Next year, in 2018, Europe will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War, at a period of time when a nationalist approach to politics has become "en vogue" again in various countries of the EU - a process that has led to a structural, problematic debility of the EU. This project aims at returning to the roots of the European world, as we know it today - 100 years back in time, when nationalism, imperialism and colonialism had destroyed Europe for the first time, but the majority of the people had not realized that it was this nationalist approach that led them directly in"To Hell and Back" (Ian Kershaw). As the famous British historian suggests, the period of time between 1918 and 1945 is a prolongation of the "Great War", as Europe had not learnt that the failure of reaching a balanced peace treaty and a renewal of pre-war cooperation would trigger even more nationalist policies in the European states. The objectives will be to answer the following questions on a transnational level, including the perspectives of countries that were either enemies (Germany - France) or where the relationship between the countries underwent a significant change throughout the war (Germany - Italy - France): - What were the perspectives of the different nations in WWI, how did the states involved legitimate their violent contribution to their own people? - How did war propaganda describe other nations? What kind of image did the people have of their German, French, Italian enemies? - How did the people react to the end of WWI in the different countries? How did they find out about the changes that the end of the war brought about? What did people think, say about the Peace Treaties of Versailles etc.? - Did European politicians in the post-war period war try to cooperate on a transnational solution to problems? Did it work? Why? Why not? - How do people in the 3 different countries commemorate the "Great War"? What do they know about it (still)? Does WWI still teach a lesson to the people in the 3 nations? To find answers to these questions, the three schools involved will adopt a strictly trans- resp. international perspective. Pupils, students and teachers in all the three countries are usually only exposed to the national interpretation of historical topics. This means that even at a time when we face a lot of international challenges in the world of the 21st century, we are still limited to a "national" historiography. This fact has a dramatic effect on our "European" identity, which in the last couple of years has been limited whenever national interests seemed to be predominant. The focus of our project be will to find out about the different perspectives, points of views, interpretations that are still (partly subconsciously) associated with WWI. We hope to make pupils and teachers aware of that there are differences in the national interpretation of past events and that these contribute to the construction of a national identity. Yet, we do not want to replace the national narrative, but with this transnational approach we would like to add a European narrative.
Last year, in 2018, the 100th anniversary of end of the "Great War" was commemorated. For this reason and on this occasion a number of ceremonies, events, exhibitions and historic publications were initiated on the topic and the effects it had as introducing a radical and global historical change. This anniversary was impulse and motivation for the three schools united in this Erasmus+-project to trace back the developments that led into WWI as well as to observe which results and consequences the war had on European societies in the years after - and in the long run - up until today. Therefore, the scope of and the approach towards the project was quite comprehensive and diverse: issues that been hotly debated by the people 100 years ago were scrutinised from a current perspective, trying to find modern answers that are also supposed to help to understand 21st century Europe. The consistently adopted, transnational character was the outstanding feature of the project, focusing in past and present on overcoming traditional, national and post-national patterns. During the project this transnational approach proved to be able to contribute to erasing historically developed antagonisms and oppositions by raising the awareness of another contrast, which should possibly be called a "historic gap". This gap mentioned is the deep contrast between the values, lifestyles and global perspectives between the "1914 generation" and their great-grandchildren of the 21st century. These differences (also in the approach towards the terms "nation" and "Europe") between then and now, between past and present would turn into one of the central guiding themes, leitmotifs of the cooperating teachers and schools, helping to analyse the radical changes originated by the Great War. This theme was also used to illustrate the effects it had on local, regional, national and international developments since then. Results of these observations and their analysis were presented and discussed in a transnational pupils' exhibition taking place from November 2018, each at the same time at every participating school. This exhibition had been prepared and assembled in two project meetings in Germany and France in the months before. The core ideas of all the three exhibitions was the same: the use of a certain number of exhibition panels had been part of the teachers' agreements and was therefore compulsory. But there was also space for a more individual, flexible approach for every school, trying to meet local needs or the individual requirements of every school involved. It was also optional for the schools to accompany the exhibition with a supporting programme, that was intended to disseminate results of the project into a local or regional public open to the topic. The evaluation of the project took place in a final exchange programme in Reggio Emilia in February 2019. It was an important feature of this last meeting to involve the participating pupils in the evaluation: which gave birth to the final project of a common Erasmus+-video prepared and produced by members of all three schools.