LUOGHI PER RICORDARE: LA MEMORIA DELLA TRAGEDIA A MONTEVIDEO

Taking into account the historic events that characterized the life in the Uruguayan capital, the authors examine the peculiarity of that city, its connotation as symbolic head as well as political centre of the country. La Banda Oriental always built a relation with the capital, which along centuries be- came stronger by an idealized perception of Montevideo, a vision based on mythical events that, since the foundation, was related to the country. The capital knew how to maintain its power of attraction and cohesion, in the quiet moments of its history as well as in the dark moments of economic and political crisis. The authors focus their analysis on the capacity of recovery and on the renewed cen- trality of the capital, symbolic place of the memory of the national tragedy and critic reflection of that period. The space organization of a city is bearer of meanings: it communicates values of a society, reveals principles, reflexes representations of the world. In this perspective the relation that flows between the construction of the collective imagery and the memory is captured, with places dedicated to the memory. An anthropologic analysis from the urban topography discovers a deeper relation between power and space and it shows how the elaboration of a collective mourning needs not only to remember painful places but to live in them as well, attributing new meanings. To give a new life and a new history to the memory permits the creation of a lasting memory that constitutes the patrimony of a community.