Official History Research Articles

"El Primer Grito de Independencia" en los ensayos históricos de Francisco Gavidia: la invención de un mito fundacional de la "nación salvadoreña"

In 1911, the centenary festivities of the political movements that took place in the Municipality of San Salvador in 1811 were celebrated with great sumptuousness. The commemorations-celebrations of 1911 were part of a set of rites, symbols, anniversaries, monuments, places of civic memory that the Salvadoran State needed to invent in order to instill feelings towards the country in the population. To achieve this, it was also necessary to create a history based on historical facts that would become a canon and give support to nationalist inventions. To pursue this, in 1912 the President of the Republic Manuel Enrique Araujo commissioned three intellectuals to write an official history. Francisco Gavidia was asked to write about the independence of El Salvador. The result of that request was the publication of the book Modern History of El Salvador. In this book, Gavidia included two chapters on what was called “First Cry of Independence.” Thus, the movements of 1811 became one of the founding myths of the Salvadoran nation. Along with the date —November 5—, the myth of the hero / father of the country José Matías Delgado was created. The third link in the myth was the bell tower of the La Merced Church. In this way, the story to create a “cradle of the country” was resolved. Along with Gavidia, other intellectuals completed that company. This work intends to analyze the context of the invention of “The First Cry of Independence”. Realidad, Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, No. 164, 2024: 39-88.

Tribute VS "Nanman": The Image Construction of "Magic Mirror Type"

For over 2000 years, feudal dynasties throughout China have referred to southerners as the “Nanman” (means Southern Barbarian). However, the specific situation of the treatment of Nanman titles by various dynasties has not been explored. In addition, the Nanman never stopped paying tribute to the Central Dynasty. No one is involved in whether tribute can earn the respect that the dynasty deserves. Nowadays, big data technology can easily handle massive amounts of literature, and it is entirely possible to analyze the above issues from "official histories" (the 25 historical books) using the method of word frequency research. The words frequency shows that since the unification of Lingnan by Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the feudal dynasties presented a paradox to Lingnan: The products in Lingnan were coveted, and local customs were despised. "Tribute" was used to cover up the predatory nature of Kings, and "Nanman" was used to establish political, national and cultural rank. The number of "tribute" and the meaning of "Nanman" formed the "magic mirror" development relationship in the big tree of feudal autocracy until the end of the Qing Dynasty. But on the one hand, the positive factors of "tribute" were absorbed and used by the western powers to establish their own alliances. On the other hand, they also mislead the public opinion and create trouble. Although "Nanman" has been eradicated politically, the regional discrimination and cultural misreading it contains have not been eradicated and often occurs. "Tribute" ranges from Kyushu to overseas to international relations. The connotation of "Nanman" from the orientation, nation and culture, the meaning of these two words has been spontaneously changing. It is timely to clarify their relationship and help make China revive.

Transmission and Agreement: Reading and the Contemporary Northern Irish Novel

Transmission and Agreement: Reading and the Contemporary Northern Irish Novel. This paper evaluates the capacity of the contemporary Northern Irish novel to act as an agent of transmission for a ‘post-Troubles’ readership, one distanced by a generation from the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that symbolised the partial end of sectarian violence. The critic Liam Harte suggests that “no part of modern Europe (if not the world) has greater claim than Northern Ireland to the mantle of most-narrativized region”, but the transmissive function of fictional works in this context remain under-critiqued. Here, I assess the aspirations of novelistic narrative to cater for what Premesh Lalu has described, in the context of post-apartheid South African art forms, as ‘psychic repair’ (Undoing Apartheid, 2023). The essay engages the 2018 novel Milkman, by Northern Irish author Anna Burns, to ask how fictional narrative transmits the detail of the past across a generation first, in parallel to other literary and artistic genres, and second, in relation to an expanding archive of ongoing legal tribunals and government incentives directed towards the production of an ‘official history’ for Northern Ireland. Through attention to the self-conscious foregrounding of forensic reading practice by Burns and fellow writers, I show the necessary place of fictional recovery in the field of political and cultural memory. Keywords: Troubles, Northern Irish fiction, transmission, memory, generation

The more, the better: queer urban spatialities of Seoul in three films

ABSTRACT Queer space in South Korea’s primate city Seoul has historically remained excluded or invisible across multiple temporalities: in official histories and accounts of the past, in present urban life, and in planning for the future. This is especially noticeable in the municipal government’s numerous revitalization plans which focus on known ‘gayborhoods’ such as Jongno 3-ga. This article identifies and analyzes the structure of differing queer spatialities present in Seoul through close reading and examination of three films: the auteur produced A Cheonggyecheon Dog (2008), the realist documentary Miracle on Jongno Street (2010), and the archival art film Dadaikseon (2018). In these filmic representations, we observe multiple spatialities in Seoul that reflect the precarity and isolation faced by queer individuals in processes of urban redevelopment, the Janus-faced nature of urban space during the night versus the day which can allow or inhibit queer collectivity, and the dynamic erasure of urban spaces which fall outside of hegemonic norms in the face of urban change and gentrification. In the face of the homogenization of Seoul’s urban space, we argue that the identification of a multiplicity of queer spatialities opens up possibility and alternatives to dominant processes and patterns of urbanization, modernization and homogenization – that is, the more non-normative spatialities, the better.

The Mental And Social Representation Of Cabanagem In The Municipality Of Acará In The State Of Pará (Brazil): Narratives Of The Past To Understand The Present

Justification: Representations are the figurations of the environment, which occur through symbols, values, norms, knowledge, beliefs, among others, which are presented in a real or ideal way through social interrelations, in a way that they are ethnocentric or relativized in individual memory (Mental Representation), collective (Collective Representation), or social (Social Representation), are created and recreated, destroyed and reconstructed, materializing themselves through communication and language. In view of this, it seeks to understand the present of the city of Acará through the Social and Mental Representation of the Cabanagem Movement to understand the current problems of the population. Methodology: Semi-directive interviews were conducted with residents of the municipality of Acará in the state of Pará (Brazil) , and six interviews were selected, including interviewees with the following profiles: a teacher, a senior citizen, a community leader, a person who worked in social assistance, and two people who did not fit any of the previous profiles, chosen at random. It is worth mentioning that the interviewees were assured anonymity using, when necessary, an alphanumeric code. The most significant narratives were selected to analyze the Mental and Social Representation of Cabanagem and to understand how they reconstruct this history, and how their present fits into these Representations. Objetive: to identify how Cabanagem is represented in the memory of the population of Acará in the State of Pará in Brazil, how they construct, destroy and reconstruct the narratives of Cabanagem and how these communications occur. Conclusions: The study of Mental and Social Representations enables not only the search for history from the perspective of the population, where official history has often erased traces of heroism and dignity, but also the understanding of how people see and communicate their social condition and how they reconstruct facts that have reached them orally through relatives, friends or popular leaders, and thus can identify what they think about their current society, government projects, among others. Identifying their needs provides the elements for developing social projects that truly meet the needs of those populations

Design and Implementation of an Official History Mobile Game Solution based on 3D Technology

Design and Implementation of an Official History Mobile Game Solution based on 3D Technology

Reading the Graphic Narrative “The Taboo,” from the Anthology This Side, That Side: Restorying Partition: Graphic Narratives from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, As a Microhistory of Partition

ABSTRACT Early historiography of the South-Asian Partition tended to emphasize on the high politics surrounding the struggles against British imperialism and the transfer of power, focusing on prominent leaders and politicians and their roles in achieving self-rule. The perspectives of the general populace and the effects of high politics on those on the periphery of society, have been elided. However, since the 1990s, alternative voices, documenting the human dimension of Partition and the histories of marginalized masses, previously excluded from official histories, have started to gain importance. This article analyses how the graphic narrative, “The Taboo,” by Malini Gupta and Dyuti Mittal, offers such an alternative history, presenting the experiences of the residents of a refugee camp (Cooper’s camp) who have not been rehabilitated to this date and thereby remained trapped as “historical residues” of the Partition. This article discusses how the narrative highlights the subjectivity and agency of the refugees, particularly, the refugee women, with lower caste and class backgrounds whose histories have remained undocumented in official records. It further examines “The Taboo” as a microhistory of Partition that presents the local history of the camp and foregrounds the agency of the protagonist Lily, as an unattached refugee woman.

The Northern Studies Collection of the Hokkaido University Library as the Major Repository of Sources on the History of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands

The article traces the formation and development of the Northern Studies Collection at the Hokkaido University Library, the largest collection of Japanese written sources on the history of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in the 17th–19th cc. in Japan and beyond. This region was involved in trade relations with Japanese merchants under the control of the Matsumae clan, and later was partly administered by the Tokugawa shogunate. The Northern Studies Collection of the Hokkaido University Library is based on written sources that were collected and copied nationwide for the compilation of an official history of Hokkaido under the auspices of the island’s governorship in the 1910s–1930s. During the preparation of the catalog in the 1970s and 1980s, the collection was also enriched with copies of many sources from other collections in Japan. Thus, the Northern Studies Collection can be used to reconstruct a map of all the centers for storing sources on the history of the region in Japan. As this extensive collection is closely related to the history of the Northern Studies Collection Department and its predecessor, the Northern Cultures Research Department of the Hokkaido University, the history of these two branches is also traced in the article.

Elements of Historical Personal Identity Construction of Finnish-Speaking Students

In this paper, the constructions of historical personal identity of Finnish-speaking students are analysed. The students participated in a larger study of historical narratives and identities, carried out in 2020 in two schools in Finland and in one European School outside Finland. In the mixed-method study, sixty-one students were interviewed and given writing and drawing assignments on historical identity. In this paper, the students’ visual representations of their personal historical identity and its relationship with wider official history are analysed. The aim is to increase understanding of how 14–16-year-old students visualise and articulate their historical personal identity constructions and the historical elements they use in negotiating this identity. The findings suggest that the students integrate personal and historical social narratives in diverse ways but that the majority of them find it challenging to connect their personal family history with the wider official history. Only twelve students made the connection. In addition to presenting the results for the whole group of students, the visual representations of two selected students are discussed in more detail so as to highlight the difference in the approaches to historical personal identity construction among the students.

From Garden Suburb to Urban Center in Goiânia: a Historical Analysis of the Setor Sul (South Sector) (1938-1962)

Objective: The objective of this study is to discuss the occupation of the Setor Sul (south sector)since Attílio Correia Lima's initial proposal, reformulated as a garden neighborhood by Coimbra Bueno's company under Amando Augusto de Godoy's supervision, until it became an urban centrality considering the growth of the city of Goiânia, initially planned to occupy a radius of 4 km from the Praça Cívica (civic square) in 1933. Theoretical Framework: Urban analysis is developed as a resource to understand the urban structure of Goiânia and the role of the Setor Sul (south sector), based on the reflections of the historical-geographical approach (Vasconcellos, 2010). With the data and maps related to these characteristics, the perspectives of Manso (2001; 2018), Daher (2003), Diniz (2007), Ackel (1986; 2007), among others, are considered regarding the conception of Goiânia and the circulation of the modern ideology as premises for configuring the Setor Sul as a garden neighborhood. Thus, attention is drawn to understanding the formation of the city from a conceptual and practical aspect, as its construction unfolded in the morphological changes of the neighborhood in addition to the strict control of immediate land occupation, a fact that effectively occurred in the 1960s-70s. Method: The methodology adopted for this research involves the analysis of poorly systematized documentary sources, linking historical documents to the collection of legislation, decrees, and other legal instruments that shaped the control and land use of Goiânia until the mid-1950s, when the municipality began to assume the management of urbanization in the newly created city. Public archives and data from the Goiânia municipality were sought to organize and observe how the urban form of the neighborhood changed, constituting its process of occupation. Results and Discussion: The results obtained indicate that the occupation of Setor Sul (south sector), from the 1930s to the 1950s, was under the supervision of the State, exerting control over the sale of lots and the permission to occupy them later, as they were considered "land stock". This means, among other things, that land was valued as an exchange and provision of resources for the city's own development. In this sense, the neighborhood, although widely disseminated and detailed in official urbanization plans, had a fragmented occupation, often depending on the government's ability to implement the infrastructure, areas, and public facilities planned in the 1938 project. Through the historical-geographical approach, an urban analysis of Setor Sul is characterized by its connection with the Setor Central and Setor Oeste neighborhoods, and later, with Setor Pedro Ludovico, due to the road system that expanded the urbanized area as a result of Goiânia's intense population growth. In this sense, the research indicates the importance of relating historical data to legislative records as a means to better understand the materiality of the city, going beyond what was initially conceived. Research Implications: The transformations of Setor Sul (South sector) between the decades of 1930-60 are being discussed, considering the different materialization from what the designers had envisioned. The difficulties faced by the municipal administration in providing adequate infrastructure are identified, along with the intense migration that occurred during that period. In this way, reflections between urban history and territorial planning are compared to understand the current features of the neighborhood and enable urban management to mediate its present conflicts. Discussions regarding the preservation of Setor Sul are also included, focusing on its materialized form rather than solely the urbanistic ideas that surround its official history. Originality/Value: This study contributes to the literature by expanding the urban history of the city, incorporating political-administrative aspects and seeking to understand the production of urban space in light of the territorial occupation articulated with the actions that prompted it. The relevance and value of this research are evidenced by explaining the transformations of the neighborhood through the comparison and correlation of documentary sources and the socio-spatial aspects that permeate the formation of the urban landscape.

PRESENÇA DA AUSÊNCIA: O ESPAÇO LACUNAR EM GUSTAVO GERMANO E BERNARDO KUCINSKI

This work analyse how the Ausenc’as’ exhibition, of Gustavo Germano, and the K romance, the story of a quest, of Bernardo Kucinski, bring to bear the political disappearances theme of Brazilian civil and military dictatorship, from a incomplete, empty space on both productions. So, to achieve this comprehension, it’s used a bibliographical methodology, with Barthes (1984; 2011), Didi-Huberman (1998; 2012), Figueiredo (2017), Cury (2020), among other authors as academic input. In Gustavo Germano’s project, the trauma is shaped in the absence of a body, that go beyond the family circle and enter the public sphere to incite the viewer to see beyond emptiness, the void enforced by our official history. The same movement is observed in the Kucinski’s work that also goes from a family trauma to invite the reader to remember the military dictatorship horrors, to hear the silence scream that reverberate in the darkest corners of our past. Saving the singularities of each object, the analysis points to a common force: the art as an oblivion resistance, as a meaningful visibility and highlight stage of the history, capable of avoiding that the past reconstruction be consumed in the official documents logical.

Dictionaries as authorities? The problematic use of Chinese dictionaries by missionaries in the Rites Controversy

ABSTRACT In the seventeenth century, missionaries in China translated a vast array of Chinese works, including classics, official histories, and legal documents. Their translations have been analysed through several perspectives, yet their use of Chinese dictionaries has been largely overlooked. In the context of the Rites Controversy, between the Jesuits on one side and the Dominican and Franciscan friars on the other, precise references to authoritative Chinese dictionaries were made to corroborate their interpretation of Chinese rituals as either religious or secular. This article first describes why and how missionaries started from the early beginning of the mission in the 1580s to write their own bilingual dictionaries based on existing Western and Chinese dictionaries. Then, it considers how the same dictionaries became an important reference when the Rites Controversy erupted in the 1630s. Based on manuscript and printed documents written until 1670, three Chinese characters which became the focus of competing interpretations are discussed: miao as temple versus hall, ji as sacrifice versus offering, and sheng as prophet versus wise man. Besides the problem of biased translations on both sides, we shall show that there was a more fundamental reason which prevented the missionaries from settling their controversy using dictionaries.

MEMÓRIAS DE UM EX-GUERRILHEIRO: NARRAÇÕES DA GUERRILHA DO ARAGUAIA EM AZUL CORVO (2014)

: In Azul Corvo (2014), Adriana Lisboa portrays the events of the Araguaia Guerrilla War from the perspective of a former guerrilla, Fernando. It is from his accounts that we can revisit the past, since he exposes episodes that are not part of the official history. In this sense, the present study aims to reconstruct the history of the Araguaia Guerrilla War through the exile’s point of view. Furthermore, we also seek to understand how generational memory contributes to the retaking of the historical past, given that it extends to many other generations and brings to light the sufferings experienced by the direct victims of the dictatorship. To this end, we resorted to the studies of Márcio Seligmann-Silva (1999), Paul Ricoeur (2003), Alfredo Bosi (2002), Tânia Sarmento-Pantoja (2010), Augusto Sarmento-Pantoja (2012; 2019), among others. The relationship between the critical-theoretical considerations worked on by the researchers and the narrations, the representations of the past, and the reconstruction of memory about Brazilian history help us realize that the events described by the ex-guerrilla build knowledge about an unknown past and transmit the experience lived in traumatic moments, so that the character’s experiences and perspectives also become part of our memory.

Memória e Monumento. O local histórico da Batalha de Boyacá

Introduction: The Boyacá ́s field is the place where the freedom of the Nation was forged and constitutes the fundamental scenario for the construction of collectivememory, through a monumental sculptural ensemble as a cultural representation. Objective: to understand how the historical narratives that build the identity of thenation are consolidated through the monument. Reflection: It raises a discussion about the symbolic aspects that have allowed the prevalence of this historical ensemble over time, perpetuating these narratives as cultural representations; It is based on thehistorical perspective and its cultural significance through stages associated with the construction of monuments and how these make visible the construction of values associated with the enthronement of the hero. Conclusion: arises as the construction of an official celebratory system is built through archetypes of memory represented inthe monuments that respond to the official history that recognizes the importance of the Historic Site of the Battle of Boyacá as a place of national memory.

The Narrative Power of Russian Foreign Intelligence

This study examines the narratives created and exploited by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) in its official history. It views the official history as part of a broader campaign to influence domestic and foreign perceptions of the SVR, starting in the 1990s. The narratives are examined in terms of narrative power; namely, the ability to cause intended effects by creating a certain understanding of events. The study finds that the SVR substantiates a “derzhavniki master narrative” in which Russia is a great power that must continuously balance the power of other states and prevent these states from achieving relative gains. The SVR’s narratives integrate the history of foreign intelligence into the history of Russia. This integration has narrative power because a strong foreign intelligence service is both natural and legitimate in the derzhavniki narrative. The study moreover finds that the SVR deals with the KGB’s history of repression by portraying itself as a victim.

Teaching How Official History Is Made

Teaching How Official History Is Made

The all-female Goth band that never existed: Voces de Ultratumba

Feminist musicology has studied and questioned the dynamics of power, privilege and discrimination that have developed in the history of popular music due to gender. In line with these contributions, there is an intention of recovering the memory and value of the first Goth group formed entirely of women in Vigo (Galicia, Spain): Voces de Ultratumba. The quality of their music, performance, lyrics and activism is not referenced as it should be in the collective imagination, which is unaware of its existence. The documented record is very scarce since its formation in 1984, as opposed to the amount of information about mixed groups or male bands of that time. Thus, after digitizing newspaper articles and live material, data collection was also performed by biographical-narrative methodology of life history. Its three original members – Chus Taboada, Marisé Izquierdo and Eva Izquierdo – were interviewed and their discourse was analysed through grounded theory (GT). Historical press was also consulted. The details of this analysis are presented in this article. The results of it indicate that, despite the political, musical and social openness that Spain was going through after the death of the Dictator Francisco Franco on 20 November 1975, gender roles continued to operate even in the underground scene, where the political–musical experiences of dissident identities were left out of official Goth history.

Construction of collective memory through official history education in North Cyprus (1971-2003)

Fundamental to recalling memories and remembering is to look at the past and the future concurrently. Remembering is crucial to have a temporal association so that present changes and developments can be elaborated in understanding the construction of memory. Historical trauma is a psychological and emotional collective and subjective injury which are transmitted from adults to children in a cycle process, and it continues over a life span of individuals and across generations. Soft memories are created and shared as a social process. These are narratives, historical texts and similar, less tangible forms of memory. History education has a profound influence on social discourse and the way soft memories are perceived, and since formal schooling is at the centre of shaping a generation and textbooks are the main medium of knowledge transmission, the official narrative shapes it and is often presented selectively. This research explores how the official regulation of history education is used to align official state discourse with social memory. This research employs secondary data and document analysis by examining the compulsory textbook (1979) used since 1971 in history education. It explores history education’s impact on individual narratives of remembrance and collective memory. It examines the long-term effects of what has been taught in secondary school history education on adulthood perceptions of past historical occurrences. Findings confirm that a consistent, official historical discourse supported by exposure to “hard” and “soft” memories enables the maintenance of collective memory as represented in the official discourse among society members. It also concluded that when difficult history is transmitted to the younger generation as part of education, they may experience trauma and similar negative associated feelings; furthermore, they do not necessarily unconditionally embrace the official history but question it in their adulthood.

Sacred and Cursed Bodies: The Necropolitics in the Suharto Regime’s Politics of Memory

ABSTRACT The article investigates the Suharto rule regime’s use of necropolitics to construct Indonesia’s memory of the 1965–66 mass murders. These memory politics were based on the anti-communist myth, which was the basis of the memory formation and creation of positive and negative heroes closely related to political changes. The regime used the bodies of generals who were killed during the attempted coup for political purposes, thus permanently anchoring this image in Indonesian society’s space and memory. Herein, the image of the generals’ bodies is juxtaposed with that of the victims’ bodies, which are still cursed and excluded from official Indonesian history. These necropolitics served the Suharto regime’s various interests of power, knowledge, and the clash between sacred and cursed bodies. Thus, the generals’ and victims’ bodies enhanced Suharto’s credibility. In this context, the generals’ bodies are treated as sacred, while the victims’ bodies are considered to be cursed, but both are causative agents of the development of the regime’s historical narrative, collective memory, and national identity.

“remember that a white woman is a white man”: Ronelda S. Kamfer’s Black Feminist Poetry as Corrective to the Race Logic of White Afrikaans Literary Feminisms

Abstract The creation of the Afrikaner volk and the violent appropriation and institutionalization of the Afrikaans language as white cultural property around the beginning of the twentieth century in South Africa was a patriarchal project from the outset. The canon of Afrikaans literature reflects both the erasure of Black subjects from the official history and recorded footprint of the language as well as the failure of white Afrikaans feminism to challenge these erasures and patriarchal structures of white power. In this essay we argue that Ronelda Kamfer’s poetry collection Chinatown (2019) functions as a powerful corrective to literary Afrikaans whitestream feminism and that Kamfer’s defiant relational intersectionality enables an alternative way of world-making beyond the disciplinary mechanisms and exclusionary technologies of white colonial patriarchy.