Two Key Narrative Strategies in Approaching Historiography on the Path of Historians in Space and Time

Abstract

The subject of the study is the distinctive approaches to the formatting of spatial and temporal structures in historical texts. The main methods for historians belonging to a particular tradition to move through historical space and time in the process of creating discourse are highlighted, affecting a distinctive relationship in the representation of past events and structures, chance and regularity. For the sake of clarity, examples are taken of little-known sites (e.g. the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom of Hellenistic period), for which historians face not only the problem of generalising factual material, but also the problem of incorporating such sites cumulatively, without destroying discourse, into the existing structure of historical knowledge. In line with the opposing approaches developed in both historiographical traditions, the author of this study have outlined and for the first time identified the methods that have been used in these traditions to achieve the objective: the method of frontal approximations (in Soviet historiography) and the ‘historian’s wings’ method (in Western historiography). The study presents examples of applying both methods, identifies their shortcomings and advantages, in accordance with which the specific features inherent in both historiographical traditions are specified, and indicates their significance for an adequate presentation of the historical past.