UzhNU participates in a European project to restore the historical memory of the First World War

Uzhhorod National University has extensive practical experience of international cooperation not only in educational and research activities, but also in the implementation of joint thematic multidisciplinary projects. One of them is a large-scale EU project to restore the historical memory of the First World War ‘From the Alps to the Carpathians’, the kick-off conference of which took place on 21-23 May in Kobarid (Slovenia). The conference was attended by representatives of 30 organisations from Slovenia, Italy, Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Ukraine.

Our country was represented at the conference by Yuriy Fatula, PhD in Medicine, Associate Professor of UzhNU, head of the NGO Memento bellum, and Vasyl Ilnytskyi, Director of the Information and Publishing Centre of UzhNU. For three days, representatives of historical research organisations from 11 European countries discussed further cooperation in the restoration of war memorials and graves. A representative of UzhNU, Yurii Fatula, made a presentation on this area of work. He informed the audience about the many years of research and search work to find the burial sites of soldiers of various armies who died in the First World War in the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine and neighbouring countries, to arrange the cemeteries, to establish the names and to honour the memory of the dead, most of whom returned to their contemporaries only after 110 years of oblivion.

 

A separate section of Yuriy Fatula's speech was devoted to the current war in Ukraine with the Russian occupation army, the heroism and courage of Ukrainian soldiers, volunteers, and medics, including the great-great-grandchildren of those of our countrymen who fought in the highlands of the Julian Alps in what is now Slovenia near the Krn nad Kobarid during the First World War. As part of the conference, the participants got acquainted with the excellently formed exposition of the Historical Museum of the First World War in Cobarid. Cobarid, dedicated to the military operations in the Julian Alps and the Soča River Valley, in particular the strategic offensive operation of German and Austro-Hungarian troops on the Italian Front, known in historiography as the Battle of Caporetto (24 October - 19 November 1917), in which more than 2 million soldiers of the Italian, Austro-Hungarian and German armies took part in a limited highland area. 

The researchers of the First World War also visited the cemetery of Austro-Hungarian soldiers in Log near Mangart, the chapel at the Vršič Pass, which was built in 1916 by prisoners of war of the Russian Tsarist army during the construction of a high mountain road, and the Vršič Pass itself (1560m). ), visited the Cluj Fort, the city of Bovec near which the German army used chemical weapons, the Italian city of Tarviso and the ossuary in Cobarida, where the remains of 7014 Italian army soldiers are kept. In addition to the scheduled events of the conference, its participants had an excellent opportunity for personal communication and exchange of work experience, reaching agreements to establish bilateral cooperation.

Thanks to the excellent organisation of the conference by project managers Vesna Kozar, Masha Klavora, Petra Svojšág and others, a new partnership, friendly and open relations between the project participants were established, which will become a paradigm for the joint development of relations between researchers of military history and modernity in Central Europe. During the conference, its participants repeatedly emphasised that the war memorials and burials of the First World War are our common European historical heritage. In Zakarpattia, there are dozens of military cemeteries of that distant war in various states of preservation that need to be researched and reconstructed, as respect and honour for the memory of fallen soldiers is one of the important priorities of European humanitarian policy. For Ukraine, the issue of honouring the memory of fallen soldiers is particularly important and relevant today, given the difficult realities of the current Liberation War.

 

Vasyl Ilnytskyi, Kobarid-Uzhhorod

 

• International Activities