TRADITIONAL HISTORY: HISTORY, WHAT IT STUDIES, CHARACTERISTICS - HISTORY - 2025

The traditional story is a historiographical trend that focuses on narrating the events to an individual in a state or nation, focusing almost alone in political and military events, diplomats, like wars or battles.

In general, these narrated events started from the story of a person, without covering all aspects of the events but only the monitoring of an individual, using the story as a method and without any type of analysis. They were presented as a linear or chronological sequence of events.

Leopold von Ranke was one of the most prominent representatives of traditional history. Source: wikipedia.org

The importance of traditional history lies in the fact that it was from this that history began to be considered a science, and even to be considered the mother of the social sciences; before it was considered an art or study without scientific character.

History

Traditional history was the original way to begin with the history that is known today. Although little used in these times, it serves as a source for historians of other currents.

It was a current born in Europe (Germany and France) in the 19th century and its importance consisted in educating and informing about the State, a recently established notion, as well as generating national identity.

Since its appearance, the idea or objective of traditional history was to make known the events that occurred in other times that no one lived to tell them, limiting itself to narrating the events as they occurred. For this reason, historians were objective researchers and narrators, supported by the evidence that was had.

Documentary approach

During the nineteenth century this vision of history was the one that was established in society. The intention was to base his study on the trajectory of characters or events, under the premise that knowing them would imply a knowledge of society.

Obviously, this approach did not take into account other relevant aspects, such as the social context and the causes and consequences that produced this or that event.

History, as we understand it today, is the science and academic discipline that studies and narrates the facts or social phenomena that have already occurred, told from all possible spheres and seeking to generate in those who study it a historical thought, beyond the knowledge of these acts.

For this, not only are the events narrated but also analyzed from their causes to their consequences, not seen from a single person but from the collective sphere. That is, the basis of what is told is not a person but the event.

What does traditional history study?

Great characters

Traditional history studies the individual as a rational and conscious being, free to make the decisions he makes, who is practically unaffected by the situations that exist around him.

It assumes that people are not a consequence of social, economic or cultural facts, nor are they the consequence of the environment in which they operate nor are they determined by it.

Given the attribution of excessive rationality or objectivity to the people who were the object of study, they were considered exceptional or special characters; only they were the ones being studied and not others.

Politics

As it is not related to any area of ​​the individual's reality, it only narrates the political aspect of it. The reason for telling the story of a character was to tell the story of the state.

Only who was relevant to the political history of a country was studied, and this relevance was measured through their military, leadership or political achievements.

The reason traditional historians relied on the state was because this type of history originated in Europe with the rise of the creation of this form of organization, after centuries of war.

So, traditional history had the objective of highlighting the state as an institution. With this same premise, it was later adapted in the rest of the world, even in the new states created after colonialism.

At that time the problems faced were largely political. Later, serious social, economic and other problems arose, but at this historical moment these were not relevant. For this reason, the theme of traditional history par excellence was politics.

characteristics

Individual

Traditional history holds that the events that occur in a state or country are the consequence of the actions of some free individuals, whose will leads them to carry out these actions. For this reason, he studies the past from the particular history of these influential individuals.

Its purpose was to understand the way of thinking of these people, and thus understand the motivations or reasons that made them act the way they did.

Elitist

The fact that only the great characters in history were studied, who used to be part of the dominant political class, favored elitist, class or sexist studies, since anonymous characters or women were not studied, although they had been fundamental for the main character's achievements.

Documentary film

The only source that used traditional history was written documents, which were often official documents.

The historians of this current were in charge of collecting data and facts and systematizing them, originating important and large files of obligatory reference for the time, and even for current studies.

Empirical

Partly because its only source was documentary, its methodology was hermeneutics; that is, the study only of the texts and their objective interpretation, without relating them to other sources or methods.

Traditional historians dedicated themselves to narrating or relating the events in a linear way, one after another, in a chronological way. No analysis was made of these, but only their veracity was investigated.

Social science

Traditional history was the fundamental step to consider history as a science. This was so because traditional historians emphasized the search for truthfulness, objectivity in studying and narrating facts, and publishing only verified facts.

Unlike the natural sciences, traditional history gave preference to the specific over the general, to the study of a particular individual and not to the study of the generality or the existence of different phenomena, events or social processes. Therefore, there was no comparison of any kind.

Amateur

As at that time history was not considered an important science or study, there were no professionals in the area.

Only certain areas of history were studied in careers such as law, philosophy or theology, so the first historians can be considered amateurs in this branch.

The creation of traditional history led to the existence of chairs of this in some universities, as well as its incorporation into the basic education curriculum and, later, the creation of history as an academic discipline of exclusive study.

How is it divided?

Positivism

In all the sciences positivism represented the objective study of natural or social phenomena. This also had an influence on the study of the past, since it was the method proposed by the traditional history of the first decades, which was limited to studying and collecting data without interpreting them, remaining objective against them.

Historicism

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, some historians emerged who proposed changes to the method of traditional history. Those who were in opposition indicated that, when studying the verified data, the researcher added subjectivity and based his narrative on this subjective result.

Both the object and the method of study proposed were the same; however, the possibility that a historian could be completely objective in the face of a human event he was studying was denied.

From then on, the vision began to take hold that the historian not only limited himself to telling the fact, but also explained it. Even subjectivity can be present from the moment of selecting the topic to be discussed.

Representatives

Both positivism and historicism, there were several prominent authors with one or more representative works. Among the most important are the following.

Leopold von Ranke

A German national, Leopold von Ranke is one of the most prominent historians of the 19th century. This character was one of the defenders of going to official documentation to base his investigations and narrations on it.

His most important works include History of the Roman and Germanic peoples from 1494 to 1535 (1824), History of the Osmanli and the Spanish monarchy during the 16th and 17th centuries (1827), History of Germany during the Reformation (1839-1847).) and Universal History (1875).

Barthold Georg Niebuhr

It was one of the most important precursors of historicism. He was born in Denmark, but moved to Germany at a very young age; in this country he developed as a historian, politician and philologist. His most important work was History of Rome (two volumes: 1811 and 1812).

Starting in 1810, he taught at the University of Berlin and was also part of the founding group of the Society of Historical Philological and Critical Sciences, whose initial purpose was to verify the veracity of the information documented by Tito Livio, a Roman historian.

Charles Seignobos

This French character stands out for the objective, impartial and quite clear narration that he used in his work as a historian. His focus was especially on studying the French Third Republic.

He was one of the most prominent positivists in France and taught at the University of Paris. His main works include Introduction to Historical Studies (1890), History of Civilization (1884-1886) and Political History of Contemporary Europe (1887).

References

1. Muñoz Delaunoy, I. «From 'Traditional History' to 'New History'» (2013) in The Didactics of History and the formation of citizens in today's world. Retrieved on June 2, 2019 from Academia: academia.edu
2. "Historiographic currents: traditional history" (May 24, 2016) in Qué Aprendemos Hoy. Retrieved on June 2, 2019 from What We Learn Today: queaprendemoshoy.com
3. «Historiographic currents» (sf) in the Academic Portal of the College of Sciences and Humanities of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Retrieved on June 2, 2019 in the CCH Academic Portal: portalacademico.cch.unam.mx
4. «Currents of historical interpretation» (nd) in Contemporary History of Mexico 1. Retrieved on June 2, 2019 from Centro de Estudios Científcos y Tecnológicas 7 Cuauhtémoc: academico.cecyt7.ipn.mx
5. "Leopold von Ranke" (nd) in EcuRed. Retrieved on June 2, 2019 from EcuRed: ecured.cu
6. "Barthold Georg Niebuhr" (nd) in Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved on June 2, 2019 from Encyclopedia Britannica: britannica.com