Between the topos of a 'forgotten war' and the current memory boom

In the centenary year of 2014 contributions to the history of the origins as well as of the causes and effects of the First World War can hardly be ignored. ² Numerous new academic as well as popular publications and new editions of existing works are broadening our knowledge of the war. All the main daily newspapers in Austria are now reporting on the fronts and the hinterland between 1914 and 1918. ³ Different television channels are broadcasting numerous documentaries and films about the First World War. ⁴ Meanwhile, more than ninety-five years have passed since the end of the First World War, which is about four or five generations. Each generation - against the background of their different constraints and opportunities — knew and knows its own reconstruction of the war of soldiers, officers and civilians. The complete process can only be grasped as a social, inter-generational process of recording and passing on. ⁵ If one tries to understand the significance of the war from what exists as collective memory today, one may err massively: in Austria this war has long been subjugated to, and eclipsed by, efforts to reconstruct Austrian identity, especially since 1945. This does not however mean that it has actually become insignificant. Reconstructing memory of the First World War in Austria, as a process spanning generations, reveals significant contestation over its class bases, giving way to a safer Habsburg nostalgia after 1945, and the war's re-imagining as a much more Europe-oriented story today.