Ww1's Impact on European Society
HY 357
Essay 2
6 December 2012
Enough Already
World War I’s impact on European society would probably come as a shock to society from the prewar era. Rather than revert to old normalcy, societal ideals changed. Young people craved a newness that could not be found by returning to prewar customs. They wanted to move on and quickly. Every aspect of society began to transform, from political beliefs to literature and morality to clothing style and even architecture. In Modris Eksteins’ Rites of Spring and Jay Winter’s Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning, the authors discuss how the Great War required all people to reevaluate what was important in their lives. Although Winter made valid points, especially about mourning, Eksteins’ Rites of Spring properly explains how the trench warfare experience so drastically transformed the mindset of postwar Europe. The changes of society were of more importance than the continuities of prewar Europe.
According to Winter, the mourning process is a key factor in society’s ability to move forward. Each country felt the need to commemorate the Great War with memorials, monuments and museums. Winter believed that people felt “the need to express the indebtedness of the living to the fallen” (Winter 86). People believed they owed the lost soldiers something; these men had protected them and their country and paid the ultimate price. Winter’s use of the word “indebtedness” emphasizes the fact that these mourners can never truly repay the soldiers who gave their lives. Those men are gone forever, while the rest of society can live on. The problem was that society felt stuck, and with a strong grip on the past. Winter highlights this idea of immobility when he says, “the harsh history of life and death in wartime is frozen in public monuments throughout Europe and beyond” (Winter 78). Wartime monuments surround society everywhere, and therefore society can never truly escape them. That specific history is “frozen” in
Essay 2
6 December 2012
Enough Already
World War I’s impact on European society would probably come as a shock to society from the prewar era. Rather than revert to old normalcy, societal ideals changed. Young people craved a newness that could not be found by returning to prewar customs. They wanted to move on and quickly. Every aspect of society began to transform, from political beliefs to literature and morality to clothing style and even architecture. In Modris Eksteins’ Rites of Spring and Jay Winter’s Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning, the authors discuss how the Great War required all people to reevaluate what was important in their lives. Although Winter made valid points, especially about mourning, Eksteins’ Rites of Spring properly explains how the trench warfare experience so drastically transformed the mindset of postwar Europe. The changes of society were of more importance than the continuities of prewar Europe.
According to Winter, the mourning process is a key factor in society’s ability to move forward. Each country felt the need to commemorate the Great War with memorials, monuments and museums. Winter believed that people felt “the need to express the indebtedness of the living to the fallen” (Winter 86). People believed they owed the lost soldiers something; these men had protected them and their country and paid the ultimate price. Winter’s use of the word “indebtedness” emphasizes the fact that these mourners can never truly repay the soldiers who gave their lives. Those men are gone forever, while the rest of society can live on. The problem was that society felt stuck, and with a strong grip on the past. Winter highlights this idea of immobility when he says, “the harsh history of life and death in wartime is frozen in public monuments throughout Europe and beyond” (Winter 78). Wartime monuments surround society everywhere, and therefore society can never truly escape them. That specific history is “frozen” in