• Title/Summary/Keyword: Histories Apodexis

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A Study on the Archival Basis of History by Simaqian and Herodotus (『사기』와 『역사』에 담긴 기록학의 기초 역사-인간[Homo Historicus], 사마천과 헤로도토스)

  • Oh, Hang Nyeong
    • The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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    • no.65
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    • pp.365-396
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    • 2020
  • I examined the archival basis of two historians who wrote history books with the same title of 'History'; Simaqian of ancient China and Herodotus of Halikarnassos. I examined a prejudice to these two history books, a misunderstanding of them as an imagination rather than a history. How can an imagination become a history? First, I explained the common characteristics found in their compilation and writing of 'History.' Simaqian and Herodotus did their field-works in historical sites, gathered oral-histories, and arranged archives they collected. These two historians heavily engaged in archival works in terms of verifying authenticity and reliability of their sources on the basis of historical empiricism. There are some misunderstanding on their archival endeavor and on the very nature of archives and historical studies as empirical studies. Furthermore, this misunderstanding regarding them as literature came from a confusion over the concept of literature. The creativity of literature is not equal to the "fictitiousness" of history despite historical works sometimes may give us an impression by the way of describing and providing insight into a certain event(s) and a person(s). As Herodotus said, a recognition of the differences of each race and human is a departure of historical archiving of the valuable experiences of human-beings. By doing so, natural results of archival behaviors, preservation of the records, and consistent inquiry of historian-archivists become a humanistic passage overcoming the current wrong trends of historical studies confined to a narrow nation-history.