Some aspects of the problem of the historical cognition subject in postmodernism

The article deals with the changing perceptions of the historical cognition subject in Postmodernism. The present changes are connected with the reconsideration of the grounds of historical science,which has led to the transformation in the field of humanities and even non-scientific knowledge. This has also caused the doubt in the existence of historical reality and the appeals for excluding it from scientific circulation. In this situation, the revision of the historical cognition subject has become inevitable. In Postmodernism, text appears to be the only cogitable reality and the subject does not precede the text, but emerges with the text taking the whole of its space. In the field of historical cognition, the subject becomes the creator and the designer of historical reality: «the prisoner of the past» turns into its sovereign. On the one hand, this concept entails the approach and even the confluence of the cognition subject and the history subject. On the other hand, the subject becomes dependent on its time, i.e. on the present and its instances. «New» non-freedom is expressed in the subject's loss of oneness, separateness, constancy and awareness. The role and the content of the subject are reconsidered, and modernistic concepts of the «author», «read-er», «interpreter» are replaced by the more appropriate ones according to the new understanding. The article considers the differences between the subject-scripter and the subject-narrator, «the hero» and «the narrator», «the agent» and «the patient». The author of the article shows another aspect of the problem of historical cognition stating that a historian should combine qualities both of a scientist and of a literary critic.