A major international conference about the First World War will see 120 scholars from 28 countries meet in Sarajevo in 2014.
The conference, The Position of the First World War in the History of Europe, will be held on the 19th-21st June 2014 at the University of Sarajevo.
Scholars from 26 European countries and the US and Canada have already confirmed their attendance to the conference, which will “discuss all aspects that led to the outbreak of World War I”.
Professor Husnija Kamberovic, Director of the Institute for History at the University of Sarajevo, stated that one of the aims of the conference is “to re-consider the political aspects of the conflict”, including relations between the great powers on the eve of the First World War, as well as the role of smaller countries.
The formation of alliances – and their geopolitical and ideological bases – will also be explored, as well the conflict between imperial systems and growing nationalism.
The experiences of “common folk” during the First World War – both on the battlefield and the home front – will also be considered, as well as the immediate and long-term impact of the conflict on the development of European societies.
Professor Kamberovic stated that it is “our intention is also to talk about the treatment of World War I in various national historiographies, not only in the Balkans, but also in other historiographies, and how it was presented in school textbooks. At the conference, we intend to discuss the position of war in the local, national and transnational cultures of memory and how the war is presented in various media, literature and art”.
Dr. Vera Katz of the University of Sarajevo, praised the international organisers of the conference and stated that the conference’s aim is to create a “dynamic forum of academic exchange of new approaches to the First World War’s history in the context of its centennial anniversary”.
The conference’s organisers are: The University of Sarajevo Institute for History (Sarajevo), Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (Regensburg), Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Research Center for the Humanities (Budapest) , Institute for Balkan Studies and Trakology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (Sofia), The Institute for National History (Skopje) , The Institute for Contemporary History (Ljubljana), Croatian Institute of History (Zagreb), Center for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz (Graz) .
Source: University of Sarajevo press release