Overview

How did the revolutionary Left view cultural modernists? Their uneasy relationship is illustrated in this book with quotations ranging from Alexander's 'Dada is merely an impertinence' through Trotsky's 'There cannot be a proletarian culture' to Averbakh's 'Tear off the masks!' and Becher's 'There can only be one kind of genuine art: fighting art' This book covers communist attitudes to the whole field of cultural innovation, from the art of the left abstractionists to the literature of the worker-correspondent movement and the music of Weill and Eisler, through to proletarian film, theatre and photography. Historian Ben Fowkes takes full account of the impact on Weimar left culture of external events, such as the First World War, the 'Great Change' in the Soviet Union, and internal German developments-including the failure of revolution after 1918 and the rise of Nazism. Each chapter starts with an introduction that provides context for the relevant documents and explores the current state of research.

Full Product Details

Author:   Ben Fowkes
Publisher:   Haymarket Books
Imprint:   Haymarket Books
ISBN:  

9798888900017

Pages:   504
Publication Date:   17 November 2023
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Temporarily unavailable  
The supplier advises that this item is temporarily unavailable. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out to you.

Table of Contents

Preface Acknowledgements Abbreviations 1 Introduction: The Avant-Garde and Cultural Innovation 2 The German Setting 3 The Shock of War and Its Aftermath 4 Following the ‘Alexander Line’ 5 The Revolt of Art becomes a Revolt Against Art 6 Parallel Developments: The Wider European Context 7 The Soviet Cultural Background: The Debates of the 1920s and Their Relevance 8 The New Start of 1925 in Germany 9 New Forms and New Participants: Worker-Correspondents and Worker-Photographers 10 The Impact of the Great Change: The Attempt to Organise and Unify Proletarian Culture 11 Political, Literary, and Artistic Aspects of the Proletarian Culture Movement Conclusion: The End of Weimar and the Coming of Socialist Realism Appendix: List of Documents by Chapter Note on Sources Bibliography Index

Reviews

Author Information

Ben Fowkes, B.A. (Oxon.) (1961), Ph.D. (1966), London School of Economics, taught history at the universities of Sheffield and North London. He has published books on Communism in Germany and the communist era in Eastern Europe and Russia. He has translated several volumes of the work of Karl Marx, including The Economic Manuscript of 1863-1865, published by Brill.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions