Chapter 5. Theatre as an engine for German-Swedish cultural transfer in the early twentieth century
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Nina Brandau
Abstract
It was not only literary exchange and travel writing that flourished between Germany and Scandinavia around 1900. The theatre sector was also influenced by increasing artistic mobility that facilitated the transfer of ideas on modern theatre across Europe. This chapter examines selected guest performances and directorships of the German theatre director Max Reinhardt and the actor Alexander Moissi in Stockholm between 1915 and 1921. Expanding the traditional idea of travel writing, the artists used guest performances as a means of allowing ideas to travel to a new national context. Using cultural transfer and mobility theories, the aim of this contribution is to explore how Reinhardt’s and Moissi’s mobile acts brought cultural and aesthetic ideas to Sweden and which factors – social, political, aesthetic as well as infrastructural – influenced the transfer process. This is done with a content analysis of newspaper articles as primary sources. With the help of these sources, I will illustrate that Reinhardt’s and Moissi’s visits to Sweden were only successful because of a well-developed German-Scandinavian network that had been built beforehand. It is argued that the artistic ideas that they transferred to Sweden were mainly affected by socio-cultural and infrastructural developments, while political ideologies were of secondary importance.
Abstract
It was not only literary exchange and travel writing that flourished between Germany and Scandinavia around 1900. The theatre sector was also influenced by increasing artistic mobility that facilitated the transfer of ideas on modern theatre across Europe. This chapter examines selected guest performances and directorships of the German theatre director Max Reinhardt and the actor Alexander Moissi in Stockholm between 1915 and 1921. Expanding the traditional idea of travel writing, the artists used guest performances as a means of allowing ideas to travel to a new national context. Using cultural transfer and mobility theories, the aim of this contribution is to explore how Reinhardt’s and Moissi’s mobile acts brought cultural and aesthetic ideas to Sweden and which factors – social, political, aesthetic as well as infrastructural – influenced the transfer process. This is done with a content analysis of newspaper articles as primary sources. With the help of these sources, I will illustrate that Reinhardt’s and Moissi’s visits to Sweden were only successful because of a well-developed German-Scandinavian network that had been built beforehand. It is argued that the artistic ideas that they transferred to Sweden were mainly affected by socio-cultural and infrastructural developments, while political ideologies were of secondary importance.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Series editor’s preface ix
- Author biographies xi
- Introduction 1
- Chapter 1. Cultural transfer in the French Enlightenment 16
- Chapter 2. Cultural transfer as a performative act in Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (1796) 35
- Chapter 3. The temporalities of cultural transfer 62
- Chapter 4. Postcolonial images, ambivalence and weak border zones 81
- Chapter 5. Theatre as an engine for German-Swedish cultural transfer in the early twentieth century 104
- Chapter 6. “The East I Know” 135
- Chapter 7. Good migrations? 161
- Chapter 8. Exile, travel narrative and cultural transfer in Négar Djavadi’s Désorientale (2016) 181
- Index 203
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Series editor’s preface ix
- Author biographies xi
- Introduction 1
- Chapter 1. Cultural transfer in the French Enlightenment 16
- Chapter 2. Cultural transfer as a performative act in Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (1796) 35
- Chapter 3. The temporalities of cultural transfer 62
- Chapter 4. Postcolonial images, ambivalence and weak border zones 81
- Chapter 5. Theatre as an engine for German-Swedish cultural transfer in the early twentieth century 104
- Chapter 6. “The East I Know” 135
- Chapter 7. Good migrations? 161
- Chapter 8. Exile, travel narrative and cultural transfer in Négar Djavadi’s Désorientale (2016) 181
- Index 203
