IN THE FORMER USSR - ON THE PROBLEMS OF HISTORY-WRITING

During the perestroika era proper, historical facts have been reconquered and repossessed, but not history itself. The survival of the "Soviet " paradox, a pairing of Clio's silence with the loquaciousness of fiction in speaking history, is a witness to this phenomenon. The present article aims at inquiring after a few of the grounds which render the "historical operation " impossible as long as it is (still) viewed in a traditional fashion (chronological narratives aiming at the recovery of the "Truth", "what actually happened"). Some of these causes are evident, especially those related to the concepts of temporality and historical subject. But it remains hard to distinguish what can be attributed to the present crisis given the current political process, which historiographical identity, or to a "historiographical crisis" encompassing much more than the former USSR.