European Studies

European Identities
Guest Lecture;
Whose memory about what? Collective Memory and European Identity construction

10 October 2019
European identities
GUEST LECTURE
Collective Memory – What is it? European Identities

› History, Forgetting, Power, Politics, Identity, and the

Generational Gap

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Analysing the production and
reception of Collective Memory European Identities

› What makes it into ‘the public’?

› All memories, even the memories of
› Not simply here or gone eyewitnesses, only assume collective
relevance when they are structured,
› But rather ‘Actualized’ or ‘Marginalized’ represented, and used in a social
› Korea War setting. As a result, the means of
representation that facilitate this
process provide the best information
› Look at the contemporary actors, not about the evolution of collective
just at the remembered events memories, especially as we try to
› Who produces ‘memory’ – and for who? reconstruct them after the fact.
› (Kantsteiner 2002:190)

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How to make memory stick across
generations? European Identities

› Communicative vs. Cultural?

› Cultural memory: ”texts, images, and
› Communicative memory: recent history rituals specific to each society in each
for debate epoch, whose cultivation serves to
stabilize and convey that society’s self-
› Cultural memory: the materialization of
image”
memory
› Assmann
› Memory as Practice and Materiality
› Lieu de memoire

› Potential cultural memory: what is

stored (museums, archives, libraries)

› Actual cultural memory: reactivated and

given new memory in new contexts

› Are Statues and public rituals still were 4

your Collective Memory is exercised?

Popular Culture & Prostetic memory: European Identities

One of the most dramatic instances › “In their assessment, one of the
of how the mass media generate reasons for the privileged status of
empathy is through the production images in memory construction
and dissemination of memory. Such derives from their exceptional ability
memories bridge the temporal chasms to close, and at times even
that separate individuals from the obliterate, the gap between first-
meaningful and potentially hand experience and secondary
interpellative events of the past. It has witnessing.”
become possible to have an intimate
relationship to memories of events (Kantsteiner 2002:191)
through which one did not live: these
are the memories I call
prosthetic.(Landsberg 148)

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 European Identities

› Which film provides you

imagery of a ‘prostetic’
Holocaust’ Memory?
› News Reels
› Documentaries
› Fiction

› The anachronism and

conservatism of memory
› Do we ever talk about the
memory that hurts – or only
about the one that ‘warms us’? 6
Examining memories European Identities

› When, how and through which media did it enter public

space?
› How was it remembered at different stages?
› Who is ‘cast’ as what (victim/bystander/perpetrator) and
how/when does this change?
› What is the political inscription; what does it legitimate?
› How can it be criticised in term of its contemporary role
and status?

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Holocaust Memory European Identities

› When?

› Why not until then?

› Why then?

› What are the roles – who are

perpetrators and victims?
› What does it mean to say the Exhibit of B-B Liberation
the Holocaust is Universal? Photographs at the Library of

Congress, 6/30/1945,USHMM
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(Mis)remembering the Holocaust European Identities

Holocaust not part of official

discourses about the war until 1960’s &
1970’s

It was not that important to

contemporaries

Indifference rather than hatred

Memories not unbearable, just

unimportant
”In retrospect ‘Auschwitz is the most important
Popular Anti-Semitism survived
› No immediate share in guilt thing to know about World War Two.

But that is not how things seemed at the time”

› Good reasons to Forget 9

› Vichy (Judt 2005:812)

The years of Silence (in WE)
› Survivor Silence
› Nobody wants to listen
› Publishers etc
› The trials as voice of survivors
› The perpetrator silence
› Nazis, collaborators, German, Austrian,
Vichy etc.
› No interest in speaking of their crimes
(unreformed?)
› Bystander Silence
› Not repression or guilt but indifference
› Not the part of the war which is traumatic
(Dutch hunger winter)
European Identities
› Not a denial that there were civilian
victims
› Not a denial that there were atrocities
› Not a denial that there were camps
(and that people died there in large
numbers)
› Not even a manifest denial that the
Jews were targeted
› Rather an erasure of the Jewishness
of Hitler's primary victims by making
them an indistinguishable part of his
victims in general
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European Identities

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The Universality of the Holocaust European Identities

› Holocaust memory (for the European

› Rejects Relativization non-Jewish memory community) is
› Because it might displace guilt (from the
partly about collective guilt. To
Germans) acknowledge the memory of the
Holocaust is not only to condemn
› Rejects Particularization Nazism, but also to at least
› Because it will reduce guilt to that of the acknowledge that not enough was done
Germans (the Nazis, the leading circle, or to prevent it.
just Adolf)
› It is no longer simply a heroic narrative
› Rejects contextualization about defeating the Nazis or a tragedy
› Because it will situate guilt in the historical about being victimized by them.
period and generation of the actual crime
› It is a narrative which requires a double
identification with both victims and
› Holocaust is simultaneously a perpetrators, in order that responsibility
specific event and a universal should be taken for the fact that this
metaphor for inhumanity in general was allowed to happen. 12
The EU and the Holocaust European Identities

› How has the EU linked

itself to Holocaust memory?
› Why?

› What are the implications of

this?

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3 Waves of Europeanisation
The EU and the Holocaust European Identities

› 1998 Stockholm International

forum on the Holocaust
› 1)Economic › Stockholm Declaration
› 2)Political › Holocaust changed foundations of
› 3)Cultural Civilization – hold universal meaning
› The Holocaust as a › 2000 International Task Force on
European (cultural) Cannon Holocaust Education,
Remembrance and Research
› The European Entry Ticket › Initiative by Swedish Prime minister
› Holocaust-denial › NGO (27 states)
› The edge of politics
› Even for the Far Right › 2005 EP resolution on Holocaust
› A necessary enemy? remembrance day

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Universal Evil, European experience European Identities

› The Holocaust as the foundation and

› ”The Question is whether
entry ticket to EUrope
non-Western nations have to
› Acknowledge the centrality of this event
enter the realm of
to Europe
universalist morals through
› Refrain from differential guilt: nobody
the needle’s eye of the
Holocaust or whether there
with clean hands (Swedes) are multiple trajectories that
› The EU as ‘Never Again’ War and can lead to the same level of
Holocaust moral standards?”
› Both perpetrators and victims were › (Assmann 2010:109)
European
› To oppose the particularity of the EU,
potentially becomes to deny the universal › And how does this situate
evil of the Holocaust the Eastern Europeans?
› If the understanding of universal evil and
thus the road to universalist morals (i.e.
human rights) goes through the
(European) Memory of the Holocaust, 15
then what of non Europeans?
The Holocaust as EUropean Past European Identities

› The horror of the Shoah and the terrible loss of

life caused by the Second World War deeply
marked Europe’s founding fathers too. They set
out to make sure the Europe of the 1930s and
1940s could never return. The European idea was
based on the firm determination to make sure the
Europe of the future would be different – a
Europe of peace, tolerance and respect for
human rights. A Union of diversity where
differences are accepted and perceived as
enriching the whole. My personal commitment to
the European idea stems from the deep
conviction that this is the right way forward for
our continent. That is why the first thing I did
after my investiture as President of the European
Commission was to visit Auschwitz. (Prodi 2004,
16
› SP/04/85)
60th WWII European Identities

› We also came to this terrible point in our history through nationalistic pride and
greed, and through international rivalry for wealth and power. It was precisely to
put an end to such rivalry that the European Union was born – the first ever
supranational organisation in which sovereign nations voluntarily share their
sovereignty.
› European nations may well disagree over all kinds of issues – but instead of
fighting we now sit round a table and discuss them until we reach an agreement.
It means a lot of compromises, but it works!
› Yet there are those today who want to scrap the supranational idea. They want
the European Union to go back to the old purely inter-governmental way of
doing things.
› I say those people should come to Terezin and see where that old road leads.

› We rejoice today at the ending of the Second World War and all its horrors.

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Rhetorical Uses of Guilt European Identities

› Judging

› Penitence

› Judge-Penitence

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European Selvconfidence
› Post 2000 optimism
› Successful introduction of the €
(2000)
› Laeken declaration (2001)
› Iraq (2003)
› Constitution (2004)
› Enlargement (2004/07)
European Identities
› Europe has learned, the hard way and at an
enormous price paid in the currency of human
suffering, how to get past historical
antagonisms and peacefully resolve conflicts and
how to bring together vast array of cultures
and to live with the prospect of permanent
cultural diversity, no longer seen as only a
temporary irritant. And note that these are
precisely the sorts of lessons the rest of the
world most badly needs. (Bauman 2004:
130)
An ”age of apology” European Identities

› Living in a (global) ‘age of apology’ (Gibney et al. 2008)

› ‘Saying sorry’ - blunt silencing is no option anymore

› ‘Saying sorry’ as a principle of legitimation

› Rituals of confession as the basis of narratives of a shared ‘bitter

past’ (Eder 2006), creating emotive bonds
 EUrope in an ”age of
apology” European Identities

› ‘Speculative speeches’ (Wodak & Weiss 2004)

› Usually occur at commemorative events/ ceremonial settings; not about or relating to
immediate political issues

› Speeches which not only articulate the foundational values but also include a
‘visionary’ stance, setting out the future trajectory of the community on this basis.

› 2001-2007: 62 texts (136,735 words) by European Commissioners and

European heads of state
Research questions European Identities

› How is Europe’s past narrated in an age of apology?

› How does the narration of Europe’s past influence the
construction of differences between the European Self and various
non-European Others?
 European Identities

DHA - narratology - conceptual history (I)

• Discourse-historical approach (Reisigl & Wodak 2001, 2009)
– (con)text, discourse, discursive strategies

• Narratology
– ‘temporal juncture‘ and ‘the point‘
– ‘narrative pre-construction‘ (Labov 2006)
– ‘it is through narrativity that we come to know, understand and make sense of the
social world, and it is through narratives and narrativity that we constitute our social
identities’ (Somers 1994)
 European Identities

DHA - narratology - conceptual history (II)

› Conceptual history
› three dimensions in the construction of collective identities (Koselleck 2004):
› Temporal: ‘space of experience’ and a ‘horizon of expectation’
› Spatial: inside-outside
› Hierarchical: upper:lower, essence:surface, etc. (a sacred core: class, culture, race, etc.)

› Utilised in terms of a heuristic tool in order to grasp a complex conceptual structure

(European identity)
Digital Downsizing
› What is a Collocate?
› Looking for collocates; Foucault and
regularity in dispersion
› Organising the findings using theory
and pilot study knowlegde
› MI (Mutual Information). ”Europe”
and ”Image” are collocates in a span
of +/- 5 Words. MI compares the
likely hood that Image will appear in
any 10 words, with the likelihood that
it will appear in 10 words around
”Europe”.
European Identities
› Log-L. (LogLikelihood). Compares the
likelihood of ”Europe” and ”image”
collocating, with the likelyhood that
Europe Collocates with something
else.
› The Computer does this and gives
you a number. The higher the
number the better. For statistical
validity MI bigger than 3, LL bigger
than 6.63 (99% validity).
› I dont know why. That why is still
the digital Humanities
Computer-assisted downsizing
(I) European Identities

KOSELLECK'S THREE DIMENSIONS CL-INDICATORS

TEMPORAL SPATIAL HIERACHICAL MI LOG-L.
IMAGE 6.45 39.75
SOUL 6.38 132.48
EASTERN 6.29 259.04
CENTRAL 6.11 217.04
SOUTHERN 6.04 49.49
FATHERS 5.67 63.85
Computer-assisted downsizing
(II) European Identities
Computer-assisted downsizing
(III) European Identities

• Textual analysis of texts which contained at least

- one cluster from each dimension and
- five different clusters in total.

- Barroso JM (2005) The transformation of Europe. In: Speech to the European

Parliament, Strasbourg, 11 May.
- Merkel A (2007) No title: Speech at the official ceremony to celebrate the 50th
anniversary of the signing of the Treaties of Rome. Berlin, 25 March.
- Prodi R (2003a) Enlargement of The Union and European Identity. Speech given at
the opening of the 2002/2003 academic year, Florence, 20 January.
- Prodi R (2003b) Europe: The Dream and the Choices. Translation of Debate on the
Future of Europe, Florence, 12 November.
- Prodi R (2004) A union of minorities. In: Seminar on Europe – against anti-
semitism, for a union of diversity, Brussels, 19 February.
 Examples: Prodi (I) & Merkel
(I) European Identities

War is a concentration of everything that is evil. After the horrors of the

Second World War and the Holocaust, the desire for peace was the first
and essential driving force of European unification. (…) “Never again”,
said the founding fathers of Europe, and meant it, and so it was.
We persecuted and destroyed one another. We ravaged our homeland. We
jeopardized the things we revered. Not even one generation has passed
since the worst period of hate, devastation and destruction.
 Examples: Prodi (II) European Identities

Europe appears before the world as the most extraordinary example of

democratic governance of the globalisation process. An example towards
which it is no coincidence that other continents such as Latin America or
Africa are looking in the search for new forms of cooperation to
overcome old divisions. Born in order to put an end to war between
peoples and in lands that had been the scenes of all the horrors of
conflict, destruction and violence, united Europe is confirmed by
enlargement as a factor of peace, stability and security throughout the
continent. (…) We Europeans have the ambition and feel that we have a
responsibility to contribute to peace, stability and security not only at
regional level but throughout the world.
 European Identities

Examples: Prodi (III)

 European Identities

Examples: Merkel (II)

And so I hope that the citizens of Europe will say in 50 years’ time: Back
then in Berlin, the united Europe set the right course. Back then in Berlin,
the European Union embarked upon the right path towards a bright future.
It went on to renew its foundations so that it could make its contribution
here in Europe, this old continent, as well as globally, in this one large yet
small world we live in.
For a better world. For people everywhere. That is our mission for the
future.
 European Identities

Examples: Merkel (III)

Conclusion (I) European Identities

Founding Fathers

“Bitter Past” Europe Non-European ‘Others’

Values

Social Learning/ Acceptance of Guilt Teaching/ Taking Responsibility for ‘the Other’
Conclusion (II) European Identities

• Discourses on EUrope glocalise the age of apology

• This happens via the genre of ‘speculative speeches’

• A bitter past is acknowledged and becomes proof of a

successful European learning process

• This justifies the construction of Europe as morally superior in

relation to the non-European world

• Admitting past wrongdoing does not in itself guarantee

reflexivity or mutual recognition in relation to the
contemporary Other – but can lead to the social pathology
captured by the Camus’ian concept of judge-penitence
Eastern Memories European Identities

› Eastern Europe as the territory

of the Holocaust
› But other Civilian casualties by
also far greatest here
› The War did not end in Eastern
Europe
› Nazi occupation brutal
› Communist Occupation brutal
and long
› Double Memory sites
› Museums and Visitors 36
Eastern Europe and European
Memory European Identities

› How was the holocaust

remembered during
Communism?
› What is the memory situation
of Eastern Europe after
Communism?
› How does Eastern European
memories of Communism
differ from Holocaust memory?
› What about Russia?

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The Holocaust in Communist
Eastern Europe
› Fascism and capitalism
› Communism as Anti-fascism
› Totalitarianism as Western
concept
› Great Patriotic War
› Stuck in ‘post-war’
› The overlaying of new traumas
› Eastern Europe did not partake
in the events that shaped the
emergence of Holocaust
Memory in Western Europe
European Identities
› The camps became memorials for
‘victims of fascism’ – with no mention
of the fact that most were Jews
› Communist guidebook; caption to
picture from Auschwitz:
› ”The Bourgeoisie is serious about its aim to
annihilate the [Communist] party and the
entire avant-garde of the working class” (Judt
38
2005:822)
Holocaust and Eastern Europe after
the Cold War
› Holocaust Memory central to EU
› A ‘ready-made’ memory community
with political force (EU Accession)
› A pressure to (at least partly)
contemplate one self as perpetrator (in
relation to Holocaust) while receiving
no equivalent recognition of ones
victimhood (under communism)
› A surface recognition of Holocaust
(memorials and Museums) but
domestically dwarfed by popular
interest in commemorating and
remembering the recent terrors of
communism
European Identities
› Uncomfortable Uses
› The rejection of a communist past can serve
a revival of radical nationalism, and even of
anti-Semitism; in the form of the classical
construction of a connection between
bolshevism and world Jewry
› It can also serve as a warning against
supranational encroachments of (newly
regained) sovereignty
› And it often results in a strong positive
attitude to the US
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Holocaust and the Trauma of
Communism
› Eastern Europe and the memory of
Communism
› A More multifaceted trauma
› Gulag, political oppression, material
deprivation
› Overlap with moral imperatives of
Holocaust remembrance (because the
latter are universal)
› A memory of occupation and foreign
rule: focus on victimization
› The contemporary context of
‘activation’
› Where is the ‘communist’ danger?
› How to formulate the priority to
remember in a contemporary context?
European Identities
› Russia and the Memory of the Soviet
Union
› Still the Great Patriotic War
› Russia defeated Hitler (and was in
absolute numbers his primary victim)
› The War veteran as a symbol has moved
unproblematically from the communist
to the national framing
› The rejection of the soviet past in
Eastern Europe is often a rejection of
Russia
› The 1990’s was for many a humiliation
of Russia, rather than its liberation
› The Soviet past still also signifies the 40
height of Russia’s international power
Integrating Conflicting Memories European Identities

› Stalinism must not relativize

Holocaust
› Holocaust must not
trivialize Stalinism

› Is this a solution…?

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And Colonialism..? European Identities

› ”European Colonialisation”

› ”submission”, ”plunder”
› ”Slavery”

› Conteporary Relevance?

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