‘The Great Forgetting’ is about the process of consolidation of French republicanism in the early, formative years of the French Third Republic and the regime’s accordant search for the republic’s...Show more‘The Great Forgetting’ is about the process of consolidation of French republicanism in the early, formative years of the French Third Republic and the regime’s accordant search for the republic’s legitimacy in the aftermath of l’année terrible - the year of 1871, during which France had to deal with the loss of the Franco-Prussian war, the fall of the Second Empire, the creation of the Third Republic, the siege of Paris by the Prussians, the defeat and humiliating peace terms, the Paris Commune, and new ideas about the nation. This process can otherwise be described as the creation of a history and accordant commemorative tradition of a Republic by its government that had to account for its legitimacy in the aftermath of a violent past. The whole will be analysed by considering the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris as a locus for national symbolism of the French Third Republic. This thesis argues that the cemetery can be considered as a stage for performing politics used by the governments of the Third Republic and its abovementioned opponents as a place to create their definition of France from 26 March 1871 onward. While describing this mnemonic battle on Père-Lachaise about the place of l’année terrible in the history of the Third Republic, this thesis analyses why it was that a ‘Communard memory’ of this period prevailed over any other constructed collective memory in relation to issues of legitimacy of and in the early Third Republic.Show less
