A timeline, interrupted
A timeline, interrupted

Summary/Abstract: The past does not exist. It is what one makes of it. From a purely axiological point of view, every one of us is constructed of different pasts and we have different memories at our disposal. The non-existence of the past as a tangible point of reference is a subject of individual or collective creation and interpretation; it is the founding assumption of any sociological research devoted to mnemonic subjects. That is the case because, put simply, we all have a past – and it does not matter how that past came about in our minds. It has been somehow socially constructed. It is a result of much more than a mere sum of our individual memories. As observed by all the great theoreticians of collective memory – ranging from the early writings of Emile Durkheim to our contemporary Jeffrey Olick – memory is inherently plural and inherently social. Collectivities, argues Olick, have memories just like they have identities. The relation between the two is of mutual intertwining – they construct each other and they are mutually complementary. What makes the content of both is, however, beyond the control of an individual, especially if the past employed in the process is a past which we have no direct recollection of.

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