Oldal 78 [78]
76 RÓBERT BALOGH
for certain events. Historians must therefore know that what appears like data is
actually information that has undergone several transformations.
At the same time, the conscious deliberation of representation is not always and
not necessarily a weapon for garnering votes and does not need to deepen political
cleavages. In the opinion of Noémi Zsuzsanna Both, István Imreh, the Hungarian
historian of Romania who also became attuned to issues of environmental history,
built his life’s work around the ideal of serving his nation: his research did not
only concern the Szekler community in Romania, but strengthening them formed
part of his aim (Both 2018; 2021). Imreh’s choice of themes and his way of
presenting them were conscious political and communal acts, but this did not
damage their authenticity. It is true that in commemorating Imreh’s work,
contemporary actors (mostly the politicians) address the present from their own
positions during their acts of remembrance, but it also fitted the Szekler national
consolidation program professed by Imreh (Both 2022). Imreh’s examinations of
the forestry laws can be used as powerful arguments in the conflicts and political
disputes in Romania about the protection of woods, responsibility for forest
destruction, and the relationship between human beings and wildlife. Imreh the
historian was apparently also motivated by the need to comprehend modernity as
a change of periods, and to explore how this related to the wooded landscape. This
latter part of his oeuvre awaits re-discovery due to the epochal change in the 21
century to be discussed in more detail below.
Historians’ ability to direct attention to lesser-known traumas and losses and
to their accurately observed human aspect may also have an integrative role.
Research on events related to the deportations and genocide that occurred in
Central Europe in the recent past have revealed the importance of one’s attitude
to the landscape in experiencing forced relocations (Praczyk 2018; Huhdk 2020;
Kelbert 2016).
Revealing the history of the sense of environmental crisis has a role in
understanding its essence. Is this but a new chapter in the history of experiencing
crises, or are we entering a brand new age, the likes of which humanity has never
encountered before? According to current scientific knowledge, the latter is the
case, though the history of ideas about the environmental crisis still holds
significance: We may discover, for example, the factors which have limited the
spread of knowledge about, and the responses to the crisis (Rich 2019).
If historians play such a crucial role in creating narratives, should past historical
narratives be held accountable for the crisis? In fact, the profession has recently
shown interest in reflecting on the constraints and difficulties of the contradictions
arising from the act of historians’ story-telling, beyond the issue of memory politics.
The everyday significance of mediatized activities has increased. Perhaps this is
why several fields of knowledge have realized the importance of the fact that
humans who long to know themselves and the world do so through “elaborat[ing]
their information and shar[ing] it with others in stories. Their concepts are arranged
and become basic units of their knowledge embedded in stories” (Szécsi 2020:
93). The unwritten laws of publications — “academic writing” — which enable
communication, progress and evaluation within the professional community, place
limits on historians’ story-telling as well as establishing a need for it. The compulsion
to tell stories brings history closer to literature, making its narrative similar to the
narrative schemes found in literary fiction. The persons described or cited by a