Egodocuments and Life-writing as Sources for the History of Experience

Abstract

The chapter addresses self-construction, writing as an experience, the interplay between private and public, cross-checking of sources, temporality and spatiality, and narrative approaches as key aspects to consider when studying experience through egodocuments and life-writings. We focus on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century sources produced by Bildungsbürgertum and working classes, mainly in Finland but tightly attached to the European context. We discuss the traditional selection of egodocuments and life-writing, like correspondence, diaries, and memoirs, but also genres that are not conventionally regarded as such, like petitions and pauper letters, emphasising the hybrid nature of the sources. Important issues in analysing the relation between the textual construction of experience and experience that was lived through are truthfulness, the writer’s skill, and cultural models.