Abstract

This thesis examines the various representations of the 1918 Quebec City anti-conscription riots over the course of the last hundred years in francophone Quebec. It argues that the riots had been largely ignored by Quebec's professional and amateur historical communities until the Quiet Revolution. As the social and intellectual forces changed in the 1960s, some of the amateurs, the most important being Jean Provencher, re-discovered the story of the riots. Provencher's Québec: sous la loi des mésures de guerre 1918 and his subsequent play Québec, Printemps 1918 (1973) were written to honour the four victims who were deemed unfairly killed, as well as to commemorate those Quebecers who chose to fight for, what the author believed, was a worthy cause. Additionally, his work also meant to correct the perceived historical wrong of a tragic event that seemed to have been forgotten by Quebecers. Although he claimed his works were "objective", Provencher wrote this history with a political message and accordingly selected, interpreted, and manipulated documents in order to strengthen his argument. Since then, Quebec's francophone historians, mostly amateurs, have parroted Provencher's works contributing very little that is new on the topic. Consequently, although the story of the riots is widely represented today in Quebec, it continues to be told through a tragic and simplistic narrative of victimization.