Lithuanian and Belarusian national narratives. G. B. Vico’s «retrospective»

Abstract

National narratives are subjective, one-sided and conflicting. This problem has been noticed among European thinkers since the 19th c. An Italian thinker G. B. Vico has no direct relation to the modern problem of national narratives or to Lithuanian or Belarusian historical interpretations. But he appeared to be one of the most influential thinkers of modern times who made an extraordinary impact on humanities of the 20th c. Vico formulated three stages of evolution of peoples: epoch of the Gods, period of heroes, and age of people. The same stages are essentially repeated in the structure of national narratives of the 20th and even of the 21st c. This is long-standing mental paradigms that have remained unchanged for hundreds of years. They can be traced in Belarusian and Lithuanian histories as well. Two national narratives have been engaged in many decades lasting conflict being unable to share heroes of the common past, especially of the 13–15th c., such as Mindaugas, Gediminas, Algirdas, and Vytautas. Vico concludes that subjectivity is unavoidable in the narrations composed by humans. Contradictory interpretations of the common past created by Belarusians and Lithuanians are more natural than the creation of one «perfectly true» vision of the past.