Winston Churchill, célèbre pour ses remarques bien senties, nommait la Première Guerre mondiale dans l’Est une « guerre inconnue » (1931). Encore aujourd’hui, en 2014, en dépit de toute l’attention pour le centenaire, la commémoration de ce qui s’est passé en Pologne entre 1914 et 1918 ne peut pas être décrite mieux que par cette expression. Pourtant, la guerre fut loin d’être négligeable dans la région. La commémoration nationale et nationaliste de la guerre qui a dominé la période d’entre-deux-guerres a largement privilégié la mémoire des guerres d’Indépendance (1918-1921). Les mémoires concurrentes ont été réduites au silence et ont disparu des commémorations publiques. Cela a jeté les bases de l’oubli progressif de la Première Guerre mondiale durant les cent dernières années. Toutefois, assez récemment, la densification des contacts avec des pays européens possédant une culture différente de la commémoration, et le développement de réseaux transnationaux de recherche ont conduit à un intérêt croissant pour la Première Guerre mondiale. Ainsi, c’est paradoxalement par le niveau local et transnational que la mémoire de la Première Guerre en Pologne refait son apparition.
This article analyses excesses carried out against civilians in Ireland andIn the aftermath of the First World War, violence proliferated in many parts of Europe. The war ushered in a significant reshaping of the political landscape of Europe and the structure of its people and societies. Empires fell apart. New states emerged among the ruins. The experience of war altered the perception of the world and triggered changes regarding norms and values. Among the emerging states were Poland and the Irish Free State. The fundamental changes in the countries in question
This special issue deals with the phenomenon of the emergence of radical violence in what might be called 'shatter zones' of empires after the end of the First World War. It argues that the emergence of violence was due to the absence of functioning state control and facilitated by the effects of experiencing mass violence during the First World War. In the multi-ethnic regions of the former empires, the rising wave of nationalism directed this violent potential against ethnic and religious minorities.The collapse of multi-ethnic empires towards the end of the First World War ushered in a new wave of conflicts. During the period 1917-23, the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian empires was often accompanied by violent attempts to forge new nation-states or to consolidate revolutionary gains through force. Hundreds of thousands of people, mostly civilians, were caught up in this wave of violence. Typically, the violence was concentrated in ethnically or religiously diverse regions or areas, mostly former imperial borderlands, as these culturally heterogeneous 'shatter zones' of multi-ethnic empires often posed a threat, either real or perceived, to the project of realigning territories as parts of an integral nation-state. 1 This special issue will analyse this wave of violence in its broader European context.
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