The religious statement of the Voortrekker Monument as a site of Afrikaner memory: Origin, composition and reception

Dolf Britz

doi:10.4102/hts.v74i3.5142

Abstract

The religious statement made by the Voortrekker Monument is part and parcel of its meaning and symbolism. This aspect of its composition and intention has not yet been submitted to thorough theological-critical investigation and scrutiny. Stepping into the gap, this article traces the religious intention and intonation of the Monument. The first part of the article entails the history of the Moerdyk design, based on antique Egyptian religious architecture. Then a discussion of the way in which the architect blended his (Egyptian) design with the religious spirituality and nationalism of the Afrikaner is presented. The last section deals with the altar text in the heart of the building: ‘We for thee, South Africa’. This secular text constitutes the religious statement of the memorial. Care should therefore be taken to embed the symbolism and meaning of the building in the Christian faith or the so-called Calvinism of the Afrikaner. The engagement with the Monument’s religious statement revealed a sacrificed religion trapped in a still remarkable commemorative building.

Highlights

Erected on a hill to the southwest of Pretoria, the Voortrekker Monument, one of South Africa’s most remarkable commemorative buildings, was designed to make a territorial, historical, cultural and religious statement (Delmont 1992:6; Emden 2013:326–327, 334; Moerdyk 1955:35; Steenkamp 2006:250).1 When a first ever model of the envisaged Monument went on display at the 1936 Empire Exhibition in Johannesburg, architect Gerard Moerdyk (1890–1958), Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects, in his explication of the design, confirmed that the fundamental idea of the building was entrenched in religion
A leading question is the following: what was at the heart of this temple, the elevating religious idea that shaped the revered Voortrekker Monument, and in which the genesis of the Moerdyk design is seated? The question is answered from a corpus of contemporary primary sources, of which the collection of Moerdyk Papers in the Merensky Library at the University of Pretoria, as well as the private collections of E.G
In 2006, Alta Steenkamp (2006) summarised the outcomes of the contemporary critique as follows: The Voortrekker Monument is aesthetically suspect because it is tied to an architectural language that equates order with the ‘civilised’; politically suspect because it is seen as a representative of apartheid totalitarianism; socially suspect because it is seen as a privileged mode of expression that excluded the ‘other’; and ethically suspect in its size and attempt to overwhelm the visitor by its grandiosity. (p. 254)

Summary

Introduction

A leading question is the following: what was at the heart of this temple, the elevating religious idea that shaped the revered Voortrekker Monument, and in which the genesis of the Moerdyk design is seated? It is clear that the original design, based on the Egyptian temple structure (Edfu), was incorporated by Moerdyk in the final Voortrekker Monument proposal.

Results

Conclusion