On December 9, at 6:30 p.m., an open lecture will be held at E-Center (31/4 Charents, 3rd floor) “The Discreet Charm of Presentism, or what philosophies of history of Carl Schmitt, Walter Benjamin, and Reinhart Koselleck tell us about intersections between politics and history”.
The lecture will be conducted by Sergey Koretko, associate researcher of the “STASIS” center of practical philosophy of the European University at St. Petersburg.
The lecture will be in Russian.

Today we live in the age of presentism. Politicians, bureaucrats, scholars, activists, and common people alike construe contemporary politics through historical lens. This approach to history is called presentism. According to the advocates of presentism, the past exists only in the present time. Therefore, there is little or no difference between politics and history, politics is historical, and history is political.

However, the alleged oneness of politics and history hides behind two fundamentally different theories. According to structuralist theories and a German conceptual historian Reinhart Koselleck, the past exists in the present as a solid, multilayered, and sedimented structure that unites the past experiences, meanings, conceptions, and institutions, and, therefore, it defines the contemporary world with the iron necessity. Politics is a continuation of history by other means.

The theory of multitemporality disagrees with this argument. According to this theory and its most important proponent, German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin, there are multiple temporalities that exist at the same time. However, the winners write the history, therefore, the temporalities and experiences of the oppressed are usually excluded and forgotten. Therefore, the past is a prize and a weapon in the political struggle between the oppressors and the oppressed. History is a continuation of politics by the same means.

However, both theories have something in common. In the end, according to Koselleck and Benjamin, we live in the eternal present, without any prospect of fundamental change. We are supposedly doomed either to follow the steps of past generations or to live with an unpredictable, ever-changing past that reflects the unstable political environs of today.
In order to stop this endless Groundhog Day, we have to carefully study the philosophy of history of Koselleck’s and Benjamin’s older colleague and mentor, Carl Schmitt. Schmitt developed the conception of historical and political eventuality, or what he called “the true Christian conception of history”. This notion gives us the answer on how to end either endless repetition or political instability and enter the unknown, novel future.