The philosophy of history and historical narratives of memory

Abstract

The article establishes a number of perspectives for a philosophical interpretation of history as knowledge, which has a narrative character by its very nature. The schemes and levels of historical narration are considered. Special attention is paid to the specifics of the conceptualization of the Russian history. The stable nature of historical narratives is associated with value-normative constants, which express the features of the historical experience of a particular society. It is all the more important to reveal the factors of the dynamics of historical narratives and the diachrony generated by them. Such factors are associated with the context of the formation and translation of historical knowledge, with the participation in the historical comprehension of various social groups. The task of the philosophy of history is not so much to give answers regarding the past development of a society and to build generalizing narratives, but to identify the questions that historical explanatory narratives can answer in the context of contemporary problems common to the entire Russian society.