Tobias Ebbrecht

Keywords: docudrama, documentary, German television, historical event televiszon, memory, Nazism, Second World War

The 60th anniversary celebration of the end of the Second World War became an important political, social and media event. Memory rituals, speeches and official announcements, celebrations, movies and reports created an ensemble of social activities that re-dramatized the historic event. In these kinds of memorial rituals the re-dramatization of history becomes part of collective memory, in which a shared image of historic incidents is created. Media and especially television play an important role in this making of history. Today, television is one of the most important agents for communicating historical events. At the same time the tendency of historical television documentary is to adopt increasingly popular forms and elements of feature films. This has led to a popular form of historical event television. One of its main genres is the docudrama. The article reviews contemporary docudramas about Nazism and Second World War on German television.

Therefore, it seems important to consider some changes in representation of the history of the Third Reich in film and television.

In Germany especially, these changes provide a new focus on every- day life during the Third Reich which correlates to a new generation of German filmmakers and TV-makers, born after the wax. The aesthetics of these film and TV productions imitate the look of history by mixing modes of documentary and fictional representation. These developments in representing German history benefit from a new entertaining mode of event television that is also a dominant mode in historical television worldwide. To describe this mode of representation I would like to borrow a term from the popular German TV historian Guido Knopp (1998), who describes the actual historical television docudrama as 'historical event television.

Media, especially television, plays an important role in the production of knowledge about the past. Originating in Britain, historical documentaries have been part of German public service broadcasting output since the 1 960s. The producers of these documentaries understood themselves as part of the discipline of history, contributing to historical knowledge. As such, the programmes were addressed to experts and mainly discussed themes from the 'official' history of political processes. Archive footage did not serve as a historical source but rather as illustrated texts, demonstrating what Thomas Fischer calls the 'text's hegemony over images ' (2004: 516). History on television, then, was not 'an event for a mass-audience but an educational program for a minority ' (2004: 517). It is noticeable that this type of 'classical' historical documentary, dominated by the narrator and the spoken, written and documented word, has been replaced largely by more entertaining forms of representing history. Part of this development was the tendency to use oral history by integrating interview sequences during the 1970s. The German documentary filmmaker Hans-Dieter Grabe describes the importance of this:

The TV is predestined to make possible an encounter on a private and therefore intensive level. The narrator comes for a visit through the TV and is sitting right next to the seat or table of the viewer. And therefore the viewer has the opportunity to listen, to get to know the visitor and think about what he is reporting. (Grabe, 1988: 209) This established a new definition of historical documentary in the 1980s, which sought to communicate the atmosphere of the historical period (Franck, 1988).

The transformation of 'explanatory television' into 'visually narrative television' during the 1 990s is often described as the result of concessions to popular taste and has to be seen against the background of the steady erosion of public service broadcasting in most European countries. But the fictionalization of historical narration is not just easy for the viewer to 36 consume. It also has consequences for the perception and understanding of visualized and narrated history, and therefore for the way in which historical events enter into the collective memory of a society. It is interesting that in Germany, public service broadcasting leads the way in repre- senting historical events in narrative form, when compared to commercial broadcasters. Public service broadcasting in Germany is still viewed as a supplier of reliable coverage. Therefore, it is important that any discussion about the adequacy of German history programming on public television should consider these narrative-and event-oriented terms. This development is not new, but it seems to have taken on a new quality in recent years. In relation to Anton Kaes' (1989) groundbreaking study From Hitler to Heimat, the cultural production of collective memory is no longer affected directly by an intergenerational conflict between formerly Nazi fathers and their sons and daughters alone. A new temporal distance has allowed emotional empathy between grandchildren and grandparents. History is not only personalized, but the new entertaining forms of historical television also absorb elements of the structure by which memories are passed on in society through the generations. New research about the transfer of memories of the fascist past in German families has suggested 'that schools and other agencies of cultural memory form the historical consciousness of young people to a lesser extent than everyday conversation in the family, and last but not least, feature films' (Welzer et al., 2002: 15).

Historical event television

Today, television is one of the most important agents for communicating historical events. At the same time, the tendency of historical television documentary is to adopt increasingly popular forms and elements of feature films. This has led to a popular form of historical television programme. This kind of historical event television reacts to, and reflects upon, the fact that historical events not only become history. History can become a contemporary event through remembrance also (Fischer, 2004). Therefore, historical event television frames social events such as memorial dates and official remembrance days, and becomes part of contemporary memory culture. On the one hand, it works as an archive of collective memory and, at the same time, takes part in the construction of a national culture of public memory. The broadcasting itself suggests an event-character by producing media debates about new historical facts, technical methods or effects. On the other hand, historical event television becomes a kind of popular history lesson for the audience. It conveys the content of the official culture of memory and connects it to the everyday life of the audience. This means that programming, audience reception and production modes are part of the special character of historical event television.

Relating to its aesthetics, historical event television has a clear tendency to recreate and fictionalize history. Following Hayden White, this kind of 'para-historical representation' deals with 'historical phenomena, and all of them appear to "fictionalize" to a greater or lesser degree the historical events and characters which serve as their referents in history' (White, 1996: 18). In Germany the modes of historical event television were developed mainly by the editorial department for 'Zeitgeschichte" at the Second German public television station (ZDF). In 1984, Guido Knopp became the founder and head of this editorial department. Since the beginning of the 1990s he has produced documentaries regularly about the history of Nazism, screened during prime-time, all of which have received high ratings.> Knopp became a representative for popular and narrative history-telling. His films are much more influential than most academic historical debates in Germany. As early as 1 998, Knopp ex- plained the importance of the documentary drama as a mixed genre for the representation of history on television:

I believe that the genre of the docudrama is the future. We know so many stories behind the scenes which are not filmed. If we combine this -viewable for the spectator -with historical footage, a new genre of historical event television will be founded that can give us a new perspective on historical events. (Knopp, 1998) But the question is, at what point will the distinction between historically authentic and recreated footage no longer be comprehensible for the viewer? What are the functions of the 'authentic' documentary images in this particular context? And what kind of perception of history results from this combination of fictional and documentary modes of representation? This touches on an important aspect of our mode of receiving historical event television. In his reflections on TV representations of history, Knopp describes the possibilities of electronic media, especially when employing the docudrama genre to produce 'power, curiosity, sympathy, tension and concern' and to 'adopt history sensually ' (1988: 1). This includes the 'dimension of spectacle' and a sense of presenting special and exclusive material (1988: 3). The character of historical event television, mixing different modes of representation, is part of this manifesto: These expensive fictional recreations shouldn't act as a decoy for the favour of the audience, but attractively present historical incidents which are not present- able by documents, gain attention and ease comprehension. (1988: 5) Aspects of presentation and reception are combined with special aesthetic and narrative forms of representing history on television.

Thanks to international co-productions, the aesthetic and narrative forms of historical event television in different countries are becoming increasingly similar, and American and British programmes are leading the way. But there is something special about German historical television with regard to media representations of remembrance of the Second 38 World War and Nazism. As Steve Anderson emphasizes, we have to 'view cultural relations to the past as overdetermined by the needs of the present' (2001: 20). Indeed, Knopp states that in Germany, the main motivation for making historical television is a 'new need for identity. Identity isn't thinkable without tradition and tradition needs points of orientation for historical awareness' (1988: 1). Bearing this in mind, this article will consider historical event television in Germany by analysing two examples of contemporary docudrama dealing with the history of fascism in Germany, which were screened around the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in May 2005. The first, shown on ZDF, was Die letzte Schlacht (The Last Battle); the second, a miniseries, aired on the first public German television station, ARD: Speer und Er (Speer and Hitler: The Devil'sArchitect). These films fall within a tradition of German television docudrama, but were also a prelude to a huge num- ber of so-called 'event TV' broadcasts of television movies which use the docudrama form to dramatize historical events such as the British bombardments in Dresden ( 2006), or Allied support during the blockade of Berlin in Luftbrucke (2005).

To underline the German context of representing this part of German and European history these docudramas will be compared with similar productions from Britain: the documentary series Auschwitz: The Nazis and the FinalSolution' (2005) by Laurence Rees, creative director of BBC History, and the Discovery Channel production Virtual Hitory: The Secret Plot to Kill Hitler (David McNab, 2004). This latter 'documentary' presents the Third Reich as 'virtual history' by using computer-generated images of historical people and, interestingly, was shown on German television by a commercial station (TTL2) which specializes in reality television. In this way it could be viewed as a fake, a so-called 'mockumentary' and, in this context, may be seen as an indicator for a future development in historical television.

History and the mixed docudrama genre According to Paget's 'Codes and Conventions on Dramadoc and Docu- drama', a docudrama retells events from national and international histories, and/or represents the careers of significant national or international fig-

ures, or it focuses on "'ordinary citizens7 who have been thrust into the news because of some special experience' (Paget, 2004: 196). Paget not only mentions a historic event as a dramatic base for the presented story but also argues that the form of the docudrama itself could be part of its special event character on television. As 'extra-textual events', Paget describes the convention that 'docudrama is often presented and followed by interview and discussion programs' (2004: 205). On the one hand, this special form of programming is part of creating a media event. On the other hand, it underlines the social importance of political or historical topics and discourses which are picked up by the docudrama. 39

Beside the docudrama's character as media and social event, it is a special form of addressing the audience. Paget describes this docudramatic mode of representation: 'In the dramadoc/docudrama, documentary's promise of privileged access to information is added to drama's promise of understanding through " second order" experience' (2004: 205). The docu- drama addresses an 'appeal to belief' to its audience that is 'anchored in a distinctively twentieth-century faith in images -especially moving ones' (Paget, 1998: 87-8).

The combination of documentary and fictional modes of representation corresponds to the audience's desire to see their own received understanding of history confirmed by historical evidence. On the one hand, the represen- tation of history has to live up to the expectation of historical authenticity. The images function as representatives for historical truth and create evi- dence for the spectator to believe what is seen. They encourage the desire to believe in the truth of the representation. As Bill Nichols (1991: 25) suggests, we can think of a specific 'documentary mode of engagement'. This docu- mentary mode has the function of creating a reality effect for the viewer, which elicits a feeling of authenticity. 'Documentary invokes the desire to know when it identifies its subject and proposes its own variant on the history lesson ' (1991: 30).

On the other hand, the fictionalization and dramatization of history meet the spectator's desire to see how historic events took place. But these interpretative representations fulfil also the desire to fit national or per- sonal versions of history to officially remembered history by offering a framework for interpreting and reconstructing historic incidents in the viewer's mind. In so doing, historical docudrama makes a double offer to the audience, as Steven Lipkin describes:

Docudrama argues with the seriousness of documentary to the extent that it draws upon direct, motivated resemblances to its actual materials. As fictions, docudramas offer powerful, attractive persuasive arguments about actual subjects, depicting people, places, actions, and events that exist or have existed. (Lipkin, 2002: 4) The aesthetic style gives the audience warrants of authenticity: 'The viewer is invited to accept the argument that re-creation warrants, that what we see might have "really" happened in "much this way"' (2002: 5).

At the same time, the audience is invited to relive historical incidents from a safe and distant position, as Paget suggests: 'Our gaze as audience is disembodied; we are in the "there-but-not-there" realm of record at the same time as we inhabit the "I-am -there" identificatory realm of the drama' (2004: 207).

In the words of Guido Knopp, this means that the viewer is allowed to identify with the presented historic incident. In the examples of German 40 historical event television this also means that history is presented from the perspective of key individual actors. For example, the crimes of the Third Reich are discussed only within the context of a few historical figures such as Hitler, Goebbels and others. In Germany this way of writing history has the function of exonerating the 'ordinary' people of that era. Another, and rather contradictory, strategy consists of personalizing history through the presentation of individual accounts. In this way, historical incidents are narrated as fragmented, subjective stories. One consequence of this individualization of history is the clear tendency to level out differences between victims and perpetrators.

History as stories from everyday life: Die letzte Schlacht Such kinds of historical docudrama, which recount episodes from the everyday lives of ordinary people, include Die letzte Schlacht, screened in March 2005 on ZDF. Guido Knopp was the historical adviser to this production. It was directed by the famous television author and filmmaker

Hans-Christoph Blumenberg, who directed DerAufstand (The Uprising) in 2003, a docudrama about the events on 17 June 1953 in Berlin when an uprising by East-German workers was crushed by Soviet tanks; and

Deutschlandspiel, in 2000, about German reunification. Both were very successful. Die letzte Schlacht depicts the last days before Berlin's total defeat and was the first high point in ZDF's programming for the 60th anniversary of the end of Second World War. The broadcast was placed between the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and that of the official end of the war on 8 May. At this time many reports in newspapers and on television dealt with the bombings of German cities 60 years earlier. These reports framed the screening of Die letzte Schlacht and warranted public interest, therefore it can be described as a media event as well as part of the memorial year 2005 (Buss, 2005). In addition, the film was promoted as a kind of 'anti-Untergang' and benefited from the public interest in the last days of the Third Reich after the release of Der Untergang (Downfall, Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2004) (Schneider, 2005).

Die letzte Schlacht draws strongly on the conventions of historical event television. Recreated scenes, played by well-known young German actors, documentary footage and testimonies are mixed together. Although it is a docudrama, it is orientated towards the style of the documentaries pro- duced by Knopp and his historical department at the ZDF. This means that the main focus lies on eyewitness testimonies.3 Die letzte Schlacht does not discuss 'great' historic events but the stories of everyday life. Ordinary people become the protagonists of history. The figure of the eyewitness becomes a historical authority. By making ordinary people into the protagonists of a television movie, Die letzte Schlacht represents an in- teresting meeting point between discourses outside and inside the media.

The structure of the docudrama refers to family conversations about the subjective experiences of parents and grandparents during the period of German fascism. The eyewitnesses who represent the grandparents' generation are redramatized by young German actors who also represent the third generation of grandchildren. This structure reflects the stories about Nazism passing down through the generations. The 'grandparents' talk, then the 'grandchildren' interpret their stories to 're-enact' them.

Therefore the witnesses -especially the German ones -become characters to identify with, because they act as the audience's own mirror image.4

Without any visual and dramaturgical distinction, Die letzte Schlacht presents German soldiers, former members of the SS, resistance fighters, nurses, a raped woman and Russian soldiers. All are represented in a similar way as both the witnesses and victims of history. This indiscrim- inate presentation is underlined visually by the fact that all the interviews are shot in front of the same black background. This discourse is signifi cant for the new German docudrama about the Second World War and Nazism. In this discourse, which is also part of the alteration of historical testimonies through the generations, television plays an important role in filling in the gaps between knowledge and the narrated stories (Welzer et al., 2002).

The recreated scenes illustrate the testimonies. One effect of this nar- ration is that the stories, which are told and presented to the audience, neither have specific historical value nor follow a dramatic structure.

They just double the narrated stories. For example, a German woman is interviewed about her experiences when the Soviet army entered Berlin. She talks about soldiers taking away watches and jewels. In the next shot the camera focuses on a watch. Then the woman asks on camera if she should describe what the Soviet soldier looked like. The next shot presents the face of an Asian man. This double structure of word and image is typical of the narration of historical event television. Therefore tension has to be created by using emotional and dramatic music and reinventing additional dramatic parts based on eyewitness stories. To suggest historical authenticity, the recreated scenes are supported by the use of historical documentary images intercut with the interview scenes. Most of this foot- age originates from newsreels and early documentary films such as the German documentary Kreuzweg der Freiheit (Crossroad ofFreedom) from 1951, produced by the former Nazi propaganda film director Johannes HLussler, which effected a public scandal in the early federal republic and was banned because of its nationalist and revisionist intention [START_REF] Zimmermann | Holocaust and history in film and television, and his doctoral research considers the building of stereotypes and the historiography of historical images in[END_REF]. This material not only functions to legitimize the fictional scenes, but also acts as an establishing shot to open up the his- torical context. However, this new arrangement of historical images and the recreation of historical film footage are connected also to actual 42 interpretations of history and forms of national historiography. The result is a specific form of historical misrepresentation because the recreation is a way of reinventing history.

The everyday life stories told in Die letzte Schlacht seem to be Tatsachenbilder (factual images) of the historic incidents during the liberation of Berlin. But they are much more Erinnerungsbdlder (images of remembrance) which correspond to subjective stories and Geschichtsbilder (images of history). History becomes a multi-perspective conversation, much as Steve Anderson describes memory as a 'discursive struggle'. But while Anderson describes that 'part of the power and significance of televisual historiography lies in its flexibility and intangibility in comparison with "official" histories' which enable the placing of '[m]emories, which survive among individuals and communities ... in opposition to historical discourse, which is propagated from the top down via cultural and governmental institutions' (2001: 22), in this particular case the concepts of oral history, testimony and documentary images become subordinate to collectively shared images of history, which are part of national memory culture.

Reinvention and reorganization: Speer und Er

The four-part docudrama Speer und Er, which was broadcast on ARD shortly after the 60th anniversary of the end of Second World War on 9, 11 and 12 May 2005, radicalizes methods of docudramatizing history on television. Speer und Er tells the story of the Third Reich's main archi- tect and minister of arms, Albert Speer, and his relationship with Adolf Hitler, the Fuhrer. This relationship is presented in flashbacks, which are mostly fictionally recreated scenes. The linear narrated plot of the miniseries begins at the beginning of the Nuremberg trials and ends with Speer's release from Spandau Prison in the 1960s. The structure of the story and flashbacks is a docudramatic mixture of documentary images and fictional scenes, which are intercut with interviews with Speer's children.

Director Heinrich Breloer, one of the most significant creators of his- torical docudramas in Germany, does not use the historic documentary images to illustrate recreated fictional scenes or to produce an effect of authenticity. Instead, he reorganizes the material without any distinction in a flow of montage that combines different levels of time and space and of subjective and objective experience. The historical documentary images, then, lose their function as icons for authentication and their character as an index for specific historic incidents. For example, he dramatizes Speer sitting in his prison cell, 'remembering' his past. The images used in these scenes originate from different sources. The first sequence is a fictional studio reconstruction of Speer sitting in his prison cell in Nuremberg waiting for the trial. The camera moves towards the window. This signals a kind of subjective imagining of Speer's memory.

The images following show the aeroplane from the beginning of Leni Tiefenstahl's Nazi propaganda film Triumph des Tillens (Triumph of the TWill, 1935), in which Tiefenstahl portrayed the 1934 Nazi Party con- ference in Nuremberg. Together with Speer, the main architect of the conference's buildings, she organized different camera positions and had exclusive access to the Fuhrer. The structure of Triumph des Tillens focused on Hitler and his glorification. Breloer uses these images as a kind of exposition for Speer's memory. The propaganda image becomes a subjective image of remembrance.

In the next sequence we see Hitler and Speer, played by actors, look- ing out of the aeroplane, then a reverse-shot of Nuremberg taken from Triumph des Tillens. The next scene shows Hitler on parade in Nuremberg, which again includes images from Tiefenstahl's film. But then Breloer shows footage of the razed city of Nuremberg at the end of the war.'

This change between different levels of time in the flashback shows that these are subj ective memory flashes, which break the borders of space and time. The documentary footage at the end of this sequence shows an Allied soldier at the prison in Nuremberg. These shots take the audience back into Speer's prison cell.

Images from Nazi propaganda and postwar documentary footage be- come part of a subj ective visual imagination with no historical evidence. By mixing these different images with recreated scenes they lose every specific historical value; also, the recreated scenes cannot be decoded unambiguously as representative of a historic truth. This montage is a reversal of the distinction between different historical and narrative levels. As Hayden White notes for the postmodernist docudrama and the 'historical metafiction':

Everything is presented as if it were of the same ontological order, both real and imaginary -realistically imaginary or imaginarily real, with the result that the referential function of the images of events is etiolated. (White, 1996: 19) The docudramatic narration of Speer und Er follows for the most part Speer's self-image developed in his illegal letters from prison and his autobiography, which were published after his release. One sequence shows Speer in a slave labour camp in Dora where the V2 is produced. But the slave labourers seem to be ghosts who arise at various points in the drama in Speer's mind without really telling the stories of the victims or of Speer's crimes. Even the interviews with Speer's children, which build a kind of commentary on their father's self-image, cannot break this subj ective image of remembrance which is created by the powerful mix of recreation and documentary that is much more emotionally touching for the audience.

At the same time, the 'extratextual event' of Speer und Er led to debate 44 in newspapers and other media because of its taboo-breaking motivation.

The promotional material called it a destruction of the myth of a leading Nazi who claimed not to know about Nazi crimes. To understand this contradiction, we must look at Speer und Er as a media event. The docudrama needed the reputation of breaking a taboo (which was no longer a taboo because the historical facts about Speer's personal participation in Nazi crimes had been known since the beginning of the 1 980s) to legitimate its form as a kind of double psychotherapy of the former perpetrator Speer and his de-realization of his own past, and of his children as representatives of the German population and their structures of displacement of guilt (or their feeling of guilt). Speer und Er is, then, rather a psychological drama about different German generations and their strategies in handling the past. This also explains the subj ective character of the film's images of remembrance. Further, an older audience may see this docudrama as an adaptation of their own experience which does not confront them with their own structures of displacement. Thus it was also possible to see Speer und Er as a factual image of the past, while it was really an image of subjective remembrance; an image of fragmented history.6

To make both ways of receiving the docudrama possible for the Gennan audience, Speer und Er included an extratextual event. Three parts of the series, which were broadcast on three different days at prime-time on ARD, told the life of Albert Speer in the aesthetic and narrative style described above. But on the day that the last part was screened there was a later, second screening of a 'fourth' episode, narrated in a different way. This presented the 'whole truth' about Speer, using more of the classical documentary strategies of representing history. Speer's children, former slave labourers, Speer's publisher and historians, who refer to historical studies, are interviewed about the 'real' Speer and his self-excusing way, which became a model for the whole German population. Here, the re- created scenes are just illustrations for the presented historical facts, or are confronted with the factual knowledge of the 'experts'. The German film critic Christiane Peitz summarized:

Breloer the seducer. Apprehension rises. In three ninety minute long parts the director and his co-author Horst Konigstein developed Speer's self-image as the good Nazi and followed every detail of his self presentation. The children and some experts express some doubts about Speer's mask. But only in the fourth part called 'The Deception', which is mostly documentary and was broadcast during the night and not at prime-time, will this mask be taken from Speer's face in an effective way. (Peitz, 2005: 31) What Peitz calls 'enlightenment as dramatic effect' can be interpreted also as an effect of docudrama. Here, docudrama offers different ways of receiving the history of national socialism by constructing a sensual and subj ective historical space which is not bound to facts, but reinvents historic development by reorganizing and recreating images of the past as subjective images of remembrance.

Digital animation and reinvention: Virtual History: The Secret Plot to Kill Hitler

The British documentary Virtual History: The Secret Plot to Kill Hitler covers the events of 20 July 1944, the day that the German officer Graf Claus von Stauffenberg was planning an attempt on Hitler's life. It not only uses recreated scenes, but regenerates historic film footage with the help of digital animation. The special effects (SFX) and visual effects (VFX) industry distinguishes between visible and invisible special or visual effects. While most of the computer generated images (CGI) are invisible effects simulating events that are possible (or could be possible) in the actual world, visible special or visual effects simulate events that are impossible or implausible in the actual world but could appear in alternative worlds (Elsaesser and Buckland, 2002). In their analysis of the Steven Spielberg films Jurassic Park (1993) and The Lost Wforld (1997), Thomas Elsaesser and Warren Buckland assert that the digital effects 'hide behind iconic appearance ' (2002: 210) although they are visible. The films try to produce photographic evidence. The mixed aesthetics of visible and invisible special effects produce the appearance of realism and the illusion of a photographic image. Digital images 'replicate the realism and illusionism of the photographic image by conferring photographic credibility upon objects that do not exist in the actual world' (2002: 21 1). The same happens in this documentary. However, in this case the film offers a clear documentary reading to the audience and, instead of dinosaurs as protagonists, contains historical figures such as Hitler, Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt. Today, many more methods of digitally remastering the past are used where historic film footage is missing. But instead of acknowledging these techniques as recreations, the aesthetics of the dramatized footage are adapted to make it look like amateur film. Virtual History recreates 'private' shots of Hitler, Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt during this 'day which will change the course of history'. Computer-animated faces of the four leaders taken from documentary footage or photographs were superimposed on actors. Finally, digital filters were applied to give the film the look of old Super 8 footage (Banks-Smith, 2004). The Discovery Channel producers explicitly tried to merge real and fictive images so that the difference was no longer visible (Wolf, 2005: 21). They aimed to convince viewers that they were the spectators of events which, in fact, had never been recorded. As David Abraham, executive vice-president of Discovery UK and producer of Virtual History, explains:

When you're watching an actor play a part you have to suspend your disbelief because you know you're looking at an actor. By using this technique you can become emotionally involved because the film looks like original footage.

This means what you're seeing is much more shocking because it feels as if 46 you are really there. [START_REF] Abraham | Making of -Back to Life[END_REF] Discovery Communications Inc. is an influential global operation company for factual entertainment that specializes in entertaining historical documentaries and television broadcasting programmes. Patrick Hbrl, vice-president and country manager of Discovery Networks in Germany, explicates: 'The concept of personalized history so that the audience can bring it together with their personal history worked out even one hundred percent' (HLussler, 2005: 38). Discovery addresses especially a young and (in Germany) predominantly male audience. Pay-TV stations such as Discovery also function as innovative sources for public television broad- casting: 'Re -enactments and the use of 3D-animation were developed in pay-TV first', explains Hbrl (HLussler, 2005: 39). Discovery Germany has a production partnership with ZDF and cooperates with Spiegel TV's history department, which develops historical documentaries for differ- ent German commercial private broadcasting companies.

The method of recreating a historical look used in Virtual History is also a consequence of the rising influence of amateur film footage on the aesthetics of historical event television. An important element for this new and popular presentation of history on television was to open up new, unused and exclusive film footage.7 The actual use of such private footage is a consequence of the German law that allows amateur footage to be used without the permission of the 'author' after 50 years (Keilbach, 2004: 566). In her extensive studies of contemporary historical television on fascism and holocaust, Judith Keilbach calls attention to the political effects of this 'new' use of amateur film footage. Further, the shift from black and white to colour pictures evokes a shift from the official level to the private sphere in the Third Reich: By using private footage the political dimension of Nazism is lost, because the pictures of Hitler sitting in a happy private atmosphere on the balcony of his summer house, or of politicians standing in front of an imposing mountain panorama can't be combined (on television) with the historic fact of national- socialist atrocities. (2004: 566) Virtual History does not use these 'private shots', but regenerates 'missing images' by digital animation. Much more important than the historic incidents, which are shown in the short sequences that are still very expensive to produce, seems to be the technical innovation of digital regeneration.8 In opposition to this, the structure of Virtual History is classical. We can see, clearly separated, 'talking head' historians and experts, who give an orientation around the period. The regenerated scenes take the place of fictional recreation in a docudrama. But besides the event character of these shots, their specific style suggests the authenticity of their content. Through this, the distinction between document and imagination disappears. The content of the sequences is no longer a product of historical speculation but becomes the status of documentary evidence.

Regeneration and imagination: Auschwitz: The Nazis and the 'Final Solution'

Like Virtual History: The Secret Plot to Kill Hitler, the documentary series Auschwitz: The Nazis and the 'Final Solution', about the history of the infamous Nazi concentration camp, presents technical and digital effects of recreation and regeneration as its main events. The mini-series mixes nearly all modes of presenting and representing history in historical documentaries and docudrama: historic film footage, photography, interviews and recreated scenes with actors playing Nazis or victims, digital animation and regeneration of the destroyed camp, commentary and quotes from different sources such as documents or diaries.

In contrast with the other examples, the recreated scenes are used strictly as illustrations for the presented facts. For the most part, long shots dominate the recreations and no emotional identification is produced by establishing the main protagonists. There is little dialogue. In most sequences the actors' dialogue overlaps with the commentary or quotations from camp commander Höss's diary.

The portrait of the camp's history is developed from different historical sources. It is orientated towards the studies of the historians Ian Kershaw and Christopher Browning, who took part as historical advisers. Furthermore, the interviews with survivors and former SS officers do not seek to produce identification by emotional effects, but make a strict distinction between perpetrators and victims. 9 The stories that are told are illustrated to allegorize life in the camp, not to produce a special version of history.

As in Virtual History: The Secret Plot to Kill Hitler, Auschwitz uses new methods of digital generation to represent history. But here only the destroyed buildings of the camps in Auschwitz and Sobibor are visually reconstructed by computer-animated scenes, and ordinary people or historic figures are not represented. In this case the impression of authenticity is caused by the experience of the space. The first-person perspective known from ego-shooter computer games is adopted: through the threedimensional space the impression of consistency is generated, which is important for the cognitive and emotional immersion of the user into the artificial world of the game (Thon, 2007: 127). The digital images effect interaction with the audience, which enforces the digital image's impression of reality (Elsaesser and Buckland, 2002).

But digital images are not bound to reality. They describe 'non-actual possibilities' (Elsaesser and Buckland, 2002: 212). They produce the illu- sion that the possible world corresponds to the actual world. But in the historical case of Auschwitz it is a past world that really existed. Therefore, in the empty rooms the wandering camera evokes shots from historical documentaries such as Alain Resnais ' Nuit et Bruillard (Night and Fog, 1955) or Claude Lanzmann's Shoah (1985). These digital regenerations of the past are deserted locations and could function as allegories for the dehumanization of the victims by their German perpetrators. It is the audience which has to put together the experiences of the victims and the recreated locations of the annihilation in their minds. Digital re- generation does not replace the power of imagination. Together with a factual perspective on the history of the Holocaust, the audience is given room to imagine the unimaginable.

Conclusion

While German docudramas about Nazism and the Second World War use a combination of documentary and fictional modes of representation to create a special kind of tension and magical aura in order to offer the German audience a sensual and emotional space to empathize with the perpetrators, British docudramas seem to be much more conventional in their distant documentary style and interested in the technical possibilities of visual and digital reconstruction of historical figures, locations and incidents.'0 This corresponds with different ways of remembering the history of Nazism and the Second World War in Germany and Britain. It also points towards different concepts of telling history in popular nar- ratives on television. The much more subjective perspective of German event television and docudrama results in a transgression of the border between documentary and feature film which replaces the historical factual images through images of subj ective and national remembrance. These aesthetics correspond with forms of collective and family memory in Germany. As Welzer et al. (2002: 42) show, 'the memory of families does not distinguish as accurately in fiction and reality as science does'. Television and other media 'manifest apparently authentic but in reality highly artificial perspectives on events and become models for the interpretation of how something happened' (2002: 105). In docudramatic event television, therefore, not only the narrative conventions of feature film are used. His- torical event television is an audiovisual spectacle in which dramatic music underlines a new, private perspective on history. But most important are the (German) eyewitnesses who function as a mirror image for the German audience and as an object of identification and self-excuse.

The docudrama has become an important representative mode of telling history in television. Mixed modes such as Die letzte Schlacht and Speer undEr are being displaced increasingly by TV events in which re-enactment, fictional stories and modern computer animation prevail. First, according to the German producer Nico Hoffman of teamWorx, which produced TV events such as Dresden and Luftbrucke, these films have to deal with historical topics that will get the audience's attention, so they are framed by background documentaries, historical reports, 'making of features and discussions. Second, they need to have 'cinematic value', which means that they should not be significantly different to a movie shown in a cinema.

Third, the casting is important (Butzek, 2005). The aim is to emotionalize history for a mass audience and to find a way into the historic incidents that will facilitate spectators' identification. Therefore, personal stories and situations from the normal course of life are used.

The much more distant perspective of recent British documentaries dealing with the same historical period seems to focus on prominent historic protagonists, who function as a kind of historical background within which to explore new methods of digital animation, such as Virtual History. At the same time, the clear distinction between victims and perpetrators, as in Auschwitz, enables filmmakers to combine methods of investigation and confrontation with digital and dramatic methods of recreating the past not as a sensual image of remembrance -this can be imagined only by listening to the survivors and victims -but as a regenerated, dehuman- ized factual image which has to be filled by the imaginative power of the viewer. In contrast, the function of re-dramatization in Gennan docudramas is to produce a definite image of the historic incident. Again, this closed narration corresponds with the passing of history from grandparents to grandchildren: 'What in the narration of the eyewitnesses is perhaps controversial and inconsistent becomes in the versions of the grandchildren clear and definite' (Welzer et al., 2002: 208). Notes 1. This German term means contemporary history in the years after the First World War (Knopp, 1988). 2. Such series included Der verdammte Krieg (The Damned War, 1991), Entscheidung Sta/ingrad (Showdown Sta/ingrad, 1993), Hiter-eine Bi/anz (Hit/er-An End Result, 1995), Hit/ers He/fer (Hit/er's Supporters, 1997), Hit/ers He/fer IS (Hit/er's Supporters I;, 1998), Hit/ers Krieger (Hit/er's Warriors, 1998), Hit/ers Kinder (Hit/er' Chi/dren, 2000), Ho/okaust (Ho/ocaust, 2000; this series was called 'Holokaust' with a 'k' because the producers argued that the Holocaust was a German crime needing a 'German' name), Hit/ers Frauen (Hit/er> Women, 2001), Die grosse F/ucht (The Big Escape, 2001), Die Gefangenen (The Prisoners, 2003) and Die Befreiung (The Liberation, 2004). For more information about the presentation of the Third Reich in historical documentaries of ZDF, see the 50 work of Judith [START_REF] Keilbach | Fernsehbilder der Geschichte. Anmerkungen zur Darstellung des Nationalsozialismus in den Geschichtsdokumentationen des ZDF' ['Television images of history[END_REF].

3. For Die /etzte Sch/acht, 200 eyewitnesses were interviewed and 130 hours of interviews were recorded (Schneider, 2005).

4. Contemporary historical event television tells a kind of people's history. This tendency is demonstrated by ZDF's campaign to send a so-called 'Century Bus' through Germany to collect life stories and personal memories of history, in order to make them useful in documentaries about German history.

5. Again, Breloer uses these images without indicating the source of the footage. 6. That the docudrama attracted a younger audience to the channel is shown by the ratings. Of the 4.07 million audience who watched the first episode, 1.5 million were 14 to 49 years old, representing 10.7 percent of 14 to 49-year-olds. In April in general, only 8.2 percent of 14 to 49-year-olds watched ARD. 7. One way to develop such 'new' pictures was to reveal new details of well- known historic film footage and use new camera angles or zooms, with the help of digital arrangement, to give a 'new' look to the 'old' material (Keilbach, 2004). Another way is to use colour film footage to create a special television event and spectacle. Most of these colour pictures were already well known but often had been used as black and white copies in order to satisfy our general expectation that the past should appear in black and white.

8. The DVD of the documentary shows a 'making of ' the production, which is nearly as long as the historical documentary itself. 9. In contrast to the norm in German historical documentaries, these interviews were shot in front of a private looking (individual) background. 10. That these different modes of representation are also mixed up shows that the new German TV events such as Dresden are produced for an international audience. They combine the emphasis on ordinary Germans with a multinational perspective on history and the use of new digital special and visual effects.

Figure 1

 1 Figure 1 Stills from the BBC series Auschwitz. Images reproduced with kind permission of the BBC.


Alexander Dhoest

Identifying with the nation Viewer memories of Flemish TV,fiction

Keywords: S collective memory, nati onal identity, oral history, television drama

This article investigates viewer memories of former Flemish television fiction in order to research how its representation of Flanders has influenced national identification. Viewer memories show strong patterns, as the same serials are positively remembered by most respondents. The strength and fondness of these memories suggests that these serials became part of collective memory. The importance of 'Flemishness' also becomes apparent through the emphasis on realism and recognition. All the respondents said that they preferred domestic drama to imported serials, portraying 'typical' situations of the past using Flemish dialects. They strongly identified with this image, and by sharing fond memories, they form a national mnemonic' community.

considered as 'ideologically suspect', mostly based on textual and contextual analysis. Critics such as Higson (1993) have criticized heritage drama for offering an embellished and highly selective (imperialist, upper class) view of the past, mythologizing an exportable image of 'Englishness' (see Dhoest, 2004c).' However, reception research (be it historical or con- temporary) may offer a very different view on the actual meanings of this kind of drama for 'ordinary' viewers, counterbalancing the often condescending treatment that it has received so far.

Flemish national television

Media can contribute to the formation of national identities in different ways. First, modern mass media were often formally organized on the national level, which contributed to the formation of national communities of media use (Anderson, 1 991; Gellner, 1983). Public broadcasting tele- vision, in particular, was often explicitly mobilized in the formation of national unity. It provided shared images and experiences, unifying viewers from diverse backgrounds (Abercrombie, 1997; Ellis, 2000; Newcomb, 56 1997; Price, 1995). Second, television can address the nation explicitly, for example in programmes on the royal family or national events (Cardiff and Scannell, 198 7). However, programmes do not need to intend to unite the nation or explicitly address national issues in order to lead to cultural identification (Bourdon, 1992). Third, popular programmes such as soaps may contribute equally to the formation of a national viewer community (Carson and Llewellyn-Jones, 2000). As claimed by Edensor (2002), it is necessary to take into account the importance of everyday utterances of popular culture in the formation of national identities. In this context, the (European) audience preference for domestic serial fiction (drama, soaps and sitcoms) is notable. It is explained mostly in terms of recognition, cultural proximity and identification (Bechelloni, 1999; Biltereyst, 1992; Buonanno, 1998; Paterson, 1997).

Flanders is the Dutch-language community in Belgium which, since the 1 950s, has gradually become a federal state. Although Belgium remained the national context in political terms, in cultural terms Flanders has be- come a more self-evident (sub)national frame of reference, as cultural life is divided mostly across language lines. Contributing to this process, from its beginnings in 1953 television broadcasting was split into a Flemish Dutchlanguage and a Walloon French-language division. The Flemish Belgische Radio en Televisie -Nederlandse uitzendingen (BRT -Dutch-language broadcasts), having little competition at the time, could literally unite the Flemish viewers in front of their sets. The broadcasting officials were greatly dedicated to the project of Flemish 'national' cultural emancipation and education (Van den Bulck, 2001). Domestic fiction was a central category in this endeavour, which explains the predominance of period drama (20 out of 32 series and serials), often based on literary sources (15 out of 32), in the era of monopolistic public broadcasting (until 1989). In the 1960s particularly, many short serials represented the rural Flanders of the first half of the 20th century, constructing a strong discourse about Flemish history, culture, language and national character (Dhoest, 2003). Analysis of policies and production practices shows that the broadcasters of this period deliberately aimed to educate the viewers into 'good Flemings' (Dhoest, 2004a). For these reasons, the present research focuses on the period of the public broadcasting monopoly between 1953 and 1989.

As little qualitative information on viewing processes in this period is available, this research uses 'oral history7 interviews with viewers. These provide a rich and useful source of information which is not based on indirect assumptions about the viewers deduced from textual analysis or broadcasting policies. That being said, these interviews are also indirect as they are based on representations of the actual viewing process. Moreover, they are retrospective, presenting memories that are constructed in the present within a particular interviewing context, reflecting on the past but inevitably influenced by subsequent events. Nostalgia is a powerful sentiment in accounts of television of the past, particularly among older viewers who tend to contrast television in the present negatively with an idealized past (Gauntlett and Hill, 1999; Hackl, 2001; Healey and Ross, 2002; Tulloch, 1992). Annette Kuhn's notion of 'memory text' is useful to describe the recorded act of remembering where the past is produced. Memory texts are the result of 'memory work', the staging and performing of memories in accounts of the past (Kuhn, 2002, 2004). When interpreting memory texts, it is important not to approach them as a transparent source of information about the past, rather as contemporary discourses representing the past. In judging such accounts of the past, their relation to the present is crucial, but so is the realization that there is no such thing as an unmediated account of the past [START_REF] Van Dijck | Mediated Memories: Personal Cultural Memory as Object of Cultural Analysis[END_REF]. As noted by [START_REF] Radstone | Working with Memory: An Introduction[END_REF], memories are representations rather than reflections of the past, but they also have a relation to lived experience, which confirms their value as a method to research the past. By analysing themes, discursive patterns and emphases in oral history interviews, we can learn about the ways in which television fiction became part of collective 'national' memory, if at all.

For this research, 40 respondents of more than 60 years of age were interviewed; people who witnessed the whole analysed period. To chart the appreciation by a broad audience (rather than any minority), a varied sample was selected through snowballing. The respondents came from all Flemish provinces and were divided equally in terms of gender and class (deduced here from the level of education and employment). First,

questions were asked about spontaneous memories of domestic fiction between 1953 and 1989; second, about the broader viewing context and preferences. Finally, using a list of titles, all the serial drama from this period was discussed. The interviews were fully transcribed and systematically analysed, looking for patterns, but remaining attentive to exceptional responses. To control the length of this text, only short (but representative) quotes are given as an illustration.

Because of the abstract nature of the concept of 'national identity ', this was not addressed directly in the interviews in order to avoid confusing or leading the respondents. Instead, drawing on the above conceptualization of national identities as discursive constructions, viewer memories of textual discourses on the nation were investigated. Arguably, images that are remembered by most viewers have become part of collective memory, an important constituent of national identity (Conway, 2003; Mlisztal, 2003; Sturken, 1997). The term 'collective memory' is used here to refer to individuals' shared memories. Particular attention was given to the evaluation of the remembered images, as positive memories may be a further indication of their importance to collective memory.

This article focuses on evaluative statements in the interviews. First, it investigates what the respondents liked about the programmes and which operational definition of 'quality' they used in the process. Then, it develops the three main (and related) points of appreciation: realism, 58 recognition and 'Flemishness', arguing that all of these testify to the role of television fiction in the creation of national identity. These three criteria were spontaneously used by most of the respondents, but they were also raised explicitly at the end of the interview, as they came out of a previous analysis of press reviews (see Dhoest, 2004b). Therefore, throughout this article the respondents' comments will be linked to the reviewer comments, and to conclude, the relationship between both will be discussed.

Before going deeper into the respondents' evaluations, let us briefly sketch some patterns in viewer memories.] Spontaneous memories of Flemish TV fiction between 1953 and 1989 are selective, as the viewers mostly mention two titles out of 32. The first series ever, Schipper naast Matilde (Sk'pperNearMathilde; BUT,1 955) was named by 33 respondents, and the prototypical 'peasant drama' TW(j heren van Zichem (We, the Lords of Zichem; BUT, 1969) by 21. On presenting the respondents with a list of titles, 12 programmes were remembered by more than 30 respondents, with many other programmes being virtually forgotten. Apart from a few comedies, most of the best-remembered programmes were popular period serials evoking similar memories, which suggests that they became part of collective memory (at least for this generation). In evaluating this fiction, most respondents use similar arguments.

Quality

One consistency across the interviews concerns the predominance of positive memories. If the respondents remember a programme (by more than its title), they mostly have fond memories of it. One could say that this is obvious, as people only watch what they like, a remark also made by some of the respondents. Hedwig's (67) response is exemplary:

All the series I watched I thought were good. I simply didn't watch the things that didn't interest me. Quite logical, actually.3 However, this is not as self-evident as it seems. Until the spread of cable distribution in the 19 70s there were few alternatives, so if one wanted to watch television, public broadcaster programmes were the only option. As many respondents remarked, they did not have much choice at the time, which is one of the reasons that they watched the same programmes to a great extent.

The respondents appreciated most of the remembered fiction, or at least that is how they remember it. It is difficult to recapture their appreciation at the time, and the nostalgic overtones in their memories are undeniable.

Often, the respondents spontaneously contrasted the fictional programming of the past to current offerings, and they mostly preferred the past. For example, Roger (63) stated:

In the past, the quality of television was much higher than now. Now, some things are shown that shouldn't be shown.

Contemporary sitcoms, particularly soaps, were often criticized, which fits within the 'moral hierarchy of programmes' described by Alasuutari (1992). A recurring point of criticism was the contemporary abundance of 'vulgarity', sex and violence. Thus, Josee (68) comments: I think it was better before than now. Now it is murder and sex and brutalities ... That's what it is, and violence. Remarkably, while the fiction of the past was often historical and therefore obj ectively more distant from the respondents' everyday lives, nevertheless they thought it represented life more accurately than contemporary drama.

For example, Delphine (75) commented:

They represented everything as we have known it in our own lives. In my view, it was much more spontaneous, more ordinary, not as much sex and not as contrived.

Very rarely did the respondents state that Flemish fiction has become better over the years, a view most prominently (and tellingly) expressed by a journalist, Pol (60), commenting on the increasing professionalism of Flemish television from the 1980s.

While the positive descriptions of the past seemed to be partly inspired by criticism of current television, it would be a token of bad faith not to take the overwhelmingly positive accounts seriously and ascribe them primarnly to nostalgic hindsight. The fondness and detail of many memories show that these are treasured and coveted, which is an indication of the enthusiasm with which domestic TV fiction was watched at the time.

Turning to concrete points of praise, most respondents thought that the quality of domestic fiction was good. They commented on its 'high level', its high production values and particularly on the good, 'spontaneous' and 'lifelike' acting. For example, Josee (68) comments on domestic series: I thought they were of a high level and were very nicely acted ... Yes, I thought they were nicely acted and the setting was beautiful and the music was appropriate.

This overwhelmingly positive evaluation is linked to a general appreciation of the portrayal of life 'as it was'. Talking about popular drama, Frans (67) comments:

Among common people that came across best. You see, those were all situations occurring in daily life. It wasn't faked, it was all spontaneous and acted spontaneously by good actors.

This statement and many others confirm the importance of TV fiction as a source of images of everyday life in the past. These positive memories contrast strongly with the negative press response to Flemish television fiction. Hardly any aspect found mercy in the press; formal points of criticism included the low standard of programmes, 60 their amateurism, theatricality, bad acting, unnatural dialogues, weak scripts, clumsy direction and slow pace. As to content, much serial fiction was called old-fashioned and folkloric, and many critics denounced the obsession with rural life in the past (Dhoest, 2004b). While the massive ratings for most domestic fiction always have suggested a divergence between the appreciation of reviewers and a majority of viewers, the inter- views definitively confirm this. In contrast, while public broadcasters have long been criticized for not being able to judge audience taste, the interviews suggest that they did not get it completely wrong.

The viewers conceptualize 'quality drama' differently from most press critics. In Flanders, as elsewhere (see [START_REF] Caughie | Television Drama: Realism, Modernism and British Culture[END_REF], the term 'quality drama' is used mostly with reference to 'serious' highbrow television, in particular classic adaptations. While some of the positively-remembered drama falls within this category, most of it has a popular, often humorous overtone. In fact, what is most appreciated is 'the popular' in comedy or folk tales, showing 'common people'. For example, when asked to explain her preference for folk drama, Delphine (75) says she thought it was popular but not vulgar, as it was 'on the level of the man in the street'. Andre (83) does think it was vulgar, at times: It could sometimes be coarse, but you took that on board, because at the time it would effectively also have been that way.

Thus, a certain degree of coarseness is excused as it is considered to be characteristic of the period portrayed. Similarly, the persistent focus on Flemish farmers in 'peasant drama' was not criticized by the respondents, but rather appreciated. As Jeanne (63) says: I really liked the fact that they were rustic. I really liked that, as it was, before. Now it isn't like that anymore . . . That's why those series interested me so.

Criticism of these series was ascribed mostly to the cultural elite or, as Gerard (68) puts it:

I liked those series a lot at the time. People who have swallowed a dictionary may have a different opinion, but I really thought they were good.

This last comment is interesting, as the sample did include viewers of higher classes and levels of education, but hardly any of them displayed a condescending attitude. Generally, most of the respondents were positive about the same fiction and there were no clear class distinctions in the interviews. Tellingly, the respondent with the highest level of education, An (60), a female university professor, was quite positive:

I greatly appreciate the people who have made that, because you know they mostly had to work with modest means. And I also think we have some very good actors . . . So I think we can be quite proud of what was realised.

When subsequently asked what she thought of the press criticism of these series, she replied:

I think the further you go back in the past, the more the press journalists thought they could operate as moral crusaders and that they could impose aesthetic norms.

This awareness of the critical stance of the press raises questions concerning the relationship between press and audience responses, a point that will be taken up later in this article.

Realism

The respondents did not often use the term 'quality' explicitly, but they made many quality assessments using particular criteria. When asked why they liked domestic fiction, they mostly referred to realism; the reflection of life 'as it was'. For example, commenting on one period series, Marc (60) says: 'It was a very beautiful in terms of realism, the situations were caught directly from life.' Later, he comments that many series were realist: They make you think about things you have experienced yourself or people you know well. Also situations you recognize within your circle of friends or family.

For period drama, he based his judgement of realism upon accounts from his mother: 'Indeed, there are some things I have heard my mother tell. That it really was that way in the past.' References to 'the real' were ubiquitous in the interviews, in comments on acting that was 'true to life' and situations that were 'caught from real life', showing things that 'could really happen'. George's (90) comment is exemplary:

It was really played so nicely and it was so nicely put together that you would think it was real. All the things you saw you could recognise from everyday situations. Really true! Such a stress on 'the real' is evidence of 'referential' reading, the term used by Liebes and Katz ( 1 990) to describe readings stressing the relation- ship between programmes and real life. The respondents' praise for the realism of period drama is also in line with Alasuutari's (1992) claim that the attachment to realism explains why programmes depicting the modest simple life such as period drama are valued more highly than overly romantic soaps. In the same vein, Hbijer (1998) suggests that viewers are less involved with the glamorous than with social realist fiction, the latter creating a much stronger illusion of reality, allowing viewer recognition and identification. Indeed, on the rare occasions that the respondents in this research did have reservations about realism, these mostly concerned exaggerations and contrived situations, in particular in comedy. At the other end of the spectrum, 'arty' productions were criticized. Marc (60) commented that the more experimental series were beyond him: 'It has 62 to remain realist for me and not too complicated.'

Confirming the importance of realism, at the end of the interview, when explicitly asked if they thought that Flemish fiction was realist, most respondents answered positively. Rosa (66) said that they showed things 'that could really happen', and Frida (71) said: 'You could imagine such situations yourself.' Realism is conceptualized here as 'plausibility'; the most dominant of the six viewer conceptualizations of realism distinguished by Alice Hall (2003). Period drama, in particular, was considered to be a true account of life in the past, which could help people to learn about it. As Andre (83) said:

Popular series were realist at that time. In that way, you could know how things were done then ... At that time, people had to live in very poor circumstances, the houses had soil on the floor. It is a realist representation of those people, they were slaves, the children also had to work.

This response is one of many suggesting that TV fiction was used to construct an image of the Flemish past. Realism may be a basic criterion for judging any fiction, but as noted by Biltereyst (1995), viewers display a much stronger referential attitude towards domestic drama, valuing realism more highly. Language use is one particular context within which many of the re- spondents referred to realism. Textual analysis disclosed the frequent use of dialect in serial fiction at the time of monopolistic broadcasting in Flanders. Regional language was used often for the sake of authenticity, which was an exception to the broadcasting policy of promoting the use of standard language. For this reason, there was a lot of controversy over the use of dialect, both among the broadcasting hierarchy and the press (Dhoest, 2003). The respondents mostly remembered the use of dialect, particularly in 'peasant dramas'. They also preferred the use of dialect, or at least they did not object to it.

One obvious reason explaining the preference for dialect is the fact that, for viewers of this generation, the use of dialect was self-evident in their own youth. Even the respondents now constituting a higher class remember growing up speaking dialect. Jan (69) remembered that a lot of dialect was heard in fiction at the time, but when asked if this bothered him, he replied: No, actually not. I think it may have bothered some people. But I come from very common people. Back then, dialect was usual, so it doesn't bother you much.

In terms of language politics, it is important to note that French was the language of culture and politics well into the 20th century. In daily use the Flemish language did not amount to much more than an amalgam of dialects, while the official Dutch standard language was little known. Only through education and broadcasting did Dutch become a standard fixture of daily life from the 1950s.

Another reason explaining the respondents' preference for dialect is the fact that they considered it more appropriate for some kinds of drama, in particular peasant dramas set in the past. As Therese (74) said: 'In dialect that sometimes sounds j uicier', and Gerard (68) noted, 'That's their charm.' Referring to the prototypical period serial, Alfred (61) said:

In We, the Lords ofZichem, dialect was used by the working-class boys, but that only gave the characters more power. Jo De Meyere, playing a young student, obviously uses standard language. The priest's maid used dialect, but that didn't bother me. That came across as very natural.

Standard Dutch, on the contrary, was often perceived as 'wooden' and artificial. In this context, it is important to note that the language standard was foreign as it was imported from the Netherlands, which caused resistance to, and the slow adoption of, standard Dutch. This explains several respondents' comments that dialect should be safeguarded, such as Odiel's (70) statement: 'I still like dialect, that's the culture of the com- munity.' Dialect, rather than standard language, seemed to be perceived as a symbol of the Flemish nation. Most respondents explained their preference for dialect by referring to reality. As Aaymonde (79) says: 'It was mostly dialect, because that's the way it was.' When asked why she preferred dialect, Jeanne (63) replied:

Because that is as it really was, as the farmer used to be, cursing from time to time and using language as they used to do. A farmer didn't speak standard Dutch.

Marc (60) was equally positive:

In certain series you would expect standard language, but in things like We, the Lords ofZichem the use of dialect didn't bother me . . . It would be downright unrealistic to have a simple farmer speak standard Dutch.

Clearly, realism -conceived as 'showing it as it was' -was a touchstone of quality and appreciation for the respondents. However, one can have certain reservations as to the actual realism of this drama. While the producers aimed to 'get it right' in representing the Flemish past, the ensuing period drama was not the 'window on the world' that the respondents considered it to be. The impression of realism may have been due as much to familiarity, not only with the codes of realism, but also with particular images of Flanders in period drama. Significantly, this representation fitted within a broader discourse initiated in the literature from which many serials drew, and was equally apparent in the cinema of the 1970s and 1 980s (Mosley, 2001). This corresponds to Alice Hall's (2003) finding that viewer judgement of realism as 'factuality', the accurate representation of the real world, is based often on other media texts rather than personal experience. Therefore, viewers' assumption of correspondence to reality 64 may be somewhat misguided, but it does remain significant in relation to our thesis of national identification. Indeed, the unremitting references to reality indicate that viewers use fictional images to reflect on reality.

Recognition

The predominantly referential stance of viewers is supported further by the importance bestowed upon recognition as a criterion to judge domestic fiction. When asked if they thought Flemish fiction was recognizable, most of the respondents answered positively. More significantly, recognition was brought up spontaneously, although the term was used in different ways. Often, it referred to similarities to the world in which the respondents know and live. Therese (74) commented on the early success of Skipper Near Mathilde:

Everybody liked that, because it was so real, it was so recognisable Yes, I really like that. Everybody did, when Skipper Near Mathtilde was on, the people next door asked if they could watch it here, because they didn't have a TV set at the time.

Later on, she specified this claim: It was a very common household, with a warm atmosphere. That was easy to recognise . . . Mathilde and her neighbour, they were often together, but they couldn't stand each other. I thought that was so recognisable, because you can also have that in the neighbourhood. This kind of recognition was often combined with nostalgia, which explains the preference for recent history, coinciding with memories of one's youth. As Maria (8 7) commented on a period series: 'That was very goodt A lot of things from our youth were in it, things we recognised.' At most, this recognition stretches to the world of the viewers' parents, familiar through oral tradition.

A more involved form of recognition implies recognition of the self, as in Jean's (70) words: 'You could recognise yourself in it.' For Jeanne (63), this kind of recognition was too strong:

We, the Lords ofZichem, was that the one with the father who was always so angry that he . . . I couldn't watch that in the end because that's my own course of life, more or less. That really was like my life and I was always crying at it. He was always so brutal, that farmer Coene .. . It was a bit like my father. I also got beaten up. Some viewers admitted that they recognized the image while not recognizing themselves in it. Guy (64) commented on the same serial:

The recognition was limited in the sense that I couldn't recognise myself in the characters ... I am a city boy, so I couldn't recognise myself in any of the characters. But recognition in the sense of: This is an aspect of Flanders that has really existed', more so.

Overall, most of the respondents recognized characters and situations from their own world, while some went further, claiming that they rec-ognized themselves -a very direct instance of identification indeed.

Again, as with realism, it is necessary to put these respondent responses into perspective. For one thing, some have reservations on the degree of recognition, at least of some series. Exaggeration is another point of criticism, as in Roger's comments (63):

It was life as it was, perhaps with a slight exaggeration here and there. Certain things weren't really realist.

Moreover, while most of the respondents did answer the question regard- ing recognition positively, their hesitation suggests that they had never given this issue much thought. Godelieve (68) stated explicitly:

I think I have never thought about that much. But now I think of it, I do think they showed it as it was.

Finally, it is important to note that the recognition of the specific repre- sentation of Flanders is partly due to its constant repetition on TV and in other media. Jan (63) said that a serial like WYe, the Lords ofZichem was recognizable because people had read one of the books that it was based on, and had seen the film adaptation: These series were recognisable, particularly the big ones like The Lords of Zichem, if you had read the book De Witte. And there had been some movies.

That was recognisable: the village priest, the presbytery, the situations in the cafe ... That was all idealised, but people could recognise it. However, these reservations do not detract from the potential impact of these images on the formation of national images. The fact that TV images of Flanders, although selective and strongly codified, were perceived as realist and recognizable suggests that the respondents effectively appropriated them. They were not 'wrong' in describing these series as realist and recognizable, but they did consistently foreground certain aspects in their responses, which testifies to the discursive and productive nature of such memory-interviews.

'Flemishness'

The respondents rarely referred spontaneously to 'national identity', which confirms our reservations about explicitly addressing it in the interviews. However, many other responses are relevant in this respect. First, most of the respondents stated a clear preference for domestic drama over imported fiction. As mentioned earlier, this is a pattern found internationally and often ascribed to recognition and cultural proximity. The respondents confirmed this view, referring to language, culture and history as reasons 66 for preferring Flemish fiction. Thus, Andre (83) stated: I think it appealed more to us, because it was more about our own life, we could recognise ourselves much more in it. Not to forget the intelligibility, the language. We understand French quite well, but the pronunciation is often not very clear. In this respect a series in Dutch is much easier, because we can understand everything without a problem. We thought Flemish series were better and they interested us more.

A second moment when the importance of 'Flemishness' became apparent was when the respondents were asked whether the serial fiction they remembered gave a good image of Flanders. The rationale for this question was that serial drama gave a very one-sided representation (Dhoest, 2003). However, a large majority of the respondents were very happy with the television portrayal of Flanders, which is in line with the observations given previously on realism and recognition. In this context, they mostly referred to the popular period serials showing the life of the common Flemings in the early 20th century. For example, Frida [START_REF] Dhoest | Nostalgie en collectief geheugen: Kijkerherinneringen aan Vlaamse tv-fictie' ['Nostalgia and Collective Memory: Viewer Memories of Flemish TV Fiction[END_REF] commented that these serials gave a good image of village life: 'It really evoked the atmosphere as it was in a village.' Cecile (73) thought that the harshness of life in the countryside was well represented:

Perhaps some things were different, in the past. But to give only one example farmers' lives were very hard in the past, it is good that they show that.

The reason why they liked these images was often related to personal life, as is apparent in this response from Urbain [START_REF] Dhoest | Nostalgie en collectief geheugen: Kijkerherinneringen aan Vlaamse tv-fictie' ['Nostalgia and Collective Memory: Viewer Memories of Flemish TV Fiction[END_REF]:

We are so lucky-or unlucky -to have lived that, in reality . We went to school and to church in clogs. We had to take them off in church, leave them behind and walk in our socks. Life was poor, there was no luxury, we had to make do with what we had. Every day we ate soup, potatoes, bacon ... That's how I was brought up. Everything was mended ... It makes me think of my time.

Another reason why the respondents liked period serials is that it taught them something about the Flemish past. As Alfred (61) said:

You have a supposition of how things were in the past, but nothing more. Those serials helped you to imagine that period.

The viewers commented positively on the possibility of bringing back memories of their own youth, and of learning about the period before that. Cecile (73) said:

I liked that, those are memories from our youth that are refreshed. Maybe the young nowadays say: That's old-fashioned,' but I think, if the old don't tell that anymore ... It is written in the books, but I think those stories may be told.

Some even complained that there was too little period drama, which shows the strong commitment to this genre. Generally, most of the re- spondents stated a clear preference for historical drama over contemporary fiction. As mentioned previously, they were particularly critical of the current fiction offered (which hardly contains period drama). As Jan [START_REF] Dhoest | Nostalgie en collectief geheugen: Kijkerherinneringen aan Vlaamse tv-fictie' ['Nostalgia and Collective Memory: Viewer Memories of Flemish TV Fiction[END_REF] said about period serials: 'Let them rebroadcast that, it was better than the rubbish they broadcast nowt' This preference for period drama is not expressed only by contrasting it with the present. As Angeline (69) said:

I prefer historical serials, because they contain more life content, more character, more feeling . . . The mentality of those people. The underlying criterion, again, is realism and recognition of the picture of Flanders, which suggests that Flemishness is an important factor in viewer memories, at least implicitly.

At the end of the interviews, the respondents were asked explicitly whether they thought that the serials of which they had such fond memories were 'typically Flemish'. There was some hesitation in their answers, suggesting the respondents had not given the issue much thought previously. However, most answered positively, motivating their response in different ways. Pol (60) situates 'Flemishness' in the language, setting and issues:

First by the language, and the environment it was set in, and the language that was typically Flemish. I mean, the story was linked to the setting, to the region it was set in ... The same story would look very different in an American series, or in a British one, or in a French one -and in that sense it is typically Flemish. Because you see very strong accents of a Flemish . . . of images from our community, actually.

Louis (70) referred to the sources of period drama: 'Of course, many of these serials were based on typically Flemish authors.' A recurring criterion, once again, is realism, as in Cecile's (73) words: 'That's how people lived here before.' Marc (60) linked realism to the portrayal of the Flemish character:

I think it's good to rub people's noses in reality and to show the less beautiful sides of life ... It fitted with the little sides of people. These can also be shown.

Perhaps we are a bit conservative and closed.

By way of explanation as to why they thought the fiction was typically Flemish, some referred to their identification with Flanders, such as Roger (67): 'Because I am Flemish.'

The importance of Flemishness is one point of correspondence with press comments. While reviewers were critical of the overall quality of domestic fiction, and preferred 'serious' drama over popular comedy, they also thought that it was recognizable and realist. What saved the day, in their eyes, was the strong national character of domestic fiction, its 'Flemishness' (Dhoest, 2004b). However, a major difference concerns the respondents' overwhelmingly positive memories. For example, they did 68 not agree with press criticism that there was too much period drama at the time. Moreover, they did not think that serial drama gave a cliche-ridden image of the past, another point of criticism raised by the press.

Conclusion

This research began by asking how television fiction effectively operates in the formation of national identities. Reviewing the evidence found in the interviews, some answers can be given while some reservations have to be made. First, it is clear that television in Flanders created a national community of viewers, at least in the period of monopolistic broadcasting. There were hardly any alternatives, and public broadcasting deliberately aimed to unite the national viewership. Few fiction programmes explicitly addressed the nation or national identity, but the Flemish respondents preferred, and to a great extent watched, domestic fiction, which was aimed at making them familiar with Flemish culture. In the interviews, they stress realism, recognition and (implicitly) 'Flemishness' as the reasons why they liked domestic serials, which is in line with press criticism. Analysis of the interviews shows strong discursive patterns and recurrences, with respondents stating that they liked the same serials (mostly popular historical serials) for the same reasons. The centrality of period drama in their memories reflects the dominance of this genre in terms of output, but it also points to its symbolic centrality. As opposed to more internationally-defined genres such as soaps or sitcoms, period drama is very much perceived as one's 'own'. This is not surprising, as it is a genre that often aims to represent the national past. This is further supported by the consistencies in the responses across gender and class, two factors commonly found to strongly affect viewing behaviour and preferences. The differences in the interviews do not cor- relate systematically with gender, which suggests that domestic period drama is a less gendered category, as opposed to 'feminine' soaps or 'male' crime dramas. As to class, the respondents' positive memories (currently)

belonging to the higher classes in terms of education and occupation have been noted already. This is surprising, as looking down upon popular view- ing fare could be a way to distinguish oneself and to situate oneself in the intellectual elite -as often seemed to be the case in press reviews. While some of the respondents echoed the condescension towards contemporary popular drama (particularly soaps), very few looked down upon the 'folk' period dramas. This suggests that these serials, although looked down upon by the cultural elite at the time of broadcasting, have changed from a 'bad' to a 'good' cultural object -which, indeed, they may always have been for a maj ority of viewers. This finding also further corroborates their power in uniting a (national) audience.

As mentioned previously, most of the respondents took a referential rather than critical stance, neglecting the constructed nature of the representations and focusing on their reality value. Only some seemed to be aware of -or at least, cared about -the negative press surrounding these serials, so their opinion appeared to be little affected by the 'official' critical discourse. On the contrary, it seems that despite their negative comments, the press critics have taken a cue from 'common' viewers in explaining the success of domestic drama by referring to its quintessential 'Flemishness'. The portrayal of the Flemish past is what ultimately salvages these serials in reviewers' eyes , the same quality which seems to explain viewers' preferences.

While nostalgia coloured the respondents' positive memories, it does not detract from their central position in cultural imagination. Indeed, one may argue that nostalgia forms the very core of national identities, which commonly display a strong orientation towards an idealized shared history.

As viewers most fondly remember popular period serials, a dual nostalgia is operating: nostalgic memories for fiction that was itself nostalgically representing the shared past. At least for this generation, these serials have become part of collective memory, leading to the creation of a national 'mnemonic' community. This is not to claim the predominance of domestic fiction in the construction of national identity, but to redress the balance and include such everyday, popular forms of culture alongside the more commonly considered 'official' (political, high cultural) discourses on the nation. This calls for a revaluation of these series, which have been unduly criticized in the past.

Finally, these findings also call for further international comparisons into similar forms of 'banal' nationalism, particularly in small (European) 'national' regions (or 'stateless nations') within larger nation-states. Billig (1995) mostly situates banal nationalism in established nations, as opposed to the 'hot' nationalism of peripheral groups seeking to establish a new nation. As noted by Law (2001: 300), such analysis does not translate straightforwardly to 'stateless nations'. While Flanders clearly belongs to the latter category, there too, beside political 'hot' nationalism anrd explicit high cultural nationalism (celebrating national cultural feats), there is an undercurrent of unnoticed, everyday 'flagging' of the nation. This hap- pens both within television fiction, in the creation of a commonsensical discourse through representations of the nation, and among the viewers, who first form a community of viewers and then a mnemonic community remembering shared viewing experiences.

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to the participants of the 2003-4 Media Culture Seminar at the Catholic University of Leuven for their help with the interviews. This research was realized with the support of the Fund for Scientific Research, Flanders. Notes 70 1. For a good summary of the 'heritage' debate, see Monk (2002).

2. These are more fully analysed in Dhoest (2005, 2006).

3. The interview transcripts are literal translations by the author. To secure anonymity, only the respondents' first names are given.