PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

One of the fundamental questions posed by Reinhart Koselleck concerns the possibility of translating »primary« (individual or generational) and »foreign« experiences (epochal and intergenerational) into historical knowledge that can be shared and communicated. In this process, Koselleck recognizes the potentially heuristic superiority of the anthropological figure of the vanquished, who, faced with the need to understand the causes of defeat, may be able to elaborate new methodological approaches to the past. The following reflections represent an attempt to reread Koselleck’s approach to the political monument cult as one of several methodological solutions, including a historical-conceptual interpretation, that lead to an understanding of the fundamental »foreign« experience that is modernity and its outcome in the twentieth century. Hence Koselleck treats monuments both as »indicators« of the transformation to modernity (of which he has foreign experience) and as an expression of the memorial politics of the recent past (which he experienced primarily). It is precisely this analysis of twentieth century war memorials that generates a rethinking not only of the physiognomy of modernity but also of the task of history, ultimately forced to pass the baton to art in reworking the past.