Men Under Fire: Motivation, Morale, and Masculinity among Czech Soldiers in the Great War, 1914–1918

Men Under Fire: Motivation, Morale, and Masculinity among Czech Soldiers in the Great War, 1914–1918
ISBN-10
1789205425
ISBN-13
9781789205428
Category
History
Pages
300
Language
English
Published
2019-12-01
Publisher
Berghahn Books
Author
Jiří Hutečka

Description

In historical writing on World War I, Czech-speaking soldiers serving in the Austro-Hungarian military are typically studied as Czechs, rarely as soldiers, and never as men. As a result, the question of these soldiers’ imperial loyalties has dominated the historical literature to the exclusion of any debate on their identities and experiences. Men under Fire provides a groundbreaking analysis of this oft-overlooked cohort, drawing on a wealth of soldiers’ private writings to explore experiences of exhaustion, sex, loyalty, authority, and combat itself. It combines methods from history, gender studies, and military science to reveal the extent to which the Great War challenged these men’s senses of masculinity, and to which the resulting dynamics influenced their attitudes and loyalties.

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