For more information about the National World War I Museum and Memorial, visit http://theworldwar.org
The year 1916 was marked by an acceleration of contradictions in Eastern Europe occupied by Germany. The military colony along the Baltic, called Ober Ost, rushed to realize an authoritarian model of modernity and forced development, described by total war technocrat General Erich Ludendorff. However, the occupation regime has been met with ethnic tensions and growing political demands. German attempts to co-opt Polish nationalism with the promise of a new Kingdom of Poland failed. Under the pressure of the demands of total war, economic exploitation increased and hit the occupied territories hard. Behind the fighting front, 1916 represented a potential clash between radically different visions of the future in Eastern Europe.
Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius is director of the Center for the Study of War and Society and professor of history at the University of Tennessee and the Lindsay Young Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences. He specializes in modern European history, with particular emphasis on modern Germany and diplomatic history. A native of Chicago, Illinois, he received his doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania and has taught at UT since 1995. He is the author of War Land on the Eastern Front: Culture, National Identity and German Occupation in World War I (Cambridge University Press, 2000), also published in German translation, and The German Myth of the East: 1800 to the Present (Oxford University Press, 2009). He has published articles which have also been translated (in Italian, French and German, notably in the main German news magazine, Der Spiegel). He is vice-president of the Association for the Study of Nationalities and former president of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies. He received a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship and twice won the UT Teaching Award. He has also produced seven recorded lecture courses with The Great Courses Company, available on CD/DVD/download, on topics including World War I, dictatorships, diplomacy, Eastern Europe, espionage, exploration and turning points of modern history.
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