History is an ongoing process

History.

The moment that just went past by is now history. It cannot come back. It can now only be recreated by certain people who wish to remember it and include it in the present. But how can we believe that the person is recreating it the exact same way without being biased or making changes in it. How can we ensure the authenticity of the information being passed on? Does it depend on the historian, the witness or the audience? Or is it all the three interacting together? Who creates history? Who has the right to? Isn’t every person a historian in some way? How to decide what should be marked as a major “historic” event and which ones can be ignored?

These were the few questions addressed in the article from the “NAME OF HISTORY” by E.H. CARR.

The various references and comparison made to different real life situations, the idea and status of a historian and the reader, the role and importance of facts were the few topics discussed in the article.

The gist of the article that I understood in the article was that, that the historian plays the utmost role in the hierarchy. He has the power to record a certain incident as he wants to and manipulate it to let the readers and the audience read exactly what he wants them to. It is up to him to decide what is worthy of being remembered. A person can be a historian on various levels. On a very personal level, record incidents confined to his own concerns, on a broader level to affect other people around.

I find history to be like a game of Chinese whispers. (A game where players sit in a circle, the first players whispers a message in the ear of the next in line and he has to do the same to the person next. The aim is to pass on the message correctly and the last person has to announce it out loud to cross check the original message.) History can be very much related to that as it is most of the time a word of mouth and no other means of conformation is possible. In the game, as the message progresses from one person to another, there tends to be a change in the original message, maybe because of some misunderstanding or a slip of tongue. Similarly as a historic event is further told from one person to another, there is always a possibility of some form of change, intentional or unintentional. The first player who decides the message is the role played by the historian, who is the first one to decide the form of the story being told. The rest are the audiences who are the interpreters of the story being told.. However, in the process of recreating history and keeping it alive, the interaction between the two parties is very crucial.

Historiography, or the study of history, is a very interesting topic as it raises some very intriguing questions that are extremely hard to answer. The discussion is endless. But this write up isn’t.