Abstract
The paper contributes to the discourse on roadside memorialisation in the countries of Christian heritage in Europe, Australia, and North America. The aim of the paper is to assess the social perception of the motivation of people constructing roadside crosses at the places of fatal car accidents along public roads in Poland. Is it religious, cultural or both religious and cultural? The uniqueness of this survey lies in its representativeness of the population of one country and the religiosity variable incorporated into a public opinion poll. The study proves that there exists a relationship between one’s declaration of faith and the perception of memorial crosses. Believers more often than atheists opt for both a religious and a cultural meaning of roadside crosses. Atheists and agnostics more often than believers associate roadside crosses only with a cultural meaning—the custom of marking places of death with crosses.
Highlights
Roadside memorialisation of people who died in motor vehicle accidents has become a worldwide phenomenon
The sample population in the representative poll on roadside memorials consisted of 580 women and 422 men
Is the use of the cross by memorial builders to mark the place of death in a car accident motivated religiously? Is the use of it interpreted by other people as religious? The results of the public opinion poll presented in this article fit into a particular symbiosis of the religious and cultural theme, noticeable in the author’s previous works as well
Summary
Roadside memorialisation of people who died in motor vehicle accidents has become a worldwide phenomenon. Candles, religious symbols, and photos of the deceased have been placed at the sites of such accidents. This commemoration of road accident fatalities has led to the appearance of numerous academic publications on memorials, which have been referred to in various ways—as roadside death memorials (Reid and Reid 2001), sudden death memorials (Stahl 2013) or, more commonly, roadside memorials (Zimmerman 2010; Hartig and Dunn 1998; Clark and Franzmann 2006; Breen 2006; Petersson 2009; Owen 2011; Tay 2009; Cohen 2012). Crosses placed at the sites of fatal road accidents are part of the memorialisation phenomenon. The terms “memorial crosses” and “roadside crosses” are used interchangeably
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