Abstract
Since historical monuments are often difficult to interpret, this study commences with the questions, how do students understand historical monuments and in what ways are they able to describe and interpret them? The focus of our paper is a monument showing Arnold Winkelried, a leading Swiss national figure that nine Swiss students of Grades 5 and 6 studied. Winkelried is a legendary Swiss hero who sacrificed himself to bring about Swiss victory over the Austrian Habsburgs in the Battle of Sempach in 1386. As an iconic, symbolic source of Swiss national cultural heritage, he is representative of the establishment of the young Swiss Federation's history culture in the second half of the nineteenth century. The study's mainly oral research data was collected by means of focus groups (Bohnsack, 2010). The discussions with the students were recorded, transcribed and analysed using a documentary method (Straub, 1999), that is, we reconstructed typical patterns of description. The findings first indicated that students find it difficult to observe and describe such monuments appropriately. Indeed, the students tended to begin the process by guessing what they were observing. Second, the findings show that through the interviewer's prompts – accurate observations and descriptions – during the focus group sessions, students can activate prior knowledge and thus engage with the historical topic.
Highlights
Public historical monuments often defy easy interpretation, so this study starts by asking whether students understand such monuments and, if so, in what ways they are able to describe and interpret them.The focus is the monument to Arnold Winkelried, the Swiss hero of the Battle of Sempach in 1386
This is a source of Swiss national culture of remembrance, representative of the establishment of the young Swiss Federation in the second half of the nineteenth century (Mathis, 2008)
It is clear that students already experience difficulties when verbally naming the visual elements of the monument, which Pandel (2011: 74) terms ‘appearance subtlety’, and which in his opinion does not require any particular prior knowledge
Summary
Public historical monuments often defy easy interpretation, so this study starts by asking whether students understand such monuments and, if so, in what ways they are able to describe and interpret them. The focus is the monument to Arnold Winkelried, the Swiss hero of the Battle of Sempach in 1386. This is a source of Swiss national culture of remembrance, representative of the establishment of the young Swiss Federation in the second half of the nineteenth century (Mathis, 2008). The Winkelried monument is perfect, even exemplary, for involving students with history in the ‘public space’, that is, where students have to acquire the skills to self-initiate, observe, discern and reflect upon the phenomenon of such public iconic monuments (‘street furniture’) and autonomously appreciate them (Messmer, 2013: 223). According to Cornelißen (2012), the term ‘culture of remembrance’ (Erinnerungskultur) acts as an umbrella term for all forms of conscious remembrance of historical events, personages and processes, whether they are aesthetic, political, personal, social, cultural
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