Memory Politics and the Afterlives of Fallen Soldiers

A popular approach in the analysis of war commemoration associates commemorative practices with the expression of nationalism. War commemoration is perceived as an instrument that forges national identifications, unites societies and acts as an essential component in ‘the symbolic repertoire of the nation-states’ (Ashplant et al., 2000, p. 7). This approach draws its inspiration from a classic study by Maurice Halbwachs on Collective Memory (1992 [1950]). According to Halbwachs, collective memory is a social construct and ‘a social fact’ that comes into existence by the power of social groups. Halbwachs considers collective memories as ‘a part of a totality of thoughts common to a group, a group with whom we have a relation at this moment, or with whom we have had a relation on the preceding day or days’ (1992, p. 52). From his perspective, family, religious association and social class make the most important contribution to collective memory. Scholars of nationalism extrapolate his conclusions to the level of nation-states. Exploring the origin of Western nationalism, Benedict Anderson begins his book on Imagined Communities with a reflection on the Cenotaph and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in London, describing these memorials as the most ‘arresting emblems of the modern culture of nationalism’, which have been ‘sacrilege of a strange, contemporary kind!