Error of perspective, or once agai on Russia and Europe

The article deals with the concept of European civilization, mainly in informational respect, from the viewpoint of the emergence of information storage and transmission media and the creation of the necessary infrastructure. In this connection the author explains that the notions of European civilization and Western European culture (or the West) are not identical. The well-known trichot-omy “Antiquity – Middle Ages – modern epoch” is not satisfactory; the author introduces the no-tion of the carrier of European civilization. The article considers the historical changes of the carriers of European civilization, beginning from the ancient Greeks down to modernity, when European civilization – the only one in the world – has acquired universal importance due to the creation of corresponding institutions. The first part of the article analyzes the ancient Greeks and Romans, the emergence of Graeco-Roman civilization, the totality of whose cultural achievements has been transmitted to a new nation, that of the Christians, who secured the preservation and development of the Graeco-Roman Christian culture during the 1st millennium A.D. The article’s second part considers the nations that have to a certain degree absorbed the Euro-peanism up to the 15th century, when, thanks to universities and scholarly academies, the initiative in transmitting and developing European civilization passes on predominantly to the peoples of Europe which superseded one another in the course of history (these were principally Italy, France, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Germany and Russia) as well as to the American colonies of Great Brit-ain which gained independence and formed the United States of America. The 19th century saw the creation of necessary conditions for the universal spread of European civilization, accompanied by a crisis in Europe and by gradual rise of the USA as the principal carrier of Europeanism. The third part of the article is devoted to the evolution of the Europeanist institutions and ideas from the First World War and to the end of the cold war epoch; the author assesses the current state of Europeanism which has acquired universal dimensions as well as the prospects of the emergence of new carriers of Europeanism