Professional Documents
Culture Documents
to the Question:
Has Civil Society
Cultural Memory? /
BYAGNESHELLER
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be an identity-constituting cultural memory. We know that Mussolini wanted to resuscitate Roman cultural memory, but did not
meet with success.
In modern times and particularly since the end of the eighteenth century, political bodies, first and foremost the thenemerging nation-states, also became carriers of cultural memory.
The model for the creation of cultural memory was presented by
religion. The French Republic was celebrated at first on the Field
of Mars as a ceremony in honor of the Supreme Being. Soon the
states enhanced their cultural identity with secular festivals and
celebrations. Like Quatorze Juillet in France, the Fourth of July in
America became the memorial day of the creation of the republic. A celebration takes place every year with the same rites, such
as marches, displays of military strength, fireworks, and speeches.
No state, however, could establish as forceful a cultural memory
as religions once did. But if nation, ethnicity, and religion (or any
of the three) reinforce the cultural memory of the state, it can
also serve as a potent weapon. Ideology then replaces mythology.
In the process of the division of the social and political
spheresnamely, in the process whereby civil society achieved its
relative autonomy from the statethe work of building and preserving cultural memory became first and foremost the employment of the state, or governments. States, or more precisely
governments, began regularly enlisting so-called intellectuals
teachers, poets, paintersin the production of cultural memory,
and continue to do so. Let us remember the Mexican mural
painters who created, almost on their own, a national myth or ideology, which did work.
I do not aim to evaluate the modern story ofthe creation of cultural identity by the state. The mythological/ideological content
of these stories varies from state to state and from epoch to epoch.
Creating identity by reinforcing old cultural memories, by selecting among them, by creating new memories, or by fusing them,
aims at making certain distinctions and achieving a kind of completion, all of which frequently places emphasis on the exclusion
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tion-era Spain might have ended in two ways. Either the Marranos
could have begun to forget their culture, and so ceased to be Marranos, or their cause could have won the day. In the second case,
a new government would have to take over the care and cultivation a cultural memory created in rebellion. The countermemory
would then become an official memory. Therewith, the past
comes to be celebrated by the state, the issue eternalized, and the
memory ceases to be the memory of civil society. This happened
with the 1956 revolution in Hungary. October 23 is now an official holidayand people have generally ceased to remember why.
Countermemory also works in cases where acts of repression were
not preceded by a revolt; such is the case of the demonstrations
by grieving mothers in Buenos Aires.
The nineteenth-century trade union movement alone succeeded in establishing a lasting memorial day: a festival, taking
place every year, now known as the May Day parade. Yet the May
Day parade is not about remembrance, at least not anymore. It is
rather a day for merriment making and for showing the muscle of
the unions and socialist parties, while bringing attention to issues
that were put on the political agenda in the very year of each and
every march or demonstration.
Hegel pointed to the Absolute Spirit, manifestly, to art, religion, and philosophy as the carriers of cultural memory. Great
political deeds will not be forgotten insofar as they are immortalized in writing, artworks, and religion. I will sidestep one of
Hegel's points, namely that philosophy, whose medium is conceptual, does not establish cultural identity, but is the identity of
modernity itself. This is why it does not remember the past, but
exists wholly (as recollection) in the present. Hegel belonged to
those who believed that modernity is about the complete disenchantment of the world. What is nevertheless interesting is that
art began to play the role of the provider of cultural memory on
its own as early as the eighteenth century. Art, artistic creation,
and distribution are all located in civil society. Since the emergence of the nation-state and its increasing effort to create a cul-
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tural memory of its own, the state enlisted the help of the socalled Kulturbourgeoisie. And correspondingly, the creation of a
new national cultural memory contributed to the emergence of
the nation-state itself.
The German case is the most representative. There was no common German state, yet the German Kulturbourgeoisie created an
influential myth about the spiritual brotherhood between ancient
Athenian and modern German culture, thereby extending German cultural memory to the remote past, encompassing Athenian
tragedy, sculpture, philosophy, and architecture. German cultural
memory was thus formed as anti-Roman and anti-French, even
while the French was formed as Roman. A cult of national poets,
composers, and painters was invented in civil society, together
with the myth of the genius. The houses, graves, and belongings
of national geniuses became holy sites calling for a quasi-religious
pilgrimage, like Rousseau's Hermitage, Goethe's house in
Weimar, or Chopin's piano. During the German occupation, the
Dutch tried to institutionalize a Rembrandt memorial day Nowadays this kind of cult has assumed a cosmopolitan character, with
the places of remembrance having become tourist attractions.
The forces of civil society have also initiated widespread identity politics, whether of race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. In one respect these identity movements resemble
single-issue movements insofar as they put pressure on the state,
the legislature, and legal institutions to rectify grievances, and
they may introduce to politics issues of justice or programs of
reform long overdue. But since these are not issue but identity
movementswhich is to say that their issues concern their identitysuch movements must establish or reestablish cultural memory for themselves. Without shared cultural memory there is no
identity. Even families have a cultural memory, objectified in old
letters, photographs, and family lore. Among all the groups in
need of cultural memory, ethnic groups have had the easiest task,
for they have never entirely lost their cultural memory, which
sometimes includes a native language, even if it has not been
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knowing what is kept in store for the next generation. One may
hope not to have to choose between hostile and mythologized cultural memories and soulless utilitarian machines. But those who,
like myself, are committed to the maintenance of open-ended cultural memories, know that one cannot remember ahead.
Notes
^The question of cottective memory was raised by Hatbwachs (1980);
thie question concerning cutturat memory has recently become of central interest in the wake of the works of Nora (1985), Yerushalmi (1982),
and Assmann (1997). In this paper I apply their conceptuat toots.
References
Assmann, Jan. Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monothe-