Historiografska misao dana – Stefan Berger: “History and national identity: why they should remain divorced”
S obzirom da se u hrvatskoj historiografiji, nastavi povijesti i kulturi kontinuirano pridaje povjesničarima, povijesti i kulturi gotovo samorazumljiva uloga oblikovanja nacionalnog identiteta, nastavljamo ukazivati na povjesničare, članke i knjige koji na to gledaju bitno drugačije.
Stefan Berger
History and national identity: why they should remain divorced
2007
Executive Summary
- National history has long played a prominent role in the forging of national identities.
- This historiographic nationalism has contributed to xenophobia, exclusion, discrimination, violence, war and genocide.
- There is no neat distinction between a benign, civic, liberal nationalism and a malign, ethnic, authoritarian nationalism as far as the potential for exclusion and violence is concerned.
- Powerful challenges to traditional historiographic nationalism have come from a number of sources since the 1980s: comparative and transnational history, the ‘constructivist turn’ in nationalism studies, historical anthropology, women’s and gender history, and global history.
- However just as scholarly historians have been moving away from their traditional role as nation-builders, more popular historians have been stepping into their shoes, particularly visible in recent developments in TV history.
- This indicates that the nationalist historical paradigm, with all its attendant dangers, is far from exhausted in contemporary Europe.
- Politicians should be very wary of encouraging this: in particular Gordon Brown’s concern with Britishness is therefore a misguided policy initiative.
- The real task facing politicians and historians today is to build alternative participatory solidarities to those of national identities and national histories.