Paper short abstract:

In my paper, I will showcase what I refer to with the term of experience-centered validation/invalidation of historical conceptions in first-person narratives. I will do so by analyzing examples from a data that consists of texts that describe the Finnish Civil War of 1918.

Paper long abstract:

The form and contents of first-person, written narratives are guided by various dynamic and intertwining intensions, related to e.g. the nature of the experiences of the narrator, the desire to process and transmit them, and in a wider sense to the cultural, social and political contexts of narrating. In this paper, I will look at how personal ways and forms of experiencing historical phenomenon are linked to collective historical conceptions in first-person narratives. I argue that one key function of these linkages is what I have labeled as the experience-centered validation/invalidation of historical conceptions, which is connected to the intension of expressing and interpreting personal experiences and thus constructing subjective historical agency in relation to collective memory, historical interpretations and historiography. I use the term first-person narrative here to describe autobiographical texts where the narrator describes his/her life and experiences in a specific time frame. The paper is based on the data of my ongoing doctoral dissertation, which consist of such texts that describe the Finnish Civil war of 1918.

In my paper, I will showcase what I refer to with the term of experience-centered validation/invalidation of historical conceptions with the help of examples from my data. The concept is constructed to describe the relation of personal key experiences and historical conceptions in first-person narratives: how experiences and ways of experiencing are portrayed so that they either validate or invalidate historical conceptions, and in the former case how these conceptions on their part validate experiences.