Epilogue: … It Is Not Even Past!

Abstract

The chapters of this volume confirm Faulkner’s maxim from Requiem for a Nun: ‘The past is never dead. It is not even past’. They show not just the continuity between past and present but also how history, even the history of one hundred years ago, can reverberate through the present. The 2014 centenary of the beginning of the Great War brought about a lively debate among intellectuals, scholars, state officials, and the public as to how this war should be remembered, why it happened, and whether it was inevitable. Although by now there is almost no living personal memory of this dramatic historical period, collective memories and national narratives live on and, in many cases, still arouse passions and heated discussions.