FEMALE CHARACTERS OF WORLD WAR I MEMORY NOTES
FEMALE CHARACTERS OF WORLD WAR I MEMORY NOTES

Summary/Abstract: Despite the fact that women were not only passive witnesses of the First World War, they represented powerful characters, in both ways, meaning strong moral personalities, manifesting perseverence and determination, and, in the literary plan, some of them become protagonists disguised in their own writings. In comparison, asuming permanent risks, because of the enemy offensive, but also the long waiting of those gone to war, the ordinary women, from the country, or from the lower middle class, were not inferior. On the other hand, famous women like Queen Mary (of Romania), Elena Văcărescu, Martha Bibescu are considered promoters of the Romanian cause in the country and abroad. The sense of duty and responsability of the women manifested also in their efforts in the care of the wounded on the front lines, as nurses during the war, most of them being novices, without the necessary experience, or protecting the orphans or organizing food bank and so on. Last, but not least, the meditation about the experience of the war is integrated specific compositions, including memoirs, especially about the period of German occupation, related, for example, by Pia Alimăneșteanu, Ecaterina Raicoviceanu-Fulmen or Arabella Yarka, figures less famous, but engraved somehow in the collective memory of the great war. In this respect, following the events of 1989, although they received a wider yet restricted reception, the female representations within the panoply of famous figures, and not only, are still topics worthy of further study.

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