The driving force and source of development of the person and his communities - стр. 10
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" cannot be correlated with any kind of energy known to natural science [18, p. 228-246].
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.