The Vogue for Russia: Modernism and the Unseen in Britain 1900-1930

Caroline Maclean

Published by Edinburgh University Press 2015

The Vogue for Russia

Modernism and the Unseen in Britain 1900-1930

Caroline Maclean

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748647309

Overview
Contents

About this book

Explores the influence of Russian aesthetics on British modernists

In what ways was the British fascination with Russian arts, politics and people linked to a renewed interest in the unseen? How did ideas of Russianness and ‘the Russian soul’ - prompted by the arrival of the Ballets Russes and the rise of revolutionary ideals - attach themselves to the existing British fashion for theosophy, vitalism and occultism? In answering these questions, this study is the first to explore the overlap between Slavophilia and mysticism between 1900 and 1930 in Britain. The main Russian characters that emerge are Fedor Dostoevsky, Boris Anrep, Vasily Kandinsky, Petr Ouspensky and Sergei Eisenstein. The British modernists include Roger Fry, Virginia Woolf, Mary Butts, John Middleton Murry, Michael Sadleir and Katherine Mansfield.

Key Features:

Draws on unpublished archive material as well as on periodicals, exhibition catalogues, reviews, diaries, fiction and the visual arts
Addresses the omission in modernist studies of the importance of Russian aesthetics and Russian discourses of the occult to British modernism
Challenges the dominant Western European and transatlantic focus in modernist studies and provides an original contribution to our understanding of new global modernisms
Combines literary studies with aesthetics, modernist history, the history of modern esotericism, film history, periodical studies and science studies

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Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Note on Transliteration Publicly Available Download PDF	vi
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
CHAPTER 1 ‘Splinters and Mosaics’: Bloomsbury Aesthetics Reconsidered Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
CHAPTER 2 Russian Aesthetics and British Periodicals: Kandinsky, Sadleir and Rhythm Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	69
CHAPTER 3 Voices of Stones: Mary Butts and Petr Ouspensky’s Fourth Dimension Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	103
CHAPTER 4 ‘That Magic Force that is Montage’:1 Eisenstein’s Filmic Fourth Dimension, Borderline and H.D. Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	136
Epilogue Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	168
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	172
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	197

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 240
Illustrations
- Other: 26 B/W illustrations
Keywords: Literary Studies

eBook

Published: January 20, 2015
ISBN: 9780748647309