Le Bicentenaire de Waterloo : une mémoire réappropriée, transnationale et pacifiée ?
(2015) Revue Belge d’Histoire Contemporaine — Vol. 45, n° 2-3, p. 255-263 (NaN) (2015)
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- This paper analyses the Bicentenary commemoration of the Battle of Waterloo (June 18th 1815), as it was held in Belgium in June 2015. There is a long history of cultural heritage and memory around the Waterloo battlefield, in Belgium as well as abroad, with various (successive and simultaneous, eventually opposite) significations. Contrary to what happened previously, the Bicentenary is due to the re-appropriation of the battle’s memory (beginning by the mid-20th C., with a dramatical surge since the nineties) by local stake-holders (municipalities, associations and provincial authorities). They were, and not the Belgian federal or regional authorities, primarily responsible for the long-term preparation thus organization of the commemoration. We also deal with the contrasted attitudes of invited foreign governements (namely British, Dutch, German and French), the attitude of the public, the some 5000 reenactors as the iconic characters of the Bicentenary, the museal and exhibition policy, and the reshaping of the battlefield as a ‘lieu de mémoire’. Our conclusion is that local agency succeeded in shaping a transnational, European and pacified memory of the 1815 battle.
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Bousmar, E. (2015). Le Bicentenaire de Waterloo : une mémoire réappropriée, transnationale et pacifiée ? Revue Belge d’Histoire Contemporaine, 45(2-3), 255-263 (NaN). https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/246117 (Original work published 2015)