This paper deals with two different meanings of the concepts of representation related to historiography. Both of them have different consequences when they attempt to give account of recent pasts in conflict. The first of them is representation as it is understood in cultural or social history –a sort of belief that people have about the world, especially with recent pasts that affect them. The other one is historical language or historiography understood -after the linguistic turn- as a representation of (...) the past. The main objective of this paper is to show how these two meanings of representation collapse in a “history of the present” or in a“history of the recent past”. (shrink)