Linggu Temple in Nanjing

Memory Entanglement behind Dual Identity: National Revolutionary Army Cemetery and Linggu Temple in Nanjing

双重身份下的记忆纠缠——国民革命军阵亡将士公墓与南京灵谷寺

二十世纪初的中国多遭兵燹,对大规模死亡进行解释并给予战殁者死后哀荣成了新生的国民政府亟需进行的工作之一,故其在南京灵谷寺的基址上建筑了国民革命军阵亡将士公墓。它的建筑过程与建筑空间体现了构建全国性战殁者纪念体系的国家意志。国民政府与汪精卫政权都曾利用这一场所进行纪念仪式,建立自己的国家认同。然而,灵谷寺千年传承的历史名胜记忆也借此复苏,并同新生的革命记忆展开了竞争与合作。从地名权的得失可以看出,在两种记忆的竞与合中,新生的官方革命记忆在利用名胜记忆达到部分宣传效果的同时,未能获得时人的充分认可。通过考察记忆的创生与纠缠这一动态过程,本文展示了不同记忆间复杂的相互作用。

胡艺泽:《双重身份下的记忆纠缠——国民革命军阵亡将士公墓与南京灵谷寺》,孙江编:《新史学》第8卷,北京:中华书局,2014年,第208页。

My archival research that led to this publication was inspired by my visit to the Linggu Temple in Nanjing. From 1929 to 1945, this Buddhist sanctuary was reconstructed under two different political regimes—the governments led by Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei—as a national cemetery to evoke the collective memory of the National Revolution in 1920s. However, after 1945, due to the political turmoil, the association of the Linggu Temple with the revolution gradually faded in the public memory. The Temple remained in its place, but its meaning was changed: in the second half of the 20th century, it served as a mere tourist attraction. This paper shows the complex interaction between different memories by compiling a contextualized story of the creation, transference and public impression of these memories. This allowed me to combine the history of this site with a historiographical perspective: my forthcoming paper tracks the history of the Temple and the cemetery as well as the historical memories associated with it.


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