![]() ![]() Meanwhile, between 18, the British Empire expanded to cover 4 million square miles. Those who offer protection have their hands out for protection money: this was the era of gangster In between, they signed a “treaty of protection” with the country’s previous rulers. Thus, in the spring of 1881 the French invaded Tunisia, and in the autumn of that year they put down a rebellion. Although to the actual civilizees, it felt different-more like conquest. The French believed at this time, as did the British, that they had a unique mission civilisatrice in the world and each, predictably, thought their own civilizing mission more civilized than the other’s. The cure for-or at least distraction from-domestic political confusion is often the same: foreign adventure. One major constitutional change which did happen was the separation of church and state the law of 1905 remains the basis of the French secular state to this day. ![]() Political corruption in France was endemic: it was said that “each banker has his personal senator and his deputies.”Īfter this democratic bid failed, a coup d’état seemed certain except that Boulanger too balked at the last minute, seemingly on the advice of his exquisitely named mistress, Mme de Bonnemains. So that “known affinity” between the historically persecuted Protestant and Jew could be turned by some minds into vivid threat. In such hyperventilating times, prejudice could swiftly metastasize into paranoia. But then as Douglas Johnson, wise historian of France, once wrote, “Paris is only the outskirts of France.”Īt the time, however, the Beautiful Era was-and felt-an age of neurotic, even hysterical national anxiety, filled with political instability, crises and scandals. Well, it might have been like that for some, and Parisians more than most. The Belle Epoque: locus classicus of peace and pleasure, glamor with more than a brush of decadence, a last flowering of the arts, and last flowering of a settled high society before, belatedly, this soft fantasy was blown away by the metallic, unfoolable 20th century, which ripped those elegant, witty Toulouse-Lautrec posters from the leprous wall and rank vespasienne. ![]() It was the title of a radio program which morphed into a live musical-theater show: a feel-good coinage and a feel-good distraction which also played up to certain German preconceptions about oh-la-la, can-can France. No one in Paris ever said to one another, in 1895 or 1900, “We’re living in the Belle Epoque, better make the most of it.” The phrase describing that time of peace between the catastrophic French defeat of 1870–71 and the catastrophic French victory of 1914–18 didn’t come into the language until 1940–41, after another French defeat. Accompanying this hardbound monograph are dozens of rare and evocative recordings spread over three discs by Bobo-Dioulasso's musical titans: Volta Jazz, Dafra Star, Echo Del Africa, and Les Imbattables Léopards.Merrie England, the Golden Age, la Belle Epoque: such shiny brand names are always coined retrospectively. A melange of community elders and emboldened youth spill from the brightly lit confines of Sanlé's Volta Photo into the dimly lit nightclubs of Upper Volta's cultural capital. Bobo Yeye: Belle Epoque in Upper Volta provides an intimate look into the landlocked nation's pop culture explosion of the 1970s. From his studio in central Bobo-Dioulasso, photographer Sory Sanlé documented a nation's transformation from colonial foothold to cosmopolitan oasis. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |