Wesleyan University

Historical Narrative: Towards a Coherent Structure Author(s): Jerzy Topolski Source: History and Theory, Vol. 26, No. 4, Beiheft 26: The Representation of Historical Events (Dec., 1987), pp. 75-86 Published by: Wiley for Wesleyan University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2505046 . Accessed: 31/03/2014 13:40
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A COHERENTSTRUCTURE TOWARDS HISTORICALNARRATIVE:

JERZY TOPOLSKI

Historicalnarratives as a meansof transmitting by historianstheir knowledge of the past, in the sense both of descriptionand interpretation, are arousing growinginterestin those concernedwith the methodologyof historyand the generalphilosophyof science.Theyraisethe problem,of fundamental importance for historicalresearch,whetherit is possibleto obtain a true pictureof the past throughthe intermediary of an historicalnarrative; and if so, how far that is possible.In otherwords,the questionis the possibilityof correspondence betweenthe content of a narrative and past facts. Some answerthat question in the affirmative, whileothersmainLainthat an historicalnarrative is by its very naturea deformation of the past.Someclaim,on general philosophical grounds, that we arenot in a positionto acquire the knowledge of facts,or for morepractical reasons,that historiansuse, or must use, their own constructs,such as "feudalism" or "theFrenchRevolution of 1789," whichhaveno literalanalogues - suchas, forinstance, in thepast.Thesameappliesto concepts socialstructure from disciplinesother than history.Those who believethat it is posborrowed sibleto arrive of pastfactsthroughthe intermediary at a trueor objectivepicture of an historicalnarrative are convincedthat they can obtain such a pictureby calls them.- As examplesof using definitetranslation rules,as F. R. Ankersmit such translationrules he quotes Rickert'sselection,whichreferto values, and are rules- whichhowever, as Ankersmit HaydenWhite'srhetorical emphasizes, largelya manifestation of a standpointthat comes close to narrative idealism. Ankersmit struchimself,whilestressing the factthatthe pasthas no narrative ture,triesin his book "to discoverthe mechanism enablingthe historianto give whichenables a narrative of the past."2 He refers to a "mechanism" representation of the past, but at the same time he one to arriveat a narrative representation denies- sinceno narrative to the past- the possibility structure can be ascribed of linkingpast facts to theirrepresentation rules.According by any translation to Ankersmitit is not the past that enforcesthe waysof its representation, as has been claimedby the adherents of narrative realism,nor arewe "ableto discoverthe natureof historicalrealityby meansof an a prioriinquiryinto narra1. F. R. Ankersmit, Narrative Logic: A Semantic Analysis of the Historian's Language (The Hague, 1983), 81. 2. Ibid., 93.

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tive philosophy."3 Nevertheless, thereis a certainlogical structure to historians' narrative knowledge of the pastandthe narrative presentation of thatpastwhich historiansmust observe.As he emphasizes,it is the same in other disciplines, such as physics,wherephysicistsare obligedto presentthe resultsof their researchin a logicallyorderedway.It is only in that sense that we may say that narrative logicconstitutes ourknowledge of the past,which- as he pointsout- is not in contradiction with the fact that the establishingof historicalfacts can takeplaceonly througha criticalexamination of sources,and an historicalnarrativeas a wholeshouldpretend to a possibleadequate presentation of pastfacts. But, in view of the lack of translationrules, that will be not any "picture" or "image" of the past, but merelythe settingof the individual and critically establishedhistoricalfactswithinthe framework of generaltheseson the past, which Ankersmit termsnarrative Thatnarrative substance. substance, unlikeindividual has no reference to the realstatesof things.Fromtwo rivalnarratives statements, containingtrue statementsabout the past, preference should be given to that which "takesmost risks and is most courageous."
II

Ankersmit's conception,whichincludesmanypenetrating analysesof historical narratives, canserveas the starting point for the presentation of somereflections of mine.My principal thesisis that the historicalnarrative containingonly true statementsabout the past is "better" in that it is morecoherent -that is, more connectedinternallyand less scattered.To some extentI am in that respectin with Ankersmitwhen he ascribesa largerole in narratives agreement to theses on the past, which form meaningfultotalities from scatteredfacts. But while Ankersmitbelievesthe constructionof such meaningfultotalitiesis merelyan I assert art, because,as he claims, there are no rules for forminga narrative, that-beyond the unquestionable role of the narrative talentof the historian there are such rules, and thereare also translationrules which link past facts to their narrative representation. thatthe pasthasno narrative structure Also,the statement seemshardly tenable. It wouldmeanthat it is a prioriimpossiblethat any historicalnarrative should give an adequate(true,objective)presentation of the past. It is, of course,imas it is impossibleto arriveat the possibleto arriveat a perfectrepresentation, absolutetruth;but one can try,as has beeninterpreted by KarlPopper,to come closerto a truepictureof the past in one'sscholarlytexts.As is known,the idea of a betteror worseapproach to the truthapplies,according to Popper,not only to statements on statesof thingsbut to theoriesas well.4In my opinionone can and shouldspeaknot only aboutthe truthof the historicalstatements included - that is, a narrative in a narrative, but also aboutthe truthof an entirenarrative
3. Idem.
4. K. R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: TheGrowth of Scientific Knowledge (New York, 1968), 232-233.

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as a whole and also a set of definitewholes.That truthis strictlyrelatedto the the coherwholes. In my interpretation problemof the coherenceof narrative truth. It is its limit, the at is one of the conditionsof arriving enceof a narrative in the same way as the realityitself is the limit of the truth. Thus, takingthe comes closer to the truth, above into account, one may say that the narrative and hence revealsvasterareasof the past, which is more coherent.Note that of historicalrealityis not constantnor givenonce and for all;the the coherence connectionswithin the process of history change (usuallyincrease)with the within we observetheirfluctuations changesof historicalepochs,and moreover epochs and periodsof history. I shall now proceedto analyzetwo in my opinionessentialconditionsof the that is, the conditionsof our approaching coherenceof an historicalnarrative, They by sucha narrative. the moreandmoretruepictureof-thepasttransmitted are: (1) the kind of temporalcontent, and (2) the kind of conceptualorganizationof an historicalnarrative. inIt is self-evidentthat the proposalmade here is far from an integrated I merelypoint to certain of the problemsof historicalnarratives. terpretation which may proveimportantfor problemsconnectedwith historicalnarrative, approach. such an integrated
III

clearlyrevealsthe The analysisof the temporalcontentof historicalnarratives connectionbetweenthe past facts examinedby the historianand the sentences or sequencesof sentenceswhich he or she constructsand whichreferto those facts. It may be said that the analysismentionedaboveis possibleonly if it is assumedthat the text (pictureof the past) refersto that past. we can contentof historicalnarratives Fromthe point of viewof the temporal They must be treatedas ideal types single out three kinds of such narratives. with which in the senseused by Max Weber,and hence as sui generismeasures occurin theirpureform, Althoughtheserarely can be compared. realnarratives the three kinds I distinguishreflectto some extent a trendin the evolutionof havebeen assignedmore and more ambiHistoricalnarratives historiography. complexhistoricalreality,internallyinterconnected tious tasks in representing -in respectto werebecoming in variousways.In this way historicalnarratives their temporalcontent-more and more dense,which facilitatedthe combinabeing (thatinterpretation of the pastwithits interpretation tion of a description stretches to even longer conceivedas a morecompletedescription,whichrefers of time and shedslightupon eventsnot only in theirdirectconnectionsbut also In each of the and consequences). from the point of view of their antecedents we observea different threekinds of temporalcontent of historicalnarratives way of linkingtogetherthe historicalfacts which are described. The loosest form of internallinking of facts (internalcoherence)is seen in whichhavethe form of annals.It was typicalof the medieval those narratives

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annals,whoseauthorsrecorded currently those factswhichin theiropinion,and probably alsoin the opinionof theircontemporaries, deserved attention andpreservationin collectivememory.Theyrecorded them in chronological order,for instance:
810. Hard winter.

812. Flood. Faminein the country. 815. Death of Prince X. 816. Militaryexpedition,and so on. This is obviouslya veryprimitivenarrative. It is internally connectedin two ways:by the chronological orderof the recorded facts, and by the vision of the worldof the annalist,whichin some wayreflects the stateof contemporaneous historical consciousness and knowledge of the worldandhumanity. The annalist did not formulate anygeneralconceptswhichwouldenablehimto makea more expandedinterpretation. He used termsthat werecommonlyused and understood, and set the past in the conceptualframework whichhe himselfcreated. It is interesting to comparethe temporalcontent of the sentencesin annals intocompletesentences) (theentriescouldbe expanded withthe temporal dimension of the factsdescribed bythem.The annalist just flatlyrecorded factsas they occurred. Whenreporting on a givenfacthe didnot activate his knowledge about what had happenedearlier,and since he was a contemporary of the facts he recordedhe was unable(evenhad he felt the need to do so) to reflecton what happenedlater,includingthe consequencesof the facts recordedby him. The primitivenarratives of the annaliststhus used a small set of translation ruleswhichmadeit possiblefor themto represent the past.Thoserulesincluded aboveall the principle of chronological orderandthe principle of selectionbased on a definitevision of the world,which madethe annalistrecordaboveall extraordinary disasters of variouskinds,wonders, andthe like. events,in particular
IV

Narratives whichwe call chronicles,becausethey are to some extenttypicalof variouschronicles, especiallythose fromthe late MiddleAges, formthe second kindof historicalnarratives content. classedfromthe point of viewof temporal The ideal-typechronicler differsfromthe ideal-typeannalistin that insteadof writinga sequenceof sentencesabout past events,connectedonly chronologiin the strictsense,he offersa text whichis concallybut not forminga narrative on the time line fromthe past to the futurebut nectednot only by an ordering also bycausalrelations in variousways.In otherwords,in a chronicle interpreted of whetherthat relationis autonoevents follow from one anotherregardless mous or determined localized by other forces(for instance,divineprovidence) outsidethose events.Note that in both an annalist's and a chronicler's narrative narrative it is the vision of the worldand humanitywhichthe authorof the narrative of the period the socialconsciousness has,andwhichto someextentreflects in which the narrative was composed,which worksas the generalmechanism

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that determines the selection - and in the case of a chronicler's narrative also the hierarchization- of facts. A chronicler's narrative is thus more coherent that an annalist's narrative, if only because it shows (in the interpretation of the chronicler) how certain events follow from others or how they influence other events. It can easily be seen that it has much better chances of offering a more complete picture of the past than an annalist's narrative,because the reality it describes includes not only isolated events but also various relations among them. This is, however, not the only reason why a chronicler's narrative is more coherent than that of an annalist. The other difference, of the same or perhaps even greater importance, consists in the temporal content of the narratives of the two types. Typical of a chronicler's narrativeare sentences which have a temporal dimension greater than their references to the past. A sentence in an annalist's narrative (for example, Mesco dux baptisatur, recorded in the Little Poland Annal under the year 966) does not include terms marked by a temporal dimension exceeding one year, but a sentence in a chronicler's narrative does not have such limitations. A chronicler, like an annalist, records events flatly, as they occur, but when describing them he activates his knowledge of what had occurred earlier and he refers to it in his description and tentative explanations. In this way time in his narrativeacquires a retrospective depth. Hence his description of the past becomes more complete, more dense, and comes closer to reality with its internal interconnections. Here is an example taken from the so-called Great Poland Chronicle dating from the fourteenth century: Afterthe deathof KingCasimir[1016-1058] the royalrulewastakenover... by Boleslaus the royalcrownhe started the Bold [ca. 1042-1081, until 1079].Whenhe received reigned planning to imitatethe courageof Boleslausthe Brave[966/7-1025],kingof Polandand of war overcomfortand his great-grandfather, to the hardships and, givingpreference of Polandwhich he dedicated his forcesto thecauseof recovering thosefrontiers quietude, had been set by the said King Boleslausand lost by his successorswho ruledPoland. In this fragment the description of the assumption of power by Boleslaus the Bold and of his political ideology makes use of the knowledge of the rule of Boleslaus the Brave,who lived more than a century earlier. In this way sentences recorded in the chronicles and reporting on given historical facts increased their temporal content; they therebylost what was typical of the sentences in the annals and increased the degree of coherence of the narrative. To put it in general terms, a chronicler's narrative as compared with that of an annalist makes use of a larger set of the rules whereby extralinguistic reality is translated into its linguistic (narrative)representation.The principle of chronological order still holds, although it cannot be observed rigorously and hence it does not occur in its pure form. This is so because a new rule for the construction of narrative intervenes, namely the rule of making use of the time which might be termed retrospective. The line of time still goes from the past to the

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intothe pastwhich futurebutis no longera straight line;theremaybe excursions link the facts describedby the chronicler to facts which occurredin the past. narratives Thereis no needto addthat both the sentences typicalof chronicler's and such a narrative itself are categoriesto be found not only in the texts of medievalhistorians.The same appliesto the sentencestypicalof annals(with in them) the temporalspanof the factsreported the time contentnot exceeding to but probablyquite exceptionally an annalist'snarratives. In the chronicler's narratives we find, next to the said rulesof chronological narraorderandthe use of retrospective time,a rulewhichis absentin annalist's factsby the relatives.It is the ruleof linkingtogetherthe successively described in variousways,of (primarily mostlyuntion, interpreted causal)consequence, derstood, as it seems, as the assumptionof relations which are necessary conditions.This meansthe assumptionthat for a fact being describedto take In this way we place, another,chronologically earlier,fact was indispensable. of the rule of enforcement of can find the operationin chronicler's narratives form. narrative continuity,eventhoughthat rule still worksin its undeveloped in a paper Thatrulehas beentermedso by G. Zalejko,a member of myseminar, of his whichis in publication.5 It must be noted that the said rule often results in a deformationof the pictureof the past, becauseit makesthe historianfill gaps in his sourcedata in a mannerwhich is excessivelyhypothetical.Finally it mustbe addedthat, as in the annalist's narratives, the selectionandhierarchization of facts in a chronicler's narratives is guidedby the vision of the world and humanitywhichthe authorof a givennarrative has, with the provisothat andpolitical viewsof the chronicler aremuchmorestrongly voiced the ideological thanthoseof the annalist.Theyare,of course,a partof thatvisionof the totality of beliefs based on knowledgeof the world and humanity.That vision as the mechanism whichcontrolsthe selectionof facts includes,obviously,the whole and theirvaluations,with theiracquiredschematain knowledgeof chroniclers thinking(such as HaydenWhite'stropics).
V

and the relatedtypes of We now pass to the thirdkind of historicalnarratives dimencontentandtemporal historical statements, marked by a different temporal historical. be termed sion. These are narratives which might They are strictly They began to typical of advanced,professional,or scholarlyhistoriography. developfrom the sixteenthto the eighteenthcentury,but took full shape only in the nineteenthcentury. differfroma chronicler's narratives (andfroman Strictlyhistoricalnarratives of theirtemporalcontent. Let us annalist'snarratives as well) by the character "World WarII beganon September considerthe followinghistoricalstatement: An annalistcould, in view of his temporalposition, writeonly some1, 1939."
5. More on this subject can be found in J. Topolski, Teoria wiedzy historycznej [Theory of Historical Knowledge] (Poznaii, 1983), 300ff.

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thing like this: "September 1, 1939.The GermanarmyattackedPoland,"thus who also records continuingrecordsas they are made in diaries.A chronicler, eventsas they occurbut impartsto them a narrative form by observingthe reof earlierevents,could quirement of continuityandby activating his knowledge make,for instance, the followingentry:"Theperiodof peacewhichlastedtwenty yearsis overin Europeandperhapsin the world.Germany attackedPolandand thus starteda warin Europe." Neitherthe annalistnor the chronicler could use the term"World WarII,"whichoccursin the firstof the statements now under becauseon September consideration, 1, 1939,he still did not havethe necessary knowledge. That is possibleonly in a strictlyhistoricalstatement,which,when reporting on givenfacts,takesinto accountthe knowledge of factsthat followed thosewhicharedescribed in particular (andpossiblyalsointerpreted), the knowledge of the consequences of the fact beingdescribed.Only historiansare positioned on the arrowof time in sucha waythat they can analyzethe facts which in shorteror longerperspective theydescribe (andinterpret) andthusmaketheir descriptionricher.It may be said that only historiansmake use of prospective time(possibly also of retrospective-and-prospective time)whentheyactivate their knowledgeof what precededand followedthe fact (event,process,and so on) they analyze.The degreeof coherenceincreasesmarkedly. Thus a strictlyhistoricalnarrative is possibleonly in a certaintemporalperwhenthe consequences spective,in particular of the eventsunderconsideration manifestthemselves to a greater or lesserextent,whichmakesthemcharacteristiWhenwritingaboutwhatoccurred callyricher. on September 1, 1939,historians takeinto accountknowledge aboutthe nextfewyears,thatthe German invasion of Polandchangedinto WorldWarII. But that formulation in turnrefrequires erence to the past,namelyto theyears1914-1918. Thusto describe aneventwhose temporaldimensionwas one day in his or her strictlyhistoricalstatementof a retrospective-and-prospective nature,he or she has to activateknowledgepertainingto a periodof at least thirty-oneyears(1914-1945). That periodbecame connectedby reference to the appropriate historicalfacts. A strictlyhistoricalnarrative need not, of course,consistonly of strictlyhistoricalstatements. In practice, an historicalnarrative is usuallya mixtureof annalist's statements, chronicler's statements, andstrictly historical statements, both and retrospective-and-prospective. prospective It is a strictlyhistoricalnarrative if the use of prospective time is alwayspresentin it and worksas its assumption. It can easily be noted that with reference to latest history,which is concerned withhistoricalfactsrelatively open, it is difficult to go beyonda chronicler's narrative. In suchcasesthe researcher lacksthe knowledge of the laterdevelopmental stagesof the event,fact,process,or biography, withwhichhe or sheis concerned. His narrative is in advancedeprived of that veryessentialelementof coherence and also of an elementof the processwherebyone approaches the truth. In a strictlyhistoricalnarrative the researcher makes use of certainintegrated and relatively closed facts, periods,processes,and so on. He or she need not stress that explicitlyin his narrative: very often such knowledgeof those integrated wholesis implicitly in the assumptions inherent made.Wesensethat, forinstance,

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in the following sentence, in which the author looks at the nineteenth century and at the processes he analyzes, as it were, from above, combining retrospective and prospective time (although he does not directly express that in his narrative):
The way in which Europeans'numbersin the nineteenth centurygrew faster than the ability of Europe's economic resources and organisation to absorb them, coupled with the fact that for a number of European countries the rapid increase in numbers coincided with the depression in agricultural prices in the closing decades of the nineteenth century, left many Europeans with no other choice than to emigrate.

Retrospective and prospective time occurs directly in such statements as the following one: "When Henry VII came to the throne, the economic organization of the country differed but little from that of the age of Wyclif. When Henry VIII died, full of years and sin, some of the main characteristics, which were to distinguish it till the advent of steam-power and machinery, could already, though faintly, be descried. The door that remained to be unlocked was colonial
expansion."7

A strictly historical narrative, which, as we have said, is a manifestation of the emergence of professional (scholarly) historiography, differs from the remaining two types in the rules of presentation of the past only in that it requires the consideration of prospective time in descriptions and interpretations. The other rules of linking the past to its narrativepicture remain the same although, as I shall try to demonstrate, the way in which they are interpreted and applied is not unchanging.
VI

In a strictly historical narrativethat element which differentiatesit most strongly must be seen in the mechanism on which depends the selection of facts, their hierarchization, and the linking of single statements (and sentences) into meaningful wholes; in a word, it is the mechanism which controls the way in which an historical text is conceptualized. That conceptualization is achieved in two ways. To make this statement sufficiently clear we have to make a distinction between the horizontal and the vertical structure of historical narratives. The former covers historical statements and also theoretical statements, if they occur in a given narrative; they are linked together by a common content into certain wholes which, following the suggestion of 0. Wojtasiewicz, I have termed "stories."8 Those narrativewholes do not form a simple sequence but are a complicated structure in which smaller stories are embedded in more comprehensive ones, the process being repeated many times. We thus here are concerned with
6. W. Woodruff, "The Emergence of an International Economy 1700-1914,"in The Fontana Economic History of Europe: The Emergence of Industrial Societies, ed. C. M. Cipolla (Glasgow, 1977), II, 702. 7. R. H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (Harmondsworth, 1942), 64. 8. See J. Topolski, "Conditions of Truth of Historical Narratives,"History and Theory 20 (1981), 47-60.

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a supra-individual linking of sentences occurring in a narrative.It is self-evident that an historical narrativewhich is perfectly well-connected horizontally should not include loose sentences and loose stories that have no place in the stories contained in that narrative. If no linking is possible, for instance because of a lack of source data, that fact should be made clear; in such a way one avoids an artificial or too hypothetical linking, which one might be inclined to do in view of Zalejko's rule of enforcing narrativecontinuity, mentioned earlier in the text. The horizontal structure of an historical narrative with it supra-individual linkings is determined, on the one hand, by its own conceptualization rules, and on the other, by inspirations coming from the vertical structure of the narrative, upon which in the last analysis these special conceptualization rules also depend. We shall not discuss the last-named rules in any detail. Suffice it to say that we mean the whole knowledge of the construction of correct texts, logically precise and clear, and at the same time satisfying definite aesthetic requirements. The vertical structure of historical narrative is much more important in our analysis. Many strata can be singled out in that structure. One of the various possible solutions of the problem consists in singling out in it the following strata: (1) the articulated surfacestratum, expressedby sequences of sentencesand stories, mentionedwith reference to the verticalstructure of historicalnarratives; (2) the non-articulated surfacestratumwhichis an expansionof stratum(1) if, for instance, the authorof the narrative refers to statements by otherauthors,or moregenerally,if he assumesthat the readerhas a definiteknowledge whichenablesthe authorto make mentalshort cuts, to omit certaininformation,and so forth; (3) the non-articulated deepstratum whichcoversthe historical knowledge of the author that enableshim to make use of retrospective-and-prospective time; (4) the non-articulated deepstratumwhichcontrolsthe selectionand hierarchization of facts and links knowledge into a narrative whole;it mightbe termedthe theoretical stratum. Now strata (3) and (4) organize the whole narrative. They usually function as its non-articulated, merely implicit assumption, without which, however, one cannot carry out an integrated analysis of the narrative nor reflect on its truth and adequacy. As has been said, in the articulated stratum there are often statements which are a partial articulation of the non-articulated strata (3) and (4), which may be either incidental or reflect a definite program of the author. While stratum (3) is a necessary condition of a strictly historical narrative, stratum (4) (which can be singled out also with reference to the narratives of annalists and chroniclers) is that principal factor upon which the quality of the narrativedepends. One can distinguish two forms of the manifestation of stratum (4). One of them corresponds to that historiographywhich might be termed traditional or facto-graphical; the other, to that which might be termed modern or theoretical and explanatory. In traditional historiography, whose rules were codified in particular in the nineteenth century, the structure and content of the surface strata are controlled above all by the system of the ideological and political views of the historian. Analyses of historiography in various countries reveal

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narratives bychroniproduced Thisapplied,of course,to earlier thatveryclearly. of the worldviewthatcontrolsnarWithouta reconstruction clersandannalists. whichmarkhistoriogratives,both the contentand the trendsin interpretation The methodology incomprehensible. wouldremain in the variouscountries raphy which postulatesselectionby referthat is research of such historicalresearch, (ideological,religious,political)world enceto values,andhenceto the valuating has been, as is well known, most preciselyformulated view of the researcher, fromneo-Kantianism, whoalsodrew inspiration NotethatMaxWeber, byRickert. overcame that opinion and stroveto constructa methodologythat would corthat wouldmakeuse of theoretical respondto a moreambitioushistoriography hasdefined in MaxWeber's sense).Thisis whyA. Palubicka constructs (of course, it although historicism, to theoretical conceptionas comingclose Max Weber's in the sphereof social facts.9 does not assumethe existenceof regularities controlledby a systemof political whichis not directly In that historiography - in and ideologicalviewsbut by a theory,that controlcan be in turncontrolled conceptualized is narrative an historical whereby other words,the mechanism an historcan be controlled.This meansalso the controlof the processwhereby is made coherent.Thereis no need to emphasizethat coherence ical narrative secured by a systemof ideologicaland politicalviews(if that systemis coherent of objectivity,whichis to say that itself) is a factorwhichdeprivesa narrative is (in this sense)the moreit is imbuedwith extrathe morecoherenta narrative scientificvaluation.Such valuationcan dominatescholarlyvaluationoriented at the truepictureof the past. Of course,such a strivingalone towards arriving which The historianneedsinstruments evenif it is quitesincere. does not suffice, in a scholnarrative andtruthof his historical at the coherence helphimto arrive arly manner. only by consciously In my opinion,the historiancan obtainsuchinstruments with theoreticalfoundationswhichenablehim workingto providehis research of reality.That wouldnot be anything conceptualization to attaina theoretical new or anythingto which the historianis not accustomed;for it turnsout, in thattheyareall imbued narratives, studiesof historical the lightof the empirical to whichhistorians degree the degrees; varying to with some theory,although realizethat fact also varies,but is generallylow. The statementthat "allPolish in character, is not theoretical in the nineteenth endedin failure" century uprisings content(be it just in the conthereis sometheoretical but evenin that statement takenfroman historical But considerthe followingstatement cept of uprising). by the peasantsin the Kingdomof Poland in study:"Theactions undertaken the firsthalf of the 19thcenturyagainstthe noblesowningthe manorsweredue systemof manorsbasedon serf betweenthe still prevailing to the contradiction in view strovefor independence of that farms peasant and the evolution labour in time also has its determinants Thisgeneralization market."'10 of the developing
9. A. Palubicka, Przedteoretyczne postacie historyzmu [Pre-theoretical Forms of Historicism] (Warsaw and Poznaii, 1983). 10. S. Kieniewicz, "Problem rewolucji agrarnej w PoIsce w okresie ksztaltowania sie ukladu kapitalistycznego" [The Problem of the Agrarian Revolution in Poland in the Time of the Formation of the Capitalist System] in The Times of Adam Mickiewicz (Wroclaw, 1956), 3-4.

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and space;but, as can easily be seen, its status is quite differentfrom that of about the Polish uprisingin the nineteenthcentury.First,it the generalization refersto epistemologically open facts,that is, those that arenot yet known,and closed classes (while all Polish uprisingsin the ninenot to epistemologically in thatperiod areknown,all actionsundertaken teenthcentury byPolishpeasants to peasantactionsrefers arecertainly not). Second,the generalization pertaining of certainfactsandtheircharacteristo relationships, and not to the occurrence tics (such as the failureof the Polish uprisings). Whilethe generalization to Polishpeasantsis morelimitedin time pertaining than the other one, the pinpointingof those relationships may help historians to explainthe actionsundertaken by the Polishpeasantsin the Kingdomof Poland in the firsthalf of the nineteenth centuryand possiblyin extending its validity.Onecanpredict that,if thegeneralization is valid,everysubsequent peasant action againstthe ownersof the manorsin the Kingdomof Polandin the first half of the nineteenthcenturycan be explainedin the same way." I believethat boththe statement in the nineteenth on the Polishuprisings century and that on the causes of peasantactions againstthe ownersof manors have,regardless of theirtheoreticalcontent,the same statusfrom the point of viewof the relationbetween themandthe facts.In both casesit is possible- and historiansdo it everyday-to investigate how far they agreewith facts, that is, how far they are true. But in historicalnarratives we encounterstatements with a still greater theoreticalcontent,eventhough,as hasbeensaid,controlby a theoryneednot mean the articulation in the deepstratum bythe historianof that theory.It is inherent as somethingassumedbut it has to a smallextentthe form of statements. For instance,when Jan Rutkowski (a Polish economichistorianwho died in 1949), wantedto explainthe emergence and development of a manorialserf economy in Polandin the sixteenthcentury,he carriedout comparative research on the basis of whichhe formulated the followingregularity: manorialserf economies emergedif and only if there weregood conditionsfor the sale of agricultural producecombinedwith the serfdomof the peasants.It can easily be seen that this formulation is stillmoregeneral thanthaton peasantactionsin the Kingdom of Polandin the firsthalf of the nineteenth century.It has no temporaland no and has, therefore,a greaterexplanatory spatial determinants, powerbecause it is not limitedformally to anyterritory andepoch- eventhoughits application Rutkowski madeuse of the regularity mayprovelimitedin research he practice. had formulated (whichhad the form of a scientificlaw) whentryingto explain in sixteenth-century the emergence and development Polandof a manorialserf economy in the followingmanner:
if and only if thereweregood conditionsfor the (1)manorialserf economiesemerged sale of agricultural producecombinedwith the serfdomof the peasants;

11. For a more detailed analysis see J. Topolski, "The Concept of Theory in Historical Research: Theory versus Myth," forthcoming in Storia delta Storiografia.

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JERZY TOPOLSKI

(2) such conditions existed in sixteenth-centuryPoland while the serfdom of the peasants had survived since the Middle Ages; hence: (3) a manorial serf economy emergedand developed in Poland in the sixteenth century.12

Likewise, Witold Kula, as a result of empirical researchcarried out on a large scale and concerned with the mechanism of feudal economies, formulated the following regularity: "In a feudal economy isolated from the rest of the world the general law of prices is determined by the fluctuations of the prices of the agricultural products, and the latter - in the relatively short period when the demand can be treated as constant -are determined by the crops."13 Theoretical content in an historical narrative makes it possible, through the construction of concepts, to link together individual data about historical facts; further, by discovering recurrent relationships (as in the example drawn from Rutkowski and Kula) it makes it possible to explain facts and processes not interpreted in terms of human actions, which in turn must be explained by the discovery of their underlying motives. The last-named operation, however, also requires theoretical knowledge. To sum up, the theoretical conceptualization of historical narratives, if it can be verified, not only helps one to neutralize the deforming influence of valuations that do not lend themselves to empirical verification, but also makes those narratives more coherent by linking together scatteredfacts into certainwholes (such as the FrenchRevolutionof 1789,Counterreformation, and World War II) - and, which is particularly important, by bringing out the relations that link together facts of various kinds. It might be said that the directive of the conscious formulation of theoretical statements (which marks modern historiography based on theory and explanation that remains full narrative historiography) is one of the fundamental rules whereby historiography becomes a more and more integrated presentation of the past. University of Poznan'

12. Cf. J. Rutkowski, Historia gospodarcza Polski [An Economic History of Poland] (Poznafi, 1946), 126, 13. W. Kula, Teoria ekonomiczna ustroju feudalnega: Prdba model [An Economic Theory of the Feudal System: A Tentative Model] (Warsaw, 1962), 84.

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