Reaffirming Understandings of the Past
Reenactment is not only a leisure activity for those seeking to liberate themselves from the digital and technical trappings of the contemporary world so as to experience what life may have been like in earlier times.
This nostalgic longing for a supposedly “better,” “easier,” or more livable past is just one of the many motivations for engaging in reenactment. In most cases, such escapist motivations are accompanied by educational aspirations, with reenactors seeking to learn about the past or to convey unfamiliar events and stories to others. However, histotainment or historical learning is not the inevitable outcome of reenactment. As Karl Banghard (2009) suggests, it is sometimes difficult to discern reenactors’ specific intellectual or political agendas. He points to the international entanglements of right-wing groups who, with their tight-knit networks and well-organized dissemination of information, frequently take part in reenactment events in foreign countries. In this volume, contributors Karin Reichenbach and Ralf Hoppadietz pick up on Banghard’s observations when they describe how a Slav and Viking festival at a popular holiday destination on the Polish Baltic coast has been transformed into a gathering place for right-wing reenactors. Focusing on the reenactment of prehistoric and early history and the German reenactment group Ulfhednar, Reichenbach and Hoppadietz analyze a form of reenactment that is particularly favored by right-wing participants. While staging a performance for the opening of a museum exhibition in Germany in 2008, one of the Ulfhednar members uncovered a large tattoo of the SS motto “Meine Ehre heiβt Treue” (“My honor is loyalty”), the display of which is prohibited by law in Germany. The incident became a flashpoint in discussions about right-wing engagement in reenactment, yet the incident is not isolated: the authors include a range of other examples that show how extremist beliefs are often inveigled into popular representations of the past, not only in Germany but also internationally. While Ulfhednar might be seen as a radical example, in general, reenactment readily lends itself to the dissemination of populist views. Its authentic appeal and supposedly faithful simulacrum of the past, as well as its strong claims to knowledge and truth, are based on a hands-on, experiential approach to historical meaning-making. Images of the past may be presented in convincing and attractive ways that are imbued with the reenactor’s “affective authority,” something that, in the absence of rigorous evidentiary standards and methods of falsifiability, may be difficult to contest, contextualize, or critique (Agnew, 2022a; Schwarz, 2020; West, 2014). In this sense, reenactment can always be said to be partisan and not disinterested or impartial.Concerned with a historical rather than contemporary example, Nikola Bakovic’s contribution provides a long view on the top-down exploitation of reenactment for political ends. Discussing socialist understandings of the Yugoslav past, he interprets the reenactment of World War II partisan activities as a state-sanctioned mechanism for promoting the official narrative about the partisans’ wartime achievements and revolutionary deeds. Marc Matten’s analysis of China’s so-called red tourism further highlights the entanglement between politics and reenactment practices. Matten sets out the various exhibitionary techniques that are used to put a gloss on the material scarcity of China’s revolutionary past, something that stands in stark contrast to the avowedly hedonistic and consumer-oriented present. For contemporary visitors to the historical sites, reenactment is meant to orchestrate a tangible and colorful reminder about the revolutionary struggle of yesteryear and the glorious achievements of the Communist Party.
While Bakovic and Matten analyze the ways in which reenactment can be employed to advance state-sanctioned historical narratives, reenactment can also be used to advance discrete local interests. Bjorn-Ole Kamm’s reflections on rural Japan, for example, show how reenactive practices can be incorporated into development policies that attempt to counter the effects of structural economic change by boosting the local economy. As in Matten’s case, reenactment is embedded in a tourist infrastructure but for different ends. A newly established ninja larp (live-action role-playing) festival is supposed to market the origins of the famous ninja culture to foreign and domestic tourists. Only a loose connection to historical fact underpins this playful approach to the past: larp, Kamm argues, is designed to reaffirm a narrative about the local origins of ninja culture as a “past that never was.”