The edge of Europe: heritage, landscape and conflict archaeology

[摘要] The research presented in this thesis addresses the significance of Romanian WWI sites as places of remembrance and heritage, by exploring the case of Maramureș against the standards of national and international heritage standards. The work provided the first ever survey of WWI sites on the Eastern Front, showing that the Prislop Pass conflictual landscape holds undeniable national and international heritage value both in terms of physical preservation and in terms of mapping on the memorial-historical record. The war sites demonstrate heritage and remembrance value by meeting heritage criteria on account of their preservation state, rarity, authenticity, research potential, the embedded war knowledge and their historical-memorial functions. The results of the research established that the war sites not only satisfy heritage legal requirements at various scales but are also endangered. Hence, the threats that impend upon this valuable, but yet unrecognised heritage, calls for urgent measures in view of officialising legal heritage status and thus assuring preservation of the war sites. In addition to elucidating the research question, the work identified a new coherent scale of WWI heritage research coining the notion of conflictual landscape and hence approaching a category of war heritage that has hitherto remained unexplored.

[发布机构] University:University of Birmingham;Department:School of History and Cultures, Department of Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology (CAHA)

[关键词] C Auxiliary Sciences of History;CC Archaeology