History and Memory.pdf

Historical Memory and National Identity
N. Gusevskaya1,*
and E. Plotnikova1
1
Department of International Law and International Relations, Transbaikal State University, Chita, 672000, Russia
*
Corresponding author. Email:gusnat1@rambler.ru
ABSTRACT
Historical memory is the basis, the mental core of public consciousness that provides the ability to identify an
individual and the entire society as a whole. Historical memory is the most important catalyst for social
consolidation. The article shows the historical memory role in national identity shaping. We have summarized
the main methodological approaches to the study of historical memory, studied the mechanisms of national
identity. The analysis of sources number allowed us to identify the specific ethnic identity formation
processes, and to note the influence of the past collective memory on these processes. Historical education,
state memorial policy, and other factors have a significant impact on historical memory. We offer some
practical recommendations for the national identity shaping based on the historical memory in the course of
teaching history, literature, and other social sciences.
Keywords: historical memory, consciousness, national identity, history teaching, Russian education
1. INTRODUCTION
The heated debates of recent times regarding the teaching
of history, the demolition and preservation of historical
monuments, attitudes to key figures of the past, and the
style of commemoration are not accidental, because all
these topics are related to memory, the most important
factor in the social unification and cohesion, the formation
of cultural and civic identity of each of its members.
Currently, the problems of historical memory are
discussed in the context of some social sciences, such as
political science, cultural studies, sociology, and history.
Within each humanitarian discipline, this problem has
been addressed and is still being by many scientists, who
in turn give different interpretations of this definition. The
problem of educating a nation that carefully preserves its
historical memory and does not allow it to be distorted is
acute.
2. HISTORICAL MEMORY: THEORY
AND CONCEPTS
For some historians, historical memory sometimes acts as
a synonym for history, which does not reflect the actual
ratio of these concepts. Indeed, the connection between
them has existed since time immemorial: even in ancient
times, the main function of history was understood as the
function of «forgetting», i.e. preserving the memory of
occurred events. The topic of memory was discussed by
ancient philosophers. In written cultures, the historian's
task was to record the events that occurred, as well as to
learn a moral and political lesson from them. The texts,
however, preserved only a few bits of information about
what happened to the peoples, and, as a rule, presented a
special, biased history version. Probably, the first thinker
who turned to legends and traditions as part of historical
memory was the Italian philosopher of the first half of the
XVIII century, G. Vico, who believed that the oral
tradition embodied in myths contains the memory of true
events. He noted that people have too many ingrained
ideas about themselves and things close to them, and by
this means they look like fools at things they do not
understand [1].
The German philosopher F. Nietzsche in his work «On the
Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life» first raised
the question of the social function of oblivion; the main
question for him was to determine the boundary beyond
which memory becomes a threat to the present. Just as
individuals sometimes have to forget to heal, so do peoples
and cultures. F. Nietzsche argued that it is impossible to
live without the possibility of oblivion at all: «There is a
degree of insomnia, of rumination, of the historical sense,
through which living comes to harm and finally is
destroyed, whether it is a person or a people or a culture».
F. Nietzsche does not have a positivist view of scientific
history as a «receptacle» of historical memory [2].
In particular, the person who founded the theory of
historical collective memory is considered to be a well-
known French sociologist M. Halbwachs. He distinguished
collective memory, on the one hand from history, on the
other from individual memory, the memory of events
experienced by an individual. M. Halbwachs combined all
the variety of forms of commemoration into a single
concept and proposed to consider memory as a collective
social phenomenon, and subsequently defined collective
memory as a representation of the past, shared and
constructed by members of a social group [3].
The philosopher was the first to understand that memory is
a socially determined phenomenon: society creates a
framework for memories; shared events and characters
embody the identity of a group; there are as many
memories as there are groups. However, he also notes that
memory is a necessary element for the life and survival of
Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 505
6th International Conference on Social Science and Higher Education (ICSSHE 2020)
Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL.
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license -http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. 1026

society, being the common thing that constitutes society
and is the key to its identity.
It should be emphasized that collective memory, according
to M. Halbwachs, is not universal, it is always the history
of individual groups, and groups can be different, both
small local communities and Nations. However, the larger
the community, the more focused efforts are required to
form and maintain a collective memory. Moreover, there
are several variants of collective memory at the same time.
This is determined by the simultaneous existence of many
groups. M. Halbwachs believed that each of these groups
has its history. It was he who expressed a really deep idea
about historical memory as the most important factor in
the self-identification of a social or any other group.
Representatives of the Annales, French historical school,
made a great contribution to the formation of the concept
of «historical memory». They argued that history should
be linked to the interests and problems of the present and
recreate the picture of the past of living people, hence the
interest in recreating everyday life, in contrast to the
installation of previous historical science, aimed at
identifying the abstract schemes of historical events and
focused primarily on major events of the past, the history
of States or classes.
Interest in the subject of historical memory increased after
the Second world war under the influence of this most
tragic event in the history of the ХХ century. Historical
memory in the context of the question of responsibility for
the war and crimes of the Hitler regime was considered by
one of the most prominent sociologists of the past century,
the leader of the Frankfurt school Th. Adorno.
The German philosopher, studying the Holocaust tragedy
and antisemitism historical roots in general, concluded that
the masses' political behavior is determined by socio-
psychological factors and on this basis developed his
theory. It was Th. Adorno's views that influenced the
young growing German generation, which rebelled against
the «Nazi» fathers and demanded to build a new German
state on the complete national socialism rejection and
repentance for its sins. It was in the context of this public
discussion that the sociologist turned to the concept of
historical memory. He noted the tendency of the German
society younger part to «repress» the memory of Nazism,
but also highlighted the positive trends in this process,
aimed at understanding and condemning such a past, a
complete break with which is possible if the causes of past
events are overcome. With his research, Th. Adorno brings
the concept of historical memory and its role to a
qualitatively new level [4].
The emergence of such a trend in philosophy as
postmodernism has caused an even greater increase in
interest in the historical memory concept. One of its
creators, M. Foucault, in particular, rejected the traditional
idea of science as the driving force of progress and
criticized the very concept of the scientific revolution.
Concerning history as a science, M. Foucault applied the
definitions of «counter-memory», thereby indicating that
from his point of view historians never seek objective
knowledge, but create history within the framework of
modern discourses to please the authorities. In his opinion,
variants of counter-memory appear within certain
subcultural spaces as a response to historical injustice
concerning the memory of a particularly traumatic event
[5].
The works of the French scientist P. Nora appeared under
the influence of postmodernism. The historian, who
addressed the problem of historical consciousness and
memory, noted that history and memory are in many ways
opposite, their roles have changed – «it is quite obvious
that the public interest is a social order, and historians
themselves are increasingly focused on the modern
period» [6].
He argues that memory is put at the service of presentment,
ceases to be a collection of the past elements that should
be remembered, but becomes a way of realizing your
present, that is, memory is an emotional experience
associated with a real or imaginary memory and allows all
sorts of manipulations, changes, displacements,
forgetfulness [6].
His most famous work is the collective work «The realms
of memory» (Les Lieux de mémoire). During the
preparation of this multi-volume edition, 45 other French
historians worked with him. The publication is a list of the
formal manifestations of national memory-monuments and
shrines, national historical Chronicles, civil reference
books and history textbooks, public archives, and
museums created in the name of the identity of France. the
author refers material, symbolic, and functional things to
such places of memory, for example, the revolution,
Catholics and non-believers, the Pantheon (in Paris), the
Centenary of Voltaire and Rousseau, the Funeral of V.
Hugo, Offices and monasteries, i.e. monuments,
memorials, territories, words, religious minorities, spatial
and temporal divisions, and much more. They are not
places in a narrow, geographical sense, they are defined as
a kind of intersection points where the memory of society
is formed and concentrated. Their main function is to
preserve the collective historical memory [7].
P. Nora has presented «sites of memory» as the «remains»
of the past and at the same time as «an extreme form in
which there is a commemorative consciousness in history
that ignores it, but needs it». In such places, the creation of
history, as well as the formation of other national symbols,
is carried out in the interests of the present, to better
understand and explain this present [8].
At the end of the XX century, there was a turn in the study
of historical memory, which was associated with the fact
that historians, having declared synthetic history, began to
study mentality as a system of collective representations
that existed in the past, making it one of their research
priorities.
An important formation sign of memory studies as a
separate discipline and another prerequisite for the
historical memory study was the Tel Aviv University
journal «History and memory» foundation in 1989. The
editors' interest was mainly focused on research on the
Holocaust, Nazism, racism, apartheid, wars, and social
conflicts memory. A huge number of publications,
however, did not save the direction of «memory studies»
from recognizing the crisis state of the discipline in the
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early 2000s. The diagnosed crisis is primarily associated
with the uncertainty of the Central concept of «memory»
and the lack of clear criteria for identifying what exactly
can be considered the subject of research [9].
However, we can draw one main conclusion: in modern
social sciences historical memory is not just a single
concept; it has acquired the special scientific discipline
features and is developing dynamically. Its applied nature
is expressed in some social education existing practices. If
we take into account the need to develop extracurricular
didactics, historical memory easily forms the basis for the
development of Museum pedagogy, mnemonic place
pedagogy, oral history, project technology and other
methods of pedagogical activity that are in great demand
in the teaching history process, as well as other
Humanities that equally develop the historical memory
concept.
3. HISTORICAL MEMORY: THE
CONSTRUCTION OF NATIONAL
IDENTITY
The concepts of «historical memory» and «identity» are
inseparable from each other, and there are relations of
close interrelation and interdependence between them
since the preservation of memory is the most essential
condition for self-determination of individuals and
strengthening the social groups' unity. Identity is
constructed in the process of understanding the nation's
history, its current position, and possible and desired
prospects, and, consequently, historical memory is a factor
in the formation of this very identity. Emphasizing this
fact, J. Assmann defines «identity» as «political
imagination» conditioned by «cultural memory» [10].
Identity, both ethnic and national, is rooted in historical
memory. Therefore, historical memory manipulations for
political purposes are also manipulations of group identity.
National identity, therefore, appears as an imperative when
choosing the historical path of the nation's development. It
acts as a result of the past and at the same time as an
interaction with the future, and, consequently, the
formation of national identity positive images and
historical discourses can contribute to solving the
problems of national integration.
The nation as a construct of industrial culture is an
ideological product created by powerful elites. Therefore,
identity is an intellectual construct of the elite, transmitted
to potential representatives of national education through
the media, the education system, and political rhetoric.
As a result of constant and massive impact on the national
consciousness, its mentality and values change, which
leads to the destruction of the nation's monolith, the loss of
her identity, and this, in turn, leads to the loss of the nation,
national identity, and consequently to a social catastrophe,
the disappearance of the nation from the political map of
the world. Therefore, due to the protection of public
interests and the social memory of citizens, historical
memory has become a tool that governments use to create
not only a positive image of the government and the state
they govern but also images of the country/countries-
competitors and political opponents, usually negative.
For example, we can confidently say that historical
memory performs a kind of «protective» function,
designed not only to preserve a positive ethnic identity at
the group level but also to contribute to the formation of
national identity.
Moreover, States and authorities create a national identity
around the most important symbolic events and ideas; and
critical situations, the collapse of the state, revolution,
crisis, create an opportunity for the re-identification of
national history. Therefore, political actors in power get a
rare chance to convey their concept of national character to
the public and to exercise the right to lead the nation and
the state into a new era.
Indeed, the Soviet system collapse and the birth of newly
independent States in the post-Soviet space led to the
emergence of new national histories, in which they
claimed a significant part of Russian history and a new
(often diametrically opposite) interpretation of many
historical events (especially the XX century). At the same
time, national histories emphasize the «fundamental
difference» of each given community from all others, to
remove any doubts about the legitimacy of this emerging
nation and its right to exist. For this purpose, the deep
historical roots of the «nation» are actively searched for,
that was lost in the depths of centuries, and the image of
the «negatively significant other» is created. Subsequently,
memory wars begin to be waged against such an enemy,
which results in an informational confrontation.
Historical memory plays a key role in the information war,
as due to the revision of history, memory purposefully
formed distortions of images of the past, which are
actively embedded in the individual and public
consciousness, thereby contributing to a serious
transformation of the spiritual situation in society, causing
spiritual shocks (hatred of the past, rejection of the present,
fear of the future), tangible changes in the sphere of values
(blurring the boundaries between moral and immoral) and
a kind of existential fear. As a result, a person turns from
an active subject of the historical process and political life
into an object of manipulation and a silent victim, thereby
weakening the state's national security. This means that
historical memory is a significant factor not only in
building national identity, but also in ensuring national
security, and the state's past is a real springboard of
information warfare. Therefore, national identity and
historical memory construction is the task of the state.
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4. HISTORICAL MEMORY AND
NATIONAL IDENTITY IN THE CONTEXT
OF HISTORY TEACHING
4.1. Visualizing historical memory
In the research of historical memory, the greatest attention
is paid to the problem of history teaching in schools and
schoolbooks. As for the tasks of historical policy, the
thesis is put forward that school historical education
should contribute to the civil consolidation of society, the
formation of a unified national identity. This approach is
characterized by focusing on significant events related to
the construction of a national patriotic version of history,
the formation of collective historical memory, which is the
basis for self-identification of a person or social group.
Public institutions such as museums are reasonably
considered to be another tool of memory policy.
Museum space is considered as a tool for forming
historical memory, a tool for forming national and regional
identity, and a tool for a tourist project based on the
exploitation of the most popular historical figures. Another
place and tool for the formation of historical memory and
historical policy is a commemoration, which is understood
as the mobilization of memory about a particular specific
object (event, person, historical community).
Commemorations include memorials, monuments, public
holidays, anniversaries, funerals, and so on. As a rule, in
the literature, commemorative practices are considered in
focus, i.e. concerning the practices of memory
mobilization about a particular event (within the concept
of «sites of memory» by P. Nora).
Teaching history plays an important role in shaping the
historical memory of the younger generation, the basis of
national identity, which has a decisive impact on the
development of the country and its viability, especially in
transition periods.
4.2. Strategies to bring historical memory and
national identity to life for students
In teaching history and other Humanities, we offer the
following recommendations:
– the national history development should include the
study of historical, political, and artistic aspects of state
symbols, and the formation of a respectful attitude to it.
– in teaching history in educational institutions various
types, much more time and attention should be paid to
such topics as the great people of national history, the
formation, and development of the state.
– pay special attention in the history lessons at school to
the study of the cultural heritage, historical traditions and
values of your people, as well as other peoples living on
the territory of the country
– during school hours and during extracurricular activities,
students should be encouraged to take an interest in their
family history, drawing up a family tree, and studying
family archives.
– the main sources of information about Russian history
for young people are movies, TV shows on historical
topics and educational literature. It is necessary to make
extensive use of other information sources about the
historical events: fiction and special historical literature,
publications in newspapers and magazines.
– visit museums and historic monuments with your
students.
– local history is of particular importance in the framework
of extracurricular activities. Students should study the past
of their region, city, town, or village, compare it with the
present, and celebrate the success of their country and
people. The study of various historical events reflected in
the environment close to students in this particular field
has a special educational value.
5. CONCLUSION
As the main conclusions, we would like to emphasize that
historical memory has a significant impact on the ethnic
identity of a person, his attitude to himself, to
representatives of his and other ethnic communities and
groups, since it contains information about the history of
his people, their heroes, their experience of relationships
with other peoples, as well as various types of emotional
assessments of certain events. The memory of people's
past strengthens the connection between generations,
individuals in the community. An important role is played
by memories of important events, heroes, ancestors' feats,
and the celebration of the memorable date. The unifying
factor that is concentrated in the memory form we are
considering is information about people overcoming
difficult times and difficulties.
The Russian state is not indifferent to what images of
Russia are formed in the system of general historical
education, and how the history of the Russian state is
presented in history textbooks. Russia is sensitive to
attempts to reinterpret historical events, including the
Soviet past. The relatively stable version of Russian
history that exists in the mass historical consciousness is
considered by state and public institutions as the basis of
national and civil identity. Attempts to rethink aspects of
this version, especially towards key historical events of the
Russian state, in particular the events of the Second world
war and great Patriotic war, are perceived as attempts to
falsify, attempts to «distort», «rewrite» the true story, and
are strictly suppressed by the country legislation.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported by the Transbaikal State
University.
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