Malyshev Mikhail
Abstract: The author analyses the virtual discourse in the pluperfect. “We could have” is the recognition of irreversibility of time and simultaneously is the intent to see the past and its lost possibilities from the height of the present. The present never becomes what it was in the past, but the pluperfect never retracts from its claims to give lessons to the present about what could have happened, if the event would have been succeed in a different way. The author points out that if there were no difference between what we do and what we could do a lot of our emotions would disappear, such as shame, fault, remorse and grief. In the study of history it is also important to pay attention not only to what has been succeeded, but also to what could have been succeeded in the given period. This vision gives historian the possibility to analyze the past as the interaction of different social groups and struggle between them, which according to plans and projects in their
past (which was the present for them), try to embody in the future what they considered to be more convenient, optimal and just.
Keywords: Pluperfect, virtual discourse, destiny, possibility, fault, history.