scholarly journals The Great War, ethics of Vidovdan, memory

2015 ◽  
pp. 1-42
Author(s):  
Bogoljub Sijakovic
Keyword(s):  
Historical Memory ◽  
Great War ◽  
Thought Control ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Historical Responsibility ◽  
Colonial Policy ◽  
Political Assassination ◽  
War Propaganda ◽  
War Aims ◽  
The Great War

After a characterization of contemporaneity (dominance of the financial sector and high technology, politicization of economy, ideological use of culture and thought control) and a brief analysis of expansionism (political, economic, cultural) on the eve of the Great War, the author gives a more detailed description of the spiritual situation in the wake of the Great War: in philosophy, literature, and art, as well as the national political programmatic texts and war propaganda publications of German intellectuals of the time. The continuity of the Austro-Hungarian colonial policy towards the Balkans and Serbia culminated in instigation of a preventive war against Serbia by the elites in Berlin and Vienna, which is important for the question of responsibility for the war, with concrete war aims which reflected in the causes of the war. These war elites wanted to declare the assassination in Sarajevo as the cause of war, which in fact was a political assassination and tyrannicide. The liberation movement of democratic youth Mlada Bosna (Young Bosnia) needs to be viewed both in the European context and inspired by the Serbian tradition of Kosovo cult and the ethics of Vidovdan (St Vitus Day) speaking about the sacrifice as sublimation of history and about honorable suffering as element of identity. Historical memory suggests that historical responsibility is transgenerational. The epic proportions of Serbian suffering in the Great War have additionally incited the idea of the Temple of St Vitus Day (Vidovdanski Hram) conceived by Ivan Mestrovic. The bases of this idea were shaken by Milos Crnjanski in his Lyrics of Ithaca where he succeeded to bring back to Vidovdan (St Vitus Day) its inexhaustible national power of validity. Because of enormous Serbian military and civilian casualties in recent history, the establishing of a Victims of War Memorial today would have identity, existential, ethical and ontological significance for the Serbian people.

The Great War of the Postcards

2021 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 525-568
Author(s):  
Johann Strauss
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
World War I ◽  
Great War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Book Illustrations ◽  
Characteristic Features ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Great War

This article examines the functions and the significance of picture postcards during World War I, with particular reference to the war in the Ottoman Lands and the Balkans, or involving the Turkish Army in Galicia. After the principal types of Kriegspostkarten – sentimental, humorous, propaganda, and artistic postcards (Künstlerpostkarten) – have been presented, the different theatres of war (Balkans, Galicia, Middle East) and their characteristic features as they are reflected on postcards are dealt with. The piece also includes aspects such as the influence of Orientalism, the problem of fake views, and the significance and the impact of photographic postcards, portraits, and photo cards. The role of postcards in book illustrations is demonstrated using a typical example (F. C. Endres, Die Türkei (1916)). The specific features of a collection of postcards left by a German soldier who served in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq during World War I will be presented at the end of this article.

The Italian Empire and the Great War

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanda Wilcox
Keyword(s):  
Great War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Italian Experience ◽  
The First World War ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Global Status ◽  
Global War ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World

The Italian Empire and the Great War brings an imperial and colonial perspective to the Italian experience of the First World War. Italy’s decision for war in 1915 built on its imperial ambitions from the late 19th century onwards and its conquest of Libya in 1911–12. The Italian empire was conceived both in conventional terms as a system of settlement or exploitation colonies under Italian sovereignty, and as an informal global empire of emigrants; both were mobilized in support of the war in 1915–18. The war was designed to bring about ‘a greater Italy’ both literally and metaphorically. In pursuit of global status, Italy endeavoured to fight a global war, sending troops to the Balkans, Russia, and the Middle East, though with limited results. Italy’s newest colony, Libya, was also a theatre of the Italian war effort, as the anti-colonial resistance there linked up with the Ottoman Empire, Germany, and Austria to undermine Italian rule. Italian race theories underpinned this expansionism: the book examines how Italian constructions of whiteness and racial superiority informed a colonial approach to military occupation in Europe as well as the conduct of its campaigns in Africa.

scholarly journals The Politics of Russian Memory: The Great War in the European Context

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 216-235
Author(s):  
Olga S. Porshneva
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
Great War ◽  
World War ◽  
Politics Of Memory ◽  
Red Army ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Masses ◽  
The Great War

This article examines how the historical memory of World War I emerged and developed in Russia, and also compares it to how Europeans have thought about the conflict. The author argues that the politics of memory differed during the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. In the wake of the 1917 Revolution, Bolshevik efforts to re-format the memory of the Great War were part of its attempt to create a new society and new man. At the same time, the regime used it to mobilize society for the impending conflict with the 'imperialist' powers. The key actors that sought to inculcate the notion of the war with imperialism into Soviet mass consciousness were the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Communist Party, the Department of Agitation and Propaganda, and, in particular, the Red Army and Comintern. The latter two worked together to organize the major campaigns dedicated to war anniversaries, which were important both to reinforce the concept of imperialist war as well as to involve the masses in public commemorations, rituals and practices. The Soviet state also relied on organizations of war veterans to promote such commemorative practices while suppressing any alternative narratives. The article goes on to explain how, under Stalin, the government began to change the way it portrayed the Great War in the mid-1930s. And after the Second World War, Soviet politics of memory differed greatly from those in the West. In the USSR the Great Patriotic War was sacralized, while the earlier conflict remained a symbol of unjust imperialist wars.

The Balkan campaign and French war aims in the Great War

1979 ◽  
Vol XCIV (CCCLXX) ◽  
pp. 97-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. J. DUTTON
Keyword(s):  
Great War ◽  
War Aims ◽  
The Great War

scholarly journals THE FIRST WORLD WAR IN THE HISTORICAL MEMORY OF UKRAINE AND POLAND: CHANGING APPROACHES AND DISCOURSE

2021 ◽  
pp. 25-42
Author(s):  
Olga Bilobrovets
Keyword(s):  
Historical Memory ◽  
First World War ◽  
100Th Anniversary ◽  
Great War ◽  
World War ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World

The purpose of this study is to analyze the research on the First World War, specifically focusing on changing topics and new discourses, clarifying the place and role of the Great War in the historical memory of Ukrainian and Polish peoples over the centuries and analyzing the means of its actualization and memorialization. The research methodology is based on comparative studies aiming to shed light on convergence and divergence in the historical memory of the First World War in Ukraine and Poland over the past hundred years. The historical-analytical method is employed to characterize the Ukrainian and Polish historiography on the Great War and analyze the information space to identify current trends in representing war events, new discourses, and commemorative practices. The scientific novelty. The study highlights new approaches to the study of the First World War by historians and demonstrates the growth of its role and importance in the historical memory of Ukraine and Poland in the first decades of the XXI century. Conclusions. The First World War, though being an epoch-making event in the history of mankind for decades, was considered a "forgotten" war and received little attention in the historical research of Ukrainian and Polish scholars. In Soviet historiography, it was positioned as the war of the imperialists and did not arouse much interest. Polish historians mainly focused on studying the solution to the Polish issue during the war, the activities of Polish socialist political parties, and the revival of Polish statehood. Only in the late 90's of the twentieth century, a number of studies on the Great War appeared in Poland and Ukraine, with topics of research and discourses revealing such global phenomena as refugees, showing economic, social, and cultural aspects of the war, clarifying the personal, emotional, and psychological level of its perception by the population of warring countries. On the 100th anniversary of the beginning and end of the Great War, the popularization of knowledge about the war was intensified through the creation of special programs, documentaries and feature films, a series of interviews, TV and radio programs with famous historians discussing the main events and consequences of the war, reflecting on its lessons and prevention of future military conflicts. In Poland, the jubilee anniversaries of the war facilitated the resumption of activities to perpetuate the memory of the war participants through the installation of monuments, memorials, and the creation of museum exhibits.

scholarly journals ‘A Solemn Purification by Fire’: Responses to the Great War in the Scottish Presbyterian Churches, 1914–19

1994 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stewart J. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Spiritual Leadership ◽  
Moral Authority ◽  
Great War ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Free Church ◽  
The Social ◽  
War Aims ◽  
The Great War ◽  
Presbyterian Churches

During the Great War, leaders in the two major Presbyterian Churches in Scotland – the established Church of Scotland and the United Free Church – struggled to provide moral and spiritual leadership to the Scottish people. As National Churches which together claimed the adherence of the large majority of the Scottish people, the two Churches were seen as responsible for interpreting the meaning of the war and defining war aims, as well as for offering consolation to the suffering and the bereaved. At the beginning of the war, leaders of the two Churches had been confident of their ability to fulfil these national responsibilities. Both Churches had experienced a flowering of theological and intellectual creativity during the forty years before the war, and their colleges and theologians had exercised profound influence on the Reformed tradition throughout the world. Both had been active in the ‘social gospel’ movement, with their leaders advancing bold criticisms of the social order. The two Churches, moreover, had been moving toward ecclesiastical union when the war began, a union which their leaders hoped would restore the spiritual and moral authority of the Church in a covenanted nation.

Sydney Professor G.A. Wood and the Great War 1914-1918

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 228-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Moses
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Great War ◽  
Political Will ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Sermon On The Mount ◽  
The Core ◽  
War Aims ◽  
The University ◽  
The Great War

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to highlight the views of Professor George Arnold Wood, a leading Australian scholar at the University of Sydney, concerning the involvement of the British Empire in the Great War of 1914-1918. Design/methodology/approach The author has examined all of Professor Wood’s extant commentaries on the Great War which are held in the archives of the University of Sydney as well as the biographical material on Professor Wood by leading Australian scholars. The methodology and approach is purely empirical. Findings The sources consulted revealed Professor Wood’s deeply held conviction about the importance of Christian values in the formation of political will and his belief that the vocation of politics is a most serious one demanding from statesmen the utmost integrity in striving to ensure justice and freedom, respect for the rights of others and the duty of the strong to protect the weak against unprincipled and ruthless states. Originality/value The paper highlights Professor Wood’s values as derived from the core statements of Jesus of Nazareth such as in the Sermon on the Mount. And as these contrasted greatly with the Machiavellian practice of the imperial German Chancellors from Bismarck onwards, and of the Kaiser Wilhelm II. It was necessary for the British Empire to oppose German war aims with all the force at its disposal. The paper illustrates the ideological basis from which Wood derived his values.

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