Modernism, Internationalism and the Russian Revolution

Description

Explores the impact of the Russian Revolution and League of Nations on British modernist culturePresents little-known material dealing with the Russian Revolution and the League of Nations in BritainCombines archival and theoretical approaches with reference to mainstream modernist authorsReferences contemporary discussions on transnational modernism and on ideas of Alain BadiouDocuments the hitherto neglected climate of ideas which shaped modernism after the Great War1917 was the moment in which a new sense of internationalism came into being under the impetus of the Russian Revolution and the formation of the League of Nations. Drawing on the responses of journalists and literary authors, David Ayers examines the work of lesser-known travellers and commentators alongside the work of major authors to show how these world-changing events impacted on British culture. We see how visitors to Moscow responded to meeting Lenin, how the Bolsheviks intervened in the British public sphere, and how cultural figures such as Leonard Woolf, H.G. Wells and T.S. Eliot, debated the League and the Revolution. Using Transnationalism theory and the work of Alain Badiou, Ayers demonstrates how a new age of transnational politics began and gave shape to the present.