What We Learn From Comparison: Some Epistemological Remarks

This article deals with the comparisons between testimonies and theoretical works on Nazi and Soviet camps carried on within literary studies. Going beyond the debates about potentially antagonistic memories of those two regimes, the comparison contributes to decompartmentalizing research, infusing it with new dynamics and methods as well as the adoption of a renewed approach to the construction of knowledge. Indeed, by conducting textual comparisons rather than basing their research on the study of facts, the researchers in the field of literary studies were able to question narrative strategies and the positions of certain works within their host cultures. Debates on the generic aspects of literary testimonies have thus helped shift the focus from the specificity of the experiences they described to their status and form. The article then compares the two bodies of texts from the point of view of their possible use as historical sources, and analyzes a few examples of narrative strategies.