Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Memory, history and the classical tradition

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 16; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13507480902767644

1469-8293

Frederick Whitling,

Balkans: History, Politics, Society

Abstract 'Memory' is often confused and mistaken for myth; this is in turn connected with the widespread use of mistaking collective mythology and common myth for the idea of a 'collective memory'. This essay discusses memory and history terminology in the context of the generic concept 'classical tradition'. The case study explored here – the nineteenth-century Walhalla 'temple' near Regensburg in Southern Germany – is an attempt to discuss the classical tradition, focusing on archaeology and architecture rather than philology), within the parameters of the memory and history debate in contemporary historiography. The essay aims to develop the position of the iconic and symbolic importance of antiquity and the classical tradition in the memory and history debate as well as in historical writing. The concluding remarks emphasise the necessity of historicising tradition and its genealogies, conceptualised here as a tradition of legacies. Keywords: memory and historyclassical tradition and classical reception Notes 1. Margalit Margalit, A. 2002. The Ethics of Memory, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], The Ethics of Memory, 64–6. Cf. the critical appraisal of Margalit in Winter Winter, J. 2006. Remembering War: The Great War between Memory and History in the 20th Century, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. [Google Scholar], Remembering War. Jan-Werner Müller reminds us that 'all too often, collective memory is simply collapsed into myth, and important conceptual distinctions are lost'. Jan-Werner Müller, in Müller Müller, J.-W. 2002. Memory and Power in Post-war Europe: Studies in the Presence of the Past, Cambridge & New York: Yale University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], Memory and Power in Post-war Europe, 20. According to Jan and Aleida Assmann, myth can be defined as 'remembered history': 'With a developed sense of the shortcomings of both myth and history, they are no longer confronted as antagonistic and mutually exclusive but rather seen as complementary modes of referring to the past'. Assmann Assmann, A. 2001. "History and Memory". In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, Edited by: Smelser, N.J. and Baltes, P.B. Vol. 10, Oxford and New York: Elsevier Science. [Google Scholar], "History and Memory", 6824–5. 2. See for example Stray Stray, C.A. 2001. Curriculum and Style in the Collegiate University: Classics in Nineteenth-Century Oxbridge. History of Universities, 16: 183–218. [Google Scholar], "Curriculum and Style in the Collegiate University." For a slightly more exotic (Swedish) perspective, see Lindberg Lindberg, Bo. 1987. Humanism och vetenskap. 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Dummett Dummett, M. 2004. Truth and the Past, New York: Columbia University Press. [Google Scholar], Truth and the Past, 49–52. In his book (Truth and the Past), Michael Dummett advocates a 'justificationist' rather than a 'verificationist' account of meaning regarding statements about the past, and 'The justificationist theory of meaning takes the meaning of a form of statement to be given by what is needed to establish it as true'. Dummett, Truth and the Past, 51 (for these purposes see particularly chapter 3 'Statements about the Past', 41–55). 19. See for example Nora, "Between memory and history", and Nora Nora, Pierre. 1996. "General Introduction: Between Memory and History". In Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past, Vol. I: Conflicts and Divisions [under the direction of Pierre Nora] Edited by: Kritzman, L.D. New York: Columbia University Press. [Google Scholar], "General Introduction: Between Memory and History". 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[Google Scholar], eds, Deutsche Erinnerungsorte (Vols I–III), see particularly the 'Introduction' (Einleitung) section, 9–24. 24. See Mangos Mangos, S. 2007. A Monumental Mockery: The Construction of the National Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, Berlin: dissertation.de – Verlag im Internet Gmbh. [Google Scholar], A Monumental Mockery. 25. For the concept of Erinnerungsraum, see Assmann Assmann, A. 1999. Erinnerungsräume: Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen Gedächtnisses, Munich: C.H. Beck. [Google Scholar], Erinnerungsräume; Neumann et al. Neumann, B., Albrecht, D. and Talarczyk, A., eds. 2004. Literatur, Grenzen, Erinnerungsräume. Erkundungen des deutsch–polnisch–baltischen Ostseeraums als einer Literaturlandschaft, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. [Google Scholar], eds, Literatur, Grenzen, Erinnerungsräume; and Diefenbach Diefenbach, Steffen. 2007. Römische Erinnerungsräume. Heiligenmemoria Und Kollektive Identitäten Im Rom Des 3. Bis 5. Jahrhunderts N. 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Jürgen Straub brushes off the notion of 'collective identity' as 'scientifically untenable'. Jürgen Straub, in Friese Friese, H., ed. 2002. Identities: Time, Difference, and Boundaries, Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books. [Google Scholar], Identities, 71. I argue that the same applies to 'collective memory'. 30. According to O'Keeffe, 'collected memory is always historical (or narratological) and is always the product of some programme of being-reminded'. O'Keeffe also speaks of 'visual-factual', as opposed to 'sensual-emotional', memories; he also proposes that visual-factual 'elements of collected memory … are not really memories of the event but memories of its mediation'. Opposing the concept of an essentialist 'intuitive collective memory', O'Keeffe argues that 'collected memory is thus "a product of external programming"', and that 'the field of collected memory [was] significantly enlarged [by] the great wars'. He also emphasises the problematic aspect of penetrating the 'strong scent of nostalgia' in dealing with individual recollections. Tadhg O'Keeffe, in Moore and Whelan, Heritage, Memory and the Politics of Identity, 5–7 and 15–16. Akin to the notion of collected memory is Jan Assmann's differentiation of Halbwachs's concept of collective memory into communicative and cultural memory. Assmann Assmann, J. 2008 [1992]. Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen, Munich: C.H. Beck. [Google Scholar], Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. See also Sauter Sauter, Martin. "Memories in Conflict – Conflicting Memories. Reconciling conflicting Cultural Memories." Paper presented at the International Colloquium of Philosophy and the Social Sciences, Institute of Philosophy, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, May 10–14, 2002 [Google Scholar], "Memories in Conflict", 6–8. In this context Sauter discusses connectivity, or connective structures of cultures joining individuals and institutions. Sauter, "Memories in Conflict", 5–6 and 9–10. 31. Avishai Margalit stresses that the issue at hand is to discuss 'what humanity ought to remember rather than what is good for humanity to remember'. Margalit, The Ethics of Memory, 82. 32. Nora, "General Introduction: Between Memory and History", 11. On a contrasting note, Ricoeur emphasises that 'one absolutely cannot speak of a duty of forgetting'. Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, 418. 33. This is related to Luisa Passerini's observation that 'it is the multiplicity and diversity of memories, as well as of languages, that constitute the only privilege of Europe'. Passerini, ed., Memory and Totalitarianism, 18. 34. Jan-Werner Müller, in Müller, Memory and Power in Post-war Europe, 27 and 29–30. Such collective memory analysis would then entail the following steps: 'one first needs to trace the origins of a particular set of collective memories, examine their institutionalisation and then establish an association between certain types of historically derived arguments and the underlying core principles on which foreign policy is based'. Jan-Werner Müller, in Müller, Memory and Power in Post-war Europe, 29. Müller goes on to rule out privatising and 'neutralising' collective memory, as it 'cannot be privatised by definition'. Jan-Werner Müller, in Müller, Memory and Power in Post-war Europe, 32. 35. Jan-Werner Müller, in Müller, Memory and Power in Post-war Europe, 22. 36. Classical tradition and classical reception literature is a vast and continually expanding field; a sample selection will suffice here: the two recent Blackwell anthologies (1) Kallendorf, ed., A Companion to the Classical Tradition; and (2) Hardwick and Stray Hardwick, L. and Stray, C., eds. 2008. A Companion to Classical Receptions, Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. [Google Scholar], eds, A Companion to Classical Receptions; as well as Settis, The Future of the 'Classical'; Dyson Dyson, S.L. 2006. In Pursuit of Ancient Pasts: A History of Classical Archaeology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, New Haven and London: Yale University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], In Pursuit of Ancient Pasts; as well as Haase and Meyer Haase, Wolfgang and Meyer, Reinhold, eds. 1993. The Classical Tradition and the Americas: European Images of the Americas and the Classical Tradition, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter. [Google Scholar], eds, The Classical Tradition and the Americas. The two 'classic' (but dated) accounts in the field are Highet Highet, Gilbert. 1949. The Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman Influences on Western Literature, Oxford: Clarendon Press. [Google Scholar], The Classical Tradition (1949); and Bolgar Bolgar, R.R. 1954. The Classical Heritage and Its Beneficiaries: From the Carolingian Age to the Renaissance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar], The Classical Heritage and its Beneficiaries (1954). On antiquity as cultural heritage, recent publications include Cuno Cuno, J. 2008. Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle over Our Ancient Heritage, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Google Scholar], Who Owns Antiquity?; and Waxman Waxman, S. 2008. Loot: The Battle over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World, New York: Times Books. [Google Scholar], Loot. 37. The legacy of Johann Winckelmann (1717–1768) continues to shape and influence the field of classical archaeology. As librarian to the Cardinal Alessandro Albani and papal antiquary (from 1763), Winckelmann exercised a considerable influence in contemporary savant circles in Rome. His early death elevated him to heroic status, with more influence to follow posthumously. Winckelmann proclaimed Greece the source of Classical art, with smaller expeditions and 'Grand Tourism' following the 'opening of Greece' in the 1830s. Cf. Dyson, In Pursuit of Ancient Pasts, 2. 38. This commission was contemporary with the King's decision to move the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität from Landshut to Munich in 1826. The monumental stairs leading up to the Walhalla incidentally bear a striking resemblance to the terraces and ramps at the temple complex of the Ancient Roman sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia at Praeneste (Palestrina), near Rome. 39. Individuals who have been dead at least 20 years are eligible for inclusion. Among the 12 commemorated women we find Amalie Elisabeth (Countess of Hesse-Kassel); Karolina Gerhardinger (founder of the School of Sisters of Notre Dame); Catherine II of Russia; Maria Theresia (Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary); Sophie Scholl; Elisabeth of Hungary (Saint and Princess); Hildegard von Bingen; Mechthilde (Saint); Veleda (Prophetess during the Batavian rebellion of AD 69–70) and Edith Stein (Philosopher and Saint). For more information and a comprehensive list of the commemorated persons and events, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walhalla_temple; and http://www.walhalla-regensburg.de/deutsch/literatur.shtml. 40. Cf. Dyson, In Pursuit of Ancient Pasts, 135. Dyson discusses the discovery and acquisition of the Aegina marbles in the context of the emergence of the 'Great Museums' and the contemporary interest in acquiring Greek art. King Ludwig I arranged his purchases through his agent, Johann Martin von Wagner (1777–1858). Dyson, In Pursuit of Ancient Pasts, 133–5. See also Friedell Friedell, E. 1927–1931. A Cultural History of the Modern Age: The Crisis of the European Soul from the Black Death to the World War, 3 vols, New York and London: A.A. Knopf. [Google Scholar], A Cultural History of the Modern Age, particularly Vol. III. Friedell was sadly never to complete his two-volume cultural history of antiquity (Kulturgeschichte des Altertums – published posthumously) before his suicide in Vienna following the Anschluss in 1938. 41. Friedrich Nietzsche Nietzsche, F. 1909. "Homer and Classical Philology". In The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Edited by: Levy, O. Vol. 6, Edinburgh and London: T.N. Foulis. [Google Scholar], the great German Philhellene, believed in 'the unutterable simplicity and noble dignity of the Hellene'; based on this he spoke of the 'ideal antiquity' (as opposed to the 'real') as 'the magnificent blossoming of the Teutonic longing for the south' (in 'Homer and Classical Philology', the inaugural lecture delivered at the University of Basel (Bâle), May 28, 1869 – see Nietsche (ed. Levy), The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Vol. 6). Nietzsche also saw the coexistence of multiple antiquities; even though to him classical antiquity constituted one integral, and essentially superior, world – in the same lecture (in discussing the aesthetical dimension of Philology), he argued that 'from various antiquities at our disposal, it [Philology] endeavours to pick out the so-called "classical" antiquity, with the view and the pretension of excavating the ideal world buried under it, and to hold up to the present the mirror of the classical and everlasting standards'. See also Bishop Bishop, P., ed. 2004. Nietzsche and Antiquity: His Reaction and Response to the Classical Tradition. Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture, Rochester, NY: Camden House. [Google Scholar], Nietzsche and Antiquity. For German fascination with ancient Greece and German philhellenism, see for example Butler Butler, E.M. 1958 [1935]. The Tyranny of Greece over Germany: A Study of the Influence Exercised by Greek Art and Poetry over the Great German Writers of the Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Boston: Beacon Press. [Google Scholar], The Tyranny of Greece over Germany; and Breger Breger, Claudia. 2006. Gods, German Scholars, and the Gift of Greece. Friedrich Kittler's Philhellenic Fantasies. Theory, Culture & Society, 23(7–8): 111–34. [Google Scholar], "Gods, German Scholars, and the Gift of Greece", where Breger discusses 'the legacy of German philhellenism, which articulated national identities through the theme of 'elective affinity'. [Friedrich] Kittler's Greece occupies the very structural place it had in nineteenth-century German philhellenism: 'It stands in for both the foundation of European civilization and its virtual better self, a realm of sensual culture untainted by modern capitalism and Empire'. 42. The London Convention explicitly stated that the crowns of Greece and Bavaria would in no case be joined, a clause undoubtedly of importance to the Great Powers (Britain, France and Russia). These interests were largely ensured by British Foreign Secretary Viscount Palmerston in collaboration with French and Russian diplomats. 43. For the role of classicism and classical archaeology in Greek nineteenth-century nation-building, see Dyson, In Pursuit of Ancient Pasts, 72–3. Ludwig ensured that his son would be assisted by the foremost neoclassical architects Bavaria could muster. Cf. Dyson, In Pursuit of Ancient Pasts, 75–6. 44. Dyson, In Pursuit of Ancient Pasts, 65. Dyson continues: 'This was the Greece of Friedrich Hölderlin, who, never having seen it, went mad dreaming of a pure Hellas, or of Lord Byron, who died at Messalonghi, where he was fighting in a Balkan war whose brutality and ambiguity had alienated more-worldly diplomats'. Dyson, In Pursuit of Ancient Pasts, 66. 45. Settis, The Future of the 'Classical', 69. According to Settis, the declining importance of classical studies in European education curricula, and in culture in general, is to be perceived as a profound cultural shift; two distinct definitions of classicism require acknowledgement and identification in order to answer the question of what the 'classical' is: namely (1) the uniform and unchallengeable, and (2) the multiform and changing classicism. The concept of the 'classical' cannot be fully understood without recognising its static character; it does not function without the 'dynamism of nostalgia or repetition'. Settis, The Future of the 'Classical', 15–16. 46. The debate following the publication of Black Athena continues to this day. Criticism of the book was based on accusations of poor scholarship and ideological agendas. See also Lefkowitz and Maclean Rogers Lefkowitz, M.R. and Maclean Rogers, G., eds. 1996. Black Athena Revisited, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. [Google Scholar], eds. Black Athena Revisited; Bernal Bernal, M. 2001. Black Athena Writes Back: Martin Bernal Responds to His Critics, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], Black Athena Writes Back; Berlinerblau Berlinerblau, J. 1999. Heresy in the University: The Black Athena Controversy and the Responsibilities of American Intellectuals, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. [Google Scholar], Heresy in the University; Said Said, E.W. 1978. Orientalism, New York: Pantheon Books. [Google Scholar], Orientalism; and Burkert Burkert, W. 1992. The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Google Scholar], The Orientalizing Revolution. 47. Jan-Werner Müller, in Müller, Memory and Power in Post-war Europe, 24. 48. 'Ohne solches Vergessen wäre Geschichte wohl ebensowenig vorstellbar wie ohne Erinnerung'. Hölscher Hölscher, Lucian. 1989. Geschichte und Vergessen. Historische Zeitschrift, 249: 1–17. [Google Scholar], "Geschichte und Vergessen," 14–15. 49. In a multicultural reality the binary logic of 'self' in relation to 'Other' is undermined, with the self becoming increasingly hard to define. Cf. Heidrun Friese, in Friese, Identities, 3–4; see also Theunissen Theunissen, M. 1984. The Other: Studies in the Social Ontology of Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre and Buber, Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press. [Google Scholar], The Other; as well as Appiah Appiah, K.A. 2007. Cosmopolitanism. Ethics in a World of Strangers, New York & London: W.W. 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Social Text, 16(4): 103–25. [Google Scholar], "The Remembering of Forgetting." 51. Assmann, "Memory, Individual and Collective," 279. Cf. Nietzsche: 'Was nicht aufhört wehzutun, bleibt im Gedächtnis. Das ist das Gesetz der ältesten kulturellen Mnemotechnik.' Nietzsche Nietzsche, F. 1960. Zur Genealogie der Moral. Werke in drei Bänden, Edited by: Schlechta, K. Munich: Carl Hanser. [Google Scholar] (ed. Schlechta), Zur Genealogie der Moral, 802. Nietzsche also stressed the necessity of forgetting in order to live at all: 'Es ist möglich, fast ohne Erinnerung zu leben, wie das Tier zeigt; es ist aber ganz und gar unmöglich, ohne Vergessen überhaupt zu leben'. Nietzsche Nietzsche, F. 1957. The Use and Abuse of History, New York: Prentice Hall. [Jenseits von Gut und Böse, 1872] [Google Scholar], from The Use and Abuse of History, in Hölscher, "Geschichte und Vergessen", 4. See also White, Metahistory, 347 (regarding The Use and Abuse of History): 'Nietzsche believed that human forgetting is quite different from animal oblivion'…, and 'often spoke as if man's ability to act hinges upon … the peculiarly human impulse to forget, which is an act of will'. 52. Sturken Sturken, M. 1997. Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering, Berkeley, CA and London: University of California Press. [Google Scholar], Tangled Memories, 5. See also Magnus Rodell, "Monuments as the Places of Memory," in Kitzmann et al. Kitzmann, A., Mithander, C. and Sundholm, J. 2005. Memory Work: The Theory and Practice of Memory, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. [Google Scholar], Memory Work, 106–7. 53. See for example Assmann, "History and Memory", 6826. Nietzsche used the metaphor of the 'horizon of memory', separating the known from the unknown and the relevant from the irrelevant in a process of exclusion. Nietzsche, The Use and Abuse of History, see also Assmann, "Memory, Individual and Collective," 217. In discussing 'mnemohistory [or] the reception history of history', and 'new affinities between memory and history', Assmann points out that 'the term history is a collective singular; to this concept corresponded the idea of history as a universal memory of mankind. To say that history is universal memory may [however] be another way of saying that it is indifferent to memory.' Memory thus becomes 'the other of history because collective memory tends to bridge past and future, creating a usable past for a changing present'. Assmann, "History and Memory", 6827–8. 54. Reinhart Koselleck's 'veto right of sources' ('Vetorecht der Quellen') is relevant in this context, as historical representation and interpretation arguably has to be compatible with all types of sources. Cf. Hölscher, "Geschichte und Vergessen", 7. 55. Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, 500. 56. Settis, The Future of the 'Classical', 100.