An Alternative as a Way of Understanding History

The article is devoted to the review of the monograph “Soviet” by S.A. Nikolsky. The author of the monograph draws on extensive literary and historicalmaterial from witnesses and researchers of the events of the 20th century – historians M.Ya. Gefter, I.M. Dyakonov, O.V. Khlevnyuk, V.P. Buldakov, philosophers H. Arendt, B.A. Grushin, M. Djilas, V.A. Lektorsky, N.N. Kozlova,Yu.A. Levada, E.Yu. Solovyov, G.L. Tulchinsky, writers – A.A. Platonov,M.A. Bulgakov, V.T. Shalamov, B.A. Pilnyak, V.S. Makanin, V.G. Rasputin and others. The need for a project of civilizational choice usually arisesin moments of crisis, in moments of realization that the world has changed. Then, indeed, knocked out of the way, we are forced to start designing something that helps to overcome this crisis. For to build something on the basis of the known and established means to doom our attempts to failure, because when we leave the past (and we invariably – by nature – leave it), we encounter a new or changed one – this is the meaning of time, otherwise why would it leave. We don’t know the changes, we’re just trying to discover them, and the unpredictability factor hasn’t been eliminated. However, the current generation is the heir to its own recent past, and we’re still within the history that has left behind numerous recognizable artifacts that cannot be discarded from the ship of modernity.

Meaning (existential) · Moment (physics) · Original meaning · Realization (probability) · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Psycholinguistics and Behavioral Studies · Sociopolitical Dynamics in Russia