За етнографската интерпретация на проблема „традиция и иновация"
The Ethnographic Interpretation of the Problem of "Tradition and Innovation"

Summary/Abstract: In the last decade representatives of the public sciences have shown a marked interest in traditions and innovations as important social phenomena, directly linked with the development of life and culture. This article consecutively considers traditions, innovations and their interrelations. After making a detailed typographical analysis of the definitions of the concept of tradition, existing to date, the author reaches the conclusion that very great deficiencies, ambiguity and a lack of a united opinion on a number of cardinal questions still exist; there is no generally accepted system of determining signs on the basis of which a classification of traditions could be carried out. The author gives his own definition of tradition, according to which it is "... a social phenomenon, an original and particularly stable translation mechanism (subjected to a definite idea), accepting, preserving, bearing and transmitting from generation to generation cultural socio-directed information on and in all spheres of social life." He traces the fundamental phases through which the development of tradition passes: appearance, building up, functioning and dying away. He then indicates determinants according to which the respective classification could be made. In the second part of the article there is an analysis of the concept innovation, in which its complexity and vagueness and onesidedness of the existing definitions is noted. According to the author innovation is "... the dialectic unity of a creative process and its production creating and intransiently accepting a definite cultural novelty (for a definite time, space and ethnic environment), having or not having traditional predecessors." Relations between tradition and innovation correlated to culture are analysed in the third part. They are defined as two dialectically linked trends, opposed in their nature, which express the development of culture in general. In conclusion the author considers the ethnographic interpretation of tradition and innovation which is directly dependent on the subject, the sphere of the subject and the object of ethnography. Their ethnographic study passes through two stages, the first of which reveals what is common to them, while the second shows the ethnic specifics of traditions and innovations. Therein lies the importance of ethnographic science for the scientific direction of present-day ethno-cultural processes under the conditions of the developed socialist society.

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