The Europeans
Three Lives and the Making of a Cosmopolitan Culture
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- USD 12.99
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- USD 12.99
Descripción editorial
From the “master of historical narrative” (Financial Times), a dazzling, richly detailed, panoramic work—the first to document the genesis of a continent-wide European culture.
The nineteenth century in Europe was a time of unprecedented artistic achievement. It was also the first age of cultural globalization—an epoch when mass communications and high-speed rail travel brought Europe together, overcoming the barriers of nationalism and facilitating the development of a truly European canon of artistic, musical, and literary works. By 1900, the same books were being read across the continent, the same paintings reproduced, the same music played in homes and heard in concert halls, the same operas performed in all the major theatres.
Drawing from a wealth of documents, letters, and other archival materials, acclaimed historian Orlando Figes examines the interplay of money and art that made this unification possible. At the center of the book is a poignant love triangle: the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev; the Spanish prima donna Pauline Viardot, with whom Turgenev had a long and intimate relationship; and her husband Louis Viardot, an art critic, theater manager, and republican activist. Together, Turgenev and the Viardots acted as a kind of European cultural exchange—they either knew or crossed paths with Delacroix, Berlioz, Chopin, Brahms, Liszt, the Schumanns, Hugo, Flaubert, Dickens, and Dostoyevsky, among many other towering figures.
As Figes observes, nearly all of civilization’s great advances have come during periods of heightened cosmopolitanism—when people, ideas, and artistic creations circulate freely between nations. Vivid and insightful, The Europeans shows how such cosmopolitan ferment shaped artistic traditions that came to dominate world culture.
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Figes (Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia) weaves this excellent, wide-ranging history of 19th-century Europe around three people: the opera singer Pauline Viardot (1821 1910); her husband, the art critic, theater manager, and translator Louis (1800 1883); and the writer Ivan Turgenev (1818 1883). The link between the arts, commerce, and railway travel in the creation of a holistic European culture is his central theme: according to Figes, "The railways enabled people across Europe to see themselves as Europeans' in ways they had not done before." As Figes chronicles Turgenev's writing and Pauline's performances, there is a veritable history of the opera and European literature of the period, with appearances from Berlioz, Chopin, Dicken, Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Hugo, James, Strauss, Wagner, and Zola. With the discussion of the "new" relationship between the arts and capitalism in the 19th century, Figes not only gives the details of everyone's income and outlay but chronicles changes in publishing that birthed serialized novels, modern tourist guides, a market for translation, royalties, effective copyright protections, and literary agents. Wars (Franco-Prussian, 1870 1871; Russo-Turkish, 1877 1878) and assorted political upheavals are incorporated, and intrigues, rivalries, affairs, and gossip (Turgenev is "hopelessly in love" with Pauline; he and Dostoevsky feud) add spice. Figes's history masterfully summarizes this period, albeit sometimes in overwhelming detail, in a persuasive and consistently enlightening fashion. Photos.