Historical memory as a mentality

The word “history” is usually understood simply as a representation of the past. However, the work of the historian is not limited only to a simple representation of the past. In the course of interpretation of the past historians often appeal to something that hinders and sometimes does not allow us to «understand properly» the past in its wholeness. In other words, there are always philosophical and methodological issues in any historical research. The “total history”, which the representatives of the Annales School tried to recreate, primarily supposed the reconstruction of the holistic picture of historical life without limiting it to studying of any particular issues. By adopting interdisciplinary research method, the representatives of the School showed that mentality is of historical character and may be reconstructed basing on the analysis of different sources - tangible things, written works or pieces of art.