oa Lieux de mémoire - Erfgoed en geschiedenis

This article deals with België, een parcours van herinnering, a twovolume book, edited by four historians and one literature historian. It is a Belgian attempt to write the history of a nation through its lieux de mémoire. Following in Pierre Nora’s footsteps, the idea behind this book is that traditional history cannot but fail when attempting to write national history, because the nation has undergone tremendous changes. In this article the concept of lieux de mémoire as it is used in België, een parcours van herinnering is studied in the context of debates concerning history and heritage. It is usually stated that history and heritage are opposites, because history has scientific purposes and heritage has nostalgic and political ones. On the one hand, België, een parcours van herinnering is written by professional historians and the sites of memory in question are studied according to scientific methods. On the other hand, sites of memory are pieces of heritage, and the writing of history along the lines of those sites always involves debates about national identity. In this article it is argued that België, een parcours van herinnering shows not only that heritage and history are intertwined, but also that writing lieux de mémoire-history transcends such a presumed opposition.