Anzac spirit

Simpson and his donkey statue by Peter Corlett outside the Australian War Memorial, Canberra

The Anzac spirit or Anzac legend is a concept which suggests that Australian and New Zealand soldiers possess shared characteristics, specifically the qualities those soldiers allegedly exemplified on the battlefields of World War I.[1] These perceived qualities include endurance, courage, ingenuity, good humour, larrikinism, and mateship. According to this concept, the soldiers are perceived to have been innocent and fit, stoical and laconic, irreverent in the face of authority, naturally egalitarian, and disdainful of British class differences.[2]

The Anzac spirit also tends to capture the idea of an Australian and New Zealand "national character", with the Gallipoli Campaign sometimes described as the moment of birth of the nationhood both of Australia[2] and of New Zealand.[3][4][5] It was first expressed in the reporting of the landing at Anzac Cove by Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett; as well as later on and much more extensively by Charles Bean. It is regarded as an Australian legend, although its critics refer to it as the Anzac myth.[2][6][7][8][9]

  1. ^ "The ANZAC Spirit". Returned and Services League of Australia Western Australian Branch. 2003. Archived from the original on 19 August 2006. Retrieved 10 November 2006.
  2. ^ a b c Robert Manne, The war myth that made us, The Age, 25 April 2007
  3. ^ Andrew Leach, The Myth of the Nation Archived 19 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ Why is Anzac Day so special? NZ History On Line
  5. ^ "Baris Askin, The Troy Guide". Archived from the original on 30 March 2009. Retrieved 26 May 2010.
  6. ^ Tony Smith, Conscripting the Anzac myth to silence dissent, Australian Review of Public Affairs, 11 September 2006.
  7. ^ Ben Knight, Breaking through our Gallipoli 'myth', ABC news, 2 November 2008
  8. ^ Matt McDonald, 'Lest We Forget': Invoking the Anzac myth and the memory of sacrifice in Australian military intervention, Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association's 50th Annual Convention "Exploring the Past, Anticipating the Future", New York Marriott Marquis, New York City, NY, USA, 15 February 2009.
  9. ^ Graham Seal, Inventing Anzac: The Digger and National Mythology, St Lucia: API Network and UQP, 2004.