Erasmus+ MEMEUROPE
From Places of Plural Memories to European Places of Remembrance (From national memories to the European memory)
Partners:
Lycée Bernard Palissy d’Agen
Lycée de Koper-Capodistria
Lycée Giovanni Marinelli d’Udine
Instituto de Educación Secundaria de Séville
Narva Pähklimäe gümnaasium
Associated partners:
École primaire d’Astaffort
École primaire d’Aquilée
Archives départementales de Lot-et-Garonne
Institut Régional de Trieste pour l’Histoire du Mouvement de Libération
General objective of the project: to discover our common memory (to discover in two senses: to capture but also to reveal)
Through places of memory gradually acquire the concept of common memory, to apprehend and get involved in the challenges of building a European identity.
What are the places of memory?
It is a collective memory, from the most concrete object to the most abstract idea. As Pierre Nora points out, a place of memory is "a significant material or ideal unit that has been made, by the will of men or work of time, representative symbol of any community “. The identity dimension is therefore essential, but the French historian adds that these places are not "what we remember, but where the memory works, not the tradition itself, but its laboratory." What matters is more what one makes of the place of memory than the place of memory itself. Concretely Pierre Nora adds: »Places of memory are first and foremost remains. The extreme form where a commemorative consciousness subsists in a history who calls because its ignored. (...) Museums, archives, cemeteries and collections, festivals, anniversaries, treaties, trials, monuments, shrines, associations, these are the gathered witnesses of another age, illusions of eternity. (...)” He also says "a place of memory in every sense of the word goes from the most material and concrete object, possibly geographically located, to the most abstract and intellectually constructed object". It can be a monument, an important person, a museum, an archive, as well as a symbol, a motto, an event or an institution.
Therefore, it will be important to ask questions about memory construction at a European level, and to understand that memory also has a history and do it in the current context of overinvestment, at least at the level of discourse, from national memories to the identity folds. So, we want to be artisans of the construction of a European consciousness, a necessary step to build a European identity.
A journey from the simplest to the most complex, from the individual to Europe
The project's activities revolve around a journey of increasing complexity that leads the student to reflect on places of memory from his individual condition by gradually expanding his identity horizon through different stages at the local / regional level, then national and finally European.
- The personal / individual level is, in principle, the most obvious. From the personal sphere, the adolescent recognizes and apprehends the existence of places of memory that he associates with the construction of his identity.
- The local / regional level represents the transition between the domestic universe and a larger community. The adolescent leaves it and discovers places of memory that belong to the community and that represent its identity. Through this he becomes aware that he is a member of this community. This is an opportunity to question, to characterize what is a place of memory; how it is built and how it fits into the historicity and identity of communities.
- The national level represents the transition between a territorial framework connected more or less with identity, and the state that exceeds the singularities in a unifying effort. The adolescent appropriates values, symbols intimately associated with national places of remembrance and thus considers himself a full citizen. It is time to understand the ideological and political dimensions of places of memory and to explain that our national history is incarnated through them in a shared memory.
- The European level represents the aspiration to go beyond national borders to build a wider community based on common values. The teenager realizes that there are places of memory that embody them. It is an opportunity to meet and cross the story of others, to understand it, to work on places of shared memory. And so to define what brings us together, perhaps after opposing us: past, values, and project.
Thus, our journey proposes to lead our students to a progressive understanding of what is a place of memory and how places of European memory can bring about a European awareness and the construction of a common identity.
