DOI issue:
Nr. 2
DOI article:Murawska-Muthesius, Katarzyna: Bohemianism outside Paris: Central Europe and beyond
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51715#0097
enced by the construction of the Parisian bohemia?
How far was Bohemia from la bohémě?
Such a question points to a whole area of re-
search on the ways in which bohemian life-styles
coined in Paris in the 1830s were adopted by the
“real” nineteenth-century Bohemians, the Czechs
and possibly the Moravians next dooř, but also by
the inhabitants of the neighbouring lands, sharing
with the Bohemians the lack of political freedom,
such as the Slovaks, Hungarians, Pôles, as well as the
Romanians, Slovenians, Croats and Serbs. To what
extent was the condition of political captivity an
underlying and homogenising factor, obstructing the
strife for freedom from social norms, and, further,
pre-empting or slowing down the struggle for the
aesthetic autonomy in the whole area of Central
Europe and Eastern Europe? Was the presence of
the bourgeoisie the constitutive condition for the
emergence of bohemianism as its Other and as its
defining counterpart? The questions multiply: Who
was the Other of Central European bohemians?
What was the relationship between the discovery of
Slavic identities at the time of the Herderian national
revivais and the fascination with Gypsy life-styles
and identities,9 and further, how does this interest
m ethnicities compare with the contempt for the
growing Jewish minority in Eastern Europe, which
was also entering the ranks of bohemian communi-
ties? To what extent were the bohemian life styles,
adopted in mid-nineteenth-century Central Europe,
originating in Paris? When and by whom were the
unconventional attitudes identified as bohemian?
How was the term “bohemian” translated into lo-
cal languages? Is bohemianism in Central Europe
identifiable with modernity, or modem art?
This issue of Ars marks the beginning of the
rnuch overdue investigation of the Central European
variants of bohemianism, as seen in relation to Paris,
but also to other centres, which adopted the French
bohemian life styles, such as New York. Surprisingly,
what initially appeared to be a somewhat marginal
issue, of interest mainly to the local researchers
aiming to complété the archives of the transnational
bohemianism, did, in fact, attract contributors from
On the représentation of Gypsies in the Czech nineteenth-
-century literatuře, see SERVANT, C.: Deux existences
inconciliables? Représentations des Tsiganes dans l’histoire
very diverse disciplines and from a plethora of aca-
demie centres worldwide, reaching from California
and Colorado to New Zealand, not omitting the
United Kingdom and France, as well as, of course,
Hungary, Czech Republic and Poland. Indeed, the
Central European perspective seemed to hâve proven
fruitful forre-aligning the field of bohemian studies,
not just by the virtue of its spatial expansion, and
by adding new names of eccentric artists and their
favourite cafés, but also by provoking a new set of
questions of political autonomy and social concerns,
as well as the troubling affinity between bohemians
and Gypsies, thus opening the hardly explorée! issue
of bohemianism and racial prejudice for further
investigation.
The first two texts take us to Paris, and focus
on the centrality of the Gypsy myth for bohemian
identities, as explored in literatuře, music, dance,
spectacle, as well as visual arts. Karen Turman sets
the scene, by comparing the image of the Gypsy in
French Romande literatuře with the self-fashioning
of the bohemian artist. Her probing analysis of the
literary représentation of the dancing Esmeralda in
Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris as a model for with the
“performance-driven” acts of the early bohemians from
the circle of Théophile Gautier, “privileging theprocess
over theproduct”, leads her to emphasising the primary
significance of spectacle for bohemian identities and
the constructed nature of their Gypsy prototype
which, fabricated by the youthful counterculture, was
projected back onto the Gypsy figures. The issue of
performance and improvisation are also discussed in
Campbell Ewing’s text, which analyses Manet’s rep-
résentations of Gypsy musicians, made in the early
1860s. He argues persuasively that Manet’s formai
innovations in his prints and paintings was inspired
by Franz Liszt’s passionate appraisal of Gypsy music,
which, published in 1859 as Des Bohémiens et de leur
musique en Hongrie, emphasised the spontaneity and
improvisatory skills of Gypsy musicians as central
for the rejuvenation of western music, and its new
focus on performance and individual expressiveness.
Ewing’s attentive analysis of Manet’s prints and his
major painting The Old Musician (1862) brings at-
et la littérature tchèques du XIXe siècle. In: MOUSSA 2008
(see in note 1), pp. 163-197.
89
How far was Bohemia from la bohémě?
Such a question points to a whole area of re-
search on the ways in which bohemian life-styles
coined in Paris in the 1830s were adopted by the
“real” nineteenth-century Bohemians, the Czechs
and possibly the Moravians next dooř, but also by
the inhabitants of the neighbouring lands, sharing
with the Bohemians the lack of political freedom,
such as the Slovaks, Hungarians, Pôles, as well as the
Romanians, Slovenians, Croats and Serbs. To what
extent was the condition of political captivity an
underlying and homogenising factor, obstructing the
strife for freedom from social norms, and, further,
pre-empting or slowing down the struggle for the
aesthetic autonomy in the whole area of Central
Europe and Eastern Europe? Was the presence of
the bourgeoisie the constitutive condition for the
emergence of bohemianism as its Other and as its
defining counterpart? The questions multiply: Who
was the Other of Central European bohemians?
What was the relationship between the discovery of
Slavic identities at the time of the Herderian national
revivais and the fascination with Gypsy life-styles
and identities,9 and further, how does this interest
m ethnicities compare with the contempt for the
growing Jewish minority in Eastern Europe, which
was also entering the ranks of bohemian communi-
ties? To what extent were the bohemian life styles,
adopted in mid-nineteenth-century Central Europe,
originating in Paris? When and by whom were the
unconventional attitudes identified as bohemian?
How was the term “bohemian” translated into lo-
cal languages? Is bohemianism in Central Europe
identifiable with modernity, or modem art?
This issue of Ars marks the beginning of the
rnuch overdue investigation of the Central European
variants of bohemianism, as seen in relation to Paris,
but also to other centres, which adopted the French
bohemian life styles, such as New York. Surprisingly,
what initially appeared to be a somewhat marginal
issue, of interest mainly to the local researchers
aiming to complété the archives of the transnational
bohemianism, did, in fact, attract contributors from
On the représentation of Gypsies in the Czech nineteenth-
-century literatuře, see SERVANT, C.: Deux existences
inconciliables? Représentations des Tsiganes dans l’histoire
very diverse disciplines and from a plethora of aca-
demie centres worldwide, reaching from California
and Colorado to New Zealand, not omitting the
United Kingdom and France, as well as, of course,
Hungary, Czech Republic and Poland. Indeed, the
Central European perspective seemed to hâve proven
fruitful forre-aligning the field of bohemian studies,
not just by the virtue of its spatial expansion, and
by adding new names of eccentric artists and their
favourite cafés, but also by provoking a new set of
questions of political autonomy and social concerns,
as well as the troubling affinity between bohemians
and Gypsies, thus opening the hardly explorée! issue
of bohemianism and racial prejudice for further
investigation.
The first two texts take us to Paris, and focus
on the centrality of the Gypsy myth for bohemian
identities, as explored in literatuře, music, dance,
spectacle, as well as visual arts. Karen Turman sets
the scene, by comparing the image of the Gypsy in
French Romande literatuře with the self-fashioning
of the bohemian artist. Her probing analysis of the
literary représentation of the dancing Esmeralda in
Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris as a model for with the
“performance-driven” acts of the early bohemians from
the circle of Théophile Gautier, “privileging theprocess
over theproduct”, leads her to emphasising the primary
significance of spectacle for bohemian identities and
the constructed nature of their Gypsy prototype
which, fabricated by the youthful counterculture, was
projected back onto the Gypsy figures. The issue of
performance and improvisation are also discussed in
Campbell Ewing’s text, which analyses Manet’s rep-
résentations of Gypsy musicians, made in the early
1860s. He argues persuasively that Manet’s formai
innovations in his prints and paintings was inspired
by Franz Liszt’s passionate appraisal of Gypsy music,
which, published in 1859 as Des Bohémiens et de leur
musique en Hongrie, emphasised the spontaneity and
improvisatory skills of Gypsy musicians as central
for the rejuvenation of western music, and its new
focus on performance and individual expressiveness.
Ewing’s attentive analysis of Manet’s prints and his
major painting The Old Musician (1862) brings at-
et la littérature tchèques du XIXe siècle. In: MOUSSA 2008
(see in note 1), pp. 163-197.
89