The end of war does not mean peace. It is simply the end of the destruction of the battle. Every story of war includes a chapter that almost always goes untold – the story of the AFTERMATH, which day by day becomes the prologue of the future. The war changes people. A soldier would certainly say: ‘I was there and I returned as a changed person.’
The First World War left millions of people in Europe and other parts of the world with physical and psychological scars, which then were carried down through the generations. My personal connections to those scars are quite strong, as my grandparents on both sides became post-war refugees due to Russia’s occupation of what was then Czechoslovakia and Ukraine.
Exhibitions like this one in commemoration of the end of the First World War testify to the fragility, vulnerability and transitory nature of human life. We pay respect to all fallen soldiers and civilian fatalities, while at the same time we make a modest contribution to an understanding that we hope will prevent the senseless repetition of the wars of the past.
This project is of the utmost significance to our generation, as it has been more than 100 years since the end of the First World War. Ours is probably the last generation that is directly connected to the aftermath of that war and has seen its scars in our grandparents’ lives. I feel honoured to be personally involved with this project.
Stephanie’s works were created in response to the themes of this exhibition.
LABELS
Stephanie Jakovac
The Last Post
2019
Oil on canvas
“The sound of The Last Post – a melody that followed me on my return home. A memory of an injured mate I carried to safety after the bullet ruptured his shoulder. A yearning for my family, a hope to return to the quiet, secure world, to my home.
I carried mixed feelings of love and hate, peace and war, happiness and pain.
The Last Post will never be silenced, not for generations to come.”
MATESHIP – a moral code that rapidly established itself as our supreme national virtue – a combination of bravery, resilience, the ability to improvise, and sticking together in hard times, no matter what.
Stephanie Jakovac
Letting Go
2019
Oil on canvas
“Some of us could neither pick up just where we had left nor easily find a new niche in life. We were too tormented to talk about the experiences and often it would take a long time to recover from the trauma of the war. All the frivolity of everyday life didn’t make sense.
We were no longer people, simply something without a name. Human feelings were frozen in us.
We had families awaiting our return. However, some children became confused when we returned because they did not understand the effects of trauma and didn’t know how to communicate with us. None of us were prepared for the torment and our families were not able to understand fully the effects that the war left on us.”
Stephanie Jakovac
Shadow
2019
Oil on canvas
“During the war years the rural industry had been drained of men. Even some of us who were more ambitious and had enlisted from country areas no longer saw the future in the dull rural scene.
The pain of the war seems to follow me like a shadow that haunts me and brings the nightmares of war into my dreams of the future. The past and the future seem inseparable. How to blot out the gruesome sights and the waste of a horrible past?”
Stephanie Jakovac
Behind the Veil
2019
Oil on canvas, material
“We were widows. We were bereaved mothers, sisters and friends. We promised to ‘keep the home fires burning’, to wait at the window till they returned triumphantly.”
Certain norms of a middle-class femininity all but disappeared. The visible appearance changed: like shorter hair, skirts or even trousers. New form of social interaction between the sexes and across classes became possible and more accessible. Family and domestic life still remained the main concern of women. The post-war mourning was in process for a long time.
How much the war changed things for women? It certainly did change them. They had a taste of how different their lives could be. For many, their spirits were changed, their psyche, the very expectations of what was possible. Will their returning soldier be able to recognise them? Will the changes put them behind the veil, not completely recognisable?
Stephanie Jakovac
The Soldier (Matters of the Mind)
2019
Mixed media
“Nights of terror that cannot be described. Only the comrades with strong nerves could survive without going mad. The war was over but it was hard to realise that nobody sought another’s life. Most of us were traumatised with ‘shell shock’ – an emotional shock – by the things that we had seen and heard while in the trenches. Could we ever believe again that every day the sun would rise on a better world than yesterday’s?”