fiction

Microhistory emerged as an independent field after the 1950s, gaining ground in Italy, Mexico, France and the United States. Despite its increasing popularity, comprehensive theoretical and methodological studies have remained few in number for decades. Despite their differences in approach and understanding, the French historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and the Mexican historian Luis González y González, both trained in the French historical schools, were key figures in the development of microhistory. Le Roy Ladurie focuses his archival analysis on the social, economic and religious manifestations of smaller settlements in France. Luis González explores the microcosm of Mexican villages, highlighting local dynamics and local “small” voices. However, both historians emphasize the importance of microscopic details for understanding larger “historical narratives”, despite criticisms from historians influenced by the “linguistic turn”, and despite accusations in reductionism and fictionalisation. The contributions of Le Roy Ladurie and Luis González helped shape microhistory as a nuanced approach to historical research that balances the local “narrative” with the broader socio-political context.

The article examines some of the most problematic aspects of genre theory: the relationship between the concepts of architext and genre; the grounds for the existence of genre and its function in the social being of the work of art; the prerequisites that led to the emergence of genre as an important element of artistic communication. For a long time, genre was perceived primarily as a structural entity, serving mainly the needs of classification. Recently the idea that its function is related to the communicative essence of the artistic discourse appeared. In practice, genre fulfills the role of a discursive norm, organizing all aspects and levels of artistic impact. This circumstance also determines the role that genre plays in realizing the social functions of verbal art. Therefore, the main prerequisites that led to the emergence of genre as an important element of artistic activity are considered mainly within the framework of cultural anthropology. The most important prerequisite for the emergence of genre, according to the hypothesis defended by the article, is the appearance of the fiction related to the emergence of narration, dividing artistic discourse into two events – referential (the event that is narrated) and communicative (the event of the narration itself). It is this duality that defines any artistic discourse as fictional, regardless of whether it presents documentary or fictional events. The other two main prerequisites for the emergence of the literary genre are the nature of literature as writing, which is a specific social phenomenon, and on the other hand, the appearance of the idea of aesthetic activity, which in turn leads to the formation of such specific literary institutions as individual authorship and poetics as a manifestation of literary self-awareness.