Totalitarian experience and European Memory Cover Image

Totalitarian experience and European Memory
Totalitarian experience and European Memory

Author(s): Claus Leggewie
Subject(s): Philosophy
Published by: Fakultet za medije i komunikacije - Univerzitet Singidunum
Keywords: memory; totalitarianism; commemoration; war; victims; Europe

Summary/Abstract: The current European crisis reveals the limits of the institutional integration from below, limits of transnational identity based on European collective memory. It is clear that the European Union will not achieve full integration and collective identity as long as our national images of memory differ. We need to create a different common memory and history in the European Union beyond the commemorative rituals of any nation-state. Only if we overcome old conflicted divisions regarding the instrumentalization of different national pasts can we create a transnational European future. New Europe needs a different memory and a completely new collective self-reflection.

  • Issue Year: 2/2013
  • Issue No: 03
  • Page Range: 101-106
  • Page Count: 6
  • Language: English