Erzählen gegen den Strich: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichtsreflexion im mexikanischen Revolutionsroman

This study explores the Novel of the Mexican Revolution as a literary genre that elaborates alternative images to the political discourse of the Revolution cultivated and further developed by the governing parties PRI and PAN well into the 21st century. In this context, even early 20th century novels such as Guzmán’s The Eagle and the Serpent prepare the way for a demythification of official discourse which historians tend to avoid until post-Tlatelolco/post-1968 historiography cannot ignore the substantial gap between political rhetorics and actual policy any more. The fact that in this case literary work anticipates historical criticism by several decades correlates with the writers‘ focus on the exploration of local and collective mentalities, which breaks the boundaries of traditional historiography and links up to contemporary disciplines such as regional history and history of the mentalities. Key novels analysed in this study are, next to Guzmán’s work, Agustín Yáñez‘s Al filo del agua (1947) and Juan Rulfo’s masterpiece Pedro Páramo (1955).