The title of my study is double edged. It aims at the power of memory that transforms people, societies and states, but it also looks at the transformations that memory itself undergoes over the years and under external influences. In my study I pursue this double activity in different realms and contexts. I start with a shift of the cultural frameworks that has helped to create a new discourse on memory, then I look at external and internal factors that change memory and finally inspect more closely the shift from old to new policies of remembering which tap the transformative power of memory in situations of political and social change.