ABSTRACT
The mere chronological dimension of history begs for comparison over time and makes the use of historical analogies a spontaneous professional technique for historians. Perhaps surprisingly, censors do not always ban outright the harmful historical analogies they notice. The censors have to convince their superiors that the analogy is really there, that it is intended, and that it is harmful. Paradoxically, censors may also have reasons for tolerating historical analogies. Censors usually operate domestically and most of the time cannot stop writers who invent historical analogies from abroad. The expression of criticism in circumstances of repression and censorship takes the shape of historical analogies because their creators gamble on the power of analogies to recall precedents, to suggest a diagnosis, and to connect the like-minded in one brief cathartic moment. More modestly, in contexts of oppression, historical analogies challenge the present situation by evoking its double or its antipode in the past.
