2008 – EUROPE’S HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
COMING TO TERMS WITH EUROPE’S TRAUMATIC PAST –
AN INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON
curated by Ruth Wodak

All societies have experienced traumatic events in their past, be it war and war crimes, revolution, torture, mass killings, rape etc. Sometimes, taboos surround such events in the public sphere; frequently, narratives are constructed which mystify the participation in war crimes or other crimes, and reformulate the interpretation of historical facts and events according to the interests of specific political actors or groups. Such narratives are (re)produced through films, documentaries, political speeches and schoolbooks; moreover, they are also transferred into the private spheres of families and peer-groups. Various groups in the respective society compete for THE ONE and ONLY narrative which should be hegemonic. The latter then also have a strong impact on the discursive construction of national identities and draw on a whole range of collective and individual memories. Collective memory, thus, cannot be equated with history, but is linked to it and has multiple effects on the future. Pennebaker and Banasik summarise these processes succinctly: ‘History defines us just as we define history. As our identities and cultures evolve over time, we tacitly reconstruct our histories. By the same token, these new collectively defined historical memories help to provide identities for succeeding generations.’ The founding myths and the imaginaries on which every day recollections as well as collective experiences draw, form a part of the official past of every nation state. The construction of national identities always necessarily draws on narratives which relate the past, present and future in specific ways.

The symposium ‘Breaking Silence or Making a Clean Break? Sites and Modes of Commemoration’ assembles prominent international scholars from multiple disciplines (History, Political Sciences, Sociology, Rhetoric, Discourse Studies, German Studies, Media Studies, and Literary Studies) who are all concerned with investigating ‘the Politics of the Past’ in European nation states (Vergangenheitspolitik) from various perspectives and by applying different theoretical and methodological approaches. More specifically, all participants attempt to provide first answers to the overarching questions, such as: how should one deal with ‘traumatic’ pasts which are prevalent in every society? How should one deal with perpetrators and victims? Should one focus on a common future and ‘forget the past’? Can a ‘clean break’ be achieved? And which are the functions of such a ‘clean break’? Can we learn from the experiences from other cultures and non-European countries? And if silence occurs, what are the consequences, for perpetrators, victims, and the entire society? We are aware that these difficult and complex questions will not be answered once and for all; but we do hope that this symposium will contribute to future debates.