The Atrocities of the Enemy and Our Own Mercy: Russian and German Postcards of the World War I Construct a Nation

This article examines Russian and German postcards from the World War I era. Postcards were the most popular and democratic means of communication. The patriotic mobilization of World War I forced those at war to consider internal cohesion, which contributed to the formation of shared national identities. The article shows how the communicative characteristics of the postcard turned it into a means of national imagination, allowing for the representation of images of the self and images of the Other in an accessible form. In addition to traditional subjects, new scenes appeared, which exposed the atrocities of the enemy or appealed to one's own mercy. The commonality of themes and subjects in Russian and German postcards did not, however, cancel out the particularities in the representation of each other.