Jubileumsessä: Vad lär historia? Historisk lärdom i teori och Ukrainakrisens praktik

Abstract

What Do We Learn from History? Historical Lessons in Theory and in the Practice of the Ukrainian Crisis The purpose of the essay is to reflect philosophically and analytically on the clas- sical questions if, how and what we can learn from history, with a certain emphasis on historical learning related to the Ukrainian crisis of 2014. The reflection sets out from several assumptions. One is the eternal disagreement whether there really are historical lessons to be learned. While historians traditionally have rejected the idea, social scientists have taken up a more positive attitude. Another assumption, necessary for all learning activities, is the dual historical predicament of human beings and societies: we are genetically created by history at the same time as we genealogically create history. The traditional focus within history scholarship has been genetic, but a cultural turn has aroused a new interest in genealogical ideas of experience, memory work and other learning processes, carried out and analysed within the framework of history cultures. A typology of four learning processes involving history is introduced.