Collective Memory and Cultural Identity Author(S): Jan Assmann and John Czaplicka Source: New German Critique, No

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Collective Memory and Cultural Identity Author(s): Jan Assmann and John Czaplicka Source: New German Critique, No. 65, Cultural History/Cultural Studies (Spring - Summer, 1995), pp. 125-133 Published by: New German Critique Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/488538 . Accessed: 25/01/2014 17:09

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JanAssmann

Problemand Program In thethird decade of thiscentury, the sociologist Maurice Halbwachs and theart historian Aby Warburgindependently developed' two theories of a "collective"or "social memory."Their otherwise fundamen- tallydifferent approaches meet in a decisivedismissal of numerousturn- of-the-centuryattempts to conceivecollective memory in biological termsas an inheritableor "racialmemory,"2 a tendency which would stillobtain, for instance, in C. G. Jung'stheory of archetypes.3Instead, bothWarburg and Halbwachsshift the discourse concerning collective knowledgeout of a biologicalframework into a culturalone. The specificcharacter that a personderives from belonging to a dis- tinctsociety and cultureis notseen to maintainitself for generations as a resultof phylogeneticevolution, but rather as a resultof socialization and customs.The "survivalof the type"in the sense of a cultural

* Thistext was originallypublished in Kultur und Gediichtnis, eds. JanAssmann and TonioH61scher (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1988) 9-19. 1. Warburghowever quotes Durkheim in his Kreuzlinger Lecture of 1923in which theconcept of "socialmemory" appears in his workfor the first time. Cf. RolandKany, Mnemosyneals Programm:Geschichte, Erinnerung und die Andacht zum Unbedeutenden im Werkvon Usener,Warburg und Benjamin (Tiibingen: Niemeyer, 1987). H. Ritterhas informedme thataccording to unpublishednotes, Fritz Saxl had referredWarburg to the workof Maurice Halbwachs. 2. ErnestH. Gombrich,Aby Warburg:An IntellectualBiography (London: The WarburgInstitute, 1970) 323ff. 3. Warburg'smost important source for his own theoryof memorywas Richard Semon.See RichardSemon, Die Mnemeals erhaltendesPrinzip im Wechseldes organis- chenGeschehens (Leipzig: Engelmann, 1920).

125

This content downloaded from 160.39.150.173 on Sat, 25 Jan 2014 17:09:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 126 CollectiveMemory and Cultural Identity pseudo-species4is a functionof the culturalmemory. According to Nietzsche,while in the worldof animalsgenetic programs guarantee the survivalof the species,humans must find a meansby whichto maintaintheir nature consistently through generations. The solutionto thisproblem is offeredby culturalmemory, a collectiveconcept for all knowledgethat directs behavior and experience in theinteractive frame- workof a societyand one thatobtains through generations in repeated societalpractice and initiation. We5define the concept of culturalmemory through a doubledelimita- tionthat distinguishes it: 1. fromwhat we call "communicative"or "everydaymemory," which in thenarrower sense of our usage lacks "cultural" characteristics; 2. fromscience, which does nothave thecharacteristics of memory as it relatesto a collectiveself-image. For thesake of brevity,we will leave aside thissecond delimitation which Halbwachs developed as the distinctionbetween memory and history and limitourselves to thefirst: thedistinction between communicative and cultural memory.

CommunicativeMemory For us theconcept of "communicativememory" includes those varieties of collectivememory that are based exclusively on everydaycommu- nications.These varieties,which M. Halbwachsgathered and analyzed underthe concept of collectivememory, constitute the field of oralhis- tory.6Everyday communication is characterized by a highdegree of non- specialization,reciprocity of roles,thematic instability, and disorganiza- tion.7Typically, it takesplace betweenpartners who can changeroles. Whoeverrelates a joke, a memory,a bit of gossip,or an experience

4. Erik Erikson,"Ontogeny of Ritualization,"PUB. INFO London(1965):21; Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt,Krieg und Friedenaus der Sicht der Verhaltensforschung (Munich:Piper, 1984). 5. The use ofthe plural refers to theco-authorship ofAleida Assmann in thefor- mulationof theseideas. See Aleidaand JanAssmann, Schrift und Geddchtnis: Beitrdge zurArchdiologie der literarischen Kommunikation (Munich: Fink, 1987). 6. MauriceHalbwachs, Das Geddchtnisund seine sozialen Bedingungen (Frank- furt/Main:Suhrkamp, 1985); and Maurice Halbwachs, La memoirecollective, ed. J.Alex- andre(Paris: PU de France,1950). 7. Of course,everyday communication is found in non-reciprocalrole constella- tionssuch as medicalanamnesis, confession, interrogation, examination, instruction, etc. But such"habits of speech"(Seibert) already demonstrate a higher degree of culturalfor- mationand constitute a stage of transition between everyday and cultural communication.

This content downloaded from 160.39.150.173 on Sat, 25 Jan 2014 17:09:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions JanAssman 127 becomesthe listenerin the nextmoment. There are occasionswhich more or less predeterminesuch communications,for example train rides,waiting rooms, or thecommon table; and thereare rules- "laws of themarket"8 - thatregulate this exchange. There is a "household"9 withinthe confinesof which this communicationtakes place. Yet beyondthis reigns a highdegree of formlessness,willfulness, and disor- ganization.Through this mannerof communication,each individual composesa memorywhich, as Halbwachshas shown,is (a) socially mediatedand (b) relatesto a group.Every individual memory consti- tutesitself in communicationwith others. These "others,"however, are notjust any set of people,rather they are groupswho conceivetheir unityand peculiaritythrough a commonimage of theirpast. Halbwachs thinksof families,neighborhood and professionalgroups, political par- ties, associations,etc., up to and includingnations. Every individual belongsto numeroussuch groups and therefore entertains numerous collectiveself-images and memories. Throughthe practice of oral history,we have gaineda moreprecise insightinto the peculiarqualities of thiseveryday form of collective memory,which, with L. Niethammer,we will call communicativememory.Its mostimportant characteristic is its limited temporal horizon. As all oral historystudies suggest, this horizon does notextend more than eightyto (at the verymost) one hundredyears into the past, which equals threeor fourgenerations or theLatin saeculum.10 This horizon shiftsin directrelation to thepassing of time.The communicativemem- oryoffers no fixedpoint which would bind it to theever expanding past in thepassing of time.Such fixitycan onlybe achievedthrough a culturalformation and therefore lies outside of informal everyday memory.

8. PierreBourdieu, Esquisse d'une thdorie de la pratique.Prgcide de trois tudes d'ethnologiekabyle (Geneve: Droz, 1972). 9. In his work,the sociologist Thomas Luckmann speaks of the"communicative household"of a society. 10. Accordingto T. Hl1scher,that corresponds exactly to thetimespan treated by Herodotus.Tacitus expressly noted in Annals III 75 thedeath of the last witnesses of the republicin theyear AD 22; cf.Cancik-Lindemeier in A. andJ. Assmann. As to themean- ingof saeculumas themaximal life span of those who remember a generation, see Glad- igow,"Aetas, aevumand saeclorumordo. Zur Strukturzeitlicher Deutungssysteme," Apocalypticismin theMediterranean World and theNear East, ed. D. Hellholm(Tilbin- gen:Mohr, 1983).

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Transition Once we removeourselves from the area of everydaycommunication and enter into the area of objectivizedculture, almost everything changes.The transitionis so fundamentalthat one mustask whether themetaphor of memoryremains in anyway applicable.Halbwachs, as is well known,stopped at thisjuncture, without taking it intoaccount systematically.1He probablythought that once livingcommunication cristallizedin the formsof objectivizedculture - whetherin texts, images,rites, buildings, monuments, cities, or evenlandscapes12 - the grouprelationship and the contemporaryreference are lost and there- forethe character of thisknowledge as a memoirecollective disappears as well."MWmoire" is transformed into "histoire." 13 Our thesiscontradicts this assumption. For in thecontext of objectivized cultureand of organizedor ceremonialcommunication, a close con- nectionto groupsand their identity exists which is similarto thatfound in thecase of everydaymemory. We can referto thestructure of knowledge in thiscase as the "concretionof identity."With this we mean thata groupbases its consciousnessof unityand specificityupon this knowledgeand derivesformative and normative impulses from it, which allows thegroup to reproduceits identity. In thissense, objectivized culture has the structureof memory.Only in historicism,as Nietzscheperceptively and clairvoyantlyremarked in "On theAdvantage and Disadvantageof Historyfor Life,"l14 does this structure begin to dissolve.15

The CulturalMemory Justas the communicativememory is characterizedby its proximity

11. Halbwachsdealt with the phenomena beyond this border. Maurice Halbwachs, La topographielIgendaire des Evangilesen TerreSainte; etude de memoirecollective (Paris:PU de France,1941). There, he presentsPalestine as a commemorativelandscape thattransforms through the centuries. In Palestine,change in the image of the past follows theologicalpositions that are made concrete in the construction ofmonuments. 12. The classicalexample for a primarilytopographically organized cultural mem- oryis thatof theAustralian Aborigines with their attachment to certainsacred sites. Cf. Cancikin A. andJ. Assman, and Halbwachs, La topographielIgendaire for other exam- plesof sacredor commemorativelandscapes. 13. FriedrichOverbeck, Christentum und Kultur (Basel, 1963) 20ff.and similarly Halbwachs,La topographielegendaire 261ff. treat such a transformationunder the rubric of falsificationand in theconceptual framework ofprimeval history and theology. 14. FriedrichNietzsche, Werke, vol. 3, ed. K. Schlechta(Munich: Hanser, 1964). 15. Cf. AleidaAssmann, "Die Onfiihigkeitzu vergessen: derHistorismus und die Krisedes kulturellenGedfichtnisses," A. and J. Assmann.

This content downloaded from 160.39.150.173 on Sat, 25 Jan 2014 17:09:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions JanAssman 129 to the everyday,cultural memory is characterizedby its distancefrom theeveryday. Distance from the everyday (transcendence) marks its tem- poralhorizon. Cultural memory has its fixedpoint; its horizon does not changewith the passing of time.These fixed points are fatefulevents of thepast, whose memory is maintainedthrough cultural formation (texts, rites,monuments) and institutionalcommunication (recitation, practice, observance).We call these"figures of memory."The entireJewish cal- endaris based on figuresof memory.16In theflow of everydaycommu- nicationssuch festivals,rites, epics, poems, images, etc., form "islands of time,"islands of a completelydifferent temporality suspended from time.In culturalmemory, such islandsof timeexpand into memory spaces of "retrospectivecontemplativeness" [retrospective Besonnen- heit].This expressionstems from Aby Warburg.He ascribeda typeof "mnemonicenergy" to theobjectivation of culture,pointing not only to worksof highart, but also to posters,postage stamps, costumes, customs,etc. In culturalformation, a collectiveexperience crystallizes, whose meaning,when touched upon, may suddenly become accessible again acrossmillennia. In his large-scaleproject Mnemosyne, Warburg wantedto reconstructthis pictorialmemory of Westerncivilization. Thatof courseis notour problem; our inquiry is moregeneral. But we are indebtedto Warburgfor emphaticallydirecting attention to the powerof culturalobjectivation in thestabilizing of culturalmemory in certainsituations for thousands of years. Yet just as Halbwachsin his treatmentof themnemonic functions of objectivizedculture, Warburg does notdevelop the sociological aspects of his pictorialmemory. Halbwachs thematizes the nexus between memoryand group,Warburg the one betweenmemory and thelanguage of culturalforms. Our theoryof culturalmemory attempts to relateall threepoles - memory(the contemporized past), culture, and thegroup (society)- to each other.We wantto stressthe following characteris- ticsof cultural memory:

16. Halbwachsdesignated it as theobject of religion to maintainthe remembrance ofa timelong past through the ages and without allowing it to be corruptedby intervening memories.Halbwachs, Das Gediichtnis261. The sharpnessof thisformulation, however, onlyapplies to theJewish religion, which Halbwachs as an assimilatedJew did nottreat andhardly even mentions. For the problem of Jewish remembrance see YosefYerushalmi, Zachor,Jewish History and Jewish Memory (Seattle: U ofWashington P, 1982),and Willy Schottroff,Gedenken im alten Orient und im Alten Testament (Neukirchen: Neukirchner Verlagdes Erziehungsvereins,1964).

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1) "The concretionof identity"or the relationto the group.Cultural memorypreserves the store of knowledgefrom which a groupderives an awarenessof itsunity and peculiarity.The objectivemanifestations of culturalmemory are definedthrough a kindof identificatorydeter- minationin a positive("We are this")or in a negative("That's our opposite")sense.17 Throughsuch a concretionof identityevolves what Nietzsche has called the "constitutionof horizons."The supplyof knowledgein the culturalmemory is characterizedby sharpdistinctions made between thosewho belongand thosewho do not,i.e., betweenwhat appertains to oneselfand what is foreign.Access to andtransmission of thisknowledge are not controlledby whatBlumenberg calls "theoreticalcurios- ity,"but rather by a "needfor identity" as describedby Hans Mol.18 Connectedwith this is 2) its capacityto reconstruct.No memorycan preservethe past. What remainsis onlythat "which society in eachera can reconstructwithin its contemporaryframe of reference."19Cultural memory works by recon- structing,that is, it alwaysrelates its knowledge to an actualand contem- porarysituation. True, it is fixedin immovablefigures of memoryand storesof knowledge,but every contemporary context relates to thesedif- ferently,sometimes by appropriation,sometimes by criticism,sometimes by preservationor by transformation.Cultural memory exists in two modes:first in themode of potentiality of the archive whose accumulated texts,images, and rulesof conductact as a totalhorizon, and secondin themode of actuality,whereby each contemporary context puts the objec- tivizedmeaning into its own perspective, giving it its own relevance. 3) Formation.The objectivationor crystallizationof communicated meaningand collectivelyshared knowledge is a prerequisiteof its transmissionin the culturallyinstitutionalized heritage of a society.20

17. The inevitableegoism of cultural memory that derives from the "need for identity"(Hans Mol) takeson dangerousforms, if the representations ofalterity, in theirrela- tionto the representations ofidentity (self-images), become images of an enemy.Cf. Hans Mol,Identity and theSacred (Oxford: Blackwell, 1976); Gladigow; and Eibl-Eibesfeldt. 18. Mol. 19. Halbwachs,Das Geddchtnis. 20. Forthe problem of the stability of cultural meanings see EricHavelock, Preface to Plato (Cambridge:Belknap, Harvard UP, 1963),where he speaksof "preservedcom- munication"as wellas A. andJ. Assmann, 265-84. For the technology of conservation and itsintellectual implications see J.Goody, La logiquede l'criture:aux originesdes soci- etis humaines(Paris: A. Colin,1986).

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"Stable" formationis notdependent on a singlemedium such as writing. Pictorialimages and ritualscan also functionin the same way. One can speak of linguistic,pictorial, or ritualformation and thus arrivesat thetrinity of theGreek mysteries: legomenon, dromenon, and deiknymenon.As faras languageis concerned,formation takes place long beforethe invention of writing.The distinctionbetween the communicativememory and thecultural memory is not identicalwith the distinctionbetween oral and written language. 4) Organization.With this we meana) the institutionalbuttressing of communication,e.g., throughformulization of the communicative situa- tion in ceremonyand b) the specializationof the bearersof cultural memory.The distributionand structureof participationin thecommuni- cativememory are diffuse.No specialistsexist in thisregard. Cultural memory,by contrast,always depends on a specializedpractice, a kind of "cultivation."21In specialcases of writtencultures with canonized texts,such cultivationcan expandenormously and becomeextremely differentiated.22 5) Obligation.The relationto a normativeself-image of the group engendersa clear systemof values and differentiationsin importance which structurethe culturalsupply of knowledgeand the symbols. Thereare importantand unimportant,central and peripheral,local and interlocalsymbols, depending on how theyfunction in theproduction, representation,and reproductionof thisself-image. Historicism is posi- tionedfirmly against this perspectival evaluation of a heritage,which is centeredon culturalidentity: The particlea"v and theentelechy of Aristotle,the sacred grottos of Apollo and of theidol Besas,the song of Sapphoand thesermon of the sacredThekla, the metric of Pindarand thealtar of Pompeii,the frag- mentsof theDipylon vases and thebaths of Caracalla,the deeds of the divineAugustus, the conic sectionsof Apolloniusand the astrologyof Petosiris:everything is a partof philologybecause it all belongsto the subjectthat you want to understand, und you cannot leave anything out.23

21. In thisconnection, Niklas Luhmann refers to "cultivatedsemantics." Niklas . Luhmann,Gesellschaftsstruktur undSemantik (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1980). 22. We distinguishin thisbetween three dimensions: the cultivation of text, i.e., the observationof word by wordtransmission; the cultivation of meaning,i.e., the culture of explication,exegesis, hermeneutics, and commentary; and mediation, i.e., the retranslation oftext into life through the institutions ofeducation, upbringing, and initiation. 23. Wilamowitz,quoted in WernerJaeger, Humanistische Reden und Vortrdge (Ber- lin:De Gruyter,1960) 1-2.

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As is well known,there has been no lack of counter-movements againstthe relativism of sucha value-freescience (M. Weber).In the name of "life,"Nietzsche opposed the dissolution of thehorizons and perspectivesof historicalknowledge through the historical sciences. W. Jaegerand otherneo-humanists opposed it in the name of education. To add a relativelyrecent voice of protestto thislist, we quoteAlex- anderRiistows monumental work, Ortsbestimmung der Gegenwart,a plea forthe "humanistic standpoint":

- Ifyou leave it (that standpoint, J.Cz.), then the history ofthe Boto- cudo,the Zulucafer, orany other people is just as interesting,justas important,just as directlylinked to God, and we findourselves in the midstof an aimless relativism.24

The bindingcharacter of theknowledge preserved in culturalmemory has two aspects:the formative one in its educative,civilizing, and humanizingfunctions and thenormative one in its functionof provid- ingrules of conduct. 6) Reflexivity.Cultural memory is reflexivein three ways: a) it is practice-reflexivein that it interpretscommon practice in terms throughproverbs, maxims, "ethno-theories," to use Bourdieu'sterm, rit- uals (forinstance, sacrificial rites that interpret the practice of hunting), andso on. b) It is self-reflexiveinthat its draws on itselfto explain,distinguish, rein- terpret,criticize, censure, control, surpass, and receive hypoleptically.25 c) It is reflexiveof itsown imageinsofar as it reflectsthe self-image of thegroup through a preoccupation with its own social system.26 The conceptof culturalmemory comprises that body of reusable texts,images, and ritualsspecific to each societyin each epoch,whose "cultivation"serves to stabilizeand conveythat society's self-image. Upon suchcollective knowledge, for the most part (but not exclusively) ofthe past, each group bases its awareness of unity and particularity. The contentof suchknowledge varies from culture to cultureas well

24. AlexanderRiistow, Ortsbestimmung der Gegenwart;eine universalgeschichtli- che Kulturkritik(Zurich: E. Rentsch,1952) 12. 25. Aboutthis concept cf. Identitdt,ed. Odo Marquardandand KarlheinzStierle (Munich:Fink, 1979) 358: "About relateto that which the has lrnytt: previousspeaker said; compareJ. Ritter,Metaphysik und Politik - Studienzu Aristotelesund Hegel (Frankfurt\Main1969), esp. p. 64,p. 66." 26. NiklasLuhmann, Soziologische Aufkldrung (K61ln: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1975).

This content downloaded from 160.39.150.173 on Sat, 25 Jan 2014 17:09:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions JanAssman 133 as fromepoch to epoch.The mannerof itsorganization, its media,and its institutions,are also highlyvariable. The bindingand reflexive characterof a heritagecan displayvarying intensities and appear in variousaggregations. One societybases its self-imageon a canon of sacred scripture,the nexton a basic set of ritualactivities, and the thirdon a fixedand hieraticlanguage of formsin a canonof architec- turaland artistictypes. The basic attitudetoward history, the past, and thus the functionof rememberingitself introduces another variable. One groupremembers the past in fearof deviatingfrom its model,the nextfor fear of repeatingthe past: "Those who cannotremember their past are condemnedto reliveit."27 The basic opennessof thesevari- ables lendsthe question of therelation between culture and memorya cultural-topologicalinterest. Through its culturalheritage a society becomesvisible to itselfand to others.Which past becomes evident in thatheritage and whichvalues emergein its identificatoryappropria- tiontells us muchabout the constitution and tendencies of a society.

Translatedby John Czaplicka

27. GeorgeSantayana. Aleida Assmann is thesource of this citation.

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