Medieval motives in memorialization of the Great War

The article examines the European experience of creating war memorials dedicated to the World War I, using the motives of medieval architecture. The fascination with the Middle Ages, spread through the art and literature of the Neo-Gothic and national Romanism period, was emotionally rethought by the generation that survived the catastrophe of the global conflict of 1914–1918. At the new stage, the symbolic harsh images of the Middle Ages turned out to be more consonant with the social creation of former front-line soldiers than the classical antique forms used in the memorialization of wars in the 18th–19th centuries. This process was reflected in the commemoration of the Great War in Great Britain, France, Germany and other countries, where the monuments to the fallen began to give the appearance characteristic of the towers, fortresses and castles of the long-gone Middle Ages, giving them a new interpretative meaning.