History and Historical Memory: An Introduction

By: Diana Lin

Indiana University-Northwest

Every society has its collective memories. Greece has the Iliad and the Odyssey.
The U.S. has, among others, Washington and the cherry tree, Paul Revere,
Benjamin Franklin and his inventions, Thomas Edison, and, if it could be
counted as memory, Johnny Appleseed. China has, among others, the Great Wall
that was a constant reminder of the Chinese border in the north and west
historically and imparted different memories at different times; classics of
history, literature, poetry, and philosophy that display layers and dimensions of
Chinese thought, and technological inventions such as gunpowder, the compass,
paper, and movable printing types that every Chinese child learns in their
primary school history textbooks. Individual memories, of course, are in greater
variety and complexity than collective memories.
Memory, Pierre Nora argues, becomes a subject of study especially when great
changes take place in society and rupture the existent flow of events. (Nora,
p.1) In the case of France, for instance, industrialization and its replacement of
peasant culture led to the study of peasant culture as the repository of collective
memory. It was this very rupture with the past that leads to a self-conscious
quest of memory. One becomes especially conscious of changes that had taken
place when they find that memories evoked in certain places (lieux de memoire)
no longer correspond to the changed reality [for instance, the Versailles Palace,
once the exalted residence of the king, still existed, but the association between
it and the king it evoked no longer bespoke of the reality after the French
Revolution]. The settings (milieux de memoire) in which memory is a real part of
daily experience have changed.
I am sure every one has had moments when they are jostled into remembrance
by changes around what used to be familiar to them. One example for me is
those one story traditional Chinese houses in downtown Beijing, capital of
China, where roofs with grey tiles that are curved upward sit on top of maroon
colored houses. Low walls with similar roofs and color nearby still remind
people that these current shops used to be part of the royal palace. The
skyscrapers nearby accentuate the changes from what those imperial palace
houses represented. The settings for those palace houses have changed. The
emperor was long gone. Now these places become tourist attractions. On one of
the streets where these houses run, there is a big sign that reads: big tour bus
stop. This contrast between the traditional and the modern may produce
memory or imagined remembrance even among non-residents of Beijing,
perhaps a flash of wonderment of what life used to be like when these houses
belonged to the emperor and his royal family. On top of Tiananmen (Gate of
Heavenly Peace), the front gate of the Forbidden City where emperors and,
lately, the Communist Party Chairman Mao Tse-tung and others reviewed their

people, it has now become a tourist attraction. Any one, with a purchased ticket
and security checkup, can climb on top of Tiananmen, where souvenir shops
take up two thirds of the space. I tried to find the exact spot where Mao Tsetung proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China, which to many
Chinese marked the beginning of China's independence from foreign control.
The absence of any markings to indicate that event simply accentuated how
much China has changed from Mao's days (1949-1976). For me, it was simply
another reason to review my memory of Communist China.
In the U.S., September 11 was also another rupture from the past that pushed
many into the self-conscious pursuit of remembrance. The wreckage of the
World Trade Center, or even the new construction on the site of the former
World Trade Center, would evoke memories of the past that would be quickly
and painfully corrected by the changes that have taken place there, and
changes to American lives everywhere. This experience has pushed many
Americans to ask questions about the past that they had taken for granted. The
present interest in memory, among historians and non-historians alike, stem
largely from the ramifications of Sept.11.
One may ask then, isn't history made from memory any way? While every
society has its collective and individual memories, history is a more selfselective and conscious enterprise. Nora defines history as a means with which
modern societies organize their past that they will otherwise forget because
they are driven by change. (Nora, p.2) Societies have changed dramatically
especially since the 20th century. Many traditional and tribal societies have
given way to modern nation states, from China, Japan, Korea to the tribes in
Africa. In the latter case, the tribes were first organized into colonies by
European powers in the 19th century. These colonies were transformed into
modern nation states largely by 1960. This quickening of historical events
caused by factors external to the traditional societies also causes the loss of
memory of these societies. Here, Nora defines memory as all powerful,
sweeping, un-self-conscious, inherently present-minded, and a memory without
a past that eternally recycles a heritage. (Nora, p.2). In other words, collective
memory, being un-self-conscious, belongs to an earlier era of traditional and
primitive societies, while history is the modern human being's collective
memory.
History writing varies from country to country. In some countries, history is
intertwined with building nationalism, hence there is a unified approach and
interpretation of certain events. In the U.S., Nora argues, because of the plural
American society, history is not so much associated with nation building, hence
there are multiple interpretations to the same historical events. A critical study
of history, Nora argues, shows that we no longer identify with that part of
history. And it shows history consciously tries to extricate itself from the
limitations of memory. (p.4) This critical study of history, or the study of
historiography, shows conscious human efforts to differ from the past.
Even though memory has now largely been replaced by reconstructed history,
historical locations still evoke a sense of the past. And despite that the old

framework of nationalism [that requires the construction of only one narrative

of the state] does not quite work any more, that old framework still is useful in
some ways and has provided valuable understanding of the historical past.
(Nora, p.6). To Nora, this simply shows that despite that humans have
abandoned their spontaneous memory for conscious construction of history, they
still instinctively cry out for memory, that live, spontaneous experience.
Museums, monuments, etc., for Nora simply show the contrast between the past
they represent and the present societies. Visiting them has to take conscious
efforts, like rituals, in an otherwise ritual-less society. (Nora, pp.6-7) Collective
memory, Nora further points out, is a deliberate effort, such as in the form of
holidays, national anthems, as well as monuments and other means to
commemorate the past and prevent it from slipping away from our memory.
(p.7) The need for memory, or this kind of collective memory, is actually a need
for history. a conscious reconstruction of the past. (8)
The job of the historian is not just to catalogue and record events, but to
recreate them so they come alive, as if they were lived memory, hyper-reality.
The historian becomes the memory man, or link of memory (Nora, 14).
What Nora tries to argue in this essay is that the pursuit and study of memory is
often caused by change. Changes in society, politics, mode of life, religion, etc.,
all cause people to attempt to grasp the past. The historical constructs, or
links/locations of memory, on the other hand, are based on both historical facts
and human reconstruction, to satisfy intellectual, emotional, and other needs.
Therefore the study of history, or links/locations of memory, is not just to study
the reality, but very much the study of reconstructed reality and, along with it,
why people recreate the reality in certain ways, to satisfy what purpose.

http://www.iun.edu/~hisdcl/t325-memory/introduction1.htm