When the Austro-Hungarian Empire was collapsing, but a new order remained uncertain, two extraordinary musical works grappled with questions now central to our understanding of the 20th-century political catastrophe. Bartók’s “The Wooden Prince” (1914–16) and Janáček’s “Taras Bulba” (1915–18) help us understand the cultural and ideological forces that prepared the ground for totalitarianism and the end of liberal society […]
Author Archives: Elena Zeng
… is a Research Associate and the Assistant Director of the Center for the Study of Governance and Society at King’s College London, and an Associate Fellow of the UK’s Royal Historical Society. Her works on music, political theory and modern European history have either appeared or are forthcoming in Global Intellectual History, Austrian Cultural Forum, and elsewhere.