Istorinis Vaizdijimas: Išmoné Ar Tikrové?
Historical Imagination: A Fiction or a Reality?

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with historical imagination on the base of a phenomenological approach. According to the author, historical imagination is inseparable from belonging to a certain historical community, which is becoming while an individual is creating an existential plan. An individual plan of life that includes the imagination both of past and of future is a factor of a historical community’s becoming. According to the author, an individual influences the nation’s becoming only by being its historical participant. Herewith historical imagination is a component of identity component for both an individual, who creates his existential project, and for a nation, which is under the influence of the individual life’s history. There historicity is analyzed to be 1) the maturation of a community and an individual inside it towards death, 2) the community’s imagination connecting the different generations, 3) the formatting of an individual, which is visible in the perspective of the community, 4) an event of the individual thought, which ends a stage of the community’s formatting. The author shows that an individual and community imagine each other in their passive and active roles. The author uses examples from the Great Duchy of Lithuania and states that this historical community with its phonemic variety is a factor of imagined European community’s becoming. According to the author, the fight for European identity follows the fight for Europe's borders (limes), where Europe has been confronted with other political structures.

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