Two fin de siècles

1994 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 213-220
Author(s):  
H. L. Wesseling

Is the end of the 20th century comparable with the end of the 19th century, the so-called fin de siècle? To what extent are the cultural characterizations of that decade—for fin de siècle is first and foremost a cultural concept—applicable to our days? The answer to this question is not easy to give because there are similarities as well as dissimilarities. The central preoccupation of the fin de siècle however was the feeling of decadence, the idea that European civilization was past its prime and on to the end. This notion is not a characteristic of the present day's cultural climate and therefore there exists a fundamental difference between the two periods.

Author(s):  
Daniel Tan

Literally, the French phrase fin de siècle translates as “end of the century”. The term gained prominence during the end of the 19th century, and originated from artists whose works reflected the perceived decline of social orders towards a sense of renewal.1 Although fin de siècle is associated with this particular period in history, the phrase can be transposed to the end of the 20th century, when social and political upheavals were also occurring across Europe. In addition, the use of cinema by contemporary artists to reflect these developments draws artistic parallels to the original fin de siècle. This essay will explore how journeys of nationhood and social renewal at the end of the 20th century were interpreted by filmmakers, using Krzysztof Kieśowski’s Three Colours: Blue2 and Pedro Almodóvar’s All About My Mother3 as representations of Europe’s transition from a continent characterised by division and isolation, towards a unified entity with shared values of collectivism and democracy.


Author(s):  
David Martens

Referring to the end of the 19th century, Fin de siècle not only represents a specific historical moment but also a part of the sensibility and of the cultural production of the period. It is particularly challenging to define fin de siècle within the artistic world, as it neither corresponds to a movement around a leading figure, nor to an amalgamation of shared and promulgated aesthetic principles (there is no manifesto laying claim to fin-de-sièclism). The term appears for the first time at the end of the 1880s. In its French form, it has imposed itself ever since on most Western-European languages (e.g., English, German). Fin de siècle crystalizes certain anxieties that are typical of this era: the period is characterized by a particular striving for modernity, while at the same time it is also perceived as an end. This explains why the fin de siècle mentality has often been closely related to decadence (or decadentism) to which it is, however, not limited: symbolism, aestheticism or even art nouveau all fall within fin de siècle. The fin de siècle mind-set is marked by an ensemble of shared features, in particular an ambivalent fear for the end.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 309-335
Author(s):  
Klaudiusz Święcicki ◽  

The article discusses the process of increased interest in Zakopane and Podhale culture in the second half of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century. Discusses the problem of highlanders acquiring national identity. Characterizes the environment of the intellectual and artistic elite of Zakopane. Attempts to analyse how fascination with the Tatra landscape and highlander culture influenced the formation of one of the myths that fund modern national identity. Tries to show how the artists influenced the development of Zakopane as a holiday spa. It also shows the impact of bohemia on the transformation of the culture of highlanders in the Podhale region. The second part of the article discusses the relationship of the poet Jan Kasprowicz with Podhale. His peregrinations to Zakopane and Poronin were presented. On the selected example from creativity, an attempt was made to analyse the poet’s fascination with the Tatra Mountains and highlander culture.


Nordlit ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 197
Author(s):  
Mihaela Gabriela Stănică

By the end of the 19th century one may observe the birth of a particular form of knowledge which would further be known as scientia sexualis as well as the rationalization of the hermaphroditic body. Ernest Martin’s attempt to realize a taxonomy of the different forms of monstrosity (Histoire des monstres depuis l’Antiquité jusqu’à nos jours -1880) from a juridical and clinical perspective is representative for what Jean-Jacques Courtine will call “le désenchantement de l’étrange”.Since the physicians from that period refuse to acknowledge the existence of real hermaphrodites among humans, the pseudo-hermaphrodite will lose his ontological independence and will turn into a simple pathological deviation which will be placed among the other pathological figures which constitute the inventory of degenerationshaunting the imaginary of the fin de siècle. Since the hermaphroditic body, this gender trouble that threatens the dual taxonomy of the society, is denied the ontological independence, this body enters the sphere of invisibility. Given that the transgressive body becomes a simple deviation, the hermaphrodite can only be a secondary representation.How are these mechanisms of the secondary representation applied to the literary productions of that period? The answer to this question could be found in Huysmans’ texts where the ambiguity of the hermaphroditic figure is captured into somatic and psychical representations that seem to confirm the epistemic paradigms of that fin de siècle.


Author(s):  
M.V. Chernyshev

Fin-de-siècle is a French definition for “end of the age”, though also implying an era of changes in different spheres of social life within European society between 1890 and 1914. At the turn of the 20th century we can observe the phenomenon of formation of the new type of modernist political ideology “beyond Left and Right” which tended to adopt some sort of cultural revolt against decadent bourgeois society and associate it with new forms of political actions. Famous writers of the Fin-de-siècle Gabriele D’Annunzio and Maurice Barrès embodied in their writings this tendency. This essay argues that despite their claimed break with the tradition of the 19th century and search for individual liberation, the representatives of the new intellectual tradition put into practice some of the ideas that later were associated with European totalitarian ideologies of fascism and national socialism. This study attempts to describe development of views of the two writers on the national societies taking into consideration a certain number of dynamic tensions within the period of European fin-de-siècle: first of all, between the tendencies of Decadence which were evident in the last quarter of the 19th century and the desire for spiritual renewal, between the cult of personal perfection and the collective myth of political nationalism.


1994 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 239-246
Author(s):  
Alan Sked

This paper examines the nationality problem in the Habsburg monarchy at the end of the 19th century and looks at the ways in which it has been treated by historians. It analyses present-day Europe and concludes, perhaps ominously, that European Union is in danger of becoming a second Habsburg Empire.


1970 ◽  
pp. 47-55
Author(s):  
Sarah Limorté

Levantine immigration to Chile started during the last quarter of the 19th century. This immigration, almost exclusively male at the outset, changed at the beginning of the 20th century when women started following their fathers, brothers, and husbands to the New World. Defining the role and status of the Arab woman within her community in Chile has never before been tackled in a detailed study. This article attempts to broach the subject by looking at Arabic newspapers published in Chile between 1912 and the end of the 1920s. A thematic analysis of articles dealing with the question of women or written by women, appearing in publications such as Al-Murshid, Asch-Schabibat, Al-Watan, and Oriente, will be discussed.


1999 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-51
Author(s):  
Jan Richard Heier

Accounting has always been utilitarian in nature. It adapts to the changes in the business environment by meeting the need for new types of information. The change in waterborne transportation in the U.S. during the 19th century provides an example of such an environmental change that led to a need for accounting adaptation. With the advent of the steamboat, old accounting methods were modified and new ones created to meet the changes in the business environment. In the process, a standardized ships-accounting model was developed. The model can be seen in the accounting records of three ships that sailed at the beginning of the 20th century.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mara Calvini ◽  
Maria Stella Siori ◽  
Spartaco Gippoliti ◽  
Marco Pavia

The revised catalogue of primatological material stored in the Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturali of Torino and in the Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita e Biologia dei Sistemi of the Università degli Studi di Torino and belonging to the historical material of the Torino University is introduced. The material, 494 specimens belonging to 399 individuals of 122 taxa, is of particular importance since specimens were mainly obtained during the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th Century. A relevant part of the collection was created by the collaborators of the Museum, among which it is worth to mention F. De Filippi, A. Borelli and E. Festa, while other material came from purchases and donations from private people or the Royal Zoological Garden of Torino. Great part of the specimens is stuffed but also the osteological materials are of particular importance, as many of them derived from the specimens before being prepared and consisting of skulls or more or less complete skeletons. After this revision, the Lectotype and Paralectotypes of <em>Alouatta</em> <em>palliata</em> <em>aequatorialis</em> have been selected, and the type-specimen of the <em>brunnea</em> variety of <em>Cebus</em> <em>albifrons</em> <em>cuscinus</em> has been recognized. In addition, some specimens of particular historical-scientific importance have also been identified and here presented for the first time.


Buildings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 27
Author(s):  
Klara Kroftova

An urban residential building from the second half of the 19th century and the start of the 20th century, the so-called tenement house, is a significant representative of the architecture of the developing urban fabric in Central Europe. The vertical and horizontal load-bearing structures of these houses currently tend to show characteristic, repeated defects and failures. Their knowledge may, in many cases, facilitate and speed up the design of the historic building’s restoration without compromising its heritage value in this process. The article presents the summary of the most frequently occurring defects and failures of these buildings. The summary, however, is not an absolute one, and, in the case of major damage to the building, it still applies that, first of all, a detailed analysis of the causes and consequences of defects and failures must be made as a basic prerequisite for the reliability and long-term durability of the building’s restoration and rehabilitation. An integral part of the rehabilitation of buildings must be the elimination of the causes of the appearance of their failures and remediation of all defects impairing their structural safety, health safety and energy efficiency.


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