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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Andrey Korotayev | 5/7 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Korotayev | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T16:59:46.151712+00:00 | kb-cron |
Korotayev has made a special contribution in this field by detecting principal trends in the evolution of Yemeni cultures through application of quantitative methods to the analysis of mass epigraphic sources in the Sabaic language. Korotayev has thereby discovered the phenomenon of consolidation of the clan organisation in North-East Yemen in the late 1st millennium BCE as well as the transition from chiefdoms to tribes in early medieval Yemen. He was also the first to provide convincing evidence for the existence of matrilineal descent organisation in Pre-Islamic Arabia and to suggest an adequate translation of the largest Qatabanic inscription, R 3566.
==== African Studies ====
Korotayev and his colleagues have also made significant contributions to the study of political-demographic dynamics in Subsaharan Africa, especially, the problems of the Tropical African countries' escape from the Malthusian trap.
==== Origins of Islam ==== Korotayev has also done (together with his colleagues Vladimir Klimenko and Dmitry Proussakov) a significant contribution to the study of the origins of Islam. Korotayev and his colleagues view the origins of Islam against the background of the 6th century Arabian socioecological crisis whose model is specified by Korotayev and his colleagues through the study of climatological, seismological, volcanological and epidemiological history of the period. They find that most sociopolitical systems of the Arabs reacted to the socioecological crisis by getting rid of the rigid supratribal political structures (kingdoms and chiefdoms) which started posing a real threat to their very survival. The decades of fighting which led to the destruction of most of the Arabian kingdoms and chiefdoms (reflected in Ayyam al-'Arab tradition) led to the elaboration of some definite "antiroyal" freedom-loving tribal ethos. At the beginning of the 7th century a tribe which would recognise themselves as subjects of some terrestrial supratribal political authority, a "king", risked to lose its honour. However, this seems not to be applicable to the authority of another type, the "celestial" one. At the meantime the early 7th century evidences the merging of the Arabian tradition of prophecy and the Arabian Monotheist "Rahmanist" tradition which produced "the Arabian prophetic movement".
According to Korotayev, the Monotheist "Rahmanist" prophets appear to have represented a supratribal authority just of the type many Arab tribes were looking for at this very time, which seems to explain to a certain extent those prophets' political success (including the extreme political success of Muhammad).
== Select publications == Korotayev has written over 35 books and 370 articles dealing with his research interests [4]. These include
Ancient Yemen Archived 16 November 2018 at the Wayback Machine (Oxford University Press, 1995); Pre-Islamic Yemen. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1996; World Religions and Social Evolution of the Old World Oikumene Civilizations: A Cross-cultural Perspective (Edwin Mellen Press, 2004); Introduction to Social Macrodynamics. Compact Macromodels of the World System Growth (KomKniga/URSS, 2006, with Artemy Malkov and Daria Khaltourina); Introduction to Social Macrodynamics. Secular Cycles and Millennial Trends (KomKniga/URSS, 2006, with Artemy Malkov and Daria Khaltourina); Great Divergence and Great Convergence. A Global Perspective (Springer, 2015, with Leonid Grinin). Economic Cycles, Crises, and the Global Periphery (Springer, 2016, with Leonid Grinin and Arno Tausch). Islamism, Arab Spring, and the Future of Democracy. World System and World Values Perspectives (Springer, 2019, with Leonid Grinin and Arno Tausch) Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century. The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (Springer, 2022). Among his more important journal articles are