Dadaism as Political Installation and Language for Revolutionary Imagination: The Importance of Being Tzara and Lenin

Authors

  • Ileana Alexandra ORLICH Arizona State University, e-mail: orlich@asu.edu

Keywords:

Communism, Dadaism, Trumpism, approximate man, manifesto, earnest.

Abstract

The cultural fervor that ensued over the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich 100 years ago seems quintessentially contemporary. Having entered the stage of WWI Europe with a bang, Dada and the Dadaists brought along creative interventions seen today in continuing adaptation and cultural appropriation. Using the porous dramaturgy of Tom Stoppard’s Travesties and the rich politico-cultural commentaries embedded in Andrei Codrescu’s The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara and Lenin Play Chess, I rely on the interaction between Dadaism and Bolshevism as an instrument of cultural analysis, with Tzara’s relational engagement tapping into our fascination with a world out of kilter.

Author Biography

Ileana Alexandra ORLICH, Arizona State University, e-mail: orlich@asu.edu

Ileana Alexandra Orlich is President’s Professor and Professor of English and Comparative Literature, as well as Director of Romanian Studies at Arizona State University. Her books include Silent Bodies: (Re)Discovering the Women of Romanian Short Fiction (2002); Articulating Gender, Narrating the Nation: Allegorical Femininity in Romanian Fiction (2005); Myth and Modernity in the Twentieth-Century Romanian Novel (2009). All from Columbia Press, New York. Also: Avantgardism, Politics, and the Limits of Interpretation: Reading Gellu Naum’s Zenobia (2010); Staging Stalinism in Romanian Contemporary Theatre (2012). Among her translations into English are Mara (Slavici), Hanu Ancutei (Sadoveanu), Tache de Catifea (Agopian), Patul lui Procust (Camil Petrescu), trilogia Hallipa (Papadat-Bengescu), and Ciuleandra (Rebreanu). Her book, Literary and Dramatic Adaptations: Staging Stalinism in Hungarian, Romanian, and Bulgarian Theatre is forthcoming from CEUPRESS, New York and Budapest.

References

CHRISTMAN Henry M. Ed. Essential Works of Lenin, What is to be Done? And Other Writings. New York, Bantam Books, 1966.

CĂCIULEANU Gigi. Hotnews.ro, Culture. Interview Thursday, March 3, 2016.

CODRESCU Andrei. The Posthuman Dada Guide. Tzara and Lenin Play Chess. The Public Square Series, Princeton University Press, 2009.

DELANEY Paul. Ed. Tom Stoppard in Conversation. Ed. Paul Delaney, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997.

EICHELBAUM Stanley. “So Often Produced He Ranks with Shaw,” in Tom Stoppard in Conversation.

GORKY Maksim. “Speech at the First All-Union Convention of Soviet Writers, 17 August 1934,” in Preobrazhenie mira. Moscow: Sovetskaia Rossia, 1980.

RYLOV A. Vospominaniia “Reminiscences” Leningrad, 1997.

STOPPARD Tom. Travesties. New York: Grove Press, 1975.

TODOROV Vladislav. Red Square, Black Square: Organon for Revolutionary Imagination. SUNY, Albany, 1995.

TZARA Tristan. Primele poeme / First Poems. Translated by Michael Impey and Brian Swann. New Riverside Press, 1975.

WETZSTEON Ross. “Tom Stoppard Eats Steak Tartare With Chocolate Sauce,” in Tom Stoppard in Conversation.

WRIGHT Barbara. Trans. Seven Dada Manifestoes and Lampisteries, with illustrations by Francis Picabia. London: John Calder; New York: Riverrun Press, 1981.

STUDIA UBB DRAMATICA, Volume 61 (LXI), No. 1, March 2016

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Published

2016-03-30

How to Cite

ORLICH, I. A. (2016). Dadaism as Political Installation and Language for Revolutionary Imagination: The Importance of Being Tzara and Lenin. Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Dramatica, 61(1), 69–82. Retrieved from https://studia.reviste.ubbcluj.ro/index.php/subbdramatica/article/view/4492

Issue

Volume 61, No. 1, March 2016

Section

Articles

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Copyright (c) 2016 Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Dramatica

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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