HISTORICAL AND COMPARATIVE ASPECTS OF PARAMILITARY COMMUNITIES: THE COMMON PATH OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION OR COMMON RESEARCH METHODS?
The author focuses on the correlation of the heuristic potential of such concepts as “militarized communities” and “male unions”. The advantages and possible disadvantages for the research are analyzed, as well as the prospects of new scientiﬁc classiﬁcations of various paramilitary communities. It is proposed to study the forms and methods of their social self-organization taking into account the historical, cultural, regional and other speciﬁc traits of the observed phenomenon, which is problematic to call “phenomenal” or “unique”. The article explains why historical analogies of different militarized communities are not always correct to use and may have different interpretations. In this connection, the author draws attention to the necessary methodological limitations when using the historical-comparative method. The interpretation of historical material should take into account not only similarities, but also differences between even typologically close communities. Thus, such an important problem cannot be recognized completely and successfully resolved even if the typological rather than genetic similarities of different male communities, including paramilitary, are recognized. Many of the issues analyzed in the article are supplemented by the historical background of the Zaporozhian and Don Cossacks, in the study of which there are still blank spaces.