Magister Artium - MA / This thesis is concerned with the lives and deaths of four 1938 Voortrekker Centenary Monuments. The 1938 Voortrekker Centenary saw the construction of more than 500 centenary monuments. Each one of these structures has a biography. This study will consider how monuments celebrate current regimes and ideologies instead of narratives pertaining to the past. It will explore how monuments dating from South Africa’s imperialist and apartheid pasts reflect continued inequalities in both rural and urban South African landscapes. It will also consider how monuments cement problematic and mythological versions of the past. The most infamous 1938 Voortrekker Centenary Monument is the Voortrekker Monument, designed by Gerard Moerdyk, in Pretoria. The Voortrekker Monument is important because in many ways it acts as a proxy to the hundreds of smaller 1938 Voortrekker Centenary Monuments scattered around South Africa. This study will look at how some of the theoretical frameworks concerned with the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria can be applied to three centenary monuments in the Riebeek Valley and Durbanville in the Western Cape. This thesis will consider how perceptions of the symbolism of these monuments have changed between their construction in the late 1930s and 2018. The Afrikaner nationalistic fever that gave birth to these structures will be dissected. It will also consider how the 1938 Voortrekker Centenary Monuments symbolically changed as South Africans witnessed the disintegration of apartheid. This study will explore how these monuments have integrated into the heritage and experiential economies. It will also consider some of the anomalies relating to these structures, including hauntings. Finally, the vandalism, destruction and futures of these structures will also briefly come into question.

AFRIKAANS : Die Simboliese Ossewatrek wat op 8 Augustus 1938 by die Van Riebeeck-standbeeld in Kaapstad begin het en op 16 Desember 1938 met die hoeksteenlegging van die Voortrekkermonument in Pretoria geëindig het, het tydens die honderdjarige herdenking van die Groot Trek grootliks tot die oplewing van Afrikanernasionalisme en Afrikaneridentiteitsvorming bygedra. Tydens die Voortrekkereeufeesvieringe in 1938 het die waens na beraming by meer as vyfhonderd dorpe en plekke aangedoen waar entoesiasties feesgevier is met historiese optogte en opvoerings, kerkdienste, toesprake en feesredes en die lê van ’n klipstapel of die onthulling van ’n monument of gedenkteken wat spesiaal vir die geleentheid opgerig is. Die doel van die studie was om eerstens ’n gedetailleerde databasis saam te stel oor die minder bekende monumente en gedenktekens wat in 1938 dwarsoor Suid-Afrika opgerig is en om hulle sover moontlik behoorlik te dokumenteer. Tweedens is die relevansie, kulturele betekenis en bewaring van die tasbare onverskuifbare erfenis in ’n post-apartheid Suid-Afrika geëvalueer en bespreek. ENGLISH : The symbolic ox-wagon trek that started on 8 August 1938 at the Van Riebeeck statue in Cape Town and ended with the foundation stone laying of the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria on 16 December 1938, contributed to the revival of Afrikaner Nationalism and the forming of an Afrikaner identity. During the Voortrekker Centenary celebrations in 1938 the wagons visited more than five hundred towns where the inhabitants enthusiastically celebrated the event with historical pageants and processions, church services, speeches and usually stone cairns were layed or a monument or memorial was unveiled to commemorate the occasion. The main aim of this study was to compile a detailed database about these often unknown monuments and memorials that were erected all over South Africa in 1938 and to document them as far as possible. The second aim was to evaluate and discuss the relevance, cultural significance and preservation of these unmovable heritage structures in a post-apartheid South Africa. / Dissertation (MHCS)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Historical and Heritage Studies / unrestricted