British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Cultures of Commemoration:
War Memorials Ancient and Modern

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

Stefan Goebel (University of Cambridge)

My research focuses on the overlaps between the ‘cultural memory’ (J. Assmann) of the distant past and the memory of the Great War in Britain and Germany between 1914-39. In particular, I look at the use of medieval(ist) images in war memorials. There was a certain tension between advocates of medievalism and supporters of classicist images; often they reached a compromise. This paper 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.