Gemeinschaft und Mythos. Zwei litauische Narrative über den Ersten Weltkrieg (1914

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Istorinis naratyvas; Istorinė atmintis; Pirmasis pasaulinis karas, 1914-1918 (Didysis karas; World War I); First world war; Historical memory; Historical narrative; Lithuania; WWI; World War I.

ENDuring the first year of the First World War two different discourses dominated the Lithuanian public sphere. On the one hand, the advance of the German troops to the East and the demands of Tsarist propaganda promoted the emergence of an image of the war as a new fight against the „Teutonic Order“. The Lithuanian intelligentsia, who hoped that the quick defeat of the German army would guarantee autonomy to Lithuania, gave some support to this narrative as a means of mobilizing citizens. On the other hand, after many of their regular contributors had fled the war operation zones, Lithuanian newspapers had a severe lack of first-hand information. Thus, news and reports by people who had remained within the frontline started to be published in the periodic press. These news items and reports became the source of a second narrative that looked at war operations as a process of disintegration of the economic landscape of the Lithuanian countryside and morality. In the 1920s and 1930s the two narratives melted together in Lithuanians’ memories. In people’s memories, then, the German occupation of „Ober Ost“ was envisaged as a period of captivity which reminded them of the violence of the „Teutonic Order“ and which led to the indiscriminate exploitation of Lithuanian resources and lives. cc. [From the publication]