LA TROBE UNIVERSITY, MELBOURNE/CHARLES UNIVERSITY, PRAGUE

outlined here can link up with Aleida and Jan Assmann’s analyses of cultural

memory. This concept, defined both in contrast to and as an extension of the

more familiar sociological notion of collective memory, refers to ways of bridging

the ‘floating gap’ between past and present, by condensing the past into symbolic

and foundational figures that possess normative as well as formative force (cf.

Assmann, 1997: 48–56). Cultural memory differs from the communicative

memory that links everyday life to the recent past and shifts its framework as

generations succeed each other; the transfiguration of the past across longer

temporal distances links history to myth and anchors collective identity in the

sacred. It remains a debatable point whether the concept of collective memory

is meant to be a more precise substitute for the idea of tradition (the latter has

proved vulnerable to levelling interpretations, not least those associated with

modernization theory), or as a step towards the construction of a more complex

model of tradition, which would also allow for other dimensions and corresponding

concepts. Some of Jan Assmann’s formulations suggest the former alternative,

but the second seems more promising. Here I cannot take this issue further,

but it may be noted in passing that the formation of traditions also involves

the appropriation of historical experience, in which memory obviously has an

important role to play, but not one that would entail the absorption of all other

factors. Phenomenological reflections on experience and memory – not least the

approaches developed in Paul Ricoeur’s more recent writings – may be the most

promising road to better understanding of these issues.

If cultural memory is a crucial yet never all-embracing component of tradition,

we can envisage a comparison of its particular roles and relative weight in

different civilizations; for example, it seems clear that the contrast between – on

the one hand – traditions dominated by exclusive and highly sacralized figures

of memory, and on the other hand, those that give greater scope to alternative

figures, will be reflected across a wide range of cultural orientations and practices.

But the present discussion is less concerned with cultural memory as such

than with its transformation through the invention, development and diffusion

of writing. A recapitulation of Jan Assmann’s analysis will help to identify some

key aspects of this problematic. The varying forms of writing invented by the

archaic civilizations represent a major landmark; they create the preconditions

for a text-based instead of a ritual-based continuity of cultural memory. It might

tradition, but such cases seem exceptional, and the analogy with writing is needed

to clarify the meaning of oral transmission. On the other hand, the first uses of

writing do not fully realize its potentialities. According to Assmann, another

turning-point is reached when texts become significant and central enough for

developments of that kind occurred during and in the aftermath of the period

commonly known as the Axial Age, which thus returns to a prominent albeit not

exclusively dominant place in comparative cultural history. This thesis brings a

new perspective to bear on a much-debated theme; for our purposes, however,

some less explicit connotations seem more important. All accounts of writing as