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On Understanding History
Jan. 20th, 2008 08:40 pmRecently, I’ve been thinking a lot about history and how it’s presented, taught, or learned about generally outside the United States. I’ve been thinking about this because I’ve realized as I’ve grown older that sometimes the understanding I have about history or historical figures—at least, the way it was presented to me—is nowhere near universally true, even about the things I thought couldn’t be argued otherwise. Two things recently occurred on LJ that made me want to write about it because I hope to get input so that I can better understand the discrepancy between what I learned and what I’ve heard.
I realize that history isn’t simply a matter of the Good Guys and the Bad Guys; that history or the study of it is not about making moral judgments. Sometimes, though, others respond to my mention of certain historical figures that quite surprise me; the two lately on LJ have been Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin.
Here in America, Churchill is presented in the history books—and I must say, my college history courses didn’t present him much differently than my high school classes—primarily as a figure to be admired. My personal experience with those I’ve met from England, though, is much different. I can’t think of one person I’ve met from the UK who professed admiration for Churchill. Why is this?
Second, and much more shocking to me, is the attitude to Stalin held by some Russians. Malkhos recently rose to the bait (how like him) from a post by some Russian woman describing how many of her ancestors and relatives had been killed by Nazis during the War. His response was a little nicer than this, but he basically asked her, “How many were killed by Communists?” She and others replied directly and said that none had been, and then said while the Communists of that period might not have been perfect, there was no way of comparing them with Nazis. Malkhos offered that as far as he could see there was no difference between Nazis and Communists—Hitler and Stalin—except perhaps that Stalin had killed even more than Hitler. He was told that his mind had been blinded by propaganda and therefore no further communication with him on the subject was possible. Malkhos explained that many political factions had and still do find it in their interest to rehabilitate Stalin, but considering what a vicious murderous bastard he was,, how can that be, how can they seemingly teach school children to do anything but despise him?
I realize that history isn’t simply a matter of the Good Guys and the Bad Guys; that history or the study of it is not about making moral judgments. Sometimes, though, others respond to my mention of certain historical figures that quite surprise me; the two lately on LJ have been Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin.
Here in America, Churchill is presented in the history books—and I must say, my college history courses didn’t present him much differently than my high school classes—primarily as a figure to be admired. My personal experience with those I’ve met from England, though, is much different. I can’t think of one person I’ve met from the UK who professed admiration for Churchill. Why is this?
Second, and much more shocking to me, is the attitude to Stalin held by some Russians. Malkhos recently rose to the bait (how like him) from a post by some Russian woman describing how many of her ancestors and relatives had been killed by Nazis during the War. His response was a little nicer than this, but he basically asked her, “How many were killed by Communists?” She and others replied directly and said that none had been, and then said while the Communists of that period might not have been perfect, there was no way of comparing them with Nazis. Malkhos offered that as far as he could see there was no difference between Nazis and Communists—Hitler and Stalin—except perhaps that Stalin had killed even more than Hitler. He was told that his mind had been blinded by propaganda and therefore no further communication with him on the subject was possible. Malkhos explained that many political factions had and still do find it in their interest to rehabilitate Stalin, but considering what a vicious murderous bastard he was,, how can that be, how can they seemingly teach school children to do anything but despise him?
