Дискурс Пи (Jul 2020)
Union state – common memory? Ethical foundations of the historical policy of Russia and Belarus in the 21st century
Abstract
The purpose of this article is a comparative analysis of the normative-value attitudes of the historical policies of Belarus and Russia, as well as a study of the most promising ethical foundations of agreed versions of the historical policies of the union state. The authors relied on a constructivist approach, which allowed to connect the images of memory with socio-cultural contexts and political practices. A comparative analysis of the main stages of the historical policy of Russia and Belarus was carried out, as well as differences in the value and regulatory justification of historical policy in the member states of the union state were identified. The methodological ideas of the ethics of responsibility of H. Jonas were used to develop agreed versions of the historical policy of the union state. A comparative analysis of the main stages, as well as the value-normative foundations of historical politics, shows that despite the fact that the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 continues to be the central event of the culture of memory in both countries, while the attitude to the Soviet era is no longer a key ethical-worldview for the integration of cultural memory and historical policy in a union state. This is due not only to the specifics of the forms of post-communism that have developed in Russia and Belarus, but also to the difference in the rates of historical politics in the interval of the last three decades. The current stage in the implementation of historical policy in both Russia and Belarus is still associated with the dominance of the state and demonstrates clear trends in the growth of conservative, nationally-oriented values in addressing the past. The general background in this case is the weak consolidation of the Belarusian and Russian nations, the incomplete transition to a civil nation in both states, and the inertia of non-state actors in historical politics. The growth of conservative trends and nationally-oriented interpretations of history in historical politics in Russia and Belarus is unlikely to contribute to the rapprochement of the two states, since they are based on the traditional ethics of duty, which reproduces ethnocentrism in various forms. The scientific novelty of the article consists of a philosophical and methodological study of the value-normative foundations of historical policy based on the ethics of historical responsibility, which involves the synthesis of conflicting assessments of the past as a moral program.
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