Volume 297, Issue 1 -

Poststructuralism, following Nietzsche, has attempted to annihilate the distinction between fact and fiction. Challenging the poststructuralist approach, the present paper defends this distinction with a view to the study of history. From the perspective of a history of concepts, panfictionalist tendencies are analysed and it is shown that these tendencies are based on an intermingling of fictionality with narrative or literary elements. In contrast to methodological attempts within the study of history, which one-sidedly rely on scientism, we emphasize the role of literary-narrative forms of representation. When we look at commonalities between literature and historiography, this is not meant to impute, in a deconstructionist vein, a fictionalist ‚complicity‘ to history. On the contrary, our aim is to make fruitful the cognitive value of literature, in the sense of its capacity to presentation, for the purpose of historical cognition.

This article treats the ‚Arginusae trial‘ of 406 BC, which the ancient authors considered to be the most cruel failure of democracy. Many scholars use the concepts of ‚mass psychology‘ to explain why the people’s assembly got out of control and ‚lost their temper‘. But this pseudo-theory is not useful. Instead it is worth while to scrutinize the events in the historiographical text of Xenophon and to hold them before the background of usual decision procedures of the Athenian assembly. Furthermore it can be shown that obstructive tactics had a  disastrous effect on deliberation. A ‚close reading‘ of the historiographer’s text helps to discover firstly that during the session of the assembly two constitutional powers collided, secondly that the assembled citizens were unable to deal with this unexpected collision, and thirdly that they found back to heir habitualized normality when the debate finally began.

Prussia in the Restauration era was highly conservative as to society, politics and religion, extremly advanced however as far as technical developments and administration were concerned. This bias can be illustrated by the „Preussische Normalkirche“, a standard design for protestant churches in Prussia, that was made compulsory in 1827. It combines features of the highly conservative religious policy of Frederic William III., who sought to establish a unified state-church by introducing liturgical traditions of the Old Church, and latest technical developments like standardised building plans and prefabricated parts. The „Preussische Normalkirche“ thus illustrates the process of modernization which implied progressive standardization – in technical procedures and architectural design as well as in religion.

The 19th century Wahhābi movement has made a remarkable career as one of the most powerful religious-political forces on the Arabian peninsula while their military bedrock was shrouded in myth. Unprinted sources from French diplomatic archives in Nantes and Paris may help shed some light on the role of nomadic tribes in this regard while at the same time tell us something about Western views on the Arab world during a time which was characterized by a transition from a universalist to a more nationalist thinking.