Thesis

Presentation of the Memory of WWI

    The study of these museums follows the lead of historians Jay Winter and Simon Schama. 

    Jay Winter, the Charles J. Stille Professor of History at Yale University, is the English historian of the trio of English, French and German historians responsible for the design of the Historial de la Grande Guerre in Peronne, France, a World War I museum with particular emphasis on the Battle of the Somme (Winter, Imagining).

   Simon Schema, "The Television Historian", Professor of History and Art History at Columbia University, is best known for the BBC documentary A History of Britain (Beck 99).

   Schema's criteria for television documentary applies just as well to the public history of the museum. In his view good history can go along with good television, and for our purposes, a well-done museum. The story can pull the viewer closer while maintaining historical truth, especially if there is the immediacy of the historical voice. He acknowledges that there is never sufficient time (or space) to tell all the stories. The point of view of the museum is in the stories selected, and those omitted. He looks for a balance between political history and social history and the ability to deliver an argument and compelling story line to someone's granny and an eight year old (Beck 103-107).

   Winter calls for history museums, and other forms of commemoration, to be a space where "moral witnesses", those who have been in the midst of violence and lived to tell the tale, can gather. His concept of "moral witness" is from Avishai Margalit's definition The Ethics of Memory, where he says: 

    To be a truthful chronicler is to be a perfect historical seismograph, to record accurate the vibrations of history. But a seismograph does not tell us what it like to be in an earthquake. For that we need a moral witness (163).

   The reason Winter calls for spaces for "moral witnesses" is because they often go against traditional versions, and what they have to say can very well be disturbing. To Winter, the space that accepts the "moral witness" must not present the war as redemptive or politically triumphant. That is, war does not result in some greater good (Winter Imagining).

   In his study of memory, Winter also considers the influences of national differences, myths and language. The scale of the casualties made the European experience of the Great War fundamentally different from the American experience. The Great War and myths of the Great War started at the same time. There are not direct conceptual translations between British English, American English and French. 

   Incorporating Schema's constructs of political history versus social history, the importance of myth in the study of memory, Winter's call for a space for "moral witnesses", and both museums commitment to the use of the personal voice, the study examines the museums differing views of World War I in the following structure:  

      Political History
              Pre-War presentation
              Stalemate in the trenches
              Neutrality in presentation
              
      Social History
              Voices of the people
                    Place for "moral witnesses"?   
              Myths and Legends                           

   The study is conducted from the perspective of a visitor that is not unfamiliar with the history of the Great War, but certainly not an historian. While acknowledging the museums commitments to diverse audiences, the special role of the museum as educator of children is not addressed. The visitor is fluent in American English, not French or British English. Also, the study assumes the reader is knowledgeable of Great War history.

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