The Genesis of the Future in the Context of the “Memorial Turn”, or How the History of the Future is Possible

The relevance of this article stems from the need to establish the stable identity and to strengthen the integrity of contemporary Russian society. Along with successful commemorative practices and a well-conducted memory policy, working with futurological meanings is intended to serve this purpose. The effective functioning of a society presupposes a clear understanding of how it produces its future. The aim of this article is to explicate the methods of generating the future characteristic of late modern society, which, under the influence of recent history, experienced disillusionment with large-scale socio-political projects. The study is based on the methodological principles and insights from social philosophy and an interdisciplinary approach. Methods from intellectual history and the history of concepts are applied. The article explicates the theoretical potential of the history of the future (Zukunftsgeschichte), a field of knowledge that is virtually unrepresented in Russian humanities. Over its centuries of existence, humanity has developed numerous ways of working with the future and mastered various ways of representing it, which have become part of history. A significant research approach implemented within the framework of contemporary intellectual history is shifting attention from the content of futurological projects/scenarios to the conditions and methods of their genesis. The article reveals the reasons for the memorial turn, which has led to the dominance of images and meanings of the past in the consciousness of our contemporaries and, simultaneously, to a lack of ability to project the future. The imperatives of constant activity and adherence to high professional and living standards can serve as factors provoking escapism into the past. The author attributes the following ways of generating the future in late modern society: firstly, the future can be constructed on the basis of the past; secondly, secondly, the future as a response to someone else’s future (perceived as “risk future”); and thirdly, the future can be a minor transformation of the present (the practice of “small deeds”). The conclusion is substantiated that not only memorial sovereignty (the ability of a political actor to independently interpret its own past) has political significance, but also futurological sovereignty — the right and ability to generate its own future.

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