Contenu du sommaire : La guerre de 1914-1918. essais d'histoire culturelle

Towards a cultural history of the First World War, Stéphane Audouin-Rouzeau, Annette Becker. The study of the cultural legacy of the First World War involves several histories : of representations, of politics, of popular culture. The ambition of this issue is to reflect on the "culture of war" in its entirety, i.e. beyond national cleavages and historiographie frontiers. That culture seems to have been a large extent one of the causes of the brutality of the conflict. It was experienced as a painful passage to twentieth century modernity.

The place of the 1914-1918 war in the cultural history of Germany, Gerd Krumeich. Through his study of war accounts and memories, the author analyses the impact of the war experience on German culture in its individual as well as its collective aspects. That impact brought about the continuation and the diffusion of militarism and nationalism in much of the German society of the 1920s and 1930s.

Visiting battlefïelds, Susanne Brandt. From the very beginning of the war, tales and descriptions of the front were called for to maintain the solidarity and mobilization of the civilians vis-à-vis soldiers. Very rapidly, a particular form of tourism appeared. After the war, visits to the front were set in organized tours and guides were published. Not before the late 1920s did Germans go in large numbers to the old battle fields, but through images, photographs and accounts the memory of the war and of its dead were maintained, particularly with the veterans.

The representations of war in French culture in the interwar period, Antoine Prost. War was indeed "dynamic" before 1914, but the experience of 1914-1918 ruined its previous representations. It was thereafter perceived both as a catastrophe and as fatal. Between 1918 and 1939, this representation no longer allowed preparations for a new conflict. Relying on Alain and Giraudoux, the author explains how the will to save a certain honor of victorious war led to sacrifice honor at the time of the defeat of 1940.

1914 in 1940 Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac. In May 1940, the French did not recognize the war the Germans were waging. Why? Because they had remained too much attached to the patterns of the Great War and were inhibited by the prestige of the winners of 1918.

The myth of the "stab in the back" in the German textbooks of the 1920s, Pierre Jardin. Faced with the trauma of defeat, most of German public opinion took refuge in the myth of the "stab in the back". The phenomenon is well known, but its weight is not always measured correctly. This analysis of the history textbooks in use in the 1920s shows the mechanisms and makes it possible to assess their potential effects.

The memory of the war and the place of monumentalism in the cultural identity of national-socialism, George L. Mosse. The author studies the meaning and scope of the new architecture promoted by national-socialism. The buildings and the architectural projects of national-socialism were less original in their style, akin to neo-classicism, than in the functions which they were assigned. Monumental giganticism forced individuals to share the memories of the war, the cuit of the dead and the construction of a new national community, indestructible and faultless, in the image of the stone monuments.

The memory of the war and Italian fascism, Paul Corner. "Without the First World War, there would have been no Italian fascism". This obvious truth risks to make us lose sight of the need to reflect on the place of war in the fascist mechanism : born of the war, fascism never stopped playing war so as to strengthen and justify its power.

Soldier-poets of the Great War: a new form of the sacred, Jay M. Winter. From Apollinaire to Wilfred Owen, through Siegfried Sassoon and Ivor Gurney, many soldier-poets tried to transcribe their war experience into the words and forms of poetry. But a study of a few cen- tral themes, such as the memory of the dead or Old Testament sacrifices, shows that at the beginning of the 20th century it was not always easy to express the fee-ling of the sacred in the language of modernity.

Italian psychiatry and the war, Bruna Blanchi. The war provided to Italian psychiatry an opportunity to reinforce its social role by participating in the care of the soldiers and officers suffering from mental disor-ders. Although clinical observations developed, they were hardly sophisticated, since the illnesses were often considered acts of disobedience. Not until the last months of the conflict did neuroses cease to be always interpreted as refusais to adhere to patriotic ideals. Despite conflicts among physicians, doubts about the therapies' repressive and violent role did not lead to a genuine national debate.

Freud and war, Peter Gay The question of Freud's relation to war is really two questions that ultimately join in a single one, his attitude toward the First World War and the attitude toward human aggressiveness in general. The way that these two questions must be asked separately and then blend together is a lesson in how personal needs, private anxeties, and cultural loyalties on one side, and theoritical, scientific insight on the other, can move along distinct paths, only to converge when the insights are finally applied to, and are permitted to correct, the needs and loyalties. It is fascinating both on biographical and on historical grounds. The story of Freud on war is a story of the triumph of objectivity over subjectivity.