Session VIII demonstrated the efforts of museum remembrance initiatives to bring colonial experiences into the limelight. Jasdeep Singh Rahal, London, of the National Army Museum, involved South Asian source communities by organizing a re-enactment of a Sikh regiment that fought on the Western front for the British. Inspired by the ‘sensuous turn’ in historiography, Franziska Dunkel, Stuttgart, of the Haus der Geschichte Baden-Württemberg explored the impact of the War on the senses to enter the soldiers’ experiences. Oxana Nagornaja, Chelyabinsk, finally argued that the absence of witnesses and the state control over Russian museums enabled President Putin to manipulate the re-introduction of the First World War into Russian memories by framing it as the last heroic war of the Tsar regime.
Jasdeep Singh Rahal | War and Sikhs: Road to the Trenches