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The sketch is a comparative analysis of two novels on World War I: Salt of the Earth by Józef Wittlin and The First Man by Albert Camus. The author does not limit herself to analyze the depiction of war, but she treats the subject matter of war as a general context within which both writers examine the phenomenon of human anonymity against a wide background of historical events, as is also done in a narrower context of the issues of self-determination and self-cognition. Such focus allows to make a synthesis of personal and historical threads of both novels and to shed light on a range of internal consistencies decisive to the multidimensional character of the thematic structure of Salt of the Earth and The First Man. The author bases her comparison of Salt of the Earth and The First Man on the analysis of anonymity of both protagonists. The facts decisive to the specifi c character of this anonymity are: low social class, illiteracy, as well as, typically for citizens of ethnically diverse monarchies and for emigrants, an inability to identify oneself with the patriotic war ideology. Threads of social and political anonymity of the heroes intertwine with threads of anonymity of those who participate in a war, which makes the idea of the Unknown Soldier deepened by the idea of a man unknown not only at war but during peacetime.