Personal history
The history of persons is a sub-area of historical science . She researches historical individual fates as well as the relationship between person and community.
development
The biography of the person has existed since antiquity (e.g. Plutarch ). In ancient history, it is one of the relevant modern research methods as prosopography . The biography is generally a popular form of presenting history . Since the 1960s in particular, however, it has been seen by critics of its limited view as incompatible with structural history, in Germany above all by representatives of historical social science (e.g. Hans-Ulrich Wehler ). In the 19th century, personalizing history emphasized personalities in such a way that important historical figures were idealized or even heroized (e.g. Thomas Carlyle ), criticized Imanuel Geiss . Mainly “great” personalities took a prominent position, whereby “spiritual leaders, statesmen, inventors, discoverers, religious heroes [...] should be brought to life because of their special educational influence [...]”, analyzes Joachim Rohlfes . The simple "little" person (man and woman) as political actors and social structures, which the structural history aims at, were often disregarded. Historical processes were inadmissibly reduced and simplified, individualized and depoliticized ( Michael Sauer ). Accordingly, the main problems of personalization are that it underestimates the role and importance of the “masses” and neglects structural history. This critical view is almost in line with historical materialism , as popularized in Bertolt Brecht's poem Questions of a Reading Worker , but without sharing historical determinism .
A didactic problem can be that this leads to a willingness to adapt, a feeling of powerlessness and the ability to manipulate young people. Historians and history educators like Klaus Bergmann pointed out that personalization, especially when equated with heroization , has a particularly detrimental effect on people's historical awareness and political attitudes. In 1972 he countered this with personification : the representation of history in “nameless” acting and suffering people, the so-called “little people”, who have their own perspective on history, says Michael Sauer. At the same time, these people represent certain social groups . This does not mean that only lower or underprivileged population groups should now be the focus of interest, but rather that groups that can only be described in a generalized and abstract way are given a face based on people. It is not the individual who plays the decisive role, but the person as a type , as a representative for the whole group. So z. For example, the long-missing everyday story can be included in the history presentation.
Personal history is currently examining individuals in their historical context. The life and work of people and groups of people (e.g. families and other social groups, occupational groups, denominational groups) in their time are the focus of research because it is assumed that they are people and the social groups formed by people from which societies are formed. Personalities and structures are no longer seen as mutually exclusive opposites, but as an “interdependent relationship in which one interlocks” (Joachim Rohlfes). So the motto is not structures or personalities, but structures and personalities.
personalization
In history and political didactics , personalization describes the attribution of responsibility for historical and political changes or the power to bring about such changes to individual, possibly outstanding personalities.
According to older conceptions of developmental psychology as well as of pedagogy (especially the concept of popular education ), such an ascription of the action in “history” was either a child's level of development or the “plasticity” of the majority of the population. Accordingly, it was also an expressly required principle of teacher narration , as it was typical for the older historical methodology well into the 1960s: Historical processes should be brought closer to the children using a concrete, novelistic and dramatic narrative, according to which individual outstanding personalities (" great men ”) were responsible. So Friedrich the Great and Otto von Bismarck were conveyed as aloof, ingenious personalities.
This becomes problematic with "negative heroes" like Erich Ludendorff or especially Hitler . In the 1960s and 1970s, personalization came under heavy criticism from a historical didactic point of view, when empirical studies on the historical image of young people showed that they generally only allowed a few outstanding personalities to have influence, but had no idea of their own opportunities to participate . A consciously and intentionally personalized history lesson was made responsible for this ( Ludwig von Friedeburg ; P. Hübner 1964/1970).
On the other hand, Klaus Bergmann developed the concept of "personification", which as a principle for history lessons demands that concrete people be thematized in their actions in history lessons, while focusing on the "little people", as far as possible, on all relevant social groups. This is also intended to counteract an exaggerated abstractness in teaching, which is to be feared due to the avoidance of personalization and socio-historical orientation.
It was not until the 1990s that narrative was rediscovered in history lessons in connection with the emphasis on historical fantasy and imagination (e.g. with Rolf Schörken ). Personalization or personalization apply e.g. B. in the presentation of victim biographies in National Socialist concentration camps as a didactic “royal road” of memorial site education alongside oral history , which is also a form of personified history presentation .
literature
- Klaus Bergmann : Personalization in History Lessons - Education for Democracy? Klett, Stuttgart 1972, ISBN 3-12-927420-0 .
- Klaus Bergmann: Personalization, personification . In: Handbuch der Geschichtsdidaktik . Schwann, Düsseldorf 1985, ISBN 3-590-14463-7 , pp. 268-271 .
- Klaus Bergmann: Personalization and Personification . In: History Didactics . Contributions to a theory of historical learning . Wochenschau, Schwalbach 2000, ISBN 3-87920-431-4 , p. 158-161 .
- Michael Bosch: Personality and Structure in History . Historical inventory and didactic implications . Schwann, Düsseldorf 1977, ISBN 3-590-18004-8 .
- Ludwig von Friedeburg , P. Huebner: The historical image of the youth . 2nd, supplementary edition. Juventa, Munich 1970, ISBN 3-7799-0070-X .
- Joachim Rohlfes : A heart for personal history? Structures and personalities in science and teaching . In: History in Science and Education . Volume 50, No. 5/6 , 1999, ISSN 0016-9056 , p. 305-320 .
- Michael Sauer : teaching history . An introduction to didactics and methodology . 3. Edition. Kallmeyer, Seelze-Velber 2004, ISBN 3-7800-4925-2 , p. 73-76 .
- Rolf Schörken : Historical Imagination and History Didactics . Schöningh, Paderborn 1994, ISBN 3-506-78129-4 .
- Thomas Speckmann: The world as will and idea . Chances and problems of a biographical historiography of the "little man" . In: History in Science and Education . Vol. 53, no. 7/8 , 2003, ISSN 0016-9056 , p. 412-426 .
- Hans-Ulrich Wehler : Historical social science and historiography . Studies on the tasks and traditions of German history . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1980, ISBN 3-525-36176-9 .