Historisk Tidskrift. Utgiven av Svenska historiska föreningen
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Historisk tidskrift 125:2 • 2005

Innehåll (Contents) 2005:2

Uppsatser (Articles)

Källkritiken måste uppdateras för att inte reduceras till kvarleva

Arne Jarrick

Fulltext (pdf)

Source Criticism in Need of Modernization

This article takes as its starting point the premise that it is possible to make true statements about the past and that it is the historian’s task to make such statements, but that it is not possible to do so unless we systematically distrust the testimonies left to us by witnesses to past events. For this reason, the article defends the claim that historical source criticism is a meaningful and necessary part of the professional enterprise of historians. Unfortunately, over the last couple of decades, source criticism has gradually become less practiced in our profession and has today been pushed to the margins of Swedish historiography. It needs to be restored to its central position, but it also needs to be modernised in the light of new trends and new conditions of historical research. Basically, source criticism has to be used as a tool for intertextual as well as intratextual analysis, aiding the historian as much in her or his constructive work as in his or her critical task of weeding out false information.