Papers by Elizabeth Rechniewski
Meanjin, 1993
The various forms of commitment of French intellectuals over the years are discussed through exam... more The various forms of commitment of French intellectuals over the years are discussed through examples, highlighting their role as social and political guides and also spiritual guides to society. The transformation of their commitment to the creation of literary texts only during the pre-war years is highlighted, suggesting that their lack of visible commitment at present is because most of them are academics and due to the routine nature of political life.
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French Studies, 1992
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Australian Left Review, 1992
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McGill-Queen's University Press eBooks, May 31, 2017
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Aumla-journal of The Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association, May 1, 2007
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Mester, Nov 23, 2011
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Mester, Jan 26, 2012
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Routledge eBooks, Mar 27, 2023
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Commonwealth essays and studies, Apr 1, 2016
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Vingtième siècle, revue d'histoire, 2009
Ces vingt dernieres annees, periode qui correspond a « l’ere de commemoration » identifiee par Pi... more Ces vingt dernieres annees, periode qui correspond a « l’ere de commemoration » identifiee par Pierre Nora, l’anniversaire du debarquement a Gallipoli, quand les Anzac ont lance un assaut infructueux contre les troupes turques, solidement retranchees, ont ete marquees en Australie avec une nouvelle ferveur. Avec le soutien du gouvernement et des media pour cette « reinvention de la tradition », Gallipoli a acquis, dans l’imaginaire australien, un statut iconique comme evenement fondateur de la nation. Cet article suggere des raisons pour lesquelles cette histoire s’est dotee d’un tel pouvoir, examine la nature et les origines du mythe et les aspects de l’identite australienne qui y trouveraient leur expression. Il signale le role des elites, et surtout des hommes politiques, dans la dissemination de la legende et cela a leurs propres fins – a des fins assez diverses, d’ailleurs, car les evenements se pretent a plusieurs interpretations.
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Revue LISA, Jun 25, 2020
A translation of Maurice Henensal’s poem « Petit, lorsque tu seras grand » by Elizabeth Rechniews... more A translation of Maurice Henensal’s poem « Petit, lorsque tu seras grand » by Elizabeth Rechniewskiin homage to Dr. Denis Mukwege When You Are Older, Little One When you are older, little oneThey will tell you who to fight,And with their finger single outThe enemy that you must smite. And they will say: look, there’s your foe.At him! little one, die or kill,There is the soldier clad in greyMake him the subject of your will. And you will march, in armour clad,A number, tethered in, poor lad, ..
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Liverpool University Press eBooks, Oct 1, 2018
It is only very recently that recognition has been given to the massive and possibly decisive con... more It is only very recently that recognition has been given to the massive and possibly decisive contribution made by troops from France’s Empire to its ultimate victory in both World Wars. The ‘rediscovery’ of their role afforded them belated acknowledgement in the commemorations of the centenary of World War One. The original plans for the centenary barely acknowledged the role of colonial troops, an omission challenged by Rachid Bouchareb and Pascal Blanchard who successfully proposed the addition of the commemorative project ‘Frères d’armes’. This rediscovery invites reflection on what factors may have contributed to the long neglect of their participation in combat. This chapter explores the immediate historical context of the deployment of one segment of these colonial troops during World War One: the ...
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Mots, 2000
CRISI О AUSENCIA DE CRISIS : UN EFECTO DE DISCURSO El articulo descrive a travez del analísis de ... more CRISI О AUSENCIA DE CRISIS : UN EFECTO DE DISCURSO El articulo descrive a travez del analísis de los articules de très periódicos australianos los procesos discursives que contribuyeron a la construcción del acontecimiento en el espacio público dos dias despues del anuncio de los ensayos nucleares franceses en 1995. Entre estos procesos se examina la elección de los portavoces, la presentación de palabras restituidas, tropos, tipos de designación, lo implicite y lo supuesto.
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Portal: journal of multidisciplinary international studies, May 16, 2010
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Australian Journal of French Studies, Sep 1, 2007
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Essays in French Literature and Culture, Nov 1, 2016
IntroductionDuring the eight years of the Algerian War of Independence there were up to 470,000 F... more IntroductionDuring the eight years of the Algerian War of Independence there were up to 470,000 French troops on the ground in Algeria at any one time, the large majority national servicemen; perhaps two million appeles [conscripts] served during the course of the war1, many for considerably longer than the due service of eighteen months as the date of their release was continually postponed. Most were between twenty and twenty-two years old; many of them, from poor, rural backgrounds, had never travelled outside their local region. Transported to a completely unfamiliar territory where their official mission was to "restore order", the conscripts were drawn into the spiral of violence of an undeclared war. This article explores how the experience of the conscripts sent to Algeria has been represented in recent publications and cinema, with a particular focus on Laurent Herbiet's 2006 film, Mon Colonel. It uses these texts to examine the effect on young, inexperienced soldiers of having to implement counter-insurgency tactics developed by French military officers in the wake of defeat in Indochina, and to consider whether these ill-trained and ill-prepared conscripts can be considered amongst the victims of the Algerian War.Casualties of WarThe physical casualties of the war can be identified: over 26,000 French troops were killed in the war and some 70,000 were wounded, the majority conscripts, although there appear to be no reliable records of the numbers who suffered lasting physical handicaps. The impact of mental trauma is less easy to quantify, but some studies have estimated that a quarter of the conscripts suffer at some time in their lives from psychological problems resulting from their service (Bernard, 2003), a proportion that is in line with estimates of trauma from other wars. Since they had officially been involved only in operations of maintien de l'ordre, reservists and draftees did not obtain the rights, benefits and recognition to which they would have been entitled as war veterans until many years after the war.2 Nor did they receive the psychological counselling and support that would be offered today to soldiers exiting a theatre of war:Aucune institution ne tenta de prendre en charge les jeunes demobilises et de leur apporter un soutien psychologique. Or, la guerre d'Algerie fut pour beaucoup un poids que certains trainent encore, aujourd'hui, comme un fardeau ou comme une croix (Bantigny, 2004, 106).The conscripts returned at the end of their service to a France undergoing rapid transformation as a consumer society was built in the train of the Trente Glorieuses and the population, keen to forget the past whether of the Second World War or of the failed wars in Indochina and Algeria, "s[a]nk into a collective amnesia" (Alexander et al, 2002, 16). Censorship by the government, during and for some time after the war, along with the denials of the use of torture by the military hierarchy, left the conscripts to come to terms in silence and self-censorship with what they had seen and perhaps done. Interviewed late in life, many veterans claimed that if they did try to speak to friends and family of their experiences, they were met with indifference, disbelief or condemnation (Rotman, 2002, 250-1; Bantigny, 2004, 106). Moreover, how could the public understand the nature of the veterans' war experiences, so different from the confrontations of the regular armies of World War Two? The wars of decolonisation had led to the development of a doctrine of counter-revolutionary warfare that imposed on the soldiers the task of close surveillance and control of a population whose loyalties could never be decided.Counter-Insurgency WarfareThe defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 led some in the French military to question why an experienced, technologically advanced army had been outmanoeuvred by peasant forces. It was because, they argued, they had not adapted their tactics to the new post World War Two forms of combat, where the guerrillas lived among and drew support from the surrounding populations and into which they could disappear, in Mao's words, like fish in water. …
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Papers by Elizabeth Rechniewski