A Conceptual Tool Kit

The chapter begins with a section on methods and forms of evidence that outlines the difference between top-down and bottom-up analyses of national memory and notes that the latter will be given more emphasis in this book than is the case in many studies of national identity and memory. The section also argues that by understanding how narrative tools can “co-author” individuals’ speaking and thinking, it is possible to avoid misguided notions of “primordialism” that are part of the rhetorical claims of nationalists. The next section examines the sense in which national memory is memory and argues for the need to focus on remembering individuals as members of groups. This involves a review of ideas from figures such as Maurice Halbwachs and Frederic Bartlett on collective and individual memory. This is followed by a section on “Flashbulb Memories as Memory in the Group,” which uses a body of literature in psychology to develop a conceptually grounded notion of national memory that includes the observation that Bartlett’s notion of schema underpins much of the entire discussion. The next section, on “symbolic mediation,” reviews the origins of this idea in the writings of several European and Russian scholars and goes into the case of literacy as an illustration as outlined in empirical studies by Luria and Vygotsky. It then poses an analogous line of reasoning for narratives as symbolic mediation. This includes a discussion of the “inner logic” of narrative tools, “narrative truth,” and two levels of narrative analysis (“specific narratives” and “narrative templates”).

Narrative Dialogism in National Memory

This chapter examines how the meanings of national narratives are shaped by their context of use. The introduction and first section lay out the notion of “narrative dialogism.” This is followed by a section on “hidden dialogism” that examines how narratives can subtly, but powerfully respond to one another in ways that shape their meaning. A discussion between Vladimir Putin and a British journalist is used as an illustration. The next section concerns “authoritative and internally persuasive discourse,” which involve more condensed forms of narrative dialogism. The notion of authoritative discourse can be harnessed to address how individuals take over the official discourse and memory of the state. An example from a classroom in Soviet Estonia is used to clarify this form of dialogism. The next section on “bivocalism” examines a kind of double-voicedness that involves tentative, ambivalent ways of speaking about the past in which Georgians are both heroic defenders of national honor and self-condemning for being traitors. The final major section of the chapter is on national narrative projects (NNPs), which are unlike specific narratives, narrative templates, and other narrative forms because they do not conclude with a final event. Instead, they tell a story that is in progress such as “America’s Quest for a More Perfect Democratic Union,” “Russia’s Spiritual Mission” as reflected in the story of Moscow as the Third Rome, and “China’s Quest as the Central Kingdom.”

Different Memories, Different Worlds

The chapter begins with an illustration of a “mnemonic standoff” between the author and Vitya, a Soviet friend from the 1970s, over the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The two are stunned that they had such different accounts of “what really happened,” and this leads to three general questions: 1. How is it that there can be such strong disagreement between entire national communities about the past? 2. Why were Vitya and I so certain that our accounts of the events in 1945 were true? 3. What deeper, more general commitments of a national community led to the tenacity with which we held our views? The remaining sections of the chapter address why national memory, as opposed to other forms of collective memory, deserves special attention, what a “narrative approach” to national memory is, and how disciplinary collaboration is required to deal with such questions. It then turns to three illustrations that help clarify the conceptual claims. The first involves American and Russian national memory of World War II, the second focuses on differences between Chinese and American memory of the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, and the third examines how Russian national memory is used as a lens for interpreting contemporary events in Russia and Georgia. Final sections of the chapter introduce the notion of narratives as “equipment for living” in national memory.

National Narratives

The chapter begins with observations about national narratives and conflict between Serbians and Bosnian Muslims and between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. It then turns to a section that distinguishes between national memory and “analytic history” that builds on narrative analysis to present the opposition between two ways of relating to the past. After reviewing various discussions of this opposition, the section concludes with a summary in the form of two columns and the general statement that in analytic history evidence is preserved at the expense of a narrative, whereas in national memory a narrative is preserved at the expense of evidence. The next section goes into some detail about a particular narrative template for Russia, the “Expulsion of Alien Enemies” schema. This provides an in-depth illustration of the notion of narrative template introduced in earlier chapters and shows how this pattern of emplotment is used by members of the Russian national community to make sense of everything from the invasion of the Mongols in the 13th century to the war with Napoleon in the 19th century and the “Great Patriotic War” of the 20th century—and to the invasion of ideas such as communism. The following section draws on contemporary cognitive psychology to develop the idea of “fast and slow thinking” about the past. Fast thinking concerns the unconscious cognitive processes involved in narrative templates. The concluding section provides an illustration of how the Russian national narrative template guides the interpretation of a Soviet war poster.

Selectivity and Emplotment in National Memory

This chapter discusses how narrative tools serve to select and neglect information in national memory. This view contrasts with standard assumptions about how the process is primarily a matter of top-down coercion by state authorities. Instead, it is argued that all parties in a national community, including state authorities, do their thinking and speaking with the help of narrative tools, giving an essential role to bottom-up cultural and psychological forces. The section “Resources for Selectivity in National Memory” examines selecting events and actors in accordance with what Zerubavel terms “mnemonic focusing.” In the USSR this often involved “blank spots” where events were airbrushed from official memory. Official Soviet accounts of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact are used to illustrate that even suppressing concrete details in a specific memory may do little to change the underlying narrative template of a national community. “Privileged event narratives” (PENs) represent a combination of a specific narrative and narrative template that yields a powerful lens through which events are remembered. For Russians, World War II is a PEN that is used to interpret many events, whereas for the Chinese the Century of Humiliation is a PEN. Finally, evidence from a survey study of “Selective Memory and National Narcissism” in connection with World War II is presented. This study involved 11 nations and reveals surprising findings about how Russian national memory contrasts with that of virtually every other nation. This may reflect the power of Hollywood and American culture of memory more generally.

Managing National Memory

This chapter explores how mnemonic disputes can be managed. It begins by noting that simply transcending or erasing differences in national memory is unrealistic and hence not an option, leaving us with the goal of managing them instead. Special attention is paid to efforts of diplomats and other professional negotiators as they seek to address disputes grounded in national memory. This is done with an eye to showing that even such professionals have difficulty resisting the mental habits grounded in national narrative templates. One strategy they emply is keeping national memory out of the discussion, and this is outlined by using an illustration involving Franklin Roosevelt’s efforts to work with Stalin in 1943. But this strategy is often not a viable option, and hence negotiators emply other strategies for managing mnemonic disputes. In outlining these strategies, I use an illustration involving Chinese and American accounts of the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999. One of America’s most respected negotiators was sent to Beijing after this event to discuss it, but the two sides remain deeply divided to this day, raising the question of the power of narrative templates to shape “strategic trust and distrust.” In a discussion of the role of irony some surprising twists in narrative dialogism come to light that make managing differences in national memory all the more difficult. The chapter concludes with a short list of concrete strategies for managing national memory.