Historical Narrative, Ideology and Historiography

What is a subject of a historical text? How are results of historiographical research presented? What does such research actually refer to? Theoreticians of history have been looking for answers to these questions, while historians themselves (at least within the context of Slovak institutionalised historiography) have ignored them. One of the most visible consequences of this absence of a theoretical reflection is a recycling of deep-rooted stereotypes, as well as a natural application of terms and schemes which often have questionable or unsustainable content from an analytical point of view. If we want to eliminate the production of historical knowledge of this type, historians´ theoretical reflection on the nature of this discipline is essential. This issue of Forum Historiae claims the same objective. It presents seven studies and three reviews which variously analyse the implications of a narrative form and ideological preconditions of historical texts for the nature of historical knowledge.