World Culture in European Memory Politics? New European Memory Agents Between Epistemic Framing and Political Agenda Setting

Dimensions of Heritage and Memory

“…This is occurring at a time not only of generational change, which moves the Holocaust from lived memory to the realm of history, but also during a time of increased communication and the rapid spread of (mis)information through social media, online fora and such like. The complexities of the multiplicity of information, combined with a decrease of 'actual' knowledge, also relate to the political and spatio-temporal dimensions in operation, and the different actors involved in potentially competitive 'epistemic framing', where the universalist language of transnational Holocaust memory is re-used to integrate antitotalitarian memory into the European heritage frame (Büttner and Delius 2015). Furthermore, the notion of 'competing memories' and other challenges to the Holocaust as the universal 'founding myth' of Europe, many of which occurred following the end of the Cold War, have created a multiplicity of approaches to European heritages of difficulty.…”

“…National myths have reappeared as significant factors within contemporary memory and political discourses in Hungary, Poland, Russia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, where they are being reappropriated by new nationalist or populist movements. The apparent inability of the European Union to successfully integrate different national memories of post-Communist and post-Cold War heritage into a reworked European consciousness (Settele 2015, Büttner and Delius 2015, Kaiser 2017, building on the original founding myth of the Holocaust, reflects a growing sense of distrust towards the idea of a common European identity (Kaiser 2015). Although multiple attempts have been made at the European level to achieve commonality, the paradoxical nature of Europe's difficult heritage, combined with the underlying paradox of democracy (Sztompka 2000), appear to be factors in their failure.…”

“…The third paradox in this investigation relates to which heritage and memory counts as belonging to Europe -as well as where, when and why. As the balance of social awareness has shifted towards recognising the ongoing impact of Europe's involvement with and effect on people, places, histories and memories beyond Europe's geographical or political borders, so too has the cultural expectation that heritage within Europe -which is inevitably shaped by such historical and contemporary entanglements of power -should address and respond to contemporary concerns of historical responsibility (Calligaro 2015, Büttner andDelius 2015). Paradigm shifts, such as this, often arouse paradoxical responses among the general public, political, social and cultural actors.…”