Focus on the Relationship Between History and Memory

¶ … Memory: The Statue of Liberty

The 7-volume French Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past and its condensed 3-volume English translation examine French History through "collective memories" of powerful French symbols. Editor Pierre Nora sums up France's History as "neither a resurrection nor a reconstitution nor a reconstruction nor even a representation but, in the strongest possible sense, a 'rememoration" (Nora and Kritzman xxiv). In Nora's theory, History involves memory as "the overall structure of the past within the present" (Nora and Kritzman xxiv) and co-editor Kritzman asserts, "Our knowledge of the past is less a question of our empirical grip on the past than on our apprehension of the past as we represent it through the lens of the present" (Nora and Kritzman xii).

Examining famous French symbols such as the Eiffel Tower and Joan of Arc (Nora and Kritzman xii), Nora's and Kritzman's work illustrates that the "realm of memory" for a national symbol can incorporate so many cultural myths that it can encompass even the Far Left and Far Right of the political spectrum (Nora and Kritzman x). Joan of Arc, for example, provides inspiration for both the Far Left and Far Right of France because their "collective memories" of her, whatever her factual biography may be, create a "One-Saint-Fits-All" symbol for the French people (Nora and Kritzman x). In that respect, Nora's version of History is quite important for "nation building" because a nation's History is more a symbolic view of facts than a literal view of facts. Benedict Anderson seems to build on Nora's view, stating that a nation "is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship" (The Nationalism Project: Nationalism Studies Information Clearinghouse).

The famous documentarian, Ken Burns, apparently agrees with these theories, as his PBS documentary on The Statue of Liberty shows the statue's rough factual beginning, the gradual layering of "remembered" meanings and its current place as a potent symbol of freedom for Americans, whether politically Far Left, Moderate or Far Right (PBS Documentary). Modern Americans may become teary-eyed thinking of the Statue of Liberty but the verified Fact -- with -- a -- capital-"F" is that the sculptor could barely give it away. In his unique style, Burns showed that a sculptor named Frederic Bartholdi was inspired in 1865 by the comment of a French law professor to create a gift from the citizens of France to the citizens of the United States. Planning and building the project for more than a decade, Bartholdi informed Americans during several trips that the citizens of France would give us the statue while the citizens of America would provide the pedestal; however, many Americans were reportedly indignant and believed that France should provide both (PBS Documentary). Also, because America was undergoing a depression in the early 1870's, there was great resistance to raising money for the pedestal, and even Americans who we now intimately connect with the statue's meaning were unenthusiastic: Emma Lazarus, for example, was asked to donate a poem for the statue but stated that she could not write a poem for a statue (PBS Documentary). Furthermore, when the statue was finally finished more than 20 years after Bartholdi's first inspiration, only dignitaries were allowed at the dedication ceremony and "Lady Liberty's" looks and faint torchlight were widely ridiculed by others (PBS Documentary).