Does history need identity: the critique of identity

The problem of the use of the identity concept in the studies of historical persons' life strategies is analyzed in the article. The article is based on R. Brubaker's criticism of the identity concept. The structure of the article is determined by an absentee dialogue with R. Brubaker concerning the possibilities of using the identity concept in historical research. The epistemological potential of the identity concept is shown on the example of Sidonius Apollinaris, a Gallo-Roman aristocrat, poet, orator and politician of the fifth c. AD. The article is divided into three thematic sections according to three problematic frames. The main currently existing interpretations of identity are given in the first section; the second section is about the problem of methodological complementarity between the identity concept and the historical source; the third section presents the experience of using the identity concept to understand a man in the past on the example of Sidonius Apollinaris. The meaning of identity is understood as an individual experience of sameness with any social or cultural configuration. The way identity is achieved is both unconscious and reflexive. The range of social and cultural configurations to choose from is preset. Implementation of self-identification may be achieved by the performance of an old configuration or the formation of new ones. The most relevant is the use of the identity concept for the analysis and structuring of author's personal intentions in the ego-source. In this case the author either directly represents his identity or shows it through the structural and lexical features of the text. It is also possible to reveal intentions of historical public text authors by using the concept of identity. We should ask ourselves what goals the author of the text pursued and what audience his work is for. The use of the concept of identity is comparatively more complicated in the way of research of a particular historical character, whose image is described in historical texts only. In this case the basis for a good research is much smaller, and the possibility of interpretative and impressionistic implementations is higher. Another problem point is that the concept of identity is preliminarily implied by the researcher according to his personal views and experience. However, this does not negate the possibility of the analysis according to another perspective, which is inevitably followed by a different intentional sequence modeling. In the methodological sense, all approaches are based on a preliminary assumption and thus are equivalent. The diversity of approaches itself is beneficial for the creation of knowledge. Despite R. Brubaker's criticism the identity concept (strictly and correctly defined) has an undoubted explanatory potential in the study of historical persons' life strategies and intentions. Individual decisions and actions, as reflected in historical sources, can be interpreted as a complete and consistent sequence based on the desire to establish an identity with referential values.

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