Collective Memories, Institutions and Law

Keywords: collective memories, institutions, memory laws, politics of memory

English abstract: This paper aims at explaining the concepts of collective memory, institutions, politics, law, as well as relations between them. By means of a short explanation of a network of mutual relations between these notions, we want to show how law and collective memories interact and how the relation between them is formed. At the same time, we see three modes of relations between collective memories and law: 1) past before the law, 2) memory laws and 3) law as collective memory. The first view consists in evaluating the past under a court trial. The second one in creating legal rules which promote or demand commemoration of a specific vision of the past. The third approach perceives law itself as institutionalized collective memory.