| dc.description.abstract | This thesis questions the academic assumption that during the First World War New Zealand started to perceive itself as a nation. The assumption is based on the contemporary importance of the Anzac spirit/legend, which came into being after the landing on Gallipoli (in present-day Turkey) on 25 April 1915, for a New Zealand identity. Two main arguments support the hypothesis that, despite the emergence of the Anzac spirit, New Zealand’s war effort created new problems which divided the New Zealand society. Firstly, the relation between the Empire and the Dominion, both on a governmental level as well as society’s enthusiasm for the Empire, made it impossible to speak of New Zealand as an independent nation. Secondly, various internal divisions emerged, were rediscovered or widened in the war.
The thesis draws upon four carefully selected New Zealand newspapers to analyse the negotiated relation between the war front and the home front. The newspapers created a narrative of the war, which proved problematic when soldiers arrived home and told a different story. Not only text from these newspapers is used, but images too, which showed the known and prevalent imaginations of the war to the home front.
This research contests an academic assumption and shows that there is another way of looking at the importance of the Anzac spirit during the war and how much it influenced New Zealand identity. This research can be used as a stepping stone for further research into when the Anzac spirit did become the foundation of the New Zealand identification process. | |
