ANTHROPOLOGY OF COLLECTIVE MEMORY: ESTONIAN NATIONAL AWAKENING REVISITED

Abstract

Collective memory constitutes a particularly important basis for nationhood and national identity. It establishes a link between generations, which creates an image of temporal continuity and legitimates the existing sociopolitical order. As anthropological studies have often revealed, however, invention and forgetting are integral to the formation of collective memory. This paper studies the politics of collective memory from the anthropological perspective in the example of Estonian national awakening in the nineteenth century and the role of ‘reservoirs of memory’ in maintaining and recreating national identity.