La tranchée : ("C'est la Guerre". I) : [estampe] / Félix Vallotton
We invite you to browse and to take a deeper look from this link.
Showing posts with label Digital projects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Digital projects. Show all posts
"Visions of war. How artists and soldiers depicted World War One". An online exhibition by Europeana
We invite you to browse and to take a deeper look from this link.
Units:
Digital projects,
Exhibitions
"Animals in the Great War”, the forthcoming eBook in Italian and English
Imperial War Museums - The British Army on the Western Front 1914-1918
A kneeling soldier is lifting up a pet dog in his shrapnel helmet, 22 December 1917
Looking at the First World War from the
standpoint of the animals that took part in it, allows to emancipate the Great
War from textbook narrative, often exclusively focused on the European fronts
and the defeats or victories of single nations.
It is an educational tool, which aims to
provide the means to shift the focus to subaltern subjectivities, encouraging a
broadening of horizons not only about a single historical event (namely the WWI),
but also for looking more widely at the facts that surround us.
This project was one of the three winners
of “Europeana Strike a match for Education”, a competition promoted by the
cultural network Europeana and the civic crowdfunding
platform for social innovation Goteo.
As result it is involved in a global crowdfunding campaign, which - we trust -
will provide money for a completely free publishing.
Your help to reach this goal is crucial,
especially in these first weeks of campaign.
Please, let this project reach the widest
possible audience through your social networks and back “Animals in the Great
War” with a donation at the crowdfunding campaign page:
http://goteo.cc/animalsgreatwar
*Se is an Italian cultural
association, which aims to promote the knowledge and study of Twentieth-century
history. Find out more at Associazione culturale Se
The Great War Channel on YouTube (and Mexico in WW1)
2017 has begun and still two years of "celebration" of the First World War Centenary are left. What after? And what during these two remaing years? One of the goals of this web site is to detect some initiatives and keep an eye open on what's going on around and what's worthy of mention. We try to produce also some new and useful contents. Beside of that, another goal is to remain after the Centenary as a possible starting point for people looking for resources and particular topics about that conflict. Among what is whorty of notice, we could point out the collection of short videos "The Great War", a Berlin based YouTube project still today meaningful in the digital panorama. Of course many debates can rise on the accuracy and on the editorial slant. Anyway, here below are the main contacts and finally a curious video about "Mexico in WW1".
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheGreatWar
https://www.facebook.com/TheGreatWarYT
https://www.instagram.com/the_great_war/
https://twitter.com/WW1_Series
http://thegreatwar.mkn.tv
The Great War of Mario Puccini. The special project of "IoDeposito" dedicated to the Italian writer
A special thanks to the "IoDeposito" organization and in particular to Chiara Isadora Artico, Tancredi Artico and Joshua Cesa. They kindly accepted the invititation to reply to the below interview about their special project dedicated to Mario Puccini, an Italian writer whose legacy is particularly connected with the First World War in the Eastern front between the regions of Friuli and Veneto and Slovenia.
 |
| Mario Puccini |
Would you briefly explain who is Mario Puccini to
the International audience of World War I Bridges and could you state why he is
a crucial point in the understanding and study of World War I in Italy?
TANCREDI ARTICO: Mario
Puccini was a prolific and versatile Italian writer: born in 1887, he voluntarily
took part of the WWI and eventually became an officer, between 1915 and
1918. He wrote thousands of pages: not only novels and collections of short
novels, the genres for which he’s best known, but also poems, essays,
translations, articles.
In
a large quantity of his works he depicts the war experience, and he is able to
do that in a poignant way, that touches the soul of the reader. His pen is
emotional and precise, shows us not only the most terrible aspects of the
conflict, such as death and human degradation, but also highlights what conflict
- not only war - means to people, and how it destroys the simplicity of humanity.
Puccini describing the WWI speaks to the present: he teaches to respect diversity
and each form of life.
 |
| "Davanti a Trieste" |
TANCREDI ARTICO: The aim of
the project is to print Davanti a Trieste,
the third (and least) Puccini’s war book, in the hope that this could be the
first step of a Puccini’s “renaissance”. With that book I want to give to the
reader the full text of this war diary (which is very difficult to find in libraries
and is not available online), but at the same time I expect to give a general
idea of Puccini’s three war books and a complete discussion of bibliography.
This is not an useless operation, if we consider that the last research on
Puccini’s literary production was done in the early 80’s, and that it doesn’t
give an overview of his war books.
Q: This project
is not only on paper. There's a multimedia side of it. Is it bilingual or are you
planning to make it available as a multimedia bilingual project soon?
JOSHUA CESA: Technically
speaking, the integration of a multi-language system is quite simple: the heart
of the multimedia system created is a database which, because of its nature,
lends to the cloning of the individual fields, automatically predisposing the
translation.
Nevertheless,
there is an issue intrinsically tied to the specific contents we want to
propose in the project: Davanti a Trieste
is a very complex work of literature, the interest of the project lies
specifically in the nuances of the Italian language used by Mario Puccini:
pulling up alongside a didactic apparatus in a different language besides the Italian
one, could be a dangerous operation, if seen from the point of view of the Italian
studies.
We
are reflecting on the possibility of a multi-language hypertext, but the first
step would be to prepare an accurate translation of the Puccini's text, which
captures all the specificities of the author's writing style (and than, it
would be possible to create also a critical apparatus in other languages).
 |
| "Il soldato Cola", a popular novel by Puccini |
Q: How are
you going to promote your project? Are you planning presentations also outside
Italy?
TANCREDI ARTICO & JOSHUA CESA: We have already started the promotion of
the project: we have just organized a tour presentations in Italy (in
libraries, universities and museums mainly in the region of Veneto and Friuli
Venezia Giulia) and in Slovenia, interesting areas for our projects, rich of
materials and experiences connected the theme of the world's conflicts.
We plan to continue the presentations
again next year in Italy and abroad. The project has always had an
international vocation: it was presented in London, and we are planning
presentations and book trailers projections in Canada, United States,
Australia, Belgium (leveraging on our network of international research
partners).
This project is strongly connected with
the area of the Italian studies, and as you know is not yet multilingual, but
the methodologies we are using, and the author's literary production itself, it
is raising a lot of interest in the international research community and
towards the audience from different countries.
Q: What are your personal points of view on
the several initiatives popping up for this Centenary?
TANCREDI ARTICO & JOSHUA CESA: We see around us that people are critical towards the idea of the
Centenary: it is happening a moltiplication of the activities on the theme, and
sometimes these activities seem a little bit forced. But we also see
that the Centenary is bringing a new sensibility, which is more and more
necessary today.
We believe that this centenary represents a real opportunity to give
voice to the collective memory and to the investigation of the human experience
during the First World War, exploring other perspectives on the conflict,
looking at the individual and collective point of view, searching for the 'B
sides' of the story, not considering anymore only the nationalist visions.
The centenary is a possibility to help us in facing the contemporary
legacies of the conflict (invisible but still very present in our daily life)
of which the today's generations are heirs.
INFO:
IoDeposito Ong:
Direct links to the web page about this project:
Introducing CEDOS, Centre for Historical Research and Documentation on WW1 (Piave area)
 |
| Soldiers crossing the Piave River in the Grave of Papadopoli. Juni 1918 |
The CEDOS was established in
July 1992 in conjunction with the donation made by Eugenio Bucciol of an
important collection of WWI pictures with the intent to preserve and valorize
this visual material. Bucciol, who was a member CEDOS till last year, lived for
a long period in Vienna, where he collected in the city war archive a series of
about 1.500 photos took by the Austrian Army when it occupied Friuli and part
of Veneto after the rout of Caporetto in the timespan 1917-1918.
 |
| Refugee children in Ponte di Piave. November 1917 |
This first collection supplied the sources for five photo-books edited
by Bucciol and the CEDOS itself: Inediti della Grande Guerra – Immagini
dell’invasione Austro-Germanica in Friuli e Veneto Orientale (Trieste,
1990), Il Veneto nell’obiettivo austro-ungarico – L’occupazione del 1917-1918
nelle foto dell’Archivio di Guerra di Vienna (Treviso, 1992); 1915-1918
– Foto italiane e austro-ungariche fronte a fronte (Portogruaro 1995); Dalla
Moldava al Piave – I legionari cecoslovacchi sul fronte italiano della Grande
Guerra (Portogruaro 1998); Albania – Fronte dimenticato della Grande
Guerra (Portogruaro 2001).
A second wide collection arrived in the CEDOS archives in 1994, when the
Fototeca della Regione Veneto donated 3.500 photos in diapositive, which were
originally hold in the Istituto per la Storia del Risorgimento Italiano – Museo
Centrale del Risorgimento in Rome.
In the following years
smaller collections were donated to the Centre in San Polo, which gathers today
more than 1.000 photos shot during or short after the Great War, most of them
coming from Italian archives (70%), but also from Austrian, French and English
collections.
 |
| 7th British Division in Cimadolmo, near the river Piave. November 1918. |
Indeed, almost all these
documents are nowadays available (in low resolution) also in the main public
digital archives, for instance in Europeana1418, and yet the CEDOS offers a
valuable resource for all researchers interested in the ww1 photography and
history.The Centre in San Polo arranges in fact its materials coming from
different part of the world into a specific thematic and chronological frame and
offers historical and technical advices, so that comparative approaches and
also studies focused on the south-western front can take particular advantage
of this archive.
Besides this wide
photo-archive, the CEDOS tries to support the historical research on the –
someway still neglected – south-eastern front by publishing a biannual series –
named Quaderni del CEDOS –, by promoting cooperation with
other museums or associations and, finally, by organizing cultural events and
international conferences, like the forthcoming meeting in San Donà di Piave on
23rd April which will discuss the Great War in the lower Piave region, considering both
the Austro-Hungarian and the Italian Army, as well as the local population.
 |
| Destroyed houses and church in Ormelle, Piave region. June 1918 |
You can find further information on the website
(unfortunately at the moment only in Italian – but don’t hesitate to write in
English or in other languages: the staff will answer you as soon as possible)
or you can receive some previews of the historical photos and of pics taken
today along the former frontline by following the Twitter account, or
keep yourself updated checking the FaceBook profile.
Saying NO to the Great War
[We are happy to offer today a contribution by Alessandra Scotto di Santolo that was previously published in the Italian blog site "La Balena Bianca". A special thanks to the author and to Lorenzo Cardilli, editor of the blog.]
Where do mosquitoes go when the wind blows hard?
On 17th July 2014 the first of 888,246 ceramic
poppies was planted in the moat surrounding the Tower of London in memory of
the lives of British and Colonial soldiers lost during the First World War.
Not a single one of those red poppies was
however in remembrance of the 16,000 British men who stood firmly and
disagreed. Some disagreed on religious grounds, some on political ones, others
disagreed on moral grounds; they disagreed because they knew that war was not
theirs to fight.
Yet, a century later, so many of us are still
reluctant to recognise these people as worthy of mention, and we struggle with
the notion that standing up to someone to say “I respectfully refuse to
obey your orders” took courage. They knew they would pay a price for it and
that’s no cowards’ business.
Members of the No-Conscription Fellowship,
formed in Britain in the autumn of 1914 by those same men and women who will be
later referred to as Conscientious Objectors, were expected to present their
arguments before a panel of judges which was nothing more nor different from
the Tribunals that had been founded to recruit people for the army. No
guidelines or rules were set up to be followed in order to determine who would
make the cut and qualify as a recognised CO and be exempted from military
service. Needn’t say most of them were easily dismissed and either ordered to
take part in active combats or offered the alternative to do non-combatant work
in the army or any civilian work that would serve the country at war. If these
alternatives still didn’t sound acceptable for the COs, they would have to face
court martial which would inevitably give them a prison sentence. This being
the eventual fate of about 6,000 of these men, later referred to as “the absolutists”.
Kate Clements, Digital Editor at Imperial War
Museum, has produced a series of podcasts called Voices of the First World War, using original recordings from the Museums’ archives and has put
together some of these men’s testimony to mark the centenary of 1914. Podcast37 is dedicated to Conscientious Objection and gives us the opportunity
to listen to some extraordinary encounters of both those who accepted the
alternative to take non-combatant jobs in the army and those who kept objecting
and therefore ended up in prison.
«A favourite [question] was, what would you do if your sister was
threatened with rape by some German soldier or something like that? And I can’t
quite remember what I answered but it was to the effect that that had nothing
to do with being a CO against the war. I think that I said that I didn’t know
what I would do and that it didn’t matter in the present context in the least
what I would do. The thing was this was a protest against the war, that the war
was wrong»,
says Eric Dott when recalling his experience before the Tribunal. He wasn’t
awarded the legal status of CO and was sentenced to prison after his martial
court hearing.
Maltreatment in jail was most likely a given for
the majority of the COs, and some of the warders reserved inhumane remedies for
those objecting to their duties in prison. Harold Bing remembers witnessing one
distressing occasion: «I’m referring to a CO whom I saw a couple of warders drag down
several iron staircases head first, with his head banging on each iron step as
he came down.»
In March 1916 the Non-Combatant Corps were
formed for those who refused to handle weapons. The press kindly re-named them
the “No-Courage Corps” and they
were often looked upon and seen as nothing more than shirkers by the rest of
the soldiers in the camps.
When in July 1916 the ‘Home Office Scheme’ was
introduced, COs were divided between those who absolutely
refused to help the war effort and preferred to remain in the bad prison
conditions, and those who accepted to take part in the work scheme and left
prison to work at labour camps around the country. Things didn’t work much
better for the latter ones either, as some of them discovered they were getting
underpaid for the jobs taken, they organised a strike and were sent straight
back to prison.
The whole process was unprecedented and hard to
get around: it was the first time Britain had decided to implement a
conscription law.
Things were different in the rest of Europe. In
Italy, for example, conscription was merely the norm and objecting men couldn’t
do so conscientiously. The only option they had
was to resort to illegal measures.
Last May 2015, Roberto Bui (aka Wu Ming 1, of
the Wu Ming Foundation, an Italian collective
of writers),
published a book entirely dedicated to the North-East of Italy and to the
geographical, social and political consequences of World War 1 in those
territories, in occasion of the celebrated centenary. Cent’anni a Nordest ("A
hundred years in the North-East") also reveals some disturbing realities about
the dissenters of the Italian front.
Desertion and insubordination were punished with
immediate execution and thanks to General Luigi Cadorna the ancient Roman
practice of Decimation came back in fashion. One in ten soldiers was randomly
picked for execution in the event of indiscipline in the military camps or at
the front.
Insubordination was more of an excuse, also used when it came to soldiers
expressing doubts about suicidal and useless missions. Soldiers like Silvio
Gaetano Ortis, Basilio Matiz, Angelo Massaro and Giovanni Battista Corradazzi,
executed for «rebellion in the face of the enemy», for suggesting a better and safer plan to attack
the Austrian machine gun nests on Mount Cellon.
“During the war 162,563 court martial hearings for desertion took place. Of these, 101,685 men were held guilty. The death sentences resulted in 4,028 cases of which 2,967 were issued in contumacy. […] From April 1917 the death penalty was automatically held for all of those who were three days late returning from temporary leave. These are record numbers.” (pp. 174-175)
This isn’t the first time in a hundred years
that someone tried to rehabilitate the memory of these lives; then why is this
yet to successfully happen?
«Because desertion and disobedience are not ‘water under the bridge’,
but questions to be asked to those who want the war today.» (p. 185) Wu Ming 1
quotes the pacifist Lorenza Erlicher from Trento, in Trentino-Alto Adige, who
says:
“Reversing the archetypes that have until now awarded the honours to the obedient soldier and dictated the banishment of the ‘coward’, often without taking into account the merits of the historical situations (are those who obeyed to Nazis more deserving of honour than the few deserters?), not only seems legitimate but also necessary, especially when it comes to the changes to the modern military structures […] with the introduction of the element of professionalism.” (Ivi)
A necessity that seems to have also driven the Italian MP Gian Piero Scanu to
propose a bill in April 2015 for the immediate recognition of innocence for the
soldiers unjustly executed during the Great War. He also asked for the
installation of a commemorating plaque in the Vittoriano Museum Complex in
Rome, defining them as ‘war dead’. The military Tribunal will have until April
2016 to consider the individual cases and decide on whether to grant the bill
or not.
On 24th November 2015 the Wu Ming collective
published another book, this time dedicated to four different stories of the
Great War, with the theme of desertion as a common denominator, L’invisibile
ovunque ("The Invisible everywhere"). From the Italian front to the French one
and back, L’invisibile ovunque explores the (not so much) alternatives to obey
to the war demands.
In the first story, Adelmo, a 17 years old boy
who decides to escape his unpromising future at home in the suburbs of Bologna,
by secretly volunteering to the front, is faced with the brutal reality of war.
He realises that the only way to escape the excruciating images that have by
now made of his moves between the dust clouds of the bullets an automatic and
naturally insensitive reaction to the enemy’s attacks, is to move up in
military ranks and stay away from the trenches. «The corpse of the
Habsburg soldier was seated, […]. Adelmo looked at him closely. He could have
been about 25 years old. […] He had fine features, he looked Italian, he
thought.» (p.
32)
He looked Italian: they all looked like they
could have been brothers, distinguished only by the patches on their uniforms.
Writer Vera Brittain shared the same sentiment in her Testament of Youth
(1933), when recalling a dying Prussian lieutenant whilst serving the country
as a volunteering nurse in Étaples:
“[he] held out an emaciated hand to me as he lay on the stretcher waiting to go, and murmured: ‘I thank you, Sister’. After barely a second’s hesitation I took the pale fingers in mine, thinking how ridiculous it was that I should be holding this man’s hand in friendship when perhaps, only a week or two earlier, Edward up at Ypres had been doing his best to kill him. The world was mad and we were all victims;” (p. 343)
And it was that madness Italian soldiers
recurred to when it came to find a way to evade the war. Simulation of mental
illness became a sort of obsession for military forces to detect, amongst those
who were accepted in mental hospitals of war zones. Psychiatric research was
far behind what was achieved years later the Great War and the methods used to
test the authenticity of sick soldiers could easily amount to torture today.
People started physically hurting themselves so
they would be exonerated from the call and studies show how this was at first
instance considered a mental illness effect in itself. When the doctors started
recognising psychological disturbance caused by prolonged exposure to active
warfare as a pathology (the shell shock), simulating soldiers tried to desert
the front by preparing themselves to act according to the symptoms of such
conditions. Life in mental hospitals was such an overwhelming and confusing
experience though, that after a while, many of them couldn’t remember whether
they were still faking it or not.
“even a war can cause inurement. […] At the beginning, I had to spend days trying to forget the battle. I had to force myself. I even invented a ritual for myself […] In the last months I no longer needed conventionalities. The wax of my memory had become as tough as granite, and the massacre didn’t leave any traces. The war, which was once a place, the front, and the images of corps, and the smell of burning and rottenness and roars of explosions, it’s now invisible, it’s everywhere, and no ceremony can root it out.” (L’invisibile ovunque, p. 56)
The founder of surrealism André Breton served in
French psychiatric wards during the First World War and during his time in
Nantes, he found himself psychoanalysing his shell-shocked war patients by way
of questioning them with unusual methods. He would no longer start his sessions
by asking questions such as «What year are we currently in?» or «Who is France in war with?», instead he would start
the sessions by reading them poems and taking notes of the reactions they had
to such readings. This was his way of escaping the reality around him and he
would get lost in the stories these soldiers would make up for him.
The third story of L’invisibile ovunque,
testifies the friendship between Breton and the writer Jacques Vaché. Wu Ming stages
an encounter between Breton and Marie Louise Vaché, sister of the lost
writer, years later the second world conflict, in which the surrealist was also
involved. Breton explores the years of the Great War by recalling how important
and influential his meeting with Vaché during those years had been in order for him to
psychologically desert the war.
“Your brother, […] used to call the war «the de-braining machine». […] And what was it to me? A monster that camouflaged by licking itself, the more it licked itself the more it mingled with the world around it. Its eyes of the colour of an imprecise storm, eyes like vortices sucking in the worst of the world – rubbish, propaganda, patriotism – to then give it back multiplied in large fluorescent glances. […] It would be better to say that the last war (the Second World War, Ed.) has met more societies: more de-braining machines, more techniques to imprison and kill people. A bigger number of men, women and children has been slaughtered, but the first one… The first one will never have equals for the hypocrisy with which the carnage was carried out. […] Meeting your brother Jacques was a revelation: in the middle of the poisoning it became possible to self-inject the antidote and let it pulse in the arteries and the tissues. Jacques, his role, his humor, his writing, his drawings, were my antidote.” (pp. 115-116)
Desertion was a state of mind many conscientious objectors in the world
courageously died for between 1914 and 1918. Some of them survived, like
mosquitoes in the grass.
Where do mosquitoes go when the wind blows
hard? Maybe they hide in the grass. Like an outlaw who finds shelter in a pagan
temple. My dear friend, if I were a mosquito, I would do just that. I would be
an outlaw, yessir!
[Here is the link to the Italian blog site "La Balena Bianca" where you can find also the Italian translation of this contribution]
First World War one day itineraries through Italy. Suggestion no.20: The Monument area "L'isola dei Morti" in Moriago della Battaglia
It is not actually what people could consider a “one day itinerary” what
we suggest today, but nobody prevents you from spending in this place a full
day. When you travel the concept of time you spend in a place can be really
variable. And while travelling in the Venice area and in the Treviso province
in particular for your WWI battlefield tour, you might consider a stop in the
village of Moriago della Battaglia, along the left bank of the river Piave. This
was an area dedicated to agriculture and in October 1918 became strategic in
the final stages of the conclusive Battle of Vittorio Veneto that ended the war
in the Eastern front. Today this river side area is a Monument area. “A
strip of land which juts out towards the stony bed of the river Piave, once known
as the “Isola verde” [Green Island]. Here, on the night of 26 October, 1918, the courageous men of the
1st Infantry Division, with brigades
from the 8th Army close behind, crossed the river at Fontana del Buoro, creating a bridgehead which made
it possible to liberate the left bank of the river. Hence the new name, “Isola
dei morti” [Island of the Dead]. Today
it is a memorial area with monuments and parkland commemorating the sacrifice
of so many young lives, set amidst a stunningly beautiful natural environment
which features walks, mature trees,
meadows and of course... the imposing River Piave ”
We just want to leave you with three essential tools to organize a trip
that can be undertaken in all seasons:
a) The localization in the village of Moriago della Battaglia;
b) A link where you can see some pictures of the area;
Units:
Digital projects,
Itineraries,
Places
"100 Jahre erster Weltkrieg". A Virtual exhibition on Great War
.jpg)
This both
written and visual production immediately drew the attention of many librarians
of the time, who tried to gather as much material as they could, but also of
single citizens. Private and public war-collections arose everywhere, most of
them claiming to be complete and assembling all kind of materials: books,
newspapers, placards, letters, pictures, medals, drawings, postcards, musical
pieces, etc.
The
results of the war collection launched by the former union of German Libraries
in Leipzig in October 1914 was amazing according to the report written in 1921:
35.000 books and brochures, 1.300 war maps and more than 600 war newspapers
from the trenches, but also from the prison camps or the hospitals, and then
again 15.000 posters and many other stuff were collected. Today the old
alphabetical catalogue contains a list of about 40.000 cards, which were
recently reconverted into the database of the German National Library, so that
the items are now searchable in the web. All posters and thousands other – mainly
graphical – items were however not included in this alphabetical catalogue and
are currently object of a new large project on the WWI Collection, which aims
to digitalized also these printed materials and make them available online.
It is on
this background that the virtual presentation 100 Jahre erster
Weltkrieg was conceived, in order to make visible part of this
collection. The website enables the visitors to discover in particular the
“media history” of the Great War, and this is the particularity of this
exhibition. Besides two units related to the war collections and their history
– Krieg Ausstellen and Krieg Sammeln –
special attention is directed to the media, i.e. newspaper, literature, posters
and postcards. A wide range of digitalized material concerning the regulation
and control of the everyday life, both on the front line and of the civil
society, can be consulted. A specific section is then devoted to all aspects of
the propaganda. Each unit offers a short historical and thematic introduction,
as well as a gallery of images in high definition. This is an interesting
exhibition, moreover at your fingertips here.
Units:
Digital projects,
Exhibitions
100 WW1 articles from the Maney Publishing available for free download
Good
news for those who are looking for contributions to study the Great War from
many perspectives. 100 articles from the Maney Publishing online archive
are now available to download for free in July and August 2014. No registration
is required. Articles have been selected from over 25 journals in the fields of
history, archaeology, literature and culture including the following key
titles:
Journal
of War & Culture Studies, Journal of Conflict Archaeology, War &
Society.
This is the link to visit the WW1 Centenary Collection and below are the article highlights:
This is the link to visit the WW1 Centenary Collection and below are the article highlights:
-
Masculinity and Commemoration of the Great War: Gabriele D'Annunzio's La beffa
di Buccari and Eugenio Baroni's Monumento al Fante, Italian Culture;
- Commemoration of the Great War: A Global Phenomenon or a National Agenda?, Journal of Conflict Archaeology;
- Cutting a New Pattern: Uniforms and Women's Mobilization for War 1854–1919, Textile History;
- Remembering War, Resisting Myth: Veteran Autobiographies and the Great War in the Twenty-first Century, Journal of War & Culture Studies.
- Commemoration of the Great War: A Global Phenomenon or a National Agenda?, Journal of Conflict Archaeology;
- Cutting a New Pattern: Uniforms and Women's Mobilization for War 1854–1919, Textile History;
- Remembering War, Resisting Myth: Veteran Autobiographies and the Great War in the Twenty-first Century, Journal of War & Culture Studies.
You can visit the WW1 Centenary Collection at this site.
Units:
Digital projects
Diaries of the World War I
Tagebücher des ersten Weltkrieg / Des armes et des mots is the twin title of a twin multimedia project on the Great War, which originates from a French-German cooperation. We should state immediately why we were particularly convinced by it among the floods of initiatives rising around the Centenary. Both its content and media are really fine and moreover wisely combined with each other, that’s why it enables the contemporary public to have new insights into the WWI, beyond any rhetoric. The project mixes up in fact a film production and a web portal and exploits so different communications techniques and succeeds so to value the documents (especially old photos are nicely integrated in the editing of these documentaries), on the one hand. On the other hand the content is not moved to the background but is the real core of the project so that one immediately perceives a truthful urgency to communicate it. An international team of professional historians and authors has worked many years to research and analyze more than 1.000 diaries and letters collections in order to select at the end a small number of personal fates, 14 touching life-stories of the WWI. And these 14 men and women are not generals or politicians, but simple soldiers or nurses, mothers and children overwhelmed by the war, coming from Germany, Austro-Hungarian Empire, French, England, Russia, USA and Australia. Rather than the battles and political events, the plain truth of human existence emerges thanks to this international choir which sings the common fears and pains, wishes and ideals, in short the concrete and minimal happenings of an everyday life in war time. This enables a deep compassion: according to the etymology of this word, we can share the basic feelings of all these men and women, relying on the common human nature and its essential rules and necessities; at the same time we do not run the risk to abstract these personal histories from their unique existential and historical contexts.
The crucial events and the turning points in the lives of the protagonists – especially in the time span 1914-1918 – are organized in thematic units (ranging from the ruin and the attack, to the anguish and the sadness, from the homesickness, the disaster, the homeland, to the insurrection and the ruins). The time gap between witnesses from the past and reconstruction at the present are not only visualized and summarized in the interactive homepage but also sewed up very well in the documentaries, which were broadcasted by the Franco-German channel ARTE and are now upcoming on the German channel Das Erste. A very interesting project, which shows how to combine multimedia and historical research in a profitable way.
Further information, also concerning the related books and DVDs, here.
Units:
Digital projects
Now online the "Albo d'Oro" (Golden Book) of Italian soldiers fallen during the First World War
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| Military sanctuary of Nervesa |
Units:
Digital projects
1914 – The Middle of Europe: The Rhineland and the First World War
Here is the web site of the project, for the moment only in German.
Units:
Digital projects,
Exhibitions
EFG1914 - European Film Archives Digitise their WWI Collections. The Recent Appointment at Pordenone Silent Film Festival
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| The EFG1914 web site |
EFG1914 is a digitisation project focusing on films and non-film material from and related to World War I. It started on 15 February 2012 and runs for two years. 26 partners, among them 21 European film archives, are working towards the following main goals: 1) To digitise 661 hours of film and ca. 5.600 film-related documents on the theme of the First World War 2) To give access to the material through the European Film Gateway and Europeana 3) To build a virtual exhibition using selected objects digitised in EFG1914.
EFG1914 covers all the different genres and sub-genres relevant in that time: newsreels, documentaries, fiction films, propaganda films. Moreover, EFG1914 will also give access to anti-war films that were mainly produced after 1918 and which reflect the tragedies of the 1910s. This material is of special importance since only around 20% of the complete silent film production survived in the film heritage institutions. Therefore, EFG1914 set out to digitize a crucial part and a critical mass of these remaining moving image records, mostly undiscovered by the public.
EFG1914 is the follow-up project of EFG – The European Film Gateway (2008-2011). The main outcome of the EFG project is the online portal The European Film Gateway, which gives access to several hundreds of thousands photos, films, texts and other material preserved in European film archives. More information on the initial EFG project can be found here.
Here below is the text of the press release related to the event held in Pordenone this week:
Since February 2013 the European Film Gateway has been enabling access to a growing number of films from and related the First World War. The material has been digitized within the scope of the EU-funded EFG1914 project, which has been carried out by 26 partners including 21 film archives from all over Europe. A total of 661 hours of newsreels, feature films, documentaries, amateur footage and propaganda films as well as 5,600 photographs and stills, film posters and articles from historical film journals will be available on the European Film Gateway and Europeana websites in time for the centenary of the Great War in early 2014. As approximately 80% of films from this period are considered lost the material provided through
EFG1914 represents a considerable
share of what has been preserved from the time.
Digitising and giving online access
to the WWI-related films and documents held by the archives will make it easier
for a wider audience to use them. The archives contributing to EFG1914 are
located in 15 different European countries, many of which were the main powers
during the First World War (eg, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Great
Britain, Italy, Romania, Serbia etc.) or remained neutral like Denmark, Spain
and the Netherlands. Thus, the films offered on the European Film Gateway show
the Great War from different perspectives and different countries.
During the Pordenone Silent Film
Festival the EFG1914 project partners will present the European Film Gateway as
a unique and valuable search tool for moving images from 1914-1918. Colleagues
from the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique, Cineteca di Bologna, Det Danske
Filminstitut, Deutsches Filminstitut, EYE Film Institute, Narodní filmový
archiv, and
Österreichisches Filmmmuseum will
talk about their collections and highlight selected films.
The EFG1914 project continues the
work carried out by the EFG project in 2008-2011, which developed the European
Film Gateway. At present over 600,000 items from 24 film archives are available
online at europeanfilmgateway.eu and europeana.eu.
EFG1914 was commissioned by the
Association des Cinémathèques Européennes (ACE) and is co-funded by the
Community Programme ICT PSP. The project started in February 2012 and will last
for two years. It is coordinated by the Deutsches Filminstitut in Frankfurt.
First World War Films on The European Film Gateway:
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Digital projects,
Films
Europeana 1914-1918 and the "Collection Days". An Appointment in Pordenone
Here below is the press release (pre-registration is recommended at this link).
COLLECTION DAY AT pordenonelegge
Pordenone, Italy - September 21, 2013
In preparation to the 100th anniversary of World War One in 2014, WW1-dentro la Grande Guerra Cultural Association, responsible for the immersive platform of the same name, and pordenonelegge.it have set up a new Collection Day, whose scope includes both Italy and Europe, to be held in one of the “hottest” regions of the conflict, Friuli Venezia Giulia.
In recent years Europeana, the digital European archive-library-museum, has started a major task of digitizing, preserving and publishing records and documents from the Great War.
The WW1 project connects the public contents coming from the archives of the Companies that made our Country’s History with those from the Defense Ministry’s Historical Archive as well as from the Popular Writing Archives, from Onorcaduti and Europeana’s private memories collection.
The cultural legacy of the soldiers who served in World War I - both casualties and survivors, will be made available to the public thanks to the precious work iStoreco and Cimeetrincee have developed in recent years and to the collaboration of sympathetic associations like the Military Historical Center (MHC) of Udine, Italy, which have always cared about the "human" issue.
The new technologies provide a strategic language to reach a wide public because they create an easy and immediate access to issues often perceived as difficult or “bookish” and mostly uninteresting.
During World War One the Italian Army recruited over five million men, mostly “peasant-soldiers”. The casualties amounted to nearly 600,000, a huge death toll. In our regions, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Veneto, Trentino and Lombardy the whole population suffered the war directly, was evacuated, suspected to be pro-Italy or pro-Austria, imprisoned, and deeply scarred by this experience. Every Italian family of a hundred years ago lost some of its members in the war, whose memory every family today keeps and cherishes.
Now everybody can contribute to the preservation of his/her family narratives back in that critical time and share and disseminate them.
Units:
Digital projects
"WW1 - dentro la Grande Guerra", a Tool of Knowledge for Everyone
Today you have the opportunity to read an interview with Emanuela Zilio, project manager of what is at the moment one of the most challenging projects in Italy. The name is simple: "WW1 - dentro la Grande Guerra" (WW1 - inside the Great War). Before going to the questions and answers, we let the projects speak with the words of the website:
"WW1 is an editorial platform that addresses the public through a wide interactive map of the War Front containing many so far unpublished contents: 360° interactive and immersive panoramas, emotionally involving videos, certified historical documents like the Albo d’Oro, the Army’s official reports on the Great War, the reconstruction of forts and trenches, the daily life in wartime. A large public will access these materials in a digital format and in both Italian and English.
WW1 opens the way to discover the present and the past through the web, personal mobile devices or touch screens located in railway stations, airports and cities.
WW1 is a live tool growing in time to share knowledge and culture and to make them available through the languages people use as their own. WW1 is a non-profit cultural and historical project."
WWI Bridges: Italy first. What are the main goals of the project if we look at the national scenario?
Emanuela Zilio: First of all, WW1 - dentro la Grande Guerra aims to present the Anniversary of the Great War as a significant historical and social event which can promote knowledge and social improvement both nationwide and worldwide, starting from the Regions which were the set of the conflict.
The Great War interested more than thirty countries for a period longer than four years and still today is capable of moving a general deep pathos. Because of these reasons, it is a challenging opportunity for local Administrations, Institutions, Companies, as well as for individuals throughout Italy to promote the cultural heritage of their country while fostering large economic and social growth.
Second, we want the new technologies to be used as languages and tools to make valuable cultural contents accessible to all people. This will permit to re-discover our huge heritage and to equip Regions, Provinces, Municipalities with a platform suitable to promote knowledge and appeal for tourism, targeting both children and adults.
Last but not least, today we need to work to recover Italy's reputation abroad. We believe this can be done by producing quality projects and encouraging the creation of networks that facilitate the interaction of practices, languages and behaviors between public, private institutions and professionals at local, national and international levels.
WWI Bridges: Could you list the reasons why the international Great War audience should keep always an eye open on WW1 and its initiatives?
Emanuela Zilio: WW1 - dentro la Grande Guerra is a quite articulate project which does not aim to create a series of events that celebrate the past but rather to shape a useful tool to understand our present more deeply. More than “initiatives”, WW1 will make interesting contents on the Great War available by mixing and merging private, public and unpublished materials. People are invited to contribute ideas, project proposals, memories. The work schedule features several milestones with progressive releases, so everyone can add new services and opportunities in the process.
WW1 will host the projects people create themselves during the four years of the commemorations, both nationally and internationally. Specific guidelines will be provided to permit the highest degree of integration.
WW1 is also working to obtain the highest visibility on the international media. This means the possibility to highlight all the projects connected to the platform, whether big or small, on maxi screens in airport boarding areas, railway stations, post offices. It is really challenging for everyone who wants to promote one's territory, the activities related to the Great War, Museums, and events.
WWI Bridges: If we move to the international scenario, WW1 seems to be the only project capable of opening a dialogue on a worldwide basis. What is your growth/promotion strategy when looking outside Italy?
Emanuela Zilio: WW1 is an ambitious project, but for sure it is not the only one on a worldwide basis. Countries like France, UK, Germany, Poland, Ireland, Romania, etc. are already working hard to create interesting activities and services connected to the cultural and emotional tourism of the First World War.
Until now, Italy seems uncapable of promoting one of the richest heritage in the world, our politicians would argue that “culture gives no bread”, we rather believe the contrary. An educated and culturally aware country can produce value, tolerance, social and economic growth.
WW1 is an attempt to create a case in this sense. It wants to open the international dialogue, to learn and share knowledge with those Countries which have a longer experience and a clever approach to cultural dynamics.
For these reasons, WW1 - dentro la Grande Guerra is firmly rooted in the European scenario through cooperating with Europeana, submitting project proposals, creating partnerships with Universities, Research Centers and Museums which are focusing on the same issue.
An international media coverage is also planned.
WWI Bridges: Can you mention some First World War Centenary projects that according to your point of view stand out of the crowd? Why?
Emanuela Zilio: Yes of course. All around the world many projects are springing out. Some of these have a very interesting approach such as the "1914-1918-Online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War". Prof. Oliver Janz and his excellent team in Berlin are working on that project which includes several editors for each Country that took part in the War. According to personal skills and specializations, researchers, professors and experts are asked to write a chapter. Only in Italy, 40 people were selected for the project. WW1 is in touch with some of these authors.
“Europeana 1914-1918 - Your family history of World War One” (http://www.europeana1914-1918.eu/en) is another amazing operation which surprised even the project leaders because of the huge amount of memories people are bringing out all around Europe. Europeana DB is open and its contents, as well as WW1 ones, go under the Creative Commons Licence CC BY – NC – SA.
WW1 will run a Collection Day for Europeana on Sept 21st, during the Book Fair “Pordenonelegge”.
The Imperial War Museum (http://www.iwm.org.uk/) is probably organizing the most relevant photographic exhibition on the Great War but it is also gathering a very powerful network of actors working on the same issue. In June 2013, The First World War Centenary Partnership reached over 1,000 members from 26 countries.
Apart from the big projects, the most impressive work comes today from the free initiative of individuals. In Italy no funding has been provided by the Government until now local projects and events related to the Great War. Nevertheless, normal people are working hard - many of them as independent actors or workers on voluntary basis - to create something important to commemorate that tragic period and the people who lived it. It is a rather interesting bottom - up approach which is giving birth to thousands of valuable projects such as Tapum, a two months long alpine war path from the Adamello mountain to Redipuglia.
WWI Bridges: "Only the braves", and here the last dangerous question: what is “the childhood dream" that has not been revealed so far, maybe just "to be wise and prudent”
Emanuela Zilio: “...or the fools”. WW1 is itself a childhood dream because it represents the strong will to make our Country create a new model of cultural management and to boost social awareness and economic growth. Abroad, when talking about Italy, it is never a question of place identity, history, beauty, social warmth or accueil but rather a problem of reputation. We need to do something really good to regain it. The Great War is an opportunity we cannot miss.
Units:
Digital projects,
Interviews
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