Public history : a necessity in today's European Union?

Abstract

In Europe, contemporary political debates are heavily influenced by history and memory issues. European citizens have multi-layered identities, which reflect the active role played by the past in the present. The Europe Union (EU) consists of local identities and the construction of collective regional, national, and pan-European “heimats” and “realms of memory”. The process of Europeanization in a union comprising Eastern European and Balkan countries (2004, 2007, and 2013) seeks to reshape memories based on a supra-national history. The EU, cultural heritage institutions, and public historians should all contribute to questioning history and memory issues within a transnational EU public sphere.