Methodological and Substantive Remarks on Myth, Memory and History in the Construction of a European Community

Abstract

Over the last decades, a shift has occurred in the methodology of academic historiography, from an earlier focus on the quality of the sources towards the narrative framework of the history. The point in the new approach is that the sources are interpreted and put together into a narration. In the earlier approach, there was a kind of myopic source criticism, which stopped at the sources and never really questioned the way in which they were put together into a narration. The way in which this composition is made is as biased as the sources on which the narration is based. For this reason, critical scrutiny must move one step forward, instead of halting at the sources. The path-breaking Metahistory by Hayden White in 1973 demonstrated, in a provocative way, the bias in narrative structures. He moved the focus from the sources as such, towards the manner in which they were employed. When the book was published, it was generally rejected and marginalized by the historians’ craft. Today, it is no exaggeration to say that, even if it is not generally recognized, at least it is widely accepted. Metahistory alluded, of course, to metaphysics. White's conclusion was that history is basically ideology. History is not the past per se, nor, as Ranke argued, is it wie es eigentlich gewesen, but a reflection on the past from the present. This methodological shift does not deny the continued importance of a critical approach to the sources and does not reject the existence of events and facts. Methodological rules of how to evaluate sources critically are still valid. The events and the facts based on the events can be documented. No serious historian founding his or her work on sources would deny the fact that, for instance, the Holocaust really did occur.

Negotiating Cultural Rights

“…We will never grasp the past as it was: we make 'a translation of the past into our time, an act of interpretation.' 65 Emphasis on the subjectivity of historical research, however, should not be collapsed into a relativist position. Not all interpretations of the past have equal value: some are simply wrong, or invented.…”

Europe's odyssey?: political myth and the European Union

“…Whether or not political myths resonate with citizens is also partly determined by whether they are in a narrative form that is recognisable and understandable (Bottici and Challand : 4). Narratives assemble actors, actions and events in a way that makes their unfolding comprehensible and gives them meaning (Strath : 256–7). Their success depends, in part, on the extent to which those who hear or read the stories recognise how they have been arranged (Ricoeur ).…”

The Meaning and Use of “Europe” in Swedish History Textbooks, 1910–2008

“…Several scholars have identified a mythology of Europe in the wake of European political and economic integration (Stråth, 2000;Stråth, 2005;Larat, 2005, Axelsson, 2009, Challand, 2009. This is, of course, the same kind of "creation" that the "imagined community" of the nations could be argued to be built upon (Anderson, 1983).…”