Great War and Anthropocene: Empire and Environment in Eastern Europe; Univ. Vienna: Kerstin Susanne Jobst and Kerstin von Lingen (Web)
Time: 09.-10.03.2023
Venue: Campus of the University of Vienna
The 1914-1918 war on the Eastern Front rapidly militarised the vast territories from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The Great War in the East can however also be perceived as a learning system for infrastructure, fortification and epidemic control in occupied territories, and a confrontation between the two collapsing Empires, Tsarist Russia and the k.&k. Habsburg Monarchy. The spatial and ecological dimensions of the first industrial war and its conflict landscapes have recently become central to the research debate. This conference aims to cover the research gap regarding the Eastern Front and its imperial debris by the two collapsing Empires, taking also insights from comparative views to other frontlines, occupation politics and edge of Empire research.
Programme (Web)
- Opening lecture: Nicholas Saunders (Bristol Univ.): Conflict landscapes at the edge of Empire: Archaeology of a Desert Insurgency – the Arab Revolt, 1916-18
Panels
- Environment as the Battlefield: Rivers, Mountains and Forests in Military Strategies
- Belligerent landscapes of WWI in Individual Narratives and Propaganda
- Occupied landscapes of the Eastern front: owning and managing the enemy space
- Imperial Debris: toxic war estate and demilitarization of landscapes in the era of revolutions and imperial collapse
- Hospitals and burials: medicine at war