MISSION,ISSUES, AND APPROACH IN ORAL HISTORY A REVIEW ESSAY
MISSION,ISSUES, AND APPROACH IN ORAL HISTORY A REVIEW ESSAY

Summary/Abstract: The historiography of the communist period in Eastern Europe is both rich in its consideration and analysis of the power-political dynamics of the epoch and at the same time comparatively shallow in its treatment of the communist experience as lived by the peoples of the region. Part of this paradox is related to the nature of the historical discipline, rooted as it is in the interpretation of documented fact. Another factor concerns the relative absence of a documentary record of personal experience under communism. This lacunae is a function of both the inability and the reluctance to actively record that experience under conditions in which the state defined and monopolized the public discourse. Since 1989, the historiography has profited greatly from the emergence of a post-communist discourse in which the elucidation of the Altagsgeschichte under state socialism has both enriched our understanding of the communist experience and has empowered post­ socialist societies to break with their pasts. Oral history is one of the approaches that has enabled historians to consider the heretofore inaccessible histories of the powerless in Eastern Europe. Moreover, oral history provides a means by which personal experience can be used to help establish the broader historical context of which that experience is a product...

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