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«Карфаген современности». Образ Америки в цивилизационной концепции В.И. Ламанского
The views on America of the Russian Slavist Vladimir Ivanovich Lamansky (1833-1914) are considered. The main monographs of the scholar are used as sources: "On the Slavs in Asia Minor, Africa and Spain" (1859), "On the Study of the Greek-Slavic World in Europe" (1871), "Three Worlds of the Asian-European Continent" (1892).V.I. Lamansky's point of view largely coincides with the views of other Slavophiles on America - I.V. Kireevsky and N.Y. Danilevsky. Late Slavophiles pointed to the confrontational nature of mutual relations between Europe and Russia, which in many ways also applied to America, which was perceived as a continuation of European or Romano-Germanic civilisation. It is noted that the image of America was formed within the framework of V.I. Lamansky's concept of civilisation, according to which European history and politics are a reflection of the age-old antagonism between two civilisational worlds: the Greco-Slavic and the Romano-Germanic. However, V.I. Lamansky corrects the Slavophile assessments of America, believing that within the Western world it is possible to distinguish the Anglo-Saxon world (the British Empire and the North American Republic), to which the future belongs. Slavophiles regarded Russia and America as the civilisations to which the future belonged. V.I. Lamansky also reproduced the widespread belief in Russian society (A.I. Herzen, I.V. Kireyevsky) that the centre of the Western world was moving to North America. V.I. Lamansky linked this displacement to the principle of Transliatio Imperii, since Russia and the USA both claim to realise the imperial idea. The peculiarity of the Slavophile approach was the appeal to the biological metaphor of age, according to which Europe is the world of the present, while America and Russia, as young cultural and historical entities, belong to the future. V.I. Lamansky believed that the dominance of the Western world passing to America could lead to a reduction in tensions between the Greco-Slavic and Romano-Germanic worlds, since relations between America and Russia are free of the contradictions that divide Russia and Europe. The specific aspects of the mental image and the stereotypes of the perception of America, which were widespread in the Russian society of the 19th century and which were reproduced by V.I. Lamansky, are pointed out: the idea of America as a country dominated by a mercantile spirit, egoism, and the pursuit of profit; external forms of unity and social life prevail in America; the lack of a unified nationality does not allow the development of a rich literature and a creatively fruitful culture in America.