scholarly journals The Crisis of Artistic Forms after 1945; Abstractionism and the Theatre of the Absurd versus Abstract Theatre Dilemma

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-68
Author(s):  
Cristian Rusu
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Abstract Art ◽  
World War ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Theatre Of The Absurd ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second Wave ◽  
Second World ◽  
War Art

Abstract The present study aims to revive the discussion on Martin Esslin’s 1961 labeling of the post-war theater as “absurd” and proposes the consideration of a new paradigm: “abstract theater”. In the great existential and artistic crisis triggered by the end of the Second World War, post-war art oriented itself towards an abstract expression that would dominate the 5th and 6th decades of the 20th century. A panoramic study of the second wave of the avant-garde represented by abstract art could also include these dramatic texts in the great abstract movement of the period. This approach could reopen, in the spirit of the analysis of that Zeitgeist, a fruitful discussion, integrating the art of theater in the great post-war abstractionist spirit.

Beckett, Samuel Barclay (1906–89)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan (Amy) Tang
Keyword(s):  
James Joyce ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Dramatic Works ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Trinity College Dublin ◽  
Literature And Philosophy ◽  
Waiting For Godot ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World

Samuel Barclay Beckett is widely considered one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. Born in Ireland and living in France for half of his life, he wrote prose, dramatic works, poems, and criticism in both English and French. He started to write fiction after he met James Joyce and other intellectuals in Paris in the 1920s. His research on languages, literature and philosophy at Trinity College, Dublin, and at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris provided a solid basis for his works. His popularity grew rapidly after the Second World War, particularly after the publication of his groundbreaking play, En attendant Godot (1953, Waiting for Godot), and his trilogy, Molloy (1951), Malone meurt (1951, Malone Dies), and L’innommable (1953, The Unnamable). He was not only a prolific modernist who innovated avant-garde prose, theatre, radio, television, and cinema; he also joined the French Resistance during the Second World War and the post-war reconstruction. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.

scholarly journals CZECHOSLOVAKIA AND HUNGARY AT THE BRUSSELS EXPO OF 1958- NATIONALISM IN THE DISPLAY OF SOCIALIST MODERNITY AND THE GLOBAL CULTURAL POLITICS OF THE COLD WAR.

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arkaprabha Pal
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
New Man ◽  
Small Countries ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

The Brussels EXPO of 1958 was envisioned by its organisers as a platform to renew the intellectual, spiritual and moral powers of humanism after the horrors of the Second World War. In its post-War setting, it aimed to promote the new Man by crossing the anxious binaries of Cold War politics. In reality, however, it fed on these very anxieties with the USA and USSR using art, technology, architectural designs to further the propaganda of their respective competing antagonistic political worldview. But, some small countries like the Soviet satellite states of Czechoslovakia and Hungary made a significant impact through their pavilions on the millions of visitors. The death of Stalin in 1953 followed by the comparatively liberal policies of Khrushchev and the consequent political disturbances in Hungary and, political reforms in Czechoslovakia determined the content and styling of the pavilions at the Expo. Both the countries marked a shift from socialist realism and posited themselves through art, architecture or technological displays which were more abstract, innovative, individualistic, existential, humanistic and even avant-garde. Moreover, the local, regional, ethnic and even the national were strongly emphasized in the pavilions, some of which at times were bereft of the traditional symbolism of a socialist state. The emphasis on the national illustrated the contradictions in the ideology and action of politics in these east and central European countries in the light of the post-Stalinist era. These contradictions, not only helped to realign the dominance of socialism internally, but had global implications and intentions in the cultural Cold War, which were played out through the content and styling of the pavilions at the expo in Brussels.

Squatting: The Fight for Decent Shelter, 1970s–1980s

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-50
Author(s):  
John Marsland
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Housing Policies ◽  
The West ◽  
The World ◽  
Housing Needs ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World

During the twenty years after the Second World War, housing began to be seen as a basic right among many in the west, and the British welfare state included many policies and provisions to provide decent shelter for its citizens. This article focuses on the period circa 1968–85, because this was a time in England when the lack of affordable, secure-tenured housing reached a crisis level at the same time that central and local governmental housing policies received wider scrutiny for their ineffectiveness. My argument is that despite post-war laws and rhetoric, many Britons lived through a housing disaster and for many the most rational way they could solve their housing needs was to exploit loopholes in the law (as well as to break them out right). While the main focus of the article is on young British squatters, there is scope for transnational comparison. Squatters in other parts of the world looked to their example to address the housing needs in their own countries, especially as privatization of public services spread globally in the 1980s and 1990s. Dutch, Spanish, German and American squatters were involved in a symbiotic exchange of ideas and sometimes people with the British squatters and each other, and practices and rhetoric from one place were quickly adopted or rejected based on the success or failure in each place.

Metamorphoses of memory of the the Russian-Serbian Brotherhood of War in Modern Serbia

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 142-156
Author(s):  
A. Yu. Timofeev
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Party System ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Second World

The article considers the perception of World War II in modern Serbian society. Despite the stability of Serbian-Russian shared historical memory, the attitudes of both countries towards World wars differ. There is a huge contrast in the perception of the First and Second World War in Russian and Serbian societies. For the Serbs the events of World War II are obscured by the memories of the Civil War, which broke out in the country immediately after the occupation in 1941 and continued several years after 1945. Over 70% of Yugoslavs killed during the Second World War were slaughtered by the citizens of former Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The terror unleashed by Tito in the first postwar decade in 1944-1954 was proportionally bloodier than Stalin repressions in the postwar USSR. The number of emigrants from Yugoslavia after the establishment of the Tito's dictatorship was proportionally equal to the number of refugees from Russia after the Civil War (1,5-2% of prewar population). In the post-war years, open manipulations with the obvious facts of World War II took place in Tito's Yugoslavia. In the 1990s the memories repressed during the communist years were set free and publicly debated. After the fall of the one-party system the memory of World War II was devalued. The memory of the Russian-Serbian military fraternity forged during the World War II began to revive in Serbia due to the foreign policy changes in 2008. In October 2008 the President of Russia paid a visit to Serbia which began the process of (re) construction of World War II in Serbian historical memory. According to the public opinion surveys, a positive attitude towards Russia and Russians in Serbia strengthens the memories on general resistance to Nazism with memories of fratricide during the civil conflict events of 1941-1945 still dominating in Serbian society.

Western Ethnic Borderlands in the Influence of Russian-Soviet Propagangda Before and in the Years of the Second World War

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (46) ◽  
pp. 32-39
Author(s):  
Igor Lyubchyk
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Russian Orthodoxy ◽  
The Social ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World ◽  
First World ◽  
Russian Identity

The research issue peculiarities of wide Russian propaganda among the most Western ethnographic group – Lemkies is revealed in the article. The character and orientation of Russian and Soviet agitation through the social, religious and social movements aimed at supporting Russian identity in the region are traced. Tragic pages during the First World War were Thalrogian prisons for Lemkas, which actually swept Lemkivshchyna through Muscovophilian influences. Agitation for Russian Orthodoxy has provoked frequent cases of sharp conflicts between Lemkas. In general, attempts by moskvophile agitators to impose russian identity on the Orthodox rite were failed. Taking advantage of the complex socio-economic situation of Lemkos, Russian campaigners began to promote moving to the USSR. Another stage of Russian propaganda among Lemkos began with the onset of the Second World War. Throughout the territory of the Galician Lemkivshchyna, Soviet propaganda for resettlement to the USSR began rather quickly. During the dramatic events of the Second World War and the post-war period, despite the outbreaks of the liberation movement, among the Lemkoswere manifestations of political sympathies oriented toward the USSR. Keywords: borderlands, Lemkivshchyna, Lemky, Lemkivsky schism, Moskvophile, Orthodoxy, agitation, ethnopolitics

“Product Not Available in Pre-War Quantities – but Quality Remains the Same”: Remarks on Advertisements as Historical Sources

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
World War ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
The Past ◽  
German Press ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World

The article focuses on advertisements as visual and historical sources. The material comes from the German press that appeared immediately after the end of the Second World War. During this time, all kinds of products were scarce. In comparison to this, colorful advertisements of luxury products are more than noteworthy. What do these images tell us about the early post-war years in Germany? The author argues that advertisements are a medium that shapes social norms. Rather than reflecting the historical realities, advertisements construct them. From an aesthetical and cultural point of view, advertisements gave thus a sense of continuity between the pre- and post-war years. The author suggests, therefore, that the advertisements should not be treated as a source for economic history. They are, however, important for studying social developments that occurred in the past.

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