The Pesky Authorial Self: Explorations in the Land of Historical Production

This article argues that historical source criticism has traditionally been myopic to one important factor in the historical production process: the authorial self. The exploration of the author’s personal history, socialization processes, and particular positionality has hitherto been considered as detrimental to the authoritative voice of the historian and as detracting from the “proper” writing of history. Recently, the contemporary preoccupation with identity and subjectivity has fostered cracks in this taboo, with a few voices within the profession giving more room to the “I” of the historian. The author of this article speculates on the ways her own life experiences shaped her decision to write Soviet history and how her own historical “baggage” influenced her analyses and conclusions, making the case for a more radical transparency of the authorial self.