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The idea of how life originated in the ancient eras of the Earth give us fossil remains of organisms, but they are distributed into separate geological periods extremely uneven.

Geological periods

The era of ancient life on Earth includes 3 stages of the evolution of flora and fauna.

Archean era

Archean era- the oldest era in the history of existence. Its origin dates back to about 4 billion years ago. And the duration is 1 billion years. This is the beginning of the formation of the earth's crust as a result of the activity of volcanoes and air masses, sudden changes in temperature and pressure. The process of destruction of primary mountains and the formation of sedimentary rocks is underway.

The most ancient Archeozoic layers of the earth's crust are represented by highly altered, otherwise metamorphosed, rocks, which is why they do not contain noticeable remains of organisms.
But it is completely wrong on this basis to consider the Archaeozoic a lifeless era: in the Archaeozoic there existed not only bacteria and algae, but also more complex organisms.

Proterozoic era

The first reliable traces of life in the form of extremely rare finds and poor preservation are found in Proterozoic, otherwise - the era of “primary life”. The duration of the Proterozoic era is taken to be about 2 million years

Traces of crawling found in Proterozoic rocks annelids, sponge needles, shells of the simplest forms of brachiopods, arthropod remains.

Brachiopods, distinguished by their exceptional diversity of forms, were widespread in the ancient seas. They are found in sediments of many periods, especially the following, Paleozoic era.

Shell of the brachiopod "Horistites Moskvenzis" (ventral valve)

Only a few species of brachiopods have survived to this day. Most brachiopods had shells with unequal valves: the ventral one, on which they lie or are attached to the seabed with the help of a “leg,” was usually larger than the dorsal one. By this characteristic, in general, it is not difficult to recognize brachiopods.

The small amount of fossil remains in Proterozoic deposits is explained by the destruction of most of them as a result of changes (metamorphization) of the containing rock.

Sediments help judge the extent to which life was represented in the Proterozoic. limestones, which then turned into marble. Limestones obviously owe their origin to a special type of bacteria that produced lime carbonate.

The presence of interlayers in the Proterozoic deposits of Karelia shungite, similar to anthracite coal, suggests that the initial material for its formation was the accumulation of algae and other organic residues.

At this distant time, the ancient land was still not lifeless. Bacteria settled in the vast expanses of the still deserted primary continents. With the participation of these simple organisms, weathering and loosening occurred rocks, which made up the most ancient crust of the earth.

According to the assumption of the Russian academician L. S. Berg(1876-1950), who studied how life originated in the ancient eras of the Earth, at that time soils had already begun to form - the basis for the further development of vegetation.

Palaeozoic

Deposits next in time, Paleozoic era, otherwise, the era of “ancient life”, which began about 600 million years ago, differs sharply from the Proterozoic in the abundance and diversity of forms even in the most ancient, Cambrian period.

Based on the study of the remains of organisms, it is possible to reconstruct the following picture of the development of the organic world, characteristic of this era.

There are six periods of the Paleozoic era:

Cambrian period

Cambrian period was described for the first time in England, Cambrian County, where its name came from. During this period, all life was connected with water. These are red and blue-green algae, limestone algae. The algae released free oxygen, which enabled the development of organisms that consumed it.

Close examination of blue-green Cambrian clays, which are clearly visible in deep sections of river valleys near St. Petersburg and especially in the coastal regions of Estonia, made it possible to establish in them (using a microscope) the presence plant spores.

This definitely suggests that some species that existed in bodies of water since the earliest times of the development of life on our planet moved to land approximately 500 million years ago.

Among the organisms that inhabited the most ancient Cambrian reservoirs, invertebrates were exceptionally widespread. Of the invertebrates, in addition to the smallest protozoa - rhizomes, they were widely represented worms, brachiopods and arthropods.

Among arthropods, these are primarily various insects, especially butterflies, beetles, flies, and dragonflies. They appear much later. To the same type of animal world, in addition to insects, also belong arachnids and millipedes.

Among the most ancient arthropods there were especially many trilobites, similar to modern woodlice, only much larger (up to 70 centimeters), and crustacean scorpions, which sometimes reached impressive sizes.

Three lobes are clearly distinguished in the body of a trilobite; it is not without reason that it is called that: translated from ancient Greek, “trilobos” means three-lobed. Trilobites not only crawled along the bottom and burrowed into the mud, but could also swim.

Among trilobites, generally small forms predominated.
According to the definition of geologists, trilobites - “guiding fossils” - are characteristic of many Paleozoic deposits.

The dominant fossils are those that predominate at a given geological time. The age of the sediments in which they are found is usually easily determined from the leading fossils. Trilobites reached their greatest prosperity during the Ordovician and Silurian periods. They disappeared at the end of the Paleozoic era.

Ordovician period

Ordovician period characterized by a warmer and milder climate, as evidenced by the presence of limestones, shale and sandstones in the rock deposits. At this time, the area of ​​the seas increases significantly.

This promotes the reproduction of large trilobites, from 50 to 70 cm in length. Appear in the seas sea ​​sponges, mollusks, and the first corals.

Silurian

What did the Earth look like in Silurian? What changes occurred on the primeval continents? Judging by the imprints on clay and other stone material, we can definitely say that at the end of the period the first terrestrial vegetation appeared on the shores of reservoirs.

The first plants of the Silurian period

These were small leafy stems plants, which rather resembled sea brown algae, having neither roots nor leaves. The role of leaves was played by green, successively branching stems.

The scientific name of these ancient progenitors of all land plants (psilophytes, otherwise “naked plants”, i.e. plants without leaves) conveys them well distinctive features. (Translated from ancient Greek “psilos” means bald, naked, and “phytos” means trunk). Their roots were also undeveloped. Psilophytes grew in marshy, marshy soils. An imprint in the rock (right) and a restored plant (left).

Inhabitants of reservoirs of the Silurian period

From inhabitants maritime Silurian reservoirs It should be noted that, in addition to trilobites, corals And echinoderms - sea ​​lilies, sea urchins and stars.

The crinoids, the remains of which were found in the sediments, bore very little resemblance to predatory animals. Sea lily "Acantocrinus rex" means "thorny king lily". The first word is formed from two Greek words: “acantha” - a thorny plant and “crinone” - lily, the second Latin word “rex” - king.

A huge number of species were represented by cephalopods and especially brachiopods. In addition to cephalopods that had an internal shell, like belemnites, cephalopods with external shells were widespread in the most ancient periods of the Earth’s life.

The shape of the shell was straight and bent into a spiral. The sink was successively divided into chambers. The largest outer chamber contained the body of the mollusk, the rest were filled with gas. A tube passed through the chambers - a siphon, which allowed the mollusk to regulate the amount of gas and, depending on this, float or sink to the bottom of the reservoir.

Currently, of these cephalopods, only one boat with a coiled shell has been preserved. Ship, or nautilus, which is the same thing, translated from Latin - inhabitant of the warm sea.

The shells of some Silurian cephalopods, such as orthoceras (translated from ancient Greek as “straight horn”: from the words “ortoe” - straight and “keras” - horn), reached gigantic sizes and looked more like a straight two-meter pillar than a horn.

Limestones in which orthoceratites occur are called orthoceratitic limestones. Square slabs of limestone were widely used in pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg for sidewalks, and the characteristic sections of orthoceratite shells were often clearly visible on them.

A remarkable event of the Silurian time was the appearance in fresh and brackish bodies of water of clumsy “ armored fish", which had an external bone shell and a non-ossified internal skeleton.

A cartilaginous cord, the notochord, corresponded to the spinal column. Carapaces did not have jaws or paired fins. They were poor swimmers and therefore stuck more to the bottom; Their food was silt and small organisms.

The armored fish Pterichthys was generally a poor swimmer and led a natural lifestyle.

It can be assumed that Bothriolepis was already much more mobile than Pterichthys.

Sea predators of the Silurian period

In later deposits there are already remains sea ​​predators, close to sharks. From these lower fish, which also had a cartilaginous skeleton, only teeth were preserved. Judging by the size of the teeth, for example from Carboniferous deposits of the Moscow region, we can conclude that these predators reached significant sizes.

In the development of the animal world of our planet, the Silurian period is interesting not only because the distant ancestors of fish appeared in its reservoirs. At the same time, another equally important event took place: representatives of arachnids climbed out of the water onto land, among them ancient scorpions, still very close to crustaceans.

On the right, at the top is a predator armed with strange claws - Pterygotus, reaching 3 meters, glory - Eurypterus - up to 1 meter long.

Devonian

The land - the arena of the future life - gradually takes on new features, especially characteristic of the next, Devonian period. At this time, woody vegetation appears, first in the form of low-growing shrubs and small trees, and then larger ones. Among the Devonian vegetation we will meet well-known ferns, other plants will remind us of the graceful fir-tree of horsetail and the green ropes of club mosses, only not creeping along the ground, but proudly rising upward.

In later Devonian deposits, fern-like plants also appear, which reproduced not by spores, but by seeds. These are seed ferns, occupying a transitional position between spore and seed plants.

Fauna of the Devonian period

Animal world seas Devonian period rich in brachiopods, corals and crinoids; trilobites begin to play a secondary role.

Among cephalopods, new forms appear, only not with a straight shell, like that of Orthoceras, but with a spirally twisted one. They are called ammonites. They received their name from the Egyptian sun god Ammon, near the ruins of whose temple in Libya (Africa) these characteristic fossils were first discovered.

By their general appearance it is difficult to confuse them with other fossils, but at the same time it is necessary to warn young geologists about how difficult it can be to identify individual species of ammonites, the total number of which is not in the hundreds, but in the thousands.

Ammonites reached a particularly magnificent flourishing in the next, Mesozoic era. .

Fish developed significantly in Devonian times. In armored fish, the bony shell was shortened, which made them more mobile.

Some armored fish, such as the nine-meter giant Dinichthys, were terrible predators (in Greek “deinos” means terrible, terrible, and “ichthys” means fish).

The nine-meter-long dinychthys obviously posed a great threat to the inhabitants of reservoirs.

In Devonian reservoirs there were also lobe-finned fish, from which lungfish evolved. This name is explained by the structural features of the paired fins: they are narrow and, in addition, sit on an axis covered with scales. This feature distinguishes lobe-finned fish, for example, from pike-perch, perch and other bony fish called ray-finned fish.

Lobe-finned fish are the ancestors of bony fish, which appeared much later - at the end of the Triassic.
We would have no idea what lobe-finned fish that lived at least 300 million years ago actually looked like if it weren’t for the successful catches of the rarest specimens of their modern generation in the mid-twentieth century off the coast of South Africa.

They apparently live at considerable depths, which is why they are so rarely seen by fishermen. The caught species was named coelacanth. It reached 1.5 meters in length.
In their organization, lungfishes are close to lobe-finned fish. They have lungs corresponding to the swim bladder of a fish.

In their organization, lungfishes are close to lobe-finned fish. They have lungs corresponding to the swim bladder of a fish.

How unusual the lobe-finned fish looked can be judged by a specimen, a coelacanth, caught in 1952 off the Comoros Islands, west of the island of Madagascar. This 1.5 liter long fish weighed about 50 kg.

A descendant of ancient lungfishes, the Australian ceratodus (translated from ancient Greek as horntooth) reaches two meters. It lives in drying up reservoirs and, as long as there is water in them, breathes with gills, like all fish, but when the reservoir begins to dry out, it switches to pulmonary respiration.

Its respiratory organs are the swim bladder, which has a cellular structure and is equipped with numerous blood vessels. In addition to Ceratodus, two more species of lungfish are now known. One of them lives in Africa, and the other in South America.

Transition of vertebrates from water to land

Amphibian transformation table.

The first picture shows the oldest cartilaginous fish, diplocanthus (1). Below it is a primitive lobe-finned eusthenopteron (2); below is a supposed transitional form (3). The huge amphibian Eogyrinus (about 4.5 m in length) has limbs that are still very weak (4), and only as they master the land way of life do they become a reliable support, for example, for the heavy Eryops, about 1.5 m in length (5).

This table helps to understand how, as a result of gradual changes in the organs of locomotion (and breathing), aquatic organisms moved to land, how the fin of a fish was transformed into the limb of amphibians (4), and then reptiles (5). At the same time, the spine and skull of the animal change.

The Devonian period dates back to the appearance of the first wingless insects and terrestrial vertebrates. From this we can assume that it was at this time, and perhaps even a little earlier, that the transition of vertebrates from water to land took place.

It was realized through fish in which the swim bladder was modified, like in lungfishes, and the fin-like limbs gradually turned into five-fingered ones, adapted to a terrestrial lifestyle.

Metopoposaurus still had difficulty getting onto land.

Therefore, the closest ancestors of the first land animals should therefore be considered not lungfish, but lobe-finned fish, which adapted to breathing atmospheric air as a result of periodic drying out of tropical reservoirs.

The link between terrestrial vertebrates and lobe-finned animals are ancient amphibians, or amphibians, collectively called stegocephalians. Translated from ancient Greek, stegocephaly means “covered-headed”: from the words “stege” - roof and “mullet” - head. This name is given because the roof of the skull is a rough shell of bones closely adjacent to each other.

There are five holes in the stegocephalus skull: two pairs of holes - ophthalmic and nasal, and one for the parietal eye. By appearance stegocephalians somewhat resembled salamanders and often reached considerable sizes. They lived in swampy areas.

The remains of stegocephalians were sometimes found in hollows of tree trunks, where they apparently hid from daylight. In the larval state, they breathed through gills, just like modern amphibians.

Stegocephals found especially favorable conditions for their development in the next Carboniferous period.

Carboniferous period

Warm and humid climate, especially in the first half Carboniferous period, favored the lush flourishing of terrestrial vegetation. The coal forests, never seen by anyone, were, of course, completely different from those of today.

Among those plants that settled in marshy, marshy areas approximately 275 million years ago, giant tree-like horsetails and club mosses clearly stood out in their characteristic features.

Of the tree-like horsetails, calamites were widespread, and of the clubmosses, giant lepidodendrons and, somewhat smaller in size, graceful sigillaria.

In coal seams and the rocks covering them, well-preserved remains of vegetation are often found, not only in the form of clear imprints of leaves and tree bark, but also entire stumps with roots and huge trunks that have turned into coal.

Using these fossil remains, you can not only reconstruct the general appearance of the plant, but also get acquainted with its internal structure, which is clearly visible under a microscope in paper-thin sections of the trunk. Calamites get their name from the Latin word “calamus” - reed, reed.

Slender, hollow inside trunks of calamites, ribbed and with transverse constrictions, like those of the well-known horsetails, rose in slender columns 20-30 meters from the ground.

Small narrow leaves, collected in rosettes on short stems, gave, perhaps, some resemblance to calamite with the larch of the Siberian taiga, transparent in its elegant decoration.

Nowadays, horsetails - field and forest - are widespread throughout to the globe except Australia. In comparison with their distant ancestors, they seem pitiful dwarfs, which, moreover, especially horsetail, have a bad reputation among farmers.

Horsetail is a nasty weed that is difficult to control, since its rhizome goes deep into the ground and continually produces new shoots.

Large species of horsetails - up to 10 meters in height - are currently preserved only in the tropical forests of South America. However, these giants can only grow by leaning against neighboring trees, since they are only 2-3 centimeters in diameter.
Lepidodendrons and sigillaria occupied a prominent place among the Carboniferous vegetation.

Although they were not similar in appearance to modern mosses, they still resembled them in one characteristic feature. The powerful trunks of lepidodendrons, reaching 40 meters in height and up to two meters in diameter, were covered with a distinct pattern of fallen leaves.

These leaves, while the plant was still young, sat on the trunk in the same way as its small green scales - leaves - sit on the club moss. As the tree grew, the leaves aged and fell off. From these scaly leaves, the giants of the coal forests got their name - lepidodendrons, otherwise - “scaly trees” (from the Greek words: “lepis” - scales and “dendron” - tree).

The traces of fallen leaves on the bark of the sigillaria had a slightly different shape. They differed from lepidodendrons in their smaller height and more slender trunk, branching only at the very top and ending in two huge bunches of hard leaves, each one meter long.

An introduction to Carboniferous vegetation would be incomplete without also mentioning cordaites, which are close to conifers in wood structure. These were tall (up to 30 meters), but relatively thin-trunked trees.

Cordaites get their name from the Latin elephant “cor” - heart, since the seed of the plant was heart-shaped. These beautiful trees were crowned with a lush crown of ribbon-like leaves (up to 1 meter in length).

Judging by the structure of the wood, the trunks of the coal giants still did not have the strength that is inherent in the bulk of modern trees. Their bark was much stronger than wood, hence the general fragility of the plant and poor resistance to fracture.

Strong winds and especially storms broke trees, felled huge forests, and to replace them again, new lush growth grew from the swampy soil... The felled wood served as the source material from which powerful layers of coal were subsequently formed.

Lepidodendrons, otherwise known as scaly trees, reached enormous sizes.

It is not correct to attribute the formation of coal only to the Carboniferous period, since coals also occur in other geological systems.

For example, the oldest Donetsk coal basin was formed during the Carboniferous era. The Karaganda pool is the same age as it.

As for the largest Kuznetsk basin, only a small part of it belongs to the Carboniferous system, and mainly to the Permian and Jurassic systems.

One of the largest basins - the “Polar Stoker” - the richest Pechora basin, was also formed mainly in the Permian period and, to a lesser extent, in the Carboniferous period.

Flora and fauna of the Carboniferous period

For marine sediments Carboniferous period Representatives of the simplest animals from the class are especially characteristic rhizomes. The most typical were fusulines (from the Latin word “fusus” - “spindle”) and schwagerins, which served as the starting material for the formation of strata of fusuline and schwagerin limestones.

Carboniferous rhizomes - fusulin (1) and schwagerina (2) are enlarged 16 times.

Elongated, like grains of wheat, fusulines and almost spherical schwagerins are clearly visible on the limestones of the same name. Corals and brachiopods developed magnificently, giving rise to many leading forms.

The most widespread were the genus productus (translated from Latin - “stretched”) and spirifer (translated from the same language - “bearing spiral”, which supported the soft “legs” of the animal).

Trilobites, which dominated in previous periods, are found much less frequently, but on land other representatives of arthropods are beginning to become noticeably widespread - long-legged spiders, scorpions, huge centipedes (up to 75 centimeters in length) and especially gigantic insects, similar to dragonflies, with a wingspan. up to 75 centimeters! The largest modern butterflies in New Guinea and Australia reach a wingspan of 26 centimeters.

The ancient Carboniferous dragonfly seems like an enormous giant compared to the modern one.

Judging by the fossil remains, sharks have noticeably multiplied in the seas.
Amphibians, firmly established on land during Carboniferous times, go through a further development path. The dry climate, which increased at the end of the Carboniferous period, gradually forced ancient amphibians to move away from an aquatic lifestyle and move primarily to a terrestrial existence.

These organisms, transitional to a new way of life, laid eggs on land, and did not spawn in the water, like amphibians. The offspring hatched from the eggs acquired characteristics that sharply distinguished them from their ancestors.

The body was covered, like a shell, with scale-like outgrowths of the skin, protecting the body from loss of moisture through evaporation. So reptiles, or reptiles, separated from amphibians (amphibians). In the next Mesozoic era, they conquered land, water and air.

Permian period

Last Paleozoic period - Permian- was significantly shorter in duration than the Carboniferous. It should be noted, in addition, the great changes that have occurred on the ancient geographical map of the world - land, as confirmed by geological research, gains significant dominance over the sea.

Plants of the Permian period

The climate of the northern continents of the Upper Permian was dry and sharply continental. Sandy deserts have become widespread in some places, as evidenced by the composition and reddish tint of the rocks that make up the Permian formation.

This time was marked by the gradual extinction of the giants of the coal forests, the development of plants close to conifers, and the appearance of cycads and ginkgos, which became widespread in the Mesozoic.

Cycad plants have a spherical and tuberous stem immersed in the soil, or, conversely, a powerful columnar trunk up to 20 meters high, with a lush rosette of large feathery leaves. In appearance, cycad plants resemble the modern sago palm tropical forests in the Old and New Worlds.

Sometimes they form impenetrable thickets, especially on the flooded banks of the rivers of New Guinea and the Malay Archipelago (Great Sunda Islands, Lesser Sunda Islands, Moluccas and Philippine Islands). Nutritious flour and cereals (sago) are made from the soft pith of the palm tree, which contains starch.

Sago bread and porridge are the daily food of millions of inhabitants of the Malay Archipelago. Sago palm is widely used in housing construction and household products.

Another very peculiar plant, ginkgo, is also interesting because it has survived in the wild only in some places in Southern China. Ginkgo has been carefully cultivated near Buddhist temples since time immemorial.

Ginkgo was brought to Europe in the mid-18th century. Now it is found in park culture in many places, including here on the Black Sea coast. Ginkgo is a large tree up to 30-40 meters in height and up to two meters thick, in general it resembles a poplar, but in its youth it is more like some conifers.

The leaves are petiolate, like those of aspen, have a fan-shaped plate with fan-shaped venation without transverse bridges and a notch in the middle. In winter the leaves fall off. The fruit, a fragrant drupe like a cherry, is edible in the same way as the seeds. In Europe and Siberia, ginkgo disappeared during the Ice Age.

Cordaites, conifers, cycads and ginkgo belong to the group of gymnosperms (since their seeds lie open).

Angiosperms - monocots and dicotyledons - appear somewhat later.

Fauna of the Permian period

Among the aquatic organisms that inhabited the Permian seas, ammonites stood out noticeably. Many groups of marine invertebrates, such as trilobites, some corals and most brachiopods, became extinct.

Permian period characteristic of the development of reptiles. The so-called bestial lizards deserve special attention. Although they possessed some features characteristic of mammals, such as teeth and skeletal features, they still retained a primitive structure that brought them closer to stegocephals (from which reptiles originated).

The beast-like Permian lizards were distinguished by their considerable size. The sedentary herbivorous pareiasaurus reached two and a half meters in length, and the formidable predator with tiger teeth, otherwise known as the “animal-toothed lizard” - inostrantseviya, was even larger - about three meters.

Pareiasaurus translated from ancient Greek means “cheeked lizard”: from the words “pareia” - cheek and “sauros” - lizard, lizard; The wild-toothed lizard Inostracevia is named so in memory of the famous geologist - prof. A. A. Inostrantseva (1843-1919).

The richest finds from the ancient life of the Earth, the remains of these animals, are associated with the name of the enthusiastic geologist Prof. V. P. Amalitsky(1860-1917). This persistent researcher, without receiving the necessary support from the treasury, nevertheless achieved remarkable results in his work. Instead of deserved summer holiday, he and his wife, who shared all the hardships with him, set off in a boat with two oarsmen in search of the remains of bestial lizards.

Persistently, for four years he conducted his research on the Sukhona, Northern Dvina and other rivers. Finally, he managed to make discoveries that were extremely valuable for world science on the Northern Dvina, not far from the city of Kotlas.

Here, in the coastal cliff of the river, concretions of the bones of ancient animals (concretions - stone accumulations) were discovered in thick lenticels of sand and sandstone, among striped rudders. The collection of just one year of work by geologists took two freight cars during transportation.

Subsequent developments of these bone-bearing accumulations further enriched the information about Permian reptiles.

Place of finds of Permian dinosaurs discovered by the professor V. P. Amalitsky in 1897. The right bank of the Malaya Northern Dvina River near the village of Efimovka, near the city of Kotlas.

The richest collections taken from here amount to tens of tons, and the skeletons collected from them represent in the Paleontological Museum of the Academy of Sciences a rich collection, which has no equal in any museum in the world.

Among the ancient animal-like Perm reptiles, the original three-meter predator Dimetrodon stood out, otherwise “two-dimensional” in length and height (from the ancient Greek words: “di” - twice and “metron” - measure).

Its characteristic feature is the unusually long processes of the vertebrae, forming a high ridge on the animal’s back (up to 80 centimeters), apparently connected by a skin membrane. In addition to predators, this group of reptiles also included plant- or molluscivorous forms, also of very significant size. The fact that they ate shellfish can be judged by the structure of their teeth, suitable for crushing and grinding shells. (No ratings yet)

Australian history since the Second World War has been a saga of ups and downs - the rise to incredible prosperity of the 50s and 60s, followed by the unexpected collapse of the great "middle class" dream. At the end of the twentieth century, the idea of ​​the country as a conservative Anglo-Saxon enclave lost in Asia was completely rethought. But the path to a cosmopolitan, liberal, middle-class Australia turned out to be painful and long. The small country where, as they used to say, “nothing happens,” has experienced a series of economic booms and busts, political crises, cultural shocks and social changes.

The 1940s were the most difficult years in Australian history. The long war with Japan proved how vulnerable the country was to external threats. The war also shook Australian society from within: many women served in the armed forces, worked in factories and institutions, performing traditionally male duties, and after the war they did not want to live again in conditions of social inequality between the sexes. And the demobilized soldiers also did not want a return to the old order. A year after the end of the war, Australians again voted for the reforms of Ben Chifley's Labor government, which put forward an expanded welfare program. Shortly after winning the election, Chifley initiated the creation of a state-owned airline, unveiled a large-scale program of public housing and education (the National Australian University was opened in Canberra) and a number of large public works projects such as the construction of hydroelectric dams in the Snowy Mountains, which were supposed to provide electricity to the entire south. - the eastern part of the continent.

Fundamental changes have also occurred in the area of ​​immigration. The Japanese invasion convinced Australians of the need for rapid population growth in the country. Labour's immigration minister, Arthur Colwell, authored one of the largest immigration programs of our century. 50% of immigrants receiving state support had to have British citizenship, but the remaining 50% could come from any country - as long as they were white. Between 1945 and 1965 More than 2 million migrants entered Australia. The population jumped from 7 to 11 million people.

The state still had a "white Australia" policy, and Colwell was himself an outright racist. When asked if he would allow Asian immigration, he responded with his notoriously crude one-liner: “I wouldn’t trade one blind white man for two cross-eyed ones.” However, racist immigration policies were subsequently relaxed and formally abolished in 1973. The abandonment of barbaric views was so rapid that currently immigrants from Asia already make up a third of all immigrants. (See also chapter “Multicultural society”).

This multi-ethnic immigration had very far-reaching consequences. In 1945, Australia remained a generally conformist society with an Anglo-Saxon population, 98% of whom were of British descent. And suddenly they were overwhelmed by crowds of Italians, Greeks, Germans, Dutch and Yugoslavs, barely able to connect two words in English - they created their own communities, opened shops and newspapers. replenished the army of the workforce, came to schools and soon shook to the core the sterile well-being of life for the Australian man in the street. And all this, oddly enough, happened almost without conflict, although, of course, the “new Australians” had to overcome considerable difficulties. It was they who ensured the intensive economic growth of the country in the 1950-60s, forming the backbone of the workforce in the steel and mining industries, in factories and in road construction work, including on such “national construction projects” as the construction of a hydroelectric power station in Snezhnye mountains In the mid-1960s, about half the workers in the steel mills of Port Kembla, south of Sydney, were recent immigrants.

The path to the modern world. And yet, changes in the life of Australian society took a long time and were difficult. In the 50s, Australia was an inert society that arose and developed in relative isolation from the rest of the world, with a belief in its own infallibility and alien to the ideas of modern liberalism. It continued to be dominated by men, despite all the protests that women - especially after the war - expressed. Men's leisure was devoted to ritual activities - sports, friendly drinking and brawls, homosexuals were considered “perverts”, and bearded men or long-haired youths were considered “freaks”. Most of all, in the moral code of society, male loyalty to friends was valued, and “women” were supposed to stay at home and raise children. By and large it was a community of simple workers in iron boots and felt hats, pub regulars who addressed each other as “man” or “mate”.

The Church, especially the Catholic Church, determined social mores, divorce was permitted by law, but was considered reprehensible and obtaining a divorce was very difficult. Abortion was banned and remained a source of income for semi-literate paramedics. The nation was suffocating in the close embrace of stern puritanism, which the Australians themselves ironically dubbed “our piety.” Censorship was rampant (James Joyce's Ulysses and D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover were banned - the latter for "inciting depravity" - and the books had to be smuggled into the country). The Aborigines did not even have Australian citizenship, let alone voting rights. The language reflected a variety of prejudices, and immigrants were awarded offensive nicknames - “bezhek” (refugees), “Balts”, “Italians”, “Ipashki”, “Hollashkas”, “Krauts”...

Political commentators dubbed the decade the “Dreary Fifties.” The revived Conservative Party (known as the "Liberal" Party and led by the ardent Anglophile Robert Gordon Menzies, who declared himself "British down to his bootlaces") managed to play on the growing hysteria of the Cold War and attack the Labor Party for its links with the Communists. True, Menzies' attempt to outlaw the Communist Party in a referendum failed. When the Liberal government nearly fell due to rising unemployment, Menzies decided to pursue more moderate policies, trying not to irritate the extreme political flanks of voters. In 1955, the Labor Party split and lost power for 17 years. Australia has smoothly entered a period known as "Deep Sleep".

“Development” became the state slogan - posters were hung everywhere on the streets calling for peace, prosperity and progress. Even the invasion of rock and roll from the United States did not seem to rouse society from its slumber. At the time, however, there were a few rebellious groups like the Bogeez (men) and the Vigeez (women) who had the audacity to do such outrageous acts as group rides on motorcycles or dancing to Elvis Presley, but it was a storm in a teacup. water. Another nonconformist group were the Sydney "troublemakers", free-thinking supporters of the relaxation of public morals, who sat in cafes and pubs and slandered the stuffy philistine world. They wrote poems and songs, and although these were mainly men's "parties", two wonderful ladies also appeared at them - Germaine Greer, author of The Female Eunuch and Liliana Roxon, author of the first Australian Rock Encyclopedia.

Newsreels of those days today seem like a hymn to chauvinism, racism and sexism. Beer pubs closed no later than 18.00 - because of this, the so-called “six-hour drunkenness” arose in the country, when men, after the end of the working day, burst into pubs a few minutes before closing and gulped down as much alcohol as they could manage (women were not allowed into pubs). It was then forbidden to place bets outside the racetrack, so bookmakers gathered in underground liquor stores, where alcohol could be bought “from under the counter” at any time. However, in the “dull fifties” there was one positive feature: among the industrialized countries, Australia was then the only country with an equal distribution of income.

Every year, thousands of young Australians went on a “grand excursion” to London and Europe - to see the world and expand their horizons, which was impossible to do while sitting at home, even despite the state’s liberal immigration policy. And it was difficult to blame them for this.

So in the 1960s. London's Earl's Court became, as it were, an Australian ghetto. Crooner Rolf Harris began his rise to fame with the hit "Mate, Catch Me a Kangaroo." performed by him in a local club, here in London Barry Humphreys, Clive James and Robert Hughes revealed their talent. The country's best artists and writers - Patrick White, Germaine Greer and Sydney Nolan - became expatriates. At that time, it seemed that nothing significant was happening in the distant “land of Oz.”

"The Well-Fed 60s." Meanwhile, Australia began to transform: from a primitive agricultural country (the population was mainly engaged in raising sheep and cattle and growing wheat) into a country with developed light industry. Between 1940 and 1960 the number of factories doubled, and for the first time in Australian history, refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners and cars became available to the general public.

By the mid-1960s, Australia had entered a period of unprecedented prosperity, and Australians, like Americans, enjoyed the highest standard of living in the world. It was also the most urbanized country in the world, with three-quarters of the population living in large cities, with more than half of the urban population on the east coast.

Ties with the old homeland weakened after Great Britain joined the EEC, leaving Australia to its fate. The resulting economic vacuum was filled by trade with the United States and Japan. In 1951, after the creation of the ANZUS military bloc, close ties arose between Australia, New Zealand and the United States. In 1948, General Motors built the first automobile plant in Australia and began production passenger car"Holden." Its success was emblematic of the prosperity of the 1950s and 60s - it brought together American finance, European labor and Australia's wealthy consumer market. Similarly, the displacement of General Motors in the 1980s. Ford and Japanese automakers were linked to the decline in domestic industry.

Meanwhile, the structure of Australian society was changing rapidly. In the early 1960s, the number of white-collar (white-collar) workers surpassed the number of blue-collar (industrial workers) for the first time, and then began to increase at a rapid pace. This fast-growing social group tended to live in comfortable suburban homes, have private cars, televisions, bank accounts, and vote Liberal. Australia, long considered a proletarian paradise—“the last bastion of egalitarian democracy,” as one American historian called it—has almost imperceptibly transformed into a dominant “middle class” society.

But even in conditions of prosperity, the fate of Australia left many feeling bitter. Donald Horne wrote a book with the ironic title "Happy Land" - about a country that abandoned its rich opportunities and best egalitarian traditions for the sake of complacent satiety. The original Australian ideal of “community” was replaced by other ideals, and with it the Australian national character changed.

Time for a change. Cracks have begun to appear in the façade of Australian good fortune. In 1962, Australia became embroiled in the Vietnam conflict and over the next 10 years sent 49,000 conscripts (selected by lot) into the jungles of Southeast Asia, of whom 499 were killed and 2,069 wounded. As in the United States, the Australian anti-war movement gave rise to various forms of liberalization of public life, setting the country on a path of crises and doubts.

The student and women's movements, the movement of blacks and sexual minorities for equal rights challenged the conservative majority. Strict censorship of books and films was gradually abolished, and Australians were allowed to read Nabokov's Lolita and Portnoy's Complaint by F. Roth. In 1967, Aboriginal people gained the right to vote in federal elections, and at the same time, the “Freedom Bus” roamed the roads of Queensland and New South Wales, whose passengers campaigned against the system of discrimination against the black minority. At the same time, it was revealed that 10% of the country's population lived below the poverty line - these included Aboriginal people, single mothers, the sick and disabled, and the unemployed.

At the same time, immigrants began to slowly transform the ossified social foundations and pro-English culture of their second homeland. As if on cue, culinary cafes, European cuisine, football, street restaurants, diverse popular music and a spirit of free cosmopolitanism, unimaginable in pre-war Australia, came to Australian cities. Moreover, immigrants introduced the old-timers of the fifth continent to new ideas and a new view of the world around them. And the strict monoculturalism of the pre-war era was replaced by healthy cultural pluralism.

Inspired by the new cultural trends of the time, the renewed Labor Party began to widely promote new political ideals. The party was led by a truly charismatic leader - Gough Whitlam. When Labor finally won the election in 1972 under the slogan “The time has come,” it seemed to many that the past was over once and for all and that the country was on the threshold of a promising new era of progress.

Australians still remember the “Whitlam era” as an important historical milestone, however, the time of his reign is still the subject of lively debate. Labor abolished compulsory conscription, withdrew Australian troops from Vietnam, established diplomatic relations with China, and embarked on long-term reforms of the government's welfare system. It seems that all the events in the country took place simultaneously - the promulgation of a universal health care program, and an increase in government allocations for culture and the arts (it was at this time that Australian cinema was actively developing), and the official rejection of the “white Australia” policy, and the liberalization of legislation. But Whitlam did not take into account the strength of the Conservative opposition. He managed to win the next elections in 1974, but unexpectedly his government faced the consequences of a global economic crisis caused by a sharp rise in oil prices. For the first time in 30 years, Australians have experienced the hardships of long-forgotten inflation and unemployment. The Labor government was constantly subject to a barrage of criticism, and became involved in a number of scandals, including an attempt to borrow four billion petrodollars through dubious intermediary firms.

Labor faced strong opposition from the Conservative majority in the Senate. In 1975, the opposition Liberal National Party, led by Malcolm Fraser, took advantage of its numerical superiority and blocked a decision on additional budget funding. Whitlam refused to resign and the country was plunged into the most serious constitutional and political crisis in its history. The crisis received a rather ambiguous solution: Governor-General Sir John Kerr, as the Queen's plenipotentiary representative in Australia, dismissed Whitlam and announced new elections. Many considered this decision to be contrary to the spirit and letter of the constitution.

Fraser won the election, consolidated his power and vowed to end political infighting. For seven years he managed to keep his word. Australians seemed tired of the political turmoil and were unprepared for further reform. Fraser led a reactionary Conservative government, which buried many of Whitlam's initiatives, in particular by disrupting the introduction new system health care, and in the field of foreign policy slavishly followed the course of the United States.

The permanence of change. The New Labor Era began in 1983, when Australians voted in a government led by Bob Hawke, a former union leader and former world champion beer drinker. The Labor Party adopted more moderate and more sophisticated policies and developed strong links with white-collar unions. Over the next 13 years, Labor ruled the country without showing much initiative (in the early 1990s, the caustic aristocrat Paul Keating took over as prime minister). “Consensus” became a popular slogan of the time, the government announced a historic reconciliation between employers and trade unions, guaranteed the establishment of universal social peace in the country, such as had not yet been seen in history, and finally achieved the introduction of the national health care system “Medicare”.

The new Labor government inherited a national economy stricken by a severe recession, and it began with a series of devaluations of the Australian dollar (poignantly nicknamed the “Pacific peso”). Keating warned that the country was in danger of becoming a Latin American-style “banana republic” if its economy did not undergo fundamental reforms. Labor initiated the development of the free market, but they failed to maintain the social security system at the same level. Politically and economically, Australia became increasingly tied to Asia, while the country itself became increasingly influenced by Asian immigration. Women were given more political rights and Aboriginal people were given "land rights" (i.e. control over their tribal territories). The celebration of the bicentenary of the first British settlement on the continent in 1988 was a milestone in the development of Australian national consciousness and at the same time an occasion for intensifying debate about national identity. The Supreme Court ruling overturned the odious historical fiction of “terra nullius,” a colonial doctrine that claimed Australia was uninhabited when the first British settlers arrived. Thus, the Aborigines were able to restore their rights to the land.

1980s and 1990s marked the flowering of Australian art, and filmmakers and writers gained worldwide fame. Australians are once again seriously talking about becoming a true republic - an initiative that gained momentum after the International Olympic Committee decided to hold the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.

Despite the impressive achievements of recent years, Australian voters, apparently tired of Labor, voted for the more conservative Liberals in 1996, led by John Howard, a man who, with his expressionless appearance, resembles a provincial accountant. In the economic field, Howard initiated the gradual liberalization of the market and the reduction of the role of the state. It is now clear that no force can turn back the wheel of history in Australia, a society imbued with the spirit of progress that has changed beyond recognition in the post-war decades.