Constructing the Past: Introductory Remarks

Abstract

Among most transformational theoretical advances in study of cultures in recent decades has been exploration of memory. Since Maurice Halbwachs's groundbreaking studies of what he termed collective memory (memoire collective; 1925, 1950), with its emphasis on social construction of memory, what is sometimes characterized as social remembering has been addressed from many different perspectives, and correspondingly described in many different ways, each characterization freighted with important theoretical concerns: ethnic memory, with its focus on role of memory in pre-literate societies (e.g., Le Goff 1988); cultural memory, that is, handing down of meaning over many generations, as distinct from shorter communicative memory (e.g., Assmann 1992, 2006; Erll 2005); creation of national identity and cultural memory through memorials, places of memory (Nora 1984-92, 1989; cf. Assmann 1995, and essays in Ben-Amos and Weissberg 1999). Increasingly important in disciplines of many different sorts in recent decades, this consideration of memory and its usefulness as a tool in approaching human history and culture has also been applied in recent decades to aspects of medieval Scandinavia (e.g., Jesch 2001; Hermann 2009; Harris 2010). And cultural memory studies in particular-the branch of current memory theory that, broadly speaking, investigates the interplay of present and past in socio-cultural contexts (Erll 2008, 2)--has begun to make an impact on our views of Old Norse culture, revealing potential of this emerging theoretical framework for opening new perspectives on our understanding of Nordic Middle Ages (e.g., Glauser 2000; essays in Hermann, Mitchell, and Agnes S. Arnorsdottir, forthcoming). The authors of essays in this special issue of Scandinavian Studies look to contribute to this same discussion, addressing question from a particular perspective, namely, how a focus on memory, in combination with various other methodologies and approaches that fill intellectual kit bags of Scandinavian medievalists, alters our understanding of Old Norse world and cultural goods deriving from it. With a consideration of how memory studies can and should intersect with diverse theories we use in cultural analysis, these essays examine memory's crucial role in construction of, and society's preoccupation with, past in Nordic Middle Ages. Importantly, discussions here do not focus on problems of historicity, that is, what actually happened at some point in past, but rather on how past was constructed, valorized, recontextualized, re-enacted, and otherwise placed by each succeeding generation into a changed contemporary framework that gave past meaning. With their focus on memory, discussions in these essays challenge some of most conspicuous and complicated debates in study of Nordic Middle Ages-debates that, when it comes to textual material, are often concerned with source-critical investigations that are frequently articulated in inadequate dichotomy of history versus fiction. Emphasized in these essays is immense relevance for medieval Scandinavian cultural memory of two seismic shifts in nature of Nordic world: (1) introduction of Christianity and gradual change of faith in Scandinavia, as Conversion introduced new perspectives and new conceptual frameworks into North; and fact that these changes, in turn, presented an enormous challenge to writers and clerics in explaining function, meaning and content of pre-Christian past; and (2) subsequent advent of writing and altered media situation, a development that had a deep impact on transmission of past and offered radically new ways of accessing past. Although cultural memory-studies form core basis for this collection, discussions relate these studies to, and combine them with, theoretical stances that contribute in other important ways to inquiry of medieval Norse culture (e. …