History and despotism, or: Hayden White vs. Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great

The article investigates the extent to which historical events are suscepti ble of variant narrative accounts and the theoretical implications of this question. It offers an analysis of the range of actual representations of c ertain fixed sets of events: the reigns of Ivan the Terrible (1547-1584) an d Peter the Great (1682-1725). Examination of variation among the many acco unts of these eras, which occupy a central position in the Russian historic al imagination, leads to a description of the ideological and narrative mec hanisms governing the evolution of Russian historiography. It is shown that the range of variant narratives regarding these rulers reflects the long-t erm evolution of a set of political and interpretive conventions regarding their significance in the (mythical) transition of Russian society from pre modernity to modernity - conventions which are deeply implicated in politic al discourse concerning Russia's historical and geopolitical fortunes and w hich up to the present day resonate in assessments of the two rulers. These considerations lead to a reassessment of Hayden White's positions regardin g the degree to which historical events may be cast in variant narrative re presentations. It is argued that White's conception of 'fundamental' formal categories of history writing as cognitive tools which historians apply to a disorganized mass of evidence renders both categories and historians unf elicitously 'ahistorical' - for White's poetic modes, ideological tendencie s, and forms of argument do not occur outside of narratives, which, themsel ves inherited from the past, provide templates in the present for the retel ling of old stories and the elaboration of new ones. As an alternative, it is proposed that White's formal analysis of history is better conceived as a technique for the description of historical narratives and individual his torians' techniques as they themselves evolve in history, and that the hist orian is best viewed not in relation not to a remote, 'unnarrated' set of e vents but instead to a continuum of narratives with their own historical un folding.