IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY IN THE RUINS OF THE PROJECT OF OFF-MODERNITY

Abstract

Along with innumerable attempts to define the paradigmatic changes at the turn of the 20th /21st centuries, it is worth considering the concept off-modernity, proposed by the culture researcher Svetlana Boym who mentions the essential signs of the age: nostalgia, a search for identity in the ruins of modernity and understanding of the footprints left by the influence of time and various contingencies. The concept of off- modernity allows us to pay attention to such phenomena as the so-called identity of error, nostalgia, ruins or migrant. The paper explores the possibilities of the formation of these identity modes in Western European cultural space at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of 21st century. The paper also deals with the case of Latvia in the context of the formation of post-Soviet identity. By making use of the view point of the theory of off-modernity proposed by Boym, the paper evaluates the models of interpretation of past experience for the purposes of self-definition today with an aim to create a framework for analysis of various actual social-political and cultural conflicts in the Western world.