In the English language, World War I has largely been analysed and understood
through the lens of the Western Front. This book addresses this imbalance by
examining the war in Central and Eastern Europe. The historiography of the war
in the West has increasingly focused on the experience of ordinary soldiers
and civilians, the relationships between them and the impact of war at the
time and subsequently. This book takes up these themes and, engaging with
the approaches and conclusions of historians of the Western Front, examines
wartime experiences and the memory of war in the East. Analysing soldiers’
letters and diaries to discover the nature and impact of displacement and
refugeedom on memory, this volume offers a basis for comparison between
experiences in the two areas. It also provides material for intra-regional
comparisons that are still missing from the current research. Was the war in
the East wholly `other’? Were soldiers in this region as alienated as those in the
West? Did they see themselves as citizens and was there continuity between
their pre-war or civilian and military identities? And if, in the Eastern context,
these identities were fundamentally challenged, was it the experience of war
itself or its consequences (in the shape of imprisonment and displacement,
and changing borders) that mattered most? How did soldiers and citizens in this
region experience and react to the traumas and upheavals of war and with what
consequences for the postwar era? In seeking to answer these questions and
others, this volume significantly adds to our understanding of World War I as
experienced in Central and Eastern Europe.