War Remembrance and Battlefield Preservation, Remembering WW1 and Preserving its Soča/Isonzo Battlefield on both sides of the Italo-Slovenian border

With a focus on World War 1 heritage along the border between Slovenia and Italy, the thesis explores the relationship between remembrance and heritage preservation. It analyses how, over the past century, changing political regimes have treated war remembrance differently. It also looks into how the visual presence of the battlefield sustained war remembrance during the period of its exclusion from the dominant national narrative. Starting with the premises that active remembrance results in deliberate heritage preservation, it establishes that both remembrance and preservation are impacted by a complex set of social and political circumstances with often the opposite results to those expected.