Pamięć o przeszłości a konstruowanie bezpieczeństwa w planie teraźniejszym i przyszłym
Remembering the past and constructing security in the present and future

Summary/Abstract: Forming constitutive, basic identity structures of individuals, as well as of those of entire societies, occurs through the continuity of experience. This continuity, and, consequently, the stability of the foundation of identity formation are conditioned by memory. Both individual memory within the horizon of their lifetime and generational memory constitute preserved and transferred records of „things past” and their interpretations. It is memory (by marking the horizon of the past and making it visible on the plane of the present and the future) becomes an opportunity for contemplation of what is „gone” and for its constant re-evaluation. The ability to undertake deeper reflection, reaching deeper into history, becomes also the possibility of building a relatively safe reality, of increasingly deeper understanding of oneself and the surrounding world, an understanding encountered within the world of another human being, the other. Severing the horizon of memory and the deeper understanding formed through it may lead to re-shaping the horizon of meeting the other into the horizon of hostility, mutual prejudice, aggression. Thus, pointing to the memory of the past (as an essential constitutive component of both individual and communal identity) comprises an attempt to reverse the vector of gravity from leading from other to alien to hostile so that the other is seen as an appeal to start a dialogue and, thus, create a safe space of living.

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