Pamięć, „miejsca pamięci” jako budujące tożsamość w ujęciu archeologii

• Authors: Danuta Minta-Tworzowska

Title variants

EN

Memory and “sites of memory” as identity-building notions in terms of archaeology

Abstracts

EN

For some time, we have been observing a kind of renaissance of memory (and history) in the contemporary world. The changes in the discourse took place already in the 1970s. The occurrence of this phenomenon in Europe, especially in France, was pointed out by a French historian, Pierre Nora (2001), who defined it as “the revolt of memory”. This process had already been proceeding since the 1960s. According to P. Nora, such increased commemoration of history was a response to the process of modernization in Western Europe, which proceeded already since the end of World War II, and to the following break with the idea of “the long duration”, as well as the disintegration of traditional communities, where the natural intergenerational transmission of historical memory had taken place. According to the concept of a German cultural-studies scholar Jan Asmann, the disintegration of such traditional ways of transmission of “cultural memory” gave rise to the need for top-down, central commemoration and transmission of history (or at least for increasing of the process). In this way, the tendency for developing the official “commemoration” of historical events and for creating subsequent “sites of memory” for this purpose began. Memory The notion of memory has been developed historically. In ancient times, “mnemonics” came into being, which was mythologised history, representing mythical beginnings of a repository of memory stored in objects and in space (for example history by Simonides). Mnemonics made them to be the repository of memory with the aim of recalling memories. It is possible to list some basic approaches to the concept of memory. The first assumes that the memory refers to an individual and his/her internal images, and that external objects can only evoke the memory. Such memory is exclusively a personal recollection. The past is being remembered and that what characterises the process of remembering. The second approach to the memory, which is specific to the present time, refers not to an individual memory but rather to “cultures of memory” or “communities of memory”, that is to collective or social memory. This attitude aims at understanding how the identity of a community or a group is created by the memory. The collective memory includes popularized and popular memory. The popular memory is endowed with a high degree of independence and is not synonymous with rather official popularized memory, which is being shaped by education and persuasion. It seems that archaeology can explore that what is called the collective memory (regardless of whether prehistoric or medieval people used such a concept), and less frequently individual memory. However, there are two different approaches also in this respect. The first assumes that the memory is determined by the past. On the contrary, the second implies that the memory is determined only by the present. A given group of people remember only that, what is important for their current history, current situation and the current “politics”. Images and memories from the past have been selected and converted from the point of view of current cultural standards, in order to unify these images and transform them into the collective memory. This is the present situation of a given community that determines what will be remembered from the past, evoked and even cultivated. Memory appears to be a certain vision of past events, which allows us to understand, to justify or to prove the inevitability of what happens now. Collective memory, as an image of the past, created socially within a certain framework, is a significant memory, because it is important from the point of view of people living in the present. The proposed reference of memory to a group/community arises from the fact that it seems that the group in a similar manner remembers and forgets, or even erases the memory of the past. The past, however, according to Jan Assmann (2008:47), is created only due to the fact that it is the subject of reference. The past can be of functional (the discourse of the authority) or of symbolic importance. This does not change the fact that memory is an important point of reference for people. This is the past that has been socially remembered. Therefore, memory has got its “social framework” (the idea by Maurice Halbwachs 1969). Within this framework past events are organized and the threshold of the memory is determined, which organizes thoughts and emotions associated with the past. The author made accurate observations already in the 1920s, when he determined, basing rather on intuitive considerations, what an enormous impact any social group had on the knowledge of individuals about the past. He also noted the role of cultural trends of a given time in creating this knowledge and emphasised the extremely fickle nature of memory, subjected to continuous redefinitions connected with the need for reference of its shape to changes in the social world. He noted that “there are just as many collective memories as social groups”. The collective memory functions here in three fundamental ways: (1) transmission of values and patterns of behaviour which are desired and accepted by a community; (2) legitimization of the authority and the existing order; (3) creation of bonds and group identity. M. Halbwachs reflected on memory in two directions: he researched into the social memory, but he also pondered over the question of commemoration. His successors had been taking into consideration only the first issue. The continuation of Halbwachs thoughts has acknowledged that the social/collective memory plays the decisive role. The memory has been regarded as a part of a common vision of the past, as the transmission of values and certain patterns of behaviour, as well as the symbolization of a community and belonging to a group. At present, the existence and the transmission of the memory of the past through “spheres of silence” have been noticed. However, these were M. Halbwachs and E. Durkheim who recognized that the collective memory might show some differences due to individuals belonging to a community, who could be a part of different cultural contexts. The contexts differ slightly in the memory framework, which determines the collective memory. According to Jan Assmann (2001), there are three hierarchical and consecutive forms of memory: individual memory, communicative memory and cultural memory. The individual memory is rooted in personal experience, in a biography. The communicative memory is formed in the process of oral transmission of a certain content to younger generations, and therefore it lasts no longer than a hundred years or about five generations. The cultural memory, after a brief period of the calm before the storm, or “the sphere of silence”, comes into being when the last “guardians of memory” disappear and the last generation has passed, and when a need arises for saving of this kind of memory outside of individual experience. This is done by rooting in the material sphere – that is in monuments, memorials, rituals, architecture, buildings. J. Assmann (2001) emphasised that continuous communication between the memory and its ceremonialized and ritualized forms makes that the social memory, although objectified in the form of monuments, still performs its function of “the figures of memories”, on which the memory of entire social groups is based. Archaeologists try to reach mainly the collective, cultural memory and its specificity. “Sites of memory” “Sites of memory” are important from the point of view of archaeology, including the sites of bygone communities. In the early 1970s, a change took place in the French discourse about memory due to a French sociologist, Pierre Nora (2001). He concerned himself with two problems: the first was the answer to the question why a given community remembers one particular area of the past and does not remember another, and the second regarded the memorization phenomenon itself. He acknowledged that it was necessary to focus on various commemorative practices in a given culture, which alluded to the past. Additionally, he was inspired by classical literature (including Cicero and Quintilian) on memorization techniques (mnemonics), based on matching messages/facts with specific places in space. He created an analogous concept of “sites of memory” (“les lieux de mémoire”). He recognized that these “sites” served each group to remember and transfer key events from the past with the aim of creating its identity. Nora did not ever formulate a systematic theory of those “sites of memory”. For an encyclopaedia entry, he described the sites as “(...) the places, in the exact sense of the word, where certain communities – whatever they are – a nation, a family, an ethnic group or a party, store their souvenirs or consider them an indispensable part of their personality: topographic sites – such as archives, libraries, museums; monument sites – memorials, cemeteries, buildings, symbolic places – such as anniversaries, pilgrimages, commemorations; functional sites – associations, autobiographies, textbooks”. The interpretation (definition???) of the “sites of memory” has been given by Robert Traba (2009): “Les lieux de mémoire are the remains, the most external forms, in which our consciousness could survive through decades and centuries. We refer to them, because in fact we do not know history. That is only deritualization of the world – according to Nora – allows to reach deeper... Memory should be organized through the creation of archives, the celebration of holidays, writing of obituaries, authentication of agreement by notaries, for all these actions are not natural”. The “sites of memory” are a kind of metaphor, topos, for such sites can be both real and imagined. These are the sites where collective memory and identity are crystallized by generations. In Polish tradition, also Andrzej Szpociński (1985:165) refers to the set of the sites of memory (following P. Nora). The latest Polish publication edited by Sławomir Kapralski (2010) propagate a similar idea. The monograph by Bartosz Korzeniowski (2010) is also worth mentioning. Although these and many others publications do not relate directly to the prehistory, but they can be an important inspiration in this regard, for they concern our relation to the memory of the past. There are thus relations which clearly combine memory with the space and the site. The space is the “memory framework”, because conscious projects of emphasizing of elements of the past are expressed in the space and in an arrangement of specific objects within the space. It is the space which becomes a model for memories, and specific places evoke them. From among Polish academics, a humanist geographer Bohdan Jałowiecki (1985:132), already in the late 1980s, formulated the thesis that the space constitutes a permanent memory of a society. In turn, S. Kapralski (2010), following Mikhail Bakhtin, found that chronotopes could be real spaces, though marked and filled with mythologised meanings, where events relevant to the identity of a community had been stored. Within such a space, carriers of historical memory occur. They concern events which may have occurred in it or which are represented within it by monuments, by specific social functions of a given place or by a particular arrangement of the space. The relationship between memory and identity In view of the above considerations, the memory is clearly connected with the identity building/constructing. It is the memory that provides continuity in time by connecting us with our dead through the experience of death (Assmann 2008:76). The memory is rooted in the space and in the identity. It also supports the essential, that is individual or collective, meaning of the identity. However, remembering is selective and controlled – what we remember is defined by “our” identity (Lowenthal 1985: 41-46; Gillis 1994:3). In turn, Manuel Castells (2008) exposes the contexts of identity building and therefore he takes into account the three types of it: the legitimizing identity, the identity of resistance and the project identity. The first one legitimizes the importance of domination, basically of an institution. The second one is constructed by groups of people who have found themselves in a bad social situation. The third one refers to a situation in which social groups construct a new kind of identity, leading to the transformation of the social structure. M. Castells shows some paradoxes, for example when the identity of resistance can become the legitimizing identity, and thus its own opposite. Identity building refers both to the past and to the present. The identity is identification, self-consciousness, inner perception of own community or own identity in the surrounding world. A sense of distinctness is a main element that builds the identity. Currently, it is believed that the identity is a constant and dynamic process. The social identity is important for a historian/archaeologist, for “the historical past is the social, collective past, rather than the individual one” (Rosner, 2003:97). Considering the problem whether such notions as memory, sites of memory or identity can be relevant for past communities, we find a solution which allows to make use of the notions and puts them into a slightly different perspective. In my opinion, the solution can be provided by the concept of “field” by P. Bourdieu (despite the fact that the author himself did not expressed it directly). According to him, the “field of game” is “a comparatively distinguished area of social life, participants of which mutually enter into a system of invisible and mostly unconscious relationships. There are not interpersonal relationships, but objective relation between positions. These relationships are not established once and for all. (...) Generally speaking, however, a relentless battle takes place on the field to maintain gained positions or to get into new, better positions, due to the stake of the game”. Such a field is an area of social/collective memory of the past (“official”, “legally valid” memory) shared by the entire community. A state, for example, or a community organized as “chieftainship” (along with its local representatives) as well as members of various ethnic and national groups are participants in this “game” (using the metaphor by P. Bourdieu). Representatives of disparate ideological groups, creating a community of all the inhabitants of a country or a region are also the participants of such a game. Collective identity, that is “a sense of belonging to the community called the nation or the society of a given country”, is a stake by which the competitive game is played on the field of memory of the past. Particular places will be such field of a game, controlled by a given group, where the discourse of its memory and identity takes place. Archaeology with regard to memory The notions: memory, sites of memory and identity have become the subject of the present-day interest of archaeology. The present “usefulness” of the notion of memory is not connected with the idea of the continuity of the historical narrative, which means the resignation from the concept of time in favour of the concept of space. In my opinion, the usefulness concerns the construction of memory within spatial contexts. In the social sciences, the concept of “memoryscape” has been established. Therefore, “archaeology of memoryscape” can be proposed, that is archaeology of a real or symbolic place where “the collective memory is spatialized” (Muzaini, Yeoh 2005:33). If we broaden it by the P. Bourdieu’s concept (the field of game theory), the discourse of memory will be, in my opinion, such a field of game. So, it can be treated then as an area shared by a community. And in this meaning, the term “memory” is useful for archaeology. Things within the memoryscapes are important symbols or signs for a given group. They are represented by buildings, monuments, objects of worship, which are a manifestation of time and space controlling and a sign of group identity. Architecture (including tombs, temples) is a lasting memory of a society. The architecture and other objects are “implants of memory”, while graves and cemeteries are a kind of “prostheses of memory”. These are the metaphors used today, however, they reflect the character of the memoryscapes constructing both in the past and present. The “memoryscapes” were aimed not only to express and to preserve the memory, but also to erase the memory of those who had no opportunity to express their views and no possibility to control a given memoryscape. They impose a specific, sanctioned ideal on a group. The memoryscapes can contain many memories, and some may be in a symbolic or real conflict with each other. Temples, places of worship, cemeteries, or even individual works of art, monuments, as well as immaterial goods, are the sites of memory. Archaeologists have created such memoryscapes, acknowledging as such for example the megalithic cemetery in Wietrzychowice, or the memoryscapes associated with the formation of the first Piast state (sites in Gniezno, Poznań, Lednica, Giecz). Exploring them, archaeology has been participating in the discourse of memory. Temples, places of worship, cemeteries, individual works of art, monuments, but also the aura, “spirit”, the content and the meaning which are immaterial, are those sites of memory. “Stratification” of memory is a kind of a palimpsest – some content is erased by another. These memoryscapes have the inner power both to create memory and to erase it. The space plays an active role even if nothing happens within it. Burial sites, their structure and topology, inhumated or cremated human remains, objects connected with them and the widely understood context (including settlements and deposits) have been recognized as sources to study the manifestations of collective memory, which shapes collective identities. Therefore, we explore them from the aspect of changes over time and social space. “Visual” narratives and images of funeral rituals are created, including descriptions of rituals, embedded in a specific cultural and spatial context. The memory understood in this way enters the contemporary archaeological discourse. This does not change the fact that the memory, described as “tradition”, had previously been a part of archaeological studies, although it was then linked with time. Currently, the collective memory has been connected with space, and that opens up new interpretative possibilities for archaeology.

Keywords

EN

memory; sites of memory; identity; archaeology; the field of game

• Publisher: Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Przegląd Archeologiczny
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 61
• Pages: 33-50

Dates

published

2013

Contributors

author

Danuta Minta-Tworzowska

• Instytut Prahistorii UAM Poznań

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Identifiers

ISSN

0079-7138