Az emlékezés kultúrája és a felejtés rendszere
The Culture of Remembrance and the System of Forgetting

Summary/Abstract: The study first briefly summarises selected milestones of the transformation of historical consciousness in the modern era. The “Saddle Period” (Sattelzeit), to use the term Reinhart Koselleck coined to describe the decades around 1800, not only brought about the mobilisation of time but also a raise in valuing the present. The study then goes on to demonstrate two radically different concepts of time, both committed to use theoretical consistency in order to grasp the perspectives on time opening up in the present. In line with the perspectivism that characterises contemporary historical consciousness, both uses the present as the starting point but attributes different roles to the past. With regard to its primary focus, one of these, the sociological theory of structural functionalism is organised around the forgetting of past events: systems select memories from an endless available supply in order to maintain the operation of the current system, which means that all that is not necessary at that particular point in time is forgotten and whatever furthers communication is remembered. This results in the paradox that the main function of memory is forgetting. In the other approach, that of cultural memory, the order of shared experiences is carried by remembering communities of meaning. Narratives enable us to look back and forward, too, and novelty always appears in the shape of the reconstructed past.

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