History, rewriting history, rethinking historicism

by Anna Krasteva

This article will not discuss the question of whether philosophers make history by phi­losophizing on history. It will examine the existential need of history - of a particular type of history - as formulated by intellectual discourse in the place and time which we desig­nate as "postcommunism". The focus is on the persistence in rewriting history. "Rewriting" history not in the historical but in the theoretical sense - as a reflection on the existing and introduction of new conceptual perspectives in whose prism history is understood, evalu­ated and valorized. Historicism is discussed in detail as the rnethodological framework within which history is consistently and often non-reflexively conceived. The analysis is premised on the assumption that social cognition is a non-homogeneous alloy of description and analysis, as well as of Utopian views, existential roots. Any theoriz­ing on social change includes "eschatology, not just epistemology".