ABSTRACT

How did cosmopolitan memory survive in a period of transition in memory formation (Nationalism)? How do national and traditional or folk memory relate to the rise of state memory (history)? How did its ‘collective’ nature (as against individual concepts) evolve with a nation’s ‘history’ and the loss of community? Benedict Anderson’s ‘imagined community’ is discussed. Modern national and postnational memory traditions are distinguished: Pierre Nora’s work on France and memory as national tradition is explored. Fascisms actual antagonism with internationalism was clear in the 1930s, as were national liberation wars after 1940; and since the1990s national memory is linked to revived populism. A number of examples of nationalist and post-colonial memory contests are examined – for example, Northern Ireland and its murals; former Yugoslavia (Todorova); the portrayal of the Indochina wars; and also Algeria (an analysis of Pontecorvos’ film The Battle of Algiers). A revived trans-European memory is considered as a recent transnational project and reaction to memory of continental wars. The postnational conceptualization of Andreas Huyssen, or Levy and Sznaider’s cosmopolitanism, cross-border linkages and identification beyond frontiers can be related to the burial of war dead. There is here a critique of a previous postmodern focus on nationalism as identity politics, and a discussion of alternatives is necessary.