Umiliazione nazionale, educazione al patriottismo e il memoriale del ‘Massacro di Lüshun’

In the 1990s, the Chinese leadership launched a large-scale “patriotic education” campaign. At that time, hundreds of historical sites were bestowed the status of “patriotic education bases”, playing a key role in rebuilding the collective historical memory and educating the people – above all, the younger generations – on the humiliations China had previously suffered due to aggression by foreign powers. Visits to the patriotic bases also became an integral part of school curricula. This paper focuses on the memorial dedicated to the victims of the Japanese occupation of Lüshun (Dalian, Liaoning province), which took place in November 1894. By also relying on data collected during a visit to the site in October 2017, it aims to investigate how this “patriotic education base” contributes to the official historical narrative of both China’s past and the Sino-Japanese conflicts.