When we briefly mention the relationship between the Annales School and Marxism, we soon tend to construct a panorama surrounded by two historical perspectives of an antagonistic nature. Perhaps because of the approach to the different contexts, readings, themes and intentions that marked the relationship with the past these two lines of thought and writing from the past, we can indeed sow an infinite range of contrasts. However, would it be enough to think that the search for a divergent parameter delimits the existence (or coexistence) of these “types of History”?
Within Marxism, considering historical materialism as its main tool to look at the past, the question of political and economic problems and actions are fundamental parts for historical experiences to be interpreted. In a way, as critics of Marxism point out, there is a relationship of subordination between the axis. political and economic under the other nuances and facts that are part of a given experience historic. As such, everything that escapes this fundamental beacon is, in fact, somehow contaminated by it.
Far from being a simple kind of misunderstanding that visits all works from a Marxist perspective, the strong interest in the political-economic sphere is not only prestigious. a coherent posture in relation to the Marxist theoretical apparatus, as well as dialoguing with several notions of history that proved to be alive, mainly in the 19th century. In this period, in short, we noticed a strong presence of Enlightenment reason guiding the search for knowledge committed to the notion of progress. In this respect, Marxism stands out for presenting a kind of progress committed to the possibility of profound transformation of its time.
For many, the notion of progress and the strength of the political-economic axis would attest to the heavy accusation that the Marxism proposed an understanding of the past through very conservative nuances and committed to its time. After all, even though they do not have the same convictions and expectations of the positivists with regard to the past, they used equally or more rigid ways of understanding the historical process. In other words, Marxists aspired to a revolution that was contradictorily denied to the way of investigating the facts contained in the past.
Thus, when we face the innovative way in which the Annales intended to delve into old and new themes from the past, we have the impression that they are taking a step ahead of the Marxism by not opting for the "interpretive security" given by the hierarchy, where the economic and the political predominate the consequences of all other instances of life human. Proof of this would be the daring that the Annales had to venture into the apparatus of other disciplines and the construction of perspectives that, not long ago, they would have been completely marginalized from what was understood to be something important for the understanding of story.
Even though the strength and breath that the Annales gave to the way of thinking about history is undeniable, we cannot fall into the mistake that they reached an unimaginable level for the Marxist perspective. In the act of expanding historical boundaries, we realize that the Annales - throughout their authors and generations – faced the dilemmas built by so many other writing possibilities of the story. For this reason, we see that the birth of the quantitative method operates as a living manifestation that mentalities and the imaginaries did not found a way radically separated from some ancient acts common to history observed in the century XIX.
On the other hand, we see that important Marxist works (among which we have included the writings of Karl Marx himself!) are concerned with investigating with greater care the way of thinking about the relationships between the economic, political, social and other manifestations arising from human action. Thus, we see that Marxists such as Gramsci, Lukács and Castoriadis also faced their dilemmas linked to the interpretation of the past, critically observing the limitations of the perspectives generated within Marxist historical thought and offering other possibilities.
In such a way, we see that the notion of progress that proves to fail when we try to encompass the unfolding of experiences saved in the past, it should also not wrongly contaminate the contributions and problems generated by the Annales and the Marxism. On the contrary, as we can see in texts produced recently, the concern to preserve the autonomy of historical objects, it increasingly encourages dialogue between forms of knowledge mistakenly restricted to the tension generated between innovation and conservatism.
By Rainer Sousa
Graduated in History
Brazil School Team
History - Brazil School
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/historia/a-escola-dos-annales-marxismo.htm
