ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the First World War’s centenary was commemorated at the Danish national First World War memorial in Aarhus on 11 November 2018. It sets the scene by explaining Denmark’s highly complex relationship with the First World War before turning to the commemorative event as an official ceremony mediated through national television. It then investigates the event as experienced on the ground, reflecting critically on what this experience does within an affective register. It shows how a range of representational media, symbolic performance and sensual experience melds together to form a specific atmosphere termed ‘studied distanciation’ through which a sense of self and a remembrance of communal, national – and specifically Danish – identity is realised.
