DOCSLIB.ORG

The Weimar Republic, Part I World War I in Europe

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Weimar Republic, Part I World War I in Europe Georg Grosz, Dedicated to Oskar Panizza (1919) The Weimar Republic, Part I Instability and Innovation World War I in Europe euphoria of 1914 turned to dismay 19th-century war had been expected 20th-century war was fought: technological warfare massive loss of life instability in Germany, Austria, Russia, Turkey American role world was a different place in 1918 1 World War I – aftermath in Germany March 1918: peace with Russia Nov. 1918: sailors’ mutiny, civil unrest 9 Nov. 1918: Emperor abdicates; proclamation of a republic 11 Nov. 1918: Armistice with western powers, 1918 early 1919: communist revolts The Weimar Republic named after city where constitutional assembly was held decentralized national government universal suffrage never accepted by ultraconservatives or nationalists elected president with considerable powers • Article 48: rule by emergency decree The Treaty of Versailles harsh terms loss of land Allied occupation of Rhineland war guilt clause – reparations Germans felt betrayed by Wilson Versailles + “stab in the back” theory = large-scale resentment of nationalists 2 Germany in the early 1920s inflation crisis (climax: Nov. 1923) war had been financed by loans and bonds, not taxes reparations fulfillment was impossible French occupation of Ruhr led to German production boycott 3 Anti-Republican sentiments republic not universally accepted nostalgia for emperor 1925: Hindenburg elected President general with anti-democratic leanings Thomas Mann and the Republic most famous German novelist of the period 1917: Observations of a non-political man declared himself in favour of monarchy saw war as struggle between “Kultur” (German culture) and “Zivilisation” (western civilization, represented by France) loss of war would mean loss of German identity Thomas Mann and the Republic 1922: On the German Republic admits to the excesses of the Wilhelmine era monarchist at heart, but calls himself a common- sense republican fears lack of support for republic will result in an absence of a state form that can carry German culture forward 4 Germany in the late 1920s relative stability 1924-1929 1929: stock market crash; global depression by 1933, 1 out of 3 Germans unemployed increased use made of Article 48 premeditated; economic crisis as pretext 1932 elections: anti-democratic majority(i.e. ultranationalist, communist) organized street fighting Weimar Culture innovative international (inspiration and influence) provocative highly critical of (German) society intrigued and troubled by “modernity” What is “modernity”? “Works that consciously and innovatively react, positively or negatively, to changes – social and mental – since the Industrial Revolution [ca. 1885] can be claimed for modernism.” (Alfred D. White) modernity: cultural fabric that has enabled the above artistic response 5 Weimar and the Arts: Highlights dada montage art Bauhaus architecture and design school popular music (jazz) radio cinema expressionsim new objectivity Work Council for Art Manifesto typical example of one new perspective on art during the early years of Weimar reduce state influence in the arts separate arts from state purposes (e.g. war memorials) connect the arts with people socialist impulse: seen in many of Weimar’s artistic developments dada started in Switzerland, 1916 by Hugo Ball came to Berlin, 1917 key values: nonsensical anti-bourgeois pacifist 6 Hugo Ball’s dada manifesto (1916) An International word. Just a word, and the word a movement. Very easy to understand. Quite terribly simple. To make of it an artistic tendency must mean that one is anticipating complications. Dada psychology, dada Germany cum indigestion and fog paroxysm, dada literature, dada bourgeoisie, and yourselves, honoured poets, who are always writing with words but never writing the word itself, who are always writing around the actual point. Dada world war without end, dada revolution without beginning, dada, you friends and also-poets, esteemed sirs, manufacturers, and evangelists. Dada Tzara, dada Huelsenbeck, dada m'dada, dada m'dada dada mhm, dada dera dada, dada Hue, dada Tza. How does one achieve eternal bliss? By saying dada. How does one become famous? By saying dada. With a noble gesture and delicate propriety. Till one goes crazy. Till one loses consciousness. How can one get rid of everything that smacks of journalism, worms, everything nice and right, blinkered, moralistic, europeanised, enervated? By saying dada. 7 Hannah Höch, Cut with a Kitchen Knife (1919) excellent example of montage technique dadaist representation of Weimar instability 8 Kurt Schwitters, Ursonate Ursonate = “first/original sonata” reflected European interest in primal, natural emphasis on form, texture, sound at expense of social commentary Kurt Schwitters - Ursonate (1922) Bauhaus School 1919 - founded by Walter Gropius art, architecture, photography, design emphasis on modernity, functionality famous preliminary course on materials many of the teachers - e.g. Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe - emigrated to America after 1933 influence still felt in design 9 Bauhaus manifest "The complete building is the ultimate aim of all the visual arts. Once the noblest function of the fine arts was to embelish buildings: they were indispensable components of great architecture. Today the arts exist in isolation.... Architects, painters, and sculptors must learn anew the composite character of the building as an entity.... The artist is an exalted craftsman. In rare moments of inspiration, transcending his conscious will, the grace of heaven may cause his work to blossom into art. But proficiency in his craft is essential to every artist. Therein lies the prime source of creative imagination." Bauhaus program Bauhaus design 10 Berlin and the Weimar Republic Berlin of the 1920s has become synonymous with Weimar culture mecca for emerging and immigrant artists media and entertainment capitol Berlin as symbol of a new age elicited various responses compare Nicholson, Goll, Goebbels readings 11.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Blue Review Literature Drama Art Music
    Volume I Number III JULY 1913 One Shilling Net THE BLUE REVIEW LITERATURE DRAMA ART MUSIC CONTENTS Poetry Rupert Brooke, W.H.Davies, Iolo Aneurin Williams Sister Barbara Gilbert Cannan Daibutsu Yone Noguchi Mr. Bennett, Stendhal and the ModeRN Novel John Middleton Murry Ariadne in Naxos Edward J. Dent Epilogue III : Bains Turcs Katherine Mansfield CHRONICLES OF THE MONTH The Theatre (Masefield and Marie Lloyd), Gilbert Cannan ; The Novels (Security and Adventure), Hugh Walpole : General Literature (Irish Plays and Playwrights), Frank Swinnerton; German Books (Thomas Mann), D. H. Lawrence; Italian Books, Sydney Waterlow; Music (Elgar, Beethoven, Debussy), W, Denis Browne; The Galleries (Gino Severini), O. Raymond Drey. MARTIN SECKER PUBLISHER NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI The Imprint June 17th, 1913 REPRODUCTIONS IN PHOTOGRAVURE PIONEERS OF PHOTOGRAVURE : By DONALD CAMERON-SWAN, F.R.P.S. PLEA FOR REFORM OF PRINTING: By TYPOCLASTES OLD BOOKS & THEIR PRINTERS: By I. ARTHUR HILL EDWARD ARBER, F.S.A. : By T. EDWARDS JONES THE PLAIN DEALER: VI. By EVERARD MEYNELL DECORATION & ITS USES: VI. By EDWARD JOHNSTON THE BOOK PRETENTIOUS AND OTHER REVIEWS: By J. H. MASON THE HODGMAN PRESS: By DANIEL T. POWELL PRINTING & PATENTS : By GEO. H. RAYNER, R.P.A. PRINTERS' DEVICES: By the Rev.T. F. DIBDIN. PART VI. REVIEWS, NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. Price One Shilling net Offices: 11 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, W.G. JULY CONTENTS Page Post Georgian By X. Marcel Boulestin Frontispiece Love By Rupert Brooke 149 The Busy Heart By Rupert Brooke 150 Love's Youth By W. H. Davies 151 When We are Old, are Old By Iolo Aneurin Williams 152 Sister Barbara By Gilbert Cannan 153 Daibutsu By Yone Noguchi 160 Mr.
    [Show full text]
  • AS.450 ( Liberal Arts) 1
    AS.450 ( Liberal Arts) 1 AS.450.605. Art Since 1960. 3 Credits. AS.450 ( LIBERAL ARTS) What is contemporary art, and what are the factors that shaped it? This course will attempt to answer those questions through a chronological AS.450.082. MLA Capstone: Portfolio. and thematic investigation of some of the most influential artworks, The MLA Portfolio is a zero-credit Capstone option. Students who select movements, and theories of the past 60 years. Beginning with a close the Portfolio option will take 10 courses in the program (one core course look at mid-century modernism, we will move into a consideration of Pop, and 9 electives), and register for the zero-credit portfolio in their final Minimalism, conceptual art, land art, performance art, postmodernism, semester. The portfolio will be completed within the same semester as AIDS activism, and relational aesthetics. Along the way, we will also the 10th course. The portfolio consists of a sampling of the best papers consider the relevance of feminist and phenomenological theory and of and projects written over the course of the student's graduate career, institutional critique and globalization; at the same time, we will explore and it is designed to highlight the intellectual points of convergence in ways in which art of our own time constitutes both an extension of, and each student's course of study, presenting the student's reflections on reaction against, some of the historical ideas we encounter. Throughout, knowledge gained and lessons learned. students will have a chance to read and discuss both primary and AS.450.600.
    [Show full text]
  • In --Thomas Mann
    Postmodern Pathologies: Living with Disbelief in The Fictions of Angela Carter AU interest in diseuse and death is only another expression of interest in life. --Thomas Mann Jennifer J. Gustar A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctorate Graduate Department of English University of Toronto O Copyright by Jennifer Joyce Gustar 1997 Bibliothéque nationale du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographic Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A ON4 OttawaON KIAON4 canada CaMda The author hm granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence dlowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in ths thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otheMrise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. ABSTRACT Postrnodem Pathologies: Living with Disbelief in the Fictions of Angela Carter Jennifer Joyce Gustar PhD Degree-June 1997 Graduate English Department University of Toronto This study of the narrative techniques employed in Angela Carter's novels, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman and Nights at the Cireur.
    [Show full text]
  • THOMAS MANN's INTERPRETATIONS of DER TOD in VENEDIG and TMEIR RELIABILITY by Herbert Lehnert
    THOMAS MANN'S INTERPRETATIONS OF DER TOD IN VENEDIG AND TMEIR RELIABILITY by Herbert Lehnert One of the last comments by Thomas Mann on his Der Tod in Venedig is found in a letter to Franz H. Mautner, the author of a valuable study on the Greek elements in Mann's st0ry.l In this letter Mann claimed his memory to be the source of an Odyssey quotation in the text. Homer's verses, he writes, had been well preserved in his memory from his days as a boy. There is ample evidence, however, that the source for the Homer quotation in the text was Erwin Rohde's Psyche, a book from which Mann also took other material for Der Tod in Venedig.2 Why did he not name Rohde's book as a source of Der Tod in Venedig? Psyche is a most respectable book, written in a beautiful style rarely found among German scholars, and it is still recognized as the standard work on the topic, namely the Greek beliefs concerning the existence of the soul after death. Could he have forgotten the rather elaborate process, that we can reconstruct, of not only reading the book, but also pencil-marking some passages, excerpting some of these, and then using them in the story? This is quite possible after forty years, although he still owned the book when living in his last home in Switzerland, and placed it in his library among works on mythology which he used for Joseph. He had mentioned his early knowledge of classical legends much earlier in "Kinderspiele" (1904).
    [Show full text]
  • Thomas Mann and Franz Kafka
    The Magician9sModem Avatars: A Study of the Artist Figure in the Works of Marcel Proust, Thomas Mann and Franz Kafka Ramona M. Uritescu Graduate Program in Comparative Literature Submitted in partial fidf3ment of the requîrernents for the degree of Master of Arts Faculty of Graduate Studies The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario August 1998 O Ramona M. Untescu 1998 National Library Bibliothèque nationale (Sfl of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Ottawa ON KtA ON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, districbute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de rnicrofiche/nlm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retaîns ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be prînted or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent êeimprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son pexmïssion. autorisation. ABSTRACT Adapting the figure of the Renaissance magician, 1 argue that it is a fitting metaphor for the modem artist/writer. Both the magus and the writer perform an act of mediation between two ontological levels and constitute, as a result, unique gates of access to "the beyond." That is why they cm both be associated with the kind of deception specitic to charlatanism and why they represent a different kind of morality that renders acts of voyeurism and profanation necessary.
    [Show full text]
  • European Cultural Developments (1848-1914)
    REA European Cultural Developments (1848-1914) The great political and economic changes of this period were accompanied by cultural achievements that included the development of a literate citizenry and substantive innovations in science, literature, art, music, and other areas of intellectual activity. In large part, these developments occurred as a reaction against the mechanistic sterility of the scientism and positivism of the age: however, some achievements, such as Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution and natural selection, ironically extended the exaggerated claims of scientism. From Darwin, Richard Wagner, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud to Claude Monet Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky, Oscar Wilde. Thomas Mann, and James Joyce, intelligent Europeans of the era pursued differing, and at times opposing, approaches in their quest for truth. For much of the nineteenth century, after romanticism had exhausted its charms, artists sought to master reality by giving a ruthlessly truthful rendering of it the so-called movement of realism in the arts and letters. Though realism’s practitioners were self- consciously “bohemian” in their lifestyles, their efforts oddly paralleled the go- getting worldly realism of many staid liberals, especially the captains of industry and trade who triumphed after mid-century. Later, many philosophers became critical of liberal democracy, which they identified with mass culture and political ineptitude. Artists attempted to escape their plight through moving into symbolism with their pen or brush; there, they were free to express their fantasies of hope and despair. Realism Western art had had realistic tendencies since the Renaissance, and a number of writers in the seventeenth century, such as William Shakespeare.
    [Show full text]
  • Cross-Cultural Intertextuality in Gao Xingjian's Novel Lingshair. A
    LI XIA Cross-Cultural Intertextuality in Gao Xingjian's Novel Lingshair. A Chinese Perspective Gao Xingjian's novel Ungshar? (1990) has been identified by leading Western critics (the Nobel Prize Committee in particular) as one of the great works of twentieth-century Chinese literature, which has opened new paths for Chinese fiction with regard to form, structure and psychological foundation. In addition to the innovative complexity of narrative technique and linguistic ingenuity, Gao Xingjian has also been hailed a creator of distinct images of contemporary humanity and one of the few male authors artistically preoccupied with the "truth of women." While the claim concerning women is at best problematic, Gao's narrative technique as highlighted in LJngshan represents without doubt a highly artistic integration of traditional Chinese literary practice and some of the key features of Western (European) narrative technique associated by Ihab Hassan, Douwe Fokkema, Fredric Jameson, Umberto Eco, and Linda Hutcheon, among others, with postmodernist fictional discourse. As Gao left China for France in 1987, he was still present at the early debate on modernism and postmodernism among Chinese scholars and writers such as Yuan Kejia, Chen Kun, Liu Mingjiu, Wang Meng, Xu Chi, and Li Tuo, to mention only the more important ones, in the early 1980s (Wang 500-01). Due to his longstanding interest in Western literature, philosophy, and literary theory, which he studied at the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute as a French major, it is even likely that he attended Eco's, Jameson's or Fokkema's lectures at Peking University in the mid 1980s, or that 1 Lingshan has been translated into English as Soul Mountain by Mabel Lee (2000a).
    [Show full text]
  • Thomas Mann, World Author: Representation and Autonomy in the World Republic of Letters
    7KRPDV0DQQ:RUOG$XWKRU5HSUHVHQWDWLRQDQG$XWRQRP\ LQWKH:RUOG5HSXEOLFRI/HWWHUV 7RELDV%RHV Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, Volume 51, Number 2, May 2015, pp. 132-147 (Article) 3XEOLVKHGE\8QLYHUVLW\RI7RURQWR3UHVV For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/smr/summary/v051/51.2.boes.html Access provided by University of Notre Dame (5 Dec 2015 22:19 GMT) Thomas Mann, World Author: Representation and Autonomy in the World Republic of Letters Tobias Boes University of Notre Dame In her influential study The World Republic of Letters, Pascale Casanova draws a firm line between what she calls “national” and “international” writers. For national writers, “literary aesthetics (because they are connected with political questions) are necessarily neonaturalistic.” International writers, on the other hand, are described as “cosmopolitans and polyglots who, owing to their knowl- edge of the revolutions that have taken place in the freest territories of the literary world, attempt to introduce new norms” (110–11). There are a number of different criticisms that could be levelled at this dis- tinction. Here, I want simply to point out the striking similarities between what Casanova alleges are universal sociological categories, on the one hand, and a particular historicizing narrative about literary modernism, on the other. Casa- nova insists, for instance, that the struggle for “autonomy,” which she defines as “literary emancipation in the face of political (and national) claims to authority” (39), represents the most distinctive characteristic of international writing. She thereby echoes claims that have been made about “modern” art since at least the late nineteenth century (for an overview of these debates, see Goldstone).
    [Show full text]
  • An Interpretation of the Musical Themes in Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain by George Coffin
    An Interpretation of the Musical Themes In Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain By George Coffin In a symphonic literary work such as Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain, the individual themes which interweave to produce the complex counterpoint of the whole unit can hardly be sufficiently treated in one essay. To avoid such confusion we shall, then, consider only the musical themes and references as they parallel the personal- ity development of Hans Castorp. Through this chronological present- ation of references we may observe the evolution of character in musical symbols carefully chosen to express the first simplicity and final complexity of the novel's central character. Upon Hans' arrival at the Berghof we find the first musical refer- ence of the book in a hymn and a march (neither named) which are played at the first Sunday concert. Hans, at the time of his arrival, is marked by a simplicity and naivete exhibited in his response to the selections played by the visiting band. Both selections are in them- selves uncomplicated, and our hero enjoys them on the level of the purely physical in that they produce a pleasantly narcotic effect. Here we learn that he has always enjoyed music, although he has no great insight into its meaning. During the same early period of his initiation into the mystic atmosphere, the hermetic entombment of the sanatorium, there is a further and more powerful association on the physical level of interpretation when the playing of a waltz is linked with the vulgarity of the Russian couple in the next room.
    [Show full text]
  • Modernism, Fiction and Mathematics
    MODERNISM, FICTION AND MATHEMATICS JOHANN A. MAKOWSKY July 15, 2019 Review of: Nina Engelhardt, Modernism, Fiction and Mathematics, Edinburgh Critical Studies in Modernist Culture, Edinburgh University Press, Published June 2018 (Hardback), November 2019 (Paperback) ISBN Paperback: 9781474454841, Hardback: 9781474416238 1. The Book Under Review Nina Engelhardt's book is a study of four novels by three authors, Hermann Broch's trilogy The Sleepwalkers [2, 3], Robert Musil's The Man without Qualities [21, 23, 24], and Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and Against the Day [27, 28]. Her choice of authors and their novels is motivated by the impact the mathe- matics of the interwar period had on their writing fiction. It is customary in the humanities to describe the cultural ambiance of the interwar period between World War I and World War II as modernism. Hence the title of Engelhardt's book: Mod- ernism, Mathematics and Fiction. Broch and Musil are indeed modernist authors par excellence. Pynchon is a contemporary American author, usually classified by the literary experts as postmodern. arXiv:1907.05787v1 [math.HO] 12 Jul 2019 Hermann Broch in 1909 Robert Musil in 1900 1 2 JOHANN A. MAKOWSKY Thomas Pynchon ca. 1957 Works produced by employees of the United States federal government in the scope of their employment are public domain by statute. Engelhard's book is interesting for the literary minded mathematician for two reasons: First of all it draws attention to three authors who spent a lot of time and thoughts in studying the mathematics of the interwar period and used this experience in the shaping of their respective novels.
    [Show full text]
  • Robert Musil: Literature As Experience
    Studies in 20th Century Literature Volume 18 Issue 2 Article 7 6-1-1994 Robert Musil: Literature as Experience Burton Pike CUNY Graduate School Follow this and additional works at: https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl Part of the German Literature Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Pike, Burton (1994) "Robert Musil: Literature as Experience," Studies in 20th Century Literature: Vol. 18: Iss. 2, Article 7. https://doi.org/10.4148/2334-4415.1351 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Studies in 20th Century Literature by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Robert Musil: Literature as Experience Abstract Trained as a scientist and empirical psychologist, Robert Musil offers an illuminating instance of a post- Nietzschean modernist writer whose endeavor was to develop an experimental literary language that would more adequately represent experience as psychology and philosophy were coming to understand it. Musil's enterprise, based on regarding literature as experience rather than as a formal construct of language only, is not best examined by structurally-based language or discourse analysis and criticism. Like Mach and William James coming along at the end of the idealistic tradition in European thought, Musil wanted to fashion a language that would permit objective communication of the whole complex flow of experience from person to person and within society as a whole, and thus make true communication possible.
    [Show full text]
  • A Gramophone in Every Grave
    History and Technology Vol. 21, No. 3, September 2005, pp. 325–329 ESSAY REVIEW A Gramophone in Every Grave TheTaylorGHAT119856.sgm10.1080/07341510500198735History0734-1512Essay2005213000000SeptemberThomasMisaDepartmentmisa@iit.edu Review and& and Francis (print)/1477-2620Francis Technologyof HumanitiesIllinois Group 2005 LtdSenses Ltd (online) Institute of TechnologyChicagoIL60616USA of Modernism: Technology, Perception, and Aesthetics SARA DANIUS Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002 When the protagonist of Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, Hans Castorp, first glimpses the chest of the woman he loves, it is a seminal image for students of modern literature and modern technology. The X-ray portrait penetrates through the surface layers of clothes and skin, and reveals an inner world of delicate bones, internal organs, and ghostlike flesh. The X-ray keepsake is a new form of memory, mediated by technology. In this smart and engaging book, Sara Danius brings a historicizing approach and close textual analysis to key passages in the modernist canon. The ques- tions she asks of Mann’s Magic Mountain, Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, and James Joyce’s Ulysses are difficult and intelligent ones. How did photography, gramophones, motion pictures, city trams, automobiles, and airplanes affect modern- ist culture? How did modernist writers engage these perception-changing technolo- gies? Why is the obvious presence of technology in their works hard to see? How can we conceptualize these changes in technology, culture, and aesthetics? To begin, she suggests that a deep-seated antitechnological bias accounts for the great silence about technology in the standard interpretations of literary modernism. The bias began with the modernists themselves (making intellectual space in a technol- ogy saturated culture) and it continued with the legion of critics and interpreters who followed in their wake.
    [Show full text]