"How can different representations of the past be explained?".
Different representations of the past can be explained a numerous amount of times due to what people witness, hear, and learn. The events on 21st-22nd of January, 1905, led Russia to revolutionize it's whole country; from modern technology, to economic factors bearing in work for all (as most of Russia was working class, around 83 percent in total) and education, for all to learn about the world and Russia itself not under any rule of a revolutionary. .
The evidence in each three accounts, Gapon, The New York Times (23rd, Jan, 1905) and John Hay have brought and raised different notions and events portrayed on the day. .
Gapon was the leader of the crowd of workers, workers wives, workers children, students, and the general public of this parade. Women walked in front of him as a form of protection and body guarding his, if anything where to happen to him those women would lay down their lives for him. Police did not interfere with the procession as of yet, but escorted them to the gates of the Winter Palace with their heads respecting the religious emblems displayed. The crowd grew more patriotic for a more dramatic aspect of the parade; this was for seeking attention (even as though the procession was a compact mass). Infantry was spread through out the Narva Gate needed for protection of the palace, they too did not know what to expect but take orders from the Grand Duke. Gapon only wanted to reason with the Tsar, as if it were a life and death situation to have a better working situation to make life easier for most. This was unknown whether the mob was armed. Unsure of what was to come and Gapon's massive crowd still approaching, they were fired upon, killing hundreds upon hundreds and inuring many more, and, Gapon, escaping with it out a scratch. Soldiers weren't just shooting into the street filled with the crowd, but into adjoining houses (this was because streets were large and no house was defendable by any one as they were all connected, and all visible).