Russian-Volga Bulgarian mutual relations in the sphere of spiritual culture

Abstract

© The authors. The significance of the problem under study is caused by the fact that spiritual culture of Volga Bulgaria and Kievan Russia despite significant differences conditioned by special characteristics of the ethnic group, religion, policy and economy had much in common, which was due to similar environmental and social-economic conditions of development; direct mutual influence, increased trade relations and style of the epoch, etc. Cultures of Ancient Russia (Ancient Rus') and Volga Bulgaria are in the first instance cultures of Middle Ages. Despite significant differences in cultures of peoples of that epoch, existing on big territories neutralizing forces made culture of one feudalistic country similar to another one's. It was caused by similar development conditions, direct mutual influence, broad trading links and style of the epoch. The present paper aims at finding and analyzing facts of interaction between spiritual cultures of Russia and Volga Bulgaria. In this paper we will turn our attention to certain elements of this big, many-sided, multi aspect issue - spiritual bonds. The leading method of the present research is comparative-historical analysis, whose basis for our study is pursuance of massiveness, representativeness of the used content; and of its specificity in terms of time, space and ethnicity. The main results of the study are finding facts of Russian-Volga Bulgarian mutual relations in the metric system, architectural mathematics, geographical knowledge, oral folk arts, in religious sphere, and etc., as well as finding origins, conditions, and tools of mutual relations in different spheres of spiritual culture.