La restauration d’après-guerre entre mémoire et oubli: Reims et la cathédrale des sacres à l’épreuve de la Grande Guerre

“Reconstruction has generally been about much more than mere rebuilding”. With these words, Nicholas Bullock began his study on the effects of post-war reconstructions in Europe. Did wars destroy the national, urban and collective identities? Or, did they contribute to their promotion and to the rise of new ones? Starting from the case study of Reims, the paper aims to answer these questions and explore how the memory of the First World War influenced the construction of a new urban identity. It will focus on the role that the cultural heritage and its restoration played in preserving or erasing those particular war memories. The fire and the destruction of the cathedral of Reims inaugurated an age of “new conflicts”, through the practice of “total war” that would in turn lead to the multiplication of cases of “urbicide”. This dramatic yet exemplar condition deeply influenced the perception and the narration of the events. The myth prevailed over reality, contributing to the rise of a conventional and almost parallel history, which often disregarded not only documentary and testimonial evidence, but also the will of the inhabitants.