history-as-artifice & historical apocrypha

AMCrenshaw

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i'd been thinking about a process in which events in history enter into accepted-as-factual canons. and have questioned, who tells the story (placing this phrase in italics involves an acceptance of socialization via the education system) and what gets left out? the modernists make me wonder about peoples' inner lives.

filmmakers and painters and musicians make me wonder about non-narrative forms of history-creation.

for this thread, i'd be interested to read examples of alternate versions of history from the perspectives of the marginalized, and who perhaps suffer from inequitable circumstances. in other words, people whose stories are effectively excluded from the story and as such are not considered historically factual, and therefore easily dismissed as marginal.

the novels, passing and quicksand, by nella larsen would be great examples of historical works that represent specific identity formulations directly in conflict to the canon's expectations (of the representation of blacks, women and how either ought to be and behave).
 
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Maxx

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i'd been thinking about a process in which events in history enter into accepted-as-factual canons. and have questioned, who tells the story (placing this phrase in italics involves an acceptance of socialization via the education system) and what gets left out? the modernists make me wonder about peoples' inner lives.

filmmakers and painters and musicians make me wonder about non-narrative forms of history-creation.

for this thread, i'd be interested to read examples of alternate versions of history from the perspectives of the marginalized, and who perhaps suffer from inequitable circumstances. in other words, people whose stories are effectively excluded from the story and as such are not considered historically factual, and therefore easily dismissed as marginal.

the novels, passing and quicksand, by nella larsen would be great examples of historical works that represent specific identity formulations directly in conflict to the canon's expectations (of the representation of blacks, women and how either ought to be and behave).

Last spring I was digging into history in an amateur way -- just using Wikipedia and books on Amazon. Kind of a random selection. The question in the back of my mind was: What did the French Republican Army of the Sambre-et-Meuse look like when it moved to attack in the period when it was (briefly) invincible? Ie the last six months or so of 1794.
What gradually became clear was that this sudden interest of mine in the last half of 1794 was probably culturally driven -- a lot of new stuff was coming out and a lot of old stuff was being republished. Fashion Magazines for exactly that period were available online. Romance novels and video games were suddenly crawling all over that time frame. Was this an illusion? What was there that had passed from common view and now was coming back? Was it the simple question: What happens when the Terror ends?
And there's another side: who were the men who basically volunteered (though it was a levee en Mass -- really those who stayed with the Republican armies were doing it voluntarily more or less)? And how did they learn to win after years of defeat? (1792-early 1794). Why didn't they give up? Did the Terror propel them somehow until they were able to overwhelm their foes? Or was it just the final collapse of Poland?
Anyway, I think just about any bit of history can vanish into a culturally invisible realm and then somehow return.
 

ColoradoGuy

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I think one example of that phenomenon, certainly among the general public, is the history of the labor movement in the USA during the past 150 years. The general wisdom, among those ignorant of history, has somehow managed to make labor unions and related labor activism into a sinister thing. Labor agitation -- with some unavoidable violence, it's true -- transformed the class structure of our country in a good way. This forgetting of the past has unfortunate consequences today.
 

greendragon

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I'm not certain this is what you're looking for, but what about those cultures for whom we have little to no written history for, or only written by their conquerors? The Picts, the Celts, the Pre-Columbian Americans, The Etruscans, the Beaker People, etc.
 

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I'm not certain this is what you're looking for, but what about those cultures for whom we have little to no written history for, or only written by their conquerors? The Picts, the Celts, the Pre-Columbian Americans, The Etruscans, the Beaker People, etc.

We don't have written records by the Beaker peoples.

But we do have writing from Celts, from Etruscans, and from Pre-Columbian Americans (the Maya).
 

Maxx

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I'm not certain this is what you're looking for, but what about those cultures for whom we have little to no written history for, or only written by their conquerors? The Picts, the Celts, the Pre-Columbian Americans, The Etruscans, the Beaker People, etc.

I've been looking into the case where Cortez and company crush the power of the Mexica (aka the Aztecs) and then histories get written. This turns out to be a far from simple case for all kinds of reasons -- for example, Cortez reported on the events as they happened and we don't know how much of what happened was driven by his association with his main translator, guide and mistress moreover it appears that there is a coherent more or less "written" parallel set of narratives based on Texcoco and Tlaxcala (the open and also concealed enemies of the Mexica). The most recent big history of the Conquest (called Conquest)is mostly based on European sources and does no systematic evaluation of what the Texcoco/Tlaxcalan narratives might have to offer. So there are sources to use for a narrative not based on the narratives of the conquerors (at least if you discount the Texcoco/Tlaxcalans as conquerors), though of course it would be a more difficult undertaking -- though easier now that some of the materials for the Texcoco side of the story are being increasingly studied.