Memorias: actores, usos y abusos. Perspectivas y debates

The purpose of this essay is the examination of those fundamental conceptions about the memory that can be applied to the historical knowledge; in order to differentiate between them, as well as to highlight the points of connection or convergence, it will be necessary to demarcate the line that separates both history and memory. In a secondary level, the roles played by the essential mediators of the memory are identified and discussed: witness, 'actor of the remembrance', and historian. The task of these mediators, proposing different goals and methodologies, is the use of the past; accomplishing a 'public use' apparently legitimate and helpful. However, a series of diversions of this path may make the use an abuse. Finally, keeping in mind all those considerations, it will be discussed the 'policy management' of the past and the actual conflicts of the memory in Spain.