The sacredness of history as a subject of theoretical discussions and socio-cultural practice

Gavrilov Oleg Fedorovich PhD in Philosophy Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Kemerovo State University 650066, Russia, Kemerovo region, Kemerovo, Michurina str., 55a gof57@yandex.ru

Zhukova Ol'ga Ivanovna ORCID: 0000-0001-9689-208X Doctor of Philosophy Doctor of Philosophy, Head of the Department, Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Kemerovo State University 650043, Russia, Kemerovo region, Kemerovo, Krasnaya str., 6 oizh@list.ru

IntroductionIn the Russian language, the concept of "history" is used in two meanings — as a sequence of events and as knowledge about this process.

Both meanings of this concept are interrelated: the requirements for the cognitive activity of the historian depend on how we understand the nature of the historical process; in turn, the paradigm within which the scientific community works determines the vision of the historical process. This is clearly manifested in the clash of sacred and secular interpretations of the historical process. Within the framework of the first approach, it is considered as the realization of the divine plan, which formulates the task of historical cognition as comprehension of manifestations of the transcendent principle in time. On the contrary, as a result of the secular research position, the past loses its sacredness, interest in the knowledge of immanent factors of human history is formed. It is precisely the analysis of the implementation in practice of ideological attitudes in which the sacred component of history is either recognized or, on the contrary, denied, that will constitute the task of this study. Speaking about the universal tendencies of global humanity in the field of memory formation, specialized historical knowledge, education, spiritual culture in general, we will first of all turn to the peculiarities of their expression in modern Russia. The main part

E. Durkheim and M. Halbwax made a significant contribution to the study of the relationship between the sacred and the secular in history, both as a process of human development and as knowledge about it; later it was further developed in "memory studies" — an interdisciplinary direction of the study of cultural memory, which was initiated in the West in the 1980s.

Its representatives stated the existence of a basic anthropological need for the consecration of certain elements of culture and individual components of the content of cultural memory, that is, in the sacralization of certain historical symbols. This need reveals itself in different ways, but at the same time everywhere. We observe its implementation even in the process of law-making.  Thus, in one of the federal laws of the Russian Federation, the Victory Banner of 1945 is considered as a relic, that is, a sacred and revered thing ^[1].

The sacred is the most important component of religion, but it is not limited to it at all. The need for the sacred is also present in secular society, being realized in forms sometimes far from religious. Although "secular culture explicitly or implicitly contains meanings that are very close in essence to religious meanings" [2. p. 50], the procedures of sacralization should not be considered only as manifestations of the clericalization of society. Secular rituals of honoring the memory of ancestors are not identical to religious rites. Sacralization manifests itself not only within the framework of religion: we see it in the products of mythological (pre-religious) consciousness, in secular symbols, traditions and customs of folk culture. A similar understanding of the nature of the sacred is demonstrated by S. N. Zenkin, who, formulating the task of his research with the characteristic title "The Undivine sacred: theory and artistic practice", announces his intention "to show that the sacred can and even must be thought separately from the figure of any personal deity, not as a result of divine emanation, but as a product of cultural activities of people" [3. p. 13].

However, in some cases, it is difficult to separate the sacred, manifested in the content of religious consciousness, and the sacred, which finds expression within the framework of secular culture. This is especially noticeable when people's need to sanctify objects of reality is purposefully used as a means of translating patterns of religion to society. To confirm this, it is enough to refer to the phenomenon of civil religion, the mechanisms of institutionalization of which are most fully described by the example of the USA ^[4], but are not alien to us. Recently, a serious step has been taken in Russia to consolidate the sacred character of the historical tradition by appealing to the potential of religion. The new version of the Constitution states that the history of the country preserves "continuity" and "the memory of the ancestors who gave us ideals and faith in God" ^[5]. Involuntarily you will think – is this the norm of secular society? Leaving aside the question of the expediency of this amendment, we note that its inclusion in the text of the Basic Law shows that the state seeks to strengthen and legitimize the constitutional system in the institute of religion, regardless of the specific religion of various social groups. Indirectly, this also means an attempt to sacralize history, as a result of which faith in God is affirmed as a value bequeathed by the ancestors.

From the specifics of the procedures and products of sacralization, revealed in the perspective of specific approaches (cultural studies, anthropology, psychology, etc.), in the context of our study, we can distract and focus primarily on the general characteristics that manifest themselves in the spheres of functioning of religious consciousness and consciousness of secular society. The ways of producing sacred meanings in each of these areas are different, but, in our opinion, they are organically interconnected. Sacralization within the framework of religious ideas is based on faith in the transcendent principle of all things, which is especially noticeable on the example of the Abrahamic religions. In the secular perception of being, sacralization is carried out by appealing to the transcendental universals of culture. The latter appear as a set of products of human creativity that have an extra-individual, directive, relatively constant character, in contrast to changeable opinions, subjective assessments, temporary agreements about relational priorities of activity. The universals of human culture in their secular interpretation, of course, cannot be considered as religious phenomena, but in perception and in the forms of their practical expression they acquire the status of sacred. These cultural values are not directly endowed with religious meanings, but at the same time they have many signs of the latter. So, relatively recently, within the framework of the atheistic ideology of Soviet society, individual participants in revolutionary events and these events themselves were given a sacred status. V. Mayakovsky, expressing not only a personal attitude to the death of the creator of the Soviet state, but also the mentality of the masses, wrote: "Lenin is even now more alive than all the living."

The principle of historicism presupposes the consideration of the subject of knowledge from the point of view of its historical continuity. Therefore, the similarity that exists between the procedures of sacralization in religion and in secular society is predetermined by the very course of historical development. The source of secular culture is religious practices, so even if religion is forced out of public life, the forms of secular life inherit them. The reverent attitude to secular symbols, the ideological dogmatism of non-religious ideologies are to a certain extent derived from the former religious sacralized phenomena of public life. In this context, we can speak, at least, about the similarity of secular and religious mechanisms of sacralization, including the sacralization of historical memory. This closeness may not be fully realized or denied at all. But not oblivion, but recognition of the historical role of religion is a necessary condition for a balanced approach to understanding the phenomena of secular culture.

The presence of the sacred in the content of collective memory implies a special attitude to what it applies to. First, the sacred turns out to be an object of worship, a source of higher feelings — fascinations (p. Otto), covering those who communicate with him. Moreover, "higher feelings" should not be interpreted only in their positive connotation as a feeling of delight: the sacred has a reverse side, it simultaneously causes fear. By the way, even the etymology of the term "sacred" reveals this ambivalence. In Ancient Rome, "it is both dedicated to the gods, and marked by an ineradicable stain, majestic and cursed, worthy of reverence and causing horror" [6. p. 348]. It is no accident that V. Lebedev-Kumach (1941) includes in the famous text the words: "There is a people's war, a holy war!". A terrible calamity, a terrible war acquires a sacred character.

Secondly, the sacred is that which is opposed to the profane, is withdrawn from it. And again, you can not do without etymology. "One of the supposed meanings of the Latin word sanctus is "surrounded by a fence"" [3. p. 22], while "profane" is a person who is behind a fence (Latin — in front of a temple). In order for the border between them to be preserved, special measures must be applied. The taboo established regarding the sacred does not need any rationalization, moreover, it resists it. As A. G. Vasiliev notes, "... images of collective memory should not be treated as scientific concepts and points of view that are subject to discussion. These are “sacred things“, the absolute truth and significance of which has been established for this community once and for all and cannot be discussed [7. p. 161]. However, in our opinion, the author immediately contradicts himself, allowing for the possibility of such a dialogue on religious issues, in which what is perceived by some as sacred will not necessarily be accepted by others in the same way, however, the desacralization of the subject of faith by disputants will not be regarded as blasphemy.

Of course, the topic of dialogue, and in particular interfaith dialogue, has been of great interest since a certain moment. Catholic and Protestant researchers write a lot about this, representatives of Orthodoxy also turn to this topic. Different points of view are expressed, but we are close to the one according to which the possibility of dialogue of carriers of sacred meanings exists only when they (carriers) do not touch these meanings, but relate, say, to issues of interfaith interaction, social activities of the church, security issues, etc. For example, S. V. Melnik asserts that "... each religion as a special ideological and value system asserts its exclusivity and is organically integral, self-sufficient. In this regard, from the point of view of religious consciousness, the possible motivations for entering into a dialogue with representatives of another religion are very limited" [8. p. 211]. Let us note for ourselves that dialogue about sacred meanings is difficult not only in the sphere of religion, but also in any area where the sacred is present. Taboo also applies to the universals of culture, which, after going through the procedure of sacralization and being included in rituals required for systematic reproduction, turn out, like religious shrines, to be protected not only by public opinion, but also by the burrows of law. Thus, in the amendment to the Constitution of the Russian Federation cited above, it is recorded that "belittling the significance of the feat of the people in the defense of the Fatherland is not allowed" ^[4], and in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the state establishes responsibility "for the dissemination of information expressing obvious disrespect for society about the days of military glory and memorable dates of Russia related to the defense of the Fatherland, as well as the desecration of symbols of military glory of Russia, committed in public" ^[9]. These formulations of the law close the possibility of dialogue on sensitive issues of national history or, at least, severely restrict — in fact, taboo is imposed on these topics.

Recognizing a certain measure of unconditionality for the sacred universals of culture, we note that the degree of their immutability is significantly inferior to the degree of categoricality of religious meanings. Thus, secular society seems to recognize patriotism, the institution of the family, childhood and motherhood as the unifying principles of society, that is, to a certain extent, sacred universals of culture, but at the same time allows discussions about their content and general significance. In this transition from the transcendent basis of sacredness to the transcendental, there is a tendency aimed at getting rid of the sacred as a component of being and culture, respectively, at eliminating the sacred from the processes of spiritual mastery of the past. Let's consider how and how successfully this happens.

The intention to remove the sacred from historical knowledge finds expression in the idea of the separation of history and memory, expressed first by M. Halbwaks ^[10], and then developed by P. Nor ^[11], who replaced the concept of collective memory with the concept of "places of memory". Let's analyze what is meant by "history" and what is meant by "memory" in this context, in order to understand how feasible in practice is the intention to remove the sacred from knowledge about the past in its variants of the scientific cognitive process and forms of extra-scientific exploration of the past.  

"Memory" should be interpreted as a kind of means of preserving the past in people's knowledge and feelings, in their sense of belonging to something important, more significant than the events of the current everyday life. "Places of memory" should not be reduced only to objects of material culture — museums, archives, exhibitions, memorials, cemeteries; in addition to the material, they reveal themselves in symbolic and functional meanings. P. Nora says that fixation on the past is not a completely natural form of human activity, people usually live with concern for their present, concern for everyday life, projecting at the same time their activity for the near or long term. Of course, such an assessment of the appeal to the past as something "unnatural" is too radical, but nevertheless devoid of uniqueness. Something similar can be guessed, for example, in the covenant "to remember the Sabbath day", found by Moses as a call to make a strong-willed effort and escape from the captivity of the "vanity of vanities" of today, or in the recommendations of gestalt psychologists to learn to live "here and now" instead of a full immersion in memories and dreams harmful to mental health. In this regard, it seems curious and the fact given by Y. M. Lotman that the former participants of the Patriotic War of 1812 tried not to remember their recent past: "In the years after the Patriotic War, death seems to disappear from the consciousness of those young people who, having returned from the battlefields, having come from abroad, felt with special force the thirst for life and the need for activity. Death seems to be transferred to yesterday — we thought about tomorrow, about projects, reforms, sometimes about successes in the service. Few people cared about thinking about death. Everyone tried to move" [12. p. 228]. But we understand that in order to maintain social solidarity, it is important to return to the past, finding unifying values in it, joining them and maintaining contact with them, and doing so in a specially organized and formalized way. The "places of memory" serve to achieve this goal. P. Nora insists: "We need to create archives, we need to celebrate anniversaries, organize celebrations, make funeral speeches, notarize acts, because such operations are not natural" [11. p. 26].

The presence of "places of memory" is evidence that the past is slipping away, dissolving into nothingness, and therefore special efforts are needed to retain it. However, in the process of preserving collective memory ("places of memory"), its content undergoes noticeable metamorphoses, it turns out to be the result of construction. Information about the past is simplified, becoming more accessible for its assimilation by large and diverse social groups. The premise of simplifying knowledge is that any subject of specialized cognitive interest is so multifaceted that certain statements about it cannot but be the result of reduction. Moreover, this is typical for the assimilation and reproduction of historical material by non-professionals. Therefore, any textbooks, not to mention other means of broadcasting history, will not fully satisfy a specialist. The picture of the past that emerges on the pages of a textbook, a work of art, on TV and cinema screens, in the words of a politician and a publicist, is very conditional.

In addition, information about the past acquires a vivid emotional coloring and imagery of expression. "... Memory is an emotional experience associated with a real or imaginary memory and allowing for all kinds of manipulations, changes, repression, oblivion," P. Nora continues [13. p. 75]. And, finally, information about the past in the part in which it meets the needs of modernity and concerns the iconic symbols of history, is shrouded in a veil of sacredness. Although this form of transformation of historical knowledge can also be replaced by the opposite: what was previously "sacred" is quite capable of losing this quality, for example, as a result of the desecration procedure, that is, "desecration". This term, adopted in the church-religious environment, means "not only acts of vandalism, but also the organized liquidation of objects of material memorial culture by the state" [14. pp. 3-4]. In any case, both in the processes of "sanctification" and in the processes of "enlightenment", algorithms for constructing the past are guessed, which are most often implemented not spontaneously, but purposefully.

Those who carry out the construction of the past within the public space using the procedures of sacralization / desacralization are most often politicians, as well as those who react to their ideological request with varying degrees of awareness — representatives of education, media, art. For example, as the latest innovations in the field of higher education, we can consider the introduction of such academic subjects as "The Great Patriotic War: without a statute of limitations" and "Fundamentals of Russian Statehood", focused, in particular, on the patriotic education of young people. The content content of these subjects shows the intention to consolidate in the minds of students a certain ideological-symbolic, value framework through its sacralization. Among other things, this suggests that from some point on, representatives of the clergy lose their monopoly on contact with the sacred and it turns into an effective tool of political activity. In collective rituals organized by the authorities, cultural and educational institutions or individuals (the "Immortal Regiment"), there is a connection with the sacred without the mediation of the church. We have before us "the tendency of the disappearance of boundaries between the memory of religious and political communities" [15. p. 13].

Of course, the attitude to the past as an object of construction, including through sacralization, meets resistance from a certain part of professional historians — scientists and teachers who negatively perceive any bias in historical knowledge. They understand it as a way of "false sacralization" (N. A. Berdyaev). V. O. Beklyamishev says: "The state, declaring interest in the implementation of historical policy aimed at achieving the goals of innovative development, in practice did not attempt to revise the existing mythologies even at the level of expert discussion" [16. p. 99]. Historians, following the generally accepted requirements for the cognitive process, apply proven criteria for the selection of material and rules for the design of the results obtained. There are no such sufficiently formalized procedures in memory formation, this is largely a subjective and very variable process. In this respect, "history" (as a historical science) is unified and rational, while "memory" is multiple and emotional. The purpose of historical science, according to P. Nora, is to expose the past as an unreliable history, to deprive it of any sacred features. He says: "History is a delegitimization of the experienced past. On the horizon of historicized societies and in a world that has reached the limit of historicization, there would be a complete and final desacralization" [11. pp. 20-21].

However, firstly, the work of professional historians is only ideally devoid of ideological bias. Since the requirement of intersubjectivity is not maintained even in the field of exact knowledge, it would be completely unjustified to expect its fulfillment from the humanities and social sciences. Moreover, these historical studies themselves are motivated by a social order and undoubtedly experience its directive influence, expressed to a greater or lesser extent. The opportunity to distance oneself from ideological bias and engage not in "mythologization", that is, not in the sacralization of the past, but in actual cognition, excluding subjectivism, is limited for historians. Moreover, this limitation, according to some versions of postpositivism, is characteristic not only for historians: the whole science turns into the result of myth-making. Thus, the construction of the past takes place not only in "memory", but also in "history", albeit in a slightly different form. This becomes especially noticeable when historical knowledge is extracted from the relatively narrow communication of professionals and becomes the property of other spheres of society, such as art, education, media, etc. On this occasion , X . White notices: as each ideology is accompanied by a special idea of history and its processes, so each idea of history is accompanied by a certain ideological subtext [17. p. 43].

Secondly, the unity of historical science, which P. Nora speaks about, cannot be understood literally, of course: various methodological programs are implemented within its framework. Among them, the modernist and postmodern paradigms of historical cognition clearly assert themselves, in particular. Modernity, as a secularized version of historical knowledge, proceeds from the belief that sources can be considered as phenomena that reveal, albeit incompletely, indistinctly, the essence of events that occurred earlier. The postmodern view of the comprehension of the past proceeds from the fact that it represents only a wide field of possible interpretations. F. R. Ankersmith states: "History here is no longer a reconstruction of what happened to us at different moments of life, but a continuous game with the memory of it... Wild, greedy and unrestrained digging into the past, inspired by the desire to discover the reality of the past and restore it from the standpoint of science, is no longer the unconditional task of the historian" [18. p. 341]. The "reality of the past" is of minimal interest to many representatives of art. Artistic creativity by its nature not only reflects the real world, but also constructs a fictional reality. This is especially evident in the example of modern domestic cinema, which is developing mainly in accordance with the principles of postmodernism. It is filled with products in which the image of the past is devoid of a referent, but is a simulacrum designed only to awaken a certain part of the audience with a sense of nostalgia, for example, for the recent Soviet period of history. There is a special designation for this genre — "pastiche" (French literally — pate), that is, an eclectic imitation. In this form, images sacred to the consumer can be reproduced, but emasculated to such an extent that they lose their true sacredness. So, despite the specifics of the modernist and postmodern approaches to the past, they coincide in one thing: in their perspective, the sacred has no place in history, neither in its ontological manifestation, nor in its epistemological.

But we cannot ignore the existence of another approach — a theological one aimed at "the perception of divine manifestations in history" [19. p. 18], in which the sacred is not just rehabilitated, but is perceived as a necessary condition for the existence of humanity, as the most important prerequisite for an adequate understanding of the past. Its representatives claim that theology and history, in the understanding of the latter as a process of human evolution and as a science, have traditionally been and remain closely interrelated. In Christianity, this was due to the appeal to the problem of the historicity of the personality of Jesus Christ and the use of special methods of historical knowledge in the study of biblical literature, the works of the Church Fathers, the history of Christianity. They point out that special historical knowledge outside the theological context is incomplete. Proceeding from the present and to a certain extent even corresponding to the projects of the future, it is aimed at studying the past, which means a subject of knowledge that is "fundamentally limited by temporality" [20. p. 120]. True knowledge of history is possible only in conjunction with the universal, therefore, as G. V. Florovsky says, any historian explicitly or covertly, consciously or unconsciously proceeds from certain assumptions of a universal, philosophical nature and therefore turns out to be a theologian to a certain extent. He claims: "An attempt to write history, avoiding the challenge thrown by Christ, is in no sense a "neutral" enterprise" [21. pp. 691-695]. This approach does not necessarily eliminate the need for secular historical science. They may well complement each other. Guy Bedwell comments on this: "There are two types of approaches to history — one is based on strictly scientific methods, and the other is trying to comprehend the plan of God. We can safely use both of these approaches (but consistently, not in parallel) and come to that "in-depth" history that is accepted and comprehended only through faith" [22. p. 7]. In our opinion, in this aspect, it is simply proposed to supplement the scientific version of historical knowledge with its theological (philosophical) component.

The possibility of such a compromise between a scientific and theological approach in historical science has been expanded relatively recently in Russia due to certain measures of state policy in the field of training highly qualified personnel of the higher education system. If theology in Europe is traditionally considered a field of scientific research, then in the Russian Federation it was not considered as a scientific discipline until recently. The situation changed in 2015, when Theology (cipher 26.00.01) appeared in the list of scientific specialties for which academic degrees are awarded, and in 2021 it entered the updated nomenclature as a group of scientific specialties (cipher 5.11.), within which "Theoretical theology", "Historical theology" and "Practical theology". The content of the passports of these specialties orients theologians to develop such areas as theological understanding of history, epistemological and methodological features of theological research, methodology of church historical knowledge, the Bible in the context of the history of religion and culture, Christian theology of history, etc. ^[22]. This decision has its supporters and opponents, but it is likely that the implementation of this rule of law will contribute to the expansion of the theological approach to historical knowledge and, possibly, closer interaction of history as a science and theology.

ConclusionsSome features of social activity in the field of law-making, education and upbringing of young people, media activities, and the development of art depend on understanding what place the sacred occupies in the perception of the past.

  Interpretations of the sacred as a necessary component of cognition of the past give rise to various tools for creating and preserving collective memory, regardless of how the source of the sacred is seen: the transcendent beginning of all things or the transcendental universals of human culture. This attitude to the sacred gives legitimacy to the algorithms of its consolidation in symbols and rituals protected by law and public opinion, isolated from everyday life, replicated in state events, educational and educational programs. The sacred aspect of the appeal to the past is immanently inherent in the theological discourse of historical knowledge.The secularized version of the development of the past consistently opposes sacralization, considering the latter as a process of imperceptible penetration of religion into the sphere of the spirit, which violates the principle of ideological diversity enshrined in law.

The exclusion of the sacred from the sphere of culture invalidates any attempts to establish a ban on the free discussion of any historical topics, images, symbols, and comprehension of the past, carried out in conditions of free creativity and critical attitude to the subject of knowledge, on the contrary, legitimizes. But if the modernist version of the secular vision of history realizes itself in the procedures of applying universal principles of reconstruction of the "real" past, then in its postmodern version the sacred, more precisely, the "pseudo-sacred" appears in the narrative of an artist or scientist as a result of subjective interpretations of "raw" historical material.

You can simply select and copy link from below text field.