| Abstract [eng] |
Subject thesis is aiming to present the different concepts of historians‘ role according to Lithuanian historians. The tension between historical truth and political gain in the process of writing and reconstructing history is inevitable, therefore it is important to understand how such tensions are being perceived and resolved by professional historians. The questionnaire for the qualitative research was developed based on the main conflicting points that are being outlined in the media and theoretical work on history and politics. The aforementioned questionnaire was used to conduct 17 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with Lithuanian historians and the information obtained has been used to answer the main question of the thesis - how do historians perceive their role? This question includes such aspects as: historians‘ mission / role / responsibility, participation in the public sphere and influence that politics make on the process of history writing (through political views, requirements to foster values in the society, request for a grand narrative). The subject thesis allows to better understand the tensions between politics and history writing and how those tensions are being perceived and resolved by Lithuanian historians. The research has shown that the tension between truth seeking and servitude to the state in the work of a historian cannot be solved. All of the aspects that are being discussed in the thesis point out the fact, that it is impossible to reconstruct the past (historical truth) in an unbiased way: historians’ worldview, values, political views make an influence on the interpretation of historical facts, therefore different interpretations are possible and acceptable, as the polylogue between different viewpoints is a way to approach the truth. Servitude to the state requires exact answers that could be used in the process of building of a grand narrative - historians, who believe that their professional ethics include loyalty to the truth, cannot participate in such process, as it requires to establish one way of interpreting history, which usually requires omission of facts, that are politically inconvenient. |
