Monuments of a Uniting Europe (2005)

Countless war graves, battlefield sites, war memorials, and museums bear witness to the ravages of centuries of war in Europe. Such memorials traditionally glorify war, celebrate victory, and project intense nationalism. The article explores how such legacies of a troubled past can be transformed for a continent that has embarked on its peaceful unification. Exemplary in this respect is the massive Monument to the Battle of the Nations (1813) erected in Leipzig in 1913. Opposition to war and attempts at war prevention and abolition are far less frequently memorialized. Several peace monuments are described such as the famous statue of Erasmus in Rotterdam, the Peace Palace in The Hague, the Palace of the Nations in Geneva, and, in the same city, the Temple of Friendship and Peace erected by Count Jean-Jacques de Sellon, founder of the Geneva Peace Society (1830), the first on the continent.