Concepts in the frontline. The dispute of "Kultur" and "civilisation" during the First World War
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.main##
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.sidebar##
Abstract
The concepts of culture and civilisation are unsuspectedly involved since the beginning of the First World War in the propagandist battle among Germany and the Allied Countries. In our work, we have resorted to Norbert Elias' theoretical outlines, published in his famous work Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation (Basel, 1939), where he states that the interpretation of the conceptual opposition between culture and civilisation must be closely connected with the problem of national identity. As we will see in our article, Elias' theses are confirmed, or contested, by the documents of that time. As a matter of fact, we consider that the dispute between Kultur and civilisation reveals not only the opposition of big principles and general ideas but also the conflict of two confronted nationalisms which show important conceptual divergences, specially related to two basic ideas: on one side, the continuous or discontinuous character of History, and on the other side the unity or inequality of the human genus.
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.details##
Authors publishing in the journal Historia Contemporánea agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain full copyright of their papers, but also grant copyright to the academic publisher (UPV/EHU Press) for the purposes of copyright management, vigilance and protection.
- Papers are by default published with a non-restrictive Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0. You are free to: Share, copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms. Under the following terms:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
NoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
- If an author requires a more restricted CC license (e.g. CC-BY-SA), this can be provided by contacting our publisher at: publications@ehu.eus
- In particular, and without having to request additional permission, CC BY-NC-ND licensed papers can be deposited in institutional repositories and academic web sites.
- Postprints (i.e. accepted but non-edited versions of the manuscript) can also be pre-published online, providing acknowledgement of authorship and source is specified as above.
For non-standard uses of papers or materials published in Historia Contemporánea, please contact our publisher UPV/EHU Press at: publications@ehu.eus