Archive as a Depository of Shared Memories, History and Identity

Abstract

Given their role in the preservation and protection of an authentic and credible trace of the past (documents) and, consequently, national identity, archives are considered places of choice for interpreting and representing shared memory and the past. Emphasising authenticity and credibility frames archives as seemingly neutral institutions in terms of politics and ideology. However, the trace that provides an insight into the “truth and knowledge” of our (individual and collective) past “that makes us what we are” needs to be questioned. Since the archiving procedure is based on the processes of inclusion and exclusion in all segments of everyday interpretation of material, the archive is a political and ideological institution that takes its place in the order of political power. This paper discusses the role of the archive as a place of preservation of “shared past and history” as an important part of national identity through the prism of institutional apparatuses or forms of knowledge/power (example of architecture) and technologies or manners of articulating and practising knowledge/power (example of everyday practice). The paper points to the role of archives in the (re)interpretation and (re)vision of shared memories, collective history and national identity on the examples of the Croatian State Archives and Archives of Yugoslavia, in the context of changes in the symbolic and political order (SFRY/Croatia). By constructing national memory and narratives of nationality through narratives of history and memory, and by constructing “truth” (knowledge) through exclusion and inclusion, archives (just like museums and libraries) have a role to play in “imagining” the community–nation. Or, according to the theory of performative identity (Foritier 2000), everyday practice that takes place in archives is an institutional identity practice that contributes to the unification and homogenisation of the community through a policy of interpretation by performing and producing (performative) memory (collective identity formation).