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In order to take concrete action regarding the
campaign "Europe, a common heritage", within which the Institute,
at the request of the Council of Europe, worked on the idea of a
"common heritage accessible to memory", we brought together experts
to work on these questions.
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We also wondered about the possibility of working
on a forthcoming route of Places of memory in Europe, representing
symbolic places in a Europe several times divided and in search of
its unity.
 setting in memory / setting in question
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The reading of the heritage is not limited only to
historical or typological description of the object but it also
wonders about its significance and its social function. Research on
symbolic or mythological elements, on the significance of politics
or identity, as well as work on suffering, conflict and
forgetfulness constitute new dimensions that connect Europeans in a
major and sometimes painful way to their common heritage.
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Prison of Sighet, Romania.
Photo MTP
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The expression "places of memory" is owed to the
French historian Pierre Nora who conceptualised and illustrated it
starting from a national dimension, that of France. For him, the
general idea rests on a "selective and erudite exploration of the
points of crystallisation of our collective heritage, the inventory
of the main "places", in all the senses of the word, where national
memory was anchored... ". It is thus more a question of revealing
an articulation, a "skeleton of history" than of identifying
precise facts to enable the distinction that he establishes between
the concept "places of memory" and the concept of heritage.
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The places of memory are not only physical places.
They are also immaterial or abstract. They aim at transforming the
setting in memory of the past into a setting in critical question
of the present thanks to a collective exercise of reflection. They
are places of memory, of history, but also of research and
communication. They carry a common consciousness, which should not
sink into forgetfulness but unceasingly lead us to reflection. This
is not "what one remembers, but where memory works, not tradition
itself, but its laboratory". They characterise a "spirit" of our
society in its various components.
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Station-factories of Dudelange, Luxembourg,
office of the Documentation Centre
on Human Migrations.
Photo CDMH
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European places of
memory?
The question is to know whether this concept of
places of memory, which remains very French, and which Luxembourg
tried to concretise on its territory, can be broadened to include
all Europe and according to what methods. This concept goes hand in
hand with national feeling, national identity, which precisely
crystallises in places, where it sees and feels a significance.
Working on "European" places of memory presupposes the existence of
a common feeling of appurtenance to Europe, of a European identity
felt as such by Europeans.
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The difficulty would thus consist in making it
known that, if a European feeling and identity exist, they are not
unique and unequivocal but rather characterised by the
multidisciplinary and multicultural aspect of Europe, whose
richness consists precisely in its diversity. Thus the "European
places of memory" could be highlighted but they should for that
matter take into account this plural dimension of the memory of
Europe. They should not be fixed, but open to dialogue and
creation.
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Statues Park in Budapest.
Photo MTP
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"These places of memory, enabling us to recall the
ups and downs of our life in common, illustrating the joys and
sorrows that tried us in the interaction of our cultures and
identities, which are so different yet complementary, becoming
places of reconciliation of Europe with itself, of the local with
the universal, the political with the economic, the past with the
future, could also become spaces of reflection and creativity,
sites of citizenship, enabling us to pass from assets to projects,
from possession to process, from commemoration to building sites".
(Raymond Weber)
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In January 2001 in Luxembourg the European
Institute of the Cultural Routes joined experts who helped us start
thinking about the places of memory. The participants in this
meeting were: Ana Blandiana, Marie-Louise Gräffin Von Plessen,
Raymond Weber, Antoinette Reuter, and Théo Robichet.
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Emblem of the itinerary of places of memory
and future in Luxembourg.
Photo MTP
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The following pages present some places of memory,
whose range largely exceeds national framework. They are generally
related to the work of these experts and could be included in a
forthcoming route of the European places of memory. They should be
taken as examples already integrated or soon to be integrated into
certain routes and certain actions led by the Institute within the
framework of the cultural routes. Others will be added within
months.
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 documents
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media library
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