scholarly journals Literary Modernism, Anti-Semitism Jewishness and the Anxiety of Assimilation in Interwar Hungary

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 145-157
Author(s):  
Dávid Szolláth
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literary Modernism ◽  
Literary Style ◽  
Hungarian Literature ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Foreign Culture ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Western European ◽  
Second Wave ◽  
European Modernism

In this paper I will provide a brief overview of early twentieth-century, Hungarian history in order to examine how anti-Semitism and anti-modernism influenced modernism’s reception in fin- de- siècle Hungary. In 1908 the most significant Hungarian literary review of the twentieth century was founded by Hugo Ignotus, Miksa Fenyő and Ernő Osvát, all of whom were assimilated Jews. The journal’s title, Nyugat, [‘West’] unambiguously marked the editors’ orientation and program of accelerating cultural modernization by reviewing and translating Western European works. For conservatives this aim of transferring aestheticism, late Symbolism and decadence was regarded as an attack against the nation’s patriotic traditions. Anxiety surrounding the Jewry’s purported “failed assimilation” was compounded by the fear that a foreign culture would have an undue impact on Hungarian literature. It is my aim to analyze both the first and second wave of modernism in Hungary so as to reveal the analogous relationship between the argument that Western European modernism is alien to the Hungarian literary style and language and the anti-Semitic argument stating that assimilation of the Jews is superficial.

Edna St. Vincent Millay and Anne Sexton: The Disruption of Domestic Bliss

2004 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
ARTEMIS MICHAILIDOU
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
New Woman ◽  
American Poetry ◽  
Anne Sexton ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The New Woman ◽  
The Subject ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Second Wave

Popular perceptions of Edna St. Vincent Millay do not generally see her as a poet interested in so-called “domestic poetry.” On the contrary, Millay is most commonly described as the female embodiment of the rebellious spirit that marked the 1920s, the “New Woman” of early twentieth-century feminism. Until the late 1970s, the subject of domesticity seemed incompatible with the celebrated images of Millay's “progressiveness,” “rebelliousness,” or “originality.” But then again, by the 1970s Millay was no longer seen as particularly rebellious or original, and the fact that she had also contributed to the tradition of domestic poetry was not to her advantage. Domesticity may have been an important issue for second-wave feminists, but it was discussed rather selectively and, outside feminist circles, Millay was hardly ever mentioned by literary critics. The taint of “traditionalism” did not help Millay's cause, and the poet's lifelong exploration of sexuality, femininity and gender stereotypes was somehow not enough to generate sophisticated critical analyses. Since Millay seemed to be a largely traditional poet and a “politically incorrect” feminist model, second-wave feminists preferred to focus on other figures, classified as more modern and more overtly subversive. Scholarly recognition of Millay's significance within the canon of modern American poetry did not really begin until the 1990s.

Lev Gumilev: His Pretensions as Founder of Ethnology and his Eurasian Theories

Inner Asia ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergei Panarin ◽  
Viktor Shnirelman
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Biological Entity ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Special Time

AbstractThis paper takes a critical look at the work of the extraordinarily popular historian Lev Gumilev. Writing in late Soviet times, Gumilev has become virtually a cult figure in Russia after his death. He took up the ideas of the Eurasianists of the early twentieth century, according to whom Russia's destiny is to be a Eurasian power, and he reconfigured them as a ‘scientific’ theory of ethnos. The ethnos is supposed to be a ‘biological’ entity determined by its place in the natural environment, but at the same time, inspired by a few innovative leaders, each ‘ethnos’ has its special time of intense flowering (which Gumilev called ‘passionary’). The article examines the contradictions in Gumilev's theories and its methodological flaws. It endswith a discussion of the political implications ofGumilev's popularity in post-Socialist Russia. He is not only admired by semi-educated people but is also legitimised by sections of the academy (a university is named after him in Kazakhstan). It is argued that his work lends a spurious credence to nationalismand anti-semitism.

scholarly journals The End of Modernism: Elias Canetti's "Auto-da-Fé"

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Donahue
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Nobel Laureate ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Literary Modernism ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Elias Canetti ◽  
Considerable Body

Nobel laureate Elias Canetti wrote his novel "Auto-da-Fé" ("Die Blendung") when he and the twentieth century were still quite young. Rooted in the cultural crises of the Weimar period, "Auto-da-Fé" first received critical acclaim abroad—in England, France, and the United States—where it continues to fascinate readers of subsequent generations. "The End of Modernism" places this work in its cultural and philosophical contexts, situating the novel not only in relation to Canetti's considerable body of social thought, but also within larger debates on Freud and Freudianism, misogyny and modernism's "fragmented subject," anti-Semitism and the failure of humanism, contemporary philosophy and philosophical fads, and traditionalist notions of literature and escapist conceptions of history. "The End of Modernism" portrays "Auto-da-Fé" as an exemplum of "analytic modernism," and in this sense a crucial endpoint in the progression of postwar conceptions of literary modernism.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin A. Schupmann
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Constitutional Theory ◽  
Original Solution ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The People ◽  
Popular Appeal ◽  
The Will ◽  
Mass Democracy ◽  
Modern Mass

The Introduction analyzes both how the popular appeal of the Nazi and Communist parties posed a dilemma for Weimar democracy and how Schmitt thought this dilemma illustrated the broader problem mass democracy posed for twentieth-century constitutional democratic states. The dilemma begged the question of whether the will of the people could be legitimately constrained. The Introduction contextualizes Schmitt’s analysis of this dilemma by reconstructing nineteenth- and early twentieth-century debates in German jurisprudence about the nature of valid law, arguing that Schmitt’s thought emerged out of an anti-positivist movement. This Introduction also assesses some of the problems facing scholarship of Schmitt, including his occasionalism and anti-Semitism. While acknowledging how damning these charges are, it argues that Schmitt’s state and constitutional theory can be separated from his personal failures and that his thought provides a valuable and original solution to the problems modern mass democracy poses.

G. K. Chesterton and Islam

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Tom Villis
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Context ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Protestant Christianity ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Scholarly Attention

G. K. Chesterton's anti-Semitism has attracted much scholarly attention, but his views on Islam have largely passed without comment. This article situates Chesterton's writings in relation to historical views of Islam in Britain and the political, cultural and religious context of the early twentieth century. Chesterton's complex and contradictory opinions fail to support easy conclusions about the immutability of prejudice across time. His views of Islam are at times orientalist and at other times critical of imperialism and elitism. As well as drawing on medieval Catholic ideas about the “heresy” of Islam, Chesterton also links Islam with Protestant Christianity. From another perspective, his views of Islam draw on liberal traditions of humanitarian interventionism and democratic patriotism. Finally, he also used Islam as a symbol of a corroding modernity. This study suggests the need for a historically sensitive genealogy of the evolution of anti-Muslim prejudice which is not predetermined by the politics of the early twenty-first century.

Barefoot Boston Boy Becomes Movie Man

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. T. McKenna
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Initial Work ◽  
Jewish Immigrants

This chapter details Levine’s early life, from his birth to his initial work as a film exhibitor, distributor, and promoter. Levine grew up in the horrible poverty of Boston’s West End, and the details of his early life are placed into the historical context of early twentieth-century Boston. As the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Levine not only experienced poverty but also anti-Semitism, and these experiences helped to shape the man he would become. Levine’s numerous early business ventures are also explored, as are his early days as a movie exhibitor and promoter and the importance of his marriage to Rosalie.

Marcia Reynders Ristaino. Port of Last Resort: The Diaspora Communities of Shanghai. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. xxxi, 369 pp.

AJS Review ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 188-190
Author(s):  
Bernard Wasserstein
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Stanford University ◽  
Extreme Right ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Jewish Refugees

This book compares two uneasily related exile communities in early twentieth-century Shanghai: the Russians and the Jews. Although traders, including some Jews, had drifted down from Siberia from the mid-nineteenth century, the Russians in Shanghai, for a time the city's largest foreign community, were mainly remnants of Admiral Kolchak's “White” army who fled Vladivostok in 1922–23, with a rag-tag group of camp followers, aboard what remained of the former imperial fleet. Most settled in the French Concession district and worked as small shopkeepers. The Jewish refugees from Germany and Central Europe who followed in the period 1938–41 had little in common with the Russians, some of whom regarded the Jews as commercial rivals, and many of whom were deeply infected by the traditional anti-Semitism of the Russian extreme right.

From Material to Infrastructure: Germaine Krull's Métal

October ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 173 ◽  
pp. 118-142
Author(s):  
Max Boersma
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Architectural Discourse ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Technical Systems ◽  
Western European ◽  
Photo Book

This article reexamines Germaine Krull's seminal 1928 photo book Métal, tracing the implications of the speculative analogy drawn by the project between metal and photography. Following this analogy through nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century architectural discourse, it newly situates the photographer's investigation against Sigfried Giedion's contemporaneous theorizations of iron construction and modern photography. Rather than critiquing or celebrating industry, Krull focuses on metal as it manifests the peculiar and fraught experience of living amid large-scale technical systems. In a singular way, Métal mobilizes its driving analogy to invoke—and, moreover, to theorize photographically—the infrastructures organizing Western European modernity.

scholarly journals The New Monograph of Prof. Nikolay Milkov – a Remarkable Research Approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-93
Author(s):  
Dimitar Tsatsov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
German Literature ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Analytical Philosophy ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Western European

The emphasis is on the research approach applied in the last monograph of Prof. Nikolay Milkov. It is about studying the early sources of analytical philosophy, and especially in German literature from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, he dwells on the Bulgarian philosophers Dimitar Mihalchev and Tseko Torbov. Dimitar Mihalchev publishes in German a monograph “Philosophical Studies. A Contribution to the Critique of Modern Psychologism” (Leipzig, 1909), which J. Moore evaluated. Tseko Torbov is an assistant to the neo-Kantian Leonard Nelson. Prof. Nikolay Milkov does not fail to mention these small presences of Bulgarian philosophers in the Western European intellectual panorama.

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