I've long been fascinated by history, and have even done some light historiographical reading (primarily about the historiography of "local histories", particularly those produced by non-Historians and/or by WPA historians), but I am not a trained historian, and so have not had the benefit of in-depth historiographical training.
That being said, while reading history, and discussing it with people, as well as discussing related "amateur" topics like genealogy, historic artifact collecting, living history, etc. with others, I have developed a thought over the past few years that, at a certain point, historic memory devolves or, for lack of a better term, becomes "fuzzy" and unrelatable.
I thought about this after reading a lot about historic memory in works like Fitz Brundage's Where These Memories Grow (which includes the assertion "Historical memory . . . transmits selective knowledge about the past...between the willfully recalled and the deliberately forgotten"). In a lot of modern scholarship, memory is treated as something that is intentionally modified and changed to fit each successive generation's political and social motives.
I'm curious, though, as to what research, if any, has been done on the subject of unintentional or passive historical memory changes.
It seems like there's a general boundary in society's historic memory where subjects and facts move from being relatable, tangible, concrete, and knowable, to being foreign, hazy, speculative, and far less "knowable" to general, non-Academic members of society. I by no means think this is an original theory on my part, but if it has been explored before - in fact I wouldn't be surprised if it's an idea that's as old as the Ancients - I just have never seen it set out in a scholarly (or other) work before, and would appreciate if reference could be provided to such.
I've come up with terms that I try to use to explain my "theory" - Tangible/Relatable historical memory, and "Mythic Historical Memory". These might not be the best terms, but I think they effectively convey my point.
"Tangible/Relatable Historical Memory" would include a society's memory of events that are recent enough in the past to involve (a) a socio-economic structure substantially similar to the present era's, (b) actors that are less than five or so generations preceding the current generation, (c) landmarks and artifacts that are still in use, or at least are still present outside of the context of museums and historic parks, and (d) substantial residue of living memory.
"Mythical Historical Memory" would involve the opposite. Essentially, it would be historical memory that is just alien enough, and just distant enough from everyday life, as to make it hazier, and more subject to mythologizing/"folklorization"/popular misconstruction of historic events and people.
For instance, my favorite topic is the U.S. Populist Party. I consider that to, for now, be in the realm of "Tangible/Relatable Historical Memory", because many structures from that era (the 1890's) are present in everyday life, the actors are 4-5 generations back for most Americans, the socio-economic structures are relatively the same (Gilded Age capitalism, though in an agricultural context, versus Modern capitalism, in a service context; tenant farming versus "wage slavery" and debt, etc.), and living memory of that era could be found in persons who were still alive even 50-60 years ago.
Another example, which I think passed some time ago into "Mythical Historic Memory" is the Revolutionary War. I'll leave out the Civil War, because its memory appears to have been so intentionally distorted as to make that a more difficult subject. The Revolution, though, occurred in what was essentially an alien society; relics and landmarks related to it are either (a) not present at all (particularly outside of the East Coast) or (b) are confined to historic parks/districts/museums. There is no recent residue of living memory, and despite the amount of Academic work on the subject, it's a topic that, society-wide, is almost entirely given over to folklore, popular history, and myth. I would dare say most Americans could relate more with a modern British citizen than with a figure from the American revolution.
Anyway, if anyone who has been troubled enough by reading through all of this can point me to works either setting out or thoroughly discrediting this theory, I would appreciate it; also, if anyone believes this is novel (which I sincerely doubt), please feel free to support it or rebut it with your own thoughts.
The field you are referring to is Memory Studies, and it indeed has a long history (though not always by that name). It also takes many forms, from public history to social class systems. A good place to start would be
(1) The Collective Memory Reader, Edited by Jeffrey K. Olick, Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi, and Daniel Levy (Oxford, 2011)
(2) A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies, Edited by Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning (De Grutyer, 2008)
(3) Les Lieux de mémoire by Pierre Nora - translated into English as Realms of Memory (Columbia, 1996-1998). This is an important text in memory studies.
Hope this helps a little. Happy Reading!
In a lot of modern scholarship, memory is treated as something that is intentionally modified and changed to fit each successive generation's political and social motives. I'm curious, though, as to what research, if any, has been done on the subject of unintentional or passive historical memory changes.
Hi there! I saw your x-post on askanthropologists and thought I would stop by over here to comment on the original post. I was intrigued by the quote above, because in my (albeit limited - only have an M.A. level on this) experience this has not strictly been true.
I think in my reading and work there are often examples where we focus on actively altered memory, but almost half of my work on social memory (collective memory if you are a sociologist) has been done on the unintentional.
I trace my intellectual lineage on this through Connerton to Halbwachs.
Halbwachs was the first to really discuss the idea of a shared set of ideas/memories, held in common by a group, culture, society, whatever your chosen nomenclature is. Importantly, he didn't treat it as some monolithic, rigid thing. Each of the holders of a memory will interpret it in his/her own way, though in many senses the memory or idea is common to all of them and there are generalities agreed upon.
All of which is to say, that even back in the Halbwachs era, we were discussing social memory as multivocalic (among and between individuals) as well as contextually grounded.
Halbwachs says of memory: "… [it] is nevertheless a part or an aspect of group memory, since each impression and each fact, even if it apparently concerns a particular person exclusively, leaves a lasting memory only to the extent that one has thought it over- to the extent that it is connected with the thoughts that come from the social milieu."
Halbwachs focuses on the reality of the present in relation to the formation and recollection of memories, both collective and individual. In other words, the ‘truth’ of these memories lay with the actors which recall that memory. Each of us will shape our thoughts of the past through our present day, thereby unintentionally "altering" the memory.
(Parenthetically, the way I am discussing this presumes that there is some detactched and objectively "true" memory, a view which I do not endorse. But for the sake of simplified discussion...)
So I think that even at the dawn of work on social memories, we were discussing unintentional alterations. But I think your point still stands, as much of the work that utilizes these theories (including my own) uses it to discuss "intentional forgetting" or the control over memory being used to an end.
So, both intentional and unintentional alterations of memory are pretty regularly covered.