THE PAST IN THE POLITICS: METHODOLOGY AND METHODS OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
This article addresses a subject that can in the broadest sense be stated as interplay of language and ideology in process of instantiating historical knowledge in texts of political significance. It is presumed that historical representations are not static; they are flexible and more than prone to distortion when values come into play. A clash of different political perspectives is a clash of different historical descriptions. And in this clash a power-wielding social agent has the power to reinterpret the history that will fit their political narrative with other interpretations outlawed and rendered unhistorical. The aim is to discuss how history is recontextualized in national political discourse in the framework of biased representation of historical facts andto see how national historical discourse is reinstantiated vis-а-vis a newly acquired national identity. The evidence for this contention is provided through linguistic analysis of a chunk of texts produced by those claiming to be professional historians. An example of such discourse would be texts by Ukrainian historians writing on Great Patriotic War/World War II. Second, texts of public figures, state leaders among them, instantiating post-Soviet geopolitical situation in the Caucasus, in particular, tension between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorny Karabakh were looked into. Linguistic analysis is neither meant to substitute historical analysis, nor claims that all historical permutations are of discursive nature solely. Instead, we see the role of discourse analysis in placing a broader question: To what extent that which has really happened is displaced by its recontextualization in discourse, i.e. by its description?