Collective and Historical Memory Collective

Collective and Historical Memory

Collective Memory In The Aftermath Of Mass Violence

Conceptions of collective memory

According to Maurice Halbwach, collective memory is the information that is shared between two or more people who belong to the same group. Collective memory contains events that were caused by other people of the society to an individual. This means the thoughts are not personally experienced by the individual. Collective memory is passed on from one group member or community to another, and that is how history dates are recalled. The representation of the past by a group or community and sharing this information can be understood to be collective memory Halbwachs & Coser, 1992.

Just like autobiographical memory, collective memory is almost like it in that it tells a group of people who they are, how to act presently and in the future, and where they came from.

Conceptions of historical memory

Historical memory is what shapes the past for the current people through historians work or writings. What is read in books and one did not personally experience it is also referred to as historical memory by Maurice Halbwach. There is no way for a person to ascertain the events they read in books and they can only take as they read it in the books. He continues to state that history is a collection in the memory of many of their notable facts. Historical events are only documented or written down when the subject is too distant in the past. History is what is used to distinguish between one period from any others.

Relations between historical memory and collective memory

Collective memory can be used to recover a person's past memories that had faded away from them, but this is only because the person has lived it. Therefore, historical and collective memories are related together for as long as a person has lived through an event, though they might forget about it, by been reminded of it by others it can be recovered from their memory. Maurice Halbwach continues to state that history is not the only thing from the past that remains. Recovering of old events that had disappeared is because of the living history, which allows for the perpetuation and renewal of itself through time Green, 2004()

This shows that not all historical memory is written, but there are some traces of history that can be recovered by visiting a place that has conserved its history. Just as, Maurice Halbwach was carried back over sixty years when he visited the banker's family, people can also recover their long forgotten memories by sharing information within a group. He felt like he was in 1830s and was in a French salon.

Reading about something from the books and then coming to see something or having an experience that makes a person feel as though they have lived during this period, shows that historical and collective memories are related. For Maurice Halbwach the two memories related by him experiencing the environmental conditions when he visited Algeria and when he visited the banker's family. The two scenarios reminded him of events in the past that he might have experienced, or he had read or been told about.

Collective memory can be used to alter the historical memory of a person. If a person becomes too involved in some groups and they participate more often in its memory, they can alter their historical memory with the new information they come across, and they did not know of back then. These changing would mean that the memory the person had was not the full picture, or the group may be more connected with that part of the past events. Distortions or blanks may be present in a person's historical memory, because of this blanks the person will fill them in using his or her own imagination. The only way the person will discover that his or her memories are wrong is if there is another person with whom they share the same memory. The other person can give out a different and more realistic recount of the events. This would make the former to alter their memory.