History is not just a record of the past, but a creation of human selection and interpretation. Selected facts are causally connected to have a specific meaning, and their interpretation can change depending on the time period and historical perspective.
History is a record of the facts of the past that only humans have. However, not all facts of the past constitute history. History is not simply a list of all the events that happened, but a logical organization of selected facts with meaningful causal connections. For example, the story of the Wihwa-do Company of Lee Sunggye was recorded as history not because it is a simple record of an event, but because it is important in explaining the founding of the Joseon Dynasty. The Wihwa-do retreat is interpreted as a decisive step toward the establishment of a new dynasty, and this interpretation gives the event historical value beyond a simple military retreat.
However, if new facts or objects are discovered about the founding of the Joseon Dynasty, and the process of Joseon’s founding can be convincingly explained in a different way, the historical significance of the Wihwa-do retreat may change. This shows that in the process of historical narrative, new sources can be selected, and the historical meaning can change accordingly. The selection is always determined by the historian, and the interpretation is a process of meaning-making, not a mere description of facts. History is not a given natural phenomenon, but a human creation, selected and interpreted by humans. For example, if new documents or artifacts are discovered that provide new insights into the motivations or strategies of the Yi dynasty, we may be able to look at the Great Wall in a different light and reassess its significance.
Although history is said to be a human creation, it is clearly different from historical fiction, which is a figment of a novelist’s imagination. History and historical fiction are similar in that they both start with selected facts, but the process of creation is fundamentally different. While historical fiction is imaginative “literary fiction” based on selected facts, history involves research, exploration, and verification of facts. For example, in historical fiction, Lee Sung-gye may be portrayed as a more human or mythical figure through fictional elements, but history reconstructs his real-life persona through verified sources. This distinction gives readers a clear sense of the boundaries between historical fact and literary imagination.
Another difference is that fiction delves narrowly and deeply into the meaning of a single event or object, while history looks at individual events in the context of the whole. For example, a character’s psychological transformation or a personal event may be the main theme of a novel, but history explores what these events mean in their social and political context. The discovery of a site, artifact, or document is in itself a discovery of fragmentary facts, but it does not make it part of history. These objects take on historical significance only when they provide a logical and semantic link between a society’s past and present. For example, the mere fact that an artifact was unearthed does not in itself have historical significance, but it acquires historical value when it becomes an important clue to understanding a particular time and culture.
In this process of interpretation, historians need a historical perspective, which is a holistic vision of history. For example, a cyclical view of history sees history as a recurring cycle of events, while a Christian view of history understands history as an inevitable process according to a divine plan. Marxist history views economic factors as the primary driver of historical development. Historians write history based on these perspectives, and the same historical fact or event can be interpreted as “progress” or “development” or as “repetition” or “regression” depending on the perspective. Therefore, history can always be rewritten, and the meaning and depth of past facts can change depending on how history is remembered and recorded. This shows that history is not fixed, but rather a creative work that involves a process of selection and reconstruction.
As such, history is not just a record of the past, but a living discourse that is constantly being reinterpreted according to current perspectives and values. As a product of human intellectual endeavors to understand the present and predict the future through the past, history is inevitably subject to diverse perspectives and interpretations. In this sense, history is an important discipline and art that reflects the complexity and diversity of human society.
