Memory has been promoted to the center of history…
Pierre Nora^[1]

In 2004, Ab Imperio explores a concept which has recently been actively utilized by researchers of “nations and nationalism”. At the same time, this concept has found little application in the study of empire. The concept in question is “historical memory”; AI’s editors suggest exploring its potential for the development of “new imperial history”, which implies investigating the dynamics of conflicting images of the past and their co-existence within the symbolic space of the multinational empires and their societies. Memory as a concept for historical study emerged in the context of the modern European nation state and redefined principles upon which the national historical narratives are built. Can memory become a key to our understanding of the mechanisms of a heterogeneous and multinational imperial space? What happens to memory in an empire, where diverse constituent peoples have multiple and alternative visions of the past? Does memory suppress, synthesize, or creates a hierarchy of these visions? Alternatively, in an imperial context , do multiple and competing “memories” exist in opposition to the imperial “state-centered” historical narrative? Is the “modern” concept of memory at all necessary for the interpretation of “archaic” empire? Finally, can an empire have“memory” and can “memory” have imperial history?

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The emergence of modern historical scholarship in the XIX century was accompanied by the emergence of its irreconcilable opponents among scholars in social sciences and humanities. A range of influential opponents can be named, from Emile Durkheim to Pierre Nora, and certainly not only in France. Sociologists, philologists, anthropologists, psychologists and philosophers criticized different “histories” and did so from diverse perspectives. Yet, however great the differences between quantitative history and the Romantic historiography of the mid-XIX century or between microhistory and traditional political history, many of the fundamental principles of the historiography discipline remain unchanged: history as a scholarly enterprise remains a system of procedures and rules for interpreting past events and circumstances. These procedures and rules, moreover, are implemented selectively and are corrected depending on the studied Chronotopos (time and space). It is this particular quality of the “science of man in time” (Marc Bloch) to erect hierarchies of sources and methods, and to adapt them to given historical circumstances that triggers the main sources of criticisms. Compared to sociological perspectives, history is unscientific in its stress on each event’s uniqueness, leaving no room for unveiling the law of the typical and the universal. At the same time, history is often reproached for taking an anti-humanistic approach and for lacking trust in the vitality and immediateness of human experience. This is accused of creating redundant formal procedures and expertise in the human experience of the past and the perception of the contemporary observer. Paradoxically, Durkheim and Nora could have agreed in refusing to accept the extreme heterogeneity of the internal space of historical perspective. For the former, the problem would have been the diversity of the historical “image”. For the latter, the lack of transparency in the diachronic aspect of historians’ interpretation and the impossibility to perceive today events of the past through the eyes of immediate witnesses without corrections that takes into account “the noise of time” (historically predetermined specifics of perception in the past, disturbances that accompany the transmission of information, amendments to the language of the “modern” man, etc.). Sociology would have made history a “science” by reducing references to specific location to a variable, whereas studies of memory brings history closer to the humans involved by removing (or “contextualizing”) the unique conditions of time and place or by turning them into a mere function of chronological markers. Eliminating the internal complexity and multidimensionality of the historical space makes “history redundant”. It appears, then, that the study of “memory” is not just a regular inoculation of the body of historical science, similar to quantitative history, linguistic or anthropological “turns”, or gender history, but rather addresses memory directly, challenging the conventions and norms of history as an institution designed to interact with past realities. For history as a discipline, “memory” is just a source to be deconstructed. From the point of view of memory’s proponents, “history is always suspicious of memory and its true mission is to suppress and annihilate the latter”.^[2] In order to survive, “memory” must itself destroy “history”.
In contrast to this theoretically postulated opposition between history and memory, in reality we observe a different process: despite the destructive potential of memory with respect to history as a “science”, contemporary historians take possession of memory as a means of analyzing the past. In doing so, they adapt the concept of memory to their own goals and tasks, and create contradictory explanations of the phenomenon of “memory” as a historical concept. On the one hand, memory emerged as a sphere of intimate or generational cognitive experiences, as a focus of the communication of representatives of one generation: “the war between generations”, “the generation of the repressed”, “the Sixties generation”, “the migrant generation”, “the perestroika generation”, etc. Often varied (because based on personal experience) and often reproduced in oral form, such memory is opposed to normative written history. The latter – official, fixated “cultural memory” (J. Assman) – pretends to reflect the universal experience of the entire community. This approach is especially relevant in the cultural context of the “Soviet empire” and the former USSR. Here, official history was a narrative decreed from above and subjugated to the dominant official ideology. People’s wide range of attitudes in the post-Soviet era to history can be expressed in one sentence, “they lied to us.” Memory appears as an authentic historical experience which tells the truth and which is as close as possible to the human reality. Memory-based studies do not reveal the official ideology or high politics; they rather uncover the everyday experience of regular (and not so regular) people. In the post-Soviet situation, memory becomes not just an alternative to the “science of history,” it comes to the fore as “true history” itself.
On the other hand, memory is undoubtedly a result of the process, through which the image of the past is constructed and permanently (re)interpreted, even if this construction and (re)interpretation does not take place on the pages of multi-volume histories or in the course of public celebrations of prominent past days. The category of collective memory, introduced by Maurice Halbwachs, presumes the social and cultural conditioning of how people remember the past. Viewed from this vantage point, memory does not differ significantly from the “science of history” to which it is opposed. A societal memory of the past requires a “text” that formats the meaning of shared memories. However, this text needs not to be necessarily based on professional research, no matter what arrogant historians might claim. A novel or a movie will suffice. In modern society, the “anthropological” ideal of oral traditions is in principle impossible. The modern human being structures his or her historical memory with the help of normative “texts”, which are often created by professional historians. Again, post-Soviet conditions provide numerous examples to illustrate this situation, which can be supplemented by phenomena from general European history. Another example is offered by “amateur history” (Heimatpflege), which can be simultaneously interpreted as “micro-history” and “macro-memory”. The mutual influences of “communicative” and the “cultural” memory can be achieved in other instances, too, for example, when an outgoing generation’s memory lives on in published memories or recorded interviews, and becomes the possession of professional historians. One can think of the historicization of the remembrances of Holocaust survivors or of “alternative” memory of the Second World War in Germany (victims and deprivations of the civilians in German cities or the tragic destinies of tens of thousands of German refugees from Eastern Europe).
Finally – and this aspect of the problem is the most interesting for Ab Imperio – historians consciously work with the concept of memory while studying nationalism. Studies of nationalism have revealed the role that mimetic projects play in the formation and maintenance of national identity and national solidarity by creating an image of a common past. These projects require no written tradition and “high culture”, for memory can exist in oral form. It can be expressed through symbolic gestures (e.g. naming children after historical national heroes or according to a given ethnic tradition). These expressions of memory are especially important for non-dominant nationalities and minorities facing the pressures of assimilation or colonialism. The formation of the sense of national belonging through images of the past essentializes boundaries of the national body and, correspondingly, relativizes acquired social, political, and cultural ties. In a multinational society this means, as a rule, that the field of inter-ethnic interaction is disintegrating and the supranational identity is weakening. However, nostalgia for the common Soviet past in the former Soviet Union demonstrates that a more complex relationship between the phenomenon of memory and the organizational principles of the multinational society is possible.
Having internalized the idea of the discursive nature of nationalism and having accepted the role of collective memory in the process of national consolidation, historians made use of concepts, such as “national historiography”, “invented tradition”, and “national master-narratives”. All these concepts, like memory, reflect different ways of relating to the past. It seems important to reflect on what new momentum the concept of memory can give to researchers of nationalism and how societal historical memory is different from other institutions and ways of taking possession of the past? Is there indeed a well established model for using the concept of memory by historians or are we faced with a number of varying interpretations? What is the heuristic value of the concept of memory, appropriated by historians in general and students of nationalism and empire in particular?

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In contrast to their western colleagues, post-Soviet scholars were not originally inclined to perceive the even theoretical opposition between memory and history. The study of memory entered to local humanities simultaneously with microhistory, linguistic turn, and gender studies. They are most often perceived as “yet another” innovation of the advanced world of scholarship. More significant, it seems to AI’s editors, is the absence of reflection on the problems of historical memory. Post-Soviet historians are more inclined to be creators of memory (lost or mutilated during the Soviet period) than to appear as “deconstructors” of the myths of the past dominant in society. The political potential of memory studies is also not clearly recognized. The process of the dissolution of the Soviet empire was to a significant degree impacted by mimetic projects mobilized by national movements. However, very soon these projects were written into the new national historical narratives, having been formatted and changed in the process of absorption. As the past decade has demonstrated, the national mobilization and the formation of national identities in the newly independent states – heirs to the Soviet republics – is taking place with the help of traditional (Romantic) historiography, which is re-writing the past based on “facts” and “historical laws”. The background for this re-writing of history was formed by an unprecedented explosion of interest from different layers of the population to various subjects of the national past. Paradoxically, the Soviet supra-national past is also becoming a part of the domain of memory in the context of the new states’ national historiographies. Addressing memory becomes a redundant, and, perhaps, even a dangerous venture. Is this situation a specifically post-Soviet or “post-totalitarian” phenomenon? Or, alternatively, is this phenomenon characteristic of the transition from an “imperial” to a “national” situation? This is another question that AI’s editors offer up for reflection and discussion.
The importance of this question becomes obvious when we explore the pre-history of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In the mid-1980s in the USSR, two societal organizations were formed almost simultaneously and busied themselves with mobilizing society in increasingly different directions. They called themselves similarly (in translation to many European languages the names become virtually identical): Pamiat’ (memory) and Memorial (memorial or monument). The historical, cultural, and educational society “Pamiat’” (it is sometimes called a historical and literary society) emerged in the early 1980s and was officially formed as a political movement with the same name in 1985. Obviously, “Pamiat’” emerged either from the initiative or with the immediate participation of the KGB – the arrests and deportations of dissidents in the USSR did not cease until 1987 at the earliest. “Pamiat’”, though, had a distinctly anti-communist position: the misery of the Russian people was declared to be due to the “Zionist and Masonic conspiracy”, of which the Russian socialist parties, including the Bolsheviks, the October revolution, the Civil War, Stalin’s purges, and the occupation of the Russian cultural and political elite by open and secret Jews and other “aliens” all formed a part. Of course, KGB participation in itself did not explain the growing popularity of “Pamiat’” among different groups of the population in different regions. Many participants in “Pamiat’” belonged to the right wing of the 1970s dissident movement. “Pamiat’” argued against the existing “corrupted” regime and historiography that served it and opposed to them an ideal image of the past/future of the Russian national and political body cleared from alien intrusions and liberated from institutions that alienate the people from the highest authority. This normative image defined the attitude toward the existing political order and the system of selection and interpretation of facts for the “true” history.
The all-Union voluntary historical and educational society “Memorial”, a “non-Russian” name, was an heir to the liberal wing of the Soviet dissident movement. It was formed in September 1987 as soon as societal organizations not sanctioned by the authorities were no longer repressed and was officially registered in January 1989. “Memorial” also criticized the regime and official historiography; however, historical memory was the point of departure and the final goal of the members of this society. The procedure of reaching the “truth” in politics or research was maximally institutionalized (within the confines of the Soviet historical research or the country’s constitution). “Memorial” demanded that the memory of the victims of the regime be restored according to the principles formally supported by the regime itself. Gradually, “Memorial” evolved toward universal human rights as a point of departure while evaluating the degree of societal “normalization” as a result of restoration of social memory. During perestroika, “Memorial” was the largest organization in terms of membership with many local organizations and close connections to democratic political groups (for example, the “People’s fronts” and groups of parliament deputies).
The political influence of “Pamiat’” and “Memorial” was not significant as such, yet they helped form the main political discourses that have persevered through to today. Most current political forces (apart from the products of the authorities’ political maneuvering) sprang from one of the mimetic projects of the perestroika era. The mirror-like opposition of the two movements continued in their further evolution. The history of “Pamiat’” is the story of continuous internal splits. The first occurred at the end of 1987. As a result of internal conflict there emerged the People’s Patriotic Front “Pamiat’”, the patriotic union “Rossia”, and the “Russian Cultural Center”. In October 1988, the Moscow and the Leningrad organizations of “Pamiat’” split and was followed by splits in the central council and the Moscow organization itself. After another year, an ideologically motivated split occurred and in August 1990 the remains of the original “Pamiat’” were lead by Alexander Barkashov, who declared that it was not “enough to occupy oneself with memories. It’s time for action”. Thus, the evolution of a “historical and educational society” into a fascist party was completed. “Memorial”, on the other hand, gradually lost its original composition and gained the character of a “union of regional organizations” and of a mass movement. As the organization’s cultural and pubic policy activities grew increasingly different, so did the organization become more professionalization, engaging more and more systematically in human rights activities, and historical and educational work.
Both “Pamiat’” and “Memorial” played an enormous role in the delegitimization of the Soviet regime and its subsequent collapse. In the new Russia, however, neither the authorities nor the opposition feel it necessity to sustain these perestroika-era mimetic projects, which occupied those niches that were only indirectly involved with alternative memory – the niches of a fascist party and a human rights organization. Obviously, the authorities are in principle interested in manipulating memory; however, the effect of extra-institutional and mass based action – the immediate goal of shared memory – scares the authorities due to its unpredictable destructive potential: neither the leftist nor rightist versions of “direct remembering” guarantees stability. Besides, the evolution of “Pamiat’” and “Memorial” appears logical. In a multinational and polyconfessional society, the foundation for common collective memory can be provided only by the legalist and universal principle of the defense of personal and civic rights. Any alternative can gain ascendancy only through the forced imposition of a single group’s memory upon the rest, which can only be realized within a fascist dictatorship.
Does this mean that addressing memory in a complex, “imperial” society directly will result in the disintegration of the previously united political and cultural space, whereas the creative force belongs to the “imperial science” of historiography? Is it appropriate to suggest that constructing the past in an imperial context always leads to the decentralization and deconstruction of homogenizing national narratives? Can we apply the concept of memory to conflicting visions of the past within the same heterogeneous imperial space in the same way it is done in the context of national states? Does the paradox of imperial memory lay in the fact that imperial memory is possible only as counter-memory opposed to victorious national historical projects?
The classic theories of historical memory (first of all, Pierre Nora) were created as an alternative to exclusive national histories. Memory appeared as a historical “tool” allowing the generation of history from below, allowing the the framework of the national collective as an object of research to be reformatted in order to internally diversify and democratize the latter. Nevertheless, Nora’s research project was surprisingly limited to France’s national borders, raising reasonable questions from those who study polyethnic societies, colonialism, and diasporas. On the one hand, the concept of memory allows the voices of the repressed (colonial and assimilated peoples) to be reconstructed. On the pother hand, studies of memory (at least according to Hallbwachs) tend reproduce the main themes of contemporary national canons based on “high culture”. After the redefinition of memory as a collective phenomenon by Hallbwachs, what can be considered the collective subject of memory and is it possible to reconcile memories of more than one subject? How can we evaluate the potential of the concept of memory as an alternative to national historiography? Is it possible to apply concepts of memory in colonial and polyethnic contexts?

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AI’s editors ask participants in the discussion to share ideas on the applicability of the concept of memory in historical studies of national homogeneity and imperial heterogeneity. We are interested in essays, think-pieces and position papers on the problem of “Does Empire have Memory” as well as in answers to all or some of our questions.

Editors of Ab Imperio:
I. Gerasimov
S. Glebov
A. Kaplunovski
M. Mogilner
A. Semyonov