The Conceptual Apparatus of Semiotics of Modern European History

Abstract

The article analyses the conceptual apparatus of semiotics of modern European history. The social sciences, unlike the natural sciences, which deal with realities that do not call themselves, deal with the phenomena of human life. Names change in time and space without any connection to the immanent changes of things themselves, which indicates a persistent search for an adequate name for many things and signs. Historical meanings become the main subject of semiotic analysis. History becomes a way of scientific reconstruction of the past. In historical science, facts, signs and symbols come through individual and collective memory. Various narratives are a treasure trove of semiotic meanings. Texts in different contexts give different semantics. Everyone is a participant in this exciting process, the end result of which, in principle, is not. Under these circumstances, the analysis of instability becomes more important than finding a "fulcrum". This thesis is especially important for the mosaic history of the peoples of Europe. Communism and fascism are united not only by totalitarian practices but also by political "syntax", while liberalism in general is a different political language. Every event starts at the information level. Postmodernism leads to anti-intellectual pre-modern thinking. Semantic boundaries between categories are blurred; they are flexible, open to change and constant socio-economic transformation. The self-consciousness of the modern era was based on the achievements of economics and classical sociology, which promoted the values of a single universal progress for all mankind. Postmodern self-consciousness is based on the principles of cultural anthropology and ethnology, of sciences that emphasize the heterogeneity of the socio-cultural field of mankind. Historical semiotics works with stereotypes of perception of signs and symbols, decodes them and adapts them for scientific use