Historical negationism,The term negationism derives from the French neologism négationnisme, denoting Holocaust denial.(Kornberg, Jacques. The Future of a Negation: Reflections on the Question of Genocide.(Review) (book review) , Shofar, January 2001). It is now also sometimes used for more general political historical revisionism as (PDF) UNESCO against racism world conference 31 August – 7 September 2001. "Given the ignorance with which it is treated, the slave trade comprises one of the most radical forms of historical negationism." Pascale Bloch has written in International law: Response to Professor Fronza's The punishment of Negationism (Accessed ProQuest Database, 12 October 2011) that revisionists are understood as negationists in order to differentiate them from historical revisionists, since their goal is either to prove that the Holocaust did not exist or to introduce confusion regarding the victims and German executioners regardless of historical and scientific methodology and evidence. For those reasons, the term revisionism is often considered confusing, since it conceals misleading ideologies that purport to avoid disapproval by presenting revisions of the past based on pseudo-scientific methods, while they are in fact a part of negationism.Kriss Ravetto (2001). The Unmaking of Fascist Aesthetics, University of Minnesota Press . p. 33 also called historical denialism, is the falsification, trivialization, or distortion of the historical record. This is distinct from historical revisionism, a broader term encompassing academic reinterpretations of history driven by new evidence or reasoning."The two leading critical exposés of Holocaust denial in the United States were written by historians Deborah Lipstadt (1993) and Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman (2000). These scholars make a distinction between historical revisionism and denial. Revisionism, in their view, entails a refinement of existing knowledge about an historical event, not a denial of the event itself, that comes through the examination of new empirical evidence or a re-examination or reinterpretation of existing evidence. Legitimate historical revisionism acknowledges a 'certain body of irrefutable evidence' or a 'convergence of evidence' that suggest that an event – like the black plague, American slavery, or the Holocaust – did in fact occur (Lipstadt 1993:21; Shermer & Grobman 200:34). Denial, on the other hand, rejects the entire foundation of historical evidence. ... " Ronald J. Berger. Fathoming the Holocaust: A Social Problems Approach, Aldine Transaction, 2002, , p. 154. In attempting to revise and influence how the past is seen, historical negationism acts as illegitimate historical revisionism by using techniques inadmissible in proper historical discourse, such as presenting known forged documents as genuine, inventing ingenious but implausible reasons for distrusting genuine documents, attributing conclusions to books and sources that report the opposite, manipulating statistical series to support the given point of view, and deliberately mistranslating traditional or modern texts.Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial, by Richard J. Evans, 2001, . p. 145. The author is a professor of Modern History, at the University of Cambridge, and was a major expert-witness in the Irving v. Lipstadt trial; the book presents his perspective of the trial, and the expert-witness report, including his research about the Dresden death count.
Some countries, such as Germany, have criminalized the negationist revision of certain historical events, while others have more permissive policy for various reasons, such as protection of free speech. Others have in the past mandated negationist views, such as the US state of California, where it is claimed that some schoolchildren have been explicitly prevented from learning about the California genocide. Notable examples of negationism include the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, the clean Wehrmacht myth, and denials of the Holocaust, Nakba, Holodomor, the Armenian genocide and Japanese war crimes.Klaus Mehnert, Stalin Versus Marx: the Stalinist historical doctrine (Translation of Weltrevolution durch Weltgeschichte) Port Washington NY: Kennikat Press 1972 (1952), on the illegitimate use of history in the 1934–1952 period.Roger D. Markwick, Rewriting history in Soviet Russia : the politics of revisionist historiography, 1956–1974 New York; Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001, on legitimate Soviet historiography particularly in the post 1956 period. In literature, it has been imaginatively depicted in some works of fiction, such as Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. In modern times, negationism may spread via political, religious agendas through state media, mainstream media, and new media, such as the Internet.
Origin of the term The term negationism (négationnisme) was first coined by the French historian Henry Rousso in his 1987 book The Vichy Syndrome which looked at the French popular memory of Vichy France and the French Resistance. Rousso posited that it was necessary to distinguish between legitimate historical revisionism in Holocaust studies and politically motivated denial of the Holocaust, which he termed negationism.
Purposes Usually, the purpose of historical negation is to align with tribal or ideological beliefs, demonize an enemy, maintain group identity, or preserve social bonds, often through motivated reasoning and denial of established facts.
Ideological influence
The principal functions of negationist history are the abilities to control ideological and political influence.
History is a social resource that contributes to shaping national identity, culture, and the public memory. Through the study of history, people are imbued with a particular cultural identity; therefore, by negatively revising history, the negationist can craft a specific, ideological identity. Because historians are credited as people who single-mindedly pursue truth, by way of fact, negationist historians capitalize on the historian's professional credibility, and present their pseudohistory as true scholarship. By adding a measure of credibility to the work of revised history, the ideas of the negationist historian are more readily accepted in the public mind. As such, professional historians recognize the revisionist practice of historical negationism as the work of "truth-seekers" finding different truths in the historical record to fit their political, social, and ideological contexts.
Political influence History provides insight into past political policies and consequences, and thus assists people in extrapolating political implications for contemporary society. Historical negationism is applied to cultivate a specific political myth, sometimes with official consent from the government, whereby self-taught, amateur, and dissident academic historians either manipulate or misrepresent historical accounts to achieve political ends. For example, after the late 1930s in the Soviet Union, the ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and historiography in the Soviet Union treated reality and the party line as the same intellectual entity, especially in regards to the Russian Civil War and peasant rebellions;Taisia Osipova, "Peasant rebellions: Origin, Scope, Design and Consequences", in Vladimir N. Brovkin (ed.), The Bolsheviks in Russian Society: The Revolution and the Civil Wars, Yale University Press, 1997, . pp. 154–76. Soviet historical negationism advanced a specific, political, and ideological agenda about Russia and its place in world history.Roger D. Markwick, Donald J. Raleigh, Rewriting History in Soviet Russia: The Politics of Revisionist Historiography, Palgrave Macmillan, 2001, , pp. 4–5.
Techniques
Historical negationism applies the techniques of research, quotation, and presentation for deception of the reader and denial of the historical record. In support of the "revised history" perspective, the negationist historian uses false documents as genuine sources, presents specious reasons to distrust genuine documents, exploits published opinions by quoting out of historical context, manipulates statistics, and mistranslates texts in other languages.Tennent H. Bagley, Spy Wars¸ Yale University Press, 2007. , p. 105. The revision techniques of historical negationism operate in the intellectual space of public debate for the advancement of a given interpretation of history and the cultural perspective of the "revised history".Dionne, E.J. Jr. Cold War Scholars Fault Stalin: Soviet Historians Lean to U.S. View. The Washington Post. 26 July 1990. LexisNexis Database (Retrieved 12 October 2011). First Section, p. A3. As a document, the revised history is used to negate the validity of the factual, documentary record, and so reframe explanations and perceptions of the discussed historical event, to deceive the reader, the listener, and the viewer; therefore, historical negationism functions as a technique of propaganda.Nagorski, Andrew. Russia's New Normal: The Cold War may be over, but that doesn't mean the threat from the Kremlin has entirely disappeared. Newsweek; World Affairs. 17 March 2008. LexisNexis Database(. Retrieved 12 October 2011)Vol. 151 No 11. Rather than submit their works for peer review, negationist historians rewrite history and use logical fallacies to construct arguments that will obtain the desired results, a "revised history" that supports an agenda – political, ideological, religious, etc.
In the practice of historiography, the British historian Richard J. Evans describes the technical differences, between professional historians and negationist historians, commenting: "Reputable and professional historians do not suppress parts of quotations from documents that go against their own case, but take them into account, and, if necessary, amend their own case, accordingly. They do not present, as genuine, documents which they know to be forged, just because these forgeries happen to back up what they are saying. They do not invent ingenious, but implausible, and utterly unsupported reasons for distrusting genuine documents, because these documents run counter to their arguments; again, they amend their arguments, if this is the case, or, indeed, abandon them altogether. They do not consciously attribute their own conclusions to books and other sources, which, in fact, on closer inspection, actually say the opposite. They do not eagerly seek out the highest possible figures in a series of statistics, independently of their reliability, or otherwise, simply because they want, for whatever reason, to maximize the figure in question, but rather, they assess all the available figures, as impartially as possible, to arrive at a number that will withstand the critical scrutiny of others. They do not knowingly mistranslate sources in foreign languages to make them more serviceable to themselves. They do not willfully invent words, phrases, quotations, incidents and events, for which there is no historical evidence, to make their arguments more plausible."Richard J. Evans. David Irving, Hitler and Holocaust Denial: Electronic Edition, 6. General Conclusion Paragraphs 6.20,6.21
Deception