This sourcebook is one of the outcomes of the three year-long collaborative research project ‘Cultural Exchange in a Time of Global Conflict: Colonials, Neutrals and Belligerents during the First World War’, funded by HERA (Humanities in European Research Area). It aims to introduce scholars and the interested public to rare or unknown sources and stimulate further research and thinking on the subject of cultural encounters.
The First World War resulted in unprecedented carnage but it also facilitated a remarkable range of encounters and exchange – direct and indirect, personal and mediated, forced or unforced and at times somewhere in-between. Diverse groups of people, categorized by nationality, race, class, ethnicity, gender, language, religion, political affiliation or geographical location, came into contact with each other. The aim of this digital sourcebook is to showcase this extraordinary range of encounters and exchange happening during and immediately after the war.