Qualche riflessione sulla nozione di contemporaneità nella storia

As a taylor, the historian cuts the periods of the history through the identification of the events which have produced a cleavage, transforming a continuum in a series of sequences. The division of history in several periods is not a simple technical expedient, but an essential part of the historical knowledge. Only contemporary history can avoid the difficulties and the risk of an arbitrary operation, but only coming back to a stricter definition, closer to the original meaning. It will be then possible to define contemporary history every sequence of the past with surviving protagonists or witness. So we have the objective begining of it in a dynamic perspective which it produces new categories, such as the one of generation. Although it creates new problems but also new possibilities for the contemporary historian. In particular, he can hamdle a good number and variety of sources; among these, the direct testimony is particularly fertile. Historian can take advantage from it, also for the rescue of a correct epistemolo¬gy that, through the knowledge of the intentions and the reasons originating human actions, sets the facts free from the slavery of a rigorous rationality (that comes out from supposing the intentions as we know the facts) and puts back in the history the dimension of contingent.

René Rémond, Qualche riflessione sulla nozione di contemporaneità nella storia in "MONDO CONTEMPORANEO" 1/2005, pp , DOI: