Andrey Korotayev facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

Quick facts for kids Andrey Korotayev
Korotayev over the Rift Valley, North Tanzania, November 2008
Born	(1961-02-17) 17 February 1961 (age 64) Moscow, Soviet Union
Nationality	Russian
Alma mater	Moscow State University
Known for	contributions to mathematical modelling of the World System development and cross-cultural studies
Awards	Russian Science Support Foundation Award in "The Best Economists of the Russian Academy of Sciences" nomination (2006) In 2012 he was awarded with the Gold Kondratieff Medal by the International N. D. Kondratieff Foundation.
Scientific career
Fields	cross-cultural studies, mathematical modelling of social, economic, and historical dynamics; Islamic and pre-Islamic history
Institutions	HSE University (Moscow) Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow) Institute for Advanced Study(Princeton) Russian State University for the Humanities (Moscow)

Andrey Vitalievich Korotayev (Russian: Андре́й Вита́льевич Корота́ев; born 17 February 1961) is a Russian anthropologist and economic historian. He studies how societies change over time. He uses mathematical modelling to understand big trends in history, economics, and population.

He works at several important universities and research centers in Moscow. These include HSE University and the Russian Academy of Sciences. He also helps edit journals like Social Evolution & History.

Education and Career Highlights

Andrey Korotayev was born in Moscow. He studied at Moscow State University and later earned his PhD from Manchester University. In 1998, he received a higher degree called Doctor of Sciences from the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ

Since 2000, he has been a professor and researcher. He has worked at the Russian State University for the Humanities. He also spent time as a visiting scholar in Princeton, NJ.

He has received awards for his work. In 2006, he was named one of "The Best Economists" by the Russian Science Support Foundation. He also won the Gold Kondratieff Medal in 2012.

What Andrey Korotayev Studies

Andrey Korotayev has made important discoveries in several areas. He uses math to understand how societies and populations change.

Understanding Global Changes with Math

Korotayev uses math to explain big changes in the world. He looks at how the world's population and economy have grown.

World Population Growth

He found that the world population grew very quickly until the 1970s. This growth was like a "hyperbolic" curve. He also showed that the world's economy grew in a similar way.

He explains this with a "positive feedback loop." More technology helps the Earth support more people. More people mean more inventors. More inventors lead to faster technology growth. This cycle makes both population and technology grow faster and faster.

He also studied how cities grew. He found that urban populations followed a similar fast growth pattern. Korotayev and his team have even made predictions about how the world might develop until the year 2100.

Evolution of Life on Earth

Korotayev also applies his math models to the history of life. He works with Alexander V. Markov. They found that the number of different types of living things (biodiversity) has also grown in a hyperbolic way.

This means that as life became more diverse, it also became more complex. This complexity then helped create even more diversity. It's a bit like the feedback loop for human population and technology.

Studying Revolutions and Social Unrest

Korotayev uses his models to understand big social changes. He looks at how long-term trends and shorter cycles affect societies.

He studied the Egyptian Revolution in 2011. He used population data to understand why it happened. He even predicted some later protests in Egypt.

The "Day of Revolt" on 25 January 2011 in Cairo

He also researched why population growth can lead to conflicts. He showed that population numbers and internal conflicts often go up and down together. When population grows too much for resources, it can lead to social problems.

He calls this the "Malthusian trap." When societies escape this trap, new challenges can appear.

Understanding Russia's Population Changes

The "Russian Cross" shows birth and death rates in Russia. The black line is death rate, the red line is birth rate.

Korotayev has studied why Russia's population numbers have changed. He found that certain health challenges have greatly affected death rates. He and his team have suggested ways to improve public health in Russia. They also predicted future population trends.

Why Education Matters for Economic Growth

Korotayev and his team looked at why some countries became rich faster. They found that Protestantism played a role, but not just because of "Protestant ethics" as some thought.

They found that Protestants were encouraged to read the Bible. This led to higher literacy rates among them. People who could read and write had more chances to learn new things. They could also use new technologies better. This helped their economies grow faster. His research shows a strong link between early widespread literacy and later economic success.

Studying Different Cultures

Korotayev also compares different cultures around the world. He looks at how major world religions have shaped societies.

He uses a large database of cultures to see patterns. He found that world religions, especially those from the "Axial Age" (around 800-200 BCE), had a big impact. They helped keep certain social structures alive in Eurasia.

Family Structures: Matrilocal vs. Patrilocal

He studied why some societies have matrilocal residence (where a husband moves to his wife's family) and others have patrilocal (where a wife moves to her husband's family).

Older theories linked this to how men and women shared work. Korotayev found that women's contribution to food gathering does relate to matrilocal residence. However, another factor, polygyny (having more than one spouse), can hide this link. When he accounted for polygyny, the connection became clear.

Myths, Genes, and Ancient History

Korotayev has also explored links between old stories (myths), human genes, and how societies formed long ago. He found that patterns in myths often match patterns in genetic markers. This helps us understand how ancient groups of people moved and spread their stories.

Christianity and Social Change

He studied how Christianization affected family structures. He found that deep Christianization helped reduce the importance of "unilineal descent" groups (where family lines are traced through only the mother or father).

He suggests that this change might have helped develop democracy in Europe. This is because these old family structures sometimes worked against communal democracy.

Societies in the Middle East and Africa

Korotayev has also focused on the history and social systems of the Middle East and Africa.

Marriage Patterns in the Middle East

He found that Islam and the spread of Arab culture strongly influenced a specific type of marriage. This is called parallel cousin marriage (marrying a father's brother's daughter). He showed that this type of marriage became common when Islam and Arab culture spread together.

This research led him to identify the "Afrasian Instability Zone." This is a region where societies have faced many challenges.

Studying Yemen's History

Yemen

Korotayev has done special work on the history of Yemen. He used ancient writings to understand how Yemeni cultures changed. He found that clan organizations became stronger in North-East Yemen around 1000 BCE. He also found evidence of matrilineal descent (tracing family through the mother) in ancient Arabia.

African Societies

Simplified climatic map of Africa. The numbers show dates of Iron Age artifacts linked to the Bantu expansion.

He and his team have studied population changes in Subsaharan Africa. They looked at how these countries are trying to overcome challenges like the "Malthusian trap."

How Islam Began

Korotayev, with his colleagues, also studied the beginnings of Islam. They believe Islam emerged during a time of social and environmental challenges in Arabia in the 6th century.

Many Arabian societies at that time got rid of their kings. They wanted more freedom. At the same time, a new kind of religious leader, a "prophet," appeared. These prophets offered a different kind of authority, a "celestial" one. This might explain why prophets like Muhammad gained so much support.

Select Publications

Andrey Korotayev has written many books and articles. Here are some of them:

Ancient Yemen (Oxford University Press, 1995)
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)
Great Divergence and Great Convergence. A Global Perspective (Springer, 2015, with Leonid Grinin)
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)

Some of his important articles include:

"Origins of Islam". Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 53/3–4 (1999): 243–276 (with Vladimir Klimenko and Dmitry Proussakov)
"Regions Based on Social Structure: A Reconsideration". Current Anthropology 41/5 (October 2000): 668–690 (with Alexander Kazankov)
A Compact Macromodel of World System Evolution in the Journal of World Systems Research 11/1 (2005): 79–93
"Egyptian Revolution: A Demographic Structural Analysis". Entelequia. Revista Interdisciplinar 13 (2011): 139–165 (with Julia Zinkina)
"Phases of global demographic transition correlate with phases of the Great Divergence and Great Convergence". Technological Forecasting and Social Change. Volume 95, June 2015, Pages 163–169 (with Jack A. Goldstone & Julia Zinkina)
"Afrasian Instability Zone and Its Historical Background". Social Evolution & History. 2016. Vol. 15(2). P. 120-140
"Education and Revolutions: Why do Revolutionary Uprisings Take Violent or Nonviolent Forms?". Cross-Cultural Research, 2023, 10693971231162231

Edited Volumes by Andrey Korotayev

Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century. The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (Springer, 2022)
New Wave of Revolutions in the MENA Region. A Comparative Perspective (2022)
The 21st Century Singularity and Global Futures. A Big History Perspective (Springer, 2020)
History & Mathematics: Big History Aspects (2019)
Evolution: Evolutionary Trends, Aspects, and Patterns (2019)
Political Demography & Global Ageing (2015)
Kondratieff Waves: Dimensions and Prospects at the Dawn of the 21st Century. Volgograd: Uchitel, 2012. <co-editor, with Leonid Grinin and Tessaleno Devezas>
Evolution: A Big History Perspective. Volgograd: 'Uchitel' Publishing House, 2011. ISBN: 978-5-7057-2905-0 <co-editor, with Leonid Grinin and Barry Rodrigue>
Hierarchy and Power in the History of Civilizations: Political Aspects of Modernity / Ed. by L. E. Grinin, D. D. Beliaev, A. V. Korotayev. Moscow: LIBROCOM/URSS, 2008 <co-editor>
History & Mathematics: Analyzing and Modeling Global Development. Moscow: URSS, 2006 <co-editor>
The Early State, Its Alternatives and Analogues. Volgograd: Uchitel, 2004 <co-editor>
Alternatives of Social Evolution. Vladivostok: Dal'nauka, 2000 <co-editor>

Images for kids

Clio—detail from The Allegory of Painting by Johannes Vermeer
During the Phanerozoic the biodiversity shows a steady but not monotonic increase from near zero to several thousands of genera.
Cairo.
"Russian Cross"; the black curve reflects the death rate dynamics, the red one corresponds to the birth rate (per thousand)
Religions of the world
The Baptism of Kievans, a fresco by Viktor Vasnetsov.
Al-Masjid al-Nabawi (the Mosque of the Prophet) in Medina, Saudi Arabia, is the site of Muhammad's tomb.