Quando Hayden White encontra Sebald: Austerlitz entre o fardo da história e o passado prático | When Hayden White meets Sebald: Austerlitz between the burden of history and the practical past

O objetivo deste ensaio é promover um encontro entre as ideias sobre a história de Hayden White e os caminhos históricos e traumáticos traçados por Sebald em Austerlitz. Neste sentido, partimos do pressuposto de que o personagem homônimo ao título do livro do escritor alemão funciona como um pêndulo entre o fardo da história e o passado prático, não coincidentemente, dois dos principais textos do historiador norte-americano. Para que possamos chegar minimamente a esse objetivo, abordaremos Austerlitz enquanto uma saga em busca de uma estética da representação do passado e de uma ética do conhecimento histórico, colocando como pano de fundo central em nosso texto os debates teóricos e metodológicos oferecidos pela obra de White.Palavras-chave: Hayden White. Sebald. Austerlitz. Fardo da história. Passado Prático AbstractThe purpose of this essay is to promote a meeting between the ideas about Hayden White's history and the historical and traumatic paths traced by Sebald in Austerlitz. In this sense, we assume that the homonymous character to the title of the German writer's book works as a pendulum between the burden of history and the practical past, not coincidentally, two of the main texts of the American historian. So that we can minimally reach this goal, we will approach Austerlitz as a saga in search of an aesthetics of the representation of the past and an ethics of historical knowledge, placing as a central backdrop in our text the theoretical and methodological debates offered by White's work.Keywords: Hayden White. Sebald. Austerlitz. Burden of History. Pratical Past.

Detecting Post-Nuclear Crisis in Hanna Jameson’s The Last

Hanna Jameson’s post-apocalyptic detective novel, The Last (2019), addresses contemporary issues that affect us on both a collective and an individual level. The author diagnoses the denial of nuclearism and calls for an awareness of the nuclear age combined with the looming threat of climate change. The novel negotiates alternative strategies for the treatment of crisis brought about by the nuclear attack and borrows many of the thematic and structural elements from twentieth-century nuclear fictions in which the apocalypse is not necessarily regarded in negative terms but as a chance for regeneration. The events of the post-nuclear months in a Swiss hotel are narrated by an American historian whose written account serves several goals. It gives the illusion of delaying crisis, but it also reveals his fears and traumas conjured up by radioactive spectres. There are two different types of narratives at work, the narrative of the crisis and that of the investigation. The narrator-protagonist becomes obsessed with finding the solution to a murder mystery, which in a metaphorical sense is to give a soothing answer to the death of millions. However, this attempt keeps failing, and thus the narrative of the crisis devours all kinds of rational initiatives to resolve chaos. In order to elaborate on the psychological impact of the post-nuclear crisis in subject construction, I do not only examine the character of the amateur detective of the whodunit whose intervention aims to restore order, but I also apply Gabriele Schwab’s concepts of post-nuclear subjectivity and nuclear hauntology.

Getting the Historia Written

This is the first of two chapters dealing with Alamán’s work as a historian, almost entirely devoted to a discussion of his Historia de Méjico (1849-1852), his monumental five-volume history of the Mexican independence struggle, bookended by parts of volumes one and five, respectively, with penetrating and controversial accounts of the colonial period and the political history of the early republic. The chapter pays some slight attention to the work that preceded this, his Disertaciones sobre la historia de la República Mejicana, which dealt with the colonial era. His interesting epistolary relationship with the American historian W. H. Prescott is described at length, as well as his sources and working methods for the history of the independence struggle. A close analysis of his library is also offered.

THE PROBLEM OF CLASS IDENTITY OF THE FRENCH BOURGEOISE IN THE WORKS OF THE AMERICAN HISTORIAN S. MAZA

The article examines a modern episode from the history of the revision of the image of the French bourgeoisie in English-language historiography. The author shows that at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries, the American historian Sarah Maza raised the problem of the identity of this class in the period from 1750 to 1850 and put forward a hypothesis for reflection about its non-existence in the social imaginary. The study traces how the historian comes to the formulation of this question, reveals the essence of S. Maza's socio-cultural approach, demonstrates the assessment of her views from the scientific community.

Devolution processes and the theory of historical development by S. Sanderson

Analyzed is one of the most comprehensive modern approaches to the problem of the existence of evolution of human society as such and of specific human communities, i.e. “General Theory of Historical Development” by American historian and sociologist Stephen Sanderson. While agreeing, in general, with its main ideas, we believe that it is important to note that the issue of existence of individual communities demonstrating devolution (regression to an earlier historical state), stagnation or degeneration at certain historical stages is practically ignored in the framework of the theory under consideration. This creates its vulnerability in the face of specific empirical data, indicating a deviation from the evolutionary trend. We believe that overcoming this theoretical difficulty is possible in the process of comprehending the theory of S. Sanderson in the context of ideas of the world-system approach of Immanuel Wallerstein. We want to show that examples of devolution, stagnation and degeneration of societies do not deny general progressive evolutionary tendencies, characteristic for the world-system as a whole, but only indicate the transition of a particular society to a lower level within the world-system (from the core to the semi-periphery, or from the semi-periphery to the periphery).

А Review of Robert Kindler, Stalinskie kochevniki: vlast i golod v Kazakhstane [Stalin’s Nomads: Power and Famine in Kazakhstan]. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2017, 382 pp. Transl. from Robert Kindler, Stalins Nomaden: Herrschaft und Hunger in Kasachstan. Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2014, 381 SS. (Studien zur Gewaltgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts); F. L. Sinitsyn, Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i kochevniki: istoriya, politika, naselenie, 1917–1991 [SovietState and Nomads: History, Politics, Population, 1917–1991]. Moscow: Tsentrpoligraf, 2019, 317 pp. (Noveyshie issledovaniya po istorii Rossii [The Latest Research on Russian History], no. 19); Sarah Cameron, Golodnaya step: golod, nasilie i sozdanie Sovetskogo Kazakhstana. Moscow: NLO, 2020, 360 pp. Transl. from Sarah Cameron, The Hungry Steppe: Famine, Violence, and the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan. Ithaca; London: CornellUniversity Press, 2018, 294 pp.

The review examines three new monographs that focus on the sedentarization and collectivization of nomad Kazakhs at the turn of the 1930s. The American historian Sarah Cameron, the German historian Robert Kindler, and the Russian historian Fyodor Sinitsyn describe the main specifics of nomadism in the steppes of Central Asia, study the premises of the Soviet policy aimed at its liquidation, and elaborate on the consequences of that policy, including armed resistance, mass hunger, and mass flight. All three authors conclude that this policy was implemented most radically, involved active violence, and was attended by huge economic and human losses. However, the scholars refuse to classify those losses as ethnic genocide. The review discusses the structure, key arguments, and conclusions of the monographs. It also provides a comparative analysis of varying descriptions and explanations of the tragedy in Kazakhstan, particularly focusing on who was primarily responsible for the events, the role of the ideology and pragmatic objectives in the policy of sedentarization and collectivization, and the link between that policy and Soviet nation-building.

EMPIRE, NATION AND THE CONCEPT OF MODERN STATE (REFLECTIONS ON THE BOOK "EMPIRE AND BELONGING IN THE EURASIAN BORDERLANDS")

The article, based on the materials of the conference in honor of the American historian-russianist Ronald Suny, examines the key methodological issues of Russian imperial history in the West. The author analyzes such problems as the relationship between empire and nation state, the history of concept of «national minorities», ethnopolitics in the Russian empire and the USSR.

‘HUMBOLDTIAN SCIENCE’ AND BEYOND. THE HUMBOLDTIAN WAY OF SEEING AND KNOWING IN VIENNA AND IN FRANZ UNGER’S AND FRIEDRICH SIMONY’S EARTH SCIENCES

ABSTRACT This contribution builds on the notion of ‘Humboldtian Science’, coined by the American historian of science Susan F. Cannon who, in her book Science in Culture: The Early Victorian Period (1978), identifed a constellation of practices, strategies and ideas as typical of the research style of British naturalists during the nineteenth century. Cannon’s explanatory model has been widely accepted and for many different reasons. It became attractive as it seemed to break the deadlock of the ambivalence between idealism and empiricism, leading beyond the narrow perspective of academic disciplines. At the same time, it focused on practices and has become a useful tool to analyze the seemingly everyday activities of naturalists in the field. This contribution discusses the potential of this concept at different levels and will also show its limits; insofar as it runs the risk of idealizing Humboldt as an already epigonal figure. It will also analyze Humboldt’s connections to Vienna and his influences on natural sciences by focusing on two examples from the earth sciences, the contributions of the palaeontologist and biologist Franz Unger and the geologist and geographer Friedrich Simony. In so doing, it will widen understanding of the impact of Humboldt’s work in Vienna, detecting not only ‘Humboldtian Science’ but also the Humboldtian way of seeing and knowing where it is not expected: in Unger’s Atlantis theory, his visualization of origins of cultivated plants, and his visualization of deep time, as well as Friedrich Simony’s concept of scientific landscape drawings.

Novels Speak Reality: Ivanhoe, An Example

Stories have been the source of moral lessons and entertainment, as far as the humankind of all the time, is concerned. The use of story- telling existed from the time immemorial. Stories appeared in the form of ballads and epics, in the ancient time, but later it took the shape of short and long fictions. The long fictions or novels varied in its theme and size. They are divided into many genres according to its subject matter- Gothic, Picaresque, Historical etc. The Ballad is nothing but a short story in verse. Its subjects are simple and memorable like adventure, love, war and the life etc. An Epic is a long tale in verse with famous heroes for its main characters. Iliad and Odyssey are examples. These stories gave the reader enjoyment and certain life-related ‘tips’. Hayden White, an American historian says, “the aim of the writer of a novel must be the same as that of the writer of the history”. Historians and Novelists wish to provide a verbal image of ‘reality’. A novelist may produce reality indirectly but this is meant to correspond to some sphere of human experience. He desires to pass the merits and demerits of such experience onto the readers, to enhance a better vision of life. Novelists are free to use fictitious characters and situations for the readers’ entertainment. Stories took its present prose form later in the middle ages. Decameron, a collection of stories by Boccaccio, was published in 1350. It deals with stories told by a group of people affected by Black Plague. They used these stories to get mental relief from the pandemic. ‘Canterbury Tales’ of Geoffrey Chaucer also, is telling the life-related stories by some pilgrims to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury. All these show that men were, from the early ages itself, used to tell stories to recollect the past and go forward with lessons of reality for a better life. Actually these stories are ‘historical facts’ blended with the imagination of the writers.