The role of memory in the self-representation and the construction of identity: theoretical framework and the case-study of Ancient Thasos
Résumé
In this paper, I first propose to draw the theoretical framework of memory in the question of representation and identity. Indeed, scholars in Antiquity often study the concept of representation in opposition to a stranger, an enemy or an outsider of the community; but the concept of memory allows us to think about identity within a community with no need of something/one external to this community. Such social and/or civic bodies define their self-representation and identity using the memory of their past (which sometimes includes foreigners or enemies), by many ways and means, which are not only in the realm of discourse.
Since Maurice Halbwachs’ works, it is known that memory is socially and politically constructed and that space can retain memory of past: in this sense, Pierre Nora’s expression lieux de mémoire can be reactivated as places and organisation of space which construct a self-representation and an identity through memory. To exemplify these theoretical aspects, I would like to present some perspectives about the memory of colonisation in Thasos, both a civic and religious topic. In the sixth century BC, Parians sent twice settlers in this North-Aegean island and the city-state of Thasos then increased and evolved always remembering this colonisation, struggling to have a proper identity. I will concentrate the discussion about the organisation of temples and roads between temples, i. e. about the global religious topography and its meaning regarding the history of colonisation: which gods were enhanced, why, and at which period?
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