Description
Book SynopsisThis volume was planned as an academic and methodological exchange of views between historians and other scholars dealing with the social history of World War I in East-Central Europe. Its main aim is an attempt to answer the question of how the conflict affected intellectuals in certain clearly defined aspects (family, education, religion, gender, sexuality). Their wartime experiences were shaped by their whereabouts, everyday life, standard of living, and, in the case of soldiers, the type of military service.
It also takes a closer look at members of the intelligentsia who fought in the trenches, those who worked in propaganda, or those who held civil service posts in the belligerent countries. It remains an important question whether the cooperation of intellectuals and scholars with the war apparatus was conscious, voluntary, whether it was a form of social mission carried out for the state or nation, or an attempt by the governments and rulers to use the “naive clerks” instrumentally. The book also offers a reflection on the intellectuals’ stance towards militarism and the outbreak of war: their reactions, thoughts, predictions, and the way they interpreted the war events for society. It seeks to find out how the war was conceptualized by intellectuals, how it was commented upon, and how the postwar reality was conceived.
Trade ReviewThe editors have managed to win the collaboration of an international group of recognized experts from Austria, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovenia, the U.S.A., and Ukraine. The authors' reflections revolve around national discourses on the meaning of World War I in different parts of central and eastern Europe, the work of the intelligentsia for world superpowers and particular national groups, the collaboration between intellectuals (academics, writers, artists, journalists), and the construction of new visions of political and historical structures. What runs through the whole book is the motif of the measurable effects of the war (both in the social and individual perspectives), how the World War I generation saw their achievements wasted, and whether wartime made their dreams come true and let them find their place in the new postwar reality. -- Maria Stinia, Jagiellonian University in Krakow
