In Britain, 11 November is known as Armistice Day, but in Poland the same anniversary of the end of the first world war is remembered as Independence Day. The bright ideals of 1918 were built around a romantic conception of nationalism. The end of the second world war gave rise in the west to a very different ideal of nationhood. When we watch these marches, we should remember the delirious enthusiasm that greeted the outbreak of the war whose ghastly end four years later we still commemorate. The hard-won common sense of each generation is easily forgotten by the children to whom it is offered as a gift.

Source: The Guardian November 12, 2017 18:27 UTC