The Arguments of the Tombs of the Unknown: Relationality and National Legitimation |
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Authors: | Carole Blair V William Balthrop Neil Michel |
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Institution: | (1) University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA;(2) Axiom PhotoDesign, Davis, CA, USA;; |
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Abstract: | In the wake of the First World War, a new form of commemoration emerged internationally, but in each case focused upon a new
kind of national “hero”—the unknown soldier or warrior. The first instances appeared in France and Britain in 1920, followed
by the United States in 1921, and Belgium in 1922. Other nations followed suit over the years, with the most recent WWI Unknown
Soldier monument dedicated in 2004, in New Zealand. The motivational calculus of these national tombs was, of course, the
massive number of combatant dead whose remains could not be identified. This paper takes up the two very different arguments
composed by these commemorative sites. The first argument was directed to surviving family members and was articulated most
explicitly by the French as a hypothetical enthymeme “this could be your husband, your father, your brother,” etc. The second
argument has been directed to national and international collectives as a constitutive proclamation of legitimated nation-state
or Empire Although this argument is particularly explicit in postcolonial gestures of independence on the part of former dominions
of old empires, it was evident in even the earliest cases of the tombs of the unknown. |
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