From the editorial board. Modern orientalists and Africanists are becoming accustomed to studying the mental structures of representatives of Africa and the East, their inner world, the specifics of their personality structure, behavior and interaction. As a rule, works in this field are united by the fact that Africans and Easterners are considered in their natural socio-cultural environment, they form a unity with nature and their own community, where they are an organic part of their world. At the same time, the" challenge " of our time lies in the fact that the problems of cross-cultural interaction come to the fore in two main aspects.

First, there is the interaction of conflict, tragedy, and mutual hostility and hatred, which creates the need to study and form so-called attitudes of tolerance as opposed to xenophobic attitudes. This layer of problems is directly related to the solution of such problems as the search for patterns of formation and functioning of social stereotypes and biases; the formation and change of social attitudes; and the identification of features of causal attribution in the context of interethnic interaction. The most important tasks in the context of interethnic conflict interaction are the study of socio-psychological mechanisms of aggression, situations that contribute to aggression (or even provoke it), the relationship between frustration and aggression in specific situations of interethnic and intercultural interaction, and the study of the notorious role of mass media in the processes of such interaction. In addition, the study of interpersonal communication barriers in this context is an interesting and promising area. The aggravation of East-West relations, which is observed in almost all regions of the world and results in an increase in the number of refugees and migrants from eastern regions and a predominant increase in the non-indigenous population, combined with defects in the domestic and foreign policies of governments, turns the world's largest megacities into a kind of "witch's cauldron", where nations, races, cultures and classes are mixed. Under these conditions, the explanation and prediction of interethnic relations become particularly relevant, and social psychology can make a serious contribution to solving this issue.

The second aspect of interethnic and intercultural interaction that requires scientific research is, in my opinion, the development of procedures for dialogue in the field of business and business relations. This aspect of the problem is usually dealt with either by specialists in the field of economics and management, or by linguists and cultural scientists. It seems that socio-psychological research and specialized training courses for negotiations, mutual understanding and effective interaction developed on their basis can enrich both basic science and related areas of practical activity.

When comparing such objects as the Russian and African transitional societies, first of all, the differences between the material substrate and cultural existence are striking. The juxtaposition itself is alarming, even shocking. However, the essence and peculiarity of cross-cultural research is that the originality and uniqueness of each nation, its culture, mentality, and national character are highlighted in comparison with the cultures and mentalities of other peoples. In comparison, along with the specifics, common features, universal primary foundations of the cultural existence of various peoples are also revealed.

How did the idea of a comparative analysis of the spiritual realities of post-Soviet Russia and post-colonial Africa come about? Working for more than 30 years on the problems of ideology, culture, art, and the mentality of Africans, I considered and evaluated these problems from the perspective of a citizen of a great, stable, and civilized country. But suddenly, suddenly, my country ceased to be great and stable. There were even doubts about its civility. And in the African stories that have become close to me over the years, something painfully familiar, recognizable, and daily encountered in our current life suddenly lit up.

Multiple visits to African countries, working in one of them for a year, working with African students, interns, and postgraduates helped me notice many painful signs of change, draw attention to the acute, shocking situation of the collision of autochthonous and foreign lifestyles, life arrangements, value systems, ways and norms of behavior, cultural patterns, stereotypes, and mentalities. I met young and not-so-young people in African cities who fell out of stable traditional ties and, not finding a place for themselves in the new modernized life, at best sold various small things on the city streets and markets, and at worst-stole, wandered, engaged in various dark activities, girls and young guys sold themselves while engaged in prostitution.

I have also met successful Africans who were educated in Europe and lived their lives in the image and likeness of Europeans. However, they were alarmed by their indifference to their fellow tribesmen, the desire to abandon the traditional norms of mutual assistance (which were called "communal parasitism" in their environment, among the "new Africans"), and sometimes outright exploitation of fellow countrymen who came from the village. The stable, traditional world was shattered, traditional ties were broken, values and ideals alien to the African mentality were assimilated, which sometimes turned into human tragedies. In conversations and conversations with Africans, questions were raised about the organization of collective labor in our country, about collective farms, about mass free education and medical care, about various forms of social protection of the population, about solving national and ethnic problems that are extremely painful in Africa.

I have also observed the activities of international financial institutions, in particular the International Monetary Fund, and companies that pump natural resources out of Africa. We Africanists have criticized all these actions in our works, calling them neocolonialism.

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And now we, in Russia and throughout the former post-Soviet space, have similar phenomena. We are being run by international banks and foreign businessmen, and our usual ties are being broken, the value system is destroyed, social disorientation is taking place, and ethnic conflicts are flaring up. Alien values and ideals, behavioral patterns and cultural patterns are being introduced into the consciousness of Russians. Even more tragic than in Africa is the situation in Russia of the village, which is being finished off by the "wild market" that prevails in the country. Former collective farmers and former peasants who are ready for any job, but mostly engaged in small-scale trade, roam the cities and suburbs. The precocious rich - the "new Russians" - brought out in the wake of dubiously legitimate privatization, like the African nouveau riches, are far from the traditions of their people, their needs, and are concerned about their own well-being and further enrichment. as a rule, they are associated with criminal structures.

So, in my home country, which was once a model for many African countries, I found the same tragedies, troubles, and problems as in Africa. How small the world is! How close we all are to each other-people who live on different continents, so far from each other, and experience similar feelings of uncertainty, unreliability, and frustration. Seeing signs of a civilizational catastrophe around me, in my native country, I, an Africanist, could not stay away from the problems of Russia. And the more I thought about them, the clearer I became, despite all the differences, the facts of similarity, the points of contact between two such different objects: Russia and the countries of Tropical Africa, each of which was experiencing, albeit in its own way, specifically, the most acute socio - cultural crisis.

Both in Africa and in Russia, I am not interested in the facts and manifestations of the socio-cultural crisis themselves, but in their human dimension. I am interested in how a person feels in a situation of crisis, catastrophe, destruction of the usual picture of the world, how his consciousness changes. In other words, I am interested in the peculiarities of the mentality in a crisis situation, in a society in transition.

Studying the problems of African culture (and in recent years, Russian culture), I was primarily interested in those mysterious, poorly rationalized areas that are related to mentality, worldview, world image, worldview, and world interpretation. Each culture generates a whole complex of specific images of the world, which differ depending on the social, gender and age status of subjects, but are characteristic of this particular culture...

The image of the world is not only its perception, understanding, but also interpretation, evaluation, i.e. the formation of value systems, and hence behavior orientations. The way of life of each nation, ethnic group, or social group is determined by the worldview and assessment of the world associated with the cultural tradition of society. An integral part of the overall socio-cultural crisis is the identity crisis, i.e. the breakdown of the cultural and mental foundations of being: the image (picture) of the world, the system of values, ideals, and orientation. For the individual, the identity crisis is felt as the disintegration of the world, the loss of the meaning of life, the difficulty, even the destruction of identification with the group, cultural patterns, heroes, with the state, in general-with the world.

This particular perspective-the crisis of identity and the identification system-is for me the subject of comparative analysis, a kind of cross-cultural research, peculiar because my goal is not specifically ethnological or ethnopsychological research. Rather, it is a philosophical and cultural aspect of cross-cultural research, with elements of ethnopsychological.

Any cross-cultural research is bound to be difficult. Moreover, they are found when comparing so far from each other (in the civilizational sense).,

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cultural, social, geographical, historical, and psychological aspects) of objects such as post-Soviet Russia and the countries of Tropical Africa after independence.

The first and main difficulty lies in the need to understand, comprehend from the standpoint of one's own mentality and culture, a different mental system, a different worldview, mythology, a system of values, a different way of life. Behind me, as a researcher, is the culture of the society to which I belong, with its own mental system, images of the world, a system of values, with its own collective unconscious and mythology. No matter how hard I try to take the position of the African culture, to establish empathic connections with its carriers, I am inevitably dominated, at least on an unconscious level, by the prejudices and stereotypes of my culture. Obviously, the same problems are faced by the Africans with whom I communicate.

By the way, in one of the most complex and sophisticated African cultures - Malagasy-there is an ethical and psychological principle called "qini". The essence of it is in the exchange of positions during communication. To understand the other person and be UNDERSTOOD by the other person, it is necessary to take his position, try to understand and, if necessary, forgive him, looking at the problem through his eyes. It is expected that the interlocutor will also take your position and understand your innermost feelings as if from the inside. It seems that a scientist studying other cultures would do well to introduce this principle into his research practice, and perhaps even into his character.

The second and equally important problem is that the description and analysis of the identity crisis in postcolonial Africa involves the study of such mental structures as the worldview, worldview and value system, as well as the identification processes associated with these structures. When you come into contact with these mental structures and processes, you are immediately confronted with the fact that they are archaic, or rather mythological. To capture changes, you need to understand the source material, the entire complex system of the world order that underlies the traditional picture of the world.

However, this mythological system of the world order, its origin and internal reasons for functioning are not recorded in written sources. We learn about it from reconstructions made by African researchers. In fact, all so-called African philosophy today is a reconstruction of traditional mythological mental structures. It would seem that there is enough material. However, the analysis of these reconstructions reveals one dramatic truth: African researchers (I no longer take into account European scientists such as P. Tempels, M. Griol, J. Dieterlen, etc.), who received a Western education and became familiar with Western culture, to some extent assimilated its angle of view, its values, which is why they "discover" anything in their mythology-the truths of Plato and Aristotle, the anticipation of Christianity, the principles of dialectics and materialism, the laws of physics, etc.

The third difficulty is the choice of methods, their adequacy and mutual compatibility.

If everything is more or less clear about Russia, then the approach to analyzing African mentalities and their crisis state is fraught with many ambiguities and uncertainties. My chosen interdisciplinary aspect of comparative analysis (philosophical and cultural with elements of ethnopsychological) allows me to apply different methods depending on the tasks set in the study. So, when describing the identity crisis in Russia, I use empirical research (both those in which I participated, and published results of large all-Russian studies). As an empirical material, I also use the analysis of images of modern cinema and television. The crisis is identical-

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In the case of Tropical African countries, it is necessary to describe and analyze them using published research by African and European scientists, as well as their own observations and field diaries.

Considering the processes and conflicts of identification caused by the identity crisis, I first of all concern - both in Russia and in Africa - the phenomena of actualization of certain aspects of identification (primarily ethnic), as well as the desire to acquire a new identity. In Africa, this is the movement of negroes, the search for "African philosophy", Afro-Christian religious movements, etc.; in Russia, new religious movements such as the "White Brotherhood", Aum Senrikyo, munism, neo-paganism, etc., youth semi-mystical movements such as diggers, near-professional associations of small merchants, youth and semi-bohemian "parties", the Cossack movement, etc.

As a material, I use numerous publications in the press, elements of content analysis, research by scientists, expert assessments, materials of my own observations and research on certain issues. The convergence of methods and parallels of comparative analysis is not always possible, although I strive for it, for example, I cannot analyze the images of modern African cinema and television.

What similar factors favor a comparative analysis of mental structures and processes in Russia and Africa?

First of all, Russia and the countries of Tropical Africa are close as non-Western social systems (although in Russia, and in the post-colonial period in Africa, there are Western trends in one form or another), which have a number of specific features that make it difficult for them to perceive Western projects, values, lifestyles and thinking. In Oriental studies, earlier than in other disciplines, there was an understanding of the fundamental truth that non-Western cultural worlds cannot be unified without tragic consequences. Moreover, these consequences also affect the world culture, which can only exist as a unity in diversity.

The history of both Russia and African countries provides many examples of disruption of the natural course of development under the influence of alien influences, leading to civilizational catastrophes, cultural disruptions and crises. Currently, both Russia and the countries of Africa are in a state of general crisis and transition to a new social phase. The state of this transition corresponds to a deep socio-cultural crisis, which resulted from the imposition of Western modernization projects on the societies of Russia and Tropical Africa based on non-national models that are not adequate for these societies. The socio-cultural crisis manifests itself in the destruction of the former system of values and the system of life orientations, social ideals and goals based on it, in the loss of the main dominants of identification due to the collapse of the value and everyday hierarchy (the destruction of value priorities, the former hierarchy of social groups), in a change in the picture of the world, and

As more specific, but no less important signs of similarity, we should pay attention to the polyethnicity and poly-confessional nature of the societies of Russia and Tropical Africa. Russia as a state and as a civilization was historically formed on the basis of not only Orthodox-Christian civilization, but also subcivilizations (represented by world civilizations outside of Russia) - Islamic and Buddhist, and also included elements of pagan cults. The latter are currently being updated in Yakutia (Sakha), in the Siberian region, in the Volga region, as well as in Central Russia, indicating the diversity of the archaic activation process. In Tropical Africa, the traditional basis of autochthonous cultures and religions has been overlaid with external Christian and Muslim cultural influences. As a result of contradictory interactions and mutual influence-

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Syncretic religious movements and sects were formed due to the presence of autochthonous and introduced cultural phenomena. The mentioned features of historical interaction of different cultures have a significant impact on changes in the mentality of both Russians and Africans, on the peculiarities of their worldview. The polyethnic and poly-confessional nature of Russian and African societies not only creates a situation of mutual influence, dialogism and syncretism, but also provokes interethnic and inter-confessional contradictions and conflicts.

Taking into account the differences, we should also highlight some common values in the mentality of the Russian and African peoples.

First, it is the attitude to nature. Historically, in Russia, as in Africa, the principles of life order, architecture, folklore, and moral principles testified to a sufficient fit of man into nature. The Russian and African peasant subordinated his work, his whole life, to the rhythms of nature - the alternation of day and night, the change of seasons. The attitude to nature was ritualized in rituals and festivals that have survived to this day not only in Africa, but also in Russia.

Secondly, people's relations in both Russia (primarily rural) and Africa were based on the principles of collectivism and mutual assistance. The introduction of Western norms of individualism through the mass media poses a serious danger of destroying the moral foundations and creating a value vacuum.

Third, for both the Russian and the African, wealth (as the accumulation of money, things) has never been a highly respected value and goal of activity. In pre-revolutionary Russia, wealth was often shamed, the norm was broad charity of rich people, distribution of money, things to the poor, the poor. Wealth was often associated with sinfulness, and holiness, moral purity - with poverty, asceticism.

In traditional African society, wealth was understood primarily as a family with many children, which means a worthy realization of the life force received from the gods and ancestors. The preservation of the family and its traditions is, in the view of Africans, the preservation of the eternal cycle of life, the eternal change of generations. At the same time, the cycle of life is understood as a kind of eternal inversion, where the present and past change places, as the ancestors return, being embodied in the newly born. This understanding of the universe determines not only the system of values, but also social reactions when faced with other civilizations, new technologies and forms of life. The imposition of attitudes to wealth and accumulation as the highest values and life ideals on the peoples of Russia and African countries deepens the socio-cultural crisis and causes serious mental and moral deformations.

Situational criteria for comparative analysis should also be taken into account. First, it is a forced close interaction with a different culture and mental structures, a different identity. For both Russia and Africa, we are talking about Western culture, Western worldview, and a system of values. At the same time, the Western worldview does not just enter into a dialogue with the Russian and African ones, which would contribute to the development of both cultures and the emergence and maintenance of mutual understanding. In this case, Western identities, identification models claim to be dominant, which causes protest, opposition, and even cultural shock. Secondly, the conditions of the current identity crisis and the change in the dominants of identification are similar. Third, there are similar contemporary challenges-issues that Africa and Russia face: democracy or identity, modernization or identity.

The article only outlines the main parameters of comparative analysis, its opportunities, and difficulties. All these questions will be developed, if possible, in the upcoming works.

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