HUNGARIAN STUDIES 15. No. 2. Nemzetközi Magyar Filológiai Társaság. Akadémiai Kiadó Budapest [2001]

Sándor Hites: Reluctant Supplements: Historical Novel, Historiography, and Historiographical Metafiction

SÁNDOR HITES not only the recent historiographical metafiction has challenged the ways histori­ans had understood and represented the past but the historical novel also has al­ways had the power of subversion. The proposal to re-evaluate the nineteenth century historical fiction is not merely to drive home the point that the question of fictionality or literariness has always been a part of the historical discourse in quite problematic ways. To reveal the structure of mutual supplementation be­tween the two discourses might be of great importance, particularly regarding the politics of East-Central European issues. For in East-Central Europe the nine­teenth century historical novel is usually presented as ifit were partly responsible for the xenophobic tendencies present in the region. Indeed, it could hardly be denied that the genre is one of the most important shapers of the popular images made of the past (Keresztutak 120). Nevertheless, if one asserts that the coopera­tion among the nations in the region is at stake in the case of the genre (Keresztutak 120), then one should emphasize that there is a difference between the ways the novels in question can be characterized in the context of the particular time and space they were written and the ways in which the sentiments of those familiar with them have been exploited by political purposes. One should keep it in evi­dence that texts seldom contain their politics as an essence. Rather they are inter­preted politically according to particular historical situations and ideological premises. We risk the statement that from the second third of the nineteenth century it was rather historiography's concern to develop nationalistically biased, coherent narratives, and that these narratives were opposed by the heterogeneity of the historical novel. Historical fiction did not in every case serve politically biased narratives, rather, up to a point, they contributed to the multivocality and diversity of historical discourses. We shall try to present some of the different stages, through which a rivalry between historiography and historical novel developed. We shall focus on how in the name of expertise this rivalry was eliminated, how profes­sionals tried to reduce diversity, and regain or maintain control over the public. II. A Professional Closure In the 1820s the early theories of the novel in Hungary defined the Roman as the opposite of História. Samuel Balog, in his A Románokról (Of Novels), claimed that history deals with events as they actually happened (see a familiar notion in Ranke), while the novel is supposed to remain within the domain of the self. "A História a külső vagyis a világi történeteket adja elő; a Román a belső érzelmi történetekkel foglalatoskodik; a História úgy írja le a történeteket, a hogy a való világra nézve vágynak, - a Román ugy, ahogy az érzelmekre vagy ideákra nézve vagynaK\

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