THE CONCEPTUALIZATION OF CULTURAL DYNAMICS IN THE STUDIES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY BY RUSSIAN AND FOREIGN SCIENTISTS
The article analyzes the studies of certain philosophers, historians and culture researchers devoted to the phenomenon of cultural dynamics. It defines the term cultural dynamics as a basic generic term used in the Science of Culture and the Humanities for interpreting all sorts of transformations and cultural fluctuations that are considered to be a permanent characteristic feature of culture. The article also points out the causes, sources and factors of cultural processes and modifications. The spectrum of scientific views on cultural transformations, sources and driving force of cultural changes as well as the variety of types and forms of cultural dynamics were expanded and enlarged in the second half of the twentieth century. At this period of time different scientists became focused on the concept of cultural dynamics and as a result it was profoundly analyzed and conceptualized. The article examines into some researchers’ interpretations of the cultural dynamics concept based on various cognitive and epistemological views. The article shows some scientists’s views on the essential characteristics of the culturogenesis, which is interpreted by number of researchers as a kind of cultural dynamics. It is regarded as a process of continuous genesis, permanent growth and development of new cultural forms and systems. The study tests a diversity of concepts that are correlated with the concept of social and cultural dynamics, identifying the concepts that are directly or indirectly related to the concept of cultural dynamics. It discovers some common and peculiar points in understanding the phenomenon of cultural dynamics. It is aimed to provide a number of the major concepts that cultural researchers have used.