Transmission of the “Good Old Times” and the Power of Imagined Tradition
Transmission of the “Good Old Times” and the Power of Imagined Tradition

Summary/Abstract: In the ethnology and anthropology of local communities there are innumerable statements about the “good old times”. Through their analyses we can ascertain that the “good old times” were usually neither as good, nor as old as they have been presented to us. In the context of local communities these times generally appear as references of selective remembering, with which the local communities shape their “authentic” past, which reflects in the present and influences future strategies. We are therefore dealing here with social memories and social times whose contents are presented as the traditions of local communities. In this paper, I would first like to draw attention to the problem of multiplicity of memory narratives in which the “good old times” are recalled. The next step is comparison of the data from Mediterranean ethnographies and determination of the factors, which influenced the constructions of social times. With the “good old times” local communities certainly attempt to restore the continuity with the adequate past. The contents of the “good old times” are above all based on continuous remembering and comparison with the present. The “good old times” and the traditions connected with them cannot be placed into the framework of Hobsbawm's concept of invented traditions. In the conclusion I therefore try to define the concept of imagined tradition as an analytical tool for the understanding of such social times.

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