Guerre

24/07/2026

📖 Another week, another GUERRE story!

🗺️ With the progress of research on the GUERRE Project, the team from IEFSEM-BAS discovered monuments and memorial sites dedicated to those who lost their lives during the First World War across local communities in Bulgaria.

🏛️ As part of a broader strategy to identify and record lesser-known memorial sites, the team carries out fieldwork in towns and villages, documenting how local communities have chosen to commemorate the human cost of the Great War.

📍 Today, we visit the memorial in Dolna Banya, which bears the names of local soldiers who died during the First World War. In later years, it was expanded to include the names of those who fell during the Second World War, reflecting how different generations of conflict became intertwined in collective memory.

🛠️ Recently restored, the monument stands as a reminder that the memory of war continues to resonate in Bulgarian society, preserving the stories of local communities and the people who shaped them.

🕊️ Every memorial has its own story to tell. By documenting these places, we help preserve not only stone and inscriptions, but also the memories, identities, and shared heritage of the Balkans.

📷 Photos: Iglika Mishkova

✨ Follow the GUERRE Project for more stories from the shared cultural heritage of the Great War in the Balkans.

ИЕФЕМ - БАН / IEFSEM - BAS
Филозофски факултет - Скопје
Πανεπιστήμιο Πατρών University of Patras
JOIST
Maja Vasiljevic

17/07/2026

📖 Another week, another GUERRE story!

💍 A Wedding at the Edge of War

🏛️ In the final days of November 1915, Bitola was waiting for the arrival of war. As the armies of the Central Powers approached, the French, Russian, and Italian consuls hurried to leave aboard what was believed to be the last train.

🇬🇧 Only the British Vice-Consul, Charles Greig, chose to remain behind.

❤️ Greig was known for his eccentricity. So was the schoolteacher he intended to marry. While enemy troops were expected to enter the city at any moment, the couple decided not to postpone their future. They entered the Orthodox church and exchanged their vows before the local metropolitan, even as military authority was collapsing around them.

🚗 Just hours later, the newlyweds set off by automobile for Florina, travelling along uncertain roads and crossing a frontier overshadowed by advancing armies. Behind them, gunfire and explosions echoed through the streets. Shops were closed, snow was falling, and temperatures had dropped to −10°C.

📰 According to the Italian journalist Luciano Magrini, this was the last marriage celebrated in Bitola under Serbian administration, a remarkable moment of ordinary life just before the city became one of the principal battlegrounds of the Macedonian Front.

🕊️ Even in the darkest moments, people continued to fall in love, make promises, and imagine a future. History is not only shaped by battles. It is also written through the courage of people who chose life in the face of war.

✨ Follow the GUERRE Project for more stories from the shared cultural heritage of the Great War in the Balkans.

Филозофски факултет - Скопје
Πανεπιστήμιο Πατρών University of Patras
JOIST
ИЕФЕМ - БАН / IEFSEM - BAS
Филозофски Факултет Бг

26/06/2026

Another Blog story!

Our colleague Vladimir Abramovic takes us to a journey to Gornji Milanovac after a mysterious phone call he received...📞

❄️ Echoes Beneath the Snow ❄️

On a cold winter evening, Vladimir received an unexpected invitation from fellow historian Aleksandar Marušić of the Museum of Rudnik and Takovo area in Gornji Milanovac, a conversation that would lead to a journey through Serbia’s hidden First World War memories. 🕯️📜

After heavy snowfall transformed Belgrade’s streets into a winter scene, the road to Gornji Milanovac became more than a simple trip: it became a rough journey into the past. ❄️🚗

Inside the museum, forgotten stories came to life through photographs, documents, trench art, and the rare traces of soldiers who lived through one of history’s most difficult periods. 🪖

Among the discoveries were stories of shared remembrance: a monument honouring both Serbian and Austro-Hungarian soldiers, and the humble grave of two unknown soldiers whose memory has been preserved by a local family for more than a century. 🕊️

Read the full story: https://guerre-museum.eu/echoes-beneath-the-snow/




Vladimir Abramovic
Филозофски Факултет Бг
JOIST
Πανεπιστήμιο Πατρών University of Patras
Филозофски факултет - Скопје
ИЕФЕМ - БАН / IEFSEM - BAS

Discovering WWI Stories in Serbia by historian Vladimir AbramovićFaculty of Philosohy in Belgrade Communicating with local museums in Serbia could be a mixed experience. Depending on the topic and on the museum in question, the experience could range from an enthusiastic reception of a request, a s...

24/06/2026

DEADLINE EXTENDED:
You have some more days to apply for our open calls for artists, until the 30th of June!
Do not miss the chance.

🎨 History is waiting for your interpretation!

!OPEN CALL FOR ARTISTS – GUERRE PROJECT!

Are you a filmmaker in Greece, a music artist in Serbia, or a 3D creator in North Macedonia?
Then this is not just a call, it’s your chance to challenge how history is seen, heard, and remembered.

We invite you to engage with the shared cultural heritage of the First World War in the Balkans and transform it through your own artistic language. 🌍

✨ Join the GUERRE Digital Museum and become part of a space where memory meets creativity, and where the past is reimagined for the present.

🏆 Prizes, collaboration with leading researchers, and wide dissemination of your work are all waiting for you through your participation.

🎬 Greece – Film
🎵 Serbia – Music
🧩 North Macedonia – 3D Objects

🕊️ Through these calls, we aim to highlight how art can bridge histories, challenge narratives, and keep memory alive in meaningful and contemporary ways.

👉 Apply now:
🔗 Greece: https://guerre-museum.eu/call-for-artists-greece/

🔗 Serbia: https://guerre-museum.eu/call-for-artists-serbia/

🔗 North Macedonia: https://guerre-museum.eu/call-for-artists-north-macedonia/

📣 Don’t just remember history: Recreate it!


JOIST
Πανεπιστήμιο Πατρών University of Patras
Филозофски факултет - Скопје
Филозофски Факултет Бг
Maja Vasiljevic
ИЕФЕМ - БАН / IEFSEM - BAS

23/06/2026

📖 Another week, another GUERRE story!

🥖 The Daily Struggle for Bread

🍞 Today, we explore the daily struggle of both civilians and armies to secure one of the most essential foods of the First World War: bread.

👨‍🌾 While bread was not the primary component of soldiers’ rations, it was a staple food for civilians, especially for those working with or supported by the Armée d’Orient on the Macedonian Front.

🔥 Baking bread was far from simple. The Macedonian Front was a truly multi-ethnic theatre of war, bringing together people with different culinary traditions and dietary preferences. Producing bread that could satisfy such diverse populations was a challenge in itself.

👨‍🍳 This is why skilled military bakers became so valuable to the Allied armies. They were highly sought after, and different types of bread, from Greek to Indian recipes and beyond, were selected and produced according to the needs of both the troops and the local populations.

🎥 In this short clip from the Italian disembarkation in Macedonia, preserved by the Cineteca del Friuli, we can see French field bakeries at work: preparing bread, baking it in large quantities, and loading it onto wagons before sending it to the front lines.

🌍 Sometimes, the history of war is not only found in battles and strategies, but also in the everyday effort to feed thousands of people across a vast and diverse front.

👉 Watch the clip and let us know: what aspect of everyday life during the First World War would you like us to explore next?

✨ Follow the GUERRE Project for more stories from the shared cultural heritage of the Great War in the Balkans.



Πανεπιστήμιο Πατρών University of Patras
JOIST
Филозофски факултет - Скопје
ИЕФЕМ - БАН / IEFSEM - BAS
Филозофски Факултет Бг

13/06/2026

📚 Did you remember that in the GUERRE Project we are sharing stories in blog format on our website?

🚢 This week, we invite you to discover a fascinating story that connects war, memory, and commemoration across borders.

⚓ “A Monument to the SS Polynésien” explores the story of the French troopship SS “Polynésien”, torpedoed in August 1918 while carrying Serbian cadets and soldiers towards the Macedonian Front. More than a century later, the memory of this tragic event continues to live on through monuments, heritage initiatives, and the efforts of communities determined not to let the story be forgotten.

🌍 The story reminds us that the legacy of the Great War extends far beyond the battlefield, linking communities across the Mediterranean and the Balkans through shared memories and commemorative practices.

🔗 Follow the link below to read the full story on the GUERRE website.

✍️ **Written by Jelena Erdeljan, University of Belgrade.**

✨ Stay tuned for more blog stories from our researchers and partners as we continue exploring the shared cultural heritage of the First World War in the Balkans.

👉 Read the blog here: https://guerre-museum.eu/a-monument-to-the-ss-polynesien/



Ακολουθοι

In memory of the Serbian and French army cadets who lost their lives in the sinking of the ship SS Polynesien on August 10 th, 1918 A tribute those who perished in World War I and the common history of Serbia and Malta One of the lesser-known episodes from the history of the Serbian Royal Army durin...

04/06/2026

Another week, another GUERRE story.

You have noticed that we are posting now with a faster pace, this is why GUERRE project has its engines in full speed for the first digital Museum Tests, so stay tuned.

Today, Living History

The memory of the First World War is preserved not only in monuments and archives, but also through people who continue to recreate, study, and share the stories of the past.

This photograph, taken during our fieldwork in Bulgaria, captures historical reenactors presenting the uniforms and roles of a Bulgarian soldier and a Red Cross nurse from the early twentieth century. Through such encounters, history becomes more tangible, personal, and accessible to contemporary audiences.

The GUERRE project explores how the legacy of the First World War continues to be remembered and transmitted across generations in the Balkans — through objects, narratives, performances, and lived engagement with heritage.




ИЕФЕМ - БАН / IEFSEM - BAS
JOIST
Πανεπιστήμιο Πατρών University of Patras
Филозофски факултет - Скопје
Филозофски Факултет Бг

01/06/2026

📚 Did you know that the GUERRE Project is now sharing stories in blog format on its website?

🌍 If not, now is the perfect time to discover a new way of exploring the shared cultural heritage of the First World War in the Balkans.

✍️ We are delighted to present our first blog story, written by our colleagues from the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy: Professor Nikola Samardžić.

🔗 Follow the link below to read the article and delve deeper into the history, memories, and experiences that shaped the region during the Great War.

✨ And stay tuned as many more fascinating stories from our researchers and partners are coming soon!

👉 Read the blog here:

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JOIST
Πανεπιστήμιο Πατρών University of Patras
Филозофски факултет - Скопје
ИЕФЕМ - БАН / IEFSEM - BAS
Филозофски Факултет Бг

The First World War, with its horrifying images of a massive human tragedy in a senseless turmoil, while the consequences followed in the Second World War, was becoming a safe platform for nationalist propaganda since the beginning of the seventees, fueling the dissatisfaction with the status of Ser...

28/05/2026

📖 Another week, another GUERRE story

Today we are talking about Art!

💣 Some objects from the Macedonian Front carry the violence of war on their surface. Others do something stranger: they transform it.

🏺 In the collection of the Bitola Museum, there are decorative vases made from First World War bombshells. Once part of the machinery of destruction, these shells were reshaped, engraved, and transformed into household objects.

🪖 They belonged to a wider tradition known as trench art or soldier art, created by soldiers and prisoners of war from materials found around them.

✨ These objects are powerful because they refuse to remain only military relics. A shell casing, made to explode, became a vase placed inside a home. A weapon became decoration. Destruction was transformed into memory, and memory into something people lived alongside in their everyday lives.

🏛️ For Bitola, a city deeply marked by the Macedonian Front, such objects speak about far more than war. They tell stories of survival, creativity, exchange, and the strange afterlife of military material in civilian society.

🕊️ Even in the ruins of war, people searched for ways to create beauty and meaning from destruction.

✨ Stay tuned for more stories from the shared cultural heritage of the Great War in the Balkans.




Филозофски факултет - Скопје
JOIST
Πανεπιστήμιο Πατρών University of Patras
Филозофски Факултет Бг
ИЕФЕМ - БАН / IEFSEM - BAS

26/05/2026

DEADLINE EXTENDED!

Now you have until the 20th of June to submit to our Open Call for Artists!

Check below
👇 👇👇👇

🎨 History is waiting for your interpretation!

!OPEN CALL FOR ARTISTS – GUERRE PROJECT!

Are you a filmmaker in Greece, a music artist in Serbia, or a 3D creator in North Macedonia?
Then this is not just a call, it’s your chance to challenge how history is seen, heard, and remembered.

We invite you to engage with the shared cultural heritage of the First World War in the Balkans and transform it through your own artistic language. 🌍

✨ Join the GUERRE Digital Museum and become part of a space where memory meets creativity, and where the past is reimagined for the present.

🏆 Prizes, collaboration with leading researchers, and wide dissemination of your work are all waiting for you through your participation.

🎬 Greece – Film
🎵 Serbia – Music
🧩 North Macedonia – 3D Objects

🕊️ Through these calls, we aim to highlight how art can bridge histories, challenge narratives, and keep memory alive in meaningful and contemporary ways.

👉 Apply now:
🔗 Greece: https://guerre-museum.eu/call-for-artists-greece/

🔗 Serbia: https://guerre-museum.eu/call-for-artists-serbia/

🔗 North Macedonia: https://guerre-museum.eu/call-for-artists-north-macedonia/

📣 Don’t just remember history: Recreate it!


JOIST
Πανεπιστήμιο Πατρών University of Patras
Филозофски факултет - Скопје
Филозофски Факултет Бг
Maja Vasiljevic
ИЕФЕМ - БАН / IEFSEM - BAS