The civilizational-elitist approach: the actual change of research optics

The article substantiates that the civilizational-elitist approach develops a civilizational approach in the direction of analyzing the mechanisms and necessary prerequisites for the evolution, flourishing and decline of civilizations on a cultural and value basis and actualizes the problem of the quality of elites. He demands a multivariate and pluralistic understanding of world history, adequate to the modern stage of the development of the humanities, which allows us to move away from the Western understanding of civilization and its imperative universality. In modern social and political sciences, this makes it possible to use the concepts of the "civilizational matrix", "cultural and civilizational code", "sociocultural landscape", "state-civilization" to denote the cultural and civilizational originality and uniqueness of a country and a national state that has its own value and foundations the sustainable successful socioeconomic and political development of a particular region.