Afterword

Abstract

This chapter discusses the irony of the Great Flu’s mnemohistory: the First World War, with which the Flu shares historical time, but not mnemonic power, was revisited throughout the past century in all the forms available to modern memory, such as monuments and commemorative rituals, paintings, poems, memoirs, novels, historical writings, museums, re-enactments, television comedies and documentaries and (in the wake of its centenary) a vast digitised archive. There is a clear link, as Paul Fussell saw it, between The Great War and Modern Memory (1975). In contrast, a phrase like ‘the Great Flu and modern memory’ sounds almost oxymoronic. While the Flu’s death toll may well have exceeded that of both world wars, and while it truly affected the whole world, the pandemic’s mnemonic stature is dwarfed by the wars. Why are millions of dead and a global impact sometimes not enough to firmly root past happenings in memory? This chapter argues that three decisive forms of modern memory have been missing in the remembrance of the Great Flu: there is no strong historiographic tradition, no ongoing investment in national commemorative memory and little evidence of travelling memory. Arguably, these three absences are a result of the Flu’s low degree of narratability, which (at least in the framework of modern memory cultures since ca. 1800) tends to limit its memorability. The chapter closes with a call to move on from the regime of modern memory to a new practice of relational remembering.