Nationalism and Identity in Central and Eastern European Art and Architecture

In this discussion based class our studies will take us from Berlin to Krakow, Budapest to Zakopane, exploring the history of Central and Eastern Europe from 1870 to 1945 through an examination of art and architecture. We will study how the rapid pace of industrialization and urbanization, burgeoning commodity culture, ethnic unrest, and nationalist movements destabilized Central and Eastern European society, resulting in new forms of art and architecture. We will take advantage of the opportunities offered by the exhibition, “Bloom and Doom: Visual Expression and Reform in Vienna 1900” (at our Middlebury College Museum of Art) to inform our discussion.