Didžiojo karo reikšmių perteikimas Rytų Prūsijoje ir Klaipėdos krašte : simboliai, praktikos, ritualai

LTStraipsnyje analizuojamas Pirmojo pasaulinio karo atminimas ir šiam karui iki 1939 m. teikta reikšmė vienintelėje tarpukario Vokietijos teritorijoje, kurią karo veiksmai palietė tiesiogiai, – Rytų Prūsijoje ir nuo jos 1920 m. atskirtame Klaipėdos krašte. Atskleidžiamos įvairios mūšių, karo aukų įprasminimo formos, karui atminti skirti ritualai, jo reikšmių perteikimas paminkluose, toponimikoje, vaizduose, muziejų ekspozicijose, vadovėliuose. Nagrinėjamos politinių ir socialinių aktorių pastangos skirtingais tikslais viešai eksploatuoti įvairias karui suteiktas reikšmes. [Iš leidinio]Reikšminiai žodžiai: Atminimo politika; Atminimo ritualai; Paminklai; Pirmasis pasaulinis karas, 1914-1918 (Didysis karas; World War I); Rytų Prūsija [East Prussia]; Turizmas; Žuvusių karių kultas; Cult of the fallen soldiers; East Prussia; First World War; Memorials; Politics of memory; Rites of remembrance; Tourism; World War I.

ENAs proved by previous studies, in East Prussia and Memel Territory (Klaipėda Region), even though they already belonged to two different states – Germany and Lithuania – in the interwar period, the Great War was remembered and interpreted, and became an important element of the regional identity. However, no attempts have so far been made to juxtapose the trends of rendering of the war-related meanings in both territories or to raise a question which specific part of their war experiences transformed into an actively communicated content. The paper analyses the activities of different political and social actors in giving a meaning to their own war experiences and organising the rites of remembrance for the fallen soldiers, as well as their efforts to use warrelated sites of memory for the representation of East Prussia and the public consolidation. Given the activity of social groups in those areas and the conditions for its manifestation in different periods, three stages in the rendering of the war-related meanings can be identified: 1) the stage of the “heroes definition” and the formation of a heroic narrative about the military actions in East Prussia, with basically no conditions for the public manifestation of any alternatives; 2) the period after 1918 featuring public manifestation of a diversity of meanings attached to the war and war memories in a variety of forms: from personal or group mourning for the perished to the aspirations of preventing the war heroism from sinking into oblivion; it was the period when, due to the "trauma of Versailles," the possibility for the greater part of the public to abandon the system of categories formed in the first stage got complicated; 3) the stage of the nationalisation of the war memories or the subjugation of different war experiences to national unity, crowned by most brutal shapes in the years of the National Socialist dictatorship. [From the publication]