Cultural memory

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Totemic kangaroo ancestor of the Australian Aborigines as part of the mythical prehistoric times and thus of cultural memory

The German cultural scholars Aleida Assmann and Jan Assmann describe cultural memory as “the tradition in us, the texts, images and rites hardened over generations, in repetition for centuries, sometimes even thousands of years, which shape our awareness of our times and history, our self-image and worldview . “ Aby Warburg had already spoken of social memory . The name mémoire collective comes from Maurice Halbwachs . Carl Gustav Jung's theory of archetypes, on the other hand, is more psychological and biological .

Cultural and communicative memory

Communicative memory and cultural memory are the two components of collective memory . The communicative memory is limited to the oral tradition of the previous three generations, according to Assmann to around 80 years. It is close to everyday life and tied to groups .

Cultural memory, on the other hand, comprises the archaeological and written legacy of humanity. It refers to a mythical prehistoric age. It is passed on orally, in writing, normatively and narrative. Compared to communicative memory, it is characterized by an increased degree of formality and form. Central concepts of cultural memory are tradition and repetition. In oral societies, cultural memory is passed on by memory experts; it manifests itself in memorial days and religious festivals.

Individual and collective

Aleida Assmann pointed out the important role of media - "external storage media and cultural practices" - as carriers of cultural memory: "With the changing state of development of these media, the constitution of memory also necessarily changes."

Cultural memory is acquired individually as an educational asset. Its meaning and function lie in the awareness of the originally vertical anchoring of spiritual life. It enables meaningful life plans based on historical, religious, mythical or philosophical models. Even a fate lived without reflection can be explained from the perspective of cultural memory as a cultural product and repetition.

On a further level of meaning, cultural memory proves to be a fund of topics and motifs suitable for art. These traditional contents are redesigned in the artwork.

See also

literature

  • Aleida Assmann : memory spaces. Forms and transformations of cultural memory. 3. Edition. Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-50961-4 (first published in 1999; excerpt in the Google book search).
  • Aleida Assmann: How true are memories? In: Harald Welzer (Ed.): The social memory. History, memory, transmission. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-930908-66-2 , pp. 103-122.
  • Aleida Assmann, Jan Assmann: Yesterday in Today. Media and social memory. In: Klaus Merten , Siegfried J. Schmidt , Siegfried Weischenberg (eds.): The reality of the media. An introduction to communication science. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1994, ISBN 3-531-12327-0 , pp. 114-140.
  • Jan Assmann : The cultural memory. Scripture, Memory and Political Identity in Early High Cultures. 7th edition. Beck, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-56844-2 (first published 1992; excerpt in the Google book search).
  • Jan Assmann: Collective memory and cultural identity, in: Jan Assmann, Tonio Hölscher (ed.). Kultur und Gedächtnis , Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-518-28324-3 , pp. 9-19 (online: PDF file; 6.6 MB; 11 pages ).
  • Eva Dewes, Sandra Duhem (ed.): Cultural memory and intercultural reception in a European context. Academy, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-05-004132-2 .
  • Institute for cultural policy of the cultural political society (ed.): Cultures of remembrance and history policy (= yearbook for cultural policy. Volume 9). Klartext, Bonn / Essen 2009, ISBN 978-3-8375-0192-6 .
  • Alexander Niemeyer: Music and memory with Ernest Bloch and Leonard Bernstein: cultural semiotics and teaching didactic studies on the memory-cultural potential of music. Doctoral thesis, Paderborn 2014 ( online ).
  • Lena Nieper, Julian Schmitz (ed.): Music as a medium of memory. Memory - history - present. transcript-Verlag, Bielefeld 2016, ISBN 978-3-8376-3279-8 .
  • Christoph Schmitt: About remembering in the court art of Alfonso d'Este. An art historical attempt on the theory of cultural memory using the example of allegorical-mythological paintings. Doctoral thesis, University of Hamburg 2005 (online: PDF file; 11 MB; 300 pages ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jan Assmann: The cultural memory . In: Same: Thomas Mann and Egypt. Myth and Monotheism in the Joseph novels Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-54977-2 , pp. 67–75, here p. 70 ( side view in the Google book search).
  2. ^ Maurice Halbwachs: Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire. Paris 1925; Maurice Halbwachs: La mémoire collective. Paris 1950.
  3. ↑ a b Aleida Assmann: Memory rooms. Forms and transformations of cultural memory. 3. Edition. Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-50961-4 , p. 19 (first published in 1999; side view in the Google book search).