What Kind of History Do We Need?

Short historical essay from the one of the most innovative and influential Slovak historian is focused on the Slovak historiography. This text has been published at first time in 1997 and provides authors actual remarks toward attempts to canonize strictly nationalistic narrations of political history of Slovakia. He is criticizing the actual attempts to reconstruct history of Slovakia only as a progress to the national and state independency. The text is dealing with themes like "selection" and "interpretation". Lipták is approaching the characteristic "defensive stance" of the narrations that are inventing the national story of Slovaks. Referring to their mythological arsenal, which has in fact just a fragmentary and not comprehensive character, he is warning, that results of this kind of strictly ideological approaches of political history are just strengthening the process of deprivation of the own past (for example in historical context of Hungarian Kingdom). By contrast, he is stressing the need for wide contextualization of these themes in to the broad historical frames and applying for restitution of the "forgotten" spiritual and political capital. Lipták's critical remarks are focused on enormous interest of Slovak historians in political history (represented as a national history), which he read as a problem of tradition and society. The big chance for change he sees in usage of new methodological trends established and discussed in the western historiographies. Lipták's reflection is giving a notice of the importance of political history; alongside it he expresses a satisfaction that never and nowhere has been any historical model ruling the discourse for too long period.