The “New People” of Decadence in Eastern Europe

Author(s):  
Sasha Dovzhyk

This article discusses the interdependent notions of “decadent” and “new” in Russian and Ukrainian writers at the fin de siècle. Eastern European decadence is located at the intersection of not only gender and temporal perspectives, but also spatial ones created by the impact of the colonial situation on the culture of the region. The analysis is not limited to decadent works by such Russian authors as Zinaida Gippius and Leonid Andreyev, but also includes Ukrainian writing produced at the peripheries of the Russian and Astro-Hungarian Empires by Volodymyr Vynnychenko and Olha Kobylianska, who explore androgyny, cross-gendering, and new forms of female intimacy. By looking beyond the imperial Russian capitals of Moscow and St. Petersburg to examine the “new people” of decadence, this chapter decenters traditional views of the region to draw a less predictable landscape of Eastern European literature.

2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clare Cavanagh

Until recent events intervened, Eastern European Studies found themselves under attack at my home university and other institutions for being, among other things, “non-strategic.” We see the same notion, if not the same terminology, applied increasingly to the humanities and non-quantitative social sciences, which lose ground daily to the so-called STEM disciplines in both educational policy and practice. How do we defend the study of Eastern European literature and culture in the current academic climate? This essay defends the centrality both of literary and Eastern European studies in the twenty-first-century curriculum.


Author(s):  
Daniil A. Anikin ◽  
◽  
Andrey A. Linchenko ◽  

Within the framework of this article, the theoretical and methodological framework of the philosophical interpretation of the concept “memory wars” was analyzed. In the context of criticism of allochronism and the project of the politics of time by B. Bevernage, as well as the concept of the frontier by F. Turner, the space-time aspects of the content of memory wars were comprehended. The use of Bevernage's ideas made it possible to explain the nature of modern memory wars in Europe. The origins of these wars are associated with an attempt to transfer the Western European project of “cosmopolitan” memory, in which Western Europe turns out to be a kind of a “referential” framework of historical modernity, to the countries of Eastern Europe after 1989. The uncritical use of Western European historical experience as a “reference” leads to a superficial copying of the politics of memory, which runs counter to the politics of the time in Eastern Europe. In Eastern Europe, the idea of two totalitarianisms is presented as a single and internally indistinguishable era, and the politics of modern post-socialist states are based on the idea of a radical spatio-temporal distancing from their recent past. The article analyzes the issue of the specifics of the Eastern European frontier, the conditions for its emergence and the impact on modern forms of implementation of the politics of memory. The frontier arises as a result of the collapse of the colonial empires and becomes a space of symbolic struggle, first between the USSR and Germany, and then between the socialist and capitalist blocs. The crisis of the globalist project of the politics of memory and the transfer of the German model of victimization to the territory of the Eastern European frontier leads to the competition of sacrificial narratives and the escalation of memorial conflicts, turning into full-fledged memory wars. The hybrid nature of the antagonistic politics of memory in the conditions of the frontier leads to the fact that not only the socialist past, but also the national trauma of individual states becomes the subject of memory wars. The increasing complexity of the mnemonic structure of the frontier is associated with the emergence of a number of unrecognized states, whose memory politics, in contrast to the national discourses of Eastern European states, is based on a synthesis of the Soviet legacy and individual elements of the imperial past.


Adaptation ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-58
Author(s):  
Phaedra Claeys

AbstractMassenet’s Hérodiade (1881) is today one of the lesser-known variations of the Salomé myth. Although based on Flaubert’s Hérodias (1877) and written and premiered at the height of the narrative’s popularity, the opera displays some peculiar deviations from both Flaubert’s tale and other, especially fin-de-siècle, renderings of the myth. By situating Hérodiade’s departures from Flaubert’s short story within both the framework of operatic conventions and the broader context of the opera’s genesis, this article highlights Hérodiade’s status as a self-contained rendering, rather than a mere dramatic rewriting of the story—let alone an unfaithful adaptation. In doing so, three main elements that played an essential role in the process of (re)creation are brought to attention: the conventions of grand opera, Massenet’s own aesthetics and interpretation of the tale, and the impact of the socio-political context of France’s Third Republic on the opera’s development.


2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 214-236
Author(s):  
Katharine Ellis

AbstractIt seems historiographically implausible to ascribe the reputation of fin-de-siècle Lyon as France's Bayreuth to the impact of a single middle-ranking soprano, but the Danish singer Louise Janssen's long-term presence, galvanic musical influence and box-office value suggest precisely that conclusion. Part of the explanation lies with the diva-worship of her supporters (‘Janssenistes’), who curated her image both during her career and in her retirement to create an adopted musical heroine whose memory remains guarded by Lyon council policy. That image, selectively constructed from among her Wagner roles, also typecast her as a singer who had much in common with Symbolist art – a potential Mélisande that Lyon never saw. This article brings together archival and press materials to explain how a foreign-born singer's agency and mythification contributed to a double French naturalisation – her own, and that of Wagner(ism).


Tekstualia ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (41) ◽  
pp. 29-38
Author(s):  
Zoltán Németh

The aim of this article is to analyse intertextual relativities in postmodern novels written by Czech, Slovakian and Hungarian authors. Postmodern mystifi cation in Middle Eastern European literature shows up the naivety of one’s interpretation, as well as social differences. The writers use multiple pseudonyms and undermine the border between work and its interpretation to present cultural differences.


2018 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Per-Arne Bodin

The article presents a close reading of Wisława Szymborska’s poem “Monolog dla Kasandry”, "Soliloquy for Cassandra". The view of Cassandra as expressed by the poet is compared with the corresponding motifs in Miłosz and more generally with examples from Polish and Eastern European literature and cultural history. It is argued that Szymborska does not agree with the common and traditional Polish image of Cassandra, but instead polemizes against it in a complex and contradictory manner.


2019 ◽  
pp. 234-249
Author(s):  
David Sorkin

This chapter addresses how Europe became a mass society in the fin de siècle (1870–1914). Explosive population growth gave rise to major metropolises whose residents were divided by rank and religion, gender and class. The new conditions of the fin de siècle, mass migration from eastern Europe, and the rise of the new organized political anti-Semitism propelled Jews across Europe and in the United States to establish social welfare and civil defense organizations. The former practiced solidarity on a grand scale; the latter intervened to protect equality. The organizations' promotion of emancipation was predicated on Jews being a confession or religious group: by functioning under the guise of “welfare” and “civil defense,” they deliberately eschewed political claims. From the 1890s, new forms of mass Jewish politics emerged that contested that basic assumption.


The 22 newly commissioned essays in this volume re-examine some of the key concepts taken to define the British fin se siècle while also introducing hitherto overlooked cultural phenomena, such as humanitarianism. The impact of research into material culture is explored; specifically, how the history of the book and of performance culture is changing our understanding of this period. A wide range of activities is discussed, from participation in avant-garde theatre to interior decoration, and from the publishing of poetry to forms of political and religious activism. Attention is also given to how the meaning of the fin de siècle is impacted by place, including the significance of cultural exchanges between Britain and countries such as Russia and Italy; the distinctiveness of the Irish and Scottish fin de siècles; as well as activities within different regions of England, such as in the Midlands cities of Birmingham and Nottingham. In contrast to recent research exploring the global or transnational dimensions of the fin de siècle, this volume focuses on micro- rather than macro-cultural issues, the research underpinning these essays highlighting a diversity of practices that developed along different timelines and in different geographical locations, and which do not cohere into any simple pattern. Nor is there any obvious point of their intersection which might be said to mark a cultural turning point. A question the volume as a whole thus aims to pose is whether there is anything to be gained by distinguishing all, of any, of these practices as ‘fin-de-siècle’?


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