Climax or Beginning? Modernity, Culture, Central Europe and the Great War

/ Termine

Climax or Beginning? Modernity, Culture, Central Europe and the Great War

Veranstalter
Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague; Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences;Universität Innsbruck, Philosophisch-Historische Fakultät
Veranstaltungsort
Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague Náměstí Jana Palacha 2, Prague 1
Ort
Prague
Land
Czech Republic
Vom - Bis
24.10.2014 - 25.10.2014
Website
Von
Rudolf Kučera, Masaryk Institute and Archives, Czech Academy of Sciences

The year 2014 is inevitably a year of remembrance and offers to look back at the origins, course and consequences of the First World War. Contemporary reflections, however, tend to oscillate between two poles. One of the classic interpretations is the thesis of the Great War as the "seminal catastrophe of the 20th century." (G.F. Kennan) In this view, the First World War was the end of a golden age, as described in many memoirs and works of art, and a critical foreshadowing of the catastrophic 20th century with its wars, genocides and gulags. According to this point of view the First World War significantly changed the understanding of individuality, which could in certain contexts be reduced to a means of limitless achievement of collective goals.

On the other hand, there is an opposite view that emphasizes continuity instead and sees the First World War as albeit catastrophic, but nevertheless as the result of a deep spiritual and cultural crisis of western modernity. Fin de siècle, according to this thesis, did not represent the "golden age," but an era in the sway of decadent artistic visions and scientific and political irrationalism. First World War was just a climax of a long existing crisis, unfolding in nationalist and chauvinist movements, the repositioning of power centers within the western world and deepening conflicts between western culture and the rest of the world.

The conference will try to analyze and capture these conflicting interpretations from various points of view. Geographically it will focus on a broadly defined central European space, i. e. on the German speaking areas of Europe together with other parts of the Habsburg Empire. Since none of the above-mentioned theses was formulated purely on the basis of classic political history, the conference will strive to connect the perspectives of political science, cultural history, the history of science, historical anthropology and the history of literature, art, psychology and sociology.

Programm

Friday, October 24
8:30 Opening remarks by the organizers

8:45 – 10:15 GENDER & WAR
Moderation and comments: Gunda Barth-Scalmani (Innsbruck)

Libuše Heczková/Marie Bahenská (Prague), “…weakness, thy name is Woman, madness, thy name is Man..” Reflection of the War by the "Weaker Sex"

Iwona Dadej (Berlin), Abandoning the cannons: Polish Female college graduates and their educational policy and diplomacy after the Great War.

Gabriela Dudeková (Bratislava), Children in War and War in Children. Influence of Great War on Lives and Mentality of Children and Youth in Hungary

Dagmar Wenitzing (Oxford), At Crossroads: Rosika Schwimmer (1877–1948), Central Europe, and the First World War

10:15 - 10:45 Discussion

10:45 - 11:15 Coffe break

11:15 - 12:30 CHURCH AND RELIGIOUS ISSUES
Moderation and comments: Johannes Gleixner (Munich)

Tomáš Pavlíček (Prague),The situation of religious practices in Prague and small areas of Bohemia at the eve of the war

Marek Šmíd (České Budějovice) , Transformation of the Catholic Church during the World War I.

Miha Simac (Ljubljana), Priests from central Slovenian's lands in military uniforms 1914 - 1918

12:30 - 13:15 Discussion

13:15 - 15:00 Lunch break

15:00 -16:30 REFIGURING LOYALTIES ON A NEW POLITICAL MAP OF CENTRAL EUROPE
Moderation and comments: Rudolf Kučera (Prague)

Michal Frankl (Prague), Negotiating Loyalty “Jewish Question” in the discursive construction of the Czechoslovak national state

Bartolomiej Rusin (Cracow) , The Austro-Polish / loyalist orientation in the history of Polish political thought during World War I.

Giuseppe Perri (Bruxelles), An end and one end and a false beginning: memories of the Ukrainian National Republic (1917-1920)

Claire Morelon (Paris), Continuity and revolutionary spirit: The transition from Empire to Republic in Prague

16:30 - 17:15 Discussion

Saturday, October 25

8:30 - 10:00 SIENCE & ARTS
Moderation and comments: Michal Šimůnek (Prague)

Maciej Gorny (Warsaw), War Psychiatry in the East, 1914-1918

Reinhardt Johler (Tübingen), “Like a Laboratory”. Science in War – the Anthropology and the Volkskunde in Central Europe

Matthew Lungerhausen (Winona), The ‘Érdekes Ujság Battlefield Photo Album’ and the Practice of Hungarian Amateur Photography During World War One

Lukasz Biskupski (Warsaw), The connection between institutions and aesthetics of variété and cinema in the Polish territories of Russia before 1915

10:00 - 10:30 Discussion

10:30 - 11:00 Coffe break

11:00 - 12:15 MOBILITY AND MIGRATION
Moderation and comments: Ivan Šedivý (Prague)

Serhiy Choliy, (Uzhhorod), War as a Model of Population Displacement in the Modern World: the Galician Perspectives in WWI
Helena Trnková (Montpellier), Fight, Travel and Learn: the Impact of War Experience of Czech Combatants

Liubov Zhvanko (Kharkiv), The Refugees of the Great War: The compelled journey of Ukrainian Lands 1914-1918

12:15 - 12:45 Discussion

12:45 - 13:00 Final remarks

Kontakt

kucera@mua.cas.cz