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2. Dynamics of ethnogenesis is explained by Gumilev as the presence in each person of the fluctuations of some energy which undertakes from the biosphere of Earth and transformed by the person into work. Gumilev called this ability the passionarity: "An indispensable condition of emergence and the course of process of ethnogenesis up to its attenuation, after which the ethnos turns into a relict, is its passionarity, i.e. ability to purposeful overtension. We can explain it so far, having only accepted a hypothesis, i. e. the judgment which is generalizing noted facts, but not excluding a possibility of emergence of other, more graceful explanations: the passionarity is an organic ability of an organism to absorb energy of the external environment and to give it in the form of labour. In humans, this ability fluctuates so strongly that sometimes its impulses break the instinct of self-preservation, both individual and species, as a result of which some people, in our terminology – passionaries, commit and ca
3. The push to increase the passionarity Gumilev sees in the external factor (bursts of cosmic radiation). The fact that the pushes have cosmic origin apparently results from the fact that Gumilev could not explain by earthly reasons the linear form and huge extent on the surface of the Earth of these pushes [16]. "One and the same push can create several foci of increased passionarity (and as a consequence – several super-ethnoses). So, the push VI touched Arabia, the valley of the Indus, Southern Tibet, North China and Middle Japan. "The same push can create several centers of the increased passionarity (and as a result – several superethnoses). So, push VI reserve Arabia, valley of Indus, Southern Tibet, Northern China and Central Japan. And in all these countries arose ethnoses-peers, but each of them had original stereotypes and cultures" [17, p. 14-17].
The logic of development of a civilization, according to Gumilev, consists in series of ethnoses, i.e. in replacement of the perished ethnoses by emerging ones, and the term of life of each ethnos is 1200-1500 years old.
Presented by Gumilev mechanism of emergence, existence and disappearance of holistic communities (ethnoses) – ethnogenesis, as it is evident at once, has in itself no strong basis, it is rather a set of the facts fastened with quite superficial considerations of the author.
But at first we will look at critical remarks of colleagues-scientists to address Gumilev's concept which concern a basis of ethnos, life cycle of ethnos, influence on this cycle of external factors, structure of life cycle of ethnos.
L.S. Klein points out that the basis of the ethnos, according to Gumilev, constituting the "geobiochemical energy of living substance" ca
Shnirelman V. A. and Panarin S. A. state the absence of transparent, distinct and consistent definition of ethnos [19, p. 5-37].
M.I. Artamonov believes that Gumilev underestimates a role of social, cultural, religious and other non-biological factors in ethnogenesis, exaggerating a natural factor and equating ethnos and population [20, p. 75-77].
Yu.K. Efremov notes numerous mistakes of Gumilev at his definition of communication of ethnogenesis with landscapes [21, p. 77-80].
L.S. Klein sees no reason for subdivision the life cycle of the ethnos into four phases and for accommodate of this cycle into the interval of 1200-1500 years [18, p. 237-238].
A.L. Yanov believes that Gumilev equates events of ethnic and political history [22, p. 110-111].
L.S. Klein believes that the "passionaries" of Gumilev are identical to a sort of mutants who have acquired an increased ability to absorb the energy of the biosphere, and, accordingly, to stimulate the development of the ethnos [18, p. 238]. From the point of view of psychology, "passionaries" in Gumilev's representation are people who have a psychotype with a pronounced manic tonus.
L.C. Klein, L. A. Yanov, V. A. Shnirelman and S. A. Panarin also skeptical about the impact of the bursts of cosmic radiation as a push to the increase of passionarity [18, p. 238-239].
For its part, to this criticism we can add the following.
L.N. Gumilev is looking for the foundation of his concept of ethnogenesis in external factors, such as cosmic ray bursts, landscapes, historical and geographical features of a given territory, the state of adjacent ethnoses, etc., whereas external factors can really only manifest, being the opposing party, action on development both the person, and his communities of internal, hidden forces, strengthening or weakening this action, though, of course, out of the environment can be no question about development of something.
These forces or force Gumilev also did not discover. The only internal property that Gumilev discovers in a person is the presence in him of an oscillation of some energy of incomprehensible origin and properties that determines the absence or presence of passionarity: this unknown and unverifiable energy incomprehensibly how is being taken from the Earth's biosphere and is transformed by the person into work. Moreover, the fact of obtaining additional energy passes beyond the consciousness of a person. This conclusion seems completely unserious. Therefore, it turns out: it is not known what "destroys, – according to Gumilev, – the instinct of self-preservation."
Gumilev's view on the fixed time of the life cycle (existence) of the ethnos in the interval 1200-1500 years is also an erroneous view. It's not even about how many thousands of years it can exist – everything in our world of course – essence of the problem is completely different.
It is impossible to consider such complex and changeable formations – the holistic communities, – as a matter of fact. similar to the life of a living being – with its fixed cycle from birth to the period of blossoming with the subsequent sunset: ups and downs, a stable existence in the intermittent development of each community can be many for thousands of years, and we have many similar examples, unlike the rather labored examples given by Gumilev.
In the last section we will dwell on this problem in more detail.
It seems that all this criticism completely destroys the concept of Gumilev, reducing it to an amateurish craft for the needs of a semi-educated public.
Nevertheless, Gumilev was the only person from the entire scholarly community who tried to solve the problem quite original, which nobody has managed to solve so far.
Be that as it may, the questions assigned by him, have posed scientists and historians at a dead end, since they themselves were incapable of suggesting something new, except for the factors mentioned above, which they considered the driving forces of social development absolutely groundless, although within the framework of the materialist approach to the problem, Gumilev was is doomed to failure, inasmuch the materialists relying on approaches of natural sciences to an explanation of world processes, are forced to operate only with natural phenomena, and this circumstance does not allow them to be engaged in those phenomena that ca