Specific channels of intercultural communication in historical context: criteria, definition, functions

Consideration of imperial evolution through the system of cultural interactions between the center and the borders of an empire is a new approach, which allows us to see that territorial expansion and cultural borrowings from the merged areas have some correlations and infl uence one on another, therefore, stably existence of the empire inside its optimal borders depends on regulating of that borrowings intensiveness. Criteria of a specifi c channel of intercultural communication are found, its defi nition is formulated, and its functions are discussed in this article to describe the mentioned approach. Specifi c channels of intercultural communication are the unique phenomena developing around the borders of the empire. Study of them is very useful when we need to reconstruct the history of the state expansion and its collapse. It is possible to assume that this approach fi ts to study the evolution of any large state of imperial type