The subject of the lecture is the emergence of memory-life. I consider the early 1980s to effectively bring the twentieth century to a close. In this time of the collapse of Communism it became obvious that the Utopian experiments, based on continuous, deep state intervention on the macro-sphere, could no longer be sustained. Memory as a discursive frame became available and readily usable for anybody, for millions of people, who lost their future because they lost their past, both in the East and West, and especially in East and Central Europe. By making use of the readily available Memory frame, they managed to find a past under a new description. Memory has emerged as a tool with which to reimagine and represent both individual and collective identity. Instead of analyzing notions of individual or collective memory, I will focus my talk on the emergence of Memory as a discursive and existential frame. I will closely examine the emergence of a specific interactive type, The Survivor, The Living Memorial, who considers it as his or her obligation to bear witness to his or her refashioned, newly found past.

Synopsis

Professor Rev begins by explaining that the 20th century had led to the emergence of the science of memory. Prof. Rev shows how there is an unfortunate and unnecessary line between history and memory when in fact they should complement each other. Aiming to survey the public discourse from the mid-1980s , Prof. Rev begins his story at a time where the after effect of the Vietnam War was deeply pitted in the American psyche, there was serious alarm at the high incidents of child abuse, and fundamental critiques were being made of the typical bourgeois family. He discusses the crucial notion of trauma through the example of the work of Catherine MacKinnon in trying to associate mass rape during the Balkans conflict of the 1990s as genocide due to its attacks on sex and ethnicity. Prof. Rev also explains the intense discussions of the trauma in the section on mass rape of the U.N. archives on humanitarian violence in former Yugoslavia. To Prof. Rev, this along with other historical factors, such as the outbreak of hysteria in France in the 1970s, led to a new kind of memory born from the previously unrecognizable state called trauma and the previously unknown kind of forgetting called repression.

Prof. Rev explores how memories of atrocities are closely connected with traumatic silence, as well as the theory of how trauma can be passed onto others by listening, making trauma an intergenerational experience. The significance of such transmission has led to a belief that the history of events such as the Holocaust is better experienced than understood. Prof. Rev also examines how such historical events really came to light once communism had fallen, and there was a ready made discursive frame for the past to be made sense of. The significance of memory, in particular in Eastern Europe, was that memory was a tool of unmediated access to the past or a source of authenticity after decades of censored, centrally written history. Consequently, issues such as the Holocaust departed from being shameful taboos to a respected identity for the Jewish people. Prof. Rev explains how through memory such an identity could really be formed.

Prof. Rev also analyzes how the fall of the Soviet Union led the liberation of memories through key works such as Alice Miller’s ‘Breaking Down the Wall of Silence.’ Miller links difficult childhoods to the acts of great tyrants such as Hitler and Stalin. Prof. Rev reveals how a tough childhood stunts the growth disabling one reach the full human capacity of being able to feel inclinations such as compassion. He links this with the work of Jeffrey Mason, archivist for Freud’s archives, who emphasized that sexual, physical, and emotional violence is a tragic part of the lives of many children. Mason’s book played a serious role in the recovered memory movement. Prof. Rev brings this all together by expressing that, to him, the Holocaust is a symptom as well as a cause of repressed memories of child abuse.

In a lengthy question-and-answer session, Prof. Rev and the audience raise of a number of points. For example, Prof. Rev further explores the concept of inherited or transgenerational memory. In addition, he reiterates his concern about the clash between historians and memory scientists. Another notable point Prof. Rev addressed among a variety of others was the history of the status accorded to victims and the fraudulent behavior that may be caused by this phenomenon.

About the speaker

Istvan Rev is Professor of History and Political Science at the Central European University, Budapest, where he is also the Academic Director of the Open Society Archive. He has been a visiting faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley on several occasions. Since the early 1980s, Rev has published widely on the political cultural, and architectural history of Hungary and other Eastern bloc countries. He is the author of "Retroactive Justice" (Stanford University Press, 2005). He edited the special issue of Representations on "Monumental Histories"(1991).

Sponsored by Contemporary History and the Future of Memory, a project of the DLCL Research Unit co-sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe.

Over the past century, national elites have used proprietary narratives to justify the breakup of multiethnic societies and legitimize the nation-states that replaced them. Can scholars now redeploy history as a vehicle for promoting mutual recognition and reconciliation? Over the past decade a consortium of historians and social scientists has endeavored to do just that across the newly erected political and cultural frontiers of the former Yugoslavia.

Professor Charles Ingrao discusses the efforts of his organization, the Scholars' Initiative, in trying to provide a common platform for the media and politicians to move forward in dealing with the Yugoslav controversies. Prof. Ingrao emphasizes the need for a long term approach that employs irreproachable scholarly methodology and moves past the 'myths' created with the narratives of newly created nations. He also examines the problems that arise when trying the put together such an inclusive and multinational endeavor.

Synopsis

Professor Ingrao explains that there are several central issues that arise when multi-ethnic nation states are created. He discusses this particularly in reference to the Yugoslavian crisis of the 1990s, the main area of focus for his organization, the Scholars' Initiative. Prof. Ingrao argues that when creating new multi-ethnic nation states in the areas of the former Ottoman and Habsburg empires new narratives are created for the countries. Along with these narratives, certain myths are created that become engrained in the national psyche. The combination of these both, to Prof. Ingrao, tends to cleave these societies and create mutual incompatibility between them. In addition, democratization raises the problem that politicians are compelled, in order to receive voter support, in their respective countries to appeal to national emotions by leaning on such myths which further pits societies against each other. It also creates the sense that one ethnic majority is establishing its superiority of over ethnicities in the region.

How does one solve this? Prof. Ingrao reveals that politicians cannot be relied upon because they are ‘slaves to the ballot box.’ He also indicated that because of the two to three year cycles that U.S. State Department officials operate, they cannot be relied upon to provide long term solutions either. However, to Prof. Ingrao, scholars are supposed to see the ‘bigger picture’ and be able to analyze the causative roots as well as look to the future. Prof. Ingrao discusses how the Scholars’ Initiative brings together scholars from 28 different countries together to form a single, unified narrative of what happened that both exposes the myths and injects what Prof. Ingrao calls inconvenient facts. Prof. Ingrao explains that the revolutionary second aspect is public outreach. Such a narrative can be employed by the media, as well as political leaders who can use this narrative as a common platform to advance in dealing with these issues. Prof. Ingrao highlighted the need for such a report to be transparent, accessible, and inclusive of all scholars who could bring something to the table to satisfy both the scholarly methodology and public demand for the truth. As Prof Ingrao declared, “If we all can fess up...maybe we can start building bridges.”

About the speaker

Charles Ingrao is Professor of History at Purdue University. He has published extensively on early modern and contemporary central European history, and was formerly editor of The Austrian History Yearbook (1997-2006). Since 1995 his work has focused on the destruction of multiethnic central Europe, particularly in the former Yugoslavia. He has been a regular commentator for news media in Europe and North America, including The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. Over the past decade he has directed the Scholars’ Initiative, an international consortium of scholars that has just published Confronting the Yugoslav Controversies, a common narrative of the wars of the 1990s that will serve as the basis for his talk.

Jointly sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.