scholarly journals On the crossroad of avant-garde: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and his painting  “Potsdamer Platz”

Author(s):  
Анастасия Юрьевна Королева

Статья посвящена изучению картины Эрнста Людвига Кирхнера Потсдамская площадь . Автор ставит своей задачей исследование историко-культурного контекста произведения, занимающего столь важное положение в истории немецкого искусства. Это полотно, написанное в год начала Первой мировой войны, обобщает впечатления недавно приехавшего в Берлин художника от сверхинтенсивной жизни германской столицы последних предвоенных лет. В статье подробно рассматривается история возникновения и роль площади в культурном и мифологическом ландшафте города, анализируется социальный статус героев картины, отмечаются автобиографические коннотации и характерные для нее формально-стилевые приемы. В результате автор приходит к выводу об особом значении образа города в лице Потсдамской площади как символа эпохи. In researching of painting of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Potsdamer Platz the author sets a task to find out all of historical and cultural aspects of this so important picture in German art. It was painted in the year of the beginning of the First World War, after a few year of the artists arriving in Berlin and become the kind of generalization of Kirchners impressions of the extremely intense life of German capital in the latest prewar years. The article gives the attention to the history of the square and its role in the cultural and mythological landscape of the city. Also it analyzes the social status of the main personas, notes the autobiographical aspects and specific formal and stylistic receptions. The results shows, that the image of town in the face of Potsdamer Platz becomes a symbol of the epoch.

1979 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Cronin

Strikes are like certain bitter-sweet varities of sin. However frequently and violently they are denounced and however painful the consequences to those who indulge, they continue to flourish. V. L. Allen noted this curious role of strikes in industrial society some time ago. “Strikes,” he wrote,take place within a hostile environment even though they are a common every-day phenomenon. They are conventionally described as industrially subversive, irresponsible, unfair, against the interests of the community, contrary to the workers' best interests, wasteful of resources, crudely aggressive, inconsistent with democracy and, in any event, unnecessary.Strikes have become so common in modern society that they seem to be a normal part of the social landscape. This is perhaps one reason why historians have tended to ignore them and their history. Upon reflection, it is indeed surprising how little attention the history of industrial conflict has received from historians. Of course, certain dramatic events, like the General Strike of 1926 or the London dock strike of 1889, are relatively well chronicled, but even these are sorely under-analyzed. There are not even competent narratives of other episodes, like the explosion of militancy just after the First World War; and we know still less about the persistent dynamics of strikes throughout British industry. In this respect, historians lag well behind other social scientists who have been studying industrial strife for many years, but whose work is unfortunately limited by their frankly ahistorical or even anti-historical approach. It is time for historians to remedy this deficiency, and this essay is intended as a first, very small effort in that direction.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 62-80
Author(s):  
Paweł Woś ◽  

The article presents the social and political face of Lviv during the First World War, based on the memoirs of Bohdan Janusz. The notes covering the initial period of the war from the perspective of a Polish-Ukrainian researcher of the culture and past of Lviv and Eastern Galicia present not only the strong emotional context of the described events, but also fully reflect the atmosphere in the city. The diversification of the transmission of the ego-documents, due to the social status of their author, allows a much closer look at the collective portrait of the inhabitants of Lviv.


2017 ◽  

Stefan George's "Der Stern des Bundes" is one of the most provocative and unusual works of poetry in the history of German literature. Here, on the eve of the First World War, George unfolds social, religious, poetic, personal, philosophical and even economic issues. Members of Georges´s famous "circle" as well as his contemporaries perceived of the "Stern des Bundes" as a prediction of coming catastrophes and a warning, as a stimulus for peaceful and intimate community building in the face of great crises and as a reaffirmation of a hopeful outlook towards a shared world. Krise und Gemeinschaft assembles introductory and survey articles, contributions to key words from the “Stern”, and interpretations of key poems. It is especially aimed at readers who are still unfamiliar with the "Stern".


2020 ◽  
pp. 19-56
Author(s):  
Alex Dowdall

Chapter 1 explores the topography of the urban battlefield, and provides an urban history of the Western Front. It describes how Arras, Reims, Nancy, Lens, and other towns were progressively transformed into battlefields in the period after August 1914. It describes the transformation of urban space by the First World War, through artillery bombardment, the fortification of these towns by the militaries, and the proliferation of military weaponry and defensive architecture. It discusses how civilians changed their routines to adapt to the urban battlefield, and argues that as much as possible civilians at the front aimed to maintain a semblance of normality. This was encouraged by local authorities, and represented as a form of heroic resistance in the face of the enemy. The chapter charts the physical impact of urban warfare near the front, and describes the extent of urban destruction during the period of the stable Western Front. It also charts the transformation of the civilian population of the front, through discussions of evacuation policies and the scale of civilian death and injury.


2019 ◽  
pp. 49-62
Author(s):  
Joshua Cole

The First World War was an important turning point in the history of French Algeria because many Algerians—both citizens and colonial subjects—participated in the war effort. The participation of Muslim Algerians in this national emergency created pressures for reform, resulting in a new law in 1919 that gave many Algerian Muslims the right to vote and run for office in local elections. This chapter explores the immediate consequences of this development along with an episode of anti-Jewish agitation in 1921 in Constantine when Muslim residents of the city refused to respond to attempts by settler anti-Semites to incite violence against the city’s Jews.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Sascha Bru

Abstract This article homes in on monuments designed by proponents of the historical or classic avant-gardes. After the First World War, monuments by, among others, Kurt Schwitters and Johannes Baader, Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe, Vladimir Tatlin and El Lissitzky, Man Ray and Salvador Dalí, began to articulate a new function for the genre of the monument: no longer was it to commemorate the past, but to memorialize the present and time to come. This new architecture of memory also led to an expansion of the genre, which in the hands of avant-gardists further came to include temporary pavilions. Paying attention to theoretical writings on the monument, among others, by László Moholy-Nagy, Siegfried Giedion and Robert Smithson, the article concludes by referencing more recent experimentation in monument design by artists such as Flavin, Oldenburg and Hirschhorn, arguing that a comprehensive history of the avant-garde monument is long overdue.


Author(s):  
Christopher Houston

Abstract: Despite the ceaseless efforts of what its supporters name the “Atatürk Cumhuriyeti” (Atatürk Republic), Kemalism is seen by many as a discredited ideology and an oppressive political practice. This chapter explores the social history of Kemalism since 1923 and the background to its now decades-long crisis of legitimacy. It compares the orthodox narrative concerning the Kemalist project with its various deconstructive accounts, many of which zero in on the years after the First World War and the 1920s and 1930s as foundational in present-day conflicts. These orthodox and heterodox histories, allied to the interests of different groups, do politics by another means. The chapter then traces how the power struggle over Kemalism’s futures is developing. Rather than pontificate about what the state or civil society should do, it concludes by drawing attention to emerging lineaments of change in existing civil society and social conditions.


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