❤️Download for free: Ehrlich Serguey Memory, Identity, and Imagination. The Structure of Behaviour from the Perspective of Memory Studies. Discussion: Sergei Beliakov, Stefan Berger, Evgeny Blinov, Marianne Hirsch, Ludmila Isurin, Natalija Majsova, Milica Popović, Ann Rigney, Henry L. Roediger III and Olivia L. Jäggi, Marie-Laure Ryan, James V. Wertsch, and Tyler Wertsch. — Chișinău: The Historical Expertise, 2026. 248 p. 978-3-68959-774-0 ISIA Media Verlag https://www.istorex.org/post/serguey-ehrlich-memory-identity-and-imagination
In pre-state hunter-gatherer society people were guided by the fairy tale (myth of prize acquisition). Walter Burkert’s study (1996: 58–63) helps to illuminate this phenomenon by comparing seemingly incompatible entities: when a rat crawls out of its hole in search of the prey, it precisely replicates the successive steps of the fairy tale. One could say that the fairy tale neatly corresponds to the behavioral pattern of a small predator, which must hide its prey from larger predators—so returning home with a heavy load is always a dangerous adventure. This is the oldest narrative of humankind.
Such a narrative favors a limited form of identity, solidarity, and altruism, which can unite only small groups (kin, clan, tribe, and so on). In modern society the fairy tale continues to unite families and gangs. From this perspective, it is not surprising that the mafia means ‘family.’
‘Communicative (social) memory’ (Jan Assmann) based on the fairy tale narrative is quite shallow. People with strong kinship ties can ‘trace their patrilineal ancestors back seven to ten generations’ (Ismailbekova 2014: 377), which rarely extends further than 200 years. This kind of identity, which recognizes only family or gang members as ‘our own,’ fosters an ethics of egoism toward outsiders, as it is rooted in materialist values of survival (Inglehart, 2018).
The imagination within the fairy tale narrative does not differ significantly from ancestral memory—the recollection of how to catch the prize and return home safely. In such circumstances, innovation is not typically the result of purposeful behavior inspired by imagination, but rather of chance discovery. This is an important reason for the slow technological change in traditional societies. Thus, the future of hunter-gatherers is a perpetual Groundhog Day—a myth of eternal return to a lost Golden Age. The path of the fairy tale society is not a straight line toward the future, but a closed circle.
