Naming the Dead, Writing the Individual: Classical Traditions and Commemorative Practices in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

The chapter focuses on the commemoration of the individual in ancient and modern cultures. It argues that the attitude to individual commemoration adopted by the War Graves Commission in the First World War in Britain can be linked to the commemorative practices of ancient Greece, emphasising the importance of the part played by Sir Frederic Kenyon. The chapter draws on examples of commemoration from classical Athens, twentieth-century Britain and the Soviet Union in order to explore the different roles that the commemoration of the individual has played in ancient and modern forms of war commemoration.

The Monuments to the War Dead in Classical Athens: Form, Contexts, Meanings

This chapter discusses one of the best-known instances of classical commemoration: the public funeral and collective burial and commemoration of the Athenian war dead. Its particular aim is to explore the various contexts in which Athenian practice might be understood. How do these monuments fit into the wider picture of Athenian burial and commemoration, in terms of both form and physical location? How do they relate to the political system and ideology of the city that created them? And how might these contexts shape the way in which the monuments were used and understood by contemporary and later viewers?

Comparing Cultures of Commemoration in Ancient and Modern Societies

This introductory chapter surveys recent and current trends in the study of memory and commemoration, and also outlines the themes explored in the rest of the book: the forms of monuments, and the contexts in which monuments were located; the role of ritual; tensions between public and private commemorations; and the relationship between memory and forgetting.

Commemorating the War Dead of the Roman World

This chapter examines Roman attitudes towards the commemoration of those killed on campaign. In general, there is a lack in Roman public monuments recording the names of those who died in action, but two notable exceptions are explored here: Cicero’s proposal to commemorate the dead of the Civil War, and the monuments at Adamclissi in Dacia. The chapter goes on to discuss other ways in which war, and the casualties of war, were commemorated in Rome, in particular through the incorporation of the anniversaries of significant military events into the city’s religious calendar.

Monument to Defeat: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in American Culture and Society

Monument or memorial? Defeat or withdrawal? The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC pays tribute to more than 58,000 Americans who died fighting an unpopular war. Yet today the ‘Wall’, as it is known to most Americans, is the most visited site managed by the US National Park Service. Weekend visitors will happen upon an almost festive place as thousands of people pass by looking at the names – what do they think, imagine? This chapter discusses not only the story and controversy behind the building of the ‘Wall’, but also how it reflects the collective memory of a society and its values, and how these are constructed.

Cultural Memory and the Great War: Medievalism and Classicism in British and German War Memorials

This chapter investigates the overlaps between the ‘cultural memory’ of the distant past and the memory of the Great War in Britain and Germany between 1914 and 1939, looking in particular at the use of medieval(ist) images in war memorials. There was a certain tension between advocates of medievalism and supporters of classicist images, but often, they reached a compromise. The chapter combines a discussion of the concept of ‘cultural memory’ with case studies on the reception of antiquity and the Middle Ages in the era of the Great War.

Two Neoclassical Monuments in Modern France: The Panthéon and Arc de Triomphe

The Panthéon and Arc de Triomphe are two neoclassical Parisian monuments that were created in the second half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century, respectively, and which have ever since been main sites of French official memory. However, they never had the same share of the stage: when one was prominent, the other was marginal, and vice versa. This chapter delineates the parallel histories of these monuments and analyses the relationship between them, from the French Revolution to the Fifth Republic. Although they are usually ascribed to different political camps – the Pantheon to the left and the Arc de Triomphe to the right – a close reading of the context of various commemorative acts that were performed inside and around these monuments shows that their identity was more complex.

The Ritualized Commemoration of War in the Hellenistic City: Memory, Identity, Emotion

This chapter studies (primarily using epigraphic evidence) the various ways in which wars, both wars of the remote past and more recent conflicts, were present in the ritual life of Hellenistic cities. It demonstrates the continual presence of war memories and memorials in ritual activities, exploring the diverse ways in which that presence was manifested (for example, historical anniversaries, public funerals, the graves of the war dead as places of memory, the part played by war dedications in sanctuaries, the commemoration of war in the public recitation of honorary decrees).