RUSEN - Intercultural Comparative Historiography

8/13/2019 RUSEN - Intercultural Comparative Historiography

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Wesleyan University

Some Theoretical Approaches to Intercultural Comparative HistoriographyAuthor(s): Jrn RsenSource: History and Theory, Vol. 35, No. 4, Theme Issue 35: Chinese Historiography inComparative Perspective (Dec., 1996), pp. 5-22

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SOME THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO INTERCULTURALCOMPARATIVE HISTORIOGRAPHY

JORNRUSEN

ABSTRACTIntercultural comparative historiography raises fundamental methodological problems:Is there any ground for comparison beyond the peculiarities and differences of culturesto be compared? One must avoid taking the Western cultural tradition of historicalthinking as the basis for the comparison. Therefore one has to conceptualize the theoret-ical grounds for comparison and explicate elements of historical thinking which operatein every culture. Then cultural differences in historiography can be analyzed as peculiarconstellations of these elements. In order to develop this comparative groundwork,one has to start with some fundamental considerations about historical memory as theuniversal cultural means of orienting human practical life in its temporal dimensions. Onthis foundation one has to erect a theory of historical consciousness and its constitutivefactors, procedures, and functions. In a systematized form the relationship of theseelements can be used to identify the varieties of historical thinking in different contextsover time. This approach has as one objective an intercultural exchange of knowledgeabout history as a medium for identity-forming. It should enable the participants inthis exchange to overcome the widespread logic of exclusion in favor of a more inclusivemanner of historical self-understanding.

Es scheint an der Zeit, eine in grdBerem Stile vergleichende Betrachtung der verschie-denen Formen anzustellen, in denen in den verschiedenen Kulturen und Gesellschaftenhistorische Fragen, Betrachtungsweisen, Interessen mit den Problemen, Perspektivenund Bediirfnissen, mit bestimmten Weisen des Handelns, der Verdnderung,der Erwar-tungen und mit bestimmten Struktureigentiimlichkeiten der Gesellschaft korrelieren.

Christian Meier'

1. Christian Meier, Die Entstehung der Historie, in Geschichte: Ereignis und Erzdhlung(Poetik und Hermeneutik V), ed. Reinhart Koselleck and Wolf-Dieter Stempel (Munich, 1973),256. (It seems to be time to install an elaborated comparative view of the different forms, withinwhich the different cultures and societies correlate historical questions, world-views, and interestswith certain ways of activity, of change, of expectation, and with certain structural peculiaritiesof society.)

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6 JORN RUSENI. WHY THEORY?

Most works on historiography are done within the framework of a nationalhistory.2 A broader perspective includes European or Western historiography3or the historiography of non-Western cultures. The latter mainly deals with asingle country or a single culture like China4 or India.5 Comparative studiesare rare.6 There are a lot of reasons for this; I will mention only two of them:the difficulty of applying specialized research skills to different historical cul-tures, and the dominance of Western historical thinking in historical studieseven in non-Western countries. This dominance draws academic interest to theorigins and development of the specifically modern way of historical thinking.On the other hand there is a growing need for intercultural comparison simplyand unavoidably because of the great increasein international and interculturalcommunication, not only in economics and politics, but also in various fieldsof cultural life.

How should intercultural comparison be done?7 It is not sufficient to putdifferent histories of historiography together. This may provide a useful andeven necessary overview of the hitherto available knowledge, but it is no sortof comparison since the different accumulations of knowledge lack a commonframework of cognitive organization. Every comparison needs an organizingparameter. Before looking at the materials (texts, oral traditions, images, rit-

2. A recent example is Horst Walter Blanke, Historiographiegeschichte als Historik (Funda-menta Historica, Bd. 3) (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, 1991).3. Ernst Breisach, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern (Chicago, 1983); Georg G.Iggers, Geschichtswissenschaft im 20. Jahrhundert: Ein uiberblick m internationalen Zusammen-hang (Gottingen, 1993). Iggers's international relationship is exclusively European-American.The older International Handbook of Historical Studies: Contemporary Research and Theory,ed. Georg Iggers and Harold T. Parker (Westport, Conn., 1979) includes most of the non-Western countries.4. For example, Historians of China and Japan, ed. William G. Beasley and Edward G. Pul-leyblank (London, 1961); Yu-shan Han, Elements of Chinese Historiography (Hollywood, 1955);Charles S. Gardner, Chinese Traditional Historiography [1938] (Cambridge, Mass., 1961); TheTranslation of Things Past: Chinese History and Historiography, ed. George Kao (Hong Kong,1982); Rolf Trauzettel, Die chinesische Geschichtsschreibung, in Ostasiatische Literaturen, ed.Gunther Debon (Wiesbaden, 1984), 77-90; Extreme-Orient/Extreme-Occident, IX: La referencea l'histoire (Paris, 1986).

5. For example, Problems of Indian Historiography, ed. D. Devahuti (Delhi, 1979); B. Kolver,Ritual und historischer Raum: Zum indischen Geschichtsverstandnis (Munich, 1993); PratimaAsthana, The Indian View of History (Agra, India, 1992); Michael Gottlob, Writing the Historyof Modern Indian Historiography, in Storia della Storiografia 27 (1995), 123-144.6. For example, Donald E. Brown, Hierarchy, History and Human Nature: The Social Originsof Historical Consciousness (Tuscon, 1988). A recent approach to bringing non-Western culturesinto view in dealing with the history of Western historiography is the series Geschichtsdiskurs,ed. Wolfgang Kuttler, Jorn RUsen, and Ernst Schulin (vol. 1: Grundlagen und Methoden derHistoriographiegeschichte [Frankfurt/Main, 1993]; vol. 2: Anfdnge modernen historischen Den-kens [Frankfurt/Main, 1994]; vol. 3: Die Epoche der Historisierung [Frankfurt/Main, 1996]).

7. Cf.Jtirgen Osterhammel, Sozialgeschichte im Zivilisationsvergleich:Zu kunftigen Moglich-keiten komparativer Geschichtswissenschaft, in Geschichte und Gesellschaft 22 (1996), 143-164;Geschichte und Vergleich:Ansdtze und Ergebnisse international vergleichenderGeschichtsschrei-bung, ed. Heinz-Gerhard Haupt and Jirgen Kocka (Frankfurt/Main, 1996).



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INTERCULTURAL COMPARATIVE HISTORIOGRAPHY 7uals, monuments, memorials, and so on), one needs to know what realm ofthings should be taken into consideration and in what respect the findings inthis realm should be compared. Putting it more simply: what are the similaritiesand where are the differences in the field of historiography?This simple question calls for a very complex answer. Intercultural compar-ison is a very sensitive matter. It touches the field of cultural identity and it istherefore involved in power struggles among differentcountries, especially withrespect to Western dominance and non-Western resistance to it in a great manyforms of interculturalrelationship. But it is not only political struggle for powerwhich renders an intercultural comparison problematic in the discipline of his-tory. Beyond politics there is an epistemological difficulty with enormous con-ceptual and methodological consequences for the humanities: every comparisonis done in a given cultural context, so the culture is involved in the subjectmatter of the comparison itself. Historians looking at historical thought inother culturesnormallydo so throughtheir own culture's dea of historiography.They feel no urgent need to reflect on it or to explicate it theoretically. Thispre-given sense of what historiography is functions as a hidden parameter, asa norm, or at least as a factor structuringthe outlook on the varietiesof historicalthinking in different places and times.

Non-awareness is the problem: in such a comparison a certain kind of histor-ical thinking has an unreflected meta-status, and therefore prescribesthe com-parison's results. The real or the essentially historical mode of historiog-raphy naturally can only be found in this pre-existing paradigm, and the othermodes get their meaning, significance, and importance only in relation to it.8Comparison here yields nothing but a measure of the distance from an uncriti-cally held norm. In rarecases scholars may use projections of alternatives intoother cultures in order to criticize their own points of view; but even in thiscase they neverget a substantial insight into the peculiaritiesand the similaritiesof different modes of historical thinking and historiography.

For example, one may ask: how should we deal with elements of fictionand poetical imagination in representingthe past? Whether we evaluate theseelements as ahistorical, nonhistorical (even antihistorical), or as essential formaking sense of history depends on our culture's given concept of historicalthinkingand historiography. Another exampleis the question of the importanceof a written language. Because of an uncritically held conviction about theconstitutive role of a written language for historical thinking, for a long timewe called cultureswith only an oral tradition ahistorical, even as not belonging

8. A typical example is Brown, Hierarchy, History, and Human Nature. Franz Rosenthal re-flected upon the problem when dealing with the subject matter of Muslim historiography : heidentifies it as those works which Muslims, at a given moment of their literary history, consideredhistorical works and which, at the same time, contain a reasonable amount of material whichcan be classified as historical according to our definition of history . . . (A History of MuslimHistoriography. 2d rev. ed. [Leiden, 1968], 17).



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8 JORN RUSENto history at all.9 Only after the introduction of writing were such culturesdeemed historical. Of course, this bias prevents insight into the culture-specifickinds of historical thinking that did not depend upon a written language.

One can't avoid the clashes between involvement and interest concerningthe historical identity of the people whose historiography must and should becompared. This involvement and interest have to be systematically taken intoconsideration; they must be reflected upon, explicated, and discussed. Thereis at least one systematic way of doing so which provides an opportunity forcomprehensive insights and knowledge and for potential agreement and con-sensus among those who feel committed to a fuller graspof the different culturesin question. I think of theory, that is, a certain way of reflecting upon andexplicating the concepts and strategies of comparison. Only by theoreticallyinformed reflection can we prevent or correct any hidden cultural imperialismor misleading perspective in comparative scholarship.'0

11. WHICH THEORY?How can we avoid simply assuming asgenerallyvalid our own traditional way ofhistorical thinking?The answer to thisquestion is in looking for anthropologicaluniversals of historical consciousness. To do so we have to go beyond the limitsof professional and academic historiography and its rational procedures ofhistorical cognition. History as an academic discipline cannot serve as a modelor paradigm for the universal foundation of historiography. Instead, we haveto ask for basic mental operations which can be found in every human culture.Is there something like ananthropological universal called historicalconscious-ness ? We know that thinking historically in the usual meaning of the word

history is a result of a long process of cultural development and cannot bepresupposed in all forms of human life. But if one looks at some basic mentaloperations constituting historical consciousness it is possible to identify themas universal. Explication of these procedures leads to a general theory of cul-tural memory.

There is no human culture without a constitutive element of commonmemory. By remembering, interpreting, and representing the past peoples un-derstand their present-day life and develop a future perspective on themselvesand their world. Histoty in this fundamental and anthropologically universalsense is a culture's interpretive recollection of the past serving as a means toorient the group in the present. A theory which explicates this fundamental

9. For example, Leopold von Ranke, Weltgeschichte, 4th ed. (Leipzig, 1896), 1,viii. Cf. AndreasPigulla, China in der deutschen Weltgeschichtsschreibungvom 18. bis zumn 0. Jahrhundert (Wies-baden, 1996).10. I have tried a first approach to such a theorization for the sake of an interculturalcomparison(concerning the history of human rights) in Jorn Rusen, Die Individualisierungdes Allgemeinen:Theorieprobleme einer vergleichenden Universalgeschichte der Menschenrechte, in Jorn Rusen,Historische Orientierung: uber die Arbeit des Geschichtsbewu/3tseins,sich in der Zeit zurechtzu-finden (Cologne, 1994), 168-187.



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INTERCULTURAL COMPARATIVE HISTORIOGRAPHY 9and elementary procedure of making sense of the past in respect to culturalorientation in the present is a startingpoint for intercultural comparison. Sucha theory thematizes the cultural memory or the historical consciousness whichdefines the subject matter of comparison in general.11It serves as a categoricaldefinition of the cultural field in which historiography takes shape. In the frame-work of such a theory there is no a priori definition of historiography. On thecontrary: historiography appears in the framework of such a general theoryof historical consciousness or culturalmemory as a specific form of a universaland basic cultural practice of human life.

The theoretical framework of an intercultural comparison not only has todefine he realm of what should be compared. It has to open up a perspective

within which historiography or historical thinking as a matter of compar-ison comes into view. It also has to open up perspectives which make the varietyof differences visible, and thus be clear about how this variety of differencesis constituted. First of all it depends on the circumstances in which historicalconsciousness works. What are the challenges which bring it about, and whatfunctions does it have to fulfill? Furthermore one has to look for the culturalpractice by which historical consciousness is pursued as a process of communica-tion, as an element of social life. Third, one has to look for the mentalprocessesthemselves by which an interpretive recollection of the past gets the specificquality which we call history.

Special attention should be directedto theprinciples of sense which governthis reconstruction of history. They determinethe logic of historical interpreta-tion, the poetics and rhetoric of forming a representation and the possibilitiesof understanding the past as something relevant and important for a culture'spresent orientation. Hao Chang's book on Chinese thinking at the turn of thetwentieth century provides an excellent description of these principles.'2 Herehe speaks of an orientational symbolism, a general interpretation of life andworld which enables people to maintain coherence and order in the universeof meaning. This symbolism is related to three main subjects: self, society,and cosmos. It shapes the modes of historical thinking as well. As to history,it is expressedin concepts of time andtemporal change which define the relation-ship between past, present, and future. Such concepts put the human worldinto an order and enable people to handle the experience of contingency bywhich their lives are permanently threatened. The Chinese also define theirforms of social life by shaping identity, togetherness and otherness. In Chineseone could speak of the Tao of history, which can be compared with the logosof history or its sense n the West. The relatedprinciplesand modes of thoughtdraw a line between sense and senselessness with respect to the temporal dimen-sion of human life. (So one should inquire not only into sense, meaning, and

11. For the following cf. Rusen, Was ist Geschichtsbewul3tsein?Theoretische uberlegungenund heuristische Hinweise, in Historische Orientierung, 3-24.

12. Hao Chang, Chinese Search for Order and Meaning 1890-1911 (Berkeley, 1987), 7.



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10 JORN RUSENsignificance, but into its opposites as well: what is seen as being senseless,chaotic, threatening, and so on?)

Finally one has to look for modes, processes, and factors of change anddevelopment concerning the work of historical consciousness. Can the differentways of making historical sense of the past be put into a temporal sequence?Is there anything comparable in the structural change of historical thinkingacross the boundaries of different cultures? Hereone has to be especially carefulnot to generalize to all cultures the changes occurring in European historicalthinking.

On the following pages I would like to deal with these points in some detail.However, a systematic argument would requirea comprehensive and fully artic-ulated theory of making sense of history, which I can't offer (yet).'3

III. SOME REMARKS CONCERNING THE METHOD OF COMPARISONIn any intercultural comparison one must ask how the units of comparisonshould be viewed. Are there pre-given entities, well distinguished in time andspace? What are the adequate presuppositions for a theory of interculturalcomparison? There are sense criteria which constitute historical thinking ingeneral. These sense criteria arean essentialpartof a cultural code which definesthe units of comparison. Consequently, cultures can be compared by way offundamental concepts which define the forms and realms of reality and humanself-understanding. So a typology of such concepts is a very useful theoreticalmeans for a comparative approach.

Johan Galtung has proposed a well-structured typology of this kind.'4 Hecharacterizes six different cultures (occident 1, occident 2, indic, buddhic, sinic,nipponic) with respect to eight basic concepts ( nature, self, society,

world, time self, time society, transperson, episteme ). Such a ty-pology reveals the specificity of cultural codes. But what is the status of sucha code constituted by the systemic interrelationshipof basic concepts and sensecriteria? It makes culture become something very static and spatially discrete.Cultures become monads, isolated configurations of sense and meaning fol-lowing the regulative force of their deeply rooted cultural codes.

13. In doing so I will refer to many arguments, hints, and ideas gleaned during the work ofa research group of the Center for Interdisciplinary Study at the University of Bielefeld, whichis treating the issue Making Sense of History: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Structure, Logic,Function, and Intercultural Comparison of Historical Consciousness. The term sense is usedas an equivalent for the German word Sinn, which is distinct from meaning (Bedeutung). Ifeel especially indebted to Klaus E. Muller, Burkard Gladigow, and (concerning China) HelwigSchmidt-Glintzerand Joachim Mittag. Joachim Mittag has substantially enriched my comparativeapproach to historiography. I owe to him most of the Chinese examples in this text.

14. Johan Galtung, Die 'Sinne' der Geschichte, in Historische Sinnbildung: Problernstel-lungen, Zeitkonzepte, Wahrnehmungshorizonte,Darstellungsstrategien, ed. Klaus E. Muller andJorn Rusen (forthcoming, Reinbek, 1997); Johan Galtung, Six Cosmologies: An ImpressionisticPresentation, in Galtung, Peace by Peaceful Means (London, 1996), 211-222.



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INTERCULTURAL COMPARATIVE HISTORIOGRAPHY 11Such a theory of cultural differences has a dangerous tendency to essentialize

or even reify the single cultures concerned. Their internal historicity, theirmani-fold interconnections and mutual conditioning are lost from sight. Comparisonmerely drawsdichotomies or clear alternatives:historical thinking eitherfollowsthis code or another one. The related forms of cultural identities look likespatial realms with clear borderlines. Nothing seems to exist beyond or acrossthe single codes. But the typology itself transgresses this borderline in a decisivestep and indicates a mode of thinking which does not necessarily issue fromone cultural code. A typology of cultural differences, a necessary heuristicconstruct, has to avoid characterizingcultures as pre-given units and entities.

The idea that cultures are pre-given units and entities is committed to acultural logic which grounds identity on a fundamental difference between insideand outside. Such a logic conceptualizes identity as a mental territorywith clearborderlines and a correspondingly sharp division between self and other. Thislogic is essentially ethnocentric, and ethnocentrism is inscribed into a typologyof cultural differences which treats cultures as coherent units which can beclearly separated from each other.

I would like to propose a theoretical conceptualization which avoids thisethnocentrism. We avoid ethnocentrism if a specific culture is understood asa combination of elements which are shared by all other cultures. Thus thespecificity of cultures is brought about by different constellations of the sameelements. Such an approach has the following virtues: it presents the othernessof different cultures as a mirror facilitating better self-understanding; it thusincludes otherness rather than uses it as a principle of segregation; it encouragesrecognition and mutuality in people of different cultures.

IV. WHAT SHOULD BE COMPARED?Historiography issues from historical consciousness, which cannot be under-stood without going back to a complex set of assumptions, circumstances,challenges, and functions that shape its peculiarity. How is it possible to com-pare peculiarities? It is necessaryto find their basic components and reconstructthem as a specific relationship and synthesis of various elements. If it can beshown that these elements, or at least some of them, are the same in differentmanifestations of historiography, a comparative analysis can be done in a sys-tematic way. So the first step toward a comparative historiography is a theoryof the main components of these specific cultural manifestations called histori-ography.

In orderto do this one has to identify anthropological universalsin historicalconsciousness. There is a universal experience of time which can be called

contingency. Contingency means that human life is always vexed by a senseof rupture, of unexpected occurrences like death and birth, catastrophes, acci-dents, disappointed expectations. Inshort, we experiencewhat can be describedby Hamlet's words: The world is out of joint; -0 cursed spite / that ever I



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12 JORN RUSENwas born to set it right. 5 To set it right means to develop a concept ofthe course of time, of temporal change and development, which makes thecontingent occurrences meaningful with respect to everyday human activitiesand a group's stable order of change. We find the same idea in a Chineseexpression in the Kung-yang commentary to the Spring and Autumn Annals:

To set to right things which have been thrown into chaos and to restore theworld to order, there is none better than the Spring and Autumn Annals. 6

The experience of structurally threatening temporal change has to be inter-preted in order to enable the people who are threatened by it to go on withtheir lives. In order to do so they have to construct an idea of temporal orderwhich responds to the challenge of contingency. The work of historical con-sciousness can thus be described as a procedure by which such an idea oftemporal order is brought about. It deals with the experienceof temporal changeof life and world, which can then be stored in memory. It makes sense of pastchange which can then be applied to understanding the present, and thus enablespeople to anticipatethe future, to guide their own activities by a future informedby the experiences of the past.

The work of historical consciousness is done in specific cultural activities. Iwould like to call them practices of historical narration. By these practices

historiography becomes a part of culture and a necessary element of humanlife. Any intercultural comparison has to take systematically into account thesepractices and has to interpret specific forms of the universal cultural activityof making sense of the past by narration. (I would not deny that there arenon-narrative elements operative in the work of historical consciousness andthat the narrative representation of the past has its limits, but the peculiarcultural phenomenon called history essentially depends upon the cultural prac-tice of narration.)

What are the substantial elements of this mental construct called history ?In order to distinguish it from other contents of human memory one shouldfirst of all underline its specific character as a memory of a more distant pastwhich goes beyond the limits of one's own personal recollection or (more objec-tively) beyond one's own lifespan. This temporal extension of memory is anecessary condition for giving the past the quality of being historical. Onthe other hand, the future perspective opened up by historical consciousnesstranscendsthe limit of one's own lifespan as well. Historical consciousness thusenlarges the concept of the temporal dimension of human life and extends itfar beyond the lifetime of the people who do the historical work of recollection.The simple enlargement of the temporal horizon of memory is a necessary,though not sufficient, condition for the specific historical quality of goingback to the past. The human mind has to fill this dimension with a specific

sense which makes the past as experience significantfor the presentand future.15. Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act I, Scene V.16. Kung-yang chuan, Ai-kung 14th year.17. In Chinese it is expressed by the term pien ( change in the sense of turmoil ).



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INTERCULTURAL COMPARATIVE HISTORIOGRAPHY 13This historical sense is an image, a vision, a concept, or an idea of time whichmediates the expectations, desires, hopes, threats, and anxieties connecting theminds of people in their present-day activities with the experiences of the past.Recalled real time becomes synthesized with the projected future; past andfuture merge into an entire image, vision, or concept of temporal change anddevelopment which functions as an integral part of cultural orientation in thepresent. Examples of this idea of time as a meaningful orderof human activitiesare regular and incessant cycles of order and disorder, 8he category of progress,the belief that God governs the world, or that there is a moral world order(such as Tao).

All these concepts are based on the idea of the order of time. So conceptsof time are the foundation of the sense of history; time related to the humanworld and its precarious balance between the experience of the past and theexpectation of the future preforms any sense and meaning of the past as history.For comparative purposes a basic dichotomy has often been used: cyclic versuslinear time. This distinction in itself does not very usefully characterize funda-mental modes of historical thinking, since there is no concept of history whichdoes not make use of both of them. So we should directour efforts to uncoveringthe modes of synthesis of cyclical and linear time.

The comparative outlook on historiography has to identify these criteria ofhistorical sense and meaning. Normally they do not occur in an elaboratedform. Very often they are implicit principles or potent presuppositions, whichmake it all the more necessaryto identify and explicate them. So we can explicatea system of basic concepts governing historiography as a whole, structuringits way of transforming the experienceof the past into a history with sense andmeaning for the present. Such a system uncovers the semantics of history andcreates the grounds for comparison.

These basic categories may appear as ideas of a divine order of time, as adivided or dual world in which the everyday occurrences of the human worldare less important than or inferior to the imagined world of a higher temporalorder devoted to divine beings or higher principles of civilization or progress.Examples of these ideas in the Chinese and in the European tradition of histori-ography may be the following: first of all, the concepts of record keeping(chi) and of warming up the old [precedents]to know the new (wen ku erhchih hsin), of memory, sense, and history, to be completed by basic notionslike tradition, continuity, discontinuity, development, process, revolution, res-toration (chung-hsing), evolution, transformation through virtue (hua), prog-ress, decay, and so on. Then we should take into account different philosophiesof history embedded in a moral world order, sacred history, divine providence,the philosophy of history since the Enlightenment, and the concept of modern-ization. For comparative purposes it is necessary to find corresponding basicconcepts in all other historiographies.

18. Cf. Mencius III B, 8.



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14 JORN RUSENToday these sense criteria are mainly seen as fictional, as inventions. But

one cannot deny the reality of the experience which molds the mental constructcalled history as well as the images, symbols, and concepts used to interpretit. Very often these interpretive elements are a part of the experience itself, soit is misleading to characterize them as substantially fictional.

In the realm of the various cultural practices of historical narration and ofdifferentmanifestations of the mental construct called history, historiographycan be distinguished as a species of cultural practice and mental structure. Itis an elaborated presentation of the past bound into the medium of writingwith its possibilities and limits. It presupposes the social experience of a histori-ographer characterized by a certain degree of specialization and even profession-alization and his or her function in a social and political order. For the purposeof comparison the following questions are important: What social rank dohistoriographers have? Whom do they depend on? What is their functionalposition in a system of political power? What role does their work play inlegitimating or delegitimating political power? What role does gender play indetermining who is competent to be a historiographer? What other groups orpersons areconcerned with recallingthe past? Against whom do the historiogra-phers have to defend their position? Who legitimates their profession?

Historiography is a specific way manifesting historical consciousness. Gener-ally it presents the past in the form of a chronological order of events whichare presented as factual, that is, with a special quality of experience. Forcomparative purposes it is important to know how this relationship to theso-called facts of the past is organized and presented.

Another characteristicof historiography is its linguistic form. Is it presentedin verse or in prose? What do these two main modes of writing indicate? Isthis distinction the same across cultural boundaries? In Western culture, proseindicates a certain rationality, a discursive molding of the experience of thepast on the basis of an integrating idea of sense and empirical evidence.

The comparative approach to historiography depends on the distinctionwhich defines the units to be compared with each other. What does it meanto compare Chinese historiography with Western historiography? Beforegoing into detail it is necessaryto establish the existence of these units of histori-ography and the modes of their conceptualization. Are they simply projectionsfrom present-daydistinctions or is there anything correspondingto the supposedunit in the conceptual framework of the historiographical work itself? ForChina this question might have a simple answer, since at least paradigmaticworks of Chinese historiography are related to China as a cultural unit inthe minds of the historiographersand their audience. But what about Europe?Is the horizon of self-understanding or the elaboration of historical identityalways European n the historiographical works of the West? Without estab-lishing and explicating the internal horizon of the historical space which givesthe past its specific perspective, comparative interpretation might simply be amisrepresentation or a naive projection of the interpreter upon the material.



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INTERCULTURAL COMPARATIVE HISTORIOGRAPHY 15V. PERSPECTIVES OF SYNCHRONIC COMPARISONS

Synchronic comparison should be done with respect to (a) types of culturalpractice regarding historical narration, (b) types of historical sense or meaning,(c) conditions for historical consciousness, (d) the internal strategies and opera-tions of historical consciousness, (e) topoi of historical sense, (f) forms ofrepresentation, media, and species of historiography, and (g) the various func-tions of historical orientation.

(a) Concerning the types of cultural practice of historically recalling the past,historiography has to be placed on a scale of different modes in order to findout its context and relationship to other modes of dealing with the past. What ishistoriography's relationship to rituals, ceremonies, festivities, public holidays,religious performances such as pilgrimages and other performances of collectivememory? What is its relationshipto popular culture; can it be an integralpart ofpopular culture? Another question puts historiography into a social perspective:How is history writing placed in a social hierarchy? Does it look at humanaffairs from the top of the hierarchy or from below?

Gender is a very important aspect of the social history of historiography. Itis important to distinguish between male and female voices in the representationof the past and systematically to take into account the male and female realmsof experience presented by historiography. The same is to be done in respectto the orientation function of historiography: How does it present identity, ormore precisely, how is gender identity related to history?

(b) In respect to the types of historical sense one should use a comprehensivetypology which provides a clear and distinct conceptual framework for theinterpretation of historiography. With respect to historiography in its elabo-rated written form there are at least four typologies of historiography workedout in the Western metahistorical discourse of the last centuries:

1. Droysen distinguishes in his Topik the investigative, narrative(in a morenarrow meaning), didactic, and disputative presentation of the past. 92. Nietzsche describes three ways of dealing with the past: monumental,

antiquarian, and critical representation.203. Hayden White offers the most elaborated typology of historiography.

He bases historical sense on four tropes that shape all narration: metaphor,metonymy, synecdoche, and irony, and he adds three parallel typologies ofhistorical sense: four modes of emplotment (romantic, tragic, comic, satirical);four modes of explanation by formal argument (formist, mechanistic, organi-

19. Untersuchende, erzdhlende, didaktische und diskussive Darstellung: Droysen, JohannGustav Historik, historisch-kritische Ausgabe, ed. Peter Leyh (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1977), I,217-283, 445-450. Cf. Jorn Riisen, Bemerkungen zu Droysens Typologie der Geschichtsschrei-bung, in J6rn Riisen, Konfigurationen des Historismus: Studien zur deutschen Wissenschaftskultur(Frankfurt, 1993), 267-275.

20. Friedrich Nietzsche, Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie fur das Leben, in SdmtlicheWerke, KritischeStudienausgabe in 15Einzelbanden (Munich, 1988), Bd. 1, 243-334, esp. 258-270.(Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Uses andDisadvantages of History for Life, in Untimely Meditations,transI. R. J. Hollingdale [Cambridge, Eng., 1983], 83-100).



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16 JORN RUSENcistic, contextualist); and four modes of explanation by ideological implication(anarchist, radical, conservative, liberal).2

4. My own typology combines functional and structuralelements of historicalnarration and distinguishes among four different modes of making sense ofhistory: traditional, exemplary, critical, and genetic modes of historical nar-rative.22

(c) With respect to the cultural context of historiography one should lookat the culture's religious criteria for sense and meaning, since in most societies -at least of the premodern type -religion is the main source for a sense of therelationship between past and present. It is trivial to say that the distinctivenature of historical thinking in the West is deeply influenced by Christianity,even at the time of historicism, when historical studies achieved academic formas a discipline with its own research methodology. Its relationshipto religioncanfunction as a key to decipher the language of sense, meaning, and significanceinhistoriography.23

In order to understand why specific sense-criteria of history have come intouse, one should first ask what challenges provoke historical consciousness andwhich demand a historiographical answer? I have already characterized thosechallenges as an impressive rupture disturbing the temporal continuity andcoherence of human life. Examples of this experience of discontinuity are theFrench Revolution for historicism, the fall of Rome for Augustine's conceptof sacred history, the new political structure and role of Athens in the late fifthcentury for Herodotus,24the founding of the empire of the Ch'in and Handynasties for Ssu-ma Ch'ien. Since not all temporal incoherence can be masteredby historical narration one should look for those specific temporal experienceswhich do yield to historiography. What kinds of problems will be solved by his-toricization?

(d) With respect to the internal operations and strategies of historical con-sciousness one should firstof all look at the formal characteristics of historiog-raphy. Is it structured as a narrative? If not, like the classical annals in China,what does it mean for the underlying criteria of historical sense? If there is noreal historical representation of the past without narrative elements, where willwe findthese elements if important texts are structureddifferently? Additionallyone should therefore look for the existence and role of non-narrative elements

21. Hayden White, Metahistory. The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth Century Europe(Baltimore, 1973), 1-42.22. Jorn Risen, Die vier Typen des historischen Erzahlens, in Rusen, Zeit undSinn: Strategien

historischen Denkens (Frankfurt, 1990), 153-230; cf. Ruisen, Studies in Metahistory (Pretoria,1993), 3-14.

23. Cf. Jorn Rusen, Historische Methode und religioser Sinn: Voruiberlegungen u einer Dia-lektik der Rationalisierung des historischen Denkens in der Moderne, in Geschichtsdiskurs, Bd.2: Anfdnge modernen historischen Denkens, ed. Wolfgang Kiittler, Jorn Riisen, and Ernst Schulin(Frankfurt/Main 1994), 344-377.

24. Meier, Die Entstehung der Historie, 251-306. Meier speaks of a politically determinedprocess of an entire rapture, a deep shift of measures (254).



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INTERCULTURAL COMPARATIVE HISTORIOGRAPHY 17like images and symbols which, while not narratives themselves, may initiatethem or at least give them meaning.

(e) A list of historical topoi facilitates comparison. These topoi organize thenarrative presentation of the past by ascribing to it a specific significance fororienting people to present problems. Historical topoi can be defined as formsof perception and representation within the texture of the historical sense ofthe past, which occur as repetitive patterns related to diverse contents.25Themost famous topos of historical significance is, of course, expressed by theCiceronian slogan historia vitae magistra and in China by the metaphor

mirror (chien).26Historiography which represents the past according to thistopos teaches general rules of human conduct by examples; it is governed bythe logic of judgment, that is, the generation of rulesfrom cases and the applica-tion of rules to cases. Mostly these rules are relatedto politics and are addressedto the rulers in order to commit them to ethical principles legitimating powerand domination.27There are, of course, many other topoi. For the purposeof comparison, they should be specified and systematized into a rhetoric ofhistoriography. Such a rhetoric doesn't exist yet. So I can only mention sometopoi, drawn systematically from empirical findings in a recent investigationof the historical consciousness of young people': the past is a place of evasion;the past is a utopian counter-imageof the present; the past should be altered;thepast imposes traditions; the important things of the past endure; the importantthings of the past are changing; the past has to be explicitly connected withthe life of the present; the past can teach us something, so history is a matterof learning.

(f) There are a number of other ways in which one might create parametersof comparison. I cannot explicate all of them systematically; so I will simplysuggest some in the form of questions: How are events of the past related toeach other? What kind of rationality governs this relationship? On what levelof complexity are differentelements of experienceand signification synthesized?How much does historiography reflect upon its own structure and principles?

25. Jorn Rusen et al., Untersuchungen zum Geschichtsbewuf3tseinvon Abiturienten im Ruhr-gebiet, in Geschichtsbewufltseinempirisch, ed. Bodo von Borries, Hans-JiArgenPandel, and JornRtisen (Pfaffenweiler, 1991), 286.

26. Cf. Chun-chieh Huang, Historical Thinking in Classical Confucianism: Historical Argu-mentation from the Three Dynasties, in Time and Space in Chinese Culture, ed. Chun-chiehHuang and Erich Ziircher(Leiden, 1995), 76: Chien originally meant 'mirror,' and mirror is thatby which we examine ourselves, how we look to people, the representative of our 'conscience.'The character, chien, then turned later to mean 'lesson, norm, pattern,' without totally sheddingthe original meaning of normative mirroring.

27. This topos seems to be universal in all advanced civilizations. It is, for example, the basisfor Ibn Khaldfin's (1332-1406) Book of Examples and Collection of Origins as well as for Ssu-maKuang's (1019-1086) Comprehensive Mirror for Aid of Government.

28. Riisen, Untersuchungenzum Geschichtsbewuf3tseinvon Abiturienten im Ruhrgebiet, inRisen, Zeit und Sinn; Jorn Riisen, et al., Geschichtsbewuf3tseinvon Schidlernund Studentenim internationalen und interkulturellen Vergleich, in Geschichtsbewufltsein im interkulturellenVergleich: Zwei empirische Pilotstudien, ed. Bodo von Borries and J6rn Ruisen(Pfaffenweiler,1994), 79-206.



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18 JORN RUSENHow deep do the analysis and the explanatory strategies of historical representa-tion go? What role do values and norms play in structuringthe past as history?To what degree is the past historicized? How does historiography deal withthe experience of other cultures, different from the historian's? Are the othersmarginalized, used as a focus for projecting one's own desire, or are they givendue recognition? What different species of historiography have been observedand how have earlier thinkers systematized them? Does this order correspondto our strategies of systematization?

I have already mentioned the problem of the foundation of historiographyin experience on the one hand and elements of fictionality in its interpretationof the past on the other. According to this relationship thereshould be an effortto find typical constellations between factuality and fictionality in dealing withthe past. This relationship may even indicate a stage of development, since aclear distinction between factuality and fictionality demands a highly developedhistorical culture which has specific procedures for making sense of history byemphasizing the factuality of the reported past.

(g) Finally the practicalfunction of historiography should be systematicallytaken into account, its orientative function for human groups. Its most remark-able manifestation is the articulation of the historical identity of the people towhom historiography is addressed. For comparative purposes we need topresent the different points of view concerning identity. The most importantview is related to inclusion, to the norms and values which determine inclusionin a group. Who is included, who is excluded in the historical narratives? Howis the relationship between them presented? Where is the borderline betweenself and other, between togetherness and strangeness?

VI. PERSPECTIVES OF DIACHRONIC COMPARISON

Diachronic comparison is related to change in historiography. Its theoreticaltask is to identify universalfactors, types of processes, and directions of change.But before explicating corresponding perspectives of change in historiography,a general periodization should be reflected upon within which historiographygets its historical significance in relation to the entire process of change in thehuman world. Such a periodization clarifies the dependence of historiographyon its context, which provides its constitutive challenges and its basic sense-criteria, and within which it fulfills (or abdicates) its orientation-function. Oneintensively debated question is whether the main epochs of European historycan be applied to other cultures. If not, the different periodizations should atleast be compared with respect to the criteria which determine the divisionof epochs.

Historiography is best served by a general periodization relating to the domi-nant media of human communication. One might begin by distinguishing threeepochs, defined by the three media: orality, scribality, and electronality. 29

29. Albert D'Haenens (Louvain la Neuve) once in a debate used the slogan oralit6, scribalit6,electronalit6 which I pick up here.



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INTERCULTURAL COMPARATIVE HISTORIOGRAPHY 19In specific cases one has to look at those factors and elements which transformthe way in which we make sense of and represent the past. To give at least oneexample of such a force for changing historiography, I would like to suggestthe growth of knowledge about the past. It can provoke new categorizations,and these new categorizations in turn reshape and restructure historiographyin general. The rise of historicist thought in the late eighteenth century couldnot be understood without reference to the explosion of knowledge in Europe.There was an impressive accumulation of historical knowledge in China, butit doesn't seem to have brought about a shift in the underlying categories ofhistorical perception and interpretation.

Another question is related to the presentation of change in historiography.Is there anything like the experience of progress, based upon a successful group'sself-esteem, with which historiographers can associate?

The most important parameter of diachronic comparison is the direction ofchange. Is it possible to discern transcultural tendencies? Today this questionseems too loaded with the ideological burden of Western supremacy. But arejection of Western ideology should not shut off inquiry. I think that such aquestion is unavoidable, since all countries of the world today are directly orindirectly involved in the process of modernization, and this modernizationchallenges historical identity for all of them. It is extremely important to knowwhether there are developmental tendencies in one's own cultural history similarto those in the West. And for Westerners it is useful to know whether suchtendencies exist in non-Western cultures. If there is a cultural development orevolution common to all countries, then the modernization process will be morethan only a threat of alienation; it may even be conceptualized as an opportunityto gain or regain one's own identity in a broader perspective of humankind.

So Max Weber's notion of universal rationalization and disenchantmentmight be reformulated for a comparative analysis of historiography. There isno historiography without rationality, that is, a set of rules which bind thesense-making process of historical consciousness into strategies of conceptual-ization, of bringing empirical evidence into the representationof the past, andof coherentargumentation. This rationalityshould be reconstructedand investi-gated as a universallyvalid development. The same should be done with respectto the norms and values which constitute historical identity. Do they show atrend toward universalization, and does historical identity expand accordingly?I think we can observe such a process of universalization in many cultures:30it starts from the small social group in archaic times and leads to humankindin modern history. Along with this universalizationa correspondingregionaliza-

30. I have tried to conceptualize such a process in respect to the question of the universalityof human rights and general issues of humankind, selfness, and otherness in JoMnRosen, DieIndividualisierung des Allgemeinen and JoMnRisen, Human Rights from the Perspective of aUniversal History, in Human Rights and Cultural Diversity: Europe-Arabic-Islamic World-Africa-China, ed. Wolfgang Schmale (Frankfurt, 1993), 28-46; Jorn Rusen, Vom Umgangmit den Anderen: Zum Stand der Menschenrechte heute, Internationale Schulbuchforschung 15(1993), 167-178.



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20 JORN RUSENtion very often takes place. Additionally one should look for a process ofparticularization and individualization; it may be a reaction to universalizationor a consequence of it.

Another direction of development can be conceptualized in respect to thetreatment of facts in relation to the presupposed order of time. Is historiog-raphy governed by a tendency toward the increasing integration of positivefacts and principles of temporal order? In archaic societies mundane factsare not important for the narrative presentation of the divine order of the world.Myths as narratives which organize the cosmos are remote from chronologicallyfixed dates given and proved by empirical evidence. But the mythical order hasvanished or has been mixed up with the temporal chain of positive, that is,

factual events and structures.Following this line of argument, I dare to outline a periodization for the

media of cultural communication and their transformation which might at leastfunction as a heuristic for a comprehensive history of historical thinking. Ithypothesizes a post-historic period in the form of an ideal type, composed ofthe most challenging elements of postmodern historical thinking:

Pre-historic Sharp distinction between paradigmatic cosmic time ( archaic time of myth)and mundane time; the latter is meaningless for the order of the world andself. Contingency is radically eliminated. Dominance of the traditional typeof historical narration. Medium of oral tradition.

Historic Intermediation of both Traditional The entire order of time has a divinetimes. Contingent character. Religion is the main

facts (events) are laden source for sense of temporal change.with meaning Dominance of the exemplary typeconcerning the of historical narration.temporal world order.Contingency is Modern Minimization of transcendent dimen-recognized as relevant sion of time-order. The entire sensefor this order and of history tends to become this-bound into a concept worldly. Human rationality is ableof time which orients to recognize it by methodicallypractical activity and investigating the empirical evidenceforms human identity. of the past. Dominance of the geneticMedium of writing. type of historical narration.

Post-historic No comprehensive order of time including past, present, and future. The pastis separated into a time for itself. Facts of the past become elements ofarbitrary constellations which have no substantial relationship to present andfuture. The human past becomes de-temporalized. Contingency loses itsconceptualization by ideas of temporal order valid for present-day life andits future. Medium of electronics.

Universal periodization of historical thinking'

31. I have put three of the four types of historical sense-making into a clear periodical order.This is misleading, since they play a much more complex role in all periods. But nevertheless theycan be used to characterize an epoch-related type of historical thinking.



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INTERCULTURAL COMPARATIVE HISTORIOGRAPHY 21Modernization is, of course, one of the most important perspectives of dia-

chronic comparison. It should be concretized as an internal process of rational-ization in dealing with the past. Historical studies as an academic disciplineindicates forms and stages of this rationalization. But rationalization is onlyone side of the coin of modernization. There is always a reaction against it, are-enchantment in the relationship to the past which at least compensates forthe loss of sense and meaning brought about by rational methodologies. Sothe comparative approach to historiography should always keep in mind bothrational disenchantment and a compensatory irrationalre-enchantmentor new,reformulated ( reformed )sources and potentials of the sense and meaning ofthe temporal dimension of human life.

VII. NEW QUESTIONSThe twentieth century has challenged historiography's basic criteria of senseand meaning. I have in mind the traumatic experience of the Holocaust andsimilar occurrences of mass-murder and other radical violations of our senseof things in the course of human history.32 Such experiences cause traumaticreactions and very often suppression of important elements of collectivememory into the unconscious. In historiography this unconscious must be ex-posed as a silence about the past, which, nevertheless, influences the present.In order to make exposure plausible one has to identify indications of thissuppression in the articulated representationsof the past. Thus, historiographyhas the additional burden of systematically taking into account intended orunintended procedures of a negative mode of making sense of history. Thisnegative sense or the sense of senselessness can be demonstrated as limits ofrepresentation for which discussions of the Holocaust are already para-digmatic.33It may be fruitful to look for such limits even in ordinary historiog-raphy, thus bringing to our awareness a dimension of historical consciousnessin which historiography speaks the language of silence.34

In my introductory remarksI pointed to the fact that every work in historiog-raphy involving comparison is also involved in the process of identity-formingand is guided by practical interests. This is no less true for my proposed strategyfor comparative historiography. There is a negative and a positive side to thisstrategy. On the negative side, it should prevent stereotypes of cultural pecu-liarity from becoming presuppositions and guidelines for the study of historiog-raphy, thus avoiding the widespread dichotomy between self and other and therelated strategy of exclusion in identity-forming. On the positive side, it should

32. To give a Chinese example, the Taiping Rebellion cost 20 million victims.33. Probing theLimits of Representation:Nazism and the FinalSolution, ed. Saul Friedlander(Cambridge, Mass., 1992).34. Concerning the fall of Nanking (1867), an already established literarypattern of suppressed

memory was applied which articulated a weariness of looking back: And I fear to look back, toread too carefully Yii Hsin's fu (Stephen Owen, Place: Meditation on the Past at Chin-ling,Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 56 [1990], 417-457.)



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22 JORN RUSENenable scholars to present the historiographical traditions of different cultures,peoples, and societies in a mental movement between sameness and difference.Those whose identity is at stake should become aware that otherness is a mirrorfor their self-awareness. Then their communication can serve the worthy goalof mutual recognition and acknowledgment.University of BielefeldGermany

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RUSEN - Intercultural Comparative Historiography