What Remains: Repatriating and Entombing a Canadian Unknown Soldier of the Great War in the Nation’s Capital

This article chronicles and contextualizes the creation of a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Canada’s capital. In so doing, it traces the myriad considerations, as well as complexities — political, procedural, and practical — that abounded in bringing this major memorial installation into being, namely the repatriation, from a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in France, of a Canadian unknown soldier of the Great War and his ceremonial reburial in Ottawa. Moreover, it argues that the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, situated within an existing monumental space, functions, in the coinage of geographer Owen Dwyer, as an allied symbolic accretion to the National War Memorial.     

Commemorative events at destination memorials – a dark (heritage) tourism context

In the past, sites and events related to war and atrocities were viewed in the wider context of heritage tourism. The term ‘dark’ was added with the aim of recognising heritage sites closely related to death and suffering. Given that commemorative events as part of dark heritage are not prevalent in heritage and tourism literature, there is a need to understand the behaviour of visitors involved in visiting these sites or attending this type of event, which presents a special challenge. Public commemorations, especially those that mark particularly disturbing occurrences, such as ‘The Great School Hour’ – an event which is presented in the artistic form of a ‘school class’ – are unique form of tourist activity that has not been thoroughly investigated previously. Thus, the aim of the study is to explore the influence of the main motivators on revisit intention and willingness to recommend for those who attended the commemorative event ‘The Great School Hour’ in Kragujevac, Serbia, with a particular focus on younger people. The results suggest that learning, emotional response and uniqueness have a significant positive effect on revisit intention, while emotional response and uniqueness have a significant positive effect on willingness to recommend.     

Dark Nightmare: The Shooting of William Alexander as Canon Scott Saw it

Frederick G. Scott's World War I war memoir, The Great War As I Saw It, contains the sole unofficial eyewitness recording of a court martial execution that we possess. The case of William Alexander 20726 Alexander, William. 20726. Service records. Library Archives Canada, RG24, vol. 2538 HQS 1822, RG 150/acc 1992-93/166/Box 83-992 and RG24-C-1, 1946 Central Army Registry R112-553-X-E, Reel C-5053 90,  [Google Scholar], executed in October 1917, for desertion in the face of the enemy compelled Scott to devote more printed space to it than to the death of his own son, Henry. A discussion based upon a close reading of Scott's memoir and an exposition from archival sources of Alexander's case demonstrates the ways in which Scott evades the case's disturbing implications echoes wider aspects of Canada's early memorialization of the Great War.     

Between Defeat and Victory: Finnish memory culture of the Second World War

The article focuses on five essential phenomena in the Finnish memory culture relating to the three Finnish wars fought in 1939–1945, namely, (1) the memory of the fallen; (2) the influential work by author Väinö Linna; (3) the contested memory politics and veteran cultures in the 1960s and 1970s; (4) Germany and the Holocaust in the Finnish memory culture; and (5) the ‘neo-patriotic’ turn in the commemoration of the wars from the end of the 1980s onwards. The Finnish memory culture of 1939–1945 presents an interesting case of how the de facto lost wars against the Soviet Union have been shaped into cornerstones of national history and identity that continue to play a significant role even today. Using the growing research literature on the various aspects of the Finnish war memories and memory politics, the article aims, first, at outlining a synthesis of the memory culture's central features and, second, at challenging the common contemporary conception, according to which the Finnish war veterans would have been forgotten, neglected and even disgraced during the post-war decades, to be ‘rehabilitated’ only from the end of the 1980s onwards.     

Examining the memorialscape of occupation and liberation: a case study from the Channel Islands

This paper introduces the concept of the ‘memorialscape’ as a tool for studying the inter-relationship of memorials within a single rural or urban environment or landscape. Using a case study of the British Channel Islands, where the number of memorials relating to the German occupation of 1940–1945 has increased greatly since 1985 (the 40th anniversary of liberation), I examine the active role these memorials have played in changing the occupation narrative of the islands. This paper will also explore the importance of memorial marginality and centrality; memorial inter-visibility; the difference between the memorialscape of the capital towns of Guernsey and Jersey and the groups they commemorate; and the narrative that the resulting memorialscape produces.     

《王侍郎奏议》刊刻史考略

王茂荫是清代以不避权要、直言敢谏而声震朝野的名臣。《王侍郎奏议》是他的主要遗著。从王茂荫生前因病开缺调理期间(清咸丰八年七月至同治元年初)亲自编辑"奏稿"藏于家到20世纪90年代初黄山书社新版点校本《王侍郎奏议》,历时一个多世纪,凡编辑5次,刊刻4次。本文对《王侍郎奏议》刊刻史进行了梳理考述,披露了鲜为人知的佚闻佚事,对刊刻过程中的一些关键性人物作了评介。     

HOW THE OLD LEFT HAS FOUND A NEW PLACE IN THE MEMORY GAME

In his new book, How Modernity Forgets, Paul Connerton seeks to show a relationship between the workings of late capitalism and the institutionalization of forgetfulness in ever more abstract conceptions of space and time. He uses this argument to explain why the topic of collective memory has waxed so large in contemporary historical scholarship. I interpret his argument in light of his earlier work on habit memory and his still earlier critique of Frankfurt School social theory. I close with some comments on his study in the context of recent work on mnemonic practices in modern culture.     

Gravestones and Monuments in the Maritime Cultural Landscape: Research Potential and Preliminary Interpretations

Thousands of memorials around the world commemorate maritime disasters and death. In addition to commemoration, memorials provide insight into the conceptual landscape of maritime peoples. Types of maritime memorials, locations where they can be found, and the limitations of memorials as archaeological artefacts are discussed. Data from 18th- and 19th-century English and American maritime memorials are used to make preliminary interpretations regarding Anglo-American maritime beliefs. Based on this I argue that memorials are a valuable source of data for maritime cultural landscape studies, particularly for what they reveal about maritime belief systems.
© 2006 The Author     

‘Making Change’ in the memorial landscape to the Dakota–US War of 1862: remembrance,healing and justice through affective participation in the Dakota Commemorative March (DCM)

The Dakota–US War of 1862 led to the removal and exile of Dakota people from their ancestral homeland. Integral to this process was the forced march of 1,700 women, children and elders from the Lower Sioux Agency to Fort Snelling, Minnesota. Despite the siting of numerous memorials related to the war and its aftermath, few mark the forced march and its legacies. Since 2002, however, the seven-day Dakota Commemorative March (DCM) has been held biennially to remember and honour Dakota ancestors on the original forced march. Following a brief overview of extant place-based memorials at sites along its path, we draw on documentary sources to explore the significance of the DCM as a distinctive Dakota intervention in the commemorative landscape. Through a process we call ‘affective participation’ – an intense bodily, emotive and transformative engagement in an event – participants on the DCM not only seek to remember but also strive towards healing and justice in the present and the future. Our hope is to expand the focus of current geographical work on discrete site-based memorials to consider the social- and cultural-geographical significance of alternative (particularly Native) forms and scales of commemoration.