Invented emotions and practical reason

Invented emotions and practical reason

GRAŻYNA SZWAT-GYŁYBOWA (WARSAW)

THE BULGARIAN CASE

This article is an attempt to reflect on current and future direction of research on sites of memory. Starting from the ancient classification of three types of theologies - mythical, physical / philosophical and political - on the basis of Bulgarian material the author tries to present sites of memory as a general field and draws attention to the ambiguous situation of the contemporary humanities dealing with a kind of deconstruction of the structural elements of social consciousness. Stressing the need for disclosure the potential for manipulations of the political strategies of construction of sites of memory, the author fears that it leads to obvious dehumanization of the humanities, to lose the perspective towards of the mankind with his ambiguous world of emotions. The book of Polish author Mikołaj Grynberg offers a counterpoint to this analysis - an attempt to capture the emotions of people who visit such a site of memory, such as Concentration Camp "Auschwitz".