Kiel Uprising: Women's activism and the German Revolution November 1918

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This project seeks support for the writing, rehearsing and production of a new play that highlights women's role in the Kiel Uprising of 1918 and the production of a fixed, touring and online exhibition supported by educational outreach and online teaching resources that draws on the findings of the AHRC international network grant 'Women's Organisations and Female Activists in the Aftermath of War: International Perspectives 1918-1923'. In that project, an interdisciplinary team of international scholars explored the role of female activists and their organisations in shaping the new Europe in the post- war period, identifying the period immediately after the war as a distinctive period full of radical potential during which the renegotiation of gender relations took place under unstable and highly volatile conditions of unprecedented social, economic and political strain. One major and very under- researched area that emerged from the collaboration was the importance of the role played by women in the revolutions that were a major feature of post- war societies in central and eastern Europe. This is not reflected either in academic or popular accounts of the end of the war, and the revolutionary end to the war in Germany and how that shaped the post -war period is virtually unknown in the UK.Centenary commemorations in the UK so far have emphasised the military aspects of the conflict - commemoration of those who opposed the war has largely been marginalised. Where the German perspective has been included at all, it has been to reinforce stereotypes of German militarism. This project aims to challenge this and broaden public understanding of German anti- militarism, first by telling the story of the German Revolution that brought the war to an end in November 1918 and established democracy on German soil, and secondly by putting the ordinary populace, especially the women who actively opposed the war and supported the revolution, centre stage. This approach has the effect of challenging the gender of the revolution, hitherto presented almost exclusively as a masculine story due to the current focus on the military and revolutionary leaders in the majority of historical research on this subject.The follow- on project will highlight women's role in the German revolution of 1918, with a particular focus on Kiel as the starting point of this key historical event. It will write women into the historical accounts, public knowledge and commemorative activities surrounding the centenary of the end of the war in November 2018 in both the UK and Germany. The play will tour in Britain and Germany, following the path of the revolution. The PI is already acting as consultant to events planned for Kiel, namely a major exhibition planned to run for the year 2018 in the Maritime Museum and a new opera commissioned for the occasion that will be premiered in Kiel in November 1918.The Peace Museum in Bradford is keen to include the German perspective in plans to mark the centenary of the end of the war in 2018 and to look at the revolution in the broader context of anti-war activism in Germany. An exhibition based on the choices individuals made in 1918 that led to the collapse of the German war effort would invite the visitor to reflect on the moral questions surrounding an individual's duty to the nation and to humanity in wartime.Bent Architect are a socially engaged theatre company committed to bringing lesser- known histories onto the stage. Following the success of the production England Arise!, which toured in 2014, the writers and directors are keen to produce a companion piece that tells the story from the German point of view and which emphasises the role of women in the choices that ended the war.