Art and Life in Modernist Prague: Karel Čapek and his Generation, 1911-1938 (Palgrave Studies in Cultural and Intellectual History)

In most contemporary historical writing, the picture of modern life in Habsburg Central Europe is rather gloomy. Centered on Vienna in the twilight years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it is the story of the failure of rationalism and the rise of a politics of fantasy culminating in protofascist movements. This book tells a different story, focusing on the generation of Czech writers and artists distinguished by their optimistic view of the world in the years before the First World War. These figures, most notably Karel Capek, greeted the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy not with despair and trepidation but with a sense of hope and liberation, and their early vitalism and anti-rationalism later led them closer to liberalism, not further away from it In most histories of Europe before the First World War, modern life in Habsburg Mitteleuropa takes on a decidedly gloomy cast. Centering on Vienna in the twilight years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, such accounts describe the failure of rationalism and the rise of a dangerous politics of fantasy. This book tells a different story, highlighting a generation of Czech writers and artists distinguished by their affirmative encounter with the modern world in the first decades of the twentieth century. Novelist and playwright Karel ?apek, along with other members of his cohort, embraced the possibilities of the post-Habsburg era. Tracing the roots of ?apek's generation to cubist art and turn-of-the-century philosophy, author Thomas Ort shows that the form of modernism they championed led not into the thickets of fascism or communism but in fact closer to liberal political ideals Front Matter....Pages i-xiii Introduction....Pages 1-29 Prague 1911: The Cubist City....Pages 31-59 Between Life and Form: Karel Čapek and the Prewar Modernist Generation....Pages 61-93 The Lessons of Life: Karel Čapek and the First World War....Pages 95-117 Art ⇠Life: The Čapek Generation and Devětsil in Interwar Czechoslovakia....Pages 119-151 The Self as Empty Space and Crowd: Karel Čapek and the Czechoslovak Condition....Pages 153-198 Conclusion....Pages 199-207 Back Matter....Pages 209-258