MEMORIALIZATION OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR IN THE LANDSCAPE OF THE JULIAN ALPS

This article addresses issues of past and ongoing memorialization processes and heritage construction of the First World War, integrated into the landscapes of the Julian Alps in Slovenia. According to Nicholas Saunders, military histories usually consider landscapes to be inert, static, empty, and self-evident backdrops to military action as well as subsequent practices of memorialization. However, many anthropologists, geographers, and archaeologists have noted that landscapes cannot be separated from human experiences, but are part of a world of relationships, memories, and histories. This article explores connections between the military and post-military landscape and memorialization of the First World War, established through landscape features, experiences of the landscape, and commemorations by institutions that engage in interpretation and heritage production. Various landscape attributes, such as paths, monuments, and memorial places, are being (re) constructed as tourist and hiking destinations, and the narratives attached to these places are integrated into national and local political discourses and commemorations. Drawing on recent anthropological discussions on the perception of landscape, this article focuses on the Isonzo Front and particularly its background as palimpsest of overlapping spatial changes as well as memorialization and appropriations of heritage in the Alpine landscape.