| dc.description.abstract | The aim of the thesis is to understand how the communities of the City and
East London area reacted to the human losses of the Great War. It is an
investigation of how the intangible and abstract emotions of grief, pride and
bereavement were turned into solid expressions via the war memorials
movement. It is also the aim of the study to provide a balance to the
fashionable view of the twenties and thirties as a time of disillusion over the
Great War and a period in which the values of 1914 were completely rejected.
Undoubtedly the War and the tenets surrounding it did undergo a form of
examination and questioning during this period; but the thesis seeks to show
that through the war memorials and Armistice Day rituals the values that
provided the dynamic behind the War were still accepted by many throughout
the inter-war years. By examining the development of Armistice Day and the
growth of a common "war memory" in a detailed local case study, war
memorials will be put into their true context; many studies take the erection of
the memorial as an end in itselE However, the memorials were designed to
serve a continuing need to remember and so this aspect must be integral to the
study.
The factors that influenced the nature of these memorials and the associated
rituals are part of the project; class, religion, politicial traditions, social and
economic influences. The thesis seeks to show how far the traditional bonds of
community in the East London area were applied to the scale of human loss;
how it was explained and made into a comprehensible phenomenon thaink to
the actions of the local agents of authority and influence - clergymen, rabbis,
councillors, teachers and employers. The thesis is therefore a detailed, case
study of the effect of the War on a distinct area which contextualises and in
many cases challenges received opinion. | en_US |
