Cultural memory, as defined by the German cultural scientist Aleida Assmann and Jan Assmann, is a tradition of people who have come to the culture and live in the culture and the age that has been repeated and reproduced for centuries and centuries. Aleida Assmann and Jan Assmann distinguish this concept from other memory forms in two basic points. The first of these is the daily memory, which they call the communicative (das kommunikative) and which does not contain any cultural reflections, while the second is the scientific approach, which does not contribute to the formation of a cultural collective identity. Maurice Halbwachs also examines the scientific approach mentioned here in two sub-categories: histoire and memory (mémoire).
Published in Chapter:
Myths, Tales, and Symbols: Anatolian Legends and Cultural Memory in the Footsteps of the Past
Pelin Agocuk (American University of Cyprus, Cyprus) and Dilan Ciftci (Cyprus International University, Cyprus)
Copyright: © 2021
|Pages: 17
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-4655-0.ch009
Abstract
Since the emergence of humanity, symbolic communication has been considered a creative language that has attracted the attention of many different disciplines. Due to the indifference of culture, the phenomenon of folk tales and legends claims that there is more space in literature. The purpose of this study is to create a knowledge base for spatial and cultural memory and to define the cultural heritage of Anatolia, which has hosted many civilizations, through historical periods. This study, which will contribute to a better understanding of the causes of cultural memory in terms of transferring stories for generations, aims to explain the relationship between space and cultural memory through Anatolian legends. For this reason, the study will explain folk tales with a semantic approach in terms of symbols and values. Within the scope of Anatolian legends, the codes and secrets of myths, fairy tales, and legends will be explained using qualitative research method and document analysis technique, and the relationship between space and cultural memory will be examined.