Summer with Thucydides. On Some Current Questions of Historiography

Abstract

The text aims to arouse interest in historiography. In his introduction, the author refers to the (ancient) initiators of the debate on the form and meaning of interpreting the past, and his central reference is Thucydides’ work History of the Peloponnesian War. In the main section of the text, the author links selected passages from Thucydides with the reflections of Enlightenment authors and the works of nineteenth-century historians and philosophers and, on the basis of these reflections, sheds light on the central issues of contemporary historiography. At the same time, the author addresses the question raised by Paul Veyne of how we write history, a question that dominated much of the debate in the mid- and second half of the twentieth century and continues to shape contemporary discussions in the theory and philosophy of history today.