“…Our picture has been pre selected and predetermined for us, not so much by accident as by people who were consciously or unconsciously imbued with a particular view and thought the facts which supported that view worth preserving.”
This passage urges me to revisit my high school history text, and source the origins of the information laid out. Giving myself an idea of the identity of the historian behind the content and further what his influences were during his period. My objective would be to expose any sort of concoctions that took place in the creation and selection of the historical narrative.
It is known that history has largely been written by a minority- those few persons who were privileged with education and had the luxury of being flies-on-the-wall, simply observing human and community behavior over time. But the kind of narratives passed down by them as historical documents (having found their way into school textbooks) had been written with varied intentions and interests.
Many chroniclers (and foreign travelers) are known to have made private inferences in their ‘travelogues’ documenting their observations as relevant historical truth. Example, Domingo Paes (16th cent.) was a Portuguese traveler who visited the Vijayanagara Empire (South Indian Empire based in the Deccan plateau-1336-1646) around the year 1520. His account of Hampi, the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire is of the most detailed of all historic narrations on this ancient city. Similarly, Fernao Nuniz was a Portuguese traveler, chronicler and horse trader who spent three years in Vijayanagar, in the time period 1535 - 1537 CE. Much information about the rule of the king Krishna Deva Raya, his reign and the kingdom itself comes from the accounts of these Portuguese travelers. Now the interests of these travelers are either of a personal kind or of an obligation as explorers for their country. The makers of history could thus be of Portugal origin (in this case) or of Indian origin depending where the travelogues were found. This could explain if our picture has been pre-selected or not.
Alternatively, as mentioned by Carr, our understanding of a dynasty could be shaped by the conscious decision of an Emperor/Ruler to coat his image using the talents of his faithful subjects- artists, poets, writers, etc. This phenomenon has been noticed in Mughal Dynasty.
Referring back to the passage, my questions take a contemporary tangent. Are there present day (2010) historians who select and determine a picture they would like to portray of the present, for our future? Are there individuals today who decide which facts of the year is history worthy, so that those facts surface in the textbooks of our grandchildren?
The passage indicates that communities from the past were concerned with how they were depicted for their future generations. Their reputations weren’t just for their own generation but for their descendants and the legacy of their kingdoms.
However, since kingdoms/civilizations existed in isolation from one another, the concept of having a standard norm for history didn’t exist. Each sect studied their own choice of subject and created their own outline for documentation of their history. Today with phenomenon like globalization bridging the gaps between spaces, standard education and universal laws have come into being. People from all over the world with varied perspectives are writing about everyday incidents documenting our everyday history. It seems like the prime decision maker of present day history, who selects right from wrong and fact from fiction is the ‘Media’. The media is (seemingly) all-powerful and files history in the form of News.
But whether this form of writing history excludes pre-selection is highly questionable, (a recently released Hindi movie titled ‘Rann’ deals with politics between media barons in the quest of one truth in the News industry). So is the news controlled by giant Business Corporations- are they the real ‘modern day emperors?’ If historians speculate that exaggeration and pre-selection of events took place in ancient history then modern day critics accused of sensationalizing are simply disguised doing the same.
The ultimate question I’m left with is, does our generation even think of our future the way ancient civilizations did? Do we even care what image we portray? Or do we have enough impressions to worry about between ourselves in this salad bowl world we live in, that whether we are viewed by our successor’s as the generation- who depleted the Earth’s resources, ruined the environment and had economic disparities as never seen before in history- it doesn’t frighten or discomfort us, knowing that these are the facts used to preserve our generation’s story.
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