Methodological and Substantive Remarks on Myth, Memory and History in the Construction of a European Community

German Law Journal

Volumn 6, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 255-271

  Stråth, Bo ^a  

^a EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE   (Italy)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 70249112926     PISSN: None     EISSN: 20718322     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S2071832200013626     Document Type: Article

References (25)

1. 1 HAYDEN WHITE, METAHISTORY. THE HISTORICAL IMAGINATION IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (1973).
2. 2 Reinhart Koselleck, On the historical-political semantics of asymmetric counter-concepts, in: FUTURES PAST. ON THE SEMANTICS OF HISTORICAL TIME (1985) (2004) (German original, VERGANGENE ZUKUNFT. ZUR SEMANTIK GESCHICHTLICHER ZEITEN, 1979).
3. 3 HANS BLUMENBERG, ARBEIT AM MYTHOS (1979).
4. 4 Pierre Nora holds that each nation has its canonical memories and myths that bind the community together and create social identities. Myth and memory give the community a narrative through which it can continue to forge its identity. The act of remembering is related to the repository of images and ideals that constitute the social ties of a community. PIERRE NORA, REALMS OF MEMORY: RETHINKING THE FRENCH PAST vol 1-3, vol. 1 xv-xxiv (LAWRENCE D. KRITZMAN, ED., TRANSLATED BY ARTHUR GOLDHAMMER, 1996) (French original LES LIEUX DE MÉMOIRE 1-3, 1984-1986).
5. 5 The idea of “scientific history” as formulated by Leopold von Ranke was based on the study of new source materials. It was assumed that close textual criticism of the hitherto undisclosed records buried in state archives would once and for all establish the facts of political history. The idea of Ranke became a dogma during the period from the 1870s to the 1930s through the professionalization of academic history writing under development of precise rules for the source criticism. Ranke’s statement about wie es eigentlich gewesen has often been misunderstood, and Ranke has been attributed with a rather naïve viewpoint on the historian’s task. However, in the preface of the history of the Romance and Germanic peoples Ranke demonstrates, as opposed to what is argued about him, that he was well aware of the bias in history writing. He reflected on the connection between intention, subject-matter and form of his book. The intention of a historian is dependent on his opinion and perspective (“Ansicht”). Out of intention and subject-matter emerges the form. History is thus not free evolution but creative ordering of the past, or, in the language of today, construction. History has been given the task to judge the past in order to teach for the future. However, so great tasks were beyond Ranke’s ambition with his book in 1824. He just wanted to show wie es eigentlich gewesen. LEOPOLD VON RANKE wrote his famous formulation about history as it really was in the preface of his GESCHICHTEN DER ROMANISCHEN UND GERMANISCHEN VÖLKER VON 1494 BIS 1514 (1824) (VII in the edition published by Duncker und Humblot 1874).
6. 6 CHIARA BOTTICI, A PHILOSOPHY OF POLITICAL MYTH Ph.D. Thesis, European University Institute (2004).
7. 7 Cf., Georg Iggers, Historiography and the Challenge of Post-modernism, in: THE POST-MODERN CHALLENGE. PERSPECTIVES EAST AND WEST 281 (BO STRÅTH / NINA WITOSZEK, EDS., 1999).
8. 8 CLAUDE LÉVI-STRAUSS, MYTH AND MEANING (1978).
9. 9 ROLAND BARTHES, MYTHOLOGIES 124-125 (1957). Cf., Bo Stråth, Introduction. Myth, Memory and History in the Construction of Community, in: MYTH AND MEMORY IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF COMMUNITY. HISTORICAL PATTERNS IN EUROPE AND BEYOND 19 (BO STRÅTH, ED., 2000).
10. 10 STATES OF MEMORY. CONTINUITIES, CONFLICTS AND TRANSFORMATIONS IN NATIONAL RETROSPECTION (JEFFREY K. OLICK, ED., 2003).
11. See, also, CARSTEN HUMLEBAEK, RETHINKING SPAIN: CONTINUITIES AND RUPTURES IN NATIONAL DISCOURSE AFTER FRANCO Ph.D. Thesis, European University Institute (2004).
12. 11 See, for instance, Koselleck (note 2).
13. 12 GESCHICHTSBEWUSSTSEIN IM INTERKULTURELLEN VERGLEICH (BODO VON BORRIES / JÖRN RÜSEN, EDS., 1994); WESTLICHES GESCHICHTSDENKEN – EINE INTERKULTURELLE DEBATTE (JÖRN RÜSEN, ED., 1999); DIE UNRUHE DER KULTUR. POTENTIALE DES UTOPISCHEN (MICHAEL FEHR / ANNELIE RAMSBROCK / JÖRN RÜSEN, EDS., 2004).
14. 13 For a development of this argument, see Koselleck (note 2).
15. 14 Lutz Niethammer, A European Identity?, in: EUROPE AND THE OTHER AND EUROPE AS THE OTHER 87 (BO STRÅTH, ED., 2000).
16. 15 Katiana Orluc, The Transformation of European Consciousness after The First World War, in: STRÅTH (note 14), 157.
17. 16 For a development of this argument, see Bo Stråth, From the Werner Plan to the EMU, in: AFTER FULL EMPLOYMENT. EUROPEAN DISCOURSES ON WORK AND FLEXIBILITY (BO STRÅTH, ED., 2000).
18. 17 Bo Stråth, Multiple Europes: Integration, Identity and Demarcation to the Other, in: STRÅTH (note 14), 385.
19. 18 Cf., ALAN S. MILWARD, THE EUROPEAN RESCUE OF THE NATION STATE (1994).
20. 19 MIKAEL AF MALMBORG, DEN STÅNDAKTIGA NATIONALSTATEN (1994).
21. 20 Orluc (note 15). See, also, Lutz Niethammer (note 14).
22. 21 LUISA PASSERINI, IDENTITÀ CULTURALE EUROPEA. IDEE, SENTIMENTI, RELAZIONI 4-5 (1998).
23. 22 Cf., FIGURES D’EUROPE/IMAGES AND MYTHS OF EUROPE (LUISA PASSERINI, ED., 2003). Cf., also, BOTTICI (note 6), 258-259.
24. 23 BOTTICI (note 6), 259.
25. 24 Sverker Gustavsson, 4 TIDEN (Stockholm) (2004).