The year 2018 marks the centenary of the first armed conflict on a global scale that would definitively change the cultural history of peoples. The Battle of La Lys, on April 9, 1918, was an emblematic milestone in Portugal’s participation in the First World War and socially and culturally marked a Portugal that had just emerged from a change of regime, still grappling with its new political reality and experiencing the first incidences of the apparitions of Fatima and the Orpheus generation. One hundred years on, it’s still pertinent to ask: What cultural and social marks did the Great War leave on Portugal? How was the Great War (in Europe, but also in the then Portuguese African colonies) seen and experienced in Portugal? What reception did the world of culture, the arts and the press give to the subject of war? What is the perception of the Great War in the countryside? How did the Great War project itself into the future, militarily, politically and culturally?

In order to answer these and other questions, the Congress aims to attract the participation of researchers – in the fields of cultural studies, the arts, religion, military studies, communication sciences, history, among others – who will launch and promote a multi- and interdisciplinary vision of the remarkable aspects that will allow a better understanding of the effects, in socio-cultural terms, of the Great War (and the time it lasted) in Portugal, based on a revisiting of structuring thematic areas, without excluding a possible appreciation of the visions that the future would bring about this event.

It is the memories of Portugal in (and at the time of) the Great War that are to be discussed at this event, based on the most varied existing documentation – written press, advertising, propaganda, diaries, narratives, poetry, artistic manifestations, films, photographs, etc. – thus contributing to a better understanding of the country and to the appreciation of memory as a heritage element that structures our cultural identity.

More information is available at http://portugalnagrandeguerra.pt/