Victim Semantics

The paper focuses on understanding the place of the phenomena of a victim and sacrifice in the history of world culture and in sociocultural practices from its inception to the present state. The main socio-cultural pat terns of a victim and their links with other cultural universals — the game, myth, rites of passage, ethnic mentalit y are studied. The author analyses socio-cultural functions of the phenomena of a victim in the processes of changing technological structure in the Modern and Contemporary times and in the modern network societ y. It is concluded that the combination of sacrifice, game, myth and heroic principle is a universal regulating, synthesizing and promoting transitional factor. This factor in the anthroposphere triggers the process of emergence inside it of a special structure of self-maintenance and selfdevelopment, in other words, a socio-cultural matrix (invariant, homeoresis), the most impor tant element of stability in the conditions of any crisis and any transition.