Abstract

In the first part of the article, the author describes the polymorphic phenomenon of return to the past, which occurs in various areas of culture, social and political, as well as private and family life. Then he points to several key interlocking causes of this phenomenon, such as: working through traumas, democratization of history and memory, compensation of high costs of modernization, uncertainty of the future, searching for an antidote to the progressing identity deficit, commodification of history/memory combined with the emotionalization of the attitude towards the past, decline of the idea of progress, disappearance of utopias and an increase of post-secular tendencies.