Modernism

I. Collapse of Empires

            A. Russian Revolution

                        1. follows a familiar pattern

                        2. Red Terror and Civil War

            B. Fall of German, Austrian and Ottoman Empires

                        1. Loss of territories and colonies

                        2. smaller nation states

                        3. efforts at democratic government

II. Versailles Treaty

            A. Awkward compromise between power politics and self-determination

                        1. Who deserved to have a nation?

                        2. Germany not allowed to be self-determining

                        3. Italy is left disappointed

            B. Punishment of Germany

                        1. Loss of territory

                        2. Military limits

                        3. Reparations

            C. Nationalism lives on

                        1. weak commitment to openness and free trade

                        2. ineffective League of Nations

                        3. Resentment of Italy and Germany

III. Modernist turn in culture

A. Rejecting the old culture in the aftermath of failure

1. Fundamental questions about reality

a. questioning goodness of human nature

b. questioning reason and idealism

2. Decline of Christianity in Europe

3. Artists reject past ideals

a. Dadaism

-Marcel Duchamp's "LHOOQ"

b. Surrealism

-Salvador Dali's "Persistence of Memory"

4. Writers cast doubt on past "truths"

a. T. S. Eliot's Hollow Men

b. Erich Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front

B. Reinventing the future by going back to basics

1. Writers try to build on subjectivity

a. Virginia Woolf, Room of One's Own

b. Erich Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front

2. Artists look closely at the essence of images--shape, color, composition

--Matisse, Woman in Blue

3. Musicians investigate nature of music

--Arnold Shoenberg's 12-tone system

4. Architects rethink fundamental of beauty and function

--Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus school