Change Itself Has Been the Most Constant Aspect of the Twentieth Century. in Addition To

Дедюхина Натэлла Борисовна 1

Приложение 1

Культура двадцатого столетия

Change itself has been the most constant aspect of the twentieth century. In addition to political and economic upheavals, there have been revolutionary scientific and technological developments. Scientists have learned many of the secrets of life, sent people to the moon, and developed the capacity to destroy humanity. Inventions such as automobiles, airplanes, telephones, televisions, and computers have altered lives. They have made broken local and regional barriers. They have made possible the spread of a-common culture throughout the globe.

The intellectual and artistic achievements of the century have been as diverse and at times, as revolutionary as the forces that erected them. There has been widespread experimentation. Points of view have often been in sharp disagreement. The views of the avant-garde those who create new ideas and techniques - have often been at odds with those of the general public. Some of the new ideas have gained wide acceptance. Others await the verdict of history.

New Technology. Prewar inventions began to have a major impact in Europe and North America during the 1920's Assembly lines turned out cars, like the American Ford and the French Citroen. These cars were inexpensive enough so that workers could buy them.

The automobile enabled people to travel more easily. It also changed the landscape, leading to the building of highways and the further growth of cities.

Another invention that came into wide use was the radio. Families gathered around their sets, listening to news and entertainment shows. Radio helped to produce a more homogeneous or uniform, culture. It also stimulated advertising and contributed to a rise in spending for consumer goods.

The movie was a third invention that came into its heyday in the 1920's. During World War I, the European film industry had been disrupted, while the American film industry grew. After the war, Hollywood productions dominated the movie screens of the world.

Silent films were produced at first. Then, in 1927, talking pictures were introduced. Whether silent or sound, movies attracted large audiences.

Automobiles, radios, and movies helped break down economic, local and regional barriers. They introduced millions of people to postwar ideas about psychology, music, fashion, and political and social issues.

New Artistic Directions. The break between old and new was perhaps sharpest in the arts. In painting, music, literature, and dance, traditions that had been evolving since the Renaissance were abandoned. The avant-garde experimented widely with new styles, media, and subject matter. Often their pioneering efforts were greeted with cries of shock and protest.

Literature. Many of the period's most thoughtful writers were deeply disillusioned by World War I and its aftermath. In the United States, F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the sense of disillusionment and the pleasure seeking of the 1920's in the Great Gatsby and other novels. Another American writer T.S. Eliot expressed dissatisfaction with the postwar world in his poems, "The Waste Land" and "The Hollow Men".

Dance. The twentieth century saw a transformation in the art of dance. The American dancer Isadora Duncan revolutionized dance with her personal style of performing barefoot in a loose tunic rather than in a classic ballet costume. Another American dancer, Martha Graham, expanded on Duncan's style and turned modern dance into a striking art form. Another innovation in dance came from the Russian Sergei Diaghilev and his company, the Ballets Russes. Their work led to the birth of modern ballet. Diaghilev was an impresario, or sponsor, who pulled together the talent in the Ballets Russes that created dazzling and shocking ballets. The Russian composer Igor Stravinsky wrote The Rite of Spring (1913) for Diaghilev and his dancers. Stravinsky’s modern music was a turning point for ballet. The leaping "dance steps performed to Stravinsky's music by ballet star Vaslav Nijinsky created a sensation. The further blending of modern dance and classical ballet was carried on by another Russian, George Balanchine, Balanchine, founder and director of the New York City Ballet, had begun his career as a choreographer, or dance arranger, with the Ballets Russes.

Music. In the early twentieth century, the USA made significant contributions in classical music. The work of Russian composer Sergey Prokofiev was considered revolutionary in the 1920's. His most famous composition is the children's symphony "Peter and the Wolf" (1936). He was called the "ape of steel" composer.

Radical changes in music theory were developed by Arnold Schonberg, a self-taught Austrian composer. Instead of harmonies based on the traditional eight - no scale, he proposed new musical arrangements based on 12 equally valued notes. His ground-breaking composition, Pierrot Lunaire (1912), used stark, dissonant, heavily symbolic music to express what he regarded as the decay of civilization. Audiences were outraged by performances of Schonberg's works.

Jazz. American jazz was the characteristic music of the 1920's, jazz developed from a mixture of American folk and religious music, European classical harmonies, and African rhythms. The music of American blacks-spirituals and work songs from the days of slavery was a major source.

In the 1920's jazz began to develop into a more sophisticated form and to reach a wider audience through photograph records. Among the outstanding jazz artists were trumpet player and bandleader Louis Armstrong, blues singer Bessie Smith, and pianist - composer Jelly Roll Morton. It was not until the 1940's, however, that interest in jazz spread beyond the United States.

Time of Upheaval. The 1930's and 1940's were a brutal shock after the prosperity and gaiety of the 1920's. The economic depression, the Spanish Civil War, the rise of Hitler, and World War II raised grave doubts about the future. Artists and intellectuals turned from personal interests and became committed to social and political causes. In the USSR and Nazi Germany, their work was carefully controlled by the government. Yet, the period was not a time of total despair and gloom. Big dance bands and movies provided some relief during the troubled times.

Popular Entertainment. The 1930'3 were the golden age of American film. The big Hollywood studios made comedies, dramas, musicals, and historical epics. It was the era that produced such classics as Gone With the Wind, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and Top Hat. Public attention was focused on movie stars such as Clark Gable, James Cagney, Fred Astaire, Greta Garbo, Bette Davis, and Katherine Hepburn. Movie houses showed double features and changed them weekly.

The content of most European films was not markedly different. Movies in general were escapist, designed to make viewers briefly forget the terrible strains of the depression and the growing political turmoil. In the 1940's filmmakers promoted the war effort in all countries involved in World War II. Films were used to strengthen the resistance of the people against the enemy.

The New Economics. Economists and government leaders were baffled by the depression. The shock of the crash and the inability of governments to solve the economic slump raised grave doubts about the capitalist system. In desperation, many young Americans land Europeans turned to Marxism as a solution.

In 1930's it became clear that business would not pick up again by itself. With so much of the working force unemployed, there was little demand for consumer goods. Production reached a low point, and these seemed no way to improve the situation. Workers could be hired only if consumption drastically improved. That would occur only when more people were employed.

A means to rescue the capitalist system was proposed by British economist John Maynard Keynes. In his book The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936), Keyness stated the revolutionary idea that governments should "prime the pump", or get the economy moving again through massive spending.

This idea was opposed to both traditional capitalist theory, which held that the government should stay out of business, and socialist theory, which advocated government ownership of business. However, Keynes's theories gradually gained acceptance. Government support of the economy through spending became standard practice in capitalist countries.

Government and the Arts. During the 1930's and 1940's some governments became actively involved in the arts. This participation varied significantly from country to country.

Soviet Union (Russia). In the 1920's artists in the SU had enjoyed much freedom. Painters, musicians, writers, and filmmakers had shared in a ferment of ideas. In the 1930's under Stalin, all artists were directed to help in the effort to build the new Communist society. Restrictive limits were placed on their creative activity as individuals.

In 1934, Maxim Gorky, one of the Soviet Union's writers, promoted socialist realism, a new method of art that received the realism, writers were to present reality from the standpoint of Communist ideology. They were required to focus on Soviet heroes and to be uplifting and positive in their conclusions. Literary criticism was limited to praising works of socialist realism and attacking works that deviated from the rules. The government controlled Soviet Writer's Union acted as a censor of all works submitted for publication.

The rules of socialist were extended to filmmaking, musical composition, painting, and the theater. Composers were forbidden to use Schonberg's musical theories in their compositions. Abstract painting was branded as a corrupt art form. Artists who violated the rules lost their jobs and privileges. Their works went unpublished, uninhibited, or unperformed. Artists faced exile and death of Soviet concentration camps. In addition to restrictions on individual creativity, contacts with the outside world were cut off. Foreign publications were barred. Foreign radio broadcasts were jammed, or interrupted by the government.

All these changes had a chilling effect on Soviet artists. Most Soviet works became predictable and uninspiring. However, there were some exceptions. Mikhail Sholokhov's And Quiet Flows the Don was a masterful novel about the Cossacks during the Russian Revolution. Sergey Prokofiev managed to compose some excellent works. Filmmaker Sergey Einsenstein made powerful films, like Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the terrible, that were based on Russian history. A few people wrote secretly and circulated their works underground.

During the administration of Franklin D.Roosvelt, the United States government created a variety of projects for artists. Under the Farm Security Administration, photographers recorded the plight of farmers during the depression. Through the Works Progress Administration (WPA), artists painted murals in post offices and other public buildings. Composers and playwrights wrote music and dramas, while touring theatrical groups performed in small towns across the country. Writers recorded oral histories and compiled state histories.

With or without government backing, many American artists became actively involved in social causes during the 1930's . John Steinbeck wrote the novel "The Grapes of Wrath" the story of poor, oppressed Oklahoma farmers who settled in California. John Dos Passos's trilogy USA is a broader criticism of conditions in American society during the period. Richard Wright's "Uncle Tom's Children" studied racial problems.

Artists such as Ben Shahn, Moses Sayer, and Peter Blume became known as social realists. They were publicists and reformers who painted to draw attention to injustice, corruption, and human suffering caused by the depression. They used a variety of techniques to make their point, drawing on expressionist, cubist, and surrealist traditions as well as realism. Many of social realists continued to attack social ills in the decades after the 1930's.

The Information Explosion. In the postwar period, changes in the arts have been outpaced by changes in science and technology. There has been an explosion of information. So much information is now available that it has become nearly impossible to stay up-to-date on any subject. For example, there have been more books and articles published about Shakespeare than one person could read in lifetime.

The Search for Meaning. Despite outward prosperity, there were signs of stress and uncertainty in the postwar West. As in the 1920's, some people rejected the emphasis on material goods. They turned away from science and reason, which had created the weapons of war, and looked elsewhere for the meaning of modern existence.

Beat Generation. In the United States, one reaction came from a small group of nonconformists. They felt alienated by American prosperity and material values. They became known as beats, or beatniks. The novelist Jack Keronac and the poet Allen Ginsberg were the spiritual leaders of the beat generation.

Beatkins wanted to be open to experience and sensation. They tried not to direct their lives toward set goals. Their sandals, jeans, and black turtlenecks became symbols of their refusal to conform to middle-class society. Beat writing opposed traditional rules of writing and was intended not to be easily understood. By experimenting with drugs and rejecting authority, beatniks increased official pressure against them.

Though the beat communities broke up by the end of the 1950's, they had lasting influence. Beat vocabulary, such as «cool" and "hip", became part of everyday speech. Many writers were influenced by them. In the late 1960's, the beat generation was reborn in the hippie movement, in reaction to the Vietnam War.

Theater of the Absurd. Two French writers, Irish-born Samuel Beckett and Romanian-born Eugene Lonesco, and American Edward Albee were some of the play writers influenced by existentialism. Their plays have been labeled The Theater of the Absurd for their view of life as meaningless and irrational.

Beckett's play Waiting for Godot (1953)is an example of the Theater of the Absurd. There is little plot, little action, just two tramps talking and waiting for somebody or something. By the end, it is still not clear who Godot is or what Godot stands for. However, the vision of modern life as rootless, painful, and empty of friends, faith, and traditions is an unmistakable one.

Causes. The increased pace of learning has been due to several factors. 1) The first involves population. Twenty- five percent of all human beings ever living are alive now. Ninety percent of all scientists are living now. 2) Second research and development is now carried on by teams financed by corporations, universities and governments, rather than by isolated individuals supporting themselves. 3) Third, computers increase the speed and complexity of analyses that can be performed. 4) Fourth, knowledge is spread quickly through international publications and conferences. Data from computers can be shared worldwide.

Emerging Groups. The postwar period was also an era of social change, marked by the growing influence of women, minority groups, and Third World peoples. Writers, poets and political leaders from these groups captured world attention. They made people more aware of the situations of their respective groups.

Women's Movement. After women won the right to vote in a number of countries following the end of World War I, feminism, or the movement supporting women's rights, faded. During World War II, women took over men's jobs for the duration of the war, then "retired" once the soldiers came home. During the 1950's, most women's lives were centered around home and family The limits placed on a woman's role were attacked in 1963 by the feminist leader Betty Freidan. Her book The Feminine Mystique inspired the rebirth of the women's movement. Women began to organize women's consciousness-raising, or self awareness, groups. These groups enable women to appreciate their talents and to counter sex stereotyping and sex discrimination. They work for pay.

By 1975 the women's movement had made much progress. That year was declared International Women's Year by the United Nations. Women from all over the world met in Mexico City to identify barriers to equal rights and to develop national 10-year plans of action. They set up programs in such areas as politics education and training, housing, health and nutrition, families, and mass communications. The women meeting in Mexico found many common bonds, despite their various national differences.

Third World Writers. Third World writers developed a distinctive voice in the postwar era. Over the courses of the century, they relied less on western models and turned to their own cultural heritages. They developed a literature that drew on rhythms, images, traditions, and experiences separate from the western traditions, and experiences separate from the western tradition.

In Africa, traditional literature was oral, and written literature was a new African art form. Modern African literature exists in several African languages and in the languages of the European powers that colonized Africa - France, Britain, Spain, and Portugal.