Historians of the Present

The last chapter shows with how the historical became personal during the Siege. This chapter shows how Siege diarists imagined their amateur contribution to historiography. While professional historians of the Romantic tradition wrote from a personal perspective, they did not privilege experience and anonymity as guarantors of authenticity. The modest perspective of Siege diarists, however, formed the basis of their ability to tell what many of them called the true story of the Siege. Personal claims to historical fact placed anonymous individuals at the heart of history. These diarists wrote the collective history of their present moment, meaning that they can be considered at once historiography and historical documents.