Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Fields of Action, Fields of Thought
- 2 Nostalgia and Commemoration
- 3 A Time to Remember: 1937–1962
- 4 The Legend Business: 1962–1996
- 5 Songs of the Lincoln Brigade: Music, Commemoration, and Appropriation
- 6 Breathing Memory
- 7 Epilogue: Patriot Acts
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - A Time to Remember: 1937–1962
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Fields of Action, Fields of Thought
- 2 Nostalgia and Commemoration
- 3 A Time to Remember: 1937–1962
- 4 The Legend Business: 1962–1996
- 5 Songs of the Lincoln Brigade: Music, Commemoration, and Appropriation
- 6 Breathing Memory
- 7 Epilogue: Patriot Acts
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Rituals of commemoration, I propose, may offer at least some small possibility of doing something about past events being stuck in our throats, or at least for a moment to relieve the pressure. They can do so by calling up the images and memories of the events, by providing occasions for emergence of feelings, at moments and in a context that is acceptable and, owing to the public or formal nature of the ritual, in a way that allows the link to the world and to others to be retained.
Nico H. Frijda “Commemorating”Comrades of the International Brigade: Political reasons, reasons of State, the welfare of that same cause for which you offered your blood with boundless generosity, are sending you back, some of you to your own countries and others to forced exile. You can go proudly. You are history. You are legend …
Dolores Ibárruri, “La Pasionaria” Farewell speech to International Brigades, Barcelona, 1938The Evidence of History
History is always innocently churning out its evidence: events large and small, births and deaths, disasters and triumphs. People take up these pieces of the past for a variety of reasons and shape commemorative acts around them. This decisive gathering of evidence is driven by what I call the commemorative urge, a desire to repackage the past for use in the present and preservation for the future. Commemoration draws a circle around a given day, event, action, and/or actor. “I want to look at this,” the commemorator is saying. “I want to look at this now, here, today.” And unless the commemorative act is solitary, such as visiting the grave of a loved one to serve an individual need, the commemorator is drawing others into the commemorative circle, people who might or might not share an interest in this selection of evidence. “This is important,” is the claim being made. “Let's look at this together.” Also, in some acts of commemoration, there is one more statement, and an important one, addressed to the population at large. “Look at us,” some public commemorators state. “Notice what we’re doing here. This is something we care about. You should care about this too.”
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- Information
- Radical NostalgiaSpanish Civil War Commemoration in America, pp. 57 - 130Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2005