Research Catalog

Title

Dada East : the Romanians of Cabaret Voltaire / Tom Sandqvist.

Author

Sandqvist, Tom

Publication

Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c2006.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

433 p., 16 p. of plates : ill. (some col.); 24 cm.

Summary

• "In Dada East Tom Sandqvist shows that Dada did not spring full-grown from a Zurich literary salon but grew out of an already vibrant artistic tradition in Eastern Europe - particularly Romania - that was transposed to Switzerland when a group of Romanian modernists settled in Zurich. Bucharest and other cities in Romania had been the scene of Dada-like poetry, prose, and spectacle in the years before World War I. One of the leading lights was Tristan Tzara, who begn his career in avant-garde literature at fifteen when he cofounded the magazine Simbolul.
• Tzara - who himself coined the term "Dada," inspired by an obscure connection of his birthday to an Orthodox saint - was at the Cabaret Voltaire that night, along with fellow Romanians Marcel, Jules, and Georges Janco and Arthur Segal. It's not a coincidence, Sandqvist argues, that so many of the first dadaist group was Romanians. Sandqvist traces the artistic and personal transformations that took place in the "little Paris of the Balkans" before they took center stage elsewhere, finding sources as varied as symbolism, futurism, and folklore. He points to a connection between Romanian modernists and the Eastern European Yiddish tradition; Tzara, the Janco brothers, and Segal all grew up within Jewish culture and traditions."
• "For years, the communist authorities in Romania disowned and disavowed Romania's avant-garde movements. Now, as archives and libraries are opening to Western scholars, Tom Sandqvist tells the secret history of Dada's Romanian roots."--Jacket.

Subject

• Janco, Marcel > Dadaismus > Zürich > Geschichte 1914-1920
• Tzara, Tristan > Dadaismus > Zürich > Geschichte 1916-1920
• Segal, Arthur (Künstler) > Dadaismus > Zürich > Geschichte 1916-1920
• 1900-1999
• Arts, Romanian > 20th century
• Avant-garde (Aesthetics) > Romania > History > 20th century
• Dadaism > Romania
• Jewish artists > Romania > History > 20th century

Genre/Form

History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 393-423) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

2 In Romania and Switzerland 15 -- 3 In Central and Eastern Europe 45 -- 4 Marcel Iancu Becomes Marcel Janco 65 -- 5 Little Paris of the Balkans 101 -- 6 Samuel Rosenstock Becomes Tristan Tzara 123 -- 7 The Symbolist and Dadaist from Moinesti 141 -- 8 Aron Sigalu Becomes Arthur Segal 171 -- 9 Symbolists, Absurdists, and Futurists 195 -- 10 In the Romanian Village 247 -- 11 In Yiddishland 271 -- 12 Ex Oriente Dada 289 -- 13 Back in Bucharest 339.

ISBN

• 0262195070 (hc : alk. paper)
• 9780262195072

LCCN

^^2005054459

OCLC

61458400

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library