The past decades have witnessed a marked growth in preoccupation with the theme of memory, not only in the immediate sphere of personal life, but above all as it is extended to encompass collective experience. This concern with the phenomenon of collective memory has not always led, however, to its clarification. Collective memory is thought to be something "more" than a conglomeration of personal memories which compose it. Yet, each of us, each individual in every society, remembers from a personal point of view. And if there is memory beyond personal experience through which collective identities are configured, in what "place" can one legitimately situate it? In recent years, the attempt to situate collective memory has often been resolved by stretching its semantic reference to make it a near synonym of "history" or historical tradition. Here memory is not merely employed as a metaphor for history, it becomes the near equivalent of historical representation.
In the brief discussion that follows, I will argue in favor of the autonomy of collective memory, beyond the singular perspective of the personal memories which comprise it and at the same time quite different from historical representation with which it is often conflated. My analysis will draw support from theoretical explorations of the phenomenon of collective memory in the pioneering work of thinkers like Walter Benjamin and Maurice Halbwachs. In referring to the phenomenon of "collective memory" each of these thinkers was careful to distinguish it from personal reminiscence, on one hand, and from "history" on the other. How then might we situate the "place" of collective memory in the chasm between personal experience and historical representation?