A NOTION OF VALUES IN THE NATIONAL-ETHIC PICTURE OF THE WORLD

Rustem Kadyrzhanov (Kazakhstan)

Aside from creative self-development of a national-ethnic culture that becomes apparent through the notion of common to all mankind values in national-ethnic values, stability and viability of a culture is of great importance. Stability and viability of an ethnic culture is connected with the unity and integrity of its heterogeneous parts. The unity of a culture supposes the whole picture of an ethnos world.

How is the picture of an ethnos world being formed? In the result of interaction of a man and environment and processing of primary information with the help of signs a peculiar doubling of the world occurs: an image of the world, which finds its embodi­ment in various facts of behavior and results of activity, appears.

Speaking otherwise, an artificial, social environment of human existence appears side by side with the natural environment. The meaning of this doubling is not in as­similation but in establishment of the difference between biological and social, nature and culture. A life of a man in a socium stopped coinciding with pure biological cycles and appropriateness of his behavior, limiting and regulating "natural" actions and deeds.

Separation of a man as a social-cultural being is con­nected with forming of his value relation to the world. A main body of a value relation of a person to the world became a picture of the world of that socium, in which it lived. A picture of the world presents by itself a way of perception and mastering of the world, by means of which people master the whole flow of life impressions, going from the environment, and cast it in the integral system of beliefs about the external world.

Kazakhs as other ethnic groups worked out their own picture of the world. In this pic­ture of the world all peculiarities of their nomad culture found their reflection. The pic­ture of the world had been formed during a long period of time and absorbed not only ways of perception of surrounding reality, not only strictly Kazakhs, but also their mul­tiple ancestors, namely those ethnic groups, which later composed Kazakh nation.

The picture of the world as an integral system of looks at the surrounding a per­son reality consists, as any system, from certain elements and components. By their contents these components are divided on universal, inherent for people of any epoch, and special, specific, typical for a determined epoch and determined society or ethnos.

Among the universal components of the ethnic picture of the world specialists mark notion about the environment, space and time. These notions are expressed more concretely in views at the beginning and the end of the world, eternity, top and bottom, etc.

Tn Kazakh traditional picture of the world a perception of the time is transmitted by the conception "Zaman" that means an epoch, era. The conception "Duniezhalgan" expresses an idea of the fluidity of time, instability, changeability, a temporal property of success, transient property of life, etc.

Kazakh perception of space is connected with the extensiveness, boundlessness of steppe spaces. At the same time this boundlessness was not disorderly and chaotic. In­side it was regulated, had the center and the periphery. "A steppe for Kazakhs had it central point where a yurta or an aul were, but constant migrations moved it in space. So, it appeared that the circle Earth-Universe had it central point everywhere, namely in every point of a steppe. At the same time, moving round the point of a circle of seven hundred kilometers, a nomad was far from it at every migration. The center as an im­movable and at the same time changing in space point was understandable for Kazakhs. A circle was a symbol of Unknown, Unlimited space, personifying endless Time in the Eternity. The sphere itself was considered as an emblem of the eternity and boundless­ness. Nomads understood the meaning of this phenomenon because they could see the sphere from its center and be at the same time outside of it. Space like a sphere went with radiuses to different sides from a nomad, opening unlimited horizons around but coming back to him as to a center of rotation. On the basis of notions about space and time an original cosmology of Kazakhs was made up. "Primary, visible: a circle of the Sun, a semicircle of the sky and a semicircle of a yurta had formed the notion about three parts of the Cosmos and distinguished the figure "three". This idea coincided with dividing of man's body itself on three parts. All mentality was built on analogies: sunman, shanyrak of yurta; body - rays of the sun, uyks of a yurta; legs - earth, kerege; be­ing realized as upper, lower and middle worlds. The upper world, the world of inhabita­tion of gods - ancestors, the middle world - the world of people's habitation, and the lower world - the world of dead people and death. The reiteration ofthree-meaningfulness of all surroundings led to the thought that everything in the Nature was developing in accordance with the same laws of analogies. A circle became the most perfect form, moving around the circle - the most perfect way of life. This was the cosmologic understanding of life in all its simplicity and purity. Three geometric bases: the point of the sun, the plain of the earth, and the volume of a yurta promotes realizing of Cosmos laws that repeat endlessly in every new phenomenon. A point - the sun, a plain - the earth, a volume - habitation repeated in a yurta: the point - shanyrak, the plain be­coming a semicircle - kerege, and the volume - unks. A peculiar rhythm, vibration were created, vibration was going downwards from above, vertically, and in the bottom -from the right to the left, from the left to the right, horizontally. A spiral from its initial point came back again to its boundlessness.

 Triplicity of visible and invisible bodies nevertheless would not have formed the unity if it had not been united in a single whole. The integrity, completeness were be­coming a necessary condition of the world assimilation. Kerege, shanyrak and unks were being united in a single whole, the fourth - yurta. The Uper, the Lower, and the Middle worlds were being united by efforts of batyrs and ancestors, were becoming a united Cosmos able to create life. The World tree, as the World mountain, being divided into three parts (roots, a trunk, a crown; foot of a mountain, a middle, and a top), unit­ing, formed a single whole - a tree and a mountain. Uniting of three principles depends on the fourth - life. So the figure four appeared. "Uniting of three parts into a single whole, fourth, gaining a form, can be traced in all levels of Kazakh's life: in habitation, way of life, traditions, customs, habits ...".

A traditional picture of Kazakhs' world, including adduced cosmologic scheme, gave their life the value content. The value attitude of Kazakhs to their being was per­ceived in customs, traditions, rituals, etc. It was imprinted in national proverbs and say­ings. These culturally value phenomena usually outlive an epoch of their origin for a long time. Although the sense and meaningfulness of these phenomena change with time, their common outlines stay in many respects unchangeable and conservative. A social, ethnic memory remains in these phenomena. They secure the reproduction of dif­ferent vital conditions, let an individual orientate himself in the world.

Traditions, rites, rituals, verbal folk creative work of Kazakhs correlate with the traditional picture of the world receiving a value filling from it. A spiritual life of Ka­zakhs appearing on this base was not less important for them than material one. It is characteristic to all traditional ethnic cultures going with their roots into the archaic past.

From the positions of modern culture national culture oriented on the biological reproduction of a man has a crucial role. Spiritual culture, from this point of view, has an additional, facultative role. Such view at the correlation of material and spiritual cul­ture is connected with the extreme rationality of modern world outlook. "Meanwhile, -A. K. Baiburin notes, - it is not true even in respect of modern culture. Many things of utilitarian significance have also additional (aesthetic, prestigious) senses. All the more it is wrong to speak about the dichotomy of utilitarian and symbolic in respect of phe­nomena of archaic culture".

In cultures of an archaic type every thing can has as utilitarian-pragmatic, so and spiritually value meaning. Dual using of things appeared to be possible because in ar­chaic culture every article of man's surrounding (as artificial, so and natural) corre­sponded to the definite meaning (model of a game). Not only language, myth, ritual, but others - utensils, economic and social institutions, systems of relationship, habitation, food, clothes and similar are used as semiotic objects. All these systems of signs having united and common structure of meanings. As a matter of fact there is a whole semiotic model, each element of which correlates to all other elements, and they all participate in the united all-embracing metaphor.

In the animism of Kazakhs' world outlook an all-embracing sign character of Ka­zakh traditional culture is expressed. The question is about the outlook at the world, ac­cording to which all subjects of the world are alive and animated. That is why they can­not be pained and damaged: one mustn't profane fire and water, trample down the grass, plough the earth. Plough the earth is translated in Kazakh as "dzer dzyrtu" that literally means "cut the earth". Because of that Kazakhs, opening up their vital space, never struggled with the nature.