History - Tradition - Memory? Against the subjectivity turn in history (Concept of history)

Within philologies and cultural studies the concept of history has lost much of its former theoretical prestige. To a large extent this effect is due to post-modern theories which describe history as a pure linguistic pattern. According to their basic assumptions, the narrative discourse, instead of representing a specific order of the world, only creates the illusion of a coherent history. Yet, also recent theoretical approaches developed by historians weaken the consistency of the traditional concept of history. The focus on memory as an essential feature of history makes subjectivity a decisive part of our reconstruction of the past. In a critical review of both post-modern concepts and the notion of memoria, the article tries to demonstrate the theoretical consistency of the concept of history the advantages of which should be preserved. For this purpose, a new description of narrative discourse is outlined.