Definition of Collective Memory

Memory is the ability to remember data and events. This function of the human intellect has a double dimension: the individual and the collective. The concept of collective memory refers to all those aspects that are part of the legacy of a community. This term is related to phenomena associated with public opinion and with it the social framework of shared memory is expressed.

Who used this concept for the first time was the French thinker Maurice Halbwachs (1877-1945).

People of the same generation

Those who were born in the same period of time usually have very similar memories of the past. It is common for them to retain in their memory what games they played, what music they listened to or what movies they watched in their youth.

All generations are united by some experiences that go beyond the personal plane. Those who were born in the early 1960s in Spain most likely remember certain episodes from their childhood and youth: the arrival of man on the Moon, the first color televisions, the game of marbles in the streets or trendy music in the nightclubs.

It is not necessary to have lived an experience for the whole of society to remember it

Certain events are remembered by the whole of society even though they have not been known first-hand. Humanity as a whole has a memory of relatively distant moments in time, such as the Jewish Holocaust, the cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall or the attack on the Twin Towers.

The remote past is also part of the collective memory

The literature, the movie theater and school education allow us to have a rough idea of ​​what happened in other stages of humanity. Likewise, in some cities there are signs of the past: centuries-old churches or walls, commercial establishments that were frequented by our ancestors, as well as streets and squares of our city that were built in other epochs.

Recapping

The idea of ​​collective memory is made up of several sections and references:

1) the specific dates that are remembered by the whole of a community (for example, the date of the founding of the city or of a historical episode of special relevance),

2) the monuments of a place are indicators of episodes and characters in the story and

3) literature and cinema also transmit information for society as a whole (Dickens's novels tell us how you lived in Great Britain in the 19th century and thanks to Westerners we know what Midwestern cities were like in the United States).

In short, collective memory is more than just memories of the past, since with it the identity from a town. Without collective memory, a community ignores its roots and traditions. In other words, a people without memory is a people without history.

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