From "Historical Construction" To "Memory Turning"

National identity research is an important part of nationalist theory.It is relates to the question "Who are we?" and "Where do we belong to?" In the 20th century,the outbroke of two world wars,the emergence of a large-scale immigration wave and the development of globalization led to earth-shaking changes in the entire world.Tradition is now completely separated from the present.When various nation-states seek continuity and identity in the past,they have experienced varying degrees of anxiety and confusion.France is a typical European nation with a long history of nationality and a deep tradition of republic.Historiography occupies an important position in social life,carrying the heavy responsibility of guiding,educating the people and inheriting the national culture."To become a Frenchman,you must first understand French history."It can be said that the sense of national identity and belonging in France is largely constructed by historians' research and writing on national history.The 19th-century nationalist thinker Renan believed that "the nation is a daily referendum...a soul,a spiritual principle." Therefore the construction of national identity lies in people's subjective will and recollection of common historical experiences.Jules Michelet and Ernest Lavisse are the two peaks of national historiography in the 19th century.They explore the origin,formation and development of the nation,shape common historical experiences and historical memories,and construct a unified,an exclusive French national identity.In particular,Lavisse,as the "History teachers of the whole nation",sang the great origins of France and praised the brilliant progress of the Republic with positivism.Through the history education of the school,people are taught to love the motherland and love the Republic,and to strengthen the national identity with the historical narrative of continuity and progressiveism.Therefore,at that time,the nation always expressed itself through history,and national identity always needed to seek legitimacy from history.However,after the Second World War,French society experienced a series of"ends",including the loss of status of the international powers,the disappearance of the peasant class,and the rise of the "new social movement",which incited the foundation of the "national myth" in France.At the same time,the impact of immigrant groups and ethnic minorities,Eastern culture and American culture has also transformed the French social and cultural structure from a single to a pluralistic.The unified national identity has contradicted the current diversified social reality,and the machine that once constructed the homogenous social culture has failed.Multiethnic groups have spawned individualized memories,and the era of collective memory and national history has ended.Everyone demands their own history.The unified "history" model of constructing national identity has been strongly questioned and challenged.French intellectuals have to start thinking about what new trends should be made in the study of history and the construction of national identity in the era of "diversity".The historian Pierre Nora pointed out that in the current decline of nationalist ideology and the rise of pluralistic culturalism,the concept of "collective memory" is crucial to innovating historical research paths and understanding,and constructing national identity.Its "realms of memoryt"(les lieux de memoire)research is in the intersection of social environment change and historical self-reflection promoted the"memory turning" of the field of historical studies and the construction of French national identity.He counts the sediments that preserve the collective memory of the nation,based on these "places",from the present back to the past,deep into the uniqueness of the French national culture.The study of the "second level of history"conducted in an attempt to get rid of the linear narrative style of traditional national history.The meaning of the "past" in the "present”evoked by memory and commemoration is the focus of his attention.Manipulation and utilization of the"past" reveals some factors that have not been noticed or intentionally masked.Under this premise,the events that actually happened in the past have become the secondary question.The way of reappearing the past reflects the profound changes in the historical consciousness of the French historiography since the 1980s.Compared with the traditional history of the nation-state,the perspective of "history of memory"further examines how people construct the past in a specific social and cultural context.This new way of writing history and diversified research horizons is a reorientation of the current French national identity construction,making it more inclusive and diverse.