Analysing Historical Narratives by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Published: 2021-05-14T23:00:00+00:00

(a) A Unifying Main Historical Subject

In historical narratives, the nation is typically established as the main historical subject, pre-existent to and ubiquitous throughout history. It is contradictorily ahistorical, not seen as determined by any context or changes across time but rather by an omnipresent character, immune to historical transformation; for instance, in the above-mentioned example of the Reconquest, Spain is supposed to have always existed. Thus, the nation as a historical subject is essentialist, imagined as if its territorial boundaries have existed from the dawn of time until the present. The historical subject is also homogeneous. The nation means the ‘people’, the different social groups, ethnicities and minorities integrated as one single body. We have found these characteristics in previous studies. Historical narratives from students of different ages in Spain, Argentina and Chile mainly show that the nation takes centre stage as the main historical subject. Its existence is taken for granted and is represented as a homogeneous body integrating ‘all’ its inhabitants – for example, Argentina as all the Argentineans – instead of considering a diverse range of social and political groups shaping the country’s identity.45

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