Dear friend: truely I am surprised of the debate that you propose to us on the peculiarities of the Latin. Perhaps you can think that my stupor must to my not attendance to the congress of HaD II and, therefore, to that I ignore those commentaries that, according to you say, they became in the corridor and low voice. Nevertheless, my surprise does not obey to mere ignorance; my surprise, on the contrary, must to that I do not believe that is truely reasonable, profitable and possible to debate about the Latin and in the terms that you propose to us. To the first question (" Which was the paper of the Latin historians in HaD II ") I cannot be responsible for not to have attended the sessions. However to the rest, yes that I am created authorized to take part. In general, all of them-- except for which it is to me incomprehensible (like, for example, " What paper plays or must play the great personalities in the historiography " " They can or have to be these of Latin race?")-- they can be approached jointly. In the first place, far from welcoming us in the comfortable classification of Latin or the Anglo-Saxon, I believe that we would have to break with those stereotypes. One is not to be simply iconoclasta; one treats, on the contrary, to make us an idea exact of the historiografías from which we come, to find out its academic routines, to evaluate its dependencies and atavisms, it stops from that knowledge to undertake a healthful one fled, to initiate an indeed global investigation. I, for example, dedicate myself to local history. Then, my objective -- which obvious I do not know if I fulfill it -- is to make general questions in local contexts, sufficiently general questions, universal questions for which the humans always we give local answer. The way to investigate -- we are in America or in Europe and we identify ourselves or not with Latin or Anglo-Saxon traditions -- is the one to turn into interesting something that in principle seemed totally other peoplés to the interests of which they do not comprise of my immediate adhesions. All investigation would have, in effect, to be conceived better as if a translation it was or, still and following Octavio Peace, if the culture and the communication are mainly transposition exercises, of transfer of an object to different languages (and, therefore, to different cultures, different perceptivos ways), in that case, the historian would have to adopt a language, a perspective and methods that guaranteed that transposition to him, a true translation, an exit of the jail of the language and of the peculiar way to face the world that has my tribe. In that sense, the globalización is a blessing because it forces to me to express to me without idiolectos, to force to me to break the comfortable but desnaturalizadoras properties of that uncomfortable I by unique that I am i myself, and, therefore, it demands to me to express to me of such way and to treat the things about such luck that provokes interest by a subject, by a problem, between those who exactly did not have interest in that subject not being his.

The localism -- and the localismo it can be of great dimensions -- turn the objects into incomparable and it only enunciates them so that it satisfies the expectations with the native ones. Therefore, and as Josep Pla said, we would have to conceive our work not like result of our time, but like product against our time. We would have, then, to try to surpass those idolectos -- also those of Latin and the Anglo-Saxon -- paradoxicalally to cultivate a universalismo who is also done and of those local ingredients that all we have incorporated. To do it thus is to also admit the creative part that there is in our work; it is to reflect about which it constitutes to us, and that that constitutes to us makes always hybrid, joyfully impure alloys of difficult congruencie. I do not recognize myself only in the Latin, because to emphasize that allegiance she is to amputate to me from which I have received from other cultures and that contamination is, really, a great benefit. It deplored Claude Lévi-Strauss who modernity had harmed the own characteristics of each culture until the point of which no longer tribes could be pure virgin nor native. If the cultural isolationism leads to the withering, the communication -- the anthropologist concluded -- would take paradoxicalally and lamentably to the homogenization. I am not so safe that the desnaturalizadora cultural contamination is a loss; I am not so safe that the defense of the Latin is an urgent task to which we must contribute jointly. Of which yes I am safe it is that the voltage between the isolationism and the opening is and has been always the historical way to constitute to us. For that reason, the communication -- as an old and close quick-tempered person taught to us paradoxicalally, Claude Lévi-Strauss -- it is the way who we must to do to us and the material transactions and immaterial internal and external they are the expression form that gives life us, that allows us to leave the jail of our properties.

On those things, we have extended in a recent communication Anaclet Pons and i myself, a communication titled " In its place. A reflection on local history and the microanalysis " and that we presented/displayed in July of this year in a Congress celebrated in Aragón. In short, I do not want to extend and, in addition, I know not even if all this has some interest in agreement with it raised questions that, I insist, cause an evident surprise to me.

It receives a hug, Justo Serna.

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Justo Serna Alonso
Departament d'Història Contemporània Facultat de Geografia i Història
Universitat de València Blasco Ibáñez, 28. 46010 Valencia.
Telèfon: 3-86-42-43 3-86-42-30 (Ext. 1287)
Fax: 3-86-40-88
E-mail: jserna@uv.es
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Translation made in " Altavista Connections " through Systram Traslation Software (http://babelfish.altavista.com/content/browser.htm)