History culture

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The term historical culture has established itself in the German-speaking area since the late 1980s as a collective term for the various manifestations of history and how they are dealt with in social life.

Historical background

"At the beginning," said Bernd Schönemann - currently the only professor for didactics of history, whose professorship is expressly dedicated to the culture of history with this addition - in his inaugural lecture in Münster in 2006, "the Mannheim Historians' Day 1976" stood. In the late 1970s, German history didactics changed from a mainly school subject didactics to a significantly expanded interest in how society as a whole dealt with the past (“ historical consciousness“) Converted. This went hand in hand with a steadily increasing public interest in the recent German past, which has also increased steadily since the late 1970s: “Never before has a time, a nation, or a generation dealt with itself in such a reflective and reflective way; Memory of history [… and] introspection are very popular [… -] also in the political-intellectual discourse ”. The discussions of these years laid the foundation for the concept of “history culture”, which schools and museums, as classic and up until then primarily considered places of mediating negotiation of history, now more than two institutions alongside others, but no longer regarded as the absolute focal point of history didactics . This discussion initially took place under changing and not always clearly delimited terms (see below); “History culture” was first used as one of these terms in 1984 in the title of a relevant publication. Since the 1990s, it has also been increasingly received outside of history didactics, because the insight has prevailed that history culture signals to a certain extent “the state of a society”.

Conception

Jörn Rüsen , who is one of the influential exponents of the concept of historical culture, understands it as “the common and overarching aspects” of societal handling of the past, it is the “practically effective articulation of historical awareness in the life of a society”. Historical culture thus describes the institutions and forms of organization within which a collective historical meaning is established and which can relate to individual historical consciousness in different ways. Monuments, museums or historical anniversaries can be ignored, misunderstood or celebrated emphatically by the individual. Their existence, however, is super-subjective and dependent on the social system within which they are created and charged with meaning. In this respect other authors have largely followed Rüsen. Furthermore, it differentiates between three dimensions of historical culture:

  • a cognitive, which is based on truth criteria,
  • a political one based on criteria of power and
  • an aesthetic one that can be structured according to beauty criteria.

These three dimensions do not stand side by side or against each other, but are interwoven in the concrete manifestations of historical culture in a complex and constantly changing form. The cognitive dimension is traditionally assigned the greatest proximity to historical studies; Only recently has the narrative-aesthetic and political dimension of scientific historiography been discussed more intensely again, and the overly strict juxtaposition of historical culture and historical science has been questioned as supposed contradictions. Complementing the political dimension of historical culture, on the other hand, the competing concepts of historical politics ( Edgar Wolfrum ), past politics ( Norbert Frei ) and memory politics (widespread in the Anglo-American language area) apply. Finally, the aesthetic dimension is particularly emphasized in connection with the medial forms of conveying history between popular historiography (such as Rudolf Pörtner's “With the Elevator into Roman Times”, 1959) and histotainment. The Giessen-based history didactician Siegfried Quandt tried very explicitly to identify television as the leading medium of contemporary history culture. On the other hand, based on the insight that there may be “pictures without history, but no history without pictures”, the more deeply rooted project of a visual history has been established, as Gerhard Paul called his 2006 programmatic “study book”.

The basic features of the concept designed by Rüsen have been widely accepted in the academic debate on historical culture; the concept of the culture of remembrance (see below) applies as an alternative .

Bernd Schönemann has worked on the further development of the historical-cultural paradigm, who, following on from the constructivist sociology of Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann , argues that historical consciousness and historical culture as two approaches to the same phenomenon, namely as individual (historical consciousness) or collective (historical culture ) To understand the construct of historical reality. Without rejecting Rüsen's three-dimensional model, he adds a second, four-dimensional description matrix to the side, which particularly emphasizes the role of historical culture as a social order:

  • an institutional one that describes the framework of historical cultural practice (schools, archives, museums, academies, etc.),
  • a professional who deals with the specific actors (teachers, scientists, artists, etc.)
  • a medial one that deals with the forms of communication (book, film, song etc.), and finally
  • an addressee-specific dimension that deals with the addressees of historical cultural phenomena (groups, classes, ethnicities, professions, etc.).

The institutional dimension has a prominent position in that it first provides the framework for the other three, but at the same time allows information about the value that a society attaches to certain references to the past. From a historical perspective, Schönemann designs a three-stage development model of three ideal-typical epochs, in each of which one dimension is expressed as a "model of social history culture":

  • The premodern under the guiding principle “history as use”, which is committed to the Ciceronian topos of the “historia magistra vitae”;
  • modernity, which since the late enlightenment and well into the 20th century followed “history as education” as its historical-cultural model, and
  • the post-modern event company under the guiding principle of “history as an event”.

Schönemann also emphasizes that these three epochs are not seen as replacing one another, but are merely intended to be helpful as a description model for historical research into historical-cultural patterns of meaning. In more recent times, however, the ability to historicize the culture of history has been fundamentally questioned.

Can historical culture be historicized?

The majority of the research that followed Rüsen and Schönemann agrees that historical culture as a social relationship structure can both be described and historicized in itself. Thomas E. Fischer attempted this in monographic form with his (in part heavily criticized) “History of History” (2000). With his development model, Schönemann also emphasized that historical culture can not only be historicized, but also “in need of historicization”. In his inaugural lecture in Münster, he further suggested that the "repetition structure" ( Reinhart Koselleck ) of historical culture should be pursued further, as the particularly illustrative type of which he emphasizes the historical anniversary. Schönemann sees the special historical depth of this repetition structure - following Arnold Gehlen's theory of institutions - in turn in the institutions of historical culture (e.g. archives, museums, etc.) and their differently dense development.

Hans-Jürgen Pandel , on the other hand, wrote emphatically against the historizability of historical culture, warning against confusing historical culture with cultural history. He defines historical culture much more narrowly than "that world of life that is permeated with history and that surrounds our students." This means that its historicization falls at the same time from the field of history didactics and historical science, or more precisely: cultural history, to: "A 'historical culture of history' '(19 . and 20th century) [is] didactically insignificant ”, the“ transfer of the term historical culture to the past [...] also methodologically unclean ”.

Conceptual demarcation from the culture of remembrance

Closely related to the concept of the culture of history is that of the culture of remembrance. Both terms have existed side by side for a long time and are almost synonymous with each other - but today they are rarely used in this way. At first glance, both concepts are similar if one uses Christoph Cornelißen's culture of remembrance as a "formal umbrella term for all conceivable forms of conscious memory of historical events, personalities and processes [...], be they aesthetic, political or cognitive in nature" understand. The proximity to the concept of historical culture becomes clear through the use of the three dimensions of historical and remembrance culture practice formulated by Jörn Rüsen (see above, Section B). In contrast, proponents of the concept of “culture of remembrance” emphasize the greater emphasis on the functional past reference for the present than the concept of “history culture” as well as the conscious breadth of the past references considered, while the historical-cultural concept is assumed to overemphasize the cognitive side. On the other hand, the thesis was put forward that “the term culture of remembrance in our society now has such a large space of resonance with positive connotations in the political public that the somewhat unspectacular conception of historical culture almost falls under the guise of a lack of political correctness, or at least the necessary one seems to lack media tailwind ”. This essentially still seems to be the case, although the concept of historical culture is now firmly anchored in scientific parlance. While the concept of historical culture allows a distinction to be made between individual historical consciousness and collective historical culture, this difference is canceled out in the concept of memory culture preferred by Cornelißen, which has been criticized as a potential naturalization of social processes. This conceptual indifference still exists in specialist circles, since even the most recent works ignore this difference in part.

Institutionalization

Today, two chairs in the Federal Republic of Germany are explicitly assigned to the (additional) field of "history culture". These are the chairs of the two most prominent representatives in the scientific debate: Jörn Rüsen's Chair for “General History and History Culture” at the University of Witten-Herdecke and Bernd Schönemann's Chair for “Didactics of History with Special Consideration of History Culture” at the Westphalian Wilhelms University of Münster.

See also

literature

  • Marko Demantowsky : culture of history and culture of remembrance - two conceptions of the one subject. Historical background and exemplary comparison, in: History, Politics and Their Didactics 33 (2005), pp. 11–20.
  • Elisabeth Erdmann : Historical Consciousness - Historical Culture. An unresolved relationship. In: History, Politics and their Didactics. 35, 2007, pp. 186-195.
  • Wolfgang Hasberg : culture of remembrance - culture of history, cultural memory - awareness of history. Ten aphorisms. In: Journal for History Didactics. 3, 2004, pp. 198-206.
  • Hans-Jürgen Pandel : culture of history. In: Hans-Jürgen Pandel, Ulrich Mayer, Gerhard Schneider, Bernd Schönemann (Hrsg.): Dictionary of history didactics. Schwalbach i. Ts. 2006, pp. 74f.
  • Dietmar von Reeken : History culture in history lessons . Reasons and perspectives. In: History in Science and Education. 55, 2004, pp. 233-240.
  • Wolfgang Hardtwig : History culture and science (= dtv vol. 4539; dtv science). Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1990. ISBN 3-423-04539-6 .
  • Jörn Rüsen : What is history culture? Reflections on a new way of thinking about history. In: Klaus Füßmann, Theo Grütter, Jörn Rüsen (eds.): Historical fascination. History culture today. Cologne u. a. 1994, pp. 3-26. Reprint in: Jörn Rüsen: Historical Orientation. About the work of the historical consciousness to find one's way in time. Cologne u. a. 1994, pp. 211-234.
  • Bernd Schönemann : History didactics and history culture. In: Bernd Mütter, Bernd Schönemann, Uwe Uffelmann (Eds.): History culture. Theory - empiricism - pragmatics. Weinheim 2000, pp. 26-58.
  • Holger Thünemann : Historical culture revisited. Attempt to take stock after three decades. In: Thomas Sandkühler, Horst Walter Blanke (Hrsg.): Historicization of history. Jörn Rüsen on his 80th birthday. Cologne u. a. 2018, pp. 127–149. link
  • Ziegler, Béatrice, “Remember!” - History as memory and science . In: Peter Gautschi, Barbara Sommer Häller (ed.): The contribution of schools and universities to cultures of remembrance, Schwalbach 2014, 69–89.

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Bernd Schönemann: History culture as a repetition structure? In: History, Politics and their Didactics. 34, 2006, pp. 182–191, here p. 182.
  2. ↑ Aleida Assmann , Ute Frevert : Geschichtsvergessenheit - Geschichtsversessenheit. How to deal with German pasts after 1945. Stuttgart 1999, p. 11.
  3. ^ Karl Pellens , Siegfried Quandt , Hans Süssmuth (Ed.): History culture - history didactics. International bibliography. Paderborn u. a. 1984 (= studies on didactics, vol. 3).
  4. ^ Klaus Tenfelde : Historical culture in the Ruhr area . In: trade union monthly magazines , vol. 47 (1996), pp. 240–253, here p. 243.
  5. ↑ Jörn Rüsen: What is history culture ?. Reflections on a new way of thinking about history. In: Jörn Rüsen, Theo Grütter, Klaus Füßmann (eds.): Historical fascination. History culture today. Cologne u. a. 1994, pp. 3–26, here p. 5
  6. ↑ That they are "not really", however, Manfred Seidenfuss recently made in the part of his contribution "Medieval and Middle Ages in the culture of history" in the joint contribution by dems., Thomas M. Buck, Sven Plefka, Friederike Stöckle: Die actuality des Mittelalters, in: Zeitschrift für Geschichtsdidaktik 9 (2008), pp. 35–77, here pp. 35–41 stated.
  7. ^ Edgar Wolfrum: Historical politics in the Federal Republic of Germany. The Road to Federal Republican Remembrance 1948–1990. Darmstadt 1999.
  8. ↑ Norbert Frei: Politics of the Past. The beginnings of the Federal Republic and the Nazi past. Munich, 1996.
  9. ↑ See Peter Reichel: Politics with memory. Places of remembrance in the dispute about the National Socialist past. Munich u. a. 1995.
  10. ↑ Siegfried Quandt: Television as the main medium of historical culture? Conditions, experiences, trends. In: Bernd Mütter u. a. (Ed.): History culture. Theory - empiricism - pragmatics. Weinheim 2000, pp. 235-249.
  11. ↑ Harald Welzer: The memory of the pictures. An introduction. In: Harald Welzer (Ed.): The memory of images. Aesthetics and National Socialism. Tübingen 1955, pp. 7–13, here p. 8.
  12. ^ Gerhard Paul (Ed.): Visual History. A study book. Göttingen 2006.
  13. ↑ Bernd Schönemann: History didactics and history culture. In: Bernd Schönemann, Bernd Mütter, Uwe Uffelmann (eds.): History culture. Theory - empiricism - pragmatics. Weingarten 2000 (= Schriften zur Geschichtsdidaktik, Vol. 11), pp. 26–58, here pp. 44ff.
  14. ↑ Schönemann: History culture as a repetition structure (see note 1), p. 184.
  15. ↑ Bernd Schönemann: The history culture of the adventure society. In: as well as. 30, 2001, pp. 135-141.
  16. ↑ See the criticism by Siegfried Quandt, in: Zeitschrift für Geschichtsdidaktik 1 (2002), p. 182f .: "[...] The claim of the volume is in no way fulfilled."
  17. ↑ Schönemann: History culture as a repetition structure (see note 1), p. 184.
  18. ↑ Schönemann: History culture as a repetition structure (see note 1), p. 187f.
  19. ↑ Schönemann: History culture and history didactics (see note 13), p. 46f.
  20. ↑ Hans-Jürgen Pandel: History lessons according to PISA. Competencies, educational standards and core curricula. Schwalbach i. Ts. 2005, p. 131 - against these explanations Schönemann has: History culture as repetition structure (as note 1), p. 185ff. again took up a position that accuses them of arguing “narrowly presentistically” (p. 186).
  21. ^ Pandel: History lesson according to PISA (see note 20), p. 40.
  22. ^ Hans-Jürgen Pandel: History culture . In: Hans-Jürgen Pandel, Ulrich Mayer, Gerhard Schneider , Bernd Schönemann (Hrsg.): Dictionary of history didactics. Schwalbach i. Ts. 2006, p. 74f., Here p. 75.
  23. ↑ Christoph Cornelißen: What does a culture of remembrance mean? Concept - methods - perspectives. In: History in Science and Education. 54, 2003, pp. 548-563, here p. 555.
  24. ↑ Marko Demantowsky: culture of history and culture of remembrance - two conceptions of one object. Historical background and exemplary comparison. In: History, Politics and their Didactics. 33, 2005, pp. 11-20, here p. 18.
  25. ↑ Ziegler, Béatrice, “Remember!” - History as memory and science . In: Peter Gautschi, Barbara Sommer Häller (eds.): The contribution from schools and universities to cultures of remembrance, Schwalbach 2014, 69–89, here p. 83.
  26. ↑ Cf. Barbara Korte, Sylvia Paletschek , Wolfgang Hochbruck: Introduction. In: Barbara Korte, Sylvia Paletschek, Wolfgang Hochbruck (eds.): The First World War in the popular culture of remembrance. Klartext, Essen 2008, ISBN 978-3-89861-727-7 . (Writings of the Library for Contemporary History, New Series. Volume 22), pp. 7–24, here p. 11f.