2. A falling Lenin monument in Khmelnytsky Statue of Lenin toppled near Stanytsia Luhanska | Volodymyr D-k, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
not mean it cannot consider the social memories of the lived experience or the political divisions rooted in the long history of the 20th century that, in both East and West, cut across societies.
In 1989, under the dual guidance of Yuri Afanasiev and Marc Ferro, the book entitled 50 idées qui ébranlèrent le monde. Dictionnaire de la glasnost [ 50 Ideas That Shook The World. Glasnost Dictionary ] was published in France. Original in its approach, it organised dialogues and confrontations between French and Soviet authors on a series of topical issues. A double“ Memory-History” leaflet was written by Yuri Afanasiev on the one hand, and Pierre Nora on the other, then engaged in writing the major volume Les Lieux de Mémoire [ Realms of Memory ]. Yuri Afanasiev began his reflection on memory by emphasising the importance of memory for societies as well as for individuals. Sometimes, he wrote, memory seems to die out“ then it gushes again and sets the whole social reality alight”, in the most contemporary Soviet context as in Khrushchev’ s time with de-Stalinisation and the release of thousands of prisoners. At that time, however, he underlined, it was literature and the publicisation of memories, and not history, which initiated the reconstruction of memory destroyed by years of Stalinism“ by the powerful means of propaganda, by official history […] by physical violence and finally by the ramifications of the network of camps”. He concluded:“ Reconciling history and memory in the conditions of Soviet society is no easy task. Our history is just as falsified by the past”. And, therefore,“ history belongs to everyone and to no one”. Pierre Nora, following him, noted that“ in both East and West, the invocation of memory and its saving virtues has recently taken on burgeoning topicality” and immediately warns:“ in the West, memory is not sacred today only because, most often, it is poor and misleading. It is memory, and not history, that conveys ready-made truths”.
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Observing Memories Issue 5