Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Notes to the Reader
- List of Abbreviations
- Timeline of Modern Czech History
- 1 Introduction: Nationalism, Modernism, and the Social Responsibility of Art in Prague
- 2 Smetana, Hostinský, and the Aesthetic Debates of the Nineteenth Century
- 3 Legacies, Ideologies, and Responsibilities: The Polemics of the Pre-Independence Years (1900–1918)
- 4 “Archetypes Who Live, Rejoice, and Suffer”: Czech Opera in the Fin de Siècle
- 5 The Pathology of the New Society: Debates in the Early Years of the First Republic (1918–24)
- 6 Infinite Melody, Ruthless Polyphony: Czech Modernism in the Early Republic
- 7 “A Crisis of Modern Music or Audience?”: Changing Attitudes to Cultural and Stylistic Pluralism (1925–30)
- 8 “I Have Rent My Soul in Two”: Divergent Directions for Czech Opera in the Late 1920s
- 9 Heaven on Earth: Socialism, Jazz, and a New Aesthetic Focus (1930–38)
- 10 “A Sad Optimism, the Happiness of the Resigned”: Extremes of Operatic Expression in the 1930s
- 11 The Ideological Debates of Prague Within a European Context
- Appendix One Personalia
- Appendix Two Premieres and New Productions at the National Theater, 1900–1938
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - The Pathology of the New Society: Debates in the Early Years of the First Republic (1918–24)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Notes to the Reader
- List of Abbreviations
- Timeline of Modern Czech History
- 1 Introduction: Nationalism, Modernism, and the Social Responsibility of Art in Prague
- 2 Smetana, Hostinský, and the Aesthetic Debates of the Nineteenth Century
- 3 Legacies, Ideologies, and Responsibilities: The Polemics of the Pre-Independence Years (1900–1918)
- 4 “Archetypes Who Live, Rejoice, and Suffer”: Czech Opera in the Fin de Siècle
- 5 The Pathology of the New Society: Debates in the Early Years of the First Republic (1918–24)
- 6 Infinite Melody, Ruthless Polyphony: Czech Modernism in the Early Republic
- 7 “A Crisis of Modern Music or Audience?”: Changing Attitudes to Cultural and Stylistic Pluralism (1925–30)
- 8 “I Have Rent My Soul in Two”: Divergent Directions for Czech Opera in the Late 1920s
- 9 Heaven on Earth: Socialism, Jazz, and a New Aesthetic Focus (1930–38)
- 10 “A Sad Optimism, the Happiness of the Resigned”: Extremes of Operatic Expression in the 1930s
- 11 The Ideological Debates of Prague Within a European Context
- Appendix One Personalia
- Appendix Two Premieres and New Productions at the National Theater, 1900–1938
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
On October 28, 1918, a monumental change took place that altered the course of Czech society for the succeeding two decades: an assembly of figures from Czech political life gathered and issued a proclamation of independence, thereby ending 298 years of Austrian political and cultural domination. A new Republic was born that included not only a union of Czechs and Slovaks (for the first time in their history, creating borders that had never before existed), but also new minority populations of German, Hungarian, Polish, and Rusyn citizens, with which the new government and society had to contend. Almost overnight, attitudes changed in Prague's Czech-speaking musical community regarding cultural interaction, from perceived isolation to openness, from marginalization to domination, while for the long-standing German community these changes happened exactly in reverse, occasionally with disturbing and violent consequences. Although for the Czechs the era started with an overwhelming sense of optimism, by the mid-1920s this exuberance had sharply abated, prompted largely by fears of the modern, cosmopolitan world they had rushed to embrace. Conversely, for the German-Bohemians, the initial anguish of dispossession gave way gradually to a new, if limited, cooperative spirit, particularly with other German cultural centers.
Musically the new era paralleled these social developments, in that a new openness to modernism and foreign influences in 1918 was soon replaced by an anxiety over the potential loss of Czech national difference and tradition.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Opera and Ideology in PraguePolemics and Practice at the National Theater, 1900–1938, pp. 110 - 154Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2006