History Revisited

Af : Marianne Stecher-Hansen

Conclusion

In the final volume of Processen mod Hamsun, the aged Hamsun, in his plaidoyer, voices the opinion that art will prove stronger than politics; in 100 years, the case against him will be forgotten, the implication being that his art will not. Hansen´s elaboration on this idea, that "kunsten er stærkere end historien" (art is stronger than history), is at the core of his historical works. In itself, history is not "ensidig" (one-sided) and therefore it does not distinguish between right and wrong, between truth and lies; it deals with people. This statement, like Hamsun´s self-defense, might appear to some as a disclaimer, as an attempt by the author to seek immunity from criticism for either ideological bias or for historical inaccuracies.

Hansen´s dual commitment -- on the one hand, to the accuracy and factuality of historical documents, on the other hand, to art and the creative process -- may at first appear ambiguous. He substantiates his historical reconstructions with a wealth of documents, but at the same time, he makes the findings conform to an aesthetic structure by means of literary and rhetorical devices. Hansen´s documentary works defy the traditional categories of fiction and history; they are neither simply historical fiction nor conventional historiography. To read Hansen´s historical narratives only as fiction, as good "stories" loosely based on real events and persons, is to underestimate his considerable contributions and talents as an historian which have been recognized by historians and literary critics alike. Hansen´s investigations and penetrating analyses of the Arabian Expedition, the voyage of Jens Munk and the Danish slave trade have all been viewed as serious contributions to a deeper understanding of the past and many of his interpretations have been corroborated by subsequent scholarship. Processen mod Hamsun, however, maybe because Scandinavia has not entirely come to terms with this period in its history, remains a work open to continued debate. The fact that Hansen single-handedly succeeded in reviving popular and scholarly interest in these historical events is a tribute to his skill as an historian, as well as to his talent as a writer. Hansen´s entire historical oeuvre has broad implications as revisionist historiography as evidenced by its reception and influence. This is particularly true in the case of the Slave Trilogy which takes issue with conventional historiography dealing with Denmark´s role in the slave trade.

Hansen´s historical works are not simply reconstructions of past events, but narratives presented with the artistry and skill of a novelist. In Det lykkelige Arabien, for example, Hansen makes the events of the Arabian Expedition conform to a "story" of failure and futility and makes use of irony to undermine the Eurocentric concept of the "Orient." In Jens Munk, Hansen most obviously uses literary and rhetorical devices through his invention of "krønikeren" (the chronicler), who both presents the facts and imbues the narrative with a tragic-heroic ‘emplotment.’ Irony is also present in the treatment of the "double-voiced" discourse of this chronicler, who embodies the dual commitment of the author. The chronicler is at times sober and accurate, at other times he exhibits a tendency to "present the possible as the actual" and to impose his vision on the "raw and brutal facts.´´ Hansen´s use of a chronicler is a sophisticated literary device, which allows him to express his own views as well as articulate his epistemological concerns regarding historical writing. Underlying all of Hansen´s historical works, Det lykkelige Arabien, Jens Munk, the Slave Trilogy, and Processen mod Hamsun, is the view that the ‘truth’ of history ultimately remains unattainable, and that it remains impossible to apprehend the past fully. In the end, the historical writer succeeds in making the facts conform to his own vision only.

This conception of the writer as trapped in his own consciousness is central to modernist thought in general and to Hansen´s work in particular. It is expressed already in his collection of essays dealing with French writers from Montaigne to Proust, Resten er Stilhed (1953; The Rest is Silence), a work written during his five years in Paris when the young writer was immersed in existentialist philosophy. Hansen attempts to break free from the crisis of solipsism, and like such existentialist writers as Sartre and Camus, to engage in a world of concrete facts, which offer a foothold in a tangible reality outside the individual consciousness. In his historical oeuvre, initiated in the early 1960s, Hansen reaches out into geographical space and back into the historical past in a series of very successful works written during this decade of heightened political awareness. However, Hansen never abandoned his skepticism regarding the status of this "tangible reality" and all empirical knowledge. Even in his alleged "objective" works, his historical narratives, he remains caught in a self-critical attitude toward his undertaking as an historical writer. The fact that Hansen often treats his narrators ironically and with self-deprecating humor is a result of his deep-rooted conviction regarding the problematic nature of all historical knowledge. Hansen assumes that the past is unattainable, that its artifacts are "cold, meaningless and mute,´´ and that history offers us only a "broken pottery shard.´´ In this view, he confirms the concept underlying all modern theories of historiography, namely that historical writing is above all an enterprise, to which the historian must bring his own personal insights and interpretations.

Hansen´s problematic work dealing with Knut Hamsun in effect illustrates the same difficulties encountered in all of the author´s historical works, only here his bias in favor of the creative, artistic process becomes more obvious. In recreating the case against Hamsun, Hansen finds himself caught in a quagmire of documents dealing with human emotions, passions, and political convictions. The difference is here that the massive documentation about the case is still fresh and bleeding, whereas the older documents are covered with the reverent dust of centuries.

Hansen´s innermost sense of history springs from the postwar crisis of the 1950s. He looks for answers to the dilemma of contemporary man in past centuries. Most of his historical works were written during the politicized decade of the 1960s. He deliberately opposed the prevailing leftist ideologues of the period and their mentors Hegel and Marx; instead, he remained faithful to his earlier mentors in the existentialist camp. Already in 1953, Hansen had touched upon the fundamental difference between Nietzsche and Marx: "For Nietzsche er livet det, man adlyder for at undertvinge historien. For Marx er livet det, man undertvinger for at adlyde historien," (For Nietzsche life is that which one obeys in order to subjugate history. For Marx life is that which one subjugates in order to obey history). In utterances like this, Hansen professes an humanistic outlook with an emphasis on the isolated individual rather than on the impersonal forces of history. If we accept the division of historical material into res publica and res privata, that is the collective and the personal, Hansen obviously seeks the vital historical impulses in the sphere of the res privata, whereas Marxist theory claims that history is the dialectical evolution of the res publica. Hansen´s preference for the res privata results in a basically psychological, empathy-oriented approach. Underlying it is the recognition that the battle-ground of passions and conflicting forces, and with that the potential for change in the human condition, ultimately lies within the individual.

The difficulty of the unattainable objectivity of the documentarist and the ineluctable subjectivity of the author can not be resolved. It is to Thorkild Hansen´s credit that his historical works make this dilemma visible. The resulting tensions, even contradictions, may open Hansen to continued criticism, but at the same time this very aspect lends vitality and enduring interest to his work.

Fra Marianne Stecher-Hansen: History Revisited. Fact and Fiction in Thorkild Hansen´s Documentary Works, Camden House 1997.