1918/2018: Global Events and National Commemorations

28-30 June 2018

The year 2018 will be marked by commemorations in a host of countries that have integrated into their national narratives those historical events surrounding the end of the First World War. At the same time, recent research has made it very clear that the events of November 1918 were not merely that moment of victory or defeat for individual countries involved in the war, but that these events were the culmination of a much longer and slower global shift that extended from 1917 to 1923 and which historians have characterized as the threshold of the 20th century. The downfall of four empires and a wave of global unrest and revolutions altered the world map and its attendant geopolitics. An era of mass democracy, new international federations, modern colonialism, and profound social and artistic transformations at the transnational level had now begun. The meeting of the Fellow Forum will explore the tensions and contradictions existing between this global shift and those often quite narrow national commemorations which focus on the “11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.” By presenting cutting edge research on the global transformations of 1918 and by entering into discussion with prominent makers of national memory, the event will attempt to inspire reflection on different kinds of memorial culture.

Program:

• Panel Discussion on “1918 – Threshold of a New World” with former Fellows William Mulligan (Dublin), Diana Mishkova (Sofia), Adrián Gorelik (Buenos Aires)
• Visit to the Deutsches Historisches Museum: Meeting with the Director Raphael Gross and Fellow H. Glenn Penny (Iowa)
• Preview of the TV-Series “Clash of Futures”
• Boattrip on Saturday Morning