S ORLEM I LVEM ČEŠTÍ VOJENŠTÍ DUCHOVNÍ V DRAMATICKÉM DVACÁTÉM STOLETÍ.

The present paper contains seven separate biographical profiles of seven different army chaplains, who served in the Austrian-Hungarian army during the First World War. A particular attention is turned to their fortunes in the following decades with the intent to demonstrate from the perspective of this somewhat unusual group of army professionals, how the "Great History" influenced the lives of "small" individuals. The events of the Great War brought these "small" individuals to the European theatre of war where they strived to be at the elbow of the soldiers enduring hardships. Some of them were injured or fell into captivity. Others served in the Austrian army until the end of the monarchy. Some of them, at the peak of their productive age, devoted a substantial part of their lives serving the Czechoslovak army of the so-called First Republic (1918-1938) and attained high ranks. Other served in civil pastoral care. After the Nazi occupation some of them joined the resistance movement and were arrested. Those who had survived the horrors of the Second World War started from 1948 to be persecuted once again, this time by the communist regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]