Great War

This publication is a collection of articles which summarise results of investigations into archival materials concerning wartime stories of various nations involved in the Great War. The objective of the authors was to analyse the wartime experience of individuals and local communities as well as whole nations. They further tried to present a closer, more personal overview of wartime drama. As a result the book portrays the impact of the Great War on the lives of multicultural communities, re-constructs individual war narratives and studies consequences of the conflict. The use of various types of historical materials from state archives and from other sources enabled the authors to create a multifaceted portrayal of the war seen from local and international perspectives.

Elzbieta Katarzyna Dzikowska works at the University of Lódz, the Department of Literature and Culture of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The main areas of her academic research include German 20-century literature, Polish-German comparative literature and gender issues. Agata Handley works as a lecturer and a researcher at the University of Lódz, the Department of Literature and Culture of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The main areas of her academic interest are literature translation, British culture and contemporary British poetry. Piotr Zawilski is the director of the State Archive in Lódz. He is the Vice-President of the Association of Polish Archivists and a former director of the State Archive in Piotrków Trybunalski.

Contents: Piotr Zawilski: The Lódz War Losses Assessment Committees (Lódzkie komisje szacunkowe strat wojennych) - an undervalued source for research of the Great War in the Lódz region - Tomasz Walkiewicz: Polish military formations of the First World War in documents preserved at the State Archive in Lódz - Kamila Pawelczyk-Dura: The influence of World War I on the activity of the Russian military and naval clergy - Ionela Zaharia: Christian Religious Experiences within the Austro-Hungarian Army during the Great War - Anna Caban: Archive traces of the drama of war. Sources for investigation into the daily life of inhabitants of cities in the Opole District in the archival fond of the State Archive in Opole - Marek Szczepaniak and Grazyna Tyrchan: World war from a local perspective. School chronicles from the border areas of the Province of Posen (Prowincja Poznanska) as a source of information - Tomasz Matuszak: The organization and the operations of the League of Women of the War Emergency Service - Slawomir Jan Maksymowicz: East Prussia as the only province of the German Empire occupied during the Great War. Wartime histories of East Prussia - Magdalena Zakowska: Ivan and aria for the dying world. The image of Russia in the propaganda of the central powers during the Great War - Frank M. Schuster: Between paralysis, crisis and renewal: The effects of the war on the polyhedral industrial city of Lódz (1914-1918) - Marcos Silber: Jews, Poles and Germans in Lódz during the Great War: Hegemony via Acknowledgment and/or Negation of Multiple Cultures - Krzysztof Pawel Wozniak: Betrayed twice. The German community in the Kingdom of Poland during the Great War - Andrea Brait: War museums at the former frontline between Austria-Hungary and Italy during World War I - Hassan A. Jamsheer: The Middle East and the Centenary of the Great War.