Remembrance and solidarity (előszó)
FIRST WORLD WAR AND MODERN MEMORY. EDITOR'S PREFACE
The First World War centenary has been an inspiration for historians, popularizers of knowledge, museologists and exhibition curators in many countries all around the world for several years. Such an outburst of interest most likely results from the specific magic of round anniversaries, which seem to organize popular memory effectively and in the manner desired by society. Also, one should not underestimate the fact that for many decades our memory has become saturated with the subject of the Second World War. For many researchers and authors the recollection of the First World War is a kind of fresh breeze; and offers them an opportunity to deepen their reflection on the history of the twentieth century. And the First World War by all means deserves deep reflection because it radically changed the political map of Central and Eastern Europe, overthrew a number of powerful dynasties (as they seemed to be), became an extremely strong impulse for the development of anti-colonial movements all around the world and proved to be a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for the formation of both communism and fascism, and also Nazism. Likewise a number of researchers and journalists notice many resemblances between the situation of the world in 1914 and 2014, worthy of consideration and discussion. They include globalization, the rapid progress in pure and natural sciences and technology (military and otherwise), tensions over social and ethical issues, and serious shifts and changes in the top places of the list of world powers.
The invention and productivity of writers reexamining this war amazes. Psychologist Richard Ned Lebow throws to the market his book Archduke Franz Ferdinand Lives! A World without World War I. According to this counter-factual text, in the 1920s Hitler organized a mail-order trade in products of alternative medicine which was a great success and Lenin lectured Russian history and politics at the Columbia University (incidentally, he was not liked by his students). Neither JFK nor Barack Obama – obviously – ever became Presidents of the USA. The American pioneers of jazz emigrated to Europe and together with the klezmers created a new music genre which was adored by audiences; and so on, and so forth. Joe Sacco, a popular cartoonist, edited a book without words entitledThe Great War: July 1, 1916, which is composed of an extremely detailed, black-and-white drawing on one paper band, more than seven meters long, depicting the panorama of the events of the first day of the Battle of the Somme. In France, among the flood of new and renewed positions sur la Grande Geurre there are numerous, highly unconventional books for children.
However we are most interested in the achievements of contemporary historiography. It is hardly surprising that nowadays historians concentrate on the re-examination of the reasons for the outbreak of this war and the reconstruction of the events of the so-called July Crisis, i.e. the 4–5 weeks after the assassination in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, during which decisions directly leading to the initiation of war were taken. It is interesting that the two most widely read books on this subject, The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 (2013), by the famous prizewinning Canadian historian, Margaret MacMillan (nowadays working at Oxford), and The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 (2013) by Christopher Munro Clark, an Australian historian (working at Cambridge) specializing in the history of Germany, return to a personalized perspective of historical events. They treat these events primarily as a result of the actions of particular individuals and hence as phenomena deprived of inevitability arising from the operation of some great historical processes and regularities, but rather dependent on the will, knowledge and emotional structure of the participants in political decision-making processes, and also – quite simply – on coincidences. With this approach, the question of causes, agency and indirect responsibility for the outbreak of the Great War begins to be perceived as a very complicated issue. It is also important that the claim which, until recently, belonged to a kind of canon of knowledge even in Germany (since the addresses of Fritz Fischer in 1961), that German authorities were mainly responsible for the outbreak of the war, appears to be highly disputable.
The second issue of Remembrance and Solidarity. Studies in 20th century European History, in accordance with the profile of our periodical, is devoted primarily to memory: the memory of the First World War, i.e. the issue of the late and very late impact of the First World War on our mentality. The issue is divided into three parts. The first; Interpretation and media, opens with a short essay by Andrzej Chwalba Was the War inevitable?. The author, an experienced researcher of the history of the nineteenth and twentieth century, analyses what we know now of the international ú relations, and of economic, social and cultural problems within Europe and the world at the time, and comes to the conclusion that although the assassination in Sarajevo did not have to provoke it, the war was in fact inevitable. Christian Wevelsiep in the article Turning Points in the History of War: Criteria for the Meaning of Violence in the Great War of 1914–1918 undertakes historical and anthropological considerations concerning the meaning of uncontrollable violence which affected front line soldiers during their many years' struggle in the First World War, the totalitarian visions of man which began to infiltrate into the society's consciousness, and also early and later attempts to derive sense from the events of the First World War. Aleksandra Pawliczek in her textMemory in the Digital Age: First World War and Its Representation on the Web offers a critical analysis of a number of online presentations focusing on different aspects of the First World War. She concludes that the quality of these presentations is extremely diverse and the poorly organized data hinders evaluation of quality; so they are hardly useful. Maja Bächler in her article The Christmas Truce of 1914– Remembered in 2005. The Staging of European Similarities in the Movie "Merry Christmas – Joeux Noël" analyses forms used in the picture of Christian Carion to describe an exceptional episode from the trenches of the Western Front during Christmas 1914 and emphasizes the fact that Christianity, shared music (Stille Nacht) and the sense of brotherhood of fate among the soldiers were depicted as the foundation for Europeanness. Richard Albrecht in the essay The Murder of Armenians – Armenocide – Genocide – Genocide Prevention: Aspects of Political and Historical Comparative Genocide Studies uses terminological issues as a starting point to present the role of the genocide of Armenian people during the First World War in the studies of other crimes of this kind, in the creation of the theory of genocide and in the formation of memory of them.
In the second part entitled National perepective, James Krapfl in Sites of Memory, Sites of Rejoicing. The Great War in Czech and Slovak Cultural History analyses the function of Czech and Slovak diary literature relating to the World War written before 1938. The authors of the diaries created and promoted a specific romantic model of Czechoslovakian patriotism based on active struggle and willingness to make sacrifices. They were supported by the authorities of the republic for whom the liberation legend was a typical foundation myth. The article "Neither for King nor Empire": Irish Remembrance of the Great War in the 1920s by Mandy Townsley shows distinctly the uniqueness of the Irish experience during the First World War as well as the problems in commemorating this experience, as the memory of 250.000 Irishmen who fought as volunteers in the British Army (50.000 of whom were killed) was consistently excluded from the main historical narration of their country. Pawel Jaworski (The Great War and Its Consequences from a Swedish Perspective) draws our attention to the very weak presence of the issues of the First World War in the memory of the Swedes. This is so even despite the fact that this conflict had a very strong impact on the directions of Swedish politics in the interwar period, contributing among other things it contributed to the democratization of the country. In the article Warsaw's Forgotten War Robert Blobaum presents the dramatic difference in the intensity of memory and the state of research regarding the fates of the inhabitants of Warsaw during the First and Second World Wars. The author states that the research on the history of the metropolis during the Great War is only " in its infancy" and he focuses on explaining what has been forgotten from the history of Warsaw during this time and the reasons it has been forgotten. In the article European Intellectuals at the Intersection of War; Memory and Societal Responsibility: Gaetano Salvemini, Thomas Mann and the Interpretation of the Two World Wars Mark W. Clark concentrates on the role the First World War had in shaping a very critical attitude in both the prominent Italian historian and the German writer towards fascism and Nazism and in their shared choice to emigrate in order to devote their lives to oppositional activity. Comparing their ways of life and achievements forms the basis for considerations on the issue of social responsibility of intellectuals.
The third part, entitled Cemeteries and memory, comprises three texts devoted to the history of cemeteries. In European culture cemeteries may be treated as objects well illustrating various, usually very meaningful, forms of remembrance and the attitude of later generations towards their past. Benedict von Bremen (Warriors and Victims: Commemorating War on the Stadtfriedhof Tübingen – A Local-National Perspective) analyses the ways of commemorating the deceased buried in the cemetery in Tübingen where the participants of the Franco-Prussian War 1870–1871, the First World War and the victims of Nazism are buried in different sections within the cemetery: Chelsea Medlock (Burdened by Imperial Memory: Rudyard Kipling, Collective Memory and the Imperial War Graves Commission) describes the great commitment of Rudyard Kipling during the First World War. The writer initially focused on pungent anti-German propaganda and the glorification of the war effort of the British, but later on, after his son John died at the front in autumn 1915, gradually shifted his activity towards the commemoration of the fallen British soldiers and cooperation with the Imperial War Graves Commission. In the article The Military Cemetery as a Form of the Cult of the Fallen Soldier: The History of the Idea and Its Destruction on the Example of Austro-Hungarian Cemeteries in "Russian Poland" Jerzy Palosz presents the scarcely known and hardly optimistic history of war cemeteries of Austro-Hungarian soldiers beyond the former Austrian partition (Galicia), in the southern part of the former Russian partition. Soon after the war these cemeteries suffered extensive devastation and demolition until they were completely erased from the surface. At first, the Polish military administration and local authorities tried to protect them but in the course of time, when the official commemoration of the First World War concentrated on Polish Legions and their leader, Józef Pilsudski, "strangers"' war cemeteries were de facto left to their fate. It is interesting that though the state of preserved First World War cemeteries in former Galicia is far from perfect, it is much better than that in " Russian Poland". The second issue of the journal closes with reviews and conference reports.
We hope you will enjoy reading the second issue of Remembrance and Solidarity. Studies in 20th Century History!
ÁRPÁD HORNJÁK
PAVOL JAKUBCIN
PADRAIC KENNEY
RÓBERT LETZ
MARIA LUFT
JAN RYDEL
MARTIN SCHULZE WESSEL
MATTHIAS WEBER
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