War and Memory in the Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars took place from 1802 to 1815 and fundamentally altered the political, social, cultural, and military structures of Europe and, to a lesser extent, the rest of the world. This created a collective memory that influenced, and continues to influence, the modern world in a myriad of ways. The conflicts were a continuation of the French Revolutionary Wars, which bear their own collective and historical memory. They involved nearly every power in Europe, affecting them each to varying degrees. Political and legal systems changed, both as a result of Revolutionary ideals and the introduction of the Code Napoléon. Nationalism and national identity formation accelerated during the period, often benefiting from opposition to Napoleon or the destruction of existing systems wrought by the Revolutionary spirit that French armies brought to occupied territories, spurring the creation of national memory wherever they appeared. Napoleon and his power, undeniable genius, success, and ultimate failure have proven an irresistible and enduring figure of autobiographical and biographical memory in realms as diverse as fiction, wargaming, and history, both popular and academic. The methods of his armies became the paradigm for contemporary militaries, and their legacy continues to form the bedrock of collective, institutional, and popular memory. The arts contain their own cultural memory of Napoleon, many of which remain current. Collectively, the various aspects of the cultural and historical memory of the Napoleonic Wars have become a part of many important areas of history and historiography. As a result, works on Napoleon, his empire, and the Napoleonic Wars are voluminous and grow significantly every year.

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 304-319
Author(s):  
Majeed Mohammed Midhin ◽  
David Clare ◽  
Noor Aziz Abed

Abstract According to Ernest Renan, a nation is formed by its collective memory; it is a country’s shared experiences which enable it to become (in Benedict Anderson’s much later coinage) an “imagined community.” Building on these ideas, commentators such as Kavita Singh and Lianne McTavish et al. have shown how museums play a key role in helping nations to form an identity and understand their past. However, as these critics and those from other disciplines (including postcolonial studies) have noted, museums can also reflect and reinforce the unequal power dynamics between nations which result from colonialism and neocolonialism. This article demonstrates that these ideas are directly relevant to the 2019 play A Museum in Baghdad by the Palestinian-Irish playwright Hannah Khalil. This play is set in the Museum of Iraq in three different time periods: “Then (1926), Now (2006), and Later” (an unspecified future date) (3). Khalil uses specific characters – most notably, Gertrude Bell during the “Then” sections, the Iraqi archaeologists Ghalia and Layla during the “Now” sections, and a “timeless” character called Nasiya who appears across the time periods – to question the degree to which the museum is perpetuating Western views of Iraq.


Author(s):  
Natal'ya V. Rostislavleva ◽  

The article examines the perception of biographies and heritage of the brothers Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt in National Socialist Germany. In the historical memory of modern Germany, their images have become one of the bases of German national identity, and the Humboldt-Forum – a platform for the connection of science and culture. In collective memory of the Third Reich, the brothers held unequal positions. The 100th anniversary of the death of W. von Humboldt caused a surge of interest in him, but his image was reformatted and inscribed in the racial parameters of Nazism: his interest in the issues of the German nation was emphasized, his commitment to liberal ideas was explained by criticism of absolutism, attempts were made to attract his image to Nazi anti-Semitic paradigm. However, there were some researchers of his heritage who retained scientific objectivity. Alexander von Humboldt was paid much less attention: the ideologists of the Third Reich hated his cosmopolitanism. But as he was the brother of W. von Humboldt and a world-famous scientist, it was impossible to forget about his merits. The collective memory kept an image of a traveler naturalist whose greatness the Third Reich did not deny. Commemoration is closely associated to the identity formation. For the construction of national identity in National Socialist Germany their images were practically not required.


The article is devoted to the problems of historical memory formation as a factor of national identity formation. Its actuality is due to the serious challenges that exist in Ukraine for the Ukrainian national identity. These challenges are due to the long-term impossibility of developing our own historical discourse, regionalization of historical memories, politicization of historical issues. The comparative and structural-functional methods have mainly been used in this research. The first one is a comparative analysis of different interpretations of historical memory and national identity. The second has been used in determining the structure of historical memory and the directions of its influence on the formation of national identity. Historical memory became the object of the author's scientific interests in 2015. A more detailed study of the impact of historical memory on national identity was carried out in 2020. The article analyzes the phenomena of national identity and historical memory, the structure and functions of historical memory, its connection with history as a science have been analyzed in this article. The most significant and relevant, according to the author, problems of formation of historical memory in modern Ukraine have also been covered: 1) time gaps and deformations of this process; 2) the long impossibility, in fact, until the end of the twentieth century, of actualization in the public consciousness of one's own historical narrative; 3) significant regional differences in historical memories that lead to horizontal gaps in historical memory; 4) mental alienation of Ukrainians from a significant part of their history. The discussion examines the critique ideas of essentialist about the nation and national identity, based on the concept of the nation as an "imagined community", reveals its theoretical shortcomings and political motivation. Arguments were also made against the call of some Ukrainian historians to abandon the national paradigm of historiography as one that allegedly leads to "provincialism" and "isolationism." The importance of historical policy or the policy of memory for post-socialist countries, the urgency of the problems of historical memory for Western countries in the context of globalization and migration challenges have been emphasized in the conclusion.


Author(s):  
Alistair Fox

The conclusion reaffirms the essential role played by cinema generally, and the coming-of-age genre in particular, in the process of national identity formation, because of its effectiveness in facilitating self-recognition and self-experience through a process of triangulation made possible, for the most part, by a dialogue with some of the nation’s most iconic works of literature. This section concludes by point out the danger posed, however, by an observable trend toward generic standardization in New Zealand films motivated by a desire to appeal to an international audience out of consideration for the financial returns expected by funding bodies under current regimes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 567-567
Author(s):  
Angel Duncan

Abstract This session identifies common misconceptions about identity for persons living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD). Going beyond diagnostic brain imaging and neurocognitive testing, case studies and research in creativity from around the United States highlights consciousness of persons living with ADRD. Reviewing and discussing artworks is aimed to set dialogue in the question of where memory deposits emerge when engaged in creativity. Through art therapy techniques, this type of self-expression may provide new avenues in treatment for dementia care. Exploring the arts from those with Mild Cognitive Impairment to late stage Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, such as frontotemporal dementia, consciousness seems to remain intact despite neural death. This session aims to discourage poor spending allocations and establishing meaningful care. From clinical research trials to creativity of self-expression, the importance of why the arts and sciences matter are demonstrated as effective modalities that enhance quality of life.


2015 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 81-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard C. Lategan

The article explores the contours of multiple identities in contrast to singular identities in situations of social complexity and cultural diversity. Nyamnjoh's concepts of “incompleteness” and “frontier Africans” imply an alternative approach to identity formation. Although the formation of one's own, singular identity is a necessary stage in the development of each individual, it has specific limitations. This is especially true in situations of complexity and diversity and where the achievement of social cohesion is an important goal. With reference to existing theories of identity formation, an alternative framework is proposed that is more appropriate for the dynamic, open-ended nature of identity and better suited to encourage the enrichment of identity. The role of imagination, a strategy for crossing borders (with reference to Clingman's concept of a “grammar of identity”), the search for commonality, and the effect of historical memory are discussed. Enriched and multiple identities are not achieved by replacement or exchange, but by widening (existing) singular identities into a more inclusive and diverse understanding of the self.


2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (6) ◽  
pp. 833-851 ◽  
Author(s):  
Murad Ismayilov

Albeit often — and fairly — degraded in the world of high culture as a populist and politicized representation of music, the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) — by sheer virtue of the populist and politicized nature of its essence — stands among the most consequential cultural encounters to which post-independence Azerbaijan has been exposed, in that the extent to which Baku's victory in the ESC-2011 — and the further developments this victory has generated — can potentially impact on, and contribute to, the very process of nation-building and national identity formation, with which this post-Soviet Muslim-majority country is currently struggling, is unparalleled by any of the state's earlier encounters of the kind. This paper focuses on, and examines, four intimately related ways in which the ESC and Azerbaijan's successful involvement with the latter worked to interfere with the country's nation-building: as a dubious factor in the evolution of the Western sense of self among Azerbaijanis; as a unifying force within the structure of the country's rapidly maturing civil society; as a medium working to open up a channel through which Western popular cultural elements could interfere with the evolving dynamics of, and work to globalize, indeed de-endogenize, indigenous Azerbaijani culture, on one hand, and unify the discursive realm within which the country's cultural domain is to further evolve, on the other; and, finally, as an important element serving to decouple the evolving processes within the country's cultural domain from the unfolding dynamics of conflict settlement and hence conducive to the diversification of public discourse in Azerbaijan.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 265-268
Author(s):  
Stanislav Gennadyevich Malkin

The paper is devoted to the role of the state educational policy within the course of the Russian civil identity formation. The focus of the study is on the evolution of the aims of the authorities in matters of the historical education and historical memory, their norm-legal regulation and institutional support, as well as real educational practices. The introduction of the historical and cultural standard for teaching the school course of the history is considered as a collective attempt by the authorities and society to lead historical and educational policies to a common denominator in terms of the content and value. A special accent in the paper concerns the problems of the teacher professional training for the implementation of the state historical and educational policy of the Russian Federation within given framework, considering the specifics of the contemporary informational space. It attracts attention to the close ties between information wars and historical policy, in the context of the attempts to reconsider the results of the Second World War especially, keeping in mind its effects for the transformation of the civil identity and the changes of position the Russian Federation held on the international arena. Both methodological and organizational restrictions were identified in secondary and higher schools, which have a significant impact on the formation of civil identity through historical education, both at the stage of training pedagogical personnel and in the process of studying the school course of the history.


wisdom ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 146-161
Author(s):  
Tetiana URYS ◽  
Tetiana KOZAK ◽  
Svitlana BARABASH

National culture, especially literature, contains invaluable nation-building potential and is an effective factor in influencing the development of the national identity of the individual and the ethnic group as a whole. In the process of forming literary works, the author’s consciousness and subconscious play an im­portant role, so they are not only one of the best ways of expressing a creative personality and a form of its reaction to events occurring in the outside world, but also one of the most important means of forming the national identity of the recipients. Therefore, such a literary work contains a modus of national identity. The main content of this concept in the literature is revealed in the article. Its theoretical components and their functional aspects in the text are defined and analysed. The modus of national identity is formulated as a way of realising the identity of one with his nation through certain aesthetic elements and structures at all levels of literary work as an artistic system. Such element-dominants are motives, artistic imagery, lyrical character as the main expression of the author’s thoughts, as well as archetypes, symbols and place names.


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