Забвение истории - одержимость историей

German historian and culturologist Aleida Assmann is a leading researcher of European politics of memory in the second half of the 20th century. The book "Oblivion of history - the obsession with history" is a kind of trilogy dedicated to the memorial culture of late modernity. In Shapes of Oblivion, Assman describes the relationship between memory and amnesia in social, political, and cultural contexts. In the second part of the trilogy ("1998 - between history and memory"), the author traces how Germany moves from oblivion of national history to an obsession with history centered around National Socialism. Finally, in History in Memory, Assman shows how the unified national narrative of the 19th century is being replaced by pluralistic and contradictory approaches to the past within the framework of the "new historicism of the 21st century". Individual biographies, family histories, novels, museum exhibitions, as well as memorial architecture and historical reconstructions of events acquire a special role in exacerbating the conflicts of (inter)generational memory. Aleida Assman's work provides a fresh look at the irreversible changes that Western European culture is experiencing after the Second World War.