Historical memory as a mediation factor for resolving irredentical conflicts in the world

Abstract

The article analyzes historical memory in the context of irredentical conflicts. Emphasis is placed on the role of historical memory as a social phenomenon and the peculiarities of the historical policy formation as a factor in negotiation processes when applying the mediation method. The conflicts that arise as a result of the implementation of irredentism as a policy of actors (state, party or socio-political movement) with the aim of integrating ethnic groups into one ethnos within the framework of a single state are extremely complicated, since the main appeal is to the history of the formation of the ethnos. The potential threats that appear before the mediator are revealed, as historical memory is explicated simultaneously in the space of diachronic communication of society as a distant in time connection of generations and synchronous communication as mutual relations in real time, based on the strategy of common destiny for the sake of the future. It is emphasized that cultural communication appeals to supra-individual memory and contains both rational components in the form of historical knowledge and irrational ones (myths, legends, symbols, etc.), and conflicts based on irredentism primarily determine the phenomenon of "common history" , that is, long-term processes of ethno-national interaction, which are crystallized in various forms of the collective unconscious. Consideration of these aspects is essential for mediation.