The Magyar Bazár (1866–1904) and the Literary Salon Hosted by the Wohl Sisters in Budapest

Cultural and media studies research of the past decades has emphasized the relationship between women’s literary salons and the periodical press, as well as the connection between conversation and publishing. In line with these approaches I examine the Magyar Bazár [Hungarian Bazar] (1866–1904), the most popular fashion magazine of the end of the nineteenth century in Hungary. The editors of Magyar Bazár were two sisters, Janka (1843–1901) and Stephanie Wohl (1846–89), who both had a widereaching erudition and internationally acknowledged reputation. They published articles in their mother tongue for the Hungarian press, as well as in German, French, and English for European journals (Revue internationale, the Scotsman, the Queen, Der Bazar), and published books with foreign publishers. Besides their work as writers, editors and journalists, the Wohl sisters hosted a literary salon in Budapest. This salon became the favourite meeting place of contemporary intellectuals, artists, and politicians — many of them also from abroad. In this article, I present the Wohl sisters’ rich oeuvre (as writers, editors, and translators) by interpreting their salon as the place of cultural and intellectual exchanges, and the site of creativity and networking. I will examine how social life and editorial work were connected in the production of their journal. I will demonstrate the interrelations of the Wohl sisters’ salon and the Magyar Bazár by placing these into their transnational and cross-cultural context.

The Clamart Salon

This essay explores the Nardal sisters’ literary output and the twentieth-century literary salon as ground zero for debates about the multi-layered identity that is Frenchness, over and against French memory and sites of historical memorialization, histories of Negritude, and the history of French salons. It examines questions of French identity, exclusion and appropriation, gender, assimilation, and political culture as they relate to conversations at the Clamart salon and the writings of its hosts. The contrast between Frantz Fanon’s famous ‘Look a Negro!’ and its precursor found in a Paulette Nardal short story highlights the need to locate the sœurs Nardal into the long and rich history of Black France, but also to situate the salon in the broader ethos of race consciousness emergent in the Black Atlantic world of its time.

Jung's Alleged Madness: From Mythopoeia to Mythologisation

This article recounts a little-known episode in C. G. Jung’s life and in the history of analytical psychology: Jung’s visit to Paris in the spring of 1934 at the invitation of the Paris Analytical Psychology Club (named ‘Le Gros Caillou’), a stay marked by a lecture on the ‘hypothesis of the collective unconscious’ held in a private setting and preceded by an evening spent in Daniel Halévy’s literary salon with some readers and critics.

C. G. JUNG’S ENCOUNTER WITH HIS FRENCH READERS. THE PARIS LECTURE (MAY 1934)

This article recounts a little-known episode in C. G. Jung’s life and in the history of analytical psychology: Jung’s visit to Paris in the spring of 1934 at the invitation of the Paris Analytical Psychology Club (named ‘Le Gros Caillou’), a stay marked by a lecture on the ‘hypothesis of the collective unconscious’ held in a private setting and preceded by an evening spent in Daniel Halévy’s literary salon with some readers and critics. KEYWORDS collective unconscious; France; Julien Green; Daniel Halévy; Lucien Lévy-Bruhl; Ernest Seillière.

Zinovieva-Annibal, Lydia Dmitrievna (1866–1907)

A Russian prose writer and dramatist, Zinovieva-Annibal (with her second husband, Viacheslav Ivanov) hosted the influential literary salon known as The Tower. Born in St Petersburg into an aristocratic family, Zinovieva-Annibal was a rebel and nonconformist throughout her life and in her work. She was known for her intensity and eccentricity. Writing in various genres, she produced Symbolist plays, such as The Rings [Kol’tsa] (1904) and The Singing Ass [Pevuchii osel], the novels Thirty-three Abominations [Tridtsat’-tri uroda] (1907) and The Tragic Menagerie [Tragicheskii zverinets] (1907), and other short stories, many of which were published only posthumously in the collection entitled No! [Net!] (1918). Zinovieva-Annibal is perhaps best known for Thirty-three Abominations, the first work of Russian literature to deal openly with the theme of lesbianism, which is portrayed in a decadent, tragic light. Like the short story ‘The Head of the Medusa,’ Thirty-three Abominations critiques the objectifying male gaze. The semi-autobiographical Tragic Menagerie, considered by critics to be her strongest work, is a female Bildungsroman, which traces the evolution of the heroine, Vera, from childhood to adulthood, when Vera is able ultimately to reconcile nature and culture on the Italian seashore.

Sitwell, Edith (1887–1964)

Dame Edith Sitwell was an experimental poet known for her eccentric behavior and aesthetics. A skillfully controlled reading voice, along with dramatic clothes and jewelry, led to her widespread recognition as an exceptional performer. Though she has received little attention within modernist studies, she significantly influenced the development of twentieth-century art with literary productions like Façade (1922) and her patronage of other artists, including Dylan Thomas. Her brothers Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell were two of her closest companions and collaborators. With them, she endeavored to build an avant-garde artistic society rivaling the Bloomsbury Group. Born into the British aristocracy, Sitwell had a strained relationship with her parents, Sir George and Lady Ida Sitwell, daughter of the Earl of Londesborough. A tall girl with an aquiline nose and hooded eyes, Sitwell did not conform to their idea of beauty, so her parents forced her to wear metal appliances to correct her spine and nose—an experience described in her autobiography, Taken Care Of (1965). Lady Sitwell’s trial for fraud exacerbated this dysfunctional family dynamic during the same year in which Edith published her first literary work, The Mother and Other Poems (1915). However, she had already moved to London in 1914 with former governess Helen Rootham, where she established a literary salon in austere rooms at Pembridge Mansions.

Representations of the fin-de-siècle literary salon in the chronicles of Matilde Serao

This article looks into the representations of the Italian literary salon in the print press during the 1880s. Special attention will be given to Matilde Serao’s mediation in the private as well as in the public sphere and to her double role as salon chronicler and salon attendee. Her views with regard to the artistic and political landscape of fin de siecle Italy will be examined through a series of chronicles on Pasquale Mancini, Baroness Magliani, Francesco De Renzis and the salon of the literary magazine Capitan Fracassa. The representations of these salons in the fortnightly periodical Cronaca Bizantina (Rome, 1881–1886) as well as in the daily newspaper Corriere di Roma (1883–1886) offered a new reading experience to a wide audience and encouraged the creation of an imagined community of salon attendees. Thus, salon participation will be studied through the prism of the periodical press, which interpreted salon life as a meaningful collective experience and a decisive factor in the formation of culture. Serao’s chronicle will also be viewed as an instrument of social critique, which raised questions on the rapid expansion of mass media, the growing demand for human progress, the withering away of politics and the growing importance of art as a means of personal expression.

The Black Mother/Wife

This chapter focuses on plays written by Georgia Douglas Johnson in the late 1920s as she hosted a literary salon in her Washington, D.C., home. These texts present the black mother/wife, whose existence is shaped by attempts to delay death. In Blue Blood, she prevents the murder of the men in her family by hiding the fact that she has been raped by a powerful white man. In Safe, she becomes desperate to avoid what she believes to be the inevitable fate of her newborn son: humiliating death at the hands of a mob. In Blue-Eyed Black Boy, she protects her adult son, but ultimately her success in stopping the mob underscores her family's vulnerability. In short, Johnson shows that the black mother/wife must forge romantic and parental bonds in a society that allows white men to rape black women and kill black men with impunity.