Preliminary Programme

Portugal’s entry into First World War led to the mobilization of around a hundred thousand men. Though these numbers pale in comparison to those of other allies, the national controversy around the country’s participation on the European front and the fallout from the tragedy would leave Portugal a “mutilated” victor. The conflict, lead as a total war, would inevitably leave indelible marks on politics, society, and, above all, those who fought. World War I was an extremely intimate experience. By looking at the letters of Portuguese soldiers who fought in the Great War, this presentation seeks to understand the devices used by soldiers for representing the war experience. First, it will analyze how self-censorship and silence are mediated by desirable social and family behaviors; then, it will look in what way the private sphere interferes in the front; and, finally, it will try to understand how letters to loved ones reflect a possible “alienating” survival strategy. In short, it seeks to recognize how total war definitely rearranges the geographies of the military front to reach the intimate sphere of family history. (Show less)

For Romanians, 1918 meant the Great Union, the formation of a new, united Romanian state including territories that previously belonged to the multinational empires. This was just a stage, an important one, in the process of constructing a new national identity so that it reflected the political and territorial achievements of the War. The process was a complex political, administrative, social and cultural altogether but it went far beyond this formal, necessary process of uniformization affecting even the basic cell of the society: the family. In fact, even from the 19th century already, Romanian intellectuals made efforts in educating the people in a national sense. The effort they made affected directly the views on the Romanian traditional family which was already under attack by the process of modernization. After the Great War, the effort had to be adjusted to the new political context: the new, Romanian family had to be redefined accordingly.
The presentation explores, in a comparative manner, the main features of the debate around the ideal Romanian family as it evolved in the first decades after the War by exploring the discourse of the Church, the state, physicians and public figures. A special focus is on the debate from Transylvania, a Romanian province which became part of the Romanian state only after the war. (Show less)