After experiencing the events that have arisen since the outbreak of the epidemic, I think everyone has understood a little more clearly than ever before: "memory" and "history" are not the same thing. Anyone who suddenly encounters these changes will have complex and intertwined feelings, but this is like a flood of waves, soon leaving only a place of dead leaves, and those who survive can no longer return to the historical scene, nor can we remember all the past events, or forget, or silence, or watch the traces of the time disappear behind you or even in front of your eyes, and when these are finally written down and become "history", you may always feel that there is something different from the experience you remember.
Thongchai Winichon says more than once in his book Illustrated Siam that history, as one of the many ways to understand the world, is cruel. This is because history is full of all kinds of ruthless struggles, and he repeatedly found in his review of these processes that the more deeply suffered those who suffered, the more often they were unable to speak their voices. In fact, one of the goals that modern historians diligently seek is to unearth these obliterated voices, and it may be said that this "ghost of memory" has always disturbed the writing of history.
Cheese and Maggots (Guangxi Normal University Press, 2021), which has long been a classic of microhistory, starts from the heretical ideas of a 16th-century Italian miller, revealing the differences and tensions between early modern mass culture and elite culture, oral culture and written culture, as well as the yearning of the people at the bottom for a utopian world. This is not only "letting the little people make their voices heard", but also means the possibility of criticism for historiography, because excavating such a long-forgotten voice means a historical possibility that has existed, and without corresponding practical care, it is impossible to discover this historical material, or even if you see it, you cannot understand the significance implied by it.
However, the reason for Günzburg's original book was not so much "digging into memory" as it was inspired by Gramsci, focusing on how ordinary people feel and understand the reality of life. Although the "ghost of memory" has had a profound impact on historiography for nearly four decades, it was not historians who first realized its importance. The French sociologist Maurice Habwach (1877-1945), in his seminal study On Collective Memory (Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2002), responded in a special way to Durkheim's view of religious functionalism that memory, like religion, is a social construct that serves the present needs of society, and he even argues that purely individual memory does not exist. The British social anthropologist Paul Connaughton (1940-2019), in How Society Remembers (Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2000, originally published in 1989), emphasizes the sociality of memory at the same time as its daily practice.
The German scholar Jan Assmann has organized interdisciplinary research on "memory" since the 1970s, and in Cultural Memory: Writing, Recall, and Political Identity in Early Higher Cultures (Peking University Press, 2015) and Religion and Cultural Memory (The Commercial Press, 2018), he introduced memory into classical studies, focusing on how memory shaped the collective identity and cultural inheritance of classical civilization, which is equivalent to acknowledging the functional theory of Durkheim-Habwach. But he also pioneered the role of words in the shaping of memory: words are the foundation of historical writing, and with words they perpetuate memory and often prescribe the only correct version.
Roughly since the 1980s, as the West entered postmodern society and the end of the Cold War, "memory" has become a popular keyword from history to sociology, anthropology and even literature. British historian Jeffrey Cupid admitted in History and Memory (Translation Forest Press, 2021) that since the early 1980s, "memory has obviously become the central topic of historical research", he systematically discussed the significance of memory for historical research from the definition of concepts to the development of a series of related issues, and also showed the strong productivity of this discourse, which can be said to completely refresh the original category and cognition of historiography.
In this regard, one of the earliest and most important works is, of course, the multi-volume Field of Memory edited by the French historian Pierre Nora since 1984 (an excerpt was published by Nanjing University Press in 2015), a landmark work that marked the shift in the focus of historical research from "history" to "memory". This is not only a change of thought within the field of historiography, but also closely related to the postmodern transformation of the whole society in the early 1980s, because the "field of memory" is no longer entirely the function of collective memory to society, but the diachronic change of social consciousness, and how the original monistic "history" has become a multi-voice "memory", in other words, the only correct historical writing has gradually withdrawn, and now people can study and comment on it in any way.
After the end of the Cold War, as the memories of Eastern European societies behind the Iron Curtain thawed, a large number of archival documents and historical memories reappeared, and many historians dug up treasure here. British historian Lawrence Rees's rewriting of World War II history (in particular Auschwitz: A History, Guangxi Normal University Press, 2016) is largely based on oral interviews with many former Nazis. At the same time, the long-buried sleepy memories are once again awakened to disturb the living, and the Polish Jewish writer Anna Biconte's memorable "Crime and Silence: Confronting the Holocaust of Jedwabne" (Social Science Literature Press, 2018) is a source of controversy sparked by the book "Neighbor", revealing the unspeakable past of Poles: they were not only victims, but also perpetrators, and this is the memory they now strive to forget and deny. Of course, Peter Novick's Holocaust and Collective Memory (Translation Lin Press, 2019) is a must-read on the historical memory of the Holocaust, and he points out the frightening point: "The most powerful collective memories are usually those that are deeply resentful. "The key is whether such memories are used for revenge or whether they are based on critical perceptions of the past to create a new future."
For those who have experienced these sufferings, those histories are the inevitable elephants in the room, constantly disturbing the realpolitik of the living, and it is often these different historical memories that become old grudges, and the differences in details prevent people from reaching reconciliation. Say Nothing: A Murder in Northern Ireland (Gezhi Press, 2021) shows that on the fault lines of society as a whole, people are torn apart by different historical memories and social identities, and there is no historical narrative that is acceptable to all. The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus: 1569-1999 (Nanjing University Press, 2020) reviews how the four countries of Eastern Europe, which were originally born of the same roots, each used historical memory to construct a differentiated national identity and cultural identity, in which the writing of history itself reflects the conflict of nationalist politics, so that "leaving history to historians" is actually a consensus they have reached so hard. This in itself shows that the importance of history in realpolitik has declined, and historiography can finally get rid of its original burden.
Other marginalized groups that have been silenced need to make their voices heard to be redeemed. Erased History: The Untold Story of the Panama Canal (Guangdong People's Publishing House, 2021) points to Panamanian history obscured by the American narrative: it was "modern" before the "modernity" transplanted by the United States. In this respect, however, historians are by no means alone, but literature often plays a more important role. In recent years, three works written by women have presented a multitude of accounts related to themselves and based on the present: "Memory memory" by russian female writer Stepanova, "She is from Mariopol" by Ukrainian-German female writer Natasha Woding (CITIC Publishing Group, 2020), (Nova Press, 2021), and the non-fiction work of Indian-American female writer Sugata Kiddara, "Ants in the Elephant Herd: An Untouchable Family and the Formation of Modern India". (CITIC Publishing Group, 2021) Of course, He Xiao's "The Gender of Memory: Rural Women and the History of Chinese Collectivization" (People's Publishing House, 2017), written on the basis of investigating the oral history of Shaanxi women, can give us a better view of the female perspective that has been obscured outside the orthodox discourse.
For others, digging into memories of the past is actually the most powerful weapon in critique reality. In "Loyalty and Rebellion: The State of Spiritual History in Japan's Transition Period" (Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 2021), the Japanese thinker Maruyama extracted elements from history to make postwar Japanese realize that concepts like "loyalty" are not only the meaning of the current understanding, but also other possibilities in history. In fact, "Oceans and Power: A History of a New Civilization" (Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House, 2021), "A Thousand Years of Anglo-European History: Britain and Europe, 1000 Years of Conflict and Cooperation" (CITIC Publishing House, 2021) and "Three Hundred Years of Greece" (CITIC Publishing Group, 2021) also imply the same meaning: for realpolitik, it is important to excavate what kind of past, through reinterpretation, to create a new possibility and provide a different choice of identity.
There is no doubt that these are equally important for the study of Chinese history. Wang Mingke's "The Edge of China: Historical Memory and Ethnic Identity" (Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2021) introduces anthropology into history, based on the margins, from the formation of "historical memory" to reflect on and deconstruct how the supercommunity of "Huaxia" was formed, and how to form a new nation-state on this basis. This is not only a study of history, but also provides a set of methods for studying history, allowing us to see how historical narratives that we have become accustomed to in the past are constructed, and from what angles we can understand and understand.
In "Collective Memory for Forgetting: Interpreting 50 Cultural Revolution Novels" (Life, Reading, and Xinzhi Triptych Bookstore, 2000), Xu Zidong used Propp's narrative theory to find that in 50 "scar literature" novels, a large number of plot elements are actually repeated, that is, people seem to be "memories", but they consciously or unconsciously borrow a large number of popular elements in society when they remember. Although this is a study of literary criticism, it has good reference significance for us to understand the shaping of "memory" and even how history is written in the end.
Due to the difference in social environment and academic context, the domestic research on "memory" has not been so hot compared with Europe and the United States, nor has it formed such a depth of interdisciplinary intersection, and one of the advantages is that it has left quite a lot of gaps. Three other works in 2021 deserve attention: Wang Dongjie' "Sages in the Township: Yan Yuan and the Ideological Transformation of the Ming and Qing Dynasties" (Nanjing University Press, 2021) noted that although Yan Yuan tried to educate the villagers, his own image of a "saint" was also shaped by the memories of the villagers; Yuan Yidan's "Another New Cultural Movement" (Life, Reading, And New Knowledge Triptych Bookstore, 2021) pointed out the difference between later historical writing and original memory: "New Culture Movement" Not a coherent movement as later generations understand, this "starting point" is itself plural; Yang Xiao's "Re-Walking: Searching for southwest United University on highways, rivers and post roads" (Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 2021) experiences the "field of memory" left by Southwest United University with a walking experience, and history and memory are intertwined.
Whether it is "history" or "memory", it is an almost inexhaustible topic, and for the historiography that was previously limited to documentary materials, the introduction of "memory" has also opened up more possibilities, and even hopes to become a hub connecting literature, sociology, anthropology and many other disciplines, because "memory" is usually inseparable from history. The reason for asking these questions is not so much for the sake of those who have passed away, but for ourselves, because only by understanding history and memory can we finally understand and know ourselves.