Editor's note: the event is cancelled until further notice.
Conventional wisdom maintains that 1919’s Treaty of Versailles was a failure, pushing Germany into economic chaos, creating new states with arbitrary borders, and leading inevitably to the outbreak of World War II. However many of the countries created at Versailles are still in existence today (albeit in modified form), having survived the combined attacks of both Nazi and Soviet imperialism. In many ways we are still living in the post-Versailles world.
After the Great War is a travelling exhibition compiled by the Warsaw-based European Network for Remembrance and Solidarity. Intended as the kind of easy-access exhibition that you could pop in to on the way back from the shops, it comes with it’s own tent-like structure, and will be erected in one of Rijeka’s central squares. Featuring a wealth of photographs, film clips and personal stories, the exhibition reveals how Europe’s borderlands were intensely fought over after World War I, with different national groups struggling to establish new frontiers. Even when the fighting ceased, internal disagreements about political systems hampered the progress of Europe’s new states. Democracy didn’t always survive; and this instructive exhibition demonstrates how fragile democratic systems can be.