Grotowski

This volume rests upon two premises: 1) That collective creation is pivotal to the evolution of the modern theatre; and 2) That women have been central to the emergence and development of collective creation.
    Though written to be read as a self-contained work, Women, Collective Creation, and Devised Performance is in fact the third volume in an ongoing body of research into collective creation and devising practices from 1900 to the present. Our two previous studies, A History of Collective Creation and Collective 
Creation in Contemporary Performance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), argued that modern collective theatre-making praxis may be best understood as an ongoing, resistant tradition emerging, in its European and North American contexts, circa 1900 and running throughout the twentieth century and on into present-day devising practices. Our goal at the inception of this body of work had been to contest the broadly accepted view of collective creation as a minor phenomenon peculiar to the New Left political theatre of the 1960s and ’70s, associated in the main with developments in the United States, Canada, Quebec, and England (and to a lesser extent, France).  Working in collaboration with an international team of scholars, we sought to elucidate the aesthetic, processual, and political links between theatrical devising in the contemporary period, collective creation practices of the ’60s and ’70s, and pre-war experiments in collaborative theatre-making—and to do so from an internationalist perspective.  In so doing, we worked to draw out both resemblances and divergences in collective practice, and in the aesthetic, social, and/or political impulses underpinning those practices, in their particular cultural and historical contexts.
    This new volume seeks to deepen that historicization, by investigating the centrality of women to the development of collective and devised theatre-making in the modern and contemporary period. Our project is two-fold: to historicize the enormous, ongoing contribution of women to collective creation; and to investigate questions about the relationship between gender and collaborative process, authority, authorship, and attribution.
    Women must be credited with a central, foundational, and continued role in the development and transmission of practices of collective and devised theatre-making since the start of the twentieth century.  A cursory scan of a few prominent names in North America and Europe hints at the consideration women demand in the history of collective performance praxis: directors such as Joan Littlewood, Judith Malina, Ariane Mnouchkine, Elizabeth LeComte, Tina Landau, Anne Bogart, Ruth Maleczech, JoAnne Akalaitis, Lin Hixson, and Julia Varley; pioneering teachers such as Viola Spolin, Suzanne Bing, Rena Mirecka, and Roberta Carreri; companies and networks such as Lilith, WOW Cafe, At the Foot of the Mountain, Spiderwoman Theater, Guerilla Girls, Omaha Magic Theatre, Split Britches, SITI Company, Nightwood Theatre, Théâtre Expérimental des Femmes, The Magdalena Project, FEMEN, and Pussy Riot; choreographers such as Anna Halprin, Yvonne Rainer, Aileen Passloff, Trisha Brown, and Mary Overlie; playwrights such as Caryl Churchill, Helene Cixous, Deb Margolin, Muriel Miguel, and Megan Terry.  And yet, the deep engagement of women in collectively generated performance has been grossly under-historicized.
    This volume traces a sprawling lineage, revealing a hitherto unacknowledged web of transmission—connecting, by way of example, the educational play movement spearheaded by such reformers as Dr. Maria Montessori in Italy, Margaret Naumberg in New York, and Neva Boyd of Chicago’s Hull-House, to the theatrical devising pedagogies of Suzanne Bing in 1920s’ France and Viola Spolin in 1930s’ Chicago, to the collective practices of (among others) Théâtre du Soleil and the Living Theatre in the 1960s, to the nomadic performances of the women of the Odin Teatret in 1980s’ Europe, to Pussy Riot’s recent protests in Russia.  In doing so, the book further elucidates a history of modern theatre begun in our previous volumes, in which the seemingly marginal and disparate practices of collective creation are revealed as central, and women practitioners further revealed as primary progenitors, renovators, stewards, and disseminators of these practices.  The history of the modern theatre is a history of collaborative methods and the history of collaborative methods is a women’s history.

From the introduction to "The Existential Actor: Life and Death, Onstage and Off." In the book I look at approaches to the art, craft, and training of actors beginning with Aristotle, through Diderot, Talma, Delsarte, Stanislavski, and on to Brecht, Strasberg, Meisner, Grotowski, Overlie, and more. I explore these many attempts to codify the actor's process and find my own synthesis in four elements: shape, action, transaction, and surrender. The underlying theoretical framework derives from existential philosophy and psychology, and especially the work of Ernest Becker who held that, in theatrical terms, the primary "action" of every human being is the construction and defense of a project of identity and meaning.

What strikes me is that nothing is as much fun as a paradox, and that speaking about Grotowski and his work immediately places us in front of an immense paradox. Grotowski, as I have known him for more than 20 years, is a deeply simple man, who carries out research which is profoundly pure. How is it possible, then, that over the years, the result of this simplicity has been to create at the same time complication and even confusion? Through personal contact with his work I have gained an intimate knowledge of its value; a work initiated in Poland by an exceptional man with a very small number of persons, and which, thanks to the 20th-century systems of travel and communications, has passed very rapidly into the books, the reviews, the interviews, and the work of small groups all over the world. So it is inevitable that this ultra-rapid diffusion does not necessarily always pass through qualified people, and that around the name of Grotowski-like a rolling stone-have come to attach themselves, to graft themselves, all kinds of confusions, appendages. I recall that some years ago there was a flight controller at Paris Airport. When he went home at the end of his working day, which was very hard and intense, this fellow held a Grotowski workshop. Perhaps, I can't tell you, maybe he was a very well qualified person who communicated something essential to two or three people. But maybe he was just someone who, having seen the landing of a Polish Airline Lot plane, felt that he was a specialist in Polish affairs and thus, in Grotowski's work as well? So what is the result, today, of all these years of confusion? What is not clear, and must be made clear, is this: what precise, concrete relationship exists between Grotowski's work and the theatre? There was a time when it looked simple, because the Wroclaw actors did productions which created a shock in the theatre world. It happened right away, because of the quality, on all levels, of their work of the dramatic order, this quality passing on through the means of the actor. In that epoch it was clear that they were like a lamp, like a lighthouse, demonstrating the fact that in the theatre it is possible to reach a high standard, deeper, more intense, on condition that the actors arrive at a level of dedication, sincerity, seriousness, and understanding of their own means, which doesn't exist at the mediocre level of the normal theatre.

In What a Body Can Do, Ben Spatz develops, for the first time, a rigorous theory of embodied technique as knowledge. He argues that viewing technique as both training and research has much to offer current debates over the role of practice in the university, including the debates around "practice as research."

Drawing on critical perspectives from the sociology of knowledge, phenomenology, dance studies, enactive cognition, and other areas, Spatz argues that technique is a major area of historical and ongoing research in physical culture, performing arts, and everyday life.

El montaje de El príncipe constante del Teatr Laboratorium de Grotowski marcó un antes y un después en la historia del teatro occidental, pero tradicionalmente se ha considerado que no tuvo demasiado impacto en la escena española del momento, por lo menos en lo que se refiere a la rehabilitación de la figura de Calderón para las carteleras. 
El objetivo del presente artículo es dar cuenta de la recepción en las tablas de nuestro país del repertorio calderoniano más trascendente, primero recordando la fortuna de esta parcela de su producción desde la muerte del autor hasta los años sesenta, y luego analizando la noticia que se tuvo en nuestro país del trabajo de Grotowski inspirado en la comedia del infante don Fernando para, finalmente, reflexionar sobre la presencia y/o la ausencia de una línea continua de investigación escénica contemporánea sobre Calderón en la dirección del teatro ritual.

Three directors who influenced 20th century theatre, Konstantin Stanislavski, Vsevolod Meyerhold and Jerzy Grotowski, and they each conducted comprehensive studies on the position of acting through theatrical aesthetic. In order to realize this theatrical aesthetic, these directors emphasized the need for actors to practice systematic exercises and develop particular scenic behaviour, which is different from daily behaviour. Their work has paved the way for various theoretical studies on acting. The actor who is going to act within a reality that fictionalized on stage, no matter the strength of its relationship with daily reality, has to leave the automatized daily behaviour behind and develop a technique that is built upon the necessities of the stage context. In this article, the basis of the extra-daily scenic behaviour of actors in the Odin Theatre is dealt with in the light of approaches of directors who strongly affected the theatre approach that developed through the 20th century: namely Stanislavski, Meyerhold and Grotowski.

Wlodzimierz Staniewski, director of the Polish Centre for Theatre Practices Gardzienice, considers directing as a praxis pertaining to the field of musical composition. His pieces have been theorised as either “ethno-oratoria” or “village operas,” while the pedagogy developed by the group is a territory for the exploration of the tensions between the physical and the vocal. Building on my recent fieldwork with the company, this chapter problematizes the separation of vocality and choreographic/movement practices in performer training and uses Gardzienice’s example as a case study in physiovocality. Meanwhile, the core principles of Staniewski’s work, namely mutuality, musicality and chorality, are analyzed as points of departure from music theaters towards a theater of musicality.

Popularized by the Theatre-in-Education movement in England and the work of Jerzy Grotowski in Poland, Collaboratively-Generated Devised Theatre has developed into a major movement in contemporary theatre. However, scholarship in this area has been weak due to a reliance on anecdotal analysis rather than using a comparable rubric. For this paper, the processes of three Massachusetts-based devising companies were analyzed to define three different approaches toward collaboration and devising, and present new terminology to aid the discourse surrounding companies and groups that create work in a collaborative way.

AWARDS:

2011 AQUILA POLONICA ARTICLE PRIZE

The biennial prize, funded by Aquila Polonica Publishing, is awarded by the Polish Studies Association to the author of "the best article written in English during the previous two years on any aspect of Polish studies."

FROM THE AWARD COMMITTEE:

Romanska’s article "succeeds taking a relatively difficult and opaque subject, Grotowski’s 1962 re-staging of Wyspiański’s Akropolis against the background of Auschwitz, both accessible and rewarding for readers who are not specialists in Polish theatre. While Romanska’s analysis remains grounded in theatre, and her conclusion is ultimately about theatrical production, she raises many questions about history, memory, and national mythology that most readers will want to learn more about. What is particularly impressive is the scope of the article, which ranges over the entire twentieth century. [...] Romanska’s work makes a convincing argument that we need to be paying more attention to theatre in Poland."

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2010 GERALD KAHAN SCHOLAR'S PRIZE

Awarded by the American Society for Theatre Research, for “best essay written and published in English in a refereed scholarly journal.” The winning essay is judged as "displaying originality in the broad field of theatre and performance, exhibiting critical rigor, showing an acquaintance with related research in theatre and performance, and promising future professional development in the field.”

FROM THE AWARD COMMITTEE:

Romanska’s essay offers“an excellent unpacking of both Stanislaw Wyspianski’s 1904 drama, Akropolis, and its production history. Her essay made use of extensive sources to tell a complicated story-layered text, performance, and context, paying attention to the original script as well as performances, especially, those directed by Jerzy Grotowski. The essay provides a missing, though essential, analysis of a production that is often cited, but perhaps rarely understood in its full context. The methods of historiography and documentary analysis are excellent and provide an instructive model for future performance scholarship.”"""

Recipient of the Canadian Association for Theatre Research 2014 Ann Saddlemyer Book Award Honorable Mention.

TDR Review by Tanya Dean: "As both a scholar and a performer herself, Magnat’s research relies upon an interdisciplinary methodology, combining fieldwork, artistic collaboration with her subjects, and the articulation of her embodied research
through writing. The result is an insightful account of the
work of such artists as Rena Mirecka, Ewa Benesz, Katharina Seyferth, and Ang Gey Pin. This book will be a valuable resource for scholars interested in the work of Grotowski, Polish theatre, women theatre practitioners, as well as those engaged in practice‐as‐research."

As the first investigation of women's foremost contributions
to Grotowski's theatrical and post‐theatrical research, this
book is grounded in four years of multi‐sited fieldwork
conducted in Poland, Italy, France, and Denmark. Situated
at the intersection of performance studies, experimental
ethnography, and Indigenous research methodologies, this
exploration of the artistic journeys and current creative
practices of key women from different cultures and
generations is complemented by a Documentary Film Series
created in close collaboration with these artists and
featured on the Routledge Performance Archive
(www.routledgeperformancearchive.com).

Apartheid in South-Africa pervaded every dimension of public and social life. Theater, both as a form of art and as a sphere of public life, was thus also subjected to the policy of segregation: under the Group Areas Act racially mixed casts as well as mixed audiences were prohibited. There were places, however, where those restrictions were bypassed and where white theater directors cooperated with non-white artists. Examples include the Market Theater in Johannesburg and the Space Theater in Cape Town,where non-racial productions were created by one of the most prominent South African playwrights and directors, Athol Fugard. The economic situation of those independent theater companies, as well as the political situation in the country, informed the used means of expression. This is where the theory of Jerzy Grotowski came into play. This paper shows how Grotowski’s premises were realized in the South African context and what influence they had on the South African tradition of workshop theater

A History of Collective Creation examines collective and devised theatre practices in Europe and North America, beginning in 1900. Long associated with U.S., British and French theatre collectives of the 1960s, collective creation in fact has its roots in the theatrical experiments of the early 20th century, emerging just after the rise of the modern director.  Tracing a lineage from explorations of collective creation in the work of Meyerhold, Stanislavsky, Copeau, St. Denis, Piscator, Reduta, Grotowski, and early documentary theatre, through mid-century manifestations as a theatrical expression of the New Left, A History of Collective Creation proposes that collective creation played a pivotal role in the evolution of the modern theatre.

This book probes into the evolving phases of Badal Sircar’s theatrical career and offers a historical sense of how he developed his theatre. Divided into seven chapters, they are supported by a pithy summary of the historical context that necessitated the growth and development of Sircar’s theatre—both in praxis as well as theory. This work also challenges some very important notions of Sircar’s Third Theatre, and brings out its inner contradictions: contrary to the common belief, the influence of Indian traditional performances on the Third Theatre exists superficially and sparsely; Third Theatre is not a free theatre in the strictest sense; in spite of emphasizing egalitarianism, the Third Theatre plays bear only Sircar’s name as their author, one of the indices of Sircar’s authority, if not authoritarianism, in Satabdi. There are many similar aspects ‘disentangled’ by rigorous analyses of Siracr’s monographs, travelling through the labyrinth of more than fifty plays, and interacting with some of the members of Satabdi, including his second wife, who were/are practically lost in the aura of Sircar. In the course of analysis, it has also been observed that the Third Theatre could not progress much from the colonial theatrical tradition vis-à-vis the exclusion of the ‘uneducated’, ‘uncultured’, ‘unsophisticated’ people. Although Sircar left the proscenium arch in pursuit of a demotic, intimate space, his procedure and style of action also eventually left the masses out of Third Theatre’s ambit.

Ensayo en el que abordo el trabajo que conocí personalmente del creador polaco Jerzy Grotowski gracias a las invitaciones que me hicieran los directores mexicanos Jaime Soriano y Nicolás Núñez de acompañar a sus grupos en dos intercambios con Grotowski en mayo de 1989 y enero de 1991. En esas dos estancias, los integrantes del Laboratorio Arte Escénico de la UNAM —bajo la dirección de Soriano— y del Taller de Investigación Teatral de la UNAM —a cargo de Núñez—  tuvimos oportunidad de participar de las dos últimas etapas de la obra grotowskiana: Drama objetivo y Arte como vehículo.

Discussion of a production of "L'uomo dal fiore in bocca" and "Cece", directed as a double bill by author, who also performed in both of them. Part of a much wider discussion of how to stage Pirandello's plays, in particular making use of twentieth century avant-garde theatre techniques. Published under old name.

Collective Creation in Contemporary Performance examines collective and devised theatre practices internationally--with emphasis on Russia, Europe, and North America--from the late 20th century, into the present. Building upon the authors’ previous work, A History of Collective Creation, this volume situates contemporary collective creation in a tradition which emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century, and traces the aesthetic, social and political shifts that have marked this mode of theatre making, from mid-century manifestations as a theatrical expression of the New Left, to present-day devising practices.

Abstract:
The paper explores notions of “the rural” and “the urban” in modern Poland
through examining the work of Teatr Wiejski Węgajty, a small theatre company in north
-
ern Poland and how this work highlights and provokes tensions between notions of ‘the
rural’ and ‘the urban’ amongst those who participate and experience the theatre’s perfor
-
mances. The text explores how, by using various aspects of traditional village-based per
-
formance techniques the theatre attracts urban participants who seek contact with village
culture, and how this contact may contrast sharply with the perceptions and views of rural inhabitants.

This article appears in the journal EthnoAnthropoZoom. Research was funded by ESRC and undertaken whilst the author was studying at Edinburgh University Dept. of Anthropology.

How can we rethink the importance of voice in performance? How can we understand voice simultaneously as music and text, as sound and body, or as both personal and political?

This book explores voice across genres, media and cultures, inviting the reader to reassess established ways of analysing, enjoying and listening to voice. Using a wide range of case studies integrated with critical and philosophical frameworks, it makes audible the multiple ways in which voice contributes to how we perform identities. From opera and musical theatre to live art and immersive audio walks, Konstantinos Thomaidis presents voice as plural, elusive and ripe for reinvention.

REVIEWS:

Romanska persuasively argues that the two seminal works named in her title have been vastly under-studied and widely misunderstood; through extensive research, she aims to recover their literary, linguistic, historical, and cultural contexts. At the most basic level, the book assails critics (primarily American) for the hubris of thinking they can review, teach, write about, or even begin to comprehend Akropolis and Dead Class without knowing “Polish,” by which Romanska means the language itself, of course, but also Poland’s literature and history, and its profound relationship to the Holocaust. She demonstrates how both productions were deeply political responses to that “taboo subject,” but written under Soviet repression in a “coded language” that Romanska painstakingly works to decode. At its largest level, the book reaches beyond the ostensible objects of its study to boldly indict the entire field of Performance Studies as an inherently flawed mode of inquiry. She seeks to restore meaning to those two productions by retrieving their sources; the larger implication of her study is to challenge contemporary scholars to follow her model by conducting similarly rigorous inquiries into other theatrical work. Those who do know and teach these pieces will undoubtedly find Romanska’s work to be an invaluable resource. Her book will also serve as a provocation to scholars in the fields of theatre and performance, as she throws down the gauntlet, challenging them to reconsider the question of meaning in productions by replacing subjective “responses” with rigorous, contextual analysis.
—Theatre Annual: A Journal of Performance Studies, September 2015

Addressing a gap in western scholarship, Magda Romanska expertly and accessibly places these central works [Jerzy Grotowski’s Akropolis and Tadeusz Kantor’s Dead Class] into the cultural and historical context she convincingly argues is essential to their understanding. This text is a valuable resource for those looking to better understand the complex creativity of Grotowski and Kantor within their Polish historical, social, and literary context. [The book] is not only a rich explanation of these dramatists, but also serves as an engaging overview of the Polish literary tradition. Romanska offers a broad introduction to Grotowski and Kantor, as well as the historical and literary tradition of which they are a part. Of particular interest is her concise explanation of their respective theatrical philosophies, as well as the complicated traditions of Jewish mysticism and Romantic messianism that reverberate through the works.
—Pol-Intel.org, August 2014

Richly documented chapters interweave primary sources, critical commentary, and contemporary theory (for example, Adorno, Agamben, Bettelheim, Améry) on each topic. Through its argumentation and design, the book demonstrates a sophisticated dramaturgical strategy for re-historicizing and recontextualizing theatre and performance events [….] The book also introduces English-language students to a significant national literature and encourages them to undertake equally rigorous, culturally specific readings in their fields of interest.
—Theatre Journal, May 2014

Non-Polish-speaking scholars of Grotowski and Kantor will be grateful for Romanska’s work. She opens up areas of these two productions which have been unavailable; trauma and Holocaust survivors will be glad to be made aware of them; and Romanska indicates the direction for further analysis in this area.
—New Theatre Quarterly, November 2013

Romanska’s fundamental objective is to reconstruct and provide the complex historical and cultural context that is necessary for a proper and deep understanding of the works—and thus to illustrate the possibilities and necessity of nuanced interpretations that take into account the text, subtext, and literary references. The task, which the author sets out and performs, starting from such a clearly defined research perspective, is both remarkable and impressive in its momentum and size.
—Performer, June 2013

O interesse de Grotowski por práticas de origens culturais diversas ganhou especial destaque na passagem da fase Parateatral (1969-1978) para aquela denominada Teatro das Fontes (1976-1982). Buscamos neste artigo ref letir sobre como se deu e como se concebeu essa experiência em sua dimensão transcultural a partir de práticas corpóreas presentes em diferentes culturas que se transmitem como conhecimento corporificado.

This course introduces student to the history of world theatre and corresponding dramatic literature from the eighteenth century to the present day. The student will be introduced to the ways in which the theatre played and continues to play a crucial social, political, and cultural role during this time. The course will also examine the various lenses that effect the writing of history and problematize the idea of a singular and linear historical narrative.

Em 1969 Jerzy Grotowski “abandonou” o teatro, continuando, no entanto, a desenvolver projectos artísticos dentro do domínio performativo; as diferentes fases do seu trabalho a partir dessa data têm como primeira característica evidente a ausência de espectadores. Neste breve artigo questiona-se esta noção de uma performance artística sem um destinatário externo através da análise da última fase do trabalho de Grotowski, denominada de “Arte como Veículo”.

Zagadnienie związków twórczości Grotowskiego z postmodernizmem jest jednak ciekawe, warte podjęcia i może dostarczyć wielu ciekawych punktów wyjścia do dalszego „rozmontowywania” dyskursu naukowego wokół praktyki polskiego artysty .
Kwestia wzajemnego oddziaływania na siebie ponowoczesności i praktyki Grotowskiego jest oczywiście szeroka i złożona; nie stanowi też głównego przedmiotu zainteresowań badaczy . Moim celem w tym miejscu jest dokonanie pewnego rekonesansu metodologicznego: proponuję spojrzeć na kwestię nowoczesności/ponowoczesności Grotowskiego przez pryzmat preferowanej przeze mnie kategorii rozróżnienia między tym, co nowe, a tym, co dawne, czyli nowego rozumienia tożsamości i obecnej w niej, dobrze znanej kategorii esencji.

There are lot of questions about the nature and origins of theatre, especially about forms of acting presentations on the stage. The article discusses about different type of acting. Author of the article introduces the figure of child-role which can be carried only by pregnant actor (actor with the role in itself). Those far-reaching concepts are based on the observation of specific after-Grotowski theatre workshop method and psychological research on the acting experience on the stage by Irena Schiller (Filozofówna).

Raramente è stata messa in luce l’importanza che Thomas Stearns Eliot ha avuto nello sviluppo della concezione teatrale di Jerzy Grotowski. Eppure il regista polacco, il cui lavoro teorico ha avuto un peso enorme nella teoria e nella pratica teatrale della seconda metà del Novecento, ha mostrato più volte il suo amore incondizionato per il poeta inglese e alcune prove, anche testuali, ne mostrano l’influenza diretta e decisiva. Questo articolo cercherà di affrontare i nodi cruciali della ricezione eliotiana da parte di Grotowski: in particolar modo in relazione alla figura di Cristo, così come rappresentata da Grotowski, e al simbolo oggettivo che questa incarna e che in qualche modo si pone, nella visione dell’autore polacco, alla fine del teatro stesso.

'This essay extends the epistemology of practice put forward in "What a Body Can Do: Technique as Knowledge, Practice as Research" (Routledge 2015) through a detailed application of Hans-Jörg Rheinberger’s social and historical epistemology to a 2011 solo performance by the author at Movement Research in New York City. Whereas "What a Body Can Do" surveys a range of historical and contemporary practices, this article attempts for the first time to enact a close technical and epistemic reading of the author’s own embodied research. Eleven minutes of practice are analyzed in what the author, following Rheinberger, calls the phenomenotechnical mode. The article works to distinguish this mode of analysis from more prevalent approaches such as those associated with phenomenology, semiotics, and cognitive studies. In addition to suggesting how a rigorous phenomenotechnical analysis might be applied to one’s own embodied practice, the article offers insight into a specific line of embodied inquiry in post-Grotowskian song-action, with supporting photo and video documentation.'

Hacking – improving software through a process of trial and error – is a mode of rehearsal. Such is the claim made by Miguel Escobar Varela in this article, which he furthers by exploring the similarities between the ways theatre makers and software programmers speak about their crafts. Understanding software programming as an essentially creative process should be of interest for theatre scholars, who are constantly searching for modes of academic discourse that are sensitive to the specificity of theatre. By offering examples from interface design for the study of Javanese theatre, Escobar argues that creating software, through an iterative process of trial and error, can become part of the methodological palette of theatre scholars. Miguel Escobar Varela is Assistant Professor of Theatre Studies at the National University of Singapore, and has worked as a theatre researcher, computer programmer and translator in Mexico, the Netherlands, Indonesia, and Singapore. His articles on the intersection of digital technology and theatre studies have been published in Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, Asian Theatre Journal, Performance Research, Contemporary Theatre Review and are forthcoming in TDR and Theatre Research International.

This collective volume aims to highlight the philosophical and literary idea of “apocalypse,” within some key examples in the “Slavic world” during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From Russian realism to avant-garde painting, from the classic fiction of the nineteenth century to twentieth-century philosophy, and not omitting theatre, cinema or music, there is a specific examination of the concepts of “end of history” and “end of present time” as conditions for a redemptive image of the world. To understand this idea means to understand an essential part of Slavic culture, which, however divergent and variegated it may be in general, converges on this specific myth in a surprising manner.