The Observation Event and the Observed Event in M. Halbwachs’ “Legendary Topography”

Abstract

The author, with the support of Maurice Halbwachs’ work “Legendary Topo­graphy of the Gospels in the Holy Land” considers problems of correlation of the observational event and the observed event, and also clarifies the spatial aspect in «social events theory». The article uses the definition of event as a se­mantic complex denoting a correlative unity of the act of observation, connected with the occurrence in space and time (A.F. Filippov); this interpretation allows the author to use Halbwachs’ work as a resource to resolve some contradictions of the theory of events. Further, the author, concerning the origin of the theory of events and the place of observer and space in the ideas of its representatives, draws attention to some difficulties. First, according to the author, the verifica­tion of observations, the observer figure and the relationship of description and event need to be further developed; second, despite the importance of the spatial aspect, which occupies a key role in the definition of event, the researchers de­scribe the location of the observer, not the occurrence of event; the situation be­comes even more confusing when it comes to large-scale events. Using the find­ings of Halbwachs, who, in “Legendary Topography”, illustrates the points made earlier in “The Social Frame of Memory”, the author insists that the group is the determining actor of collective memory; possessing a common system of dis­tinction, the group constitutes the conventional image of the event. Regardless of what happened, the group deals with the observation of traces, in the absence of direct contact, observers constituting the event, including reconstructing the space in which the event might have occurred, that is, the place is a conse­quence of the events of observation that followed.