Power and the Past: Collective Memory and International Relations

Memory-Work

Objective - This article is to introduce theoretical motivation for the interaction and links joining national identity, collective memory, cultural heritage, digitization and libraries understood as memory institutions, and substantiate memory institutions and digital collective memory as an essential source for national identity. Research methods - The author claims that the digital resources managed by memory institutions, particularly libraries, are the fundamentals of national identity. Therefore she discusses postmodernism as a theoretical basis for the system of concepts of "national identity – collective memory – cultural heritage – memory institutions – digital resources – users", and presents the structure and individual concepts of this system. The research method used was qualitative research with discourse analysis and a theoretical analysis of information sources such as: J. Baudrillard, I. Hassan, D. Harvey, R. J. Lifton, J. F. Liotard, P. Waugh, A. J. Toynbee, G. E. Veith et al., conventions and resolutions of the European Commission, Committee and Parliament, legal provisions in culture and cultural heritage by the Government of Latvia. Results and conclusions - National identity is seen as a totality of meanings the main manifestations of which are the cultural and national heritage as the basis for the personal system of values and experience. National identity is formed by the totality of conceptions on affiliation with something. Conceptions, ideas are formed in the interaction process of personality and the collective memory based on digital resources. The collective memory, i.e. the resources in libraries, museums and archives, particularly the digital ones, is the main element for the construction of national identity. This construction is delivered by memory institutions through collecting, harvesting, saving, arranging and providing access to resources via the digitization process. Digitization should become the main tool for maintenance, inclusion, communication, and identity in the process of globalization. The author introduces theoretical model, based on the discourse of postmodernism ideas, theoretical conclusions of world researchers and philosophers, official conventions, guidelines and declarations - for justifying memory institutions’ resources as the basis of national identity. Such a theoretical analysis of the "national identity – collective memory – cultural heritage – memory institutions – digital resources – users" is the first experiment in Latvia to place the important role of memory institutions, particularly libraries, in a system of cultural heritage, digitization, new environment and national identity. The main conclusion is that the philosophical discourse of postmodernism accepts the idea of the leading role of memory institutions in the structure of national/digital heritage and national identity.

This study uses the case of Holocaust Day in Israel to examine the premise that national days impact national identity and collective memory. Specifically, the study examines whether a very unique type of national day—Holocaust Day—impacts national identification, nationalism, and collective memory in the form of Israeli Jews' perceptions of the “lessons” of the Holocaust. This study uses panel survey design data on national identity and perceptions of the Holocaust's lessons from the same sample of Israeli Jews (N = 665) collected two months prior to Holocaust Day and again during and after Holocaust Day. During and after Holocaust Day, respondents expressed increased levels of nationalism and more perceptions of both particularistic and universalistic Holocaust lessons. Participation in Holocaust Day practices had a stronger relationship with nationalism and national identification during Holocaust Day than before but a weaker relationship with the perception of a universalistic lesson during Holocaust Day. These findings indicate that Holocaust Day impacts national identity and collective memory and highlights the multifaceted nature of the relationships between national identity, collective memory, and national days. The theoretical implication of the findings as well as the case comparability are discussed in light of the findings.

Colonial Williamsburg, and U.S. history museums generally, claim to transform public history into collective memory. That is, they convey an objective documented history to the public who, absorbing that history, acquires an appropriate collective or national memory. We argue that the emphasis on consumer (visitor) experience at such museums collapses the distance between the reconstructed past (the museum's history lesson) and the visitor's touristic or familial experience at the site. Visitors indeed remember their visits to Colonial Williamsburg, but their specific memories would seem to have little to contribute to any 'collective memory' of a 'national history.'

Collective memories are shared representations of a group’s past. For nations, these memories serve important purposes: they shape national identity, promote social cohesion and guide future decisions. Although extensive research has examined collective memory in Europe and the United States, less is known about countries outside these regions, such as Japan. Cultural tightness and other societal differences may influence the extent to which collective memories serve these functions. To address this issue, we first asked Japanese participants to nominate nationally important collective memories (Study 1), and then asked both Japanese and American participants to report the extent to which their country’s collective memories serve directive, social and identity functions (Study 2). Surprisingly, Japanese participants showed agreement on relatively few collective memories and rated those memories as serving these functions to a lesser degree than did Americans. These findings raise questions about how cultural tightness, institutional influences and educational systems shape collective memory and its functions. We suggest that in Japan, national identity may rely more on structural and cultural continuity than on shared recollections of specific historical events.

Journal Article Collective Memory Formation and International Relations Get access Forgotten Genocides: Oblivion, Denial, and Memory. By Lemarchand René (Ed.). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. 200 pp., $49.95 hardback (ISBN-13: 978-0-812-24335-2).Accounting for Violence: Marketing Memory in Latin America. By Bilbija Ksenija Payne Leigh A. (Eds.). Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011. 405 pp., $24.95 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-0-822-35042-2).Power of the Past: Collective Memory and International Relations. By Langenbacher Eric Shain Yossi (Eds.). Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2010. 240 pp., $29.95 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-1-589-01640-8). Mark A. Wolfgram Mark A. Wolfgram Oklahoma State University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Studies Review, Volume 15, Issue 3, September 2013, Pages 426–431, https://doi.org/10.1111/misr.12049 Published: 17 September 2013

The article addresses the phenomenon of “history wars” between China and the Republic of Korea, on the one side, and Japan, on the other, which broke out after the cold war around the historical interpretation of Japan’s expansionist policy on the mainland, especially in the period of WWII. The aim of the article is to examine the origin, the ethical and the political underpinnings of “history wars”, specifically in the context of collective memories of WWII and the national identities in the three countries. The authors tried to trace the prehistory of the formation of national identities in East Asia in the twentieth century. While South Korea and China perceive the period of Japan’s imperialist expansion in the XX century through the dualistic prism of the relationship between the victim and the criminal, in Japan the policy on the mainland, although considered to be "erroneous", is not subject to unconditional condemnation on the grounds that at that time all the imperialist states acted the same way. Besides, the discourse of victimhood based on war sufferings of the Japanese people is in conflict with the wounded feelings of the East Asian nations. The article articulates the role of patriotic education and, specifically, the policy of creating museums and historical memorials in the three countries in conducting “history wars”. The authors insist that the interplay of domestic discourse and international memory politics has become a durable source of paramount tension in the international relations of the region.

This study examines the historical formation, development, and contemporary reflections of the Turkish epic tradition and epic narrative genres. Epics are among the oldest forms of oral literature, reflecting a society’s historical memory, national identity, and collective values. The Turkish epic tradition, shaped around themes of creation, origin, and heroism, represents a fusion of historical events and collective imagination. The first part of the study provides conceptual definitions of epic and epic tradition, exploring their role in collective memory and cultural functions within Turkish society. Subsequently, the fundamental characteristics of Turkish epic heritage and its most significant examples are analyzed. Additionally, the reflection of epic tradition in modern literature, cinema, television series, and popular culture is examined, focusing on how historical heroism narratives are reinterpreted through contemporary narrative forms. In conclusion, it is asserted that the Turkish epic tradition is not merely a historical oral narrative form but also a living cultural heritage that sustains national identity and collective memory while maintaining its functions within modern art and cultural productions.

In studies of nationalist movements in politics, national cultures of political practice, cultural institutions and the state, national media and popular culture in politics, collective memory and national identity, and cultural sources of state power, cultural sociologists help to explain how states work: what forces shift political allegiances, how states enroll citizens into the political process, when and how national identities are formed around regimes, and by what means states exercise power.

The relevance of collective memory analysis comes from the increasing role of memorization in social processes, which are currently acquiring increasingly significant conflict potential. The author analyses visual material of the popular science fiction series The Orville, which represents a segment of American political culture, as one of the cultural mechanisms for the assimilation of ideology and politics in mass cultural discourse. It is presumed that The Orville parodies the classic epics Star Trek and Babylon 5 and thus is part of the processes of deconstructing the historical collective memory of modern American society. This study intends to establish how a formally parody series not only mocks and imitates, but also constructs its own versions of memorial culture. The article aims: 1) to describe the universal tactics of deconstruction as a form of revision of existing memorial cultures; 2) to clarify the possibilities and boundaries of describing memorial culture through the prism of visual mass culture, using the example of a science fiction series; 3) to analyze the modes of updating political and social contradictions in American society on the example of the TV series The Orville; 4) to consider the specificity of the transformation of mass consciousness by constructing a new version of identity in the light of a radical revision of the narratives of classic science fiction series; 5) to analyze the political and ideological dimensions of the memory wars presented in the clash of traditional and liberal values of the characters in the series. Methodology of the article bases on the principles of the memorial turn and the analysis of the politics of memory within the paradigm of cultural and intellectual history and includes the methods of discourse analysis and intent analysis. The novelty of the study lies in determining the directions and specificities of the assimilation of the political, limited by the problems of collective memory, cultural, religious and gender identity along with military and ideological confrontation in modern mass culture of historical memory within the visual space of the science fiction series The Orville. The series is analyzed as an attempt to deconstruct the cultural experience and legacy of Star Trek, which actualized science fiction series as one of the sources of cultural and social meanings for modern consumer society. The author also analyzes the contribution of the series to the development of the collective memory of US society; the transformation of the concepts of Self and Otherness through the prism of specifying cultural, religious and gender roles. Revision of the past in popular culture as an alternative space for the functioning of collective historical memory is investigated. As a result of the study, it is presumed that The Orville actualizes modern American laughter culture and inspires attempts to rethink collective memory, the collective historical experience of trauma and represents an attempt to abandon the strategies of historical amnesia and ignoring politically inconvenient experiences.

National Identity Can be Comprised of More Than Pride: Evidence From Collective Memories of Americans and Germans

This study, which focuses on the interrelations between media, memory, and collectives, examines the significant role played by the media in forming the two dimensions of collective mediated recollections: shaping the memory and defining the boundaries of the collective. One of the central arguments raised in recent years in the field of social science maintains that more attention should be shifted to the ‘cosmopolitan turn’ (Beck, 2003; Beck and Sznaider, 2006), the process that involves more openness to the transnational arena and the sensitivity to ‘universal values’ that become part of national societies. Within this context, we argue that although most of the research devoted to collective memory centers on the construction of national memory — in the era of globalization, collective memory and commemoration that exist in a cosmopolitan context (Levy and Sznaider, 2006) — it does not necessarily promote national values. We will contend that, parallel to the ‘cosmopolitan turn’, a reverse process might be identified whereby small communities — the relations among whose members rely on geographical or ideological vicinity, or yet on common areas of interest — succeed in creating regional-communal-local versions of the collective national memory.1

(Re)Constructing the European Past: Christianity and the French Religious Memory Yelena Mazour‐Matusevich If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven;: if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. (John 20:21‐23) Now, when a united Europe has become a political and economic reality, European nations must politely forget that they used to be hereditary enemies and become good neighbors instead. The European Union was, after all, at its beginnings, not only a project about peace, and economic exchanges, it was also about forgiveness and grace. In a sense, constructing a common Europe is an unprecedented Christian experiment in and of itself for it consists of applying the essentially Christian idea of total forgiveness1 to entire nations, compelling millions of people to put their mutual resentments aside, pardoning each other for all eternity. Alas, a simple trip through Europe easily demonstrates to a naïve tourist that love for geographic neighbors is not on the menu. The pioneering experiment of transforming an essentially personal action of forgiveness into a collective effort has proved to be an enormous challenge. Europe’s long history, like any history, was filled with wars, massacres and prejudices, and collective national memories, with their extensive lists of grievances against the historical other, represent mental barriers for the creation of Europe’s new identity. Indeed, this identity cannot be forged without each country confronting its own national past or rather, the way each nation views and evaluates this past, for, in the context of a historical narrative, “subjectivity is truth and truth is subjectivity.”2 Confronting European historical subjectivities is particularly urgent with regard to the question of Europe’s Christian identity. The recent 2004‐2009 polemics over the inscription of Christian references in the preamble to the European Constitution reveal the significance of the present moment, when each European country must face not only its own collective memory and memories of other Christian nations but also formulate the place of religion in the new Europe.3 The present essay will focus on the case of France and the French religious identity and memory. Western man today is characterized by: An innocent mind and a heavy memory. Emile Poulat I imprudently presented the first draft of this paper at a conference in 1998. Never would I have dared to embark on such a perilous venture again if, after duly scrutinizing the current French media and public Internet forums, I had not happened to notice that the situation in France has not changed substantially in twelve years. It turns out that my initial analysis of France’s major tendencies in dealing with its Christian past is still valid. The tendencies in question are not equally represented in terms of frequency or influence, nor are they completely isolated from each other. The first, the most common trend, is that which journalist and famous essayist Jean‐Claude Guillebaud called “modernité appauvrie,”“an impoverished modernity.”4 People holding this attitude feel estranged from their national past, which they perceive as incomprehensible and, most importantly, no longer theirs. This popular opinion might have an intellectual variation whose proponents consider France’s history too national to be used as a common European foundation and propose to see Europe’s future as constructed from a tabula rasa, from now on. Although lacking even the most basic understanding of what religion is (Jean‐Claude Eslin),5 this dismissive tendency views Christianity as a burden, which, together with the rest of the national memory, is too complicated to take on. In a sense, this outlook is neither anti‐Christian nor anti‐religious per se because it expresses the general and growing alienation of French society from its collective memory, a phenomenon Eslin called “the French without France.”6 Here we will call it the “anti‐history” position (not to be confused with anti‐historical). It does not deny history; rather, it wants none. The second attitude is what Guy Coq, author of Démocratie, religion, éducation (1993) and Secularity and Republic (1995), calls “vulgate républicaine.”7 This ideological position dates from the good old days of the “war of two Frances,” when progressive, secular forces opposed the traditional, Catholic...

These two monographs in Manchester's excellent ‘Studies in Popular Culture' series both examine the role of the broadcast media in Britain in the construction and dissemination of national identity...

This article discusses the important role of archives in preserving the nation's collective memory at universities, with a focus on archive management as part of national identity. Through a qualitative approach and case studies, this research explores archival practices at universities, including archive management and archive preservation. This research also identifies challenges faced in archival management, such as administrative obstacles and the importance of historical awareness among students and staff. The research results show that effective archive management can increase information accessibility, support research, and strengthen historical awareness. Recommendations for improving archival practices at universities include strengthening archival policies, increasing human resources, digitizing archives, as well as educational activities to increase awareness of historical values. In this way, universities can act as guardians of the nation's collective memory and contribute to sustainable social and educational development