К вопросу о прошлом как основе регламентации настоящего и эталоне будущего: «мобилизация Средневековья» в современном российском общественном сознании

Abstract

The article is a homage to the outstanding philosopher and political analyst V.P. Makarenko, timed to coincide with his two anniversaries – the “questionnaire” (eightieth birthday) and the creative one – the half-century anniversary of the hero of the day’s research in the field of “Weberian studies”. Nominated by V.P. Makarenko’s interpretation of the sociological concept of Max Weber as a “special case of pseudo-historicism” – a form of conscious (“ideological”) traditionalism that arises in a situation of total collapse of social foundations, the author proposes to use as an analytical framework for understanding such a modern (including Russian) phenomenon, as “retrotopia”, which most clearly appears in the form of “medievalism” – a utilitarian reception of the ideological heritage of the Middle Ages in relation to the needs of current politics, ideology and culture. From the author’s point of view, medievalism, in the Russian version of which Byzantine images and motifs clearly predominate, is by no means an invention of our time: in fact, it is a secondary form of reception of the ideological heritage of the Middle Ages, characteristic of the 19th century. Thus, modern Russian medievalism in a broader sense represents one of the manifestations of the basic cultural metaplot of the “lost paradise” – nostalgia for the century traditionally considered the “golden age of Russian culture” and the pinnacle of imperial power.