17 Ab Imperio, 4/2004 MEMORIES AT PEACE OR IN PIECES? RECONCILIATION WITH THE PAST From the EDITORS Launching a new theme in the 2004 first issue of Ab Imperio, we asked ourselvesandourauthorswhetherempirehasmemory.Ifoneregardsmemory– in the broadest sense of the word – as the actualization of a personal experience of the past, is a common perception of past events in a multiethnic polity possible? Is there an alternative to destructive conflicts triggered by the legitimatization of plural memories, which co-exist, in an open or suppressed form, in the “imperial” space? To put it differently, is it possible to attain accord between remembering subjects? On the basis of Ab Imperio’s four thematic issues in 2004, we have to concede that we cannot offer definite answers to this question; instead, we would like to suggest reformulated versions of our initial questions. The problem apparently is not whether a particular “imperial” memory exists but rather in the fact that the imperial situation with multiple versions of memory that have to coexist in a forced or voluntary symbiosis is encountered more often than the simplistically understood situation of a monolithic and mobilizing “nationalmemory.” If we agree that the idea of only one “political subject” is a “phantasy… that is always at odds with the empirical reality of conflicting social identities and interests,”1 then the conflict condition 1 Harold Mah. Phantasies of the Public Sphere. Rethinking the Habermas of Historians // Journal of Modern History. 2000. Vol. 72. P. 155. 18 From the Editors, Memories at Peace or in Pieces? between subjects of memory appears to be universal. Indeed, as a rule, one group memory is formed and preserved in the process of interaction with other group narratives of memory (dialogue/rejection) as well as in the process of an internal dialogue. It is exactly the situation of some normative version of memory’s triumph that is to be considered problematic and unique, very much like the society which functions as the only political subject and the only public sphere would require a special analysis. There has been insufficient research into mechanisms of change of universalizing narratives of memory. In principle, a monological “national memory” is exactly one of the many responses to the dilemma of imperial situation, for it is brought forth to suppress the destabilizing polyphony for the sake of one and the only version of the past. The condition of multiple memories, in its turn, is as natural as it is dangerous and, in its extreme, destructive. Hence is the importance of institutions and practices that format the memory, first of all and above all, historiography (the dependence of the strategies of remembering on ideological and institutional factors in particular in the post-Communist societies is explored in Stefen Tröbst’s article in the Methodology section in the current issue). Moreover, the reverse side of the democratizing potential of memory which equalizes all “subjects of remembering” from the point of view of individual versions of the past and their legitimacy is the cruelty and totalitarian character of the victorious version. Whereas historians, even if only a minority among the professional community, can find common language across the barriers of memory, “rank and file” subjects of memory, especially if the latter is traumatic and divisive, are not prepared for a compromise with the past. This paradox is only too well illustrated by Ronald Suny’s reflections on the problems of Turkish-Armenian dialogue about the Genocide. As the various articles and publications in the AI issues of this year demonstrate , memory can serve both as a potent source of intergroup conflict in the present (2/2004), and as a factor that can mobilize and unite communities (3/2004). In our present issue we are concerned with a somewhat different aspect of memory. We are looking into the situations, when altered political circumstances, disappearance of former conflicts and/or some participants in these conflicts generate memory’s adjustments. Along with our authors, we have to admit that the most widespread and “achievable” version of the reconciliation of conflicting memories presumes a staged “dialogue of memories,” a kind of an imperial condition, where 19 Ab Imperio, 4/2004 the dominant subject speaks on...