ABSTRACT
This chapter concentrates on presenting ideal types of memories of the origins of May Day and its intended forms and objectives in the formative phase of the respective narratives. Diverging memories of the origins of May Day were employed by entrepreneurs within the different wings of the workers' movements in recurrent contentious debates as an argument for specific forms, contents and objectives of May Day rituals. Depending in particular on the political and ideological position of the authors and on specific national traditions, the different memories of the origins of May Day left their imprint also on historiography. In Western Europe the narrative connecting the origins of May Day with the Chicago events of 1886 was advanced most forcefully by Spanish anarchism. Yet it was not the radical anarchist and/or syndicalist narrative of the origins of May Day that emerged as dominant in Western Europe, but the more moderate socialist narrative.
