On Methodological Questions of Research of Local Places of Memory: Mountain Žalý on the Harrach's Estate in the Giant Mountains as a Place of Cultural Memory
Abstract
The lecture, based on the author's thesis, aims to enrich the methodological discussion on the possibilities of studying regional history by looking at historical sociology about the area of collective memories research and memory sites. Memory places have become an indispensable part of historical and sociological research in the field of memory studies since the publication of the same work by Pierre Nora in 1984, and have also been significantly influenced by regional research.
In the specific multiethnic and bilingual space of the Habsburg monarchy, the Norwegian concept of connecting places of memory with national ideology and history is not very appropriate, and is therefore replaced by the Assman concept of "cultures of memory" and local identity. The second level of reflection concerns the use of concepts of historical consciousness and cultural memory.
The concept of historical consciousness introduced in the Czech environment by Miroslav Hroch is tied to objective and institutionalized historical memory. From the historical consciousness, in the 19th century, the selective interest of the historical sciences, which, thanks to the generalizing character, tended to deal only with the community in a "national" context and deliberately neglected some places of memory that shaped the legitimacy and identity of the community lower "local" level.
On the other hand, the concept of cultural memory developed by us, Jan Horský, respects the local differences of individual communities and preserves their past spontaneously in the memories of actors outside the institution. The lecture also presents the benefits of using the concept of cultural memory for regional researchers on their own research on the Giant Mountains, Žalý, which never had a significant national past, but at some point it became a key symbolic place of memory for local communities that established a group identity across different cultural levels bindings and self-identification of "subjects" (officials-topographers, tourists, noble landowners) to this place.