Editorial 2025.1 - The Great War is not Over

Abstract

Editorial 2025.1

Even without losing sight of the problems attributed to the so-called Myths of Origin, the Great War of 1914-18 is a founding event of the 20th century, and the threshold of numerous geopolitical imbroglios that persist until now. As in Thomas Mann's famous quote, the Great War initiated movements that have still barely stopped beginning. An assertion valid both in 1924—the publication date of The Magic Mountain—and in 2025. Almost twenty-one years after its end, the Great War was renamed World War I, directly motivated by the outbreak of World War II. The first always presupposes a second. In recent decades, however, there is an increasing tendency in historiography to consider both conflicts as a single great phenomenon: The 30 Years' War of the 20th Century.

Apparently less studied than its aftermath, the war of 1914-18 is a field of research that is as specific as it is universal, as it opens itself to varied approaches such as classical military history and the new military history; history of concepts, cultural history, and the history of mentalities; social, economic, gender, and press history, just to name a few. Obviously, such divisions are not watertight; it is possible—and desirable—to build dialogues between them, for the benefit of the elaborated object. After all, the consequences of the 1914-18 conflict were not limited to the field of international politics; they overflowed into the economy, society, representations, and the imaginary. The Great War is here and there; yonder and elsewhere, always open to investigation and imagination. This dossier brings together several studies and essays by Brazilian researchers on the subject. Venture forth, reader, into these pages!