18.10.2016.
Scientific Conference on Volunteers in the Great War
As part of the celebration of the centenary of the Great War, in the Central Military Club, a three-day international scientific conference entitled "Volunteers in the Great War 1914 - 1918" was opened. It was organized by the Strategic Research Institute of the Ministry of Defence, History Institute from Belgrade and Matica Srpska from Novi Sad.The gathering, which has brought together under one roof more than 30 military and civilian historians from Serbia and abroad, was opened by the Serbian Armed Forces Chief of General Staff General Ljubisa Dikovic. He stressed the importance of scientific conferences in which it is possible to align the research findings, and even opposing views of scientists from various countries, level headed and respecting historical facts, or at least to shed some light on certain open issues and less known events from the often burdensome heritage.
- Certainly, volunteers as a phenomenon of the First World War were not sufficiently investigated, although it is about a few hundred thousand people who took part in the war on both sides of the front. The volunteer movement has been one of the most important sources of manning of the Serbian Army with combatants who were not citizens of Serbia and who joined the ranks of the army that fought for freedom in the Thessaloniki front guided by different religious, ideological, patriotic or other motives, General Dikovic said.Chief of General Staff pointed out that the extent to which volunteering was widespread, especially among Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also in other parts of the Austro-Hungary populated with Serbian population, is evidenced by the fact that the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, after the war, issued more than 40 thousand certificates of voluntary participation in the First World War to persons who fought in the ranks of the Serbian and Montenegrin army.
The conference participants were also addressed by representatives of the organizer: Jovanka Saranovic, PhD, director of the Strategic Research Institute, Srdjan Rudic, PhD, director of the Historical Institute from Belgrade and Prof. Branko Beslin, PhD, Vice President of Matica Srpska. According to them, the goal of the conference was to shed light on lesser-known events in the area of the volunteer movement in the First World War, both on the side of the Entente and the Central Powers, and their status after the war, based on the latest research. Serbian, Italian, Polish and Czechoslovak volunteer movements, volunteers of different nationalities in the Russian Imperial Army, as well as the Austrian, German, Hungarian and Bulgarian volunteers and the culture of memory on them were thematically represented.
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