Memory, history, and national identity

In modern society, history and memory are ascribed very different qualities and arc commonly placed in different spheres: While history is an academic discipline with i t� method, its sources and its whole academic apparatus, memory is regarded n:; i nd iv idu a l , emotional and unstable. History plays a part in public and pol it ical l i fe , its scene is museums, books, academia. Memory is a matter of the subject, it be longs to the private sphere and the close relations. History is held as an important value in our societies, it gives roots, identity and be longing. But how can an academic discipline function like that? Because, under it� scholarly cover, history silently borrows the disreputed qualities of memory. It is only by being spoken of as memory and by being transformed into memory that h istory fulfills it tasks, builds national identities, gives roots, tells us who we arc and where we come from.

In Greek mythology, we meet the goddess Mne mosyne. She is the goddess of memory. At the same time, Mnemosyne is the mother of the nine muses, who protect science and the arts. One of them is Clio, the muse ofhistory. In this mythology, thus, memory is history's mother: Memory is the origin of history, history the product of memory. Such a relationship be tween history and memory occurs not only in classical mythology. In antiquity as well as in other pre-or non-modern societies, history and memory have been closely related, they have been two sides of the same coin. History, the presentation of the past, was based on memory, on the things individuals could remember and were able to tell. In part this is of course related to the problem of(il)literacy and access to writ ten medias -without possibility to "freeze" the past in writing, history was left to consist of the things remembered by the living. But in part it is also due to the fa ct that the modern lack of faith in memory and recollection, and its accom panying blind belief in any "academic historiog raphy" did not exist. Memory was regarded, not just as an individual quality like curly hair or a big nose, but as a kind of acquired skill, a highly specialised art with its respected and renowned professionals. From antiquity and the Renais sance we know something about the techniques employed to remember, e.g. the so-called "thea tres of memory" (Yates 1992). The Icelandic "lovseiemenn" had their methods to remember and "say" the laws, and held positions as pow erful officials of their society. Studies of oral literature, e.g. the medieval ballads and the heroic epics, have shown how formulas and fo rmulaic phrases have worked as means to "remember" the contents and recreate it in the performance.
But within modernity, Clio and Mnemosyne became separated, and their relationship changed. The daughter grew big and wilful, while the old mother, Mnemosyne, for long has led a quiet life, retired fr om the public domain. The situation results fr om a slow development during the centuries, reaching a climax and a final break with the establisment of history as a modern, academic discipline, i.e. in the last century. With this, history and memory came to oppose each other. In modern culture the two are often seen as belonging to very different spheres, being ascribed very different qualities (Eriksen 1995a).
Today, memory is commonly regarded as somcihing individual, Romcth ing personal and �ubjective. Memory bclongR to the individual, socially it is -at best -part of the private sphere of life. It i� seen as n otol"iou�ly untru�tworthy, belonging to the same cluster of subj ect ive du biousnesse� a� d isposi ti on and te mperament, emotions and dream::;. A::; such it may have it� great i mpo rta nce, to the individual and his/h er relations. But nobody -neither individuals nor societiescan base their life and their world on memories. 'lb say of �om ebody that he "lives on his memories" is hardly to gi ve a description of a competent and matter-oJ�fa ct person. And in a modern, complex society i mportant things like historiography, law, genealogy or medicine can certainly not be built as something as loose as memory, on the recollections of individuals. We still consider recollecting a kind of mental activity, but hardly any kind of superior intel lectual work. In modern man, memory seems to be located to the heart -or the �tomach -not to his brains. So, memory is no longer neither art nor high culture, but a kind of physiological fa culty, ignited by emotions. This is not completely wrong. Under all cir cumstances memory needs a body, an organism: there must be somebody who remembers (cf. Connerton 1989, Game 1995. Memory is not only in itself subjective, it requires a subject to be present at all. Memory does not exist as intersubjective abstraction, but can live only in concrete, bodily shape -with all accompanying weaknesses and fa ults. Several words exist to describe these weaknesses, words thus also describing our ideas of memory. The most dra matic is "oblivion" -the death of memory. "Am nesia" or "loss of memory" on their side conveys sinister associations to the dissolution or non existence of individual identity. But even other, equally dangerous, though more sneaking ill nesses threaten memory. Lapse of memory and displacement of memory are two of them.
But has anybody ever heard about a lapse of history or a displacement of history? Falsifica tion of history, on the other hand, is a well known and commonly fe ared phenomenon. And such fa lsifications are considered something very different fr om lapses of memory, even though both concepts equally describe process es through which what is told now does not agree with what happened then . As a "la pse of memo ry " this w ill be expl a ined with references to psycho logy and physiology, and seen a� the outcome of a perh aps regrettable bu t fully ex cusable personal deJect. The notion ofralsifica tion of history, on the other hand, is com monly associated with con::;piracy and intentions of evi l, with sinister political views and great ambitions of power.
For history is something very diflerent from memory, something superior and highly seri ous. H i story belongs to society, not to the indi vidual. It is public, not private, it is intellect, not emotions. History is scholarship, academic work, it is supposed to be right and true. History is to be trustworthy, and to guarantee for this, it has its method, its sources, its whole academic apparatus. Societies may be built on history and historical consciousness. Historical knowl edge is intersubjective, history is not subordi nated the life and the whims of individuals, but has its own, independant existence. And it does not die with the individuals either, because it exists in the books, in the archives and the museums. History is part of our cultural heri tage, history, in short, is serious.

Did Clio ever Leave Her Mother?
But then of course, things are not really as simple as that. Historians as well as ethnolo gists and fo lklorists know it -blood is thicker than water: Mnemosyne and Clio are still moth er and daughter. And as all daughters know: no matter how grown up, independant and wilful you get -your mother is always there behind you, in some way. So history and memory still are related, even in our modern society. One aspect of this is that even today, a great deal of historical knowledge is built on memory -the best example is supplied by the oral history movement. Historians know that by employing memories and oral testimonies as sources, they can get information that is not otherwise avail able -even if they have had to work hard to overcome their inherent distrust in such mate rial (cf. e.g. discussion in Kjeldstadli 1992: 183ft). Another aspect, and where my fo cus lies, does not consider memory as the raw-materials of history, but rather history working as memory.
Or more p recisely : l will discus::; how ihe social position ofhisiory act ually is basetl on its being spoken of as memory and iis working as mem ory. Memory, recollection, remembrance become life-giving metaphors ofh isiory, metaphors ihat enable history to fulfill its mosi important tasks in society.
Thai " histo ry is i m portant" is a fr equently repeted dogma. History gives identity, roots, causes feelings of continuity and belonging. History tells us who we are -whoever we are. "Lack of history" on ihe oihcr hand, does not only imply simple ignorance, but also the threat ening possibilities of being both rootless and unresponsible. Such ideas about the blessings ofhistory arc not new, bui have been part of the context of this academic discipline fr om its birth: Producing national histories, the new discipline immediately acquired an important role in the building of national states and the construction of national identities.
How can an academic discipline work in this way? Not because it is academic. We get no identity fr om theoretical astrophysics, and no body worries about the general rootlessness caused by lack of competence in infant medicine or cinesiology. History gives roots, identity etc. because it is not only an academic discipline, but because it still borrows some traits fr om memory. This appears very clearly when histor ical archives, museums and the ward of histor ical monuments rhetorically are called "the memory of our society". But the identity aspect also becomes very clear when continuity, stable relations, and consciousness of a common past are fo cused on as central elements of historical knowledge -or when it is said that "he who does not learn fr om history, must live it anew". In this -rather commonly heard rhetorics -histo ry is related to concepts remote fr om source criticism, periodisation, scholarly method and other caracteristics of the academic discipline. On the contrary, the concepts employed belong to the sphere of memory, above all because they all demand some kind of a subject.
If history is to give identity, it must give identity to something or somebody. The whole meaning of "identity" is just that something may be recognised as the same, as itself, as identical. Continuity means that something or somebod_y remains the same -ai least rccogn is a bly so -during a ccriuin spa n of iimc. A common past, shared experiences, presuppo::;e that some people have been present and made these experiences -and that ihey have brought them on. The words used io explain why history can give identity are all words focusing on lived life, time experiencedby somebody. They thus demand the existence of a being, a body, a subject whose existence covers the span oftime in question.
This subject, of course, does not have to be an individual, a human being. It might -for exam ple -be a nation. For it is just by being regarded and spoken of as a subject, i.e. as something/ somebody with a memory, being able to make experiences and thus accumulate a past, that the nation appears as real, as an organism, a living being with its own qualities and its own needs. It is the memory aspect of history that makes it so well fit for building national cul tures, because through this the nation is postu lated as a subject: It remembers -thus it exists. All the subjective, emotional and far too little abstract elements, so often named the weak nesses of memory, is just what history borrows and what in its mysterious ways transforms into strength.

Memory as a Social Phenomenon
When such a thing is possible, this is also due to the fa ct that memory, recollections, even if they demand a subject and are subjective, are also into a very high degree social, i.e. stamped by the fa ct that subjects relate to other subjects, to the collective, to culture, to society. The French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs, coining the term "collective memory", argued that remembering is a fundamentally social activity. According to him, the idea of an individual memory, isolated fr om every social context, would be an abstrac tion close to meaninglessness (Halbwachs 1992). First, the need to remember something, will nearly always be caused by some social situa tion. Somebody may ask a question, and one tries to remember so as to give an answer. Or, one might try to remember what to say or do in a certain situation -greeting a neighbour, recit ing the catecism or describe "what happened at school today". Second, a majority or memorie�; will in themselves be related to social �;itua tions: what did we do, who were there, what was �;aid. Or, at least, memories have a social fr ame.
One example: Even a childhood recollection of suddenly being quite alone, left in the forest, alone and fri ghtened has a social context. The situation was -perhaps -a fa mily outing, picnic, a lunch-basket, safety, a fr iendly atmos phere. The change was caused by the little child wandering about, disappearing behind a rock, loosing the sight ofihe others and getting scared. The fright experienced then and remembered later on, is not so much due to the forest as to th e awareness of suddenly being left -the grown ups disappeared, security and happiness gone. The fo rest remained the same, what changed was the social situation. This was what caused the fr ight, and it also causes the memory.
We do not remember ourselves as isolated individuals, outside any social context. It is not very meaningful to remember e.g. "October 23rd. 1997" without at the same time remem bering what one did that day, where one was, who else was there. Even individual memories thus have a social background and a social context, they hardly ever exist in an absolutely isolated fo rm. Memories are memories of social contexts, fr equently applied to in a social con text or because of such a context (cf. Connerton 1989:36fi).
Because memories are so closely tied to the social, to what is common and shared, they will frequently also in themselves appear as shared and collective. Memories who refer to a certain social context will in some meanings ofthe word be common to everybody who relate themselves to that context and who share its fr ame of reference -even if each individual has made different experiences, interpreted them in dif fe rent ways, and does not remember exactly the same things -or the same amount ofthings. For example: Norwegians who experienced World War II share a tradition of collective memories, even if each one of them made very different experiences -or perhaps did not experience very much at all -during the five years of German occupation (cf. Eriksen 1995b). When these seemingly common memories on certain occasions are called on and held together, their 132 �;imilarities and aspect of collectivity fre quent ly (though not alway�;) will be strengthened. At the same time, the focus on the memories in itself, as well as their collectivity, will contrib ute to tighten the relationship between those remembering and bring them closer together.
It is within this fr ame of collective memory that history lives. It is nurtured by memory, that also supplies much of its meaning, while at the same time history contributes to create and to strengthen the collective memory. History books, museums, antiquarian work, the ward ing of monuments etc. may all be seen as con texts where collective memory is created as well as confirmed. Through such institutions it be comes clear what society has chosen as its collective memory, and how this memory is constructed. But to work as memory, as identity -giving history and not just as a cold and dead science, what is chosen must to a certain extent agree with the collective memory already exist ing. The history of the members of the Norwe gian Nazi party and their experiences during and after the war, may fo r example be written as true as historical sources and academic meth od may make it, but this is still not the kind of history -no matter how "historical" it is -that gives roots and identity; and Norwegian collec tive memory still shrinks fr om presentations of these matters.

Commemorative Rituals
History books and museums have been vital fo r the construction and spreading of national iden tity. But to make history "give identity", its relationship to memory must be carefully guard ed. In this context, commemorative ceremonies play an important role (Connerton 1989:41fi). By the means of such ceremonies, or rituals, knowledge of the past is articulated and com municated not only intellectually, as history, but also as lived reality, as experience -and as memory. Modern societies regularly stage such ceremonies, fr equently initiated by the state itself, or at least organised by some public institution. In Norway, the best annual exam ple is the celebrations of May 17th. The official name, Constitution Day, says very clearly that this is a ritual to remember the signing of the con::;iiiuiion, on May 17th 1814, by which ad Norway wa::; e::;iablished a:; a nation siaie. Oth er rites are less regularly occurri ng, but in 1995, two other important commcmoratives were celebrated: the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II and, in Norway, the millen nia! celebration of the Chrisiianisaiion of the country.
The literature on rituals, religious as well as secular, is vast. Numbers oftheories have been developed to explain what rituals are, and what they mean . As a rather general point of depar ture, they may be said to be social, and to constitute a kind of exp ressive behauionr. Ritu als arc symbolic, i.e. th ey try to communicate something thai can not be said in more direct and concrete ways. For this reason , th ey arc also regarded as heavily laden with meaning: Rituals are the aiiempis of a society or a group to say something about itself, something impor tant and something thai is not easily expressed by other means. Still, it often is stressed that rituals relate to texts, to stories. This might be myths, but rituals may also in a more general way refer to a "grand narrative" of the society in question.
So far, these points applies to rituals in general. In his book How Societies Remember, the sociologist Paul Connerton builds on them to develop a theory of commemorative ceremo nies, a kind of ritual which, according to him, is absolutely vital to communication and mainte nance of a collective memory (1989). Connerton fo cuses on two aspects of the ritual: It is a performative utterance, and it employs a for malised language. By the notion performatiue he means to underline that the rituals in them selves are neither descriptive nor narrative. And they are not supposed to have any fu ture effect, their point is simply to be, then and there. This is why rituals can not be abstracted or intellectualised; they are performed or not per fo rmed, one is present or one is not. This implies that ritual, like memory, is based on the pres ence and participations of subjects, on the exist ence of a somebody performing. The meaning of the ritual is the experience, on the one hand social, on the other completely dependent on the acting subject.
The fo rmalised language gives another rea-134 son why rituals can not primari ly be narratives. The linguistic expressions available io a ritual arc usually rather limited . They may consist of fi xed sayings and fo rmulas and/or be restricted to a very narrow range of themes. The scope of variation is for example very small when it comes io what might actually be said and what phrases may be used in the "speech lo r the day" when the children's parade reach the city square of some provincial town on May 17th, or like wise wh en one more monument over th e resist ance during World War II is to be inaugurated. By fo cusing on th ese two elements -the perfor mativc utterance and the fo rmalised language -Conncrton argues th ai the fo rmal aspects of rituals arc as important as their supposed deep er, symbolic meaning. The ritual is not an arbi trarily chosen medium for something thai might e.g. be told as a myth or presented as a picture.
The main quality of the ritual is its fo rm, and thereby its strong quality of "here and now", of presence, of physical experience. On the other hand, Connerton argues that what distinguishes commemorative rituals fr om rituals in general, is just that the fo rmer expli citly refers to certain past events, be they of religious or historical kind. His point is that the commemorative rites are re-enactments of these events, not narratives about them. The rituals commemorating past events thus give experi ence of these events, not knowledge about them.
In this way, rituals like the annual celebrations of May 17th or the 50th anniversary ofthe end of World War II, are decisive to the process of turning history into memory. I will take the last as my example here.

A Norwegian Example: The 50th Anni versary of the End of World War II
On May 8th 1995, the 50 years anniversary was celebrated all through Norway -as of course in several other countries. The number of arrange ments was great, but, seeing the Norwegian celebration as a whole, the similarities and uniformity were far more striking than the local variations. The arrangements were to a very large degree variations on a well-known theme, the liberation ofNorway. This theme has been articulated in corresponding (though gen-erally �;muller) celebrations every five years through the entire post-war era. In addition, rituals may burrow traits from each other, and in the 50 years anniversary there recurred elements known from e.g. Constitution Day celebrations and royal visits. Wi thin this con text, the local variations were mainly due to resources and to what may be called the "sym bolic capital" ofthe respective locations in rela tionship to the core motive ofthe jubilee: inva sion and war, German occupation, liberation. Small and rather unim portant places in present day Norway -Oscarsborg fo rtress, communi ties like Nybergsund or Narvi k -possess a symbolic capital based on th e rol e they played during the war. This gives them a central posi tion in the celebrations, which in its turn sup plies them with fu rther resources, like royal visits or stately fu nded monuments.
Commemoration rituals need a place -they must have a scene, an arena. The scene should be centrally located, but there arc two criteria fin· th is: geugraphicully or, aga i n, symbul icnl ly. The main celebrations, taking pluce in Oslo, united the two criteria. The scene was the area from the Royal Pal ace, via the Parliament bu ild ing (Stortin{.Iet) to Akershus Fortress. All these localities possess important symbolic capita l related to the war, pe rhaps strongest of all Hi Alwrshus, because the fo rtress served as prison and place of execution. Several members ofthe resistance movement (Milorg) ended their lives there. A fa mous photograph showing a young· officer from Milorg formally taking over the fortress fr om the Germans in May 1945 has become part of the national iconography and also serves to make Akershus a special p l ace within this mythical universe. Such , then, was the scene of the ritual performance. But at the same time this scene in itself was part of the ritual language. The places in the centre of the capital, connected by the ritual performance into on e scene , carry significan ces thai were activated and thereby contributed to draw all those present i nto the real ity of the ritual .
Al l over, the ritual acts were in themselves si m pl e, and the "l angu age" limited but expres sive: parades, speeches, laying wreaths at mon ume nts, inaugurations of n ew monuments, be stow i n g medals a nd other symbolic a rtifacts. Music played an important part. Only a small part was verbal, and the gests were limited in number. To continue the example from the cap ita l : a veterans ' parade went Jrom the Royal Palace to Akershus Fortress, where the main arrangement was to be held. The lower and main square ofthe Fortress would only hold the speci a lly invited guests, so the ordinary public had to stay in the upper square. Here one might be so lucky as to grab a pl ace where it was possible to see what was going on, but to hear was nearly impossible. In spite of this, the celebration lost very little in meaning to the audience. One reason might be that all Norwe gians would "know" what might be said on the occasion. Another, more generally important, is that the speeches, just like the parade, the salutes etc., did not primarily have a referential fu nction. They just were, as expressions of the moment, of the here and now. It was interesting to read the king's speech in the paper the day after, but as part of the ritual, the important thing was not what he said, but simply the fa ct that the king gave a speech -as he was expected to.
The ritual actors may be figured as three different groups. The first consists of persons representing the authorities of the present soci ety, like the royal fa mily, members of the gov ernment and, in the districts, a variety of local notabilities. Their role is, mainly, to unveil monuments, lay down wreaths and deliver medals. They also make the speeches. And again it becomes apparent that these speeches are not epical, discursive elements. They do not tell much about what actually happened during "the War". They are interpretations, referring to the events and explaining their significance -the speeches are exegeses. What may be said, as well as how it may be expressed in these speeches is highly limited. The speeches are part of the liturgy and as such are not expected 136 to bring new informati on or fresh interpreta tions . On the contra ry, their !' unction is iu con fi rm that Norwegian society still holds on to what happened, to the significance once as cribed this history and the values thus ex pressed. The actors representing the authori ties contribute to keep the reality and experi ences of the occupation as a valid obl i gation here and now, not only to the individual, but to the nation.
The next group is th e veterans, th ose who took part in the actual struggle over 50 years ago. In practice this means the defenders from 1 940, people who joined resistance cells of' some fo rmal organi sation, members of' the Norwe gian forces overseas, and war sailors. Their task at the rituals is comparatively simpl e, as it mainly consists in being present, in the parades and on the stands ofhonour. To a certain degree the entire rituals are arranged in their honour. When the officials of the nation ritually confirm that the values fr om "the War" are still valid, this is a tribute to the veterans -to what they did and who they were at that time, as well as who they are now. In addition, their presence also has another aspect: they are present as the living past. They took part then, and they are still here -the same persons, even with the same uniforms. They are building a bridge between then and now, they are messengers fr om the past to the present. Within the ritual context, the veterans act as a kind of warrant. As long as they are present, the past can not turn into abstract "history". Their physical, bodily presence gives the ritual a centre of gravity, a guarantee oflived life, of experienced reality -of memory, not history. Not without reason the 50th anniversary of the end of the war has been mentioned as the last, great anniversary of the war. Ten years hence there will hardly be any veterans left -and what do we do then?
The third group of actors is the audience, those who were looking on. This may appear as a rather passive role, perhaps so much so as to disqualify the term "actor". But still, a com memorative ritual without its audience would not only be rather bleak, it would also lose much of its significance. Parts of the arrangements were reserved for invited guests, but to the commemorations as ::;ut:h an exien::;ive audi ence was absolutely req uired and the publit: should thus be rega rded as a group of adors. While the notabi liiie::; cxpres::;ed the recogn i tion of the of1it:ial sot:ieiy, the audient:e was present on behalf of the peopl e and as the people. The audient:e expressed the adherent:e of the people to the values com municated in the ritual. At the same time, by being included in the ritual through their presence ai the arena, the persons ofthe audient:e were taken into the reality of the ritual -they entered its world. During the veterans' parade in Oslo this aspect was very strongly expressed: without any pre vious planning or instruction, tho audience started applauding when tho parade started fr om the University square, going down the main street stretching fr om the Royal Palace to the Parliament. Students -the young genera tion watching fr om the University squarestarted clapping, and the applause spread down along the street, through the entire audience. In this way, the mass of individuals was trans fo rmed into one, organic unity, collectively and actively taking part in the parade through its homage to the passing veterans.
A closer look at the ritual reveals, however, the existence of a fo urth group of actors. These are not among those present, but still they are most important of all: the dead, the fallen, those "who gave their lives" -as their names are on the monuments and in the speeches. Even if they are not here, even if they are silent, they are the core of the ritual. Just by their silence and their absence they are a most important part ofthe non-epical weight of the ritual, of its expressivity and its terrible incontestability. Those who gave their lives made the ultimate experience. They have made the utmost sacri fice, a deed which is not discussed. In conse quence, the ritual -commemoratingtheir deaths -is not to be discussed either. Contesting inter pretations or protests against the values cele brated become impossible. Those who gave their lives have passed out of our history and into our memory. All we can do for them is just -to remember, to keep memory alive.
To be of importance to a society, to give national identity, roots, and a fe eling of belong ing, it is not sufficient that history is an aca-demit: di::;t:ipl ine, thai it be true, trustworthy and inie rsubjedivc. If history takes leave of memory, it turns cold, dead and without inter est io anybody apart from a small circle of scholars. li is of vital importance that tho tic between history and memory is cultivated and t:ared lor: history must continually be trans formed into memory. Hence the magic effect of rituals. In them, history is transformed into the experience of ever new, remembering suQjects.