Memories and history

Nikulin’s understanding of history is that it is a cumulative process. Individual memories together cannot be separated from the collective memory, and the collective historical memory is what forms the basis of history. Yet, he suggests that history as we understand it, usually is given some underlying theme or connection by the historian. In other words, the historian selects and chooses specific facts, and creates a cohesive story out of those facts that he or she has selected. If another historian was to undertake the same task, perhaps we would understand the same events in history differently. In that sense, Nikulin seems to be saying that history is composed both of what we have chosen to remember, and what we have chosen to forget.

I find that Nikulin’s argument that this historical ‘forgetting’ can heal wounds is dangerous. If we have to accept that all persons are bound by a common humanity, then we have to accept that we learn from, and move on from, the mistakes of our past. Forgetting is not healing – forgetting is also denying the past and I believe that the future generations of people have a right to our past. Nikulin seems to say that there are two ways of seeing history – the universal perception, according to which history serves some end, and his version which seems to suggest that we should study history not for what we can learn from it, but for its own sake. I would dispute this idea, because history for its own sake simply becomes a futile act of listing out past dates and events. If we can accept that history is not an accurate story of the past, but is what the historian chooses to make of the past, then we should also accept that the historian when making his choices sometimes chooses them on the basis of a greater purpose. For example, if we were to ‘forget’ the horrors of World War II, it would mean in practical terms, that generations would grow up with no knowledge of the horrors that a fascist government can cause, and nothing would stop us from repeating our errors.

According to me, therefore, the difference between memory and history is important, and should not be blurred as he suggests. Where history has ‘chosen to forget’, because of the historian’s choice of facts, memory will remember. And so, memory plays a larger role in balancing the fact that the historian is selective, and makes choices on the basis of his personal, or philosophical or any other beliefs. If we blur this distinction, we run the risk of simply treating them as one thing. Even if memory is subject to our own personal filters, it still forms a greater narrative, or wider picture, than history does.