History and Memory

Intro
1. memory taken its place as a leading term in cultural history
2. looking at the ways in which people construct the past
  1. memory has been used to explore the in which people who actually experience a given event (e.g. the Holocaust) construct the past but also the representation of the past and the making of it into shared culture by successive generations
3. memory studies lack clear focus and have become somewhat predictable- purpose of serving the public needs
4. past constructed to serve myths- people's war
5. collective memory is an exploration of a shared identity which unites a group who have different interests and motivations
6. construction of the past reflects power relations in the present
7. Kerwin Lee Klein- the emergence of memory promises to rework history's boundaires
Ways of Remembering
1. monuments
2. visual or physical reminders of 20th centruy warfare
3. films, documentaries
4. memoirs (BBC People's War
5. personal memories are not only private matters, they existed in a collective framework
6. war memorials showed soldiers as passive, victims of aggression.
7. memory doesn't resurrect the past but it reconstructs it as a coherent, imaginative pattern
Collective Memory
1. shared memory, memory of the people
2. memory is a social construction, draws upon wider social context.
3. cant disentangle memory from present day
4. history is the working memory of society
5. history does for society what memory does for the individual
  1. collective sense of identity
6. Ernest Renan- the nation at the core of the memory concept
7. does historiography distory memory?
8. war memory is the posessession of the individual who experiecne it
  1. official memory refers to dominant memory which helps official remembrance- memories that dont fit marginalised!!
    1. if things are repeated enough, they become part of the collective memory
      1. media help to facilitate a world of nostalgia, community, stability and certaintly
        Marc Bloth- remain cautious of the phrase 'collective memory'
        individuals remember, repress, forget and are traumatised, not societies!!
        traumatic experiences dont retain asmuch trauma collectively, they become casual
        those who suffered traumas will only see their experience enter the public sphere if its compatible with cretain social or political objetives
        POW stories often marginalised
9. Bourke- the collective doesnt actually possess memory, only sites upon which individuals inscribe shared narratives
Identity
1. National memory often creates an imagined community (Halbwachs)
2. identity- term first popularised by Erickson in late 50s in connection with individual sense of self
3. Gilles- notions of identity depend on the idea of memory
4. • The core meaning of a group’s shared identity is based on remembering and what is remembered defines the identity.
5. • Memory and identity are not fixed things according to Gillis but constructions of reality
6. constantly revising memories to suit current identity
  1. • Identity has taken upon great meaning and sub groups fight to have their own identity, even willing to die for it.
  2. Identities and memories are highly selective, inscriptive rather than descriptive, serving particular interests and ideological positions.
    1. Constructed nature of identities is becoming evident, particularly in the Western world where old identities are being undermined by globalisation and political integration.Every assertion of identity or memory involves a CHOICE
    2. memory born out of an awareness that there are conflicting identities and fight for one identity to become dominant e.g. bourgeoisie vs. working class
Memory
1. Pierre Nora- prior to the 19th century, memory was such a pervasive part of life that people were hardly aware of it
  1. only the aristocracy, church and state had the need for institutionalised memory. ordinary people saw it as so much part of their lives that there was no need to record it.
2. Nora claims there has been an eradication of memory by history
  1. distorts personal memories
  2. He claims history's true mission is to destroy and repress memory
3. Nora recognises the centrality of history as a discipline to the building of national traditions
4. Hutton- history draws on both sides of the memory puzzle
  1. it seeks to reconstruct the past but it is also prompted to do so by understandings that are rooted in habits of the mind.
    1. historians dont come to the past completely afresh, the work on previous recollections of it
      1. e,g, end of French and American revolutions- memory tended to divide rather than unite.
        people bound together by what they forget as much as what they remember
        July 4th wasnt celebrated until 1820s when America saw their heroic past start to slip away
Present Day Needs
1. Post WW2- this is what becomes important in this era, personal commemoration etc so memories and commemoration is altered to suit this
2. national commemoration alters
  1. holocaust provided a reason to commemorate, to save both individual and collective recollections from oblivion
3. more civilian than military deaths in WW2- couldnt ignore this contribution
  1. new emphasis on veterans
4. military cemeteries as well as commemoration to the living- churches, sports stadiums, parks etc.
5. women workers didnt gain public commemoration until 1970s
6. 1960s
  1. era of national commemoration drawing to a close but still monuments, holidays etc.
    1. they remain effective in giving people a sense of common identity, uniting the nation
      1. people begin to devote more time to family, local memory
  2. 1980s
    1. rekindling of interest
      1. particularly after French film the Shoah
        social groups who suffered trauma begin to demand recgonition
      2. have to record experience of survivors before its too late
7. Hobsbawn- the invention of tradition
  1. constructed verson of the past in order to legitimise authority, bring social cohesion
  2. tomb of unknown soldier- evoking idea of sacrifice for a sense of belonging. new ways of thinking about nationalism.
8. representations of war were primarily traumatic, nasty, disruptive
  1. in memory, elements of elation, pride etc. also exist.
What is forgotten?
1. Anderson- collective amnesia
  1. new memories often require forgetting
2. 19th century- it was only really fallen kings and martyered revolutionary leaders who were commemorated, ordinary participants of war were 'cosigned to oblivion' (gilles)
  1. workers, women and racial minorities gain admission to memorials even slower than they were admitted to national ones
    1. Laqueur- following WW1, nations felt the need to leave a tangible trace of all their deaf through graves or inscriptions
      1. so many that they resort to tomb of unknown soldier
        remember everyone by remembering no one in particular
3. history is a powerful vehicle for emancipation or enlightenment but also for repression
Personal Nature
1. not many tributes to WW1 veterans, only the dead
  1. no memorials for women who helped in WW1
    1. their role was chief mourners
      1. women remembered the men whilst their role was remembered in terms of sacrifice
Sites of Memory
1. monuments subject to criticism because critics argue that traditional memory sites encourage disengagement with the past
  1. people become blasé about memorial
2. o 1986- the first of the counter monuments was erected in Harburg-a lead sheathed obelisk dedicated to the victims of Nazism which invited the public to inscribe their names and messages on its surface. As these were filled, the obelisk was lowered gradually into the ground where it eventually disappeared and its only trace was te living memories of those who previously visited the site.
3. o Anti monument advocates rejection of the notion of memory sites and wants to deritualise remembering so that it becomes more a part of every day life thus closing the gap between the past and the present, and between history and memory. Want people to accept a civic responsibility not to let the past repeat itself.
4. o Museum reformers searching for new ways to engage visitors.
Individual subjectivity
1. largely overlooked
  1. complexity of personal memory and how it is constructed through cultural practices and representation
    1. have to link state, individual memory and communal identity to fully understand memory in history
      1. most popular approach from a national perspective
Examples
1. • Rousso The Vichy Syndrome- the first and major part of the book is a useful description of the various ways in whixh the Vichy memory was mobilized for political purposes his narrative follows the ‘unfinished mourning’ after liberation, the repression of the 50s and 60s, the turning point in 68, the films The Sorrow and the Pity (1971) and Shoah (1985) and after 1974, the Jewish obsession with Vichy and the Holocaust. Important story but who’s memory is it? Memory constructed by politicians and intellectuals including de Gaulle, the Communist party, historians, journalists etc. it is still limited, largely a public, often official memory and political memory. Period of repression 54-71 is centred on de Gaulle. Ignores the construction of popular memory- in private spheres (Home, workplace, neighbourhood) there may have been very different representations of Vichy memory. Also doesn’t explore how the popular memory created by govt. was received by the people. He chose to explore the V
2. Germany
  1. Nazis portrayed themselves as martyrsm Germans as hapless victims
  2. o Instead of focusing on German crimes, emphasis was placed on the expulsion of 11,000,000 Germans from Eastern and central Europe and the thousands of German POWs who died in Soviet hands or remained in captivity.
    1. politics played a part in denial
      1. o Thus, in 1949, the West German federal parliament assed legislation which effectively protested from prosecution 800,000 people who had participated in war crimes.
        o In 1949, nearly 60% of Germans agreed with the National Socialist view that it was a ‘good idea badly carried out’

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	Created by Lucy Muircroft almost 11 years ago