Construction Of Historical Memory Research Articles

Screening women’s history in the film Suffragette (2015): between intersectional feminist activism and historical memory

ABSTRACT Prior to its release, the film Suffragette (2015) generated significant media commentary when its marketing campaign emblazoned a controversial historical quotation on promotional t-shirts. The 1913 Emmeline Pankhurst quotation generated a variety of negative emotional responses across digital, print, and social media because it compared women’s disenfranchisement to slavery. This article builds on recent historical analyses of national and transnational women’s movements that are informed by the history of emotions. It considers the operation of discourses of slavery within the history, memory, and popular culture of the transatlantic women’s suffrage movement. Using Jemima Repo’s concept of feminist commodity activism to situate the t-shirts, this article examines the anger and frustration that dominated media commentary about the Suffragette marketing campaign across the United States, Britain, Australia, and Canada. Both the filmmakers and intersectional feminist activists embraced historical evidence—from primary and secondary sources—to mobilise different narratives about the Women’s Social and Political Union. Yet many journalists and commentators envisioned the film’s construction of historical memory as insufficiently attuned to racism within the history of feminism, and thus as a failure of intersectional feminism. Suffragette reveals significant anxieties about how the women’s suffrage movement should be remembered in the twenty-first century.

Understanding the construction of historical memory: Identifying mistakes in war movies

Courses Media Literacy, Collective Memory, Political History. Objectives The aim of this unit is for students to understand the role of feature films in the construction of historical memory. The proposed teaching unit deals with the analysis of biases and the construction of narrative in war films. The class was divided into groups, and competition was declared; students were challenged to find as many mistakes as possible in three contemporary war films. Discussing flaws allowed the unveiling of narrative biases, myths, and the role of feature films in the construction of historical memory.

Una mirada a la representación de la experiencia femenina en el cine y la cultura colombiana a través del lente de Ciro Guerra en La sombra del caminante (2004), Los viajes del viento (2009) y El abrazo de la serpiente (2015)

Ciro Guerra’s La sombra del caminante/Wandering Shadows (2017), Los viajes del viento/ The Wind Journeys (2009) and El abrazo de la serpiente/The Embrace of the Serpent (2015) address critical issues in Colombian history and avoid spectacularizing violence and poverty while dignifying many of the challenges faced by marginalized groups in Colombia. However, this trilogy of films is still characterized by a masculine presence and lacks female representation. From an intersectional perspective, this article connects the absence of feminine experiences in this set of films with the insufficient recognition that has historically been given to women’s contributions and participation in the construction of historical memory, artistic creation and preservation of ancestral knowledge in Colombia

“Remembering Historical Anniversary…”: the Riga Peace Treaty of 1920 in the Latvian Press, 1988—1990

The article considers the mechanisms of formation of historical memory about the peace treaty concluded between the RSFSR and the Republic of Latvia on August 11, 1920. The construction of historical memory about this peace treaty became an important part of the concept of political development in Latvia in the late Soviet era (1988—1990). This was based on the idea of restoring sovereignty. During the period of Perestroika, the idea of the legitimacy of the Soviet-Latvian peace treaty formed the basis for the formation of ideas about the statehood of Latvia and helped to build the concept of state continuity — from the First Republic to a sovereign state, reviving as a result of the collapse of the Soviet empire. The text of the agreement of August 11, 1920 was used in the declaration of the Supreme Council of the Latvian SSR of May 4, 1990 “On the restoration of the independence of the Republic of Latvia”. On August 21, 1991, the Supreme Council of Latvia adopted an act on the succession and legal identity of the Republic of Latvia 1918—1940 and modern Latvia. The inclusion of the treaty of 1920 in the so-called statehood continuity doctrine in modern Latvia is an attempt to overcome the difficult historical past associated with the loss of independence in 1940 and build a concept of legitimate international relations, in which the 1920 treaty plays one of the main roles as the basis for the birth of the sovereign Republic of Latvia.

Humor in Historical Memory: from an Anecdote and Caricature to an Internet Meme

The article is devoted to the study of the role of anecdotes, caricatures and Internet memes in the construction of historical memory. The memory of the past implies emotional content, the expression of which is often humor. The author views an anecdote as a component of oral history and a communication phenomenon of the pre-digital era, in which the representation of ideas about the past was humorous. A historical anecdote, being originally a kind of didactic historiography, has been transformed into a tool for transmitting an informal interpretation of history, and once in the digital media environment, it has lost its former meaning. Mass media, with the help of a caricature representing history in a humorous way, have visualized the images of the past, setting certain evaluative frameworks of historical and political events. Being an element of traditional media as well as a work of art, caricature encouraged the formation of historical memory along with other artistic genres. In the digital age, it, like a historical anecdote, has given way to Internet memes in the media sphere. The author considers Internet memes to be the phenomena of digital culture, defining them as a kind of a polymodal, metaphorical, often ironic, humorous utterance that is spread in the media environment. A historical Internet meme, combining the images of popular culture and collective memory in a visual text format, has a decisive influence on the perception of historical events and personalities by social media audiences. With the help of Internet memes a great number of Internet users create their own versions of the interpretation of history in a humorous form, thus reproducing the collectively shared mythologized ideas about the past.

Севастополь в конструкции коллективной исторической памяти: анализ информационных потоков Рунета с использованием big data

The purpose of the study was to study the role and place of Sevastopol in the construction of collective historical memory. The authors identified a number of semantic constructions that form the significance of the role of Sevastopol in the historical memory of the Great Patriotic War. The scientific novelty of the research consists in the use of a methodological complex of survey methods, cybermetry tools and the big data analysis method, which made it possible to study the structural and substantive characteristics of the process of preserving historical memory and revealed the mechanisms of fundamental historical semantic structures destruction, as well as the construction of new ones about the meaning of Victory and the role of Sevastopol in the construction of historical memory of the Great Patriotic War. As a result, the authors assessed the risks and possibilities of confronting the technologies of hybrid information and mental wars in modern Russia, which destabilize processes in society.

The Role of the Museum Space Narrative in Constructing Historical Memory

The paper concerns the issue of representation of historical memory. The museum is analyzed as the particular site of emergement of such a representation. The circulation of specific narratives belonging to a museum is viewed as the research object that is able to provide insights into the construction of historical memory. Therefore, the purpose of the undertaken study is to identify the role of the museum narrative in the formation of memory. This article focuses on the ways of exposing and assessing the effect that museum exhibitions and the concepts and the meaning they translate to the audience have on memory creation. The approach of the interdisciplinary scholar field of memory studies provides a framework for such an analysis. In particular, since the spatial dimension of memory is concerned, the contributions of Hayden White and of the theory of realms of memory of Pierre Nora are crucial. The text deconstructs the memory formation processes taking place in the space of museums using these theoretical and methodological ideas. The paper meets methodological challenges and research questions with conducting a case study. The exhibition of the Museum of the Mologa District that is a part of the Rybinsk State Historical, Architectural and Art Museum Preserve at the Russian Yaroslavl Region serve as the source of oral, textual and visual narratives. This museum offers a view on local history that is in a way unusual for Russian museums — it provides a less formal perspective, and, in addition, the museum was founded by an initiative group of the displaced people from the submerged town of Mologa. The museum displays are dedicated to this town that disappeared because of the construction of the Rybinsk hydroelectric power plant. With limited material evidence to illustrate the Mologa life, this role is passed to oral histories and memory narratives. Thus, based on the historical memory literature, the paper considers that the museum described could be characterized as a memory museum, different from traditional historical museums because of emotional links in the presentation of past events. The author concludes that the image of the flooded city presented in the museum is directly related to the traumatic nature of the social memory of the settlers. Thus, the meanings and the significance of the museum overflow to the realms of memory.

Gregory of Tours and the Decem Libri Historiarum between Religious Belief and Rhetorical Habit

This study examines the rhetorical structure of the Decem libri historiarum of Gregory of Tours. Whereas previous studies have drawn attention to Gregory's habit of pairing parallel narrative threads for the purpose of comparing what he considered to be appropriate and inappropriate behavior, the inconsistencies in that rhetorical strategy (e.g., lack of criticism for Clovis' parricidal policies of expansion and uncharacteristic moments of praise for Chilperic, the “Herod and Nero” of Gregory's lifetime) have been attributed to Gregory's penchant for the ironic or satirical. This study takes the view that Gregory purposefully constructed complicated, and at times contradictory, profiles for the dramatis personae of his history in order to generate a sense of suspended judgment for which he would become the ultimate arbiter at the end of an individual's life. This style of narrating the lives of individuals made Gregory himself a dramatis persona in his own history by investing him with absolute interpretative authority and authority over the construction of historical memory. Gregory's careful development of that authority was itself a strategy for survival in a very fluid, and often volatile, political environment.

Construction of Historical Memory through Youth Music: Example of the City of Kazan

This article is devoted not only to how language, traditions and the past can serve as a creative resource for the creative activity of youth, but also about the ways music becomes a tool for social memory development by youth at the level of everyday life. In this article we want to consider how the historical memory of modern youth is actualized through cultural practices and interests. Actualization should be understood on the one hand, as referring to the themes of the past, not only to legitimize certain decisions of the state, social movements and public persons, but also to justify, with the help of the past, a certain assessment of current events and incitement to action. Also, a significant layer of research draws attention to the creation of symbolic objects (including music) to demonstrate the specific content of historical representations of various groups and those remembering practices that are relevant to them. Moreover, the level of these practices can be both organized, associated with the actions of formal institutions (the World Forum of Tatar Youth, for example), and relate to direct interaction between people at the everyday level - in our study the thing is about the latter.

The role of freedom of expression in the construction of historical memory

AbstractThe construction of historical memory is closely linked to the guarantees provided by the right to freedom of expression. This right ensures that victims and society in general are able to speak about the past, narrate their own stories, and call for and influence social discussion and institutional reform. Mechanisms such as access to State archives, participation in the media, journalistic coverage of armed conflicts and the free flow of stories, artistic endeavours, criticisms and condemnations empower victims and the rest of society in the construction of alternative narratives and independent memories. This article examines case law of the Inter-American System of Human Rights that elaborates on freedom of expression, and considers its importance for the construction of historical memory. It also touches upon some decisions taken by the Colombian high courts, relevant to a context in which mechanisms of transitional justice have recently been implemented.

THE “EVERYDAY SOCIALISM” OF CHILEAN TEXTILE WORKERS: TRACING RADICAL POLITICS THROUGH THE WORKERS PRESS, 1936-1973

Unlike many countries across the world, in Chile after 1968 a radical socialist government came to power with the electoral victory of Salvador Allende and Popular Unity underpinned by a whole range of movements toward a socialism “from below”. Using fragments gathered from workers’ newspapers produced during the 1930s, 1950s and 1970s, the aim of this article is to identify the changing content of radical socialist politics that coalesced by the time of this electoral victory in and through the “everyday” experience of workers in the textile industry. Workers in this sector were at the forefront of the profound changes underway during the prior period of import-substitution industrialisation from the 1930s and the “pre-revolutionary” moment of 1970-1973, where major textile firms were amongst the first to be occupied and nationalised under the Allende government. By tracing the evolution of socialist ideas in these publications —published by trade unions, political parties and, in the 1970s, by workers in the occupied factories themselves— I unravel the development of a radical socialist politics through these decades that then coalesced with the electoral victory of the UP in 1970. Methodologically, I draw on the work of Chilean sociologist Tomás Moulian (1993) and his concept of ideas “en uso” to examine how radical socialist ideas developed and changed in their interaction with workplace conflicts of the time. Consequently, I identify four areas in which these ideas developed: expression of the changing workplace; interpretation of discontent through legalist and radical discourse; the complexities of Chilean socialist and anti-imperialist ideas; and the construction of historical memory. I demonstrate how the interplay of these four features of Chilean socialist ideas were represented in an “everyday socialism” that informed the factory occupations and nascent social transformations after 1970.

Mujeres zapatistas y producción videográfica en Chiapas

Los primeros años de la rebelión zapatista coincidieron con la emergencia en México de un sector videográfico independiente, posibilitado por las nuevas tecnologías de grabación y edición, e inspirado en la lucha chiapaneca con sus redes de comunicación y solidaridad nacional e internacional. Antecediendo la era del Web 2.0 y las actuales redes sociales digitales, la producción videográfica sobre y desde el zapatismo fue una herramienta importante para la visibilización del conflicto y también de las transformaciones dentro de las comunidades chiapanecas, entre otras la autonomización y protagonismo de las mujeres. Este artículo explora la primera década de producción videográfica en torno a las mujeres zapatistas, a partir de su relevancia para la construcción de la memoria histórica y haciendo hincapié en las condiciones de producción mediática en un periodo de transición tecnológica y cultural.

LAS VÍCTIMAS, LA MEMORIA Y EL DUELO: EL ARTE CONTEMPORÁNEO EN EL ESCENARIO DEL POSTACUERDO

En Colombia, históricamente la relación entre arte y violencia ha sido muy cercana. No obstante, se pueden encontrar algunas transformaciones en esta relación. Durante la última década los discursos sobre la memoria, las víctimas, el duelo, entre otros, han permeado las prácticas artísticas. Por otro lado, La Ley de Víctimas, el Museo Nacional de la Memoria y el Acuerdo Final para la Terminación del Conflicto y la Construcción de una Paz Estable y Duradera, buscan en el arte respuestas para dar cuenta de la reparación simbólica y la construcción de la memoria histórica. En este documento se hace un análisis detallado sobre una “acción de duelo” realizada por la artista Doris Salcedo en la Plaza de Bolívar de Bogotá. Esta acción articuló muchos de los problemas en torno a la relación entre el arte, la memoria, las víctimas y el duelo, de modo que permite pensar el papel que jugarán distintas formas de simbolización de la violencia en el escenario del Postacuerdo.

A luta armada no cinema: ficção, documentário, memória.

Resumo No livro A luta armada no cinema: ficção, documentário, memória, Fernando Seliprandy analisa dois filme, O que é isso Companheiro? (1996) e Hércules 56 (2006), que narram um mesmo evento: o sequestro do embaixador norte americano Charles Burke Elbrick, realizado pela ação guerrilheira em curso no Brasil no ano de 1969. Com a descrição do material audiovisual, o livro pretende apreender o uso da imagem fílmica na construção da memória histórica, bem como intenta chegar a possíveis conclusões historiográficas pela observação das relações entre o que é mostrado no discurso cinematográfico e aquilo que está além da narrativa, na conjuntura histórica da qual essas fitas emergiram.

The Construction of Historical Memory in the Exegesis of Kor 16, 106

This article analyzes reports about the capture and torture of the companion ʿAmmār b. Yāsir and their later use in the exegesis of Kor 16, 106. It also shows why the reports were generated by different sectarian communities (Imamī Šīʿites, Zaydites, Murǧiʾites) in the different parts of the early Islamic empire (Kufa, Mecca, Medina, Basra, and Jazira) in the late first/seventh and early second/eighth centuries. Through a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the isnāds of reports, the article shows that it is possible to correlate information about the sectarian affiliations of reports’ transmitters with the contents of the reports and in the process shows why different communities remembered and transmitted the specific forms of the reports that they did. The article shows how literary Islamic sources are susceptible to a much more granular historical analysis than previously assumed.

The media, history and identity: competing narratives of the past in the Ukrainian popular press

The article studies history-related texts in three popular newspapers as contributions to the construction of historical memory and national identity in post-Soviet Ukraine. After a quantitative thematic analysis of history pages in terms of their geographical and chronological priorities, I focus on representations on these and other pages of one crucial event of the past: World War Two. The analysis demonstrates that in Ukrainian media, the past in general and the last war in particular has been a subject of incessant but largely inconspicuous competition between the opposing versions of Ukraine's history which I call the Soviet and nationalist narratives.

‘A Slice of Eastern Europe in Johannesburg’: Yiddish Theatre in Doornfontein, 1929–49

This article explores how location influenced attitudes to the preservation of Yiddish language and culture and hence the construction of historical memory. Between 1929 and 1949 the Johannesburg Jewish Workers' Club had a thriving Dramatic Section which produced Yiddish theatre with a leftist slant. It was situated in Doornfontein, the suburb east of Johannesburg, that from the early 1930s was the focus of the Eastern European immigration. Based on an examination of the Yiddish weekly newspaper, the Afrikaner Idishe Tsaytung [African Jewish Newspaper], this paper will examine why a permanent Yiddish theatre group never emerged, and why this rich and lively episode was ‘forgotten’ and erased from the collective memory of South African Jewry.

Imagining Mexico in 1910: Visions of thePatriain the Centennial Celebration in Mexico City

AbstractMexico's 1910Centenarioreflected a popular trend in Western Europe and its former colonies to use centenaries of important historical events to promote political programmes and philosophies through the construction of historical memory. Centennial organisers in Mexico linked Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla and José Maria Morelos to President Porfirio Díaz in words and symbols, and associated state formation and civic culture with Liberal leaders and policies, such as public education, material progress and secularism. The planners also promoted Morelos as a mestizo icon and symbol for national identity and integration, while they simultaneously celebrated Mexico's pre-Columbian cultures and criticised contemporary natives as impediments to progress. The Centennial's audience included hundreds of thousands of Mexicans as well as foreigners from around the globe, who came away with different impressions based on their cultural perspectives, political philosophies and material interests. Following the overthrow of Díaz in 1911, Mexico's revolutionary governments continued to use Independence Day celebrations to promote their programmes, including some whose origins lay in thePorfiriato. As we approach the bicentenary of Latin American independence, competing visions ofpatriaswill likely surface and provide insights into the construction of historical memory and contemporary political discourse.

The Ludlow Massacre: Class, Warfare, and Historical Memory in Southern Colorado

Because battlefields can be potent symbols in the construction of historical memory, they can remain sites of struggle for as long as that memory is important. History professionals, such as archaeologists, participate fully in these struggles. The commemoration of the Ludlow Massacre Site, a battlefield in the industrial wars of the early-20th century is discussed. The commemoration of Ludlow highlights the role of class interest in the construction of historical memory. Doing archaeology at Ludlow entails acknowledging these interests, both ours, as archaeologists, and those of the working class people who guard the memory of Ludlow.

Bengal's past and present: Hindu nationalist contestations of history and regional identity

This paper examines the deployment and symbolic appropriation of popular history and nationalist iconography within the campaigns and discourse of Hindu nationalist organisations in India. It examines how Hindu nationalists have deployed these themes over several decades in the east Indian state of West Bengal. This paper notes that the Hindu nationalist attempt to re-construct popular history and regional identity was contested. Specifically, it considers the political response of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the pre-eminent leftist party in India, within the public sphere at a national and regional level. In so doing, the paper attempts to delineate the varied ways in which the Hindu nationalist deployment of iconic figures from the past are simultaneously articulated and, paradoxically, anomalous, to the regional specificity of political culture and the social construction of historical memory and identity.