The Sea as Site of Memory: The Danish Sound and the Dardanelles in Comparison

Abstract

This paper introduces the concept of the sea as lieu de mémoire into maritime history. Pierre Nora has developed his „Lieux de mémoire” in France. According to Nora „a lieu de mémoire is any significant entity, whether material or non-material in nature […] which has become a symbolic element of the memorial heritage of any community”. Nora thus highlights symbolic values, hitherto often separated from historical sciences and reduced to historical narratives. In my paper I shall focus on shared memories, divided memories and entangled histories, but especially shared sites of memory. These – material or immaterial – „lieux de mémoire divisés” constitute symbolic intersections between cultures, spaces and times. They simultaneously affect not only the neighbouring countries and the national cultures of memory, but also societies and ethnic or religious groups. In two comparative case studies on the straits of the Sound (Oresund) and Dardanelles I shall try to test the application of the concept with respect to the various memories of the seafaring nations and ethnic communities, settling at the entrance of the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea.