Bolshevism in Lancashire: British Strike Plays of the 1920s

1992 ◽  
Vol 8 (30) ◽  
pp. 159-166
Author(s):  
Steve Nicholson

In an article in NTQ 29 (February 1992), Steve Nicholson looked at how the Russian Revolution was portrayed in the 1920s by the Conservative theatre establishment. Usually it is the Left that is accused of simplistic theatrical agitation: but in this, the second of two articles about the right-wing political theatre of the 1920s, the author shows how plays about industrial conflict and strikes within Britain demonstrated a level of crude Conservative propaganda that has tended to go unremarked. This article has been researched largely through unpublished manuscripts in the Lord Chamberlain's collection of plays in the British Library, and derives from the author's broader study of the portrayal of Communism in the British theatre between 1917 and 1945. Steve Nicholson is currently Lecturer in Drama at the Workshop Theatre of the University of Leeds.

1992 ◽  
Vol 8 (29) ◽  
pp. 62-69
Author(s):  
Steve Nicholson

In theatrical parlance, ‘political’ is often taken to be synonymous with ‘left-wing’, and research into political theatre movements of the first half of this century has perpetuated the assumption that the right has generally avoided taking politics as subject matter. This article, the first of two about British political theatre in the 1920s, concentrates on plays about Communism and the Soviet Union during the decade following the Russian Revolution, and offers some contrasting conclusions. Steve Nicholson, Lecturer in Drama at the Workshop Theatre of the University of Leeds, argues that, whether such plays shaped or merely reflected conventional views, they were used by the establishment for the most blatant and explicit propaganda, at a time when it felt itself under threat from the Left. The article has been researched largely through unpublished manuscripts in the Lord Chamberlain's collection of plays, housed in the British Library, and derives from a broader study of the portrayal of Communism in the British theatre from 1917 to 1945.


1992 ◽  
Vol 8 (32) ◽  
pp. 305-312
Author(s):  
Steve Nicholson

In two earlier articles, Steve Nicholson has explored ways in which the the right-wing theatre of the 1920s both shaped and reflected the prevailing opinions of the establishment – in NTQ29 (February 1992) looking at how the Russian Revolution was portrayed on the stage, and in NTQ30 (May 1992) at the ways in which domestic industrial conflicts were presented. He concludes the series with three case studies of the role of the Lord Chamberlain, on whose collection of unpublished manuscripts now housed in the British Library his researches have been based, in preventing more sympathetic – or even more objective – views of Soviet and related subjects from reaching the stage. His analysis is based on a study of the correspondence over the banning of Geo A. DeGray's The Russian Monk, Hubert Griffith's Red Sunday, and a play in translation by a Soviet dramatist, Sergei Tretiakov's Roar China. Steve Nicholson is currently Lecturer in Drama at the Workshop Theatre of the University of Leeds.


Monitor ISH ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-31
Author(s):  
Igor Grdina

The paper discusses various interpretative strategies and narratives applied to the role which was played by Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky (1881–1970) in the Russian Revolution. It critically evaluates views of the provisional government’s president as a non-radical revolutionary, whose work called for an upgrade in a ‘second revolution’, as well as the interpretation which makes him out to have been a counter-revolutionary at his core. Tracing the causes of his actions in 1917 to his personality traits, the study arrives at the conclusion that Kerensky was a revolutionary of an entirely different breed from those who removed him from power in October 1917; for him, the ‘first revolution’ was enough. The contribution also examines those of Kerensky’s actions which benefited his left-wing opponents, particularly his policy of disassembling the government apparatus out of fear of the right-wing enemy.


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 49-60
Author(s):  
Niklas Füllner

The paper discusses Oliver Frljić’s production of Klątwa(Engl.: “The Curse”) which is based on the play with the same title by Stanisław Wyspiański. Klątwapremiered in Teatr Powszechny in Warsaw on 18 February 2017 and created the biggest theatre scandal in the early theatre history in Poland as both the right-wing government and the right-wing movement in Poland regarded it as blasphemous and – unsuccessfully – tried to prevent further performances. In KlątwaOliver Frljić questions the understanding of historiography promoted by the Polish government that prefers to focus only on stories about heroes and he criticises both the abuse of power in the church and in the institutionalized theatre. The strategies of Oliver Frljić’s political theatre are analyzed in the light of Jacques Rancière’s thoughts about critical theatre. In Klątwa Frljić develops a theatre of dissensus in the sense of Rancière. He undertakes a “dissensual re-configuration”[1]of political theatre by changing the frames, by playing around and by questioning the means used in theatre. But Frljić also deviates from this strategy when he creates images on stage that convey meanings directly and simply. Yet, these images fit into Frljić’s strategy of questioning the official Polish historiography by deconstructing the symbols it is based on. Oliver Frljić’s theatre of emancipation, a theatre that believes in the potential of the spectator to emancipate him- or herself as suggested by Rancière in The Emancipated Spectator (Rancière 2009), manages to make visible authoritarian and undemocratic developments in Polish politics and to offer a critical approach to history in contrast to the one-sided view the Polish government tries to establish. [1]Rancière 2010, p. 140.


Author(s):  
Bronisława Witz-Margulies

This chapter is a short memoir detailing the history of the Jan Kazimierz University (now L'viv University) prior to the start of World War II. The university community, a microcosm of society at large, was split by ethnic, social, and political conflict. Student unions, for example, were divided along the lines of nationality. The authorities were reluctant to create unified, multi-ethnic organizations, so in each department there were separate Polish, Ukrainian, and Jewish clubs and student professional unions. As for politics, it seemed that just about every party and political current in Poland had its supporters and representatives among the students. Both the right wing and the left wing were there. The fiercest battle was over the nationality question, although each nationality had its own set of right- and left-wing students.


Author(s):  
Leandro Tessler

The Brazilian Supreme Court is about to decide if affirmative action complies with the National Constitution. In 2003 the Senate of the University of Brasília (UnB) decided to reserve 20% of its places to black and brown ("pardo") candidates starting in the 2004 admission process. In 2009, the right wing Democratas political party filed a lawsuit at Brazilian Supreme Court claiming that UnB's racial quota system violates no less than nine fundamental precepts of the Constitution. The decision about this case, will determine the future of affirmative action in Brazil. Amazingly all assessments "prove" that affirmative action is neither the deliverance or a threat to the Brazilian higher education system.


Lateral ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ameet Parameswaran ◽  
Shirin M Rai

Starting in February 2016, a protracted struggle has taken place on the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus, pitting the students and their faculty supporters against the right-wing government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Administration of the university. The protestors’ issues chime with the desire to leverage justice that drives this issue. This piece presents one senior scholar and one early career scholar blogging about these events.


2020 ◽  
Vol 75 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helmut Klüter

Abstract. For the first time since the reunification of Germany, right-wing activists and politicians have attempted to take over a university city, i.e. a place where the highly educated, creative, cosmopolitan, innovation-oriented groups should be more likely to question irrational populism than elsewhere. An internal organizational problem – in this case: the renaming of the University of Greifswald – which normally should be solved with on-board resources, was shifted to a regional political level as a dispute over Ernst Moritz Arndt. Arndt was one of the most aggressive nationalists in German history, whose name was given to the university under fascist rule in 1933. The dispute was emotionalized by demonstrations and letters to the editor of the regional newspaper, taken up by groups and parties predominantly from the right-wing spectrum. It was brought into a populist form, and pushed with high journalistic effort into the regional public sphere as a Pomeranian identity crisis. In spite of the enormous pressure from outside and the numerous attempts at intimidation, it is admirable that the University Senate members decided to discard the name of Arndt – 63 years after the end of World War II. Although the result of the renaming was noted nationwide, its dramatic circumstances and background were not presented. However, this would have been necessary in order to show how strong right-wing radicalism already is in some regions, by which coalitions it is further enhanced, how strongly it is favoured by the spatial over-centralisation of state institutions, and what a university has to afford in order to assert itself successfully in such an environment.


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