Memory Boxes: An Experimental Approach to Cultural Transfer in History, 1500-2000

»The idea of the memory box is an inspiring one, and as such, it can certainly open new vistas for cultural historians.« Marika Keblusek, www.sehepunkte.de, 17/3 (2017)

This volume discusses a practical approach to cultural transfer and exchange through the concept of »memory box«. Ideas of displacement, transfer, and cultural memory are explored through case studies from Scotland to Italy and Germany and from Finland and France to the American colonies. The authors develop an understanding of memory boxes as cultural constructions that are involved in the process of making and disputing memory - but which, simultaneously, are important agents for cultural transfer over space and time. This book emphasises »memory box« as an idea that allows us to study the cultural processes of transfer in conjunction with cultural memory.

1 Content 5 Preface 9 Memory Boxes an Experimental Approach to Cultural Transfer in History, 1500-2000 11 Topoi as a Memory Box 21 How to Visualise an Event that is not Representable? The Topos of Massacre in François Dubois' St . Bartholomew's Day Massacre 27 The Topos of Martyrdom as a Memory Box The Book of Martyrs by John Foxe and the Fresco Cycle at San Tomaso di Canterbury 55 The Topos of Golden Age in Friedrich Schlegel's Notion of Cultural Transfer from Antiquity to Early Nineteenth- Century Germany 79 Providence The Making of a Religious-political Memory Box 93 Personalities as a Memory Box 109 The Personality of Queen Clotilde in Early Nineteenth-Century France 113 Henry the Lion - Enrico Leone A Precious Memory Box of the House of Brunswick 131 Artefacts as a Memory Box 151 Becoming of a Memory Box: the Kalevala Sung Poetry, Printed Word and National Identity 155 Encapsulating Visions of Nationhood Finland (1911) as a Memory Box 177 Diaries, Material Memory Holders Creating a Memory Box 195 "We wanted a parliament but they gave us a stone" The Coronation Stone of the Scots as a Memory Box in the Twentieth Century 219 An Epilogue Reflections on Working with the Concept of Memory Box 239 List of Contributors 241