Legitimacy of Death: National Appropriation of the Fallen

Abstract

Many influential theorists of nationalism see war as a social conflict that to a great extent homogenizes and unifies the nation. Nowhere is that unity more clearly expressed than in war memorials and cemeteries. This article considers the examples of Britain and the USA during the aftermath of World War I in order to examine how the state legitimized its ownership of the bodies of its dead soldiers. It argues first that in an internal dispute, when all sides share a normative ideology, nationalism cannot offer an effective basis for legitimacy. Second, it shows that during the aftermath of World War I, the bodies of dead soldiers were not symbols. This article concludes that in order to transform a dead body into a symbol, the body first has to be “de-individualized.”

Post-Socialist Political Necromancy: Weaponization of Dead Bodies in Czech Culture Wars

“…However, the figure of an American veteran is key to the festival's dramaturgy and plays a vital role in the symbolic transmission and reification of the narrative portraying the USA as the liberator and contemporary ally. The way in which American soldiers (both those who have fallen and those who have survived) are treated is equivalent to complete depersonalization (Uzelac 2019). Whether fallen or survivor (and fighting in any war), the American soldier is a symbol and a de facto prop in the hands of political necromancers (Goffman 1956).…”

“…Dead bodies are instrumentalized by state apparatuses and political actors in the sense that they are appropriated and transformed into symbols and artifacts. Often to such a degree that dead bodies are completely dehumanized and depersonalized by political actors and reduced to the level of symbols (Uzelac 2019).…”

“…While Ingram is an example of a highly personalized ghost hero, in other situations, the depersonalized (Uzelac 2019) mass of “American soldiers/fallen/veterans” is used as a political argument, especially when creating the metaphorical dichotomy of “the American soldier fell for freedom” while “the Soviet soldier fell as an occupier.” The creation of this dichotomy stretches across the years of the festival and was particularly striking in 2015, shortly after the annexation of Crimea. It was during these celebrations that the link between the pre-communist and communist past and the present was made (especially by the aforementioned Martin Baxa).…”

“…This article, which elaborates on the concept of so-called political necromancy (see below), builds on ongoing discussions about culture wars, but also about the politics of memory (e.g., Maurantonio 2014) and especially the politics of dead bodies (cf. Verdery 1999; Uzelac 2019). Our ambition is to link the different concepts together and show how politicians metaphorically “revive dead bodies” related to the central points of a given community’s collective memory, de facto sending them into battle against their political enemies.…”