PREREQUISITES FOR FOLDING MICROHISTORY

Abstract. In « Historical science at the border of the XX - XXI centuries: social theories and historiographical practices» one of the main prerequisites for the development of microhistory called «local approach» is investigated. The author considers the characteristic features of the types of local approach. The microhistory approach studies a particular person and his behavior in maximum detail in order to understand the coupling of the aspirations and actions of the person himself with a given macrohistorical context.

Keywords: historical science, mcrohistory, local approach, person, macrohistorical context.

Microhistory suggests considering particular phenomena that occurred in the lives of individuals of the past. The purpose of this review is to identify the prevailing ideas and trends in society as a whole. Within the framework of this direction, one can consider one village, a family, or even a person as a typical representative of his time, as K. Ginzburg uses the example of his work «Cheese and worms» [1], dedicated to the interrogations of the Italian miller of the XVI century Domenico "Menocchio" Scandella, who was later burned at the stake in 1600 for his views that run counter to the position of the Roman Catholic Church [3; p. 98].

Some people think that microhistory is an «asocial» direction, but this is a very serious misconception. After all, according to the Russian historian L. P. Repina (born 1947), along with people and classes, social microsystems (family, community, parish, etc.) are studied in microhistory. Therefore, the motto of microhistory says «Not History, but stories» [4; p. 167].

The famous French scientist of the XX century Jacques Revel (born 1942) made an attempt to divide the subject field of macro-history and micro-history and at the same time combine them. In his opinion, changing the scale of analysis is crucial in determining microhistory. From all this it follows that microhistory and macrohistory complement each other. Thus, microhistory, introducing diverse and multiple contexts, postulates that each historical «actor» participates directly or indirectly in processes of different scales and different levels (from the most local to the most global) and, therefore, fits into their contexts. These scales and levels do not have a gap between local and global history, and even more so their opposition to each other.

It is noteworthy that Revel compares the use of «microhistoric optics» with a change in scale in cartography: after all, it does not equal the enlargement or reduction of reality, which remains unchanged and leads to the transformation of the content of the represented object [3; p. 98].

According to the article by I. I. Guseva «Micro-perspectives of the social and strategies for their research» [2; p. 17], the task of microanalysis is to look at the past, abandoning the advantages (often imaginary) of the angle from which the outcome of the historical path is perfectly visible.

The following is a list of approaches and methodological guidelines in the arsenal of microhistory:

1) changing the scale of observation;

2) deconstruction of a priori schemes of social stratification;

3) the principle of heterogeneity and dynamism of the social context;

4) a new interpretation of the borderline case (from the point of view of historical generalization).

It follows from this that many key problems of modern social research are focused in the possibilities of microanalysis:

1) building a new ontology of the world of culture;

2) building new formats of «grasping» sociality;

3) the core problem of the objectivity of socio-humanitarian knowledge [2; p. 17].

Back in the 1960s, microanalytical approaches began to be applied in connection with the renewal of the British «local history». As a result of all this, while preserving the name of the «local» object of research, the vision of the subject has changed qualitatively and, based on the theoretical developments of microsociology, its conceptual and methodological arsenal has been radically revised.

The new «local history» now led an intensive «colonization» of all new rural and urban local objects, consistently replacing the old models of historical local lore, which had deep and strong traditions. The micro-entrances themselves were now becoming more attractive. The sources of this phenomenon are:

1) incompleteness and inadequacy of macro-historical conclusions;

2) unreliability of average statistical indicators;

3) the orientation of the dominant paradigm is to curtail the broad panorama of the historical past into a narrow range of «leading trends», to reduce many variants of historical dynamics to pseudo-normative patterns or types [4; p. 167].

It is noteworthy that in the new «local history» there are two approaches that are opposite to each other:

1) an approach that reveals the relationship of human communities not only among themselves, but also with social strata, class groups and classes (the «social» approach);

2) an approach describing a person's life path from birth to death through the change of social roles and behavioral stereotypes in the context of the living space occupied by him (an «individual» approach).

Many local approaches approach the ideal model, which is an example of total history at the micro level. This model effectively uses a variety of analysis techniques and front-end processing of local archives data to restore the lives of individuals and their interpersonal interactions.

Thus, I think that microhistory is actually the same local history, but in the Italian version. After all, the approaches of microhistory are applied in the same way as the approaches of its «progenitor».