ABSTRACT
The landing of Australian and New Zealand Army Corps troops at Gallipoli in Turkey on 25 April 1915 quickly came to be celebrated in Australia as a national founding moment. It remains so today, with Anzac Day having gained wide acceptance as the foremost national day of commemoration. This chapter explains how this occurred in terms of the Australian colonies’ pre-war history and post-war development. It argues that while Anzac’s fortunes have fluctuated since 1915, its reinvention since the 1960s as a post-imperial, post-secular collective memory (or ‘postmemory’) was the result of its remarkable adaptability as Australia moved from British settler dominion to independent nation.
