Die Pad van Suid-Afrika: ʼn Analise van die sosiale mitologie van Afrikaner kulturele nasionalisme en gepaardgaande vaderlandsliefde gedurende die 1938 Voortrekker Eeufees

Abstract

In South African historiography the 1938 Voortrekker Centenary is regarded as one of the most important events in South African history. The reason for this is the unprecedented scale of the festival and the accompanying emotional outburst that took place in Afrikaner circles during the festivities across South Africa. In terms of the festival's importance, historians draw a direct causal link with the electoral success of the Reunited National Party in 1948 and the emotional nature of the festival is singled out in almost every study. The festival has certainly not been neglected in historiography. In terms of the external form and content of the festival, the events are well covered, and a wide range of themes are touched upon. However, studies of an explanatory nature are not only severely lacking, but the answers they offer are also inadequate. Not only are the affective characteristics and impact of the festival not explained, but it is also not considered that the emotional is not the only or most important aspect that calls for explanation, but also the Afrikanerdom's extraordinary overidentification with the Voortrekkers in 1938. Furthermore, there is a lack of engagement with the kind of context that is necessary for a phenomenon such as the Voortrekker Centenary to take place in such a spontaneous manner. Against this background, the aim of this thesis is twofold: firstly, to analyse the formation, content and functioning of Afrikaner cultural nationalism's social mythology - specifically the volk's myth of origin - during the 1938 Voortrekker Centenary by secondly, assessing the multifaceted influence of cultural entrepreneurs, as the fashioners and interpreters of the historical-mythological, linked to the volk's ethos and to a specific understanding and articulation of ethnic patriotism. The role of the cultural entrepreneurs as rediscoverers and ethnic revivalists is assessed through an analysis of their influence as the dynamic agents behind the process of cultural mobilisation that preceded the Centenary. I also evaluate their fashioning of the volk during the Symbolic Trek where they acted as the interpreters of the Afrikaner's national mythology, specifically pertaining to ethnohistory, symbol and ritual. However, I also focus the reciprocal participation of the volk in this process. The Symbolic Trek was the culmination of a historical and ethnic consciousness that, over a long period of time, was fuelled by an interplay between socio-economic realities, communal memories and the fashioning and continuous imagining of the volk whose Afrikaner historians and artists provided the discursive content - the narratives, irrespective of the medium - for the resonating form it took during the Centenary. I focus in particular on the influence of Gustav Preller, C.J. Langenhoven and the iconography of W.H. Coetzer's commemorative visual artworks commissioned for the Voortrekker Centenary. The content and functioning of Afrikaner cultural nationalism's social mythology are analysed using the main approaches of John Hutchinson, Anthony D. Smith and Gérard Bouchard. I analyse four archetypal components of the Afrikaner's myth of ethnogenesis through a thematic approach that analyses the interpretations of symbol, ritual and mythology (which consisted of seven elements of mythopoesis) guided by the symbolic wagons' visits to core historical landmarks along the Path of South Africa during 1938. This is done through an integrated narrative based on C.J. Langenhoven's three nationalist artworks, Eerste skoffies op die Pad van Suid-Afrika, Die Hoop van Suid-Afrika and Die Vrou van Suid-Afrika. Langenhoven was directly inspired by the historical work of Gustav Preller, in particular Piet Retief: Lewensgeskiedenis van die grote Voortrekker. The central argument of my study is that a mythological account of ethnohistory during the Centenary, as a climax of cultural Afrikaner nationalism, became a way through which deep existential meanings were attributed to the unique ethnic characteristics of the Afrikaner as a separate nation with its own culture, ethos and its own destiny rooted in a distinctive understanding of ethnicity, culture, ethnohistory and the affective dimension attached to this. It provided potent answers to the questions 'who are we?' and 'where do we come from?' This social mythology - particularly embodied in the Afrikaner's myth of ethnogenesis as existential reference point - was expressed in the powerful idea of the 'Path of South Africa', continually evolving 'myth of becoming', and rooted in a distinctive understanding of patriotism - referred to by contemporaries as 'vaderlandsliefde' - which forged a mythological bond between South Africa and the Afrikaner, sustained by the mythological cultural ideological and genealogical ties that linked the Afrikaners in spirit with the Voortrekkers in 1938.