End of War or End of State? 1918 in the Public Memories of Post-Communist Croatia and Serbia

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Tea Sindbæk Andersen ◽  
Ismar Dedović
Keyword(s):  
Public Memory ◽  
Positive Outcome ◽  
First World War ◽  
History Textbooks ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
World War ◽  
War Memory ◽  
The Public ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

Abstract This article investigates the role of 1918, the end of the First World War, and the establishment of the Yugoslav state in public memories of post-communist Croatia and Serbia. Analysing history schoolbooks within the context of major works of history and public discussion, the authors trace the developments of public memory of the end of the war and 1918. Drawing on the concepts of public memory and historical narrative, the authors focus on the ways in which history textbooks create historical narratives and on the types of lessons from the past that can be extracted from these narratives. While Serbia and Croatia have rather different patterns of First World War memory, the authors argue that both states have abandoned the Yugoslav communist narrative and now publicly commemorate 1918 as a loss of national statehood. This is somehow paradoxical, since the establishment of the South Slav State in 1918 was supposedly an outcome of the Wilsonian principle of national self-determination. In Serbia, the story of loss is packed in a fatalistic narrative of heroism and victimhood, while in Croatia the story of loss is embedded in a tale of necessary evils, which nevertheless had a positive outcome in a sovereign Croatian state.

Overcoming History through Trauma. The Hungarian Historikerstreit

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 523-534 ◽  
Author(s):  
Éva Kovács
Keyword(s):  
Public Memory ◽  
First World War ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
World War ◽  
History Writing ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The First World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
First World

In the mid-summer of 2012, a sort of Historikerstreit broke out in Hungary. The main topics of the controversy were the language of and the attitude to the history of the Holocaust. In what follows I will argue that the Hungarian Historikerstreit is closely related to both the renaissance of the Horthy era (1920–1944) in current Hungarian politics and the ambivalent attitude towards the Holocaust in public memory. Since 2010, Hungary has celebrated ‘Trianon commemoration day’, remembering on the peace treaty of Trianon after the First World War. In today’s Hungary, Trianon seems to be a permanent trauma of the nation not only in the public memory but also in history writing. In spite of the fact that many respected scholars argue that currently the construction of the trauma of Trianon has a hegemonic position in Hungarian social memory and that the Holocaust cannot compete with it, I will show that the Trianon trauma is a construction of the current politics of history, which overshadows the tragic experiences of the First World War. Moreover, Trianon and the Holocaust are strongly interconnected historical events, which cannot be understood separately.

Chronic post-amputation pain & blast injury: An analysis of British First World War Veterans’ pension records, 1914-85

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Dixon Smith ◽  
David Henson ◽  
George Hay ◽  
Andrew S.C. Rice
Keyword(s):  
Blast Injury ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Future Care ◽  
Medical Teams ◽  
The Uk ◽  
First World

LAY SUMMARY The First World War created the largest group of amputees in history. There were over 41,000 amputee Veterans in the UK alone. Recent studies estimate that over two thirds of amputees will suffer long-term pain because of their injuries. Medical files for the First World War have recently been released to the public. Despite the century between the First World War and the recent Afghanistan conflict, treatments for injured soldiers and the most common types of injuries have not changed much. A team of historians, doctors, and amputee Veterans have collaborated to investigate what happened next for soldiers injured in the war and how their wounds affected their postwar lives, and hope that looking back at the First World War and seeing which treatments worked and what happened to the amputees as they got older (e.g., if having an amputation put them at risk of other illnesses or injuries) can assist today’s Veterans and medical teams in planning for their future care.

scholarly journals Historical Significance of the Spanish Neutrality in the First World War

2014 ◽  
pp. 26-34
Author(s):  
I. Y. Mednikov
Keyword(s):  
Social Stratification ◽  
Social Evolution ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
Historical Significance ◽  
The Social ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

The article deals with an insufficiently studied problem, Spanish neutrality during the First World War. The author analyzes its historical significance in the international context, as well in the context of political, economical and social evolution of Spain. Spain was one of the few major European Powers that maintained its neutrality throughout the First World War. Although all Spanish governments during the conflict declared strict neutrality, it was, in actual fact, benevolent towards the Entente Powers, and by the end of hostilities Spain turned into "neutral ally" of Entente. This benevolence towards the future winners and a wide humanitarian campaign supported and headed by the King Alfonso XIII enabled Spain to improve her position in the postwar system of international relations; Spain became one of the non-permanent members of the League of Nations Council. Nevertheless the Spanish neutrality had a negative impact upon the social, political and economical evolution of Spain. The social stratification was increased, the public opinion was deeply divided and the social conflicts were aggravated, that considerably affected the further evolution of the Spanish society.

The Land of Cockaigne: The German Art Market and the First World War*

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maddalena Alvi
Keyword(s):  
German Economy ◽  
Art Market ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
Paper Money ◽  
Tangible Assets ◽  
The First World War ◽  
German Art ◽  
First World

Abstract This article reconstructs changes in the German art market during the First World War on the basis of an art-price index for the years 1910 to 1918. The art market during the war was closely tied to the monetary deterioration of the German economy, which undermined trust in paper money. Through an analysis of prices and auction reports, this article shows that from 1916 onwards, the public invested in art, evidence that the pattern of expenditure for tangible assets more commonly associated with postwar hyperinflation had already taken off during the war. At the same time, the First World War precipitated the disintegration of a bourgeois milieu of collectors, marking a transition from the traditional market into a modern and rational auction more open to speculative incentives. The inflow of new buyers shook the hierarchies and conventions of the market. Reports published in the auction journal Der Kunstmarkt provide insight into the reactions of insiders from Germany’s Bildungsbürgertum to this transformation. The more visible the monetary value of art, the bigger these insiders’ contempt for newcomers, whom they found guilty of overthrowing the rules of patronage of the old market. Derogatory depictions of new buyers as either investors or war profiteers were a means for insiders to define their own socio-cultural standing at a time of crisis, establishing a pattern that would subsequently characterize many postwar debates on both politics and culture.

scholarly journals Organization of Charity and Philanthropy in Selenginsky District of the Trans-Baikal Region During the First World War: Interaction Between the Government and the Public

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Sevostyanova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Baikal Region ◽  
Social Care ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
The Public ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Government ◽  
Charitable Activities ◽  
First World

The article considers the implementation of the policy of charity of families of mobilized in Selenga county; forms and rates of organization of urban and rural guardianship; creation, basic principles and forms of charitable activities of the Selenga County Commission of the regional Zabaikalsky Department of the Committee of Elizaveta Fyodorovna. The total number of charitable and Trustee associations was revealed. The main trends of social care after February 1917 are defined.

scholarly journals Primo Bartolini and the “Eye-talians” of Nashville: Becoming American in the Athens of the South

2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-36
Author(s):  
Matteo Brera
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
The United States ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The South ◽  
The Public ◽  
Southern States ◽  
Italian American ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

This essay describes how the Italians who settled in Nashville between the end of the nineteenth century and before the outburst of the First World War favoured first and foremost their occupational mobility thus prioritizing their integration in the economic fabric of a thriving city. Initially, they kept their cultural heritage alive but aimed to gain solid knowledge of the English language and American customs in order to apply for American citizenship as soon as possible, thus avoiding the severe discrimination endured by other Italian communities in southern states. Among the Italians of Nashville, Primo Bartolini stands out as a unique example of successful cultural and social hybridization and of the making of Italian American identity in Nashville and the South. Bartolini moved to Music City in 1908, after a short experience as a teacher in Indiana, and he was the first non-native of Tennessee to be drafted in 1917 to serve for his adoptive country during the First World War. A poet and a scholar, he wrote more than 300 poems on nostalgia, love, and patriotism. In these unpublished works, Bartolini shows how his identity progressively became Americanized: his writing style changed over time while still maintaining certain prosodic elements proper to his Italian culture and education. Bartolini’s experience, along with those of his compatriot who found their new home in Nashville, also confirms the integrating effect that the Great War had on Italians. Indeed, in the United States, a blend of old loyalties and the strong desire for acceptance and recognition drew the entire community into the public life of their adopted cities.

scholarly journals Landscapes of Internment: British Prisoner of War Camps and the Memory of the First World War

2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 543-564 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Grady
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Home Front ◽  
World War ◽  
Prisoner Of War ◽  
War Memory ◽  
Memory Culture ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Improvement Measures ◽  
Surrounding Landscape ◽  
First World

AbstractDuring the First World War, all of the belligerent powers interned both civilian and military prisoners. In Britain alone, over one hundred thousand people were held behind barbed wire. Despite the scale of this enterprise, interment barely features in Britain's First World War memory culture. By exploring the place of prisoner-of-war camps within the “militarized environment” of the home front, this article demonstrates the centrality of internment to local wartime experiences. Forced to share the same environment, British civilians and German prisoners clashed over access to resources, roads, and the surrounding landscape. As this article contends, it was only when the British started to employ prisoners on environmental-improvement measures, such as land drainage or river clearance projects, that relations gradually improved. With the end of the war and closure of the camps, however, these deep entanglements were quickly forgotten. Instead of commemorating the complexities of the conflict, Britain's memory culture focused on more comfortable narratives; British military “sacrifice” on the Western Front quickly replaced any discussion of the internment of the “enemy” at home.

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