María José Hidalgo de la Vega (Universidad de Salamanca)
Nations and Nationalities in Historical Perspective, edited by Gudmunður Hálfdanarson and Ann Katherine Isaacs (Edizioni Plus, 2001)
Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to explain, necessarily in synthetic form, how Ancient History has been treated and what relevance it has had in Spanish historiography. In the first place we must not forget that the form in which we reflect on the origins of the ways of interpreting the past is tightly connected to the historical development of each country and with phenomena which are contemporary to those who practice this activity which we call History. Which means that I consider that each historiography is, itself, a product of history. To these aspects of a general character we must add the concrete situations which the historical disciplines have had in each country in the university organisation. In Spain, in 1900, the Faculties of Letters and Philosophy were organised in the universities with the creation of the Secciones de Historia (Sections of History).
Furthermore until 1965, when the first university chairs of Spanish and Universal Ancient History were endowed, Ancient History as such was not institutionalised as an autonomous discipline. Ancient History, hence, is the youngest of the historical disciplines. Until that time, those who cultivated it and dedicated their research to antiquity were classical philologists, archaeologists and historians of Roman Law. The situation was indeed depressing if we observe that in the more advanced European countries, research and teaching of Ancient History already had a history going back more than two centuries and was part of a tradition deeply rooted in the thought and the cultural background of those countries.
Ancient History in Spanish Historiography
María José Hidalgo de la Vega (Universidad de Salamanca)
Nations and Nationalities in Historical Perspective, edited by Gudmunður Hálfdanarson and Ann Katherine Isaacs (Edizioni Plus, 2001)
Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to explain, necessarily in synthetic form, how Ancient History has been treated and what relevance it has had in Spanish historiography. In the first place we must not forget that the form in which we reflect on the origins of the ways of interpreting the past is tightly connected to the historical development of each country and with phenomena which are contemporary to those who practice this activity which we call History. Which means that I consider that each historiography is, itself, a product of history. To these aspects of a general character we must add the concrete situations which the historical disciplines have had in each country in the university organisation. In Spain, in 1900, the Faculties of Letters and Philosophy were organised in the universities with the creation of the Secciones de Historia (Sections of History).
Furthermore until 1965, when the first university chairs of Spanish and Universal Ancient History were endowed, Ancient History as such was not institutionalised as an autonomous discipline. Ancient History, hence, is the youngest of the historical disciplines. Until that time, those who cultivated it and dedicated their research to antiquity were classical philologists, archaeologists and historians of Roman Law. The situation was indeed depressing if we observe that in the more advanced European countries, research and teaching of Ancient History already had a history going back more than two centuries and was part of a tradition deeply rooted in the thought and the cultural background of those countries.
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