6. Small Escapes: Gender, Class, and Material Culture in Great War Internment Camps

This chapter offers a history of martial law (1981–84) in Poland to argue that music was a mode of civil resilience as well as a crucial means of conveying information and writing histories from below. The declaration of martial law brought about economic hardship and the curtailment of civil liberties, but also stimulated music making in three zones: public streets, church sanctuaries and private homes, and internment camps/prisons. This chapter revisits oral histories and diaries from the time to rehear the interplay between singing and military sounds during protests against the declaration. Experimental scores, concert programs, and observational songs played in domestic salons complicate the assumption that martial law effected a cultural hold—a metaphorical silence. The material culture of music in detention reveals that song—religious hymns, ballads, and legion songs—provided internees and prisoners the opportunity to reclaim authorship over their own histories.

Download Full-text

Prigionieri di guerra ungheresi all’Aquila (1915-1919)

Italianistica Debreceniensis ◽

10.34102/italdeb/2018/4669 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 24 ◽

pp. 183-197

Author(s):

Bálint Takács

Keyword(s):

Infectious Diseases ◽

Religious Life ◽

Prisoners Of War ◽

16Th Century ◽

Great War ◽

Daily Routine ◽

Internment Camps ◽

Archival Documents ◽

Prison Camp ◽

The Great War

The aim of this paper is to present the life of Hungarian prisoners of war in the internment camps of L’Aquila, a city situated in the central part of Italy, during and after the Great War. The POWs were first detained in the caserma Castello (Castle barracks), which is a 16th-century fortress where units of the Italian Army were stationing as well at that time. This made it possible for the POWs to lead a relatively idyllic life, whose various aspects are examined in the paper, such as nutrition, accommodation, clothing, correspondence, religious life, daily routine and employment. The sources used include archival documents, two memoirs of ex-POWs and newspaper articles. The comfortable life of the POWs was dimmed by the lack of their families and the Homeland, the idleness and certain infectious diseases. From the summer of 1916, the prisoners were employed in agricultural and industrial works outside the prison camp and were hence transferred from the fortress to barracks and unused churches. It is unknown when the last Hungarian POW left L’Aquila, and yet one of them is proven to have been there still in July 1919.

Download Full-text