. So, there is an opinion that even before Patrick, Ireland was already a Christian country, and Patrick himself was sent there to eradicate the heresy of Pelagius 2 and his activities on the island were limited to the Wicklow area (in the east of the island). The legend of Patrick as "the apostle of all Ireland" was created by the Roman catholic church only in the 7th century, in order to have a “patron of the country” alien to heresies (Magidovichi, 1970).
Apparently around 670 north of british isles Irish Christian hermits discovered the Faroe Islands, where only wild sheep lived. This was first reported in 825 by the Irish monk Dikuil, the author of the above-mentioned treatise On the Measurement of the Earth, the first geography manual written in the empire of Charlemagne.
In addition, the 7th century relates a very popular legend, overgrown with legendary details, about sailing along Atlantic Ocean monk Brandan, which is preserved in Irish epic tales. IN literary work"The Sailing of St. Brandan", which dates back to the 10th century, refers to the discoveries by this navigator of the shores of Greenland and Jan Mayen Island in the North Atlantic. I.P. and V.M. Magidovichi (1982) tend to consider Brandan a historical person, to whose activity the discoveries of these geographical objects can be attributed, but R. Ramsey (1977) has a negative attitude towards the legend, despite the fact that on the famous Hereford map world, created in 1260 by the monk Richard Heldingham, even the sailing routes of Brandan are shown 3 .
The most famous Western European travelers of the end of the 7th century. were the Frankish or Gallic bishop Arculf and the Irish priest Willibald. The first of them visited Palestine shortly after the conquest of Asia Minor by the Muslims. Around 690, he visited Jerusalem, was in the Jordan Valley (in the waters of this river, according to the biblical legend, Jesus Christ was baptized by John the Baptist), visited the city of Nazareth and other "holy places". Then he traveled to Egypt, where he was impressed by the size of the city of Alexandria and the huge Pharos lighthouse (even in ancient times considered one of the "seven wonders of the world"). Arculf was struck by the nature of Egypt. This country, he said, "without rain is very fertile." Arkulf climbed up the Nile "to the city of elephants" (as he called the ancient Elephantine - now Aswan), beyond which, at the rapids, the river "fell in a wild wreck from the cliff" (Beasley, 1979, p. 39).
On the way back, when the pilgrims sailed past Sicily, he was struck by the "island of Vulcan" (in the group of the Aeolian Islands), "spewing flames day and night with a noise like thunder." Arkulf adds that, according to people who have already been here, this volcano makes a particularly loud noise on Fridays and Saturdays.
Willibald set off from Ireland on his journey in 721. In describing the journey, he reports that when he sailed from Naples to Sicily, he saw a volcano that, during an eruption, if the veil of St. Agatha was brought to it, “immediately subsides” (Beasley, C 42) . Further, sailing past the islands of Samos and Cyprus, he reached the “country of the Saracens”, where the entire group of pilgrims was imprisoned on suspicion of espionage, from where, however, everyone was soon released thanks to the intercession of some Spaniard. Willibald then manages to visit Damascus, where he receives a pass to visit the "holy places" of Palestine. He walked through the “holy places” of Jerusalem, visited the springs of the rivers Jor and Dan, saw the “glorious church of Helen” in Bethlehem, but he was especially moved by the sight of the columns in the Church of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives. These columns, according to legend, had the ability to cleanse a person from all sins if he managed to crawl between them and the wall. On the way back, sailing among the Aeolian Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea, Willibald, like Arkulf, saw a volcanic eruption, throwing pumice onto the coast of the island and into the sea. According to him, in the mouth of the volcano was the tyrant Theodoric, who was doomed to eternal torment for his "hardened Arianism." Willibald wanted to see all this for himself, but he could not climb the steep slopes of the mountain.
So in the works of the pilgrims, along with the description of the objects actually seen, fantastic information was also reported and legendary explanations of natural phenomena were given.
As Beasley (1979) emphasizes, the attitude of Catholicism of that time (8th century) to the countries of the known world contributed to the fact that Willibald's report was published with the sanction of Pope Gregory III along with Arculf's report and received recognition, becoming a good commentary on the old "Itinerary of Bordeaux" compiled 400 years earlier.
The geographical information required by pilgrims and set forth in the two main "guides" compiled by Arculf and Willibald was confirmed and supplemented by the monks Fidelius (who visited Egypt around 750) and Bernard the Wise, who passed through all the "holy places" of Palestine around 867.
True, this information was more historical and geographical than purely geographical. Thus, Fidelius is fascinated by the “granaries of Joseph” (as Christians at that time usually called the Egyptian pyramids, which amazed them with their size). According to biblical tradition, Joseph the Beautiful, who served Egyptian pharaoh, accumulated over the course of seven years of abundance unprecedented stocks of grain, which he stored in special granaries. At the onset of famine years, he began to sell bread to the Egyptians and residents of other countries. (This legend was also widespread in the Muslim world.) Fidelius describes in detail his voyage along the Necho freshwater channel (which in ancient times connected one of the channels of the Nile with the Red Sea), where Moses, according to the Bible, crossed the dry sea with the Israelites, and then very briefly reports sailing around the Sinai Peninsula to the pier of Ezion-Geber (in the Gulf of Aqaba).
Bernard the Wise, a monk from the French peninsula of Brittany, describing the sights of Jerusalem, did not forget to talk about the inns for pilgrims that existed at that time, built by order of the King of the Franks, Charlemagne.
Finally, around 850, one of the pilgrims (his name remains unknown) also wrote a treatise entitled "On the Houses of God in Jerusalem." This work, along with the "guides" of Fidelius and Bernard the Wise, was one of the last geographical monuments of this kind, which, according to Beasley (1979), preceded the "Norman era".
Notes:
1 This refers to the Alexandrian geographer and astronomer Claudius Ptolemy, who created a map of the world known at that time and compiled a description of it in the work "Geographical Manual" (abbreviated often called simply "Geography").
2 On Pelagius (the author of the doctrine of free will as the source of virtuous and malicious actions, which was condemned as heresy at the Council of Ephesus in 430), see: Donini, 1979.
3 See rec. Kogan M. A. on the book. Ramsey R. "Discoveries that never were" (1978).
4 See: Maiorov, 1978. Ch. 4, 5; Sokolov, 1979.
5 In ancient Russian literature, another work of Honorius was circulated in manuscripts - "Lucidarium" (from the Latin "Elacidarium" - enlightener), which expounded cosmographic and geographical views. (See: Raikov, 1937.)
6 About Cassiodorus see: Golenishchev-Kutuzov IN Medieval Latin Literature of Italy. M., 1972.
7 See: "From the Editor" in the book. Kiseleva L.I. "What Medieval Manuscripts Tell About" (1978).
Source: biofile.ru