National Identity and Veteran Culture in a Border Region: The Danish Minority in the German Army during the First World War

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-80
Author(s):  
Claus Bundgård Christensen
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
First World War ◽  
Border Region ◽  
World War ◽  
German Army ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Distinctive Type ◽  
War Experience ◽  
First World

This article examines whether a distinctive type of war experience developed among the 26,000 soldiers from the Danish minority in Schleswig south of the Dano–German border who were conscripted into the German Army during the First World War. The analysis is focused on how the soldiers voiced their national identity during their encounters with the German Army and the civilian populations in Eastern and Western Europe. Subsequently, it is investigated whether the veteran culture, which developed among the troops from the Danish minority, was marked by a distinct war experience.

The Short Career of the Indian Labour Corps in France, 1917–1919

2015 ◽  
Vol 87 ◽  
pp. 27-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Radhika Singha
Keyword(s):  
Military Personnel ◽  
First World War ◽  
Newspaper Coverage ◽  
One Dimension ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Status ◽  
War Experience ◽  
Social Agendas ◽  
First World

AbstractThis essay adds the story of the Indian Labour Corps (ILC) to the narratives of the various “coloured” units brought in to France to deal with the manpower crisis that had overtaken that theater of the First World War in 1916. The label “coloured” or “native labour” justified inferior care and a harsher work and disciplinary regime than that experienced by white labor. However, official reports and newspaper coverage also expose a dense play of ethnographic comparison between the different colored corps. The notion was that to “work” natives properly, the managerial regimes peculiar to them also had to be imported into the metropolis. The register of comparison was also shaped by specific political and social agendas which gave some colored units more room than others to negotiate acknowledgement of their services. One dimension of the war experience for Indian laborers was their engagement with institutional and ethnic categorizations. The other dimension was the process of being made over into military property and the workers own efforts to reframe the environments, object worlds, and orders of time within which they were positioned. By creating suggestive equivalences between themselves and other military personnel, they sought to lift themselves from the status of coolies to that of participants in a common project of war service. At the same time, they indicated that they had not put their persons at the disposal of the state in exactly the same way as the sepoy.

"Militarizacija materinstva" – ženski "naravni poklic" in vélika vojna

2015 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-89
Author(s):  
Ana Cergol Paradiž
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
First World War ◽  
Promotional Material ◽  
World War ◽  
Educational Work ◽  
Female Authors ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Mothers And Children ◽  
Representations Of Women ◽  
First World

With the help of publications, legislation, memoranda and promotional material, this article shows how various actors in the Slovene-speaking area, during the First World War, addressed their mothers, and if also in their cases, the phenomenon of the "militarization of motherhood" was shown, which was typical of other European countries. In the context of the discourse "militarization of motherhood", it analyzes the ways of how female (national) identity was formed. It tries to answer the question of what (patriotic) duties were imposed to women as mothers, for example, if as a result of declining birth rates in that time, even we encountered pronatalistic initiatives, especially those that were advocating social and health protection of (illegitimate) mothers and children. It also analyzes the views on the educational work of mothers at the time when this was, due to the absence of fathers, irregular lessons and the difficult war situation, even more difficult. At the same time, it studies the representations of women as mourning mothers at the deaths of their sons-soldiers. In this context, it establishes that during the war, the motif of a mourning, but brave and proud mother was frequent also in the Slovene press. A separate chapter presents the views of female authors on the topic of motherhood.

scholarly journals Podatek od zysków wojennych w polskim systemie danin jako źródło finansowania kosztów wojny polsko-bolszewickiej

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 395-406
Author(s):  
Dobrosława Antonów
Keyword(s):  
Social Function ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Additional Burden ◽  
History Of ◽  
War Experience ◽  
First World

The paper draws attention to one of the emergency taxes in the history of the Polish Treasury, i.e. a tax on war profits. It was levied under the Decree of 5 February 1919 on the Establishment of a Tax on War Profits. This levy introduced a concept which was developed in Europe and built on the First World War experience. In the reborn Poland, the tax was supposed to have two functions: fiscal — as a source of financing the extraordinary expenditure arising from the war against the Soviets and a social function — as an additional burden on those taxpayers who were able to accumulate wealth and earn substantial profits as a result of the First World War.

scholarly journals ‘Weeping tears of blood’: exploring Italian soldiers' emotions in the First World War

Modern Italy ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanda Wilcox
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
World War ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The First World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
War Experience ◽  
First World

Emotion plays a vital role in any rounded history of warfare, both as an element in morale and as component in understanding the soldier's experience. Theories on the functioning of emotions vary, but an exploration of Italian soldiers' emotions during the First World War highlights both cognitive and cultural elements in the ways emotions were experienced and expressed. Although Italian stereotypes of passivity and resignation dominated contemporary discourse concerning the feelings and reactions of peasant conscripts, letters reveal that Italian soldiers vividly expressed a wide range of intense emotions. Focusing on fear, horror and grief as recurrent themes, this article finds that these emotions were processed and expressed in ways which show similarities to the combatants of other nations but which also display distinctly Italian features. The language and imagery commonly deployed offer insights into the ways in which Italian socio-cultural norms shaped expressions of personal war experience. In letters that drew on both religious imagery and the traditional peasant concerns of land, terrain and basic survival, soldiers expressed their fears of death, isolation, suffering and killing in surprisingly vigorous terms.

Torrefranca vs. Puccini: embodying a decadent Italy

2001 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-53
Author(s):  
ALEXANDRA WILSON
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
First World War ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
World War ◽  
Giacomo Puccini ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Italian Culture ◽  
First World

Puccini reception lay at the heart of a crisis of national identity that gripped Italy between the turn of the century and the First World War. For Puccini's detractors his works were an emblem of decadence; for his supporters they provided a means for regeneration. In his vitriolic monograph, Giacomo Puccini e l'opera internazionale (1912), Fausto Torrefranca associated Puccini with dangerous ‘others’ – women, homosexuals and Jews – in order to instil fear about the ‘feminisation’ of Italian culture. The reception of his book shows that Torrefranca's ‘extreme’ views were widely shared.

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