Suchergebnisse

Le suprême hommage studies the handling of dying, burial and commemoration of royal and political elites in Belgium in the 19th and first half of the 20th century. This innovative historical research takes place at the interface of cultural history and political history. The reader not only gains insight into the impact of social class, status and religion on funerary culture, but also into the influence of media culture on the perception of death, mourning and memory. Within a selection of 170 cases, the author discusses in words and images the mediatised deaths and no less than imposing funerals of Belgium's first kings and queens and their families. The evolving practices surrounding the deaths of (former) heads of government, (former) presidents of parliament and mayors of major cities are also discussed in detail. Finally, the genesis of Belgium's most famous urban (park) cemeteries, and the funerary heritage in these cities of death, is also brought to life through the analysis of eye-catching funeral monuments. This book is a richly illustrated survey work on the social, political and cultural dimensions of the death of high-ranking figures in 19th- and 20th-century Belgian society.

Around 1850 Belgium was continental Europe`s most heavily industrialised state. From the mid-century until the Belle Époque many international social reform associations were based in Belgium. This book will stimulate the debate between historians & social pedagogues on the 19th-century bourgeois ´civilising offensive` and place the history of social, moral and educational reform in Belgium within a broader European perspective.

Abstract
This article explores how the control of religious authority over funerary culture became a contentious issue on a pan-European level during the course of the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century. A comparative analysis of the conflicts around burial and cremation in various European nation-states highlights the two-dimensional character of these 'funerary culture wars'. Freethinkers were radical players in these institutional and cultural conflicts as they challenged the tight grip of churches on the 'death systems' in their respective cities and countries. We will show how the institutional and cultural secularisation of funerary culture was not a universal and inevitable developmental trend but rather a historically variable and contingent outcome of social and political struggles around concrete change. We zoom in on the city of Brussels where freethinkers made new secular funerary practices very visible from the middle of the 19th century onwards.

Abstract
This article connects the history of attitudes toward death and funerary practices in 19th- and 20th-century Europe to the ongoing discussion on secularization. It emphasizes how recent scholarship on the history of death – following broader trends within religious studies – has abandoned the standard modernization-narrative of secularization, and moved to view the issue through the prism of conflict and market competition. Depending on the historical context and the Church-State relationship, a conflict and/or market competition perspective can deepen our understanding of the secularization of death and burial practices. In periods of intense socio-political struggle over the role of religion in the modern polity, a conflict perspective helps to grasp the processes of secularization. Once secular forces have succeeded in breaking the grip of the churches on death and burial, a market perspective can be more useful. Both serve as alternatives to the traditional understanding of secularization as an anonymous process of modernization. An in-depth analysis of the development of a secularist funerary culture in Belgium aptly demonstrates the shift in the master variable influencing secularization – from socio-political conflict to market competition.

AbstractThis article examines the public and private responses to the accidental deaths of King Albert I and Queen Astrid of Belgium in 1934 and 1935. The public and private mourning for Albert and Astrid and the impact of their deaths and funerals can only be understood when we analyse these events against the background of structural transformations in national identity, international and national politics and media culture in interwar Europe. The analysis of the responses to these events thus offers unique insights into the relationship between the Belgian monarchy, politics and modern mass media in the 1930s. The memory of the war experience permeated both funerals through the massive presence of war veterans. Condolence letters to the royal court show how Astrid's popularity made the Belgian monarchy more human and approachable than it had ever been, while their sudden deaths simultaneously stimulated the mystification of both royal figures. Albert's funeral even constituted an event of symbolic significance in the interstate relations of Belgium with France. The meaning of both these high-profile deaths was negotiated within the mass media.