This essay takes up the question of transmission in the context of politics and projects of memory from the last decade. I have dubbed this period “the decade of memory, of remembrance”. The first decade of the 21st century saw an exponential growth in digital platforms, focused on catastrophes and conflicts in the previous century as well as more recent events. Public, academic, and institutional initiatives were accompanied by a public and private support to recover the memory of the past in Spain and Europe. This recovery effort placed intangible heritage, and memory at the centre of contemporary historical efforts. Our work and references are analysed from the projects of the European Observatory on Memories (EUROM) criteria, objectives but also technical tools.
Digital memory or the use of digital technologies for the research, spreading, promotion and dignification of memory is a growing disciplinary practice. However, in our opinion, the so-called digital memory not only responds to a technological, modern or modernizing use within the scope of work of the human and social sciences but also and basically to a right; the right of socialization, reparation, transmission of memory aimed to exercise, resignify and democratize the knowledge of this past, particularly where public politics are not applied either by default or by omission.
The European Observatory on Memories (EUROM) considered the creation of a transnational working network on memory as a foundational challenge using as a tool for spreading, expansion and interaction with partners, a digital platform where the multiplicity of projects and actions could take place. Nevertheless, we will analyze the European and Spanish context in which the project is framed before focusing on the concrete actions.
Currently, the public narrative on memories in Europe and the European institutions (European Parliament and European Commission), has been driven by a political demand that has strongly emerged since the countries of the former Soviet Union joined European Union, almost fifteen years ago. This “demand” equates the Nazi crimes with the Stalin’s crimes has been high-pressure, particularly from 2007 has determined public politics and resolutions, and has also been widely contested in academic circles (
The unique association of historical narratives regarding the use of the victim is dangerous. We know that any account of the experience is open to interpretations, but we must be vigilant with these equations on all levels (
Fortunately, these debates are emerging in different academic, political and social spheres. This uniqueness of memory can be used as an excuse to engender a common European identity, and museums and over-simplistic accounts of the past are construed. This equation and uniqueness of memories is in vogue; however, explicit criticisms are being increasingly made of the European Union decrees, national decrees and “memory laws”, and actions in the public space going in this direction that intend to impose memory “from above”.
The latest campaign was launched through some of the sectors that promote the mentioned equation. Apart from having their European Day of Remembrance, on 23 August (the date on which the Molotov-Ribentropp Pact was signed between the USSR and Nazi Germany), they resort to symbols identifying “23 August” as an icon and a trademark of European pride, and thus they manufacture pins, badges, games and all sorts of promotional material about a memory that, while it was of course painful, gives one the feeling that it is treated according to political criteria and in a rather frivolous manner. These political groups, through their elected leaders, are those that proposed and voted for the mentioned European resolution of 23 August. And obviously, the neoliberal West defended and supported them in every way.
Sometimes it is striking how strongly they appeal to the memory of the terror of the occupations to justify the gaps or the lack of critical analysis of the role their citizens played during that period. Which Estonians or Latvians fired against Jews, resistance fighters and prisoners in general in the Baltic camps and forests? How many of them were there? Who were they? These are uncomfortable questions that are not answered through these countries remembrance discourses when visiting places of memory and extermination, where the role of the “locals” is camouflaged and, in some cases, positively justified. Moreover, the equality discourse - see the sculpture of the locomotive in the Museum of Occupations in Tallinn -justifies the repressive actions and Nazi collaboration of the locals since they were fervently nationalist and anti-communists. Since 2017, this sculpture has been waiting for a destination that better defines a complex reality very far removed from a black and white interpretation. In Latvia it is also stated: “We Latvians killed and shot civilians, most of them Jews, throwing them into mass graves but you don’t know that the Jews were communists and many of them went to work for the KGB later,” said a Latvian citizen when asked about the large memorial in the Bikernieki Forest, where tens of thousands of people were exterminated by Nazi, and Latvian bullets (author’s interview, March 2014).The same applies to other countries such as Ukraine, Romania, Poland, etc. Where is the local responsibility for such violence?
After a discovery voyage around the discussions on memory both on the North and the East, passing through the
However, it is in the public sphere compared to the books where we can find a very obvious example. The new monument to the Nazi occupation in Hungary erected in the city of Budapest is worth a visit. Hungary and its citizens are represented by the Archangel Gabriel as victims of the “Nazi eagle” in this national monument and official memorial. An example of this is the House of Terror in Budapest containing evidence of a noticeable ideological discourse - together with a museum display that leaves indifferent- where the collaborationist and violent role of the “locals” during the dictatorship of Miklos Horthy and during the period of mass deportations and exterminations is ignored. Fortunately, in the face of the political lie, the transgressive memory appears in the central Freedom Square of Budapest in the form of
However, the most interesting part of this process is the interaction with citizens, visitors, and those who put into practice the memory. It is necessary and essential to analyse the stone of the commemorative monument, which, on the one hand, is also understood by the victim’s association as a need for memory to remain fixed in the form of a permanent tool somewhere; and, on the other hand, by the politician, the power or the State with the aim to represent their work in the shape of ephemeral monolith to expose public statements. Nevertheless, this trend represents a certain “stony or petrified” memory that is being contrasted with what we call cultural memory, which obviously includes new digital technologies. Professionals such as the director of the great Auschwitz Memorial Museum remind us that we must use new ways of transmission and representation of memory through art and the new technologies that are daily embedded in our public and private lives. Thus Cywinski states that “the daily reality guarantees the transmission of any authentic or original place, allowing to overcome the usual commemorative frenzy, increasingly widespread” (2018).
The cultural memory upheld by Andreas Huyssen is treated as if it were in a moment of transition, full of changes and mutations. And the prospect of transnational study appears once more necessary. The basis of knowledge is history and comparative history can explain some, but not all, keys to the mutation of memory. It is in the field of remembrance, in practical uses and experiences, where it is possible to establish links and make progress in the analyses. However, the understanding and representation of a traumatic past requires the cooperation of historians and memoir writers (Carol Gluck established a curious neologism for this: “memorians”, which in a way defines the work of many historians, but of course not limited to them).The analysis of public customs can enlighten us about the processes of memory. These processes are experiencing a boom, a certain “hypertrophy” of memories that responds to multiple factors but also denotes a lack of confidence in the imagined future, particularly in Western societies.
For example, there is no historical link whatsoever - or only a very symbolic one - between the commemoration of the 9/11 attacks in New York with its monumental remembrance site and museum, and the Memorial in Berlin to the Jews exterminated in Europe. Both place their memories at different levels of social message. In Berlin we find a civic memorial at a national and collective level dedicated to the victims and their families in a distant way, both historically and geographically, as it intends to offer a global European memory of the Holocaust. In contrast, the 9/11 memorial focuses the primarily on family and individual memory, drawing a very faint, almost non-existent line between the intimate and the political. The Berlin Memorial aims to make the world aware of the history of Germany - and Europe - with a national commitment to public memory. The New York memorial, on the other hand, tries to bring together current politics and private memories that are involved in an open conflict and somehow ignoring the historical processes (
We fully endorse Huyssen’s analysis, which also anticipates the facts, since his comparative reflection is prior to the opening of the 11S memorial at the so-called Zero Zone. James E. Young’s ideas lie beneath this perspective, which based on his long experience in the analysis of the memorialization of public space, enlighten us once again by highlighting the need to travel and compare before acting, stressing the debates that have arisen around designs and their meanings. These processes of creations of memory are often more important than the final outcome of the memorials themselves (
These brief reflections support the analysis and the need to “observe” public politics of memory in Europe in a horizontal, comparative and transnational way and its application to local and national cases opens the door to the present and future treatment of memory. This confirms the conflictive and transgressive practices of the processes of memory and implies a warning of the customs à la carte and abuses of victims, violence and conflicts. Comparative memory is presented as a transforming agent that can - and must - comply with the functions of the debate and counterweight. By limiting ourselves to promote the national memories without any transnational practice troops of national - and nationalist - memorials with effects contrary to memorial connectivity can consequently result (
The mobility of memory also generates mobilization. One of the most mobilizing and transgressive forms of conduct in memory action is direct digital memory or through art. Above all the political impact of art that is capable of creating small forums of resistance: Resistances in the present using elements of the past. Resistance to violence, exclusion, injustice and even mediocre inactivity. One of the disciplines closest to all these reflections is art, with its transformative and inquiring capacity; art that works with memory; political art. In the hands of intelligent and freer creators, it acts through processes of creation, thinking and doing. Art and artists who have achieved this level of social action with their work open up new spaces of memory that imply transculturality, permanent mobility and the permanent use of digital tools in their work (Julian Bonder, Kristina Norman, Horst Hoheilsel, Cristina Lucas, Joachim Gerz, Francesc Torres, Francesc Abad and Fernando Sánchez Castillo are recent and close examples).How to work within a comparative multiplicity, a permanent mobility and mutation of memories in an area as complex as Europe? This could also be one of the foundational questions of the European Observatory of Memories.
The public programmes launched by the European Commission show, in their will and description, the evolution of many of the above-mentioned factors. Like all public politics, at the time they were passed, they had their detractors and advocates (
On the other hand, there is a positive development of these politics, and it is a readiness to understand the complexity of the past and the memory of conflicts in the present. In our opinion, the line taken at the beginning of the programmes for 2007–2013 has been adequately rectified and opened up to other axes and projects for the current period 2014–2020.In the last two years of the new “Europe for Citizens” programme, the “memory axis” has gone from fourth to first place in the Europe for Citizens programme and the its budget has been increased. In some ways it is a commitment to the values of the democratic European memory to mitigate the crisis of values Europe is suffering generically. We think it is right to incorporate these programmes into the framework of active and civic politics. Without social involvement, there can be no participative memory, which is the one that really emanates from the citizenry and is activated in it. Some of the points of the programme meet objectives hitherto unseen in the context of public politics of memory at a European level (EACEA:
Examples of this “participative memory” have also been activated at a local level, for examples and for the first time in some projects in Barcelona and in the context of the new EUROM network (
The European Observatory of Memories is a project developed within the Solidarity Foundation of the University of Barcelona, but its network extends to different countries in Europe and beyond (
The European Observatory on Memories is a true bridge of connection and work between institutions, professionals and researchers from Europe and other continents, with special attention to Latin America, where politics of memory have had a very important role in the political and social sphere in recent decades. It also shows a special interest in countries that formally do not yet belong to the European Union but which are and have been Europe. The current decade is full of challenges around the politics of memory, it is a decade of analysis, observance, learning and transnational work. Europe is the best example of the multiplicity of memories is Europe, which shape our current democratic reality and the present socio-political map. The very concept of Europe is a juxtaposition and multiplicity of memories forged day by day. This wealth compared with parallel processes, such as those we have seen in America, allows us to state that a diversity of memories should be an influence on the public politics of memory on a Europe-wide scale. Without ignoring or forgetting the great weight of the consequences of Nazism and Stalinism in terms of building democratic narratives, other processes - such as the fights against fascism, dictatorships, civil rights, peace and justice processes, democratic movements in the East, resistance and fights for freedom - have also give rise to transformative values that cannot be categorised as less important. The different national histories are far more connected than one might think, but accepting multiplicity and diversity and working according to this approach would prevent us from having to play the game of competition between memories that we observe in some groups or countries.
One of the Observatory’s aims is to tackle unashamedly and without political pressure the thematic variety of memory in the 21st century. There is an obvious need to establish a European memory network that takes into account and respects the diversity of memories, each with its own specific features and it is undoubtedly difficult or even impossible to do so without a multidisciplinary and transversal approach. Therefore, all kind of academic specialities are represented, such as art, architecture, history, anthropology, sociology, political science, ethnology, literature, working with new technologies, etc. We also count with a solid network of professionals who have worked at different levels on memory, its transmission and its patrimonial nature. This transnational and multi-disciplinary networking is coordinated horizontally by the Observatory but is fuelled and promoted with the support of its members (currently 46 members from 20 countries).
The Observatory’s approach includes specific goals summarized in the following points:
To detect and analyse the different commemorative processes in the countries of Europe and other continents from the point of view of experts, professionals and civil society. Thus, the basic partners in the network are the universities, institutions and associations.
To initiate a shared discussion on European and international politics of memory promoted by its institutions.
To network with the project partners and others who might be able to collaborate occasionally.
To prefigure and develop joint work programmes and to seek complicities, support and funding for the project.
To contribute to the analysis and management of politics of memory, as well as the socialization of commemorative initiatives. A particular line is the work of remembrance carried out by civic participation.
To foster multidisciplinary work and research on activities related to the creation of public memory.
To foster the right of the citizens to use and reconsider the heritage of memory.
To promote the Observatory as a true connecting and working bridge between institutions, professionals and researchers from Europe and other continents, paying special attention to Latin America.
In the first phase, we were interested in analysing the emerging issues related to memory, the actors who have worked from different perspectives and putting them in contact to collaborate in a network. Some of the actions have already been launched, such as the interviews held in different regions of Europe, and accessible from the Observatory website. The website helps us to disseminate the project, but also to network, as each partner has an interactive space, where digital, topographic, documentary resources or thoughts can be made available. The network is organized in three interactive levels:
The institutions carrying out the project: the Solidarity Foundation of the University of Barcelona, with the help of the European Commission and the steering committee in which the City Council of Barcelona participates.
The network’s partners: public or private institutions, research centres, universities and associations that adhere through the collaboration agreement and that share common goals with the Observatory and the rest of the partners. The partners also propose research activities and projects or the dissemination of memories.
Indirect partners: professionals, bodies or institutions that take part in the Observatory through one of the direct partners, or who carry out a specific activity or a specific research or dissemination project, with whom specific agreements can be signed.
Since the creation of the Observatory, the digital format and
The plan of a digital dissemination for the transfer and exchange of the results of the activities organised within the framework of the EUROM project is included in a continuous communication strategy, aligned with the global project and aimed to engage the audience and make them participate (
The
Among the means of dissemination there exists a monthly
The EUROM website highlights the institutional information, the activities scheduled, the projects and the partners’ network. The descriptions contain external and internal links that allow the user to expand the information by browsing through the different sections or parts of the website. As an example, below a summary:
General map of the project with the localization and links to activities, projects and
Schedule of activities, including our highlighted
Mission, objectives and
Footnote with registration form to the
Links to active social networks in the header and footer
The descriptive and informative (dissemination) section of the global project is made up of three sections describing the project’s mission and goals, as well as each worker’s email contact details and a contact form.
The section dedicated to
In this session there is a dedicated space for each project led by EUROM in collaboration with other entities and organisations. Updates are made on a project-by-project basis, and are mainly focused on the dissemination of the results:
Publication of specific contents, such as the audiovisual interviews of
An image or logo identifying the project
Links to social networks dedicated to projects, and a highlight for the
Internal links to activities, videos,
Links to the materials to disseminate each project
This is the most dynamic section of the website, updated according to the activities planned. It includes a gallery of activities sorted by date of publication, and a calendar, which shows EUROM’s activities and the main activities of our
Dissemination
Featured image
Image to be disseminated by means of
Registration forms
Schedule of the activity
Map with the location of the activity when it is done in more than one location (in case of
Links to
Link to share activity on social networks
Press releases and/or announcements (internal and external links)
Featured keywords and dissemination of the specific
Photographs of the activity (Flickr)
Dissemination
Links to dissemination and communication results (Storify, videos)
Press releases and press kits (internal and external links)
Videos
The EUROM videos are categorized into three subsections and are linked to each related project or activity. There are mainly dissemination materials, but they also help us to reinforce the dissemination of activities and projects.
This section brings together the publications made by EUROM as well as editorial articles by our direct collaborators; that is, resources made by EUROM or in collaboration with the direct collaborators. It is a newly created section intended to be expanded with the aim of implementing the contents of dissemination of the global project. The participation of the entire team includes the selection of the publications and resources published.
This section has
As for the statistics of the page, the following data was available within the last year (January 2017-January 2018):6628 new users; 25,298 page views; 10,689 sessions, with an average duration of 2:59 minutes per session.
EUROM’s social networks are mainly used to promote and disseminate activities and projects. The priority is to share our own content, as well as that of our partners. We also have the support of the
Twitter: the @euromemories account has more than 1,260 followers and is one of the main
Facebook. The @europeanobservatoryonmemories page has currently more than 930 followers (
Instagram. The EUROM network in Instagram (@ euromemories) has more than 300 followers. This network is used to highlight the campaigns of activities and projects by expanding the information on outstanding images. The publications take place 1 to 5 times a month, and this frequency is intensified during the campaigns. Here we also highlight the information about the spaces of memory we visit during our activities. All Instagram publications are posted on our Twitter and Facebook accounts, and through the
Storify. We generate follow-up reports on the dissemination of our activities, including social networks and media from the /euromemories account. These reports are available on our website, and distributed in PDF format and via Twitter to the corresponding audiences of the activity or project.
Vimeo (
Youtube (
In their first issue, authors such as James E. Young or Henry Rousso collaborated with in-depth articles, while shorter articles were written by Stefanie Endlich or Pavel Tychtl. This issue also featured interviews with memory studies specialist Elisabeth Jelin and Constanze Itzel about the House of European History. Special attention was paid to places of memory such as the Aljube Prison Museum in Lisbon. while articles on the monuments dedicated to the international brigade members of the United States or reviews on new memorial museums were included, such as the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the United States. The digital presentation format was consciously chosen to include digital and audiovisual projects and proposals such as Carolina Astudillo’s documentary on torture, preceded by a presentation by Laia Quílez. The documentary is itself a piece of video art illustrating and documenting what women tortured during the Chilean dictatorship are not allowed to “say”. They are third parties, acting as readers, volunteers or actors expressing their experiences through texts or letters who will offer their voices and the capacity of their memory transmitted to the protagonists.
It began as a research project carried out by a group of historians from the Conèixer Història (ACH)Association and led by Professor Manel Risques and Jordi Guixé under the scope of the Memorial Democràtic in 2008.This first phase involved research into contemporary places of history and memory in the city of Barcelona, such as monuments, buildings, routes, symbols, public art and even tours of demonstrations. Almost 200 files were created following an exhaustive approach. The first option was to publish a guide with places of memory in the city, however after a sudden fall in public politics of memory taking place from 2011, and also affecting Catalonia, the project still waits for a better time.
Thanks to the latest aid granted by the Ministry of the Vice-President for historical memory projects, the ACH, together with the European Observatory of Memory, took up the project again and decided to turn it into a tool for dissemination, promotion, tourism and learning. About seventy different spaces were selected and not all of them retained their original form, but all of them were taken into consideration due to their historical and social importance. The project was designed and developed basically in the city of Barcelona, with trips to some archives of other cities in the same province. The files with the final contents were re-created and would eventually become the basis for a digital map and a free mobile application available in four languages (Catalan, Spanish, English and French).The mobile application project was developed within the framework of the catalogue of free applications provided by the Barcelona City Council through IMI (Municipal Institute of Informatics).
The new website and application suggests and proposes places, but also tours that the user can prepare at home and go through in real time including radars and augmented reality in the web and, above all, in the App. It was also conceived as a “tourism of memory” project, because the projection of these tours was accessible to the general public through a newly created website that had to be available in several languages to reach the maximum number of users, local or foreign. The routes would have to contain the historical data of each of the spaces as well as the necessary information to travel freely and/or au-tonomously through the proposed routes. Within the current phase (2017/2018), the European Memory Observatory is working with the City Council to take a step forward in a new version of the website and the App, which is more up to date with new trends and fully integrated into the digital dissemination tools. Other technical and economic needs that cannot be ignored in this type of project are the graphic design of the web, its hosting (
Thus, the present work of “digital memory” raises the unprecedented issue of the design and dissemination of urban tours and fills a space of information and knowledge that has not been sufficiently covered, either regularly or systematically, by any other memorial space. The interest in getting to know history “in situ” in historical spaces is demonstrated by the influx of citizens who have participated in visits to some of Barcelona’s memory sites punctually organized around commemorations or temporary exhibitions
The goals of this work have been to locate, catalogue and interpret the public spaces of the city of Barcelona where historical episodes took place and where democracy was attacked, defended and claimed. Its purpose is fundamentally pedagogical, since learning strengthens the collective imaginary of past events. Common history must be made available to society and must be projected in democratic terms to society. This will allow us to build a new model of collective memory; so we believe we have provided interesting data so that society can have more elements to judge and can have a real and precise vision of the past. The outcome of the research allows us to have a catalogue of sites of memory in the city of Barcelona that can help explain through a pedagogical and objective approach the events that took place between 1931 and 1980 with the aim of achieving a more solid democracy. Upon analysis of the content, the intention of this project was and is to respond to the social demand for knowledge concerning a historical period that was silenced and manipulated for many years. By promoting the scenarios in which episodes of violence, repression, resistance and the struggle for democracy took place, we contribute to the historical reparation of the events and to the dignification of the victims of the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship, as well as their families (
Historical research
Cataloguing of historical sites
Design of routes
Development of a multimedia tool to disseminate the results
Upon completion of the research, the proposal of the project was a design of the routes through the most relevant spaces of the city, achieving as a result thematic routes through which, for example, the confrontations between the forces loyal to the Republic and the military rebels on the day the Spanish Civil War broke out in Barcelona would be explained; the bombings suffered in the city and the defence strategies (anti-aircraft batteries and shelters); or the massive demonstrations in the streets in favour of the democratic freedom during the last part of the dictatorship.
There are several ways to recover the past and to be able to dignify or commemorate it by means of digital tools: consulting the written documentation, recording the oral testimony of those who lived through the events, locating and interpreting the spaces where these events took place, etc. These spaces constitute a heritage of great value that helps us to understand the past, they are called “sites or places of memory”. The present project defines spaces of memory as places where, according to what has been documented, transcendental events took place for the development of our history. These events have had a significant influence on the way we have arrived at the present times and will have an influence on the development of our future. Therefore, in our opinion sites of memory are those where democracy, the basis of our current rule of law, was promoted, defended and attacked. However, sites of memory can also be the places where there are currently monuments commemorating historical events. The steps taken to develop this methodology have been:
Search and filtering of the bibliography dealing with the historical facts of the Second Republic, the Spanish Civil War and the Franco regime.
Research in public and private archives, libraries and newspaper libraries on the main stages of the Spanish Second Republic, the Spanish Civil War and the Franco regime in Barcelona.
Cataloguing the information extracted according to its chronology, thematic and geographical scope (by district).
Writing of texts based on the documentation created from the research.
All this has been used to configure a complete database that can be extended and updated and works as a matrix for the website. This database contains the basic information about the available tools, metadata, information organization criteria, language selection and route typologies. The basis of the digital project contains a series of preconceived routes, designed from its historical and heritage interest, of which a complete interpretative documentation has been published: maps,
Brief basic description of the space and the historical event.
Detailed description of the historical events that took place at that geographical point.
Interactive map of the route, through WMS services that offer geographic information of interest to follow the itinerary.
The final product of this project has been the creation of an on-line platform (
Historical and geographical information on the pre-defined locations
Cataloguing in a database of information obtained in relation to the sites of memory
Creation of a chronology of the historical period 1931–1980
Design of routes by districts
Drafting of texts to prepare the cards of the spaces located
Proofreading and translation of texts - we remind you that the work is submitted in 4 languages -
Current photographs of the localized sites of memory
Management of the copyright of the stock images
Design of the structure and creation of the website as a platform for the dissemination of the project
Creation of a digital map with Google maps technology to locate the itineraries of the routes
Collaboration in the creation of an application for mobile phones upon agreement with the City Council of Barcelona
The results obtained can be identified as follows:
The work on memory in its broadest sense owes its present and future to the digital application and new technologies. The activation of memory must be digital and social in the future. Without these two axes, the dissemination will be restricted to a public going as in a pilgrimage or the commemorative frenzy. This is why the great theorists on the work of memory, such as Hirsch, Huyssen or Hoeisel, are also increasingly addressing the dissemination issue through modern and modernizing channels. In EUROM, we have applied - or tried to apply - digital and numerical parameters to disseminate the work of our network. Without the projects previously presented, I would dare to foresee the failure of the horizontal network of transnational work. The dissemination and promotion of the different websites and social networks are our communication channel, but also an efficient tool when it comes to organizing, structuring, researching and disseminating our projects, works and publications. Rather than a conclusion, I would like to point out the continuation of this project by means of a new digital project that we are about to launch with HISMEDI and the professor Matilde Eiroa (
This permanent working methodology is, in my opinion, another task to be continued in our network and our research and dissemination work. However, it will also determine a step forward in the need to promote the analysis of websites, platforms and digital social networks with the third decade of the 21st century around the corner.
It is worth mentioning the routes organized on the Spanish Civil War sites -also carried out by the Spanish Civil War Tours association (
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