Moral Heroes or Suffering Persons? Ancestors in Family Intergenerational Stories and the Intersection of Family and National Memories

Bibliographic Data

ID6079062
AuthorsRadmila Švaříčková Slabáková (0000-0002-6722-7176, Palacký University Olomouc, Olomouc, Czech Republic, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume44
Issue4
Pages431-448
Publication date2019-10-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Family History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0363-1990 • E-ISSN: 1552-5473
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0363199019863463
OpenAlexW2964023382
LanguageEN
Citations received6

This article adds to recent intergenerational family memory research by presenting an empirical study of three-generational stories recounted by thirteen families in the Czech Republic. By drawing on a detailed and rigorous methodological approach, this article focuses on the topic of stories, their emotionality, and the personal traits of the heroes. The majority of families told their family stories in a prototypical, perhaps archetypal fashion, depicting their ancestors as heroes under circumstances of danger, fear, and threat. A tendency to valorize ancestors is observed in the stories framed by important historical events while private family stories tend to have more of an amusing character. Why a family shares that or another type of stories depends on many circumstances, particularly on a long-lived and generative ancestor, intergenerational relations, and family values

Aesthetics · Ancestor · Art · Genealogy · Sociology · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · History · Oral History, Memory, Narrative Analysis · Psychology · Rural development and sustainability · Social Psychology

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