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The Central Synagogue of Sofia
The Central Synagogue of Sofia was built between 1905 and 1909 as a highly visible and monumental structure in the social, commercial, and religious center of the Bulgarian capital. Having survived the Second World War, it remains a testament to early 20th century Sofia and its majority Sephardic Jewish community. In its architecture, it reflects the city's search for its own modern, European, and national identity, whilst attesting to the struggle of the Sofia Jewish community headed by its chief rabbi Marcus Ehrenpreis to claim its place within the nation building project. In this first in-depth study of the building, Fani Gargova illuminates the history of the Central Synagogue of Sofia and the motivations behind its construction by positioning its appearance and architecture vis-à-vis Central European Reform synagogues and the emerging Bulgarian national style. By looking at the building through the lens of urban planning, building material and technique, liturgy, as well as musical performance, this book significantly expands the common notion of synagogue architecture.
Culture and Legacy of the Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution of October 1917 was an event of global significance. Despite this fact, public attention and even research mostly focused on Russia and the other states that became part of USSR for many decades. The impact of these dramatic events on other parts of the world was neglected or not systematically explored until recently. And in analyzing the events, political history still dominates the field. This volume, which is largely based on papers presented at the third annual conference of the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies, adds to this image some valuable perspectives by exploring the culture as well as the political and cultural legacy of the Russian Revolution. Three focal points are taken here: the revolution’s rhetoric and performance, its religious semantics, and its impact on Asia.
The Destruction of Art
Last winter, a man tried to break Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain sculpture. The sculpted foot of Michelangelo’s David was damaged in 1991 by a purportedly mentally ill artist. With each incident, intellectuals must confront the unsettling dynamic between destruction and art. Renowned art historian Dario Gamboni is the first to tackle this weighty issue in depth, exploring specters of censorship, iconoclasm, and vandalism that surround such acts. Gamboni uncovers here a disquieting phenomenon that still thrives today worldwide. As he demonstrates through analyses of incidents occurring in nineteenth- and twentieth-century America and Europe, a complex relationship exists among the evolution of...
The Business of Ballet
The Business of Ballet: Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes between Profit and the Avant-garde explores how a remarkable, internationally recognized ballet company, the Ballets Russes, was able to survive for twenty years without stable funding. Focusing on Ballets Russes’s founder, Serge Diaghilev, and his talent for discovering monies through an uncanny ability to secure funds from aristocrats, industrialists, artists, and swindlers, Ira Nadel offers new insight into the financial life of modern ballet. Throughout [his] analysis, Nadel reveals that Diaghilev was able to attract not only financial support but also the most innovative artistic and musical talents and choreographers of the period,...
We Weren't Modern Enough
Meskimmon asks why women artists were left out of the canon of German modernism, tracing the reasons to the construction of a unified (male) history of art that in effect denied women a voice. The book is an effort to reconceive the period's art history and the perspective of the Weimar woman artist.
Anarchy or Chaos
In this fascinating biography of the Indian revolutionary M. P. T. Acharya (1887–1954), Ole Birk Laursen uncovers the remarkable transnational networks, movements and activities of India’s most important anticolonial anarchist in the twentieth century. Driven by the urge for complete freedom from colonialism, authoritarianism, fascism and militarism, which are rooted in the idea and politics of the nation-state, Acharya fought for an international vision of socialism and freedom. During the tumultuous opening decades of the 1900s—marked by the globalisation of radical inter-revolutionary struggles, world wars, the rise of communism and fascism, and the growth of colonial independence m...
The Organic School of the Russian Avant-Garde
The artists of the Organic School of the Russian avant-garde found inspiration as well as a model for artistic growth in the creative principles of nature. Isabel Wünsche analyzes the artistic influences, intellectual foundations, and scientific publications that shaped the formation of these artists. Particular emphasis is given to the holistic worldviews and organic approaches prevalent among artists of the pre-revolutionary avant-garde and the emergence of the concept of Organic Culture.
A Socialist Realist History?
How did the Eastern European and Soviet states write their respective histories of art and architecture during 1940s–1960s? The articles address both the Stalinist period and the Khrushchev Thaw, when the Marxist-Leninist discourse on art history was "invented" and refined. Although this discourse was inevitably "Sovietized" in a process dictated from Moscow, a variety of distinct interpretations emerged from across the Soviet bloc in the light of local traditions, cultural politics and decisions of individual authors. Even if the new "official" discourse often left space open for national concerns, it also gave rise to a countermovement in response to the aggressive ideologization of art and the preeminence assigned to (Socialist) Realist aesthetics.
Biocentrism and Modernism
Examining the complex intersections between art and scientific approaches to the natural world, Biocentrism and Modernism reveals another side to the development of Modernism. While many historians have framed this movement as being mechanistic and "against" nature, the essays in this collection illuminate the role that nature-centric ideologies played in late-nineteenth to mid-twentieth-century Modernism. The essays in Biocentrism and Modernism contend that it is no accident that Modernism arose at the same time as the field of modern biology. From nineteenth-century discoveries, to the emergence of the current environmentalist movement during the 1960s, artists, architects, and urban planners have responded to currents in the scientific world. Sections of the volume treat both philosophic worldviews and their applications in theory, historiography, and urban design. This collection also features specific case studies of individual artists, including Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and Jackson Pollock.
Facing Fascism and Confronting the Past
Spanning almost the entire twentieth century, from the 1920s to the 1990s, this book gives voice to both Jewish and non-Jewish women writers from German-speaking countries who were silenced during the Nazi years. Discussions on gender, patriarchy, and fascism are brought to bear on the works of Nelly Sachs, Anna Seghers, Elisabeth Langgässer, Ingeborg Drewitz, Luise Rinser, Grete Weil, Christa Wolf, and others. The book also includes an autobiographical account of a Holocaust survivor's experience. In light of recent political events in Europe, this book is particularly relevant. Contributors include Gisela Brinker-Gabler, Ruth Dinesen, Elke P. Frederiksen, Gertraud Gutzmann, Robert Holub, Ritta Jo Horsley, Ruth Kluger, Helga Kraft, Sara Lennox, Elke Liebs, Dagmar Lorenz, Elaine Martin, Richard McCormick, Renate Möhrmann, Monika Shafi, Guy Stern, and Margaret Ward.
