Арсен Аветисов – Political Narratology. How Stories Shape Power and Compliance (страница 8)

The myth of origin answers the question: ‘Who were we at the moment of our birth – victims, victors, the chosen, survivors, pioneers, martyrs, liberators?’

This image scarcely changes, even if details are adjusted, because it sets the emotional tone for all subsequent history.

Great Victories and Great Traumas

The national narrative is built around two types of events: victories and traumas. Victories provide a sense of dignity, exceptionalism, and strength. Traumas provide a sense of justified suffering, suspicion, and the moral superiority of the victim.

Interestingly, societies often cling to their traumas as firmly as to their victories. Trauma more readily explains fears and mobilises loyalty.

History as a Moral Map

National history is always moralised; it clearly assigns roles: who was right, who was guilty, who betrayed, who saved, who suffered needlessly, and whose sacrifice was ‘necessary’.

This forms a moral map of the world by which society orients itself in the present. Political conflicts may appear to be disputes about the future, but at their core, they are all about the past and its meaning.

Characters of the National Narrative

History demands heroes, and real people are transformed into archetypes: the founder, the liberator, the martyr, the reformer, the tyrant, the traitor. Their human complexity vanishes; only their function remains.

The simpler the character, the more stable the narrative; the more complex, the greater the threat to the story’s integrity.

This is why the reassessment of historical figures always provokes a painful reaction: it shatters the familiar dramaturgy.

Textbooks as Scripts

A school history textbook is a script for national identity. It teaches not so much facts, events, and dates, but intonation: what to be proud of, what to sympathise with, what to consider shameful, what to mention in passing, and what to repeat constantly.

This is why debates over school curricula are always political. The issue is not the past, but what kind of citizens are being formed for the present and future.

Monuments and Dates as Narrative Anchors

A monument is often an art object. But in politics, it is a materialised fixation of an interpretation. A date is not a calendar mark; it forms the rhythm of memory.

Through monuments and dates, society continually reproduces its narrative in space and time. They sustain the story, preventing it from disappearing.

The demolition of a monument or the abolition of a date is perceived as an assault not on stone or a calendar, but on identity itself.

Competing Versions of the Past

There is no single national history. Usually, several versions of it coexist within a society: official, alternative, traumatic, marginal, regional, or familial.

As long as they can coexist, the society remains alive. When one version is declared the only permissible one, a hard politics of memory begins, and history turns into a battlefield.

Why the Past Cannot Be Left in Peace

It is often said, ‘Why dredge up the past? We must look to the future.’ This is astonishingly naïve. The past does not lie somewhere behind us; it is embedded in language, institutions, fears, and expectations.

An unprocessed past returns in the form of symptoms: aggression, suspicion, recurring conflicts.

The Manipulation of History Without Falsification

Contemporary politics rarely distorts facts crudely; it is far more effective to change the emphasis.

Amplify some episodes, reduce others to footnotes, add emotional valuation. The history remains ‘the same’, but functions differently.

History and the Image of the Future

The national narrative always looks not only backwards but also forwards. The past is used as proof that the future is either possible or dangerous. ‘We have been through this before’ is a powerful argument against change. ‘We have always risen again’ is an argument for endurance.

Without an image of the future, history loses its mobilising force and turns into a pantheon.

The Danger of a Static Narrative

The most dangerous form of national history is a static one: when the past is declared complete and interpreted once and for all, and any new reading is perceived as a threat.

At this moment, history ceases to be a dialogue and becomes dogma. And dogma, too, always demands protection.

Why It Is Important to Understand the National Narrative

Political narratology does not offer a ‘correct history’. It proposes seeing how history is constructed; understanding where fact ends and narrative begins, where memory turns into a tool, and where pride leads to blindness.

A person cannot live without history. But they can choose how consciously they participate in it. We will return to a more detailed study of national history’s influence on mass behaviour in Part Three.

Our next step now is to understand how history functions not only in the past but in time itself.

Chapter 9. Time in Political Narrative

Domination exists insofar as it is believed.

Political Time Does Not Coincide with the Calendar

In the common understanding, time is a linear sequence: the past has gone, the present is happening, the future has not yet arrived. In politics, this is not the case.

Political time is not chronology but a construct. It stretches, compresses, loops, accelerates, or freezes depending on which narrative is currently required.

Politics does not manage events in time; it manages the experience of time.

The Past as a Resource

In a political narrative, the past is not ‘what happened’ but ‘what it means’. The same historical events can serve as a source of pride, a justification for fear, proof of greatness, an argument against change, a warning, or a promise.

The past is always used selectively: some fragments are brought into the light, others remain in shadow, and others are simply rewritten.

What matters is not what happened but what function it serves today.

The Present as a Point of Pressure

The present is the most vulnerable part of a narrative because this is precisely where people live. And it is here that they feel fatigue, anxiety, lack, and irritation. A crucial, constant function of the political narrative is to explain the present.

If the present is difficult and heavy, it is called transitional; if it is unjust, it is called necessary. If it is anxious, it is temporary; if it is a failure, it is the result of others’ mistakes.

The present is never described as final; it is a ‘bridge’ to another story.

The Future as the Primary Object of Politics

Politics does not govern the present directly; it governs through the image of the future.

The future can be a promise, a threat, a catastrophe, a rebirth, stability, a leap, a surge, or simply ‘so it doesn’t get worse’.

Even the rejection of a future is also an image of the future: the future as a repetition of the present. People are willing to endure much if they believe it is leading them somewhere.

The Temporal Asymmetry of Narrative

Political narrative is asymmetric in time. The past is depicted as saturated with meaning, the present as tense, and the future as redemptive or threatening. This creates both direction and movement.

Without this dynamism, the narrative freezes and ceases to mobilise.

The Politics of Acceleration

One of the most dangerous techniques is the acceleration of time. When people are told that ‘there is no time’, ‘decisions must be made urgently’, ‘the window of opportunity is closing’, or ‘now or never’, then reflection is disabled. Accelerated time leaves no room for doubt. Doubt appears as sabotage because any question becomes a threat to momentum.

The Politics of Deceleration

The opposite technique is deceleration. Power speaks of complexity, the need for caution, the danger of sudden steps, historical responsibility, and the prospects of a long road. Time is stretched.

Deceleration lowers expectations, dampens momentum, and transforms the energy of protest into patience. But this only works as long as people believe that movement still exists.

Cyclical Time