Fin de siècle

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.

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. 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.


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.


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.


This is a comprehensive, illustrated catalogue of the 200+ marine chronometers in the collections of Royal Museums Greenwich. Every chronometer has been completely dismantled, studied and recorded, and illustrations include especially commissioned line drawings as well as photographs. The collection is also used to illustrate a newly researched and up-to-date chapter describing the history of the marine chronometer, so the book is much more than simply a catalogue. The history chapter naturally includes the story of John Harrison’s pioneering work in creating the first practical marine timekeepers, all four of which are included in the catalogue, newly photographed and described in minute detail for the first time. In fact full technical and historical data are provided for all of the marine chronometers in the collection, to an extent never before attempted, including biographical details of every maker represented. A chapter describes how the 19th century English chronometer was manufactured, and another provides comprehensive and logically arranged information on how to assess and date a given marine chronometer, something collectors and dealers find particularly difficult. For further help in identification of chronometers, appendices include a pictorial record of the number punches used by specific makers to number their movements, and the maker’s punches used by the rough movement makers. There is also a close-up pictorial guide to the various compensation balances used in chronometers in the collection, a technical Glossary of terms used in the catalogue text and a concordance of the various inventory numbers used in the collection over the years.


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.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (41) ◽  
pp. 31-48
Author(s):  
Munir Drkić ◽  
Ahmed Zildžić

This paper aims to examine the work entitled Taʻlīm-i fārisī in the context of the Ottoman tradition of the grammatical study of the Persian language. Taʻlīm-i fārisī, most likely penned by Kemal-pasha, is a short yet exceedingly significant primer for Persian language students dated in the middle of the 19th century. After a brief overview of the Persian grammar studies in the Ottoman Empire, the authors present the work and its author and conduct an analysis of the content of Taʻlīm-i fārisī. In terms of its underlying methodology, this work stands halfway between two principal tendencies: one is the traditional approach to studying the Persian language in the Ottoman Empire; another is a new approach developed under the influence of grammatical description of European languages. This paradigm shift in the Persian language's grammatical description within the Ottoman Empire is readily observable in the primer under review.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-32
Author(s):  
JOS BAZELMANS

The windmill. The origins of a Dutch icon The windmill is an icon of the Netherlands. But when did this instrument acquire this symbolic role at home and abroad? After all, mills are also common outside of the Netherlands. In this essay, it is argued that during the second half of the 19th century, foreigners systematically identified the Netherlands and the windmill for the first time. More than in other countries, there was a varied use of mills in the Netherlands, large and robust mills and clusters of industrial mills. Within the Netherlands itself, development towards an iconic position is only visible around the turn of the century when the mill turned out to be a plus in tourist recruitment abroad and when mills were slowly disappearing from the landscape.


2017 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-50
Author(s):  
Jernej Kosi

The article analyses the process involved in the formation of the idea to separate the "Slovenian" and "Croatian" national territory in the west of the Kingdom of Hungary. The concept was initially articulated as a linguistic premise in the works written by the famous linguist Jernej Kopitar, who understood the territory of the today's Prekmurje region as an area where Slovenian language was spoken. As of the middle of the 19th century, Kopitar's classification had been appropriated by the Slovenian national movement, which presupposed that the speakers of the Slovenian language in the Kingdom of Hungary were also members of the envisioned Slovenian community. In this context the Slovenian linguistic – national border was, in the middle of the 19th century, depicted on a map for the first time (Peter Kozler). In just a few decades, the idea of the national demarcation line in the today's Prekmurje, supposedly separating Slovenians from Croats at the river Mura, had strengthened considerably among the Slovenian national activists in the Cisleithanian lands. After the dissolution of Austro-Hungary and the signing of the Treaty of Trianion, this line in fact became a border between the Slovenian and the neighbouring Croatian national space. 


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