Genre Memories and Memory Genres: A Dialogical Analysis of May 8, 1945 Commemorations in the Federal Republic of Germany

Abstract

Commemorative images of the past not only reflect the commemorated event and the contemporary circumstances, but are path-dependent products of earlier commemorations as well. Drawing on the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, I specify the central mechanism of this path-dependency—genre memory—and reconceptualize commemoration dialogically. In a case study of May 8, 1945 anniversaries in the Federal Republic of Germany, I take an integrated approach that includes the politics of commemoration (context-dependence), the history of commemoration (long-term development of commemorative forms), and most important, the memory of commemoration (prosaic path-dependence), illuminating a subtle yet crucial feature of the 50th anniversary commemoration of May 8 1945: its response to the memory of the 40th anniversary.