Some words are so firmly settled in our minds, deeply embedded in our lives, that most often we are not even aware of how we use them. Examples include words such as "school", "audience", or "story". Meanwhile, the first two were once borrowed from the Latin language, and we will consider the meaning and origin of the latter in this article.
Origin of the word
Despite the seemingly simple and obvious meaning, the definition of the word "history", its meaning and etymology still cause controversy among leading linguists around the world. All of them point to the origin of the term of interest to us from the Greek language (historia), but the understanding of the original meaning varies significantly.
Incredible viewpoints
The meaning of the word "history", as mentioned earlier, is still being determined by linguists, culturologists and philosophers. At the same time, along with quite logical and reasonable interpretations, there are also very special views on the meaning of the term.
The most interesting in this case are the points of view of religious thinkers. One, toFor example, guided by the phonetic principle, they determine the meaning of the word "history" by dividing it into so-called "sound" syllables. At the same time, anyone with imagination can easily notice in the term the whole sentence "from-Torah-I". Such an interpretation, gravitating towards Judaism, nevertheless, retains one of the main positions to this day.
On the other hand, adherents of Orthodoxy interpret the meaning of the word "history" in a slightly different way. In their explanation, they turn to morphological analysis, highlighting the root "old" as the semantic core. Appealing to this, researchers who defend this point of view insist on the primacy of the ancient Slovene word, which was subsequently borrowed into the Greek language.
The meaning of the very word-base was interpreted in this case as a thought approved by the divine principle, voiced through a person.
If we turn to explanatory dictionaries
The meaning of the word "history" in the most famous sources is defined in different ways. Only in the explanatory dictionary of T. F. Efremov 8 different interpretations of the term of interest to us are given.
Most often, articles give the following definition of the word "history": this lexeme is commonly understood as a whole scientific complex aimed at studying the past of all mankind. Nevertheless, even in the field of scientific activity, there are broader ideas about this word. For example, in the same dictionary of T. F. Efremova there isdefinition of history as a process of formation and development of not only phenomena associated with human activity and life, but also nature as a whole. In this context, the attraction to natural science is much more obvious.
Other definitions
Among the existing points of view, it is impossible not to single out the opinion that history is the science of facts. In this case, the basis of the meaning of the term lies precisely in the reliability of what happened. In this case, not only great wars and cataclysms, but also any other events that can be confirmed and documented will serve as an example.
According to other ideas, history is, first of all, a story, a description of a particular situation. As an example, in this case, the plot of any film or book can be cited, to which modern mankind has long been accustomed to and adapted. Remember how many times you have asked someone to tell a story and see how firmly this understanding of the term has become ingrained in our minds.
About what or what?
With regard to the term "history" the meaning of the word determines in many respects the ideas about it, its specific differentiation. At first glance, everything seems simple and clear, but the deep meaning is pure and transparent.
However, how many times have you heard stories about all sorts of conquests or, for example, prominent figures? In such situations, the semantics of the story, the description of this or that phenomenon, is extremely clearly traced.
Ortake, for example, the name of the discipline "World History". The meaning of the word in this context will be somewhat different - it gravitates towards systematization, interpretation, and we have also got used to this for a long time.
There are other pitfalls in this definition. The word "history", meaning, interpretation, the meaning of which seems simple and clear, can also denote the process of becoming something. For example, the formation of a country, the study of a particular problem, the construction of some kind of apparatus, and other realities. "History of Russia" and "History of Literary Studies" can equally exist.
General in particular
As already mentioned, the concept under study represents in its greatest form a whole complex of phenomena, spectra and varieties of scientific research. It is impossible to talk about what history is without distinguishing between the general and the particular. On the one hand, the term referred to in this article is a whole complex of scientific and pseudo-scientific knowledge about the process of the formation of the world in general and humanity in particular.
On the other hand, one should not forget about the existence of a separate discipline bearing the same name. History is more or less studied in depth in schools, universities and other educational institutions.
Object and subject
Many thinkers, including Voltaire and Rene Descartes, argued about the purpose of this complex of sciences, its structure and the degree of necessity for the normal existence of mankind. Based on what they have said andMany other points of view can be said that the subject of history - is, first of all, all manifestations of the formation and development of human society from time immemorial to the present day. Speaking more globally and on a large scale, it is necessary to expand the scope of the study to the world. In this context, the subject of history is the life of the whole world since its inception, in whatever form it may take.
How it is organized
First of all, of course, this is a complex of knowledge, and not only scientific, but also private, no matter how strange it may sound. By and large, every nationality, every nation has its own understanding and interpretation of history, which can literally be diametrically different from the rest.
This is primarily due to the geopolitical component: the wars that the people had to go through and the positions that the people occupied in them. So for some, this or that event can be defined as the greatest victory, while for others it can remain a stigma on the body of the nation for centuries.
So what is history? Where the word came from, we have already figured out - now let's turn to direct factualization, the so-called material manifestations. After all, in fact, how would modern humanity know about what happened in the era of dinosaurs or, for example, the royal Scythians?
The formation of an idea of history directly depends, firstly, on material material, which is found in large or smaller quantities during all kinds of excavations and expeditions. In-secondly, from the monuments of writing that have survived to this day.
The latter can be either directly chronicles or testimonies of priests, or simple letters of the population, which speak of things that are completely insignificant and of an everyday nature.
Special View Source
It is noteworthy that an important source of opinion of modern mankind regarding the past is art. By and large, it is in it that the cultural, historical situation of a particular time period is most fully reflected.
In the paintings, for example, one can distinguish not only the main trends in terms of form, but also the originality of the subject, which in many cases forms an idea of the worldview of our distant or not very distant ancestors.
This fact is even more clearly reflected in fiction, in which the peculiarities of understanding the world, the organization of life, the state and many other phenomena are reflected in great detail.
It is the literary process in its dynamics and development that best characterizes the movement of human thought in time and space. It is noteworthy that approximately the same function is conditionally performed by cinema - from the famous tapes of the past, modern humanity learns about the style of a particular era, significant phenomena in the historical situation, culture and religion of a particular country.
Memory of generations
Finally, we should not forget about the folklore and stories of our grandparents. Of course, in this regard, the issue of objectivity of presentation is particularly acute, but in a sense, the understanding of the historical picture becomes more complete. As an example, one can cite the numerous stories of eyewitnesses of the Second World War, which preserved not only the personal impressions of people who caught this terrible time, but also facts that are not known to modern science.
A similar situation is observed in African tribes far from civilization. Ideas about the origin, formation and development of the world are transmitted in them mainly orally, which significantly affects people's worldview.
