Cultural memory as a concept and phenomenon: the foundations of conceptualization

Yarychev Nasrudi Uvaisovich ORCID: 0000-0003-4667-8020 Professor, Department of Theory and Technology of Social Work, Kadyrov Chechen State University, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Education 364037, Russia, Republic of Chechnya, Grozny, 32 A. Sharipova str., office A-2 nasrudiny@mail.ru

One of the most popular categories of modern humanitarian rhetoric is the category of memory. Its relevance is explained by a whole complex of reasons: the identity crisis of Eurocentric cultures, which are in a state of simultaneous loss and search for themselves; and the crisis of tradition as a mechanism of intergenerational communication; and the crisis of socio-cultural self-reflection (the spread of the so-called hypermnesia syndrome, that is, increased ability to memorize and reproduce information about the genocide, concentration camps); and with many other, more specific circumstances. In any case, according to I. Kalinin, "memory attracts special attention when there is a violation of the usual course of its work or when it encounters something that is as difficult to forget as to remember. In a sense, memory is always something that balances on the edge of pathology and carries an element of trauma" ^[4].

In recent decades, a whole research direction has been formed related to the study of memory (memory studies), within the framework of which, it would seem, a kind of consensus in understanding the basic category should have been developed. However, the field of memorial research still remains extremely "freedom-loving" in the terminological sense. According to B. Zelizer, "... many studies of memory still suffer from the lack of a definition of what collective memory is, beyond the recognition that it is not individual" ^{[10, pp. 234-235]}.

And, indeed, M. Halbwaks, V. Kansteiner, P. Riker, P. Hutton used the concept of collective memory; J. De Goff, A. Megill, I. Ryuzen, I. M. Savelieva, A.V. Poletaev, L. P. Repin used the term historical memory; P. Nora and P. Giri — social; H. Welzer — public and private; D. Robinson, V. Nurkova — autobiographical. And this list can be continued for a long time.

By and large, what is common to all representatives of memory studies is only that the subject of their attention is the phenomenon of supra-individual memory, which in the concepts of different authors receives a different name. On the one hand, such a situation is more than typical for the field of humanitarian research and is fruitful from the point of view of freedom of research rhetoric, its discussion, polemic, volume, etc. On the other hand, in memory studies themselves, the absence of a conventional position in the definition of the concept of "memory" is defined as a problem (semantic confusion, blurring of the subject area, theoretical redundancy, etc.) and is an acute issue that is addressed by the largest representatives of this branch of humanities in almost every issue of the journal of the same name.

Within the framework of this article, we propose our own concept of the phenomenon of supra-individual memory (definitions of the concept, presentation of the essential and functional parameters of the phenomenon designated by it). Conceptualization was carried out by us in line with the methodological tradition, which is based on the recognition of the existence of supra-individual memory, collective by the source of formation and social by the specifics of distribution. M. Halvax, P. Riker, Ya. Assman, A. Assman, Yu. Lotman and others adhered to this theoretical and methodological position at different times.

Of all the designated assortment of epithets of memory (historical, social, etc.), the most successful and accurate in defining supra-individual memory, in our opinion, is the epithet "cultural".

By cultural memory we propose to understand a type of supra-individual memory accumulating collective, value-significant memories, intentionally preserved and transmitted in mytho-symbolic forms. This definition was born on the basis of a critical understanding of various memorial concepts of supra-individual memory and author's definitions. In our opinion, the most successful is the definition of cultural memory, which in its work "Cultural memory. Writing, memory of the past and political identity in the high cultures of antiquity" was given by Ya. Assman. The German scientist defined cultural memory as "intensified, artificial forms of cultural memory, cultural mnemonics, the purpose of which is to generate and maintain non-modernity" ^{[2, p. 23]}. However, in our opinion, this definition is characterized by excessive metaphoricity, insufficient substantive concreteness and insufficiently effectively operationalizes the concept of "cultural memory". In our definition, we have tried to neutralize these vulnerable points.

It is worth mentioning specifically that the term "memories" in our proposed definition is used metaphorically rather than literally. For more than a hundred years, the category of memories has been a concept correlated not only with the process of individual mental activity, but also with what M. Halvax called collective work with information. This was also written by J. Assman, A. Assman, J. Le Goff, A. Megill and almost all the classics of memorial research. In this case, the collective is not endowed with the properties of a group mind and the ability to think like a person. It means that a social group has a common social experience, transmitted from generation to generation, there are common ideas about the past, transmitted as an axiom, etc.

The concept of "cultural memory" (in comparison with other types of memory — historical, collective, social, etc.), in our opinion, is the most successful for several reasons.

1) It is the broadest and most voluminous in meaning (in some way it absorbs all other types of memory — social, historical, etc.). In this position we associate with M. Bel, one of the authors of the famous work "Acts of Memory: cultural memories in the present", who believed that "cultural memory has become important a topic in the emerging field of cultural studies, where it has displaced and absorbed discourses of individual (psychological) memory and social memory. In other words, the term cultural memory means that memory can be understood as a cultural phenomenon, including as an individual or social one" ^{[9, p. 7]}.

2) It clearly captures the contextual nature of collective memories, dependence on the "social framework" of relevance.

3) It appeals, first of all, to the social, and not the national-state boundaries of the existence of memory.

4) It shows the constructed character of memories, containing the intention of creative, transformative activity (culture as cultivation of the earth).

In the Russian cultural tradition, the concept of cultural memory was actively developed by Yu. M. Lotman. His definition of culture as "collective intelligence and collective memory, i.e. a supra-individual mechanism for storing and transmitting certain messages (texts) and developing new ones" is widely known ^{[5, p. 201]}.

Yu. M. Lotman structured cultural memory into informative and creative. Informative memory accumulates information about the results of human activity in accordance with the laws of chronology and diachrony. Creative memory, on the contrary, identifies the most significant achievements in the array of human activity and stores them outside of a clear time sequence ^{[5, p. 200]}.

In modern Russian memorialistics, the category of cultural memory is developed by A. Vasiliev, V. Rubin, M. Shub, E. Rozhdestvenskaya, V. Semenova, etc. In particular, the latter interpret cultural memory as "a representation that is directed at fixed moments in the past and exists in the mode of justifying (giving meaning) memories associated with its origin or origin" ^{[6, p. 30]}.

Cultural memory has a number of specific features that distinguish it from other types of memory, primarily individual. These features were most voluminously and precisely defined by Ya . Assman:

– conservatism (cultural memory provides accumulation and storage of ideas about the past);

– collectivism (the content of cultural memory is connected with the ideas of the past of various social groups);

– symbolism (cultural memory is objectified in the form of generalized, symbolic, mythological constructs);

– anti-historicity (the explanation of events, processes and phenomena in the space of cultural memory occurs, including through the involvement of irrational forces, illogical constructions, extra-rational arguments, etc.);

– written character (the emergence of cultural memory is associated with the emergence of writing as a tool for the dissemination of its content);

– artificiality (cultural memory is a product of construction; various social, state, political forces can act as subjects of the construction of cultural memory);

– institutionality (the creation and dissemination of cultural memory relies on the support of various institutions — from the state to museums);

– expert nature ("work" with the content of cultural memory is carried out by delegated experts by the group, and not by all members of the team);

– sacredness (the appeal to cultural memory is ritualized, carried out in the form of an "eternal return" to the sacred experience of the ancestors).

M. Bel also added an active and purposeful character to the features of cultural memory indicated by J. Assman: "The memorial presence of the past takes various forms and serves many purposes, ranging from conscious remembrance and ending with unreflected revival, from nostalgic longing for the lost to the polemical use of the past to change the present. The interaction between the present and the past, which forms the basis of cultural memory, is, however, a product of collective activity, and not the result of a mental or historical accident" ^{[9, p. 7]}.

Yu. M. Lotman spoke about the multilevel nature of cultural memory, that is, the presence of local memories of various social groups within the same cultural memory. That is why cultural memory, according to the scientist, splits into a number of connotations specific to different collectives, "subcultural semantics", each of which fixes the most significant segments for itself in the volume of cultural memory.

M. L. Shub speaks about presentation as a significant feature of cultural memory, which boils down to the fact that the content of cultural memory reproduces actual processes, phenomena, value orientations, etc. ^{[8, p. 67]}.

From ourselves, we will designate another significant feature of the culture of memory — its representativeness. It, not existing by itself as a set of some sacred knowledge, needs various forms of its objectification with the help of memorial mediums — art, museums, commemoration, historical education, everyday practices of commemoration, etc. According to L. A. Tyukina, "the abstract concept of "cultural memory" implies a wide range of cultural practices: preservation of traces, archiving of documents, collecting works of art and antique objects with the possibility of their reactivation through media representation and pedagogical work. Cultural memory is not only passive accumulative memory, it includes reactivation of the past and the possibility of its wide assimilation by active functional memory" ^{[7, pp. 183-184]}.

The functional potential of cultural memory (or, in other words, its socio–cultural role), in our opinion, boils down to the following:

1) Accumulation (accumulation of information about the past that is significant for a particular group). A. Vanke in a review of A. Assman's work "The Long Shadow of the Past: Memorial Culture and Historical Politics" compared cultural memory with a reservoir performing a cumulative function ^[3].

2) Integration (association of collective members – carriers of a common cultural memory — through their acceptance of a certain picture of the past).

3) Identification (launching the mechanism of self-determination of group members by identifying them with one way or another of the past). According to A. Assman, "cultural memory builds the foundations for identification, allowing a collective or an individual to determine in the world, to understand who they are with and against whom, why and for what ..." ^[1]. The quote of E. Durkheim, who did not directly use the category of cultural memory, but actually had it in mind, is widely known. The scientist compared cultural memory with a mythological picture of the world, which is addressed, firstly, in the form of a sacred rite, and, secondly, under the condition of complete spiritual unity of the members of the group: "Ritual repetition ensures the unity of the group in time and space… Through the holiday, as the primary organized form of memory, there is a return to the time of creation of the world, the horizon expands to the cosmic, to the time of creation. Observance of rituals ensures the identity of the group and the functioning of the universe" [Cit. according to: 2, p. 60].

4) Interpretation (ensuring the value-normative and behavioral guidelines of the group members). Cultural memory in this perspective acts as a kind of archive of significant information that allows various social communities to navigate in a socio-cultural context, forms a space of meanings.

5) Stabilization (ensuring the harmonious functioning of the collective by leveling the time gap between the past, present and future, maintaining a monolithic, continuous temporal picture of the world, ensuring uninterrupted intergenerational transmission of social experience). According to Yu. M. Lotman, "cultural memory opposes time. It preserves the past as abiding. From the point of view of memory as a mechanism working with its entire thickness, the past has not passed" ^{[5, p. 201]}.

As the main conclusion of the article, the following can be noted. In the context of the terminological and conceptual diversity of memory studies, it is extremely important to determine the categorical foundations of memorial research, fixing the content, structural, functional boundaries of the phenomena studied. In relation to supra-individual memory, this is especially important, mainly due to the presence of a very wide range of its conceptual and meaningful interpretation. In the article we formulated our reasoned vision of the phenomenon of supra–individual memory, in particular one of its forms - cultural memory as a special reservoir of collective, social, value-significant memories, intentionally preserved and transmitted in mytho-symbolic forms.