Hagar Olsson and the Soldier of Modernism - War, Brutality and Borders in the Interwar Period

• For the Swedish-speaking Finnish writer and critic Hagar Olsson, modernism and war were closely connected. Modern art was perceived not just as brutal and provocative in itself, but as arising from the fierce energies of World War I and at the same time embodying a protest against it. This essay examines how Olsson simultaneously appropriated and critically assessed different avant-garde aesthetics in her utopian and anti-militarist photo-novel På Kanaanexpressen (On the Caanan Express, 1929). It is viewed as part of a more widespread tendency among Nordic artists during the 1920s to deal with war and revolution as a way of testing avant-garde aesthetics/ideology “at home”. Whereas other novels by Emil Bønnelycke, Tom Kristensen and Elmer Diktonius also exhibit ambivalent attitudes to the ties between violence, masculinity and avant-garde aesthetics, Olsson’s novel stands out as even more radical in its experimental form as well as offering a more complex analysis of the role of gender.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Litteraturvetenskap (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- General Literary Studies (hsv//eng)

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Litteraturstudier (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- Specific Literatures (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Hagar Olsson

modernism

avant-garde

war

gender

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kap (ämneskategori)