Ten lessons to analyse the First World War from ten different viewpoints. To better understand not only its general features but also in relation with the literature and science and with reference to its economic impact. To review it through the songs, the letters and the diaries of the soldiers. To understand how it impacted on the citizens of Trentino, to analyse the role played by intellectuals and the political world and to study the spreading of the mass violence.
These are the objectives of the conferences of the cycle “The First World War: history and stories”, started on 24 September at 5.30 pm in the conference room of the Department of Humanities of the University of Trento (via Tommaso Gar, 14) Where all lessons will be held. The closing conference will be held on 20 May 2015, followed by a concert of the SAT choir, at the Santa Chiara theatre (via Santa Croce, 67).
The lessons are organised by the Department of Humanities with Iprase Trentino, with the sponsorship of the Autonomous Province of Trento and the Patronage of the Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers - Unit for the great centennials. There will be ten conferences held by Italian and foreign experts and historians, after the introductory lecture by a professor of the University of Trento. Please find online the full programme
The lessons are aimed at students, teachers and all interested people.
Gustavo Corni, the coordinator of the Department of Humanities for the Centennial explained: “The conferences will deal with some of the most crucial topics of the First World War, which 100 years ago led to a bloodshed over Europe, changing its nature: the economic consequences of the war, the connections between science, military and war technology, the involvement of the intellectuals and in particular the experts on literature, the individual writings of soldiers and civilians, who were the protagonists and victims of the war, despite themselves”.
The first conference was “The First World War as a global war” whose keynote speaker was Oliver Janz, professor of contemporary history at the Free University of Berlin, with the introductory remarks by professor Corni, who stated that “Janz is an expert of Italy during the war, with a specific focus on the topics of culture. He coordinates at scientific level the great online 1914/18 Encyclopaedia, a remarkable global publication which will be published online in October”. The conference held on 24 September will deal with the global features of the war. “Professor Janz has recently published a book (14. Der Grosse Krieg, Frankfurt, Campus, 2013), focused on this innovative and significant interpretation”.
Corni added “The war has often been considered from the European viewpoint, or even from a more restricted prospect: for Frenchmen it is essentially what happened on the “western front”. The Italian culture and public opinion tend to focus their attention on our front, while in Austria the war is considered primarily as the collapse of the empire, and so on.
Over the last few years the concept of the First World War as a global event has been emerging. It involved indeed the whole world: from the German colonies in Africa, where they fought hardly, to the hundreds of Indian, Senegalese and Algerian soldiers enlisted in the respective colonial powers. And let us not forget the hundreds of thousands of workers forced to carry out hard works, for example in China, behind the front line, thus suffering the same deprivation and risks of the soldiers. The war also involved the British dominions - Australia, Canada and New Zealand - bringing about a dramatic change in their perception of their national identity. The war was fought at sea, in the Middle East and in the Far East. Its consequences were global: the initial evident yielding of the colonial empires, the birth of the independent or semi-independent Arab states, and the ascent of Japan as a great power, just to mention a few.