Class 5 Reading Notes on From the Nation to the Citizen. Quebec Historical Writing and the Shaping of Identity by Ronald Rudin

After reading the articles that were assigned for class 5 there was one that stood out to me. Based on my Quebec upbringing, I felt I could understand and relate to it the most. The article that I chose was by Ronald Rudin and is titled From the Nation to the Citizen. Quebec Historical Writing and the Shaping of Identity.

When looking at this article there are a couple of things that stand out, especially about our concept of citizenship. The main argument that I see contained as described by Rudin is “historical writing provides an occasion for leaders of a society to project an image from the past onto the future”. Meaning depending on how the historian decides to read into the history, could change how the people of society think of themselves or even act. In order to get this point across, Rudin looks at different historians through different time periods of Quebec. Investigating what they were studying and the reason for studying it. 

Rudin starts by looking at Garneau who because of the union of Upper and Lower Canada and fears of assimilation with the English, depicted his people as being defined by their language, religion and common ancestry to France. Moving along, Rudin looks at Groux, who had decided French Canadians did not have a very good chance of gaining economic or political power and thought to focus on “their” cultural survival. He would concentrate on the rural roots, and downplay the “distinctions of class that divided them internally and reminding French Canadians of what had distinguished them from the English-Speakers who surrounded them”. Rudin also looks at The New Historians (Fregault, Brunet, Seguin) who focused on people in ethnic terms but were trying to understand the roots of French Canadian economic inferiority. They would focus on the implications the conquest had. They saw this as the route to strengthening the government, aiming to have French Canadians exercise some power within.

Rudin also looks at the Laval view of history.  They believed French Canadian farmers had difficulties not because of Catholicism or English, but because of poor business practices. Their agenda didn’t see the advancement of French Canadian interests through provincial government though. They believed change at the Federal level was key. Lastly, Rudin looks at Linteau, Robert, and Durocher, who only looked at the period since confederation, and really paid attention to urban issues. They defined Quebec by territory rather than ethnicity and were trying to change the idea of “nous” from previous writings.

This article had quite a few strengths, Rudin uses many different historians to prove his point about them trying to push their own ideologies, even if it was not always on purpose. He also took historians from different time periods that allowed him to really show the difference in thinking depending on the period of time. A weakness that I did realize, was that he only used French historians for his examples. I realize that for the purpose of this article the historians should have predominantly been French, but it would have given us a good perspective to know what some English historians had been saying around the same time period.

After reading this article, I was left thinking about its usefulness for a while. Then I realized, that by reading this, teachers might become reflective about what they are teaching. Thinking about who wrote the history they are teaching, and the hidden agenda of what they may have been trying to push. The article also brought up a question that I thought was quite interesting. We know after this article, that a historian’s personal views may change the way history is portrayed, does that mean the way that we as teachers teach history may be based on our personal beliefs as well?