KEEPING IN MIND
All those years are so confusing!
They are galloping like black horses.1
The years are confusing and they are galloping – in fact, not only according to Galczynski2. They cannot disappear because we do not want to let them go by reliving and evoking them all over again. We evoke not only memories that are ours privately but also these which are ours according to a group, nation, humanity. What is devoted to the recording of the memory by means of media in modern culture is a very absorbing issue of “Kultura Współczesna” 3 (53) 2007 quarterly journal (“Contemporary Culture”). It deals with media-recording and roles that each memory carrier (such as historical exhibitions, literature, virtual museums, etc.) plays in this process. The problem is, of course, more extensive (huge!). Though, it is not surprising that reference to such problematic categories like: the past, the present, history or truth, turn out to be essential. However the placement of remembrance in such a broad research context seems to be important for better understanding of how many mutually dependent mechanisms we are being involved in by our life. Isn't it true that consciously I am exactly what I can recollect and what I am going to forget? Leszek Kołakowski emphasised this issue in one of this Mini wykłady o maxi sprawach (Mini lectures about maxi issues) saying that without memory (in this case: collective) we would not even know that we are human beings. So when I disappear, my memory and my forgetfulness will disappear with me (and they must vanish as nobody but me is able to rise to individual memory). What is going to remain is, however, the collective history of the mankind.
Novembers, Decembers and Januaries are ours. Ours are appeals and anniversary celebrations. This aspect of historical politics of the country, though somewhat anachronic, currently seems to be the most evident in commemorating events as reprimanding the society. So since we must not forget, let's ask a question: 'How exactly does our memory work?'.
The history has many names (i.e. many interpretations). Thus there is no possibility for it to exist in our awareness in its pure form without the influence of any means of record and without being subordinate to any aims. Those aims are, of course, more or less conscious and more or less personal. This is the topic of Medializacja i mediatyzacja pamięci – nośniki pamięci i ich rola w kształtowaniu pamięci przeszłości (Media-record and mediatization of remembrance – memory carriers and their role in shaping the memory of the past) text by Bartosz Korzeniewski (who is the author of the concept of the whole issue of “Kultura Współczesna”). He suggests, for instance, distinguishing the media-record of memory into its narrow and broad (i.e. mediatization) meaning. Author also tries to show how many aspects this inseparable relation between memory and media brings about. Thus those media (from language, through writing and print, up to photography and film) which make that the past not only stops being passing but also gains its 'material basis' on which it can spring up in more stable way. It may even be shaped within their limits. He also stresses the specific moment of transition or transmission, even a single recollection, “from autobiographic to collective memory”. However it can be reached only by means of media and memory carriers. We must not forget that this mechanism is two-sided, which means that the picture of the past becomes dependent on characteristic forms around which media function.
An attempt to summarise Korzeniowski's article would lead to its simplifying (I warmly recommend it, it is worth reading). That is why I will abandon this idea, adding in conclusion one of the basic author's theses. The media-recording of the memory is not a purely theoretical issue. It has its visible embodiments in the form of quite touchable modern museums, in which conclusions have been made from changes that were and are being made in our consciousness by progessive technical development.
A good example could be the Museum of Warsaw Uprising which is mentioned by Iwona Kurz in Przepisywanie pamięci: przypadek Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego (The rewriting of memory: the case of the Museum of Warsaw Uprising). The author analises not only the work of the museum as an institution but also the general idea of its individual existence against a background of historical polish conditioning. Distorted and pushed aside of the political discourse at times of PRL3, the Warsaw Uprising has never disappeared from national consciousness. That is why the role of the museum does not consist in bringing back Poles' memory but rather in its rewriting. Kurz considers the museum as a total institution which collects contents, exhibits and all the possible media, and eventually she sees in it a “metamuseum of history or memory carriers”. She also notices that this is exactly such an environment, which affects all senses, that enables “the rewriting of current narration” about the uprising on a new carrier which has its strength in the lack of uniformity. The author notices synonymous transmission hidden behind those activities. If even original medium, which is language, cannot lay aside its own opinions and prejudices in any description, neither will other media do it. It is just impossible. There will always be some author. So where are you, bare fact?
Aware of the illusion of objectivity is also Hanna Gosk (in, as usually, interesting text Jak pamięta się wielką historię i jak się o niej opowiada w prozie XX wieku / How do we remember the great history and how do we retell it in XX-century's prose) who glares at the memory from the perspective of a literature researcher. It is easy to go along with the statement that the memory is something that characterises, singles out and defines us, both individually and collectively (thus it is inseparably related to identity, national as well). However it would not be appropriate to stop at this point. Gosk emphasises the disagreement or even conflict between discourses within the limits of one community memory. She points, though, at human memory as something which, with regard to its unpretentious character, can be contrasted with media transmission. The memory does not claim the rights to objectivity but exactly the opposite. It is emotional, discontinuous, fragmentary. But thanks to this, in record it becomes an interesting field of research. Such a record shows (especially if it concerns historical, generally known events) the way a particular event makes. But it would probably be better to say: through which filters does it go to arise “on paper”. What is really characteristic is that the paper by itself is also a filter.
In conclusion I would like to appeal to the history of polish language (however not for harmony but for dissonance) and remind that in the past words 'forget' and 'remember' were synonyms (in the meaning of 'commiting something to oblivion').
1This quotation has been translated by myself – KM
2Konstanty Ildefons Galczynski, 1905-53, poet
3Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa / The People's Republic of Poland – the official name of Poland in years 1952-1989
Małgorzata Nadwadowska
Translated by Klaudia Makowska
Discussed journals: Kultura Współczesna