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History France

The Crimean War and Cultural Memory

The War France Won and Forgot

by (author) Sima Godfrey

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Aug 2023
Category
France, General, French
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781487547783
    Publish Date
    Aug 2023
    List Price
    $70.00
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781487547776
    Publish Date
    Sep 2023
    List Price
    $70.00

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Description

The Crimean War (1854–56) is widely considered the first modern war with its tactical use of railways, telegraphs, and battleships, its long-range rifles, and its notorious trenches – precursors of the Great War. It is also the first media war: the first to know the impact of a correspondent on the field of battle and the first to be documented in photographs. No one, however, including the French themselves, seems to remember that France was there, fighting in Crimea, losing 95,000 soldiers and leading the Allied campaign to victory. It would seem that the Crimean War has no place in the canon of culturally retained historical events that define modern French identity.

 

Looking at literature, art, theatre, material objects, and medical reports, The Crimean War and Cultural Memory considers how the Crimean War was and was not represented in French cultural history in the second half of the nineteenth century. Ultimately, the book illuminates the forgotten traces that the Crimean War left on the French cultural landscape.

About the author

Sima Godfrey is the director if the Institute for European Studies at the University of British Columbia.

Sima Godfrey's profile page