Historical consciousness of society as an element of political culture

The article is devoted to the methodological issues of the study of historical consciousness in the context of understanding its place and role in political governance and choice of state development path. The author's approach to the analysis of historical consciousness as a structural element of political culture is proposed, which allows to consider society's attitudes to its historical past as a stable system of orientations, determined by the cultural foundations and political traditions of a particular state. The study draws a clear distinction between the images of the past, stored in the cultural genetics of the people, and the processes of reconstructing history and professional formation of ideas about the historical past among citizens. Based on the existence of various forms of collective social memory, which includes layers of the recent and distant past, emphasis is placed on the need to identify the corresponding levels of historical consciousness that have different degrees of cultural determination. It is proved that the historical foundations of the political culture of society perform a regulatory and restrictive function regarding the possibilities of using political mythmaking in the field of political governance.