ABSTRACT
That the shadow of the past should fall over a nation's present and blur its outlines is not, in itself, anything out of the ordinary. Every nation, every country, tends to preserve - sometimes even to manufacture - the image of its history which suits it best, the image in which it can identify itself and find the outlines of its identity to suit its needs and the circumstances through which it is passing. Every nation and every country feeds on its myths. The function of the historian is not to destroy the myths. The only effect of that is to reproduce the myth in negative form, to create an anti-myth. In any case, the operation generally proves futile. The fact is that myths have their own existence, and though the assaults of historical logic may disturb that existence they cannot destroy it. The historian must recognise the myth for what it is, and distinguish it from the reality which it veils.
