ABSTRACT
A generation is not merely a demographic fact. It is not any “whole body of persons” born about the same time, but a cultural construct, evolving in relation to a real or an assumed shared social experience and hence responding to certain collective needs. 1 These three related meanings of “generation” have figured prominently in discussion of World War I—both the contemporary and scholarly one—in which the “generation of 1914” occupied a privileged place and was elevated to a symbol of the disruptive effects of war. The best-known notion of this generation probably is that of loss and useless sacrifice—as in the “lost generation”—and of disillusionment with war. 2 At the same time, this notion has also had another constitutive meaning that is embedded in “generation”—that of reproduction and re-creation. As has been noted, in certain circles the war was welcomed as an opportunity for a regeneration of the nation and of a decaying civilization. 3
