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Recurrent History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Jan Dhondt

Extract

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For the last two or three years my students have been asking me to explain the concept of historical law. I know for a fact that they have discussed this topic among themselves. This curiosity does not necessarily emanate from the Marxist group, where it would find a fairly natural place. And I am wondering whether I am witnesssing—from afar—a phenomenon of ideological maturation such as we experienced as a result of the second world war. At that time, with my studies ended, I had left a university at which the conception of the objective of history was (for the students) strictly orthodox (history as a study of fact in its unique aspect). In 1945 I came across a university in which the vast majority of the students were impregnated with the spirit of “Annales.” I never really knew how this had come about. It certainly was not due to the teachers—they were, and had remained, the same. At that time there was no such thing as an “assistant.” But it must be admitted that the students were, to some extent, inhaling the mood of the moment. Today, in this mood of the moment, we are faced with a host of questions about the concepts of recurrence and historical law.

One can only situate and appreciate the importance of this situation with any accuracy by considering the recent evolution of historical thinking.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 19 , Issue 75 , September 1971 , pp. 24 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © 1971 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1 Since I started this essay, a few weeks ago, and because my attention was particularly drawn in this direction, I had no difficulty in compiling a list of examples of recourse to the "lessons of history," sometimes in readers' letters to newspapers, sometimes in the memoirs of diplomats, or propaganda pamphlets. It is clear that one conceives the "lessons of history" on two different planes. The most frequent case is the reference to a particular event. Thus the Minister of Defence of my own country has just published (April 1971) a pamphlet justifying the present military policy of Belgium by the "lessons of 1914 and 1940." Similarly, I have found in the diary of Maurice Paléologue, the French ambassador to Russia at the time of the revolution of 1917, constant comparisons with the French Revolution. The other conception of the lessons of history is of course the reminder of a constant in man's behaviour.

2 Except in one category: military historians. Not enough emphasis is given to the degree to which military history always plays a determining part with regard to those who study strategy and tactics (and whose conclusions consequently have a considerable impact on the basic decisions relating to the existence of their own country). This again is a paradox, but one which is quite likely to attribute to the "lessons of history" an exceptional validity.

3 Everyone knows that the African States, where possible, take on the name of a former African state. We also know recent Chinese historiography successfully—in my view—emphasises the incidence of revolutionary recurrence in the Chinese past. Of course, China is not a new country, but it is a country which, by revolutionising its social and political situation, must normally speaking be moved to underline the revolutionary aspects of its past so as to oppose the force of tradition—which acts against the regime—with the force of revolutionary legitimacy with its roots wedged deeply in the past.

4 Including provincial nationalism. I am thinking here of the whole re-emergence of southern nationalism which broke out in France at the time of the 7th centenary of the suppression of the Albigeois.

5 Which is partly explained by the exaltation of racism of not so long ago and by the awakening of an unsteady and hesitant feeling of belonging to Europe.

6 Cf. J. Dhondt "Henri Pirenne, historien des institutions urbaines ", Annali della Fondazione italiana per la storia amministrativa, vol. 3, 1966, pp. 81-129.

7 L'histoire et ses méthodes, 1961, p. 1477.

8 It would be dishonest to pass over an aspect which is in some senses ideolo gical : it is quite clear that a more or less wholehearted and conscious approval of historical materialism lies at the basis of the historical conceptions of the dominant generation around the turn of this century. There is no point in repeating that this historical materialism constituted the basis of the ideology of the parties who took or tried to take power after 1917. We know that the way in which the Soviets took power in Russia provoked a violent anti-soviet feeling in Western and Central Europe. One cannot really believe that the way in which western historians—normally bourgeois in origin—abandoned the conceptions which ruled them before 1914, had absolutely nothing to do with the harshly underlined ideological coloration of historical materialism.

9 This is how Gordon H. McNeill (Essays in Modern European Histo riography) Chicago, 1970, pp. 368-9) describes Seignobos' method: "…he avoided favoring any particular theory in causation, and when he wrote history he either gave the simplest and most immediate cause for an event, or more often than not, left it unexplained. All of which is in the best tradition of recent historiography."

10 And which remained as reference works for a whole generation of historians. Namely, L'Histoire du monde in twelve volumes (Cavaignac), L'Histoire Générale (Glotz), and the series Peuples et Civilisations (Halphen & Sagnac).

11 Annales, 1957, p. 4.

12 It is easy to reveal among the recent works of these historians what one might call a salute to the most recent conceptions.

13 Not long ago I had proof of this: the Minister of Education in Belgium is trying to suppress the teaching of history at the secondary level. This has provoked various reactions, different people, chosen at random, have been interviewed on the radio. It is surprising to see how all of them—if I am not mistaken—deplored the disappearance of history.

14 Paul Veyne, Comment on écrit l'histoire, 1971.

15 J. Dhondt, "Une mentalité du 12e siècle: Galbert de Bruges," Revue du Nord, 1957, pp. 101-109.

16 An example: I have been in a position to understand how the reports made by every lower-ranking commander of a unit in the army on every successive hierarchical level enable one to reconstruct with extraordinary detail the whole range of behavioural patterns in a battle—when these docu ments are preserved, of course.

17 Until very recently, the history of working-class movements was presented almost exclusively as a history of ideology on the one hand, or a history of the management structure. It is pointless to say that the basic militant only has a very rudimentary knowledge of ideology, and that the instructions given to basic militants by the management are applied, in accordance with concrete contexts, in a form in which very little remains of the original intentions. Thus the working-class movement is only comprehensible when studied with this basic militant as the point of departure. This is what people seem to have begun to realise (spasmodically) at the conference in Paris in 1964 about the first international (La Première Internationale, Paris 1964, Paris 1968, pp. 495 ff.).

18 Change itself is a concept which historians omit to study; they appear content to illustrate the point of departure and the final result. In reality, change in patterns of behaviour comes about with almost imperceptible shifts of course; these must be followed in order to reconstruct the real image. A technique for this has to be developed.

19 Such slight consideration is given to the long period of time taken by social transformation—for example, capitalism. The time involved always runs into decades, often more, and one need hardly remark that the evolution is not a linear one. Nothing is more irritating than seeing the existence of a long process of development contradicted because of a temporary change of direction in the curve. This, however, is how politicians and those engaged in politicology often reason.