FEATURES OF THE METHODOLOGY OF TEACHING THE COURSE “CIVILIZATIONS OF THE MEDIEVAL EAST” FOR BACHELOR’S DEGREE GRADUATES OF SPECIALTY 032 “HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY”

Abstract

The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the features of the methodology of teaching the course “Civilizations of the Medieval East” for bachelor’s degree graduates of the specialty 032 “History and Archaeology”. Special attention is paid to the development of medieval Eastern civilizations, periodization, controversial issues related to the methodology of teaching the discipline, because Eastern civilizations, although they had many similar features with the European states of that time, at the same time formed their own, inherent only to them, features of the structure, social hierarchy, economy, culture, subculture, etc. The article traces the main distinguishing features of Eastern civilizations from European states; it is proven that the states of the East in the Middle Ages were not only not inferior in level of development to European states, but also significantly ahead of them, having more human and material resources. Of course, there were a number of factors (climatic cataclysms, overpopulation, invasions of conquerors, etc.) that significantly slowed down the technological and industrial development of the East. When teaching the history of the Medieval East, one should understand the peculiarities of feudalism in these states or civilizations – Far Eastern, nomadic, Arab, Japanese, etc. Considerable attention is paid to the periodization of Eastern civilizations. It is worth noting that in the process of teaching the discipline, the teacher should emphasize that each civilization had its own framework of development, periods in which certain significant events took place, and therefore – the general periodization of the history of states and civilizations of the East is rather conditional, and an attempt to apply traditional historiographic periodization – typical for a number of European states, does not withstand any criticism. We note that when teaching the discipline, one should focus on the peculiarities of the development of education and science in the states of the Medieval East – madrasahs of the Arab world, the system of schools and palace examinations in China, Buddhist schools in Japan; In fact, these educational and social institutions directly influenced the formation of the features of the cultural, economic and political development of these civilizations. It is proven that the cities of the medieval East did not have such self-government as European cities, therefore they did not play a noticeable political role, but at the same time they were important economic and scientific centers. In the teaching process, the attention of applicants should be focused on the features of the social structure and organization of power in the civilizations of the medieval East, on the great powers of the rulers of the Eastern civilizations – in many cases, monarchs had unlimited power, representatives of certain dynasties ruled for a long time, there were not isolated cases when the ruling dynasty was alien to the population of the state. It is concluded that the academic discipline “Civilizations of the Medieval East” has many specific components that need to be taken into account when teaching students. One of the biggest problems of the course is its lack of integration into world history (events and episodes from the history of the states of the medieval East are generally not taught within the framework of academic courses on the history of the Middle Ages) and periodization, which does not coincide with the European one, as well as the absence of a number of typical features inherent in the states of medieval Eastern Europe – feudalism, special status of cities and townspeople, craft guilds and merchant guilds, parliamentarism, etc.