Nation's Wounds

Cultural Trauma as a Manifestation of Collective Memory

Abstract

Wars are in a central role when people and communities define their historical identities. Remembering past wars is not only about heroic stories, but collective memory is also engaged with the violence’s destructive and traumatic meanings. By combining the cultural memory perspective of Egyptologist Jan Assmann with the concept of “chosen traumas” by psychiatrist Vamık D. Volkan and the definition of cultural trauma by sociologist Jeffrey C. Alexander, the article deepens our understanding of how and why human communities remember war-related experiences of violence and loss. The article drafts a theoretical model to investigate the memory cultures of war, especially in democratic societies where dealing with the past is more multivocal and complex than in authoritarian, strictly state-controlled memory cultures.