All countries and their citizens have many different qualities, which are hard to get to know. By contrast stereotypes are easy to use, because you only need a word to define a country of a whole group of persons: untrustworthy, weak, violent, dishonest, strict…

These negative stereotypes make us see others as dangerous, and feel like we need to defend ourselves from them. By acting in this way, we let others become enemies, and we justify violence, discrimination, or war against them without being aware of it. Have we ever asked ourselves when and where our views on other European countries are born? Many of them come from the many wars among European countries in the past, in which every country used propaganda to justify war, by defining enemies as barbarians and aggressors, from which self-defence was needed.

To promote reflection on national stereotypes, 100 years after the end of World War I we analysed how many stereotypes that still exist were created or reinforced by propaganda during World War I. This exhibition is a collection of photos, cartoons, and vignettes from various historical archives, selected by students and scholars from 5 European cities (Milan, Trieste and Rome in Italy, Kaunas in Lithuania and Tirana in Albania). These images are 100 years old, but they still speak to us in today’s Europe. In fact today, although Europeans live in peace, political debates are often build on hostility towards other countries by using old national stereotypes.

The exhibition is organised through the European project called “New Nations - New National Stereotypes: Lessons from WWI to overcome national stereotypes in the EU” (EUImage), co-financed by the European Union through the Europe for Citizens Programme– European Remembrance.