The centenary commemorations of the Great War in Belgium

As the start of the centenary commemoration of the First World War (wwi) in 2014 drew closer, Belgium saw the rise of a bigger ‘commemorative competition’. The different governments launched their own commemorative programmes, parallel to (and sometimes against) each other. In the slipstream of this, a huge commercial and business competition erupted in a struggle for funding and visitors. There was also an unprecedented funding of new academic wwi-research. This contribution first makes some remarks on this research, and then looks briefly at the commemorative and memorial policies. On the on... Mehr ...