The national imaginary as a historical and cultural practice of memory: images of the pilgrim fathers in the rhetoric of the American civil war

This article examines the theoretical and specific historical problems of modern memory studies. The aim of the work is, on the one hand, to determine the main theoretical framework of modern reflection that clarifies the relationship between history and memory. On the other hand, it is centered on the implementation of memory studies approaches on the example of the case of the memory of the Pilgrim Fathers in the USA public discourse during the Civil War. The study was carried out on the basis of an analysis of two groups of sources. The first group is represented by the scientific works of historians published in 2000-2010 and devoted to the theoretical aspects of modern memory studies. The second group consists of sources from the period of the American Civil War and includes press reports, sermons and speeches of politicians. The authors analyze the content of the historiographic discussions of the 2000-2010s and come to the conclusion that modern research on memory is focused on several key aspects. The first of them centered on identifying individual and collective practices in the representations of the past. Shared social experience serves as a conceptual “frame” for individual memories. This “frame” includes not only the informational, but also the normative values dimension of memory. The next perspective of memory studies is concentrated on the study of the cultural aspects of collective memory. The special characteristics of this direction are the study of memory as a continuously transforming phenomenon, which is in close relationship with the media. Another direction in memory studies is the problem of the connection between memory and oblivion, which are also reflected through memory “fluctuations”: “turning points”, “wars” and even “aphasia”. The authors demonstrate the experience of applying modern approaches to memory studies on the example of studying the representations of the founders of the first colonial settlement in the North of the United States, known as the Pilgrim Fathers, in the rhetoric of the American Civil War in the second half of the 19th century. The authors note that on the one hand, appeals to the authority of the “symbolic ancestors” were intended to strengthen the loyalty of the northern community to the ideals of the Union. On the other hand, the images of the Pilgrims should serve as a conductor of the cultural traditions of the North in the ideological battle with the South. Summing up, the authors believe that the experience of retrospective study of the established historical and cultural practices in the format of a case of memory can expand the prevailing vision of the formation of collective representations of the past.

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