Images of European Cultural Heritage in the Twentieth Century. Transnational Discourses about European Memorials and their Influence on Policies Concerning Memorials and Conceptions of Museums

Our ideas about Europe are marked to a large extent by images of a common European cultural heritage, especially by architectural monuments as a material testimony to history. While the Pope’s Palace in Avignon or the cathedrals of Cracow are today defined as ‘sites of European cultural heritage’, at the beginning of the twentieth century, cultural politics and the preservation of historical monuments in Europe were clearly subordinate to national interests. It was especially in the wake of military conflicts that artistic and cultural monuments served as instruments to forge national identity and as a means for European nations to distinguish themselves from their neighbours.

Section B of this research project deals with the fundamental transformation which images of European cultural heritage underwent in the twentieth century, and enquires how obviously national memorial sites have acquired significance as part of a common European cultural heritage and how their manifold images were formed and translated under the influence of different political and social circumstances.

This project will focus in particular on transnational and intercultural exchange relationships and interdependencies in order to analyse the role played by material – as well as increasingly immaterial – cultural heritage in the discursive construction of identities, memory, space and knowledge in Europe, as well as the social and political relevance acquired by images of a common European cultural heritage.