People in the Present

From the mid-nineteenth century on, the nation’s authentic character was sought among the ‘timeless’ countryfolk rather than in its ancient ancestry. Paradoxically, this turn from ‘past to peasant’ took place during a period of accelerated, technology-driven and urbanizing modernity, as more unrestricted, commercially driven, mass-appeal cultural media became available. This chapter traces the interaction between the modern city and the timeless country, from world fairs to the art theatres of the fin-de-siècle . The chapter concludes by outlining how the new modern and decorative arts (Arts and Crafts, art nouveau) functioned as carriers of progressive national revival movements in Europe’s sub-imperial capitals, from Dublin and Barcelona to Prague and Riga; and how their anti-imperial emancipation agenda was uneasily poised between progressive cosmopolitanism and nativist essentialism.