To allow the past as a history": On the influence of postmodernism on historiography in the 21st century

The article deals with the content of historiographical discussions of 2000-2010, associated with the identifying of historical science gnostic possibilities at the end of the postmodernism epoch. The research is carried out using problematic-chronological and comparative methods with elements of content analysis. The contribution of postmodernism to the development of humanitarian knowledge and, more specifically, of historical knowledge, primarily affects the sphere of the narrative identity of history. Analysts estimate this process in different ways, from sharply negative assessments to reservedly neutral ones. The main point of the proposals for transforming the "historian's craft" comes down to increasing the value of his creative function, which could impart an experimental nature to this kind of knowledge. Participants in the English-language discussion on the gnostic abilities of history are clearly divided into two groups. The first one includes supporters of a narrative, or rhetorical approach to history, they recognize the freedom of the historian's creativity, focus on the literary dimension, fix the genre similarity and even close goal-setting of the authors of historical writings and fiction. The second group represents the philosophical direction of the linguistic turn. It focuses on the analysis of historical texts semantics, in which the more general relations of the world and language are expressed. It tests the sense of meanings and expressions, determines certain "conditions of truth" on the basis of which certain historical experience crystallizes. However, a more significant demarcation of the postmodernists' camp goes along the line of attitude to the problem of historical representations. Supporters of representationalism, usually appertaining to the philosophical direction of the linguistic turn, write about the ability of the historian to indirectly reflect the past through the refraction of his own art of interpretation. The adepts of nonrepresentationalism (most often representing a narrative direction) believe that historical representation essentially represents only the author's argumentative strategy, which should persuade of the validity of his conclusions, and which has nothing to do with the past. The author comes to a conclusion that all participants in the English-speaking discussion about the epistemic nature of history are surprisingly deaf in relation to the achievements of European humane thought, in particular, of Paul Ricoeur. The latter was able to overcome the contradictions of historical knowledge in question between description and explanation, past and present, objectivity and subjectivity. He substantiated the irreconcilably ambivalent character of historical scholarship and showed, by no means denying the narrative essence of history, where the epistemological barrier passes between historical research and literary oeuvre.

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