2This article consists of two integrally related parts: the first one is an overview of how “sites of memory” tend to be defined and researched today. The second part includes a hypothesis claiming that the career of the term can be traced to the fact that it resonates well with a particular sensitivity of contemporary culture, including present-day historical culture, to the spatial and the visual.

4As I have already mentioned, Nora never defined precisely the notion of lieux de mémoire, nor was it his primary goal. He rather wanted to raise the awareness of the wealth of research strategies which can be used to investigate the diverse forms of the past’s continued existence in the present.

7However, the theory on the “art of remembering” is not of great importance in the context of my investigation. I would like to simply point out that the old mnemonic practices of imagines and loci were independent from each other. Initially, the choice of particular “sites of memory” (loci) and locating within them particular images (imagines) was a matter of individual choice. The art of memory was, as a result, nothing other than a technique used to improve remembering. In this initial phase (in ancient and medieval culture) the concept of “sites of memory” had little to do with any kind of historical culture (social/collective memory), as we cannot speak here of any culturally regulated referencing of the past.

8We can speak of “sites of memory” as elements of historical culture only when the association of loci with particular elemental content (imagines) becomes culturally regulated, in other words when particular loci are associated only with some and not with any content elements (imagines). The degree of interpretative discipline may vary, in any case, depending on the broader cultural context: from a strict codification of contents ascribed to a particular place to situations when the only codified interpretative principle states that the place in question is a trace of the past.

9“Sites of memory” can function only in those cultures which respect the notion that a certain object (to paraphrase Paul Ricouer) has “something to say to us” about the past. Put a little differently, acquiring the status of being a “place of memory” due to its compositional makeup results in a principle stating that in a given culture, the past is conveyed only through the accounts of eyewitnesses but also indirectly, through signs and symbols.

12It is easy to notice that in this case the materiality of “sites” becomes an attribute of secondary importance. The “sites” in question can be understood metaphorically, as all sorts of signs and symbols attract attention as potential depositories of the past. I believe that such broadened use of the term “sites of memory” is justified if only for the fact that both the real (i.e. museums, statues, archives, temples, etc.) and the metaphorical “sites of memory” manifest the same properties: they are the property of particular social groups and they contain some or other values (ideas, norms, behavior patterns) important from the perspective of that group. The difference lies in the fact that for the former, “ownership” can be understood literally and entails the possibility of visiting such places, while in the latter case, people refer to metaphorical sites of memory as to one’s past.

14Such interpretation of “sites of memory” assumes that they are fundamentally based on intergenerational bonds. Practices related to “re-visiting” (recollection can be viewed as a specific form of visitation) become then a form of remaining true to one’s ancestors and saving for future generations important values, ideas and behavioral patterns. To avoid a misunderstanding, let us stress that “staying true to one’s ancestors” does not have to (at least theoretically) be identical to respecting any element of their heritage in the contemporary world. “Staying true” and “in the memory of” may also signify the presence of this heritage as a context that co-creates the meaning of products and events in contemporary culture.

15Factors leading to the transformation of “ordinary” events into “sites of memory” and the way these “sites” function have a historical character, being tied to a particular time and culture. A way of referencing the past discussed a moment ago is inevitably related to the culture of modernity, of “great narratives,” one dominated by a sense of linear time - that is time where the present is stretched between the past and the future, and all three elements are viewed as linked in one chain connected by causality. This culture of modernity is ceasing (or has already ceased) to dominate discussion in contemporary culture, although this remains debatable. Zygmunt Bauman, seen by some to be an unquestionable authority on the matters of culture, believes the disappearance of continuity to be an important feature of contemporary culture. “As the whole disperses into a series of ephemeral, randomly appearing and shifting islands, its temporality cannot be described with the category of linearity.” The category of longue durée, used as a temporal frame of reference for constructing “life projects,” both in the individual and collective dimension, ceases to be a useful tool.

16One may disagree with Bauman’s radical theses but he does manage to capture (as others also do, in fact) an important aspect of contemporary culture: the shrinking of areas governed by a linear sense of time. The discontinuous nature and liquidity of social constructs; the temporary, mercurial character of all associations, groups and communities that individuals may belong to throughout their life; and finally the randomness of the identity shaping processes that from the start assume its temporariness and impermanence all stimulate the emergence of a culture where intergenerational bonds grow weaker and consequently disappear.

17How is one to reconcile this observation (from which clearly follows that “sites of memory,” understood as intergenerational, lose their significance in contemporary culture) with the incredible popularity of research devoted to “sites of memory” among historians? The paradox of the situation is that this sudden surge coincides with the incontestability of tendencies undermining the cultural foundations upon which “sites of memory” operate as “depositories” of the collective past (whether national, regional or supranational).

18I believe a solution to this mystery can be found in the emergence, within the last twenty-five years or so, of new phenomena in culture, not to mention historical culture, and consequent shift in understanding of what “sites of memory” are. What I have in mind is the visualization and theatricalization of culture as well as cultural history, and the resulting visualization and theatricalization of “sites of memory.” All these phenomena emphasize, much more distinctly than older forms of interacting with the past, the spatial character of contemporary culture, and I would like to dwell on this issue a little longer.

21Generally speaking, the goal of the professional is to reveal (and communicate) the temporal dimension of reality by the appropriate management of space. In everyday existence, spatiality (i.e. the spatial dimension of reality) is experienced without much interference, unlike temporality. In the latter dimension, there is no ordering principle. This can be seen most clearly looking at information conveyed by various media: the presented reality is a set of unrelated moments. In audiovisual transmissions (especially in news broadcasts) our attention focuses on events for just a moment and then shifts to something equally important or non-important. There is a strict dependence between the structure of time and the capacity (or lack thereof) to view certain states of things as important. One could posit that these are, in fact, two sides of the same phenomenon. A culture that operates only on the basis of a “short timeframe” – understood as a sequence of consecutive unrelated moment, even if it allows for distinguishing between what is more or less significant - allows for only a short-sighted perspective on what is “important” for a moment, “important” in relation to other ongoing phenomena, if at all. This relation works also the other way around (an assumption that must be made if one also assumes that the categories which organize our perception of the world are not an innate quality of our minds, but are cultural in character): culture that can offer only goods destined for quick consumption allows for the disintegration of the concept of time based on longue durée. This connection between the dissolution of the latter conception of time and the saturation of contemporary culture with products destined for “quick consumption” was aptly captured by Jean Baudrillard who rightly relates this phenomenon to the popularization of audiovisual mass communication:

• 15 Jean Baudrillard, Baudrillard Live. Selected Interviews, ed. Mike Gane (London and New York: Routle (...)

The development of the media is precisely this fascinating format [...] which finally suspends meaning in limbo [...] Events no longer have their own space-time; they are immediately captured in universal diffusion, and there they lose their meanings, they lose their references and their time-space so that they are neutralized. And from this point on, all that is left is a kind of ‘neutered’ passion, a stupefaction in front of the sequences, the events, the messages, etc.¹⁵

22One could posit that the discussed “artifacts of no importance” – old wall pieces, cobblestones, street signs – becoming depositories of the past, serve one more important cultural and social function. Their very presence invokes a sense of the past, continuing and passing, while at the same time stimulating emotions resulting from a sense of connection with those who used to live here, who walked the same streets, touched the same door knobs, read the same signs, with people who are long gone and who we know nothing else about. The protagonist of Wiesław Myśliwski’s novel confesses:

Come to think of it, what a multitude of human looks, sighs, heartbeats, touches, moments of sadness and [...] exhilaration and joy must all those furniture pieces, all those objects contain [...] Or all their words, just think about it. All of it gone now. But is it really gone? Take a mortar and pestle [...] they spoke to me when I touched them. I just couldn’t hear it.

23A community created around such defined “sites of memory” is special, requiring no mass conformism from its members; no authorization is necessary to enter or leave it and neither act is threatened with a sanction; and a community of that kind resembling the nomadic ones described by Bauman, however fleeting, may be the only kind of community that a citizen of the globalized world wants (or can) be seriously part of.

24Happenings and performances serve a similar function – that of creating nomadic communities. Historical culture of almost the entire 20th century was an intellectual culture in the sense that it consisted of the past locked in legends, stories and books, that is in signs that needed to be somehow interpreted. Experiencing the past was largely an act of reading the meanings (values, ideas, behavioral patterns) pertaining to events, objects and people. This type of historical sensitivity, even if not entirely gone, competes today with an experience of the past where it is the senses and not the intellect that play an important role. The past experienced through happenings (in contrast to the past experienced intellectually) cannot be clearly translated to behavioral patterns or norms in the contemporary world. Its basic function – apart from providing aesthetic experiences – is to enable participation in a community, particularly the community of those who participate in the happening performance. Happenings can also, to a degree, create a sense of connection to those whose stories they tell, although this does not seem to be a necessary condition.

25One can conclude that visualization and theatricalization of historical culture are stimulated not only by the development of technology and devices registering and transmitting information, but also through strong, inherently cultural factors. I believe (to return to something mentioned at the beginning of this article) that both the incredible popularity of research described as investigating “sites of memory” and the popularity of the term itself have the same source. Twenty-five years ago, when I presented the concept of “sites of memory” (related to Nora’s), the article provoked criticism from Antonina Kłoskowska who had not only expert knowledge but also an excellent sense for scholarly debate. Kłoskowska, along with several other academics objected to the spatial connotation of the term, which was why no one wrote on sites of memory at the time - what was investigated instead was “historical awareness,” “collective” or ”social memory,” “memory of the past,” and the like. Several significant changes needed to take place in culture for the investigation of various forms of collective memory to be labeled “sites of memory.” Considering the factors discussed above, the term perfectly corresponds to the conscious (and frequently only anticipated) hopes and fears of not only the academic community, but the broader reading audience.

26Undertaking research on “collective memory,” the anthropologist or the sociologist is often under an obligation to justify the need for such research. Employing the term “sites of memory” instead to label such research, with its clearly spatial connotations, would forego the need for justification, as its merits would be obvious to both academic circles and the broader reading audience. All of this reveals the degree to which the everyday has been dominated by an exposure to the spatial aspect of culture.