Memories and Generations: Some clues to understand the History of the Present

MUDROVCIC, MARÍA INÉS

La Haya

Congreso; European Social Science History Conference; 2002

European Social Science Association

MEMORIES AND GENERATIONS: Some Clues to Understand the ‘History of the Present’ Maria Ines Mudrovcic Universidad Nacional del Comahue (Argentina) In this paper I will analyze relation between history and memory that was challenged in the mid twentieth century; at that time, the history of the present forced researchers to review the assumption that the rupture with the past was a condition for objective historical knowledge. There is a tension between the present and the historiographic reconstruction of the recent past in which the historian plays the double role as both subject and object in that s/he is the holder of the memory of precisely that phenomenon s/he undertakes to reconstruct historically. Facts like the creation of the Institute of the History of the Present Time in 1978 under F. Bedarida’s direction, the ‘History of the Present’ by P Nora at the EHESS or the publication of the journal Ayer, by the Asociacion de Historia Contemporanea are some of those facts that put such tension to question. This state of affairs has served to re-open interesting issues concerning the nature of historical knowledge.