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Well, I could give you many examples of
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the spiritual flavor that characterized the 1920s and 1930s.
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I could also discuss, as Jay Winter did remarkably in his book Sites of Memory, sites of Mourning,
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whether the spirituality of the Great War and of the aftermath of the Great War
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was something new or something rooted in the European religious traditions and rituals.
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I will only give you one emblematic example,
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and actually I will end my presentation with it.
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This is the case of Maurice Gallais
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that's the portrait here--a young officer cadet who died in Bouchavesne,
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on the Somme, on September 25th, 1916, at the age of twenty-two.
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Actually, he was sent on a reconnaissance mission and,
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as he was just back from leave, he probably didn't know the area very well and lost his way,