Subjunctive mood of history
Unhistorical introduction
Quite often it is said that “story has no subjunctive mood. " As a matter of fact, this is the case. If, of course, we mean the history that has already taken place. This very story cannot be changed in a completely natural way. Here and now. Everything is correct, logical and accessible here. We cannot go back and change something there. That story has already formed.
There is, of course, such a thing as falsification of history that everyone understands in their own way, but this is something completely different. As a matter of fact, history is too regularly politics, overturned into the past. Too often. Therefore, the history of the same war in the textbooks of the warring countries will look very different.
It is what it is. In itself, the example of millennial Rus-Ukraine clearly testifies to this. There is a political necessity and inventions begin. The funny thing is that millions of people believe in this ...
Well, the author is very interested in what further consequences this phenomenon may have. After all, after all, history exists only in the virtual reality of books, films and our consciousness.
And we will have two incompatible stories.
In principle, even today communication with Ukrainians on historical topics is not very promising. They have their own, alternative history.
Even more interesting is the Lithuanian synthesis of the comrades of the Belarusians. This is generally something with something. The author has deep respect for the ancient Lithuanian history... It has a place to be, and there is no need to invent anything here. The story is powerful and interesting, even more powerful and interesting is the story of the Poles. It is very difficult to understand what the Belarusians have to do with it.
Rus-Ukraine and Lithuanianism are quite obvious attempts to appropriate someone else's history for the complete absence of its own. Hungarians have their own history, Czechs, Poles, Bulgarians, Croats ... But Kiev and Minsk have problems with this.
It is somewhat reminiscent of the Arabs with camels at the Egyptian pyramids. I specifically inform you: the pyramids in Egypt were not built by the Arabs. Alas. And for some reason they do not want to admit that their state is a remake.
But it's still a little different ...
Directly alternatives
Various fantastic and semi-fantastic stories are a completely separate topic.
The author had in mind a more academic history, a little separate from politics, if, of course, this is generally possible (and why not)?
So, about her, dear, here, oddly enough, two options are drawn: free will and historical predetermination.
Yes, of course, history has already taken place, but at that very moment William the Conqueror could, in principle, not have dared to land in England.
Either his landing could fail, or he could lose the Battle of Hastings.
Or maybe all these events are linked in a chain, strung on a thread like beads?
So which option is correct?
Fans of the phrase "history has no subjunctive mood" somehow by default mean that there are no options at all: what is destined will happen. Otherwise, what do they mean then?
And how can you even determine, being inside system, what is the principle operating there?
It is difficult to say with a high degree of certainty. After all, you can always notice that all our choices of two evils and throwing are predetermined from the beginning.
The most interesting thing is that the same people accuse the Nazi elite of the Third Reich of monstrous crimes against humanity and at the same time argue that history does not have a subjunctive mood (to speak of the Banner of Victory over the Reichstag), but if the Banner was predetermined from the outset, it means that and all the monstrous crimes of Nazism were also laid down in the original program of the universe, and it turns out that the failed Austrian painter is just a pitiful puppet of Providence?
And by the way, yes, actually, Hitler was a puppet (of quite specific political forces), a doll who tried to bite the string. But the idea is that to describe history you cannot simultaneously and in parallel use both options for describing the story, otherwise some kind of nonsense comes out.
If Hitler could not change anything, then what is his fault?
If he was originally destined to lead Germany, to unleash a war, then what can he be accused of?
If, as they say, the whole world is a theater, and people only play the roles assigned to them in the play, then what is their fault or merit?
On the other hand, if Hitler possessed free will and could choose options for the future, then the war could start and end in very different ways (or not start at all), and there is nothing fantastic and false about it.
That is, you have to choose: either Hitler is a "servant of Satan" and was cursed and doomed to perform all these arts, or the Victory Banner might not soar over the Reichstag. That is, either one or the other, but not both together.
I recall the story of the stealing slave of an ancient Greek philosopher:
- But I was destined to steal!
“And you were destined to be punished,” came the answer of the philosopher.
That is, either Hitler is just a politician - then history is mobile, or "a servant of Satan" - and then all this takes on a slightly religious connotation, as it took place in Soviet history textbooks. Where he was, as it were, hated with all his heart, but absolutely inevitable (as a product of the forces of darkness and world capital).
Just behind the listing of a string of dates and events, this very basic question somehow escapes. If history was mobile until June 22, 41, then why should it have changed its essence with the onset of this very date?
The war could go on in very different ways and have very different results.
Where does the fact that our victory was inevitable follow?
At least, not at all from the balance of forces and competencies of the parties for the period from the summer of 1941 to the summer of 1942.
Or is Operation Barbarossa and its failure - a game of higher powers or the result of completely earthly decisions and mistakes?
But neither one and the other in half (for some reason, I recall the classics, namely the Iliad, there it was in half). The question of the inquisitors to Joan of Arc also comes to mind: "Why did you urge the soldiers to fight, if the Lord will grant them victory anyway?" And the answer was: "For God to grant victory, the soldiers must fight."
At first glance, a simple question
Perhaps the most paradoxical thing in Soviet history is that, completely and categorically rejecting religion, our Soviet historical science retained the point of view of the predetermination of all that exists, only not from the point of view of religious revelations, but from the point of view of Marxist-Leninist teaching.
As it turned out, even during the Jurassic period, the triumph of the ideas of socialism throughout the galaxy was absolutely inevitable. Which, of course, could not but inspire real sacred awe.
Even Americans, to some extent, try to play these games, only here are the main markers of civilization - freedom and democracy. How much without them. Well, there is a free market and free enterprise as the basis of a galactic civilization in the distant future. As they say, if you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.
So is linearity typical for history (like a railway line) or are there options (forks)?
Is there one achievable future option (sooner or later) or are there options?
The idea of foreseeing the future is just based on the simple fact of its uniqueness and predetermination.
That is, if a human story is just a book or a film, then it is quite logical to want to see, and what's next?
If the future is very multivariate and the further into the future, the more it is polyvariant, then such a question does not make sense in principle.
In other words, they are actually two very different models. And to combine them is rather strange. And which of the two models is correct is a difficult and philosophical question, but applying them simultaneously to describe history is a rather strange move. Predestination is either there or not. She cannot appear or disappear at some point in history. So is free will. Either there is or not.
We, in the end, have a single historical process, and if the past does not have a subjunctive mood, then the present does not have it either. The future, by the way, does not have either.
The opposite point of view is that now, yes, an event in the past has already happened and we cannot cancel it, but at the moment of the event (when the time was fresh) everything could have turned out differently.
And by the way, yes, the Second World War would have happened without one famous Austrian artist (it had much more serious reasons than the psychopathy of a single Bohemian corporal). Thinking differently is completely unscientific. To put it simply, there very serious people they were interested in where the Bohemian corporals were before them ... And these were not even representatives of the German monopoly capital.
Although then Gavrilo Princip had missed the mark in Sarajevo ... And everything could have gone differently. Rumor has it that they were quite familiar ... and worked in pairs. Austrian subjects? Further - everything according to O. Henry. So much for the conspiracy theory.
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