The release of the Monument Avenue Commission Report in July, 2018 was the culmination of over one year of research and collaboration with community members of Richmond, Virginia on how the city should approach the contentious history of Monument Avenue’s five Confederate centerpieces. What the monuments have symbolized within the predominately rich, white neighborhood and outside of its confines has been a matter of debate ever since they were unveiled, but the recent publicity accorded to Confederate monuments has led to considerations by historians, city leaders, and the public regarding recontextualization of Confederate monuments. Recontextualization of the monuments should not only consider the city’s current constituency, but also the lives, testimonies, and representations of Richmond’s African- American residents as the monuments were built. A comparative case study of photographs from various institutional archives in Richmond, Virginia, depicting late- nineteenth and early twentieth-century scenes from the city’s history reveals that while Monument Avenue and its Confederate celebrations benefitted the city’s upper-class white constituency, its messages extended far beyond Richmond and its Confederate veterans. By bringing to light images and testimonies from the archive that highlight African-American presence, a counter-narrative emerges detailing the construction of power in post-Reconstruction Richmond through Monument Avenue.

This diploma thesis focuses on the role of the American Civil War memory in the American society today. It examines this phenomenon through the perception of American Civil War reenactors. The thesis analyses their opinions on the current issues that are linked to the history of this conflict - the omnipresence of the Confederate monuments and the Confederate battle flag in the American public space. It also explores the subject of the Southern identity, the role of the Confederacy in its formation and whether the ideas of the Confederacy are still present in the South today. It is necessary to understand the Southern mentality and how it is perceived by the rest of the United States, because the individual characteristics of the Southern identity are reflected in the current debates on the Confederate heritage. An idea that interconnects the individual chapters of the thesis is that the American Civil War memory is strongly influenced by the Lost Cause ideology and the overall mythologization of the conflict. While the Civil War reenactors' main motivation is to educate society about the conflict, their opinions are also mostly supportive of the romantic perception of the Confederacy.

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