Scenes of War
Experiences from Russia’s Western Front
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
In the historiography and in collective memory of the East-Central and East European peoples, the First World War and wartime experiences are overshadowed by the founding of states and the Bolshevik Revolution. Unlike the Western Front, the Eastern Front did not form a transnational space of remembrance. The empty spaces of political remembrance in Russia and Eastern Europe are being filled only gradually. The wartime experiences of soldiers and officers represent an important contribution to this. They provide information about life and survival on the front and in the rear, about the violent conditions in the army, as well as the consequences when tradition and modernity clash – bayonets and sabres against machine-guns and gas shells.
(Osteuropa 2-4/2014, pp. 21–42)