Death and dying as war experience in the war-diary Doberdo. The book of a Honvéd officer from the Isonzo front of István Szabó
Abstract
This paper will examine how the horrors of the First World War influenced
the tradition of mourning and the dealing with the deceased. The author of this paper
analyses this on the basis of a literary source, a diary of a Hungarian officer who was
fighting at Doberdo, Italy. Death and Dying are rather extensive subjects which can be
examined from a completely different point of view. In order to narrow down this huge
topic and to provide the examination with a logical course, the author made a model
under which aspects death, dying and mourning appear in the diary. In case of death
the following aspects can be found: the expectation of death, dying of heroes and the
experience of killing; in terms of cemeteries and funerals there are also detailed
descriptions; and last but not least how mourning is featured in the diary. At the end of
the analysis of this war-diary it can be concluded that the demand of man to bury the
deceased and to mourn over them is not diminished, even in case of war, where death
and dying became a mass phenomenon.
Keywords
expectation of death, dying of heroes, experience of killing, cemeteries,
funerals, mourning.