MEMORY AND HERITAGE IN A CRUSADE AGAINST HISTORY, OR THE BIRTH OF A “MEMORIAL PARADIGM”
The turn of the 20th-21st centuries was marked by the emergence in modern historiography of the “memorial paradigm”, which explores the images of the past as interpretive models that allow individuals and social groups to orient themselves in their present life situations. As a result, the focus of attention of the professional community representatives turned out to be on issues related to the relationship between history, memory and identity, with the use of cultural heritage, with the tools of “historical policy” and the transformation of historical consciousness and historical culture of post-industrial society. In the Russian social and humanitarian space, interdisciplinary memorial and historical research focused on describing and analyzing socially and culturally differentiated symbolic “images of the past”, mechanisms for the formation of individual and collective identities or effective tools of historical politics, have gained great popularity in the recent decade. The article presents and analyzes various positions of leading theorists regarding the situation that has developed as a result of the “memorial boom” in the space of the current humanities. Stating the advantages and achievements of “memory studies”, the author notes a number of missed opportunities, in particular the need for an expanded socio-historical contextualization of specific studies and a clearer definition of one’s own cognitive attitudes in relations with public history and commemorative practices. The conceptual problems of “memory studies” that have arisen in connection with the inclusion in their subject fields of the practice of intercultural communication in their historical dimension are considered. The article shows that the significant heuristic potential of the “memory paradigm” can be realized using theoretical models of histoire croisée and connected history.