Article (Scientific journals)
From propaganda to commemoration: reworking the national narrative.
Hamers, Jérémy; Van Cauwenberge, Geneviève
2014In Rethinking History, 18 (3), p. 423-437
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Keywords :
WWI in Belgium; Flemish nationalism; national narrative; national identity; counter-memory; documentary film
Abstract :
[en] In Belgium, memories of the World War I have contributed to the production and the perpetuation of a fractured national narrative. While the official narration emphasizes the unity of the Belgian state and glorifies the heroism of Belgian soldiers acting as a unified force against the German invader, a counter-narrative presents the Flemish soldiers as victims who were used as cannon fodder by the French-speaking commanding elite. In the immediate postwar period, newsreels largely reinforced the image of a national unity during the Great War. Ten years later, however, cinema took an active part in the production of a counter-memory. Met onze jogens aan den IJzer/With Our Troops on the Yser (Clemens De Landtsheer, 1928), a Flemish film, is a key work in this regard. This article first examines the narratives and formal strategies the film resorts to in order to forcefully deconstruct the patriotic narrative and to forge a ‘Flamingant,’ Flemish activist collective memory. It subsequently analyzes more recent Frenchspeaking documentary film projects aiming to commemorate the memory of the Great War. Lacking any overt problematization of their relationship to the Flemish separatist narrative, the documentaries are still shaped by it. Indeed, they either attempt to overcome it by reinforcing Belgium’s sense of national identity or to counterbalance it by putting forward a regional narrative that specifically revives the French-speaking Belgians’ memory of the War.
Disciplines :
History
Performing arts
Author, co-author :
Hamers, Jérémy ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des Arts et Sciences de la communication > Cinéma et vidéo documentaires
Van Cauwenberge, Geneviève ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des Arts et Sciences de la communication > Cinéma et vidéo documentaires
Language :
English
Title :
From propaganda to commemoration: reworking the national narrative.
Publication date :
14 May 2014
Journal title :
Rethinking History
ISSN :
1364-2529
Publisher :
Routledge
Volume :
18
Issue :
3
Pages :
423-437
Peer reviewed :
Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi
Available on ORBi :
since 06 July 2014

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