This essay focuses on the historical and political, and not just moral and symbolical aspects of
the discourse elaborated in, and the message conveyed by, the Nanjing Massacre Memorial
Hall in its present structure – actually an evolving structure resulting from many important
changes that have been realized since its first construction in 1985, making of it both a ceremonial
place of remembrance and an authentic laboratory of ‘public history’. The Memorial
is in fact a complex, articulated and constantly developing example of ‘public history’
told in several formats, textual, monumental, architectural and exhibitionary. It is not just a
memorial site commemorating one of the most cruel episodes of WWII, when the Japanese
invading army stormed Nanjing in winter 1937-1938 and exterminated its civil population,
but it should be read also in the light of the main aspects of Chinese contemporary public
discourse dealing not only with the relationships with Japan, but more generally with post-
Maoist PRC’s historic role in the Asiatic and global arena, centred on some key concepts such
as ‘friendship’, ‘humanity’, ‘peace’ and ‘harmony, representing a direct link between contemporary
politics and the classic Confucian legacy.
