Everyday Canvas

History-Writing

Prompt “History-writing is a way of getting rid of the past.” Goethe
What is Goethe trying to say here, and what do you think of history and historical fiction?

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What Goethe meant I can’t exactly say, but I think history-writing could help us avoid the crimes of the past and not make the same mistakes people before us made. On the plus side, we can also learn from the good things the earlier civilizations and people did.

I am not too sure we have succeeded in that learning, however. I was a good history student in school, and from what I have read, I think, through the last several decades, we may have come a long way where material things are concerned, but we are still forming groups and warring with each other. It is as if we are suffering from amnesia forced on us by time and lack of learning. Our conditioning may also be affecting us because we may have heard from our teachers and elders that the perspectives of a different age do not apply to our time and circumstances. Yet, most situations do recur often, in however different costumes.

Historical fiction appeals to me a lot. At least one fifth of my book reading has to do with historical fiction. Historical fiction makes history more humanistic and more entertaining. I have been reading especially half-fictional stories that took place during the two World Wars because those stories are about people. Everyone says such human suffering shouldn’t happen ever again, but it is still happening and I resent that we haven’t learned our lessons from the past.