The words «civilization», «civilizational conflict», «civilizational values», «civilizational/cultural code» etc. are becoming increasingly common in present-day speeches by Russian state and public figures (up to the first persons of the country) devoted to the analysis of the current environment. Moreover, in 2023, the word «civilization» was first mentioned in a strategic-level government document – «The Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation» (approved by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation on March 31, 2023). However, there is still no generally accepted definition of what «civilization» is. There are more than two dozen interpretations of the concept of «civilization» differing from each other both in form and in essence. At the same time, issues related to civilizational topics have been considered by various humanities scholars: philosophers, historians, cultural scholars, political scientists, and sociologists. Each of them considers and analyzes the aspects that are closest to their academic interests. This explains the extreme diversity of interpretations of the concept of «civilization». In order for the civilizational topic to move from the sphere of purely humanitarian research into the sphere of interdisciplinarity, with the inclusion of quantitative analysis of processes in demography, economy, ecology etc., it is necessary to introduce and study quantitative criteria, indicators, dependencies, and patterns that characterize civilizations as an object of research and the dynamics of their development. This article offers a solution to this problem.
civilization; civilizational conflict; collective West; civilizational values; civilizational code; cultural code.