Remembered and Forgotten: The Nineteenth-Century Flemish and Dutch Famine in Cultural Memory

Abstract

In the years 1845-48 Belgium and the Netherlands suffered from famine as a result from potato blight. This article explores the question why this famine became a building block of Flemish identity leading to its inclusion in the Flemish canon, while the Dutch potato crisis still largeley remains forgotten. It is argued that the famine in Flanders was intrinsically linked with the nineteenth-century Flemish movement, thereby contributing to the self-image of ‘’poor Flanders’’. By contrast, the emergence of Dutch identity goes further back in history and is mainly connected to prototypical disasters, such as floods. Famine did not suit this storyline and the ‘’superior’’ ability of the Dutch to manage the water. This article also stresses the need for transnational approaches in the study of famine memories. A comparative approach makes it possible to understand why the same type of traumatic event was forgotten relatively quickly in one case, and became part of the collective memory in the other.