El miedo en la historia: testimonios de la Gran Guerra

Abstract

The few existing studies on fear during the First World War place the emphasis on diachronic change and do not cross linguistic or cultural barriers. By contrast, the present article analyses the representation of fear in various types of documents in English, French and German: letters and diaries written from the front in 1914-18, autobiographical texts from the following two decades, and military psychology and psychiatry articles and essays publish before, during and immediately after the conflict. After evaluating the possibilities and limitations of autobiographical texts as historical sources, the article examines some of the sociocultural factors underlying the various causal explanations and justifications offered by soldiers writing about their experiences of fear, panic or chronic dread, or about strategies they might have used in order to overcome or endure their fear. These include stoic attitudes, patriotic ideas and religious beliefs professed by some soldiers and challenged by others, depending on their social status, their education, their relationship to their addressees, the situation described and the circumstances in which they wrote.