2013, No. 1 (4), On Representation

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Tomasz Falkowski
The Advantages and Disadvantages of Historical Representation

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Keywords: representation, historiography, fact, sign, historical truth

Abstract:
In my paper I point out both the advantages and disadvantages of thinking about historiography as "a historical representation". According to Ankersmit, historians always tend to represent the past in their texts. However, there are some historical works and even movements which would rather prefer to formulate and resolve a problem than create representations of the reality. I also analyse the consequences of Ankersmit’s propositions on historiography. In my opinion, "the logic of representation" involves this discipline in a crisis which is – as M.P. Markowski claims – permanent for the history of representation. Moreover, in such a situation historiography has to reach an impossible ideal: to make the past real in the present. On the other hand, a comparison made by Ankesmit between a painter and a historian, suggesting that the latter represents the reality in a similar way that the former renders his model, allows us to rethink the function of fact in the historical narration. In both cases a realistic element becomes a sign of "deeper" layers of represented reality. In consequence, it is possible to distinguish the "poetic truth" within the best historical works.

About Author:
FALKOWSKI TOMASZ – historian, Assistant Professor in the Institute of History, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.