Memorializing the GDR

Saunders, Anna

doi:10.2307/j.ctvw04jpp

Cited by 38 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…In this, as scholars have argued, the past constrains the present (Schudson 1989;Schwartz 2000), but, given the obduracy of events, present frameworks construct and define the past (Halbwachs 1992). While the accounts literature has focused on individual accounts for untoward action (Orbuch 1997;Scott and Lyman 1968), and memory studies have shown that the construction of collective memory is iterative (Olick 1999;Simko 2012;Whitlinger 2020) and fragmented (Vinitzky-Seroussi 2002), we describe how governments seek coherence in national commemorations (Saunders 2018). We ask how the French government, in their remembrance of the First World War, refers to the Marshal in ways that dampened controversy.…”

Section: -Ernest Renanmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Problem of Pétain: The State Politics of Difficult Reputations

Brossard

Fine

2021

Sociological Perspectives

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How do governments commemorate salient national figures with contested reputations? The case of Marshal Philippe Pétain, whose fame followed World War I (WWI), but was later stigmatized for having led the Nazi-affiliated Vichy regime during World War II (WWII), suggests that political leaders consider the interests of competing groups. In the case of Pétain, these include veterans’ organizations, Jewish heritage groups, leftists, and, eventually, the rightist National Front. State leaders attempt to reconcile these pressures in the hope of avoiding politically damaging conflicts. Successful commemorations reinforce the legitimacy of the State as the guardian of symbolic compatibility between visions of history and morality. Recognizing memorialization as political process, we describe how Presidents of France attempt to distinguish an honorable Pétain from a dishonorable one. We describe four strategies by which states address difficult reputations: erasing, selecting, reconciling, and differentiating. Competing groups may create ambiguous meanings, attacking the State, while keeping distant from those with difficult reputations.

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Section: -Ernest Renanmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Problem of Pétain: The State Politics of Difficult Reputations

Brossard

Fine

2021

Sociological Perspectives

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“…83 Monuments usually 'evolve over time; they "become" rather than "exist"'. 84 The meanings and values attached to the Bigio, though, have remained remarkably constant. For example, the arguments used by the partisans' associations and centre-left in recent years echo those of the Resistance at the end of the Second World War.…”

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confidence: 99%

Beyond Rome: Brescia and the Difficult Heritage of Italian Fascism

Carter

2023

Journal of Contemporary History

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Physical reminders of Fascist rule in Italy can be found in virtually every Italian town and city. To date, though, studies of how Italians have dealt with this ‘difficult heritage’ have focused overwhelmingly on Rome, where Fascism's copious remains are treated and admired as aesthetic objects, unmoored from their political–historical origins. Implied, assumed or articulated in these studies is the idea of Rome as an exemplar of the nation: that what is true of the capital is true of the country. In fact, the idea that Rome's approach to its Fascist heritage is representative of Italy's has yet to be properly tested. This article argues for the need to go ‘beyond Rome’ in order to gain a deeper, richer, and more nuanced understanding of the ways in which Italians have negotiated the difficult heritage of Fascism. Focusing on the provincial Lombard city of Brescia, the article reveals the complex interplay between time, place, use, memory, aesthetics, and politics in shaping how bresciani have negotiated three surviving ‘faces’ of Fascism: Marcello Piacentini's monumental piazza della Vittoria; Arturo Dazzi's colossal statue ‘L’Era Fascista’, popularly known as the ‘Bigio’; and Oscar Prati's monument-ossuary to the fallen of the Great War.

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Redesign of Camp Memorials in East Germany After 1989

Lepitre

2024

The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Cultural Heritage and Conflict

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Memorializing the GDR

Cited by 38 publications

References 0 publications

The Problem of Pétain: The State Politics of Difficult Reputations

The Problem of Pétain: The State Politics of Difficult Reputations

Beyond Rome: Brescia and the Difficult Heritage of Italian Fascism

Redesign of Camp Memorials in East Germany After 1989

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