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Printed with a subsidy by the Fritz Thyssen Stifrung fr Wissenschaftsfrderung Sylvia Paletschek , Sylvia Schraut (eds.)

The Gender of MemoryCultures of Remembrance in Nineteenth- andTwentieth-Century Europe

Sylvia P,tlcuchek is profcssor of modem history a Freiburg University.Sylvia Schraut is prof'essor of modem history at the University of BundeswehrMunich.

Campus VerlagFrankfurr/New York


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266MARAGREVERANDKEEsRIBBENSRoberts, David, Postmodernism and History: Missing the hfissed Connections


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268SYLVASCHRAUTANDSYLVAPALFTSCHF_ REMMRANCENDGENDER269emerged, the national community was depicted as masculine and coura-geous, the enemy disparaged as weak and effeminate 3

The masculine imbuement of national cultures of memory is reflectedin the prevailing concepts of research into cultural memory; it is not thesubject of critical examination. This can be shown with the example ofPierre Nora's concept lieu de mmoire.4 Nora's interest is directed athistorically anchored national identity. He exclusively refers to the nationand his concem is the safeguarding of national memory at present or in thefuture. Nora's concept runs the risk of drawing an image of history that iscentered on male spheres of action. This can be demonstrated with theexample of its implementation in Etienne Francois and Hagen Schulze'sproject on German places of memory.5 There have been many discus-sions about the concept of lieu de mmoire as well as about the selectionof the places.6 Here we shall concentrate on the analysis of the implicitconcept of gender in this approach.

Twenty-five of the 121 contributions of German places of memory-deal with persons, five among them with women. Accordingly, Rosa Lux-emburg and Rahel Varnhagen, the Prussian Queen Luise and MarleneDietrich represent the female element in the German places of memory.We may further add Uta von Naumburg, even if she is usted only due tothe Barberger Reiter (Bamberg horseman) who appears first in the title ofthe essay that deals with her. That there is a certain hlindness towardsquestions of gender can be demonstrated w-ith examples that seem to begender-neutral: Canossa, Nuremberg, Versailles, or Rapallo appear to begeneral places of memory at first sight. In fact, they are not general, as theyare exclusively associated with male spheres of action. This, however, isnot clearly indicated. Even symbolically charged places such as Karlsruhe,the Bite of the Federal Constitutional Court, or Brgerliches Gesetzbuch


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270 SYLVIA SCHRAUT AND SYLVIA PALETSCHEK

research into forgotten women on the local level, there are only a few firstmethodologically reflected attempts to combine gender and memory,including an anthology by Selma Leydesdorff, Luisa Passerini and PaulThompson from 1996, and thought-provoking essays by Maria Grever orAndrea Pet.10 Recently Aleida Assmann, dealt with the relation of mcm-ory and gender and made observations on the gender-specific connotationof remembering and forgetting (Assmann, Aleida 2006). Further topicalpublications come from the field of social sciences or literary studies.These publications often deal with topics such as the representation offemale remembrance in media, the question how gender can be made visi-ble in texts and visual productions, or the dissolution of the heterosexualityof memory. These approaches focus on the deconstrucuon of existingmemory practices but are not (or at least only partially) written from ahistorical point of view.11 These are, moreover, some studies on femaleremembrance of the Holocaust, most of them by literary scholars or peda-gogues.12 They show the degree to which women have been marginalizedin memories of the Holocaust.

An analysis of the existing public memory culture requires severalmethodical approaches. On the one hand it is necessary to deconstructpublic memory culture from the perspective of gender. According to JoanScott, gender is a major category for the interpretation of systems of socialrelations by which power relations have been established, legitimated andcemented in history (Scott 1994). Therefore we have to analyze cultures ofmemory from the angle of gender, with regard to their symbolic, normativeand social-historical roots and systems of referente. Furthermore, we haveto examine the gender-specific meanings attached to existing places ofmemory, the (national) symbols, values, concepts of power and historyrelated with them, as well as the implicit images of masculinity and femi-ninity they contain. This means that the gender relations inscribed hito

10Levdcsdorff et al. (1996); Noakes (1997); Grever (1997a); Idem (1997b); see also:Schraut/Paletschek (2006).

11 See the special issue of FrauenKunstWissenschaft. Gender-Memory. Reprsentationenvon Gedachtnis, Erinnentng und Geschlecht, 39/2005 or. Erinnem und Geschlecht,the tide of the journal Freiburger Frauenstudien . Zeitschrift fr interdisri hndre Frauenforscbung,vol.19/20 2006. The sane applics to the conference Gender and Memory, organisedby the Centre for Women's Studies at University College in Limerick, lreland, in 2005.See the conference report by Inga Brandes : http://hsozkult.geschichtehu-berlin.de/tagungsberichte/id=1048.

12 Eschebach et al. (2002); Messerschmidt (2003).

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public cultures of memory have to be analyzed. Such an analysis is still inits infancy judging by the current state of research. The first relevant stud-ies show that today's memory culture is closely linked to the period inwhich its constitutive elements were created, namely the bourgeois era ofthe nineteenth century. Memory culture is further shaped by the bourgeoisgender model which started its triumphal march in this time.13 The dichot-omy of male - public and female - private anchored in the central bourgeoisconcepts had the result that female scopes of action and female perspec-tives were not perceived as political or as having an impact on society. Theexperience and achievements of women were marginalized or fell hitooblivion regardless of whether or not they were in keeping with the bour-geois gender model. This does not mean, however, that there are nowomen at all in nineteenth-century memory culture. Women, especiallyfemale members of ruling families, were indeed part of public memory.Often they were presented in female realrns of action which were ( at leastpartially) congruous with the bourgeois gender model. Female rulers, forexample, gained entrante into memory culture as mothers of the country.

Since the nineteenth century the nation has been represented by femaleallegories. Contemporary notions of gender have left their mark on dieseallegories although they were considered timeless and universal. They sym-bolized, for example, values such as motherliness or sorrow.14 These valuesattributed to women were understood as anthropological constants; theywere thus de-historicized and consequently appeared to be unchangeable.This could also, however, apply to male-connoted allegories in the icono-graphic canon of memory culture. Equivalent to timeless and unchangingmotherliness, for example, is a-historical male courage. But in contrast towomen who almost exclusively represent timeless values, we find a greatvariety of concrete referentes to men, along with the remembrance ofconcrete male-connoted historical events, in memory culture such as Bis-marck, Churchill, or the Nuremberg trials. This means that male allegorieswhich stand for timeless values are only one facet of male-connotedremembrance.

It is therefore necessary to analyze the medieval, early modem and reli-gious roots of female allegories and their change in the nineteenth and the

13 See Hausen (1978); Frevert (1988); Schmid (1992); Trepp (1996); Schmid (2000) orFlabermas (2000) on rhe development of the bourgeois gender model.

14 See for example Kohn-Waechter (1991); Plessen (1996); Agulhon (1999); Planert(2000b); Cusack (2003); Turpin (2003).


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272SYLVACHRAUT AND SYLVIAPALETSCHEK1RENEBRANCEANDGENDER273twentieth centuries. There is, for example, the religous figure of Marywho, in the Middle Ages and in early modemity, symbolizes motherlinessand the mourning for the lost son. In the national era, Mary was made theallegory of the mourning for the failed endeavors to build a nation, as wasthe case in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Ireland or Poland. It was astrong allegory as it offered the opportunity to bind all Christians, be theymen or women, to the national idea. In the twentieth century the feministreconstruction of this allegory on the basis of its pre-modern meaningallowed new perspectives to be developed. Once again Mary was inter-preted as a religious motif of grief and motherliness and thus opened theopportunity for women to resist in conflicts about the national cause. TheWomen for Peace movement in Northern Ireland may serve as an examplefor this (Corrigan-Maguire 1999). The Women for Peace are a politicalmovement who interpret the national allegory of grief as a general Chris-tian and motherly connoted symbol. They thereby created a point of iden-tifcation for the opposition of both Protestant and Catholic women to thearmed conflict between the two groups of the population. The figure ofMary, who in the nineteenth century was transformed into the female alle-gory of the grieving nation, was re-interpreted by the movement followingthe pre-modem allegory of Christian and motherly mourning for the deadsons and husbands. In this way it was transformed into a figure of identifi-cation for women - no matter which camp they belonged to - who tumedagainst the unreasonable demands of the nation. Similar patters of inter-pretation were used by an Italian political movement which, by referring tomotherliness, united both widows of Mafiosi and members of the judiciaryin their fight against the Mafia (Siebert 1996).

Do women and men remember differently? Female connotedfamily memory versus male connoted cultural memory?One possibilirv to combine memory research and gender research is pro-vided by the question if there are specific female forms of remembrance.Do women remember in another way than men? Of course, this questionis problematic as it might load to the assumption of an essential gender

dichotomy in memory culture which does not necessarily exist per se.15Here we do not intend to enter into the debate on the construction ofgender. For us the question is a suitable starting point to examine the his-torical effectiveness of gender topo and their impact on memory politics.Relevant research underscores the productivity of this approach.

To date, research findings point out three characteristics with regard togender-specific forms of remembrance:

Oral history interviews have shown that women individualize theirmemories to a higher degree than men. Women say I when men withdrawto one (Leydesdorff et al. 1996: 1-16). Memory resarch demonstrates thatmemories which are connected with own experiences are rooted deeperthan de-personalized memories. Therefore the consequences of this pat-tern for public memory culture and for the historical anchoring of identityhave to be examined. We also have to ask which consequences it has forpublic memory culture when we insist that political events not be separatedfrom subjective experiences. Another research finding is that events withinthe family play a much greater role for women than for men.'6 Althoughthis can be put down to the traditional division of labor between men andwomen, it is a phenomenon that should not be reduced to the dichotomyof female - privare and mate - public. Female remembrance rather opensthe view for the family as a place of counter-tradition and as a place ofcreating traditions far away from the state and beyond what is considereddesirable by politics or the public. In the socialist systems of the formerEastern Block, for example, the family was the place where patriarchalgender relations were cultivated despite the public gender-egalitarian ideol-ogy or where religious and anti-communist traditions were handed downbetween the generations. Memories such as grandpa was not a Nazia'7 orthat we did not knouw are not par of the official politics of history in Ger-many. It can, however, be assumed that they are charactenstic of thememory discourse of many families (Wolfrum 1999). Including the femi-nine connoted space of the family into the analysis of public politicalmemos' culture enables us to examine and contrast the memory consid-cred desirable by the political system and (female) Enes of counter-traditionwhich elude public control. Intensifving this focus on family memoriesmight also enable us to integrate once again, at least to a higher degree, this

15Onhe debate on sea and gender see Butler (1999; 2004) and Honegger (2001).16 See Pet (2004) and Bierregaard et al. (2006).17 See W elzer (2001); \Velzer er al. (2002).


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274SYLVASCHRAUTANDSYLVAPALETSCHEK

largely female communicative memory into the dominantly male culturalmemory. Considering these questions might also open new perspectives inthe debates about collective, communicative and cultural memory from theperspective of gender.18 Against this background, communicative memorecan be understood as female, cultural memory as mate . A consistent inte-gration of communicative memory finto the public culture of memorycould therefore push forward the gendering of memory culture.

The historical analysis of remembrances of war is one key theme ofmemory research which takes into account gender. This may be due to thefact that war and the experience of war are topics of historical researchwhich have experienced a boom.19 But the analysis of war experiencesfrom a gender perspective also makes clear how much war, interpreted asthe culmination of national crisis and as climax of identification with thenation, is a suitable subject of rescarch to elucidate the differences andpartial contradictions in the memories of men and women. With regard tothe Second World War, regardless of national specifics, the defense of thenation is remembered as mate conduct in communicative and culturalmemory whereas collaboration, fraternization and non-identification withthe nation because of love is mostly remembered as female conduct. InDenmark and Norway, for example, women who had sexual relationshipsw-ith occupying German soldiers became symbols of collaboration. It was ataboo to remember them. Only recentiv could the silence about them bepartially broken. By bringing the topos of romantic love finto the debate,relations with German soldiers could partialty be made understandable andcould be legitimated. By chis the topic could be shifted from the political tothe private sphere 2 Can we conclude from this that remembrance of warreveals deep distrust of women's loyalty? Is chis also a cause for the lack offemale remembrance in national cultural memory?

Memory, Gender and SpaceThe starting point for the following considerations is the interconnectionof public memory and the nation. By using the category of gender, theseemingly gender-neutral national space of memory can be deconstructed.This deconstruction alone does not, however, suffice to integrate femaleconnoted places of memory into public memory culture, because decon-struction does not anchor female remembrance in cultural memory.Inscribing women into memory culture requires us to do away with thedominant position given to politics and to take up topics from the fields ofhistorical anthropology or cultural history. These topics tend to be con-noted with femininity. Moreover, a gender-sensitive integration of women'shistorical experiences into public memory needs a spatial system of refer-ence in addition to and beyond the nation state. Playing with differentspatial scales, which involves bringing together local, regional, national andtransnational perspectives, enables multi-perspectivity and, we assume,makes it easier to integrare the category of gender.It is possible to examine memories which go beyond the nation statewith the example of border regions21 or transnational networks of commu-nication.2- Are there common gender-specific patterns of remembrance onthe transnacional level? \lvhich female experiences and activities, whichmemories of womcn's agency, can be snatched from oblivion and inte-grated finto a culture of memory which is, for example, orientated towardsEurope? Such a research project requires comparative studies in differentcountries or regions respectively, as it is self-evident that comparisonswhich only focus on national cultures of memory are inadequate.

Another possible way for research is the comparison of female experi-ences and scopes of actions in smaller spatial systems of reference, forexample in regions or municipalities.2 This kind of research usually has the

21

22

18 Gcnder is not itnportant ar all for the prominent authors on culture of memory; see, forexample, Halbwachs (1985: 125-149, EA 1925); Assmann, Jan (1988).

19 See as representative studies: Lipp (2003); Buschmann/ Langewiesche (2004); Korff 23(2006).20 See Lcnz/ Mtattauschek (2004); Lenz (2006).

See for example the volume: Lundt (2004), which deals with the way in which cheinhabitants of the border region of Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark see themselveshave been ,iortberned.See David Blackbourn on the overcoming of national historiography by local andtransnacional historiography: Blackbourn (2005). On the debates about world history,European history or transnational histon, see Osterhammel (2001); Werner/Zimmer-mann (2002); Haupt (2002); Woolf (2003); Cohen/OConnor (2004); Frevert (2005).By now there are only few publications which deal with culture of memory beyond thenation from a superordinate point of view. See for example: Auf der Suche nachregionaler Identitat (1997); Schmoll (1995); Flender (1998); Blatter/Schilling (2003).


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276SYLVASCHRAUTANDSYLVAPALETSCHEK y REMEMBRANCEANDGENDFR277stigma of being less important than national history, of being not repre-sentative, or as being simply irrelevant. However, in contrast to thenational level, the regional or local space offers a surprisingly great range ofmaterial with regard to women, female perspectives and female spaces ofaction in history. As our exemplary analyses of memory culture in Offen-burg (a middle-size town in Baden, Germany and a major centre of the1848-revolution) have demonstrated, the material gained in this way allowsus to establish the necessary connections between memory culture andgender history. When the approach to memory culture from a small spaceis connected with the analytical category gender and the extension of topicsbeyond politics, then a number of new research perspectives arise.

Regional or municipal memory culture refers, for example, to manymonuments which have survived more or less by chance and which are ofrather marginal importante from the national point of view. These monu-ments, however, open spaces of remembrance of women. Offenburghosts, for example, a memorial for French female resistance fighters whowere executed there (Friedmann/Kreutz 1994). This memorial has beenforgotten and could be integrated into public memory in Offenburg,moreover it could become an ingredient of a European culture of memorywhich is anchored in the local context. It could be an example to demon-strate the transnational character of a European resistance movement inwhich women participated. A European perspective which stars from theregional leve] offers chances which get lost in the process of national con-densation. On the national leve], monuments like this one or similar placesof memory which represent female resistance had to give wav to the moreimportant male competitors or to supposedly gender-neutral remem-brance. The discussions about the Holocaust-memorial in Berlin are bestsuited to elucidate the process which levels social, cultural and genderdifferences - a process which is characteristic for remembrance anchoredin the centre.24

But it is not only forgotten female places of memorywhich can bebrought back to Efe again. Taking up historical events from a limited spaceallows us, moreover, to implement hitherto neglected female activities intothe regional Lulture of memory. Marie Geck, who lived in Offenburg at thc

end of the nineteenth century, may serve as an example. She was a social-democrat and well-known beyond the region. The wife of a member of theReichstag was strongly involved in municipal politics, worked in the fam-ily's own printing business and raised five children (Emst-Schmidt 1980).She was pan of the national network of the social-democrats and the net-work of the women's movement, and in correspondence with AugustBebel, Rosa Luxemburg and Clara Zetkin. In addition to her daily politicalactivities, Marie Geck devoted her time to the remembrance of 1848. Shepublished numerous historical essays on local revolutionary events as wellas on the history of Offenburg women. She did this with the aim of creat-ing a democratic tradition. She was called Baden's Rosa Luxemburg byher contemporaries, i.e. they characterized her by referring to the nationalcontext. Although forgotten in national historv, she stands for a specificfemale and regional approach to memory culture. By remembering themconsciously, regionally important figures such as Marie Geck can regain agender-political significante as well as significante in memory politics. Theexample of Marie serves as a reminder of feminist, politically active womenon the regional and the national leve], but she also stands for the transna-tional memory of, for example, the European workers' movement.

How can women be written into memory culture?In order to write female remembrance into memory culture new forros ofpresentation of history are necessary. The question is, whether new mediasuch as the internet provide better opportunities for this goal than tradi-cional forms of presentation. The characteristics, the advantages and disad-vantages of the medium of the internet are the subject of intensive debates.Here it is not possible to give a comprehensive overview of these debates.\Ve will only present some arguments in favor of the use of the internet asmedium of presentation of a gender-sensitive culture of memory.25 A gen-der-sensitive presentation of memory culture should make the heterogene-ity of social memory visible and include as many actors as possible in theprocess of shaping a gender-democratic social memory. The internet could

There are a.most no research publications on cultures of memory in migration societicswith the exceptions of: ,'11ottc/Ohlinger (2004); Thelen/Rosennveig (1998); Hudson/Rno (2000); Rbbens (2004).

24 See Cullen (1999); Brumlik et al. (2000); Kirch (2003); l.eggewie/Mever (2005).

25 See Maurcr, Susanne / Schraut, Svlvia, Gender and che Creation of European Lieux deMmoire on che Intemet, Paper for che \World 1-listeny Congress 2005 in Sydney: http://www. c i s h svdnev2005. o rg/ image s / SyI via%20Sc h ra u tA I021. doc.


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278 SYLVIA SCHRAUT AND SYLVIA PALETSCHFK

be a suitable instrument for the creation of a multi-faceted and cross-bor-der landscape of memory which prevents an overly quick canonization ofimagen of history. The following qualities of the internet are favorable forsuch an approach: Many virtual visitor groups have unfiltered access toinformation. Especially the target group of women, who are often boundto their honres, can get access to memory culture without traveling to sitesof memory or participating in public commemoration. The flexible spaceof the internet which can be re-modeled quickly offers the opportunity topresent memory without having to use hierarchies or without having tolimit information because of costs. It allows a broad and multi-dimensionalpresentation. In this way it is possible to establish points of resistance innational cultures of memory which tend towards canonization.

There are a number of requirements for the gender-sensitive presenta-tion of places of memory in the internet, especially with regard to theaccess to information. A design which attracts hoth women and menmeans, aboye all, to create the opportunity of a multi-perspective access tothe material presented which allows associative and creative selection ofinformation besides the usual hierarchical ways of access determined bythe content management systems. Analyses of existing history web-pagesshow, moreover, that the usual search tercos and search engines are gen-der-biased. Therefore, they are of little use for the inclusion of female-connoted memory. It is necessary to develop gender-sensitive search tercosfor the presentation of memory culture. Furthermore, the aesthetics ofcommon web-pages has to be examined with regard to gender. Are theygender-neutral? Which new requirements have to be formulated withregard to the aesthetic of web-pages in order to attract both women andmen?

These considerations led to an interdisciplinary pilot-project on mem-ory and gender in the internet developed by students of history and com-puter science at the University of Freiburg in summer 2005. The project'saim was to design a gender-sensitive intemet-presentation of the revolutionof 1848 in Offenburg.26 From the perspective of informatics this aimrequired the creation of manifoldpossibilities of access to the informationpresented. From the historical perspective it meant making visible theforgotten memories of women and abstaining from simply reproducing thehistorical male-connoted mainstream -experience. Moreover, the project

26 See htrp://pohljig.uni-freiburg.de/1848/ and the repon on it bv Claus et al. (2007).

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was to show that history is -not simply the digging out of past facts. What isremembered from history is always dependent on the interests of a givenpresent. History is re-interpreted and constructed over and over again. Itwould have been too much for the students involved in the pilot-project toelaborate all aspects of the revolution in Offenburg. Therefore they pri-marily searched for female revolutionaries or for the impact of the revolu-tion on the privare or the family's space; they put emphasis on the com-municative processes in connection with the revolutionary events. Finallythey selected the following main themes: sites of the revolution,27 net-works,28 revolutionary couples,229 and remembrances of the revolution.The last point was of special importante to us because by selecting severalpoints in time in which 1848 was interpreted in different ways it becomesclear that images of history are not immanent to history, but that they arereproduced. It should become clear - this was out own optimistic assump-tion - that the perspective chosen by us (gender) also has to be histori-cized, is constructed and thus subject to change. The selection of the othermain themes also demonstrates the shift in emphasis brought about by thepresentation of revolutionary events from the perspective of gender. Theplaces selected show that the sites of revolutions are not always and notonly equivalent with (male-connoted) public spaces associated with poli-tics. They also take place in gender-neutral spaces of communication, forexample in inns, or in semi-public spaces such as (female-connoted) privatehonres. It becomes visible that the political and public event revolutioncould not have happened had there not been female-connoted spaces ofcommunication and social gatherings. Therefore it was consistent to re-place the revolutionary individual with the revolutionary couple and to pick

27 This induded the Salmen inn, where the Offenburg Manifesto which initiated therevolution in Baden was drawn up; thc houses of revolutionaries (men and women); andthe railway station, as infrastructural prerequisite which enabled the assemblies of therevolutionaries.

28 Here selected biographies of well and Iess know n revolutionaries viere to he presented.Further, revolutionary networks, spiritual forerunners of the revolution and personswhich refered to the revolution and kept alivie its memory were to be included inro thepresentation.

29 The students selected well-knowwn bur also Iess-known couples from Baden or Offen-burg, e.g. Amalie and Gustav Struve. Amalie and Johann Hofer. Marhilde and FritzAnneke.

30 The memory of 1848 was researched into using the example of the years 1848, 1898,1948 and 1998.


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280SYLVASCHRAUTANDSYLVAPALETSCHEK REMMRNCEANDGENDER281out as a central theme the semi-private / semi-public network of the maleand female protagonists of the revolution.

It proved to be very productive (and this characterized the main themesselected) to consciously break the dichotomy of private - public writteninto the bourgeois gender model and to shift the perspective from theevent itself to the place or space of the event. By this change of view tradi-tional patterns and hierarchies of assessment could be avoided or openedup. By foregrounding the spatial dimension of a canonized and mostlymale-connoted event, the participation of women and female-connotedfields of action became visible. Both methodological approaches - break-ing up the dichotomy of worlds assigned to men and women by the tradi-tional gender order and stressing the spatial dimension of events - are, inour view, suitable approaches for other gender-sensitive historical projectstoo.

Starting from the local space of events a European view which goesbeyond regional and national borders opens up. In the framework ofspecific and careful analysis the concrete place of a historical event nolonger proves to be only a side scene which only has to be dealt with byregional history. A gender-sensitive analysis of the local space shows that itis not exempt from the effects of transnational communication processes;what happens on the local level is, for example, stimulated by politicalevents in neighboring countries. Starting from the local space it is able todescribe and to analyze processes of migration and communication astransnational events and influences. In this way they can be written finto ahistorical pattern of interpretation which is committed to a transnationalframework bevond the nation and is further committed to the diversity ofmemories of men and women beyond the mainstream.

FindingsThe dominantly male culture of memory shaped in the nineteenth andtwentieth centuries continues to have an effect today, although there havebeen some changes. For example, there have been initiatives by the stateand by municipalities to narre streets, academic prizes, or scholarshipsafter women, women's and gender history has been established and hashad an impact on school books. Archives on women have been founded,

and the feminist movement has made endeavors to safeguard the remem-brance of women. There is, however, still a long way to go in order tointegrate female places of remembrance into memory culture, as the analy-sis of the German places of memory has shown. What has to be done tospeed up this process?

At first, the seemingly gender-neutral national space of remembrancehas to be analyzed with regard to gender-historical implications; theseimplications have to be made explicit. The memory images which are influ-enced by the bourgeois gender model have to be stripped of their seem-ingly timeless anthropological character. A first step to deconstruct suchgender stereotypes which claim validity beyond historical change is to con-sistently put them into a historical context. This means analyzing therespective contemporary forms of gender relations, the degree of inclusionof female citizens into civil society as well as the state of the national, socialand political development at a given time. A further method of histori-cizing these predominantly nineteenth-centurv bourgeois, timeless nationalallegories, metaphors and symbols is to analyze their pre-modern lines oftradition. On this basis, the second step must be aimed at bringing to lighthow these gender images were dealt with in the course of the nineteenthand twentieth centuries. This means that a twofold historicizing of theallegories used in memory politics is necessary: on the one hand we have toclarify the historical context in which they emerged, while on the otherhand we have to reappraise their lines of tradition.

But this deconstruction alone does not lead to the anchoring of femaleremembrances into cultural memory. Prerequisite to the writing of womeninto memory culture is to break the dominante politics and nation have incultural memory and to take up those thematic fields that have been classi-fied as belonging to historical anthropology or cultural history. These the-matic fields tend to be connoted with femininity.

Experiences of wornen are often subordinate in family memory, whichcan be classified as communicative memory, and thev are also shaped bythe official history discourse. Nevertheless, they are less marginalized infamily memory than in cultural memory and are therefore a potencialrepository of female counter-tradition. W hen family memories flow intomemory culture to a stronger degree the chances for a stronger representa-tion of women could increase.

A gender-sensitive inclusion of women's historical experiences intopublic memory also requires a system of spatial referente in addition to


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282SYLVACHRAUT AND SYLVIA PALETSCHEKand beyond the nation-state . Playing with different spatial scales, inter-connecting the local, regional, national and trans-nacional perspective,allows for multi-perspectivity and thus makes it easier to include the cate-gory of gender. This may be the basis on which we can gain access to agender- democratic , socially and culturally differentiated , multi-faceted andcontroversia ) culture of memo ry that does without a hegem onic interpre-tation of the past.

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