The endeavor of this thesis is to throw light on the portrayal of women by the Austrian-Jewish writer Joseph Roth. Roth’s women are regarded as highly negative and thus the author has increasingly been judged a male chauvinist and misogynist. This opinion seems particularly questionable since hardly any studies on his fictitious women have ever been conducted. The present study aims at filling that void and thereby presenting Roth’s views in a more differentiated manner. A new approach to Roth is thus called for. The analysis draws from the socio-historic background in which Roth’s work is situated. In his journalism as in his fiction, Roth strived to demonstrate and deal with the challenges of the times he lived in. His work frequently revolves around the “damaged” post-war generation in the 1920s and 30s, the feeling of being literally and metaphorically homeless. His later works are mostly set in the past, although this should not be viewed as escapism but as an attempt to come to terms with present reality. The worlds he portrays are dominated by men who are neither whole nor strong. But although women are few and it is said they are depicted only in crude stereotypes, the study shows that Roth does address their problems and plights. By observing women within established types, modern and traditional, it is revealed that Roth indeed shows depth when characterizing women, and that his interest in them is to use them as examples to illustrate fundamental aspects of the human condition. Rather than portraying them subservient to man, Roth demonstrates their common humanity. His understanding for the condition of women in his times often becomes apparent only when the narrative perspective is isolated from the protagonists. Simultaneously his work presents a valuable literary contribution for Gender Studies. / Classics & Modern European Languages / (D. Litt. et Phil.) (German)

The aim of the thesis is to examine the power of organized composers of art music in interwar Sweden and their development of areas of interest 1919-1939. The period is chosen due to the 1918 founding of the Society of Swedish Composers (the FST). Although of significant value, most of the previous research on the subject has focused on individual composers. The thesis, instead, combines concepts of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of cultural fields with power theories of Steven Lukes and Walter Korpi to investigate access to power resources and exercise of power within the field of music by the FST and its members 1919-1939. The results show that the FST of 1939 had greater access to economic capital, which correlated with the expansion of the FST’s exercise of power and areas of interest concerning the whole field of Swedish music, rather than exclusively the field of art music. Social networks tied to the FST, however, never ceased to be an important factor influencing the operations of the FST.

This thesis aims to identify and explain how, through the consumption of the wireless as a modern consumer durable, modernism was brought to society. To understand this process, the study will map how social change during the period responded to wider intellectual and aesthetic currents and trends but was driven by emergent commercial, cultural and political economies of a newly mediated society. Furthermore, it seeks to establish that this happened not as a result of social engineering through model housing schemes but as a result of consumer-led demand. This investigation considers how, as part of that newly mediated social environment, the wireless developed following its arrival on the domestic market without having adopted a single stylistic form. It addresses how that form, both stylistically and technically, evolved over a relatively short period to address the economic and cultural requirements and expectations of a new electrically powered domestic entertainment technology. In so doing, a discourse will be established considering these expectations and requirements related to how the wireless in Britain adopted and adapted the Modernist design idiom. It will further consider how the language of Modernism was propagated as the accepted version of what a radio could or should look like, so developing the modernist paradigm in a broader sense. To gain an appreciation of this it is necessary to understand the contemporary public conception of what the modern was in a more general sense. To decipher this public perception of modernity the project aims to extrapolate that public conception through examining other popular forms and products. Although this suggests that Radio was not alone in adopting the language of the moderne, as a product it is notable for its widespread commercial success and as such can be identified as a significant carrier of the coded message of what was modern. Design historians such as Yagou and Forty have attempted to incorporate radio into various strands of historical perception but the typologies they have devised to describe and understand wireless fall short in addressing the relationship between modernity and the wireless and instead see the wireless in terms of being an independent consumer product, a quasi-scientific instrument or else a furnishing form, rather than creating categories which accommodate the wireless and its position as a design type in its own right. To overcome this shortcoming a strand of this thesis seeks to argue that the wireless was itself a proto-modernist device during the early years of market expansion. That device then developed along a natural stylistic course embracing contemporary decorative ideas. By assessing the response of radio manufacturers to the socio-economic conditions of their market, this study has highlighted how through producing a product which addressed contemporary ideas of glamour, ease of use and functionality, the wireless entered a wide range of homes during the 1920s and 1930s. For the public, the immediate appeal of the wireless was that it provided access to the international experience of listening in while simultaneously it provided a template for the consumer to base their understanding of the modern World, both in its mediated form and stylistic appearance. This thesis seeks to demonstrate that during the period 1925 to 1939, the wireless established itself as an unashamedly modern device which appealed to a broad socio economic cross section of the public. By consuming the wireless, the British public accepted a significant technological and stylistic aspect of modernity into their homes. This was achieved despite the privations of the era because of the perceived desirability of wireless broadcasts and the perception of listening in as a popular leisure activity. As a result of that consumer demand, the British public was given access to a range of stylistic versions of modernity through the design of radio cabinetry. These modern styles were readily consumed throughout the social spectrum in preference to historicist alternatives. This demonstrates that the wireless was instrumental in introducing the modernist aesthetic to the British domestic environment.

This study analyzes narratives of individual Jewish experiences of discrimination and genocidal violence in Hungary during the period of 1920–1945. The aim is to increase our knowledge and understanding of the events through an investigation of survivor testimonies concerning anti-Jewish laws and the Holocaust. The main focus is on how survivors perceived the treatment to which they and their fellow Jews were exposed, and how they responded to the persecution they faced. Perceptions and responses are analyzed through multiple factors such as gender, age, social class, and geographical place. The period under investigation stretches from 1920, when the law of Numerus Clausus (a quota system influencing admission to universities) was introduced, until the end of the Second World War in early 1945. Focus is placed on the war years, especially on 1944, the year of German occupation and the fascist Arrow Cross rule. Experiences from the labour service system, the Jewish houses in Budapest, and the ghettos, as well as of hiding and resistance, are some of the recurring themes which are examined here. Extensive interviews, along with eyewitness reports and memoirs, form the empirical basis of the study. The results demonstrate the complexity of individual experiences during times of upheaval, and the importance of the above factors is evident within the testimonies. The survivors’ experiences greatly depended on gender, age, social class, geographical place, civil status, religious orientation, as well as “race”. However, the importance of the different factors changed over time. For instance, in the beginning of this period, discrimination had a direct impact on adult males, while children, women, and the elderly were indirectly affected. Furthermore, persons belonging to the upper classes could circumvent the anti-Jewish laws in various ways. Ultimately, differences in treatment decreased, according to the testimonies. Women, children, and the elderly also became victims, as did individuals from all social classes.

This thesis analyses the content, tone, form and authorship of the national newspaper gossip column 1918-1939, as a new means through which the qualities of the popular press in this period can be more closely defined. Often dismissed as an example of the sensational, Americanization of early twentieth-century popular culture, the celebrity gossip column has been loosely grouped with the friendly, informal language and bolder formatting of the ‘New Journalism’ of the late nineteenth century and the development of the dramatic ‘human-interest’ stories of ‘everyday life’ in the interwar period (LeMahieu, 1988; Wiener, 1988). Through a comparative study of six newspapers including the Daily Express, Daily Mail and News of the World, I analyse the changing representation of the celebrity subject, and, originally, the shifting character and persona of the gossip columnist. Whereas some historians have analysed the content of newspapers without considering the questions of the newspaper’s production, I analyse newspaper employment records, gossip columnists’ memoirs and their unpublished letters and diaries to define the specific economic, social and cultural circumstances which, I argue, influenced their public portrayal. Also, in examining the unpublished correspondence between editors, proprietors and columnists and the burgeoning print culture of journalistic training manuals and professional memoirs, I provide a history of the press’s professionalization in this period. The national popular press has often been used as a historical source to define national character and national identity in the interwar period (Bland, 2008; Kohn, 1992). By scrutinizing the content and production of the gossip column and particularly the class, behaviour, interactions and subject matter of the columnist, I argue that the gossip column presented a version of ‘Britishness’ that was not so inward-looking and domesticated as so many accounts of interwar Britain suggest.

En 1936, l’American Music League publiait le recueil de chansons afro-américaines Negro Songs of Protest collectées par le folkloriste communiste Lawrence Gellert. Puis en 1938 et 1939, grâce au financement du mouvement communiste américain, le producteur John Hammond présentait deux concerts intitulés From Spirituals to Swing au Carnegie Hall de New York. En plus de rendre hommage à l’histoire de la musique noire américaine, ces deux concerts défiaient la ségrégation raciale, permettant au Noirs et aux Blancs d’être rassemblés sur une même scène et de s’asseoir ensemble dans l’assistance. Au même moment, la chanteuse jazz Billie Holiday faisait fureur au Café Society, premier club « intégré » de New York et lieu de rassemblement de la gauche radicale, en interprétant soir après soir la chanson ‘’Strange Fruit’’ qui dénonçait l’horreur du lynchage toujours en vigueur dans le Sud des États-Unis. C’était l’époque du Front Populaire, la plus importante période d’influence du mouvement communiste aux États-Unis et, de surcroît, le moment de l’histoire américaine durant lequel la gauche organisée détenait un pouvoir sans précédent sur la culture de masse. Partant d’une discussion sur le potentiel révolutionnaire de la musique noire américaine et cherchant à comprendre le positionnement des mouvements sociaux vis-à-vis la culture, ce mémoire met en lumière le point de vue des communistes américains blancs face à l’émergence et à la popularité grandissante du blues et du jazz noirs aux États-Unis. En fonction des trois principales phases politiques du Parti Communiste américain (CPUSA) – la phase du colorblind class (1919-1928); la phase du nationalisme noir (1928-1935); le Front Populaire (1935-1940) – ce mémoire retrace les changements d’attitude de la vieille gauche envers la culture populaire et suggère que le mouvement communiste américain a tenté d’utiliser le blues et le jazz à des fins d’agit-prop. / In 1936, the American Music League published Negro Songs of Protest, a book of songs collected by the left-wing folklorist Lawrence Gellert. In 1938 and 1939, with the financial support of the communist movement, the producer John Hammond was able to present From Spirituals to Swing at Carnegie Hall, New York, two concerts that celebrated the contribution of African American music in American history. Moreover, the From Spirituals to Swing concerts broke the color line, by letting Blacks and Whites play music together on stage and sit together in the audience. During the same years, jazz singer Billie Holiday enjoyed a monstrous success with her anti-lynching song “Strange Fruit” at Café Society, the first integrated club and radical left-wing cabaret in New York. It was the time of the Popular Front; a time when the communist movement had a great influence on American society and when the organized left exerted unprecedented power over mass culture. Starting with a discussion of the revolutionary potential of African American music and trying to understand what social movements do with culture, this essay traces the developing point of view of white American communists toward the commercial explosion and growing popularity of blues and jazz music in USA during the interwar years. It asks the question of why there was so little mention of jazz and blues in Party organs during the 1920’s and early 1930’s , it explores the changing attitudes of the Old Left toward popular culture and suggests that the American communist movement used blues and jazz music for agitprop, during the last of the three main political phases of the Communist Party of America (CPUSA) – the colorblind class (1919-1928); the Black Belt Nation thesis (1928-1935); and the Popular Front (1935-1940).

Au terme de la Grande Guerre (1914-1918), rares sont ceux et celles qui ne rêvent pas d’un monde nouveau. Après quatre années de souffrance et d’angoisse, la paix s’impose comme une pulsion de vie qui touche toutes les populations impliquées dans le conflit, en premier lieu celles qui ont connu les combats sur leur propre territoire. Un nombre record de mouvements pour la paix émerge des cendres de la guerre, dont plusieurs sont spécifiquement féminins. Pour ces femmes, privées du droit de vote et donc exclues de la vie politique au sens traditionnel, ces mouvements apparaissent comme autant de nouveaux espaces d’actions politiques. À travers leur lutte pacifiste, elles investissent le champ politique et social, avec des débats qui n’ignorent aucune des grandes questions de l’entre-deux-guerres. C’est donc dans cette perspective que les femmes prennent parole : même si elles n’ont pas connu comme les hommes les champs de bataille, elles ont aussi souffert pendant le conflit et revendiquent le droit de « refaire le monde ». Ces quelques femmes sont toutefois longtemps restées dans l’ombre : doublement ignorées en raison de leur pacifisme et de leur sexe. L’historiographie de l’entre-deux-guerres en France a en effet longtemps négligé leur travail dans l’établissement de la paix et dans les relations internationales. Cette thèse cherche donc à combler un vide laissé par une historiographie trop longtemps axée seulement sur les hommes politiques et liant de façon trop stricte l’action politique et le droit de vote. À partir de l’analyse de cinq associations pacifistes féminines – la Section française de la Ligue internationale des femmes pour la paix et la liberté (SFLIFPL), la Ligue des femmes contre la Guerre (LFCG), l’Union féminine pour la Société des Nations (UFSDN), l’Union fraternelle des femmes contre la guerre (UFFCG) et la Ligue internationale des mères et des éducatrices pour la paix (LIMEP) – notre recherche propose une nouvelle analyse des affaires internationales en abordant les questions de la paix, de la réconciliation franco-allemande et du désarmement au féminin. Elle met également en lumière les discours sur le rôle et la place des femmes dans la société de l’entre-deux-guerres et cherche à comprendre comment les pacifistes contournent leur exclusion des affaires politiques et légitiment leurs démarches dans la construction de la société d’après-guerre. / Few people came out of the Great War (1914-1918) without dreaming of a better world. After four years of suffering and anguish, peace appears as a driving force for the populations that have been affected by the war, notably for those who have experienced its consequences first hand. A record number of peace movements emerged from the ashes of the war, many of which were specifically feminine. Deprived of the right to vote and therefore excluded from political life in a traditional sense, these movements created new grounds for women’s political action. Through their pacifism, they invested the political and social fields, and debated all the major issues of the interwar period. It is in this perspective that women speak out: even if they have not seen the battlefields like men, they have also suffered during the conflict and claim their right to “create a new world”. These few women have long been left in the shadows: ignored because of their pacifism and their gender. The historiography of the interwar period in France has indeed neglected their work in the establishment of peace and in international relations. This thesis seeks to fill a void left by a historiography focused solely on political men and which links too strictly political actions and the right to vote. Looking at five women’s peace associations – the Section française de la Ligue internationale des femmes pour la paix et la liberté (SFLIFPL), the Ligue des femmes contre la guerre (LFCG), the Union féminine pour la Société des Nations (UFSDN), the Union fraternelle des femmes contre la guerre (UFFCG), and the Ligue internationale des mères et des éducatrices pour la paix (LIMEP) – this research offers a new analysis of international relations giving a gendered analysis of peace, reconciliation and disarmament. It also focuses on the discourse on women’s role and place in the after-war society and seeks to understand how these pacifists worked around their exclusion from political life to enter a field traditionally reserved to men.

Cette thèse de doctorat porte sur l’évolution du discours critique et théorique sur le cinéma développé par les écrivains français de l’entre-deux-guerres (1918-1939). À une époque où le cinéma prend de plus en plus de place dans la société, les écrivains s’intéressent à cette nouveauté, y réfléchissent et tentent d’élaborer des canevas à partir desquels peut se former une cinéologie, c’est-à-dire, une écriture sur le cinéma. De très nombreux textes (articles, chroniques, essais, manifestes, préfaces, biographies), issus de publications diverses (revues de cinéma, revues littéraires, revues d’art, presse quotidienne, édition), témoignent de l’engouement pour ce qui sera rapidement présenté comme un art. S’inscrivant dans un vaste réseau de diffusion, ces textes aux prémisses essayistiques laissent une place centrale à la réflexion et sont représentatifs des tendances et des enjeux de l'époque. Ainsi, ils montrent les débats autour de l’acceptation du cinéma comme art tout comme les prises de position au sujet du parlant, ils abordent les relations avec la forme de représentation rivale qu’est le théâtre, ils témoignent de la modernité du nouveau média et en proposent des définitions mettant l’accent sur certains de ses aspects – thématiques (comme le rêve et l’inconscient), pratiques (comme la dépendance vis-à-vis de l’industrie et de la finance) et techniques (comme la photogénie et le rythme). Cette production textuelle doit également être abordée comme une mémoire du cinéma où se côtoient des figures (Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, ou encore Erich von Stroheim) et des films (The Cheat, Le Cabinet du Docteur Caligari, ou Hallelujah!) dont les seules évocations fonctionnent comme des citations et des arguments appuyant les propos. En plus de la richesse des idées proposées, l'étude de la posture, l’analyse des renvois intertextuels et des inventions lexicales montrent que des écrivains comme Louis Aragon, Blaise Cendrars, Pierre Mac Orlan, Jean Prévost ou encore Marcel Pagnol, ont largement contribué à l'élaboration d’un pan du savoir cinématographique et au développement d'un discours qui place l’expérience du cinéma et celle du spectateur au centre des préoccupations cinéphiliques. / This PhD dissertation is about critical and theoretical discourses on cinema that French writers have contributed to elaborate during the interwar period. At the beginning of the 20th century, cinema had acquired more importance in society. Therefore, some writers have tried to create new ways to write about it – what we called a cinéologie. They have expressed and discussed their ideas and views about what will soon become a new art in numerous and varied texts (articles, columns, essays, manifestos, prefaces, biographies). These texts come from diverse types of publications (film magazines, literary journals, art magazines, newspapers, publishing) and largely testify to the popularity of cinema. In the form of the essay, these texts are representative of the issues discussed at the time and need to be considered as a constituent part of an extensive network of diffusion. Thus, they present arguments about the acceptance of cinema as art, the talkies, the relations with drama and the place of cinema in modernity. These texts alos give several definitions about the possibilities of cinema in terms of esthetic, practice and technique. Besides, they can be considered as a cinematographic memory filled with artist names (Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks or Erich von Stroheim) and film titles (The Cheat, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or Hallelujah). Those references, which need to be considered as quotes supporting the argumentation, are an important part of that cinéologie developed in the interwar period. In addition to the ideas and the thoughts presented in those texts, the study of the position of the writer, the intertextual references and the lexical inventions show that writers such as Louis Aragon, Blaise Cendrars, Pierre Mac Orlan, Jean Prévost and Marcel Pagnol have contributed to a part of the cinematographic knowledge putting both the experience of cinema and the one of the audience at the center of concerns about cinephilia.

Ervin Schulhoff in the interwar cultural context for needs of modern school This thesis deals with life and works of a Czech-German music composer of the interwar period Ervin Schulhoff. The first part of the thesis is concerned with composer's life in the interwar cultural context, the second part focuses on his works. Detailed attention is paid to the period when Schulhoff was influenced by interwar avand-garda movement, particularly by Dadaism and jazz dance music and also Neoclassicism. The third part handles the issue of the use of Schulhoff's work related to his life at nowaday school and brings some ideas and possibilities of use in school music lessons with intersubject overlap. All work is completed with sheet music examples and images serving for better illustration of the subject. In the Appendices are included more pictures and photographs illustrating the composer's life and also the list of Ervin Schulhoff's compositions.

Le traité de paix signé en 1920 à Trianon, réduisant des deux-tiers le territoire et la population de la Hongrie vaincue, engendre une crise diplomatique franco-hongroise. Ce contentieux a-t-il eu un impact sur l’enseignement du français et sur la représentation de la culture française en Hongrie ? La réforme de l’enseignement secondaire de 1924 introduit le français, l’anglais et l’italien à côté de l’allemand obligatoire. On constate alors un essor spectaculaire du français dans les lycées. Cet essor ainsi que la création du premier lycée bilingue français-hongrois montrent l’influence de la culture française et le rôle actif des diplomates français en poste à Budapest malgré les consignes restrictives de Paris. Le Collège Eötvös, créé en 1895 sur le modèle français de l’École Normale Supérieure joue aussi un rôle déterminant dans la formation d’une élite enseignante francophone et francophile. L’approche allemande Kulturkunde, visant l’étude de l’esprit d’un peuple à travers sa littérature, pénètre dans les cercles pédagogiques hongrois. L’accueil est ouvert mais réservé quant aux dérives nationalistes possibles. L’analyse des manuels de français montre que les auteurs inscrivent cette approche dans la tradition francophile de l’élite intellectuelle hongroise en reliant la représentation de l’esprit français aux valeurs humanistes universelles véhiculées par la littérature française. L’absence d’amalgame entre culture et politique, l’attitude distanciée et humaine des enseignants hongrois, dont certains avaient même souffert personnellement de la situation politique entre la France et la Hongrie, montrent que des choix individuels peuvent transcender les contingences politiques et les dérives méthodologiques. / The peace treaty signed at Trianon in 1920 reduced by two-thirds the territory and population of defeated Hungary, thus creating a French-Hungarian diplomatic crisis. Might this strife had an impact on French language teaching and on the way French culture was depicted in textbooks? Actually, in 1924, a secondary education reform provided the possibility to learn English, French and Italian besides compulsory German. The result is a huge rise of French language in secondary schools. This rise and also the creation of the first French bilingual school show how influent French culture was in the country and how French diplomats in Budapest supported the reform in spite of limitative instructions from Foreign Office in Paris. Eötvös College, created in 1895 on the model of French Ecole Normale Supérieure, played also a decisive role in French teachers’ training and in the growth of a French-speaking elite. The german Kulturkunde approach, aimed to study the “mind or esprit of a nation” in teaching literature, penetrates into Hungarian educational circles. Hungarian teachers welcomed this new approach but expressed reserves about possible nationalistic drifts. The analysis of French textbooks shows that the authors applied Kulturkunde by making a strict distinction between politics and culture and by associating it with the humanist and universal values conveyed by French culture, in accordance with the francophile tradition of the Hungarian intellectual elite. The balanced and kind attitude of the Hungarian teachers, some of whom had to suffer personally from the political situation between France and Hungary, shows that individual choices can transcend political contingencies and methodological drifts.