Hi! Thanks for the question.
Let us first tackle life in Paris during the 1920s. The BBC website
provided a good feature of the different facets of social life in
Paris during this particular period. I will provide small snippets
from the articles I will cite whenever possible but I highly recommend
that you read them in their entirety so as to get a better coverage of
the topics.
Paris
1. Setting
“During the first quarter of the 20th century Paris became the magnet
for a growing international colony of young artists, poets and
musicians.”
“By the time of the First World War Montparnasse, which had taken over
from Montmartre as the centre for artists' studios, cafés and bars,
was the meeting place for a wide cross-section of new thinkers and
experimenters. There was a huge exchange of ideas between these
artists, composers, poets and writers, who met and discussed their
work in the many cafés and nightclubs for which Montparnasse had
became famous.”
“Background”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutmusic/features/paris/background.shtml
“With the establishment of the Third French Republic and relative
stability, Paris became the great industrial and transportation center
it is today. Two epochal events in modern cultural history that took
place in Paris were the first exhibition of impressionist painting
(1874) and the premiere of Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps (1913). In
World War I the Germans failed to reach Paris. After 1919 the
outermost city fortifications were replaced by housing developments,
including the Cité Universitaire, which houses thousands of students.
During the 1920s, Paris was home to many disillusioned artists and
writers from the United States and elsewhere.”
Paris History
http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/world/A0860241.html
2. People
“These were crazy times fuelled by crazy people. Artists were mad for
Paris in the twenties. Flocking there to explore the meaning of the
'modern' world. The list of people who lived and worked there included
Pablo Picasso, Apollinaire, Igor Stravinsky and a young Ernest
Hemingway. The scene wasn't just run by blokes, the American collector
Gertrude Stein played a crucial role in championing the art of the
day.”
“People”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutmusic/features/paris/people.shtml
3. Entertainment
“Between 1914 and 1924 a complex mood of change was in the air which,
in its simplest terms, involved a new freedom to experiment and a
sweeping aside of traditionally held values. In music this took the
form of a revolt against the Impressionism of Debussy and the dense
chromaticism of German romanticism.”
“Paris's popular Nouveau Cirque and Cirque Medrano included a
cosmopolitan array of acts - clowns, acrobats, jugglers, magic and
animal numbers - as well as musical plays, pantomimes and even
operettas. The annual fair was a spectacular event too, containing
many of the elements of the circus, as well as stalls selling
household goods and food.”
“Music”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutmusic/features/paris/music.shtml
4. Art
“The new vision was one which represented the world in terms of
geometrical shapes and altered perspectives. Things were never to look
the same again. New subjects included machine-like images and the city
in both its glory and its ugliness, while the traditional subjects -
the still-life and the portrait - became less and less popular.”
“Art”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutmusic/features/paris/art.shtml
“Poetry”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutmusic/features/paris/poetry.shtml
5. Social Life
“Paris in this era was probably the most liberal place in Europe. It
certainly was a lot more easy-going than the United States, where
prohibition was being enforced. There was also a more liberal attitude
to sex. Homosexuality and promiscuity did not mean the instant
rejection from society that it would mean in many parts of the World.”
“In fact, if they dared, the 'modern' woman could smoke, drink and
have all sorts of new fun.”
“Condoms had been issued to soldiers during the war to guard against
venereal disease and brands such as Trojan were made publically
available by 1920. This meant that not only could married couples
control the size of their families but young people could engage in
more sex before marriage.”
“Pleasure”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutmusic/features/paris/pleasure.shtml
“Many Parisians retained fantasies of blacks and sterotypical views of
them as passionate, vital, and sexual, qualities prized as a necessary
antidote to the staid bourgeoisie. Thus associations with blacks
whether it be through socializing or employing African motifs in art
was seen as modern. Moreover, in the face of World War I and the loss
of faith in Western “progress," the perceived primitivism of blacks
and African art was seen as a repudiation of the status quo and a
challenge to the colonial enterprise.”
“Negrophilia: Avant-Garde Paris and Black Culture in the 1920s”
http://www.semcoop.com/detail/0500281351
6. Style and Fashion
“At the start of World War I it seemed that French couture houses
would stay closed for business until the cessation of fighting.
However this was not the case and by 1917 there was talk of new lines,
simple dresses such as the barrel dress and the dropping of 'false
chic'. Women's fashions had responded to the fact that they had been
working during WWI with a freedom of movement previously unheard of.”
“Style”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutmusic/features/paris/style.shtml#more
Our next link provides an illustration of the fashion during those
times in Paris and could help you picture what women wear if you ever
need it in your novel.
1920s Paris Fashion: Daywear
http://www.onlinecostumeball.com/Delineator/Nov_1920/Women/DayWear.htm
1920s Paris Fashion: Evening-wear
http://www.onlinecostumeball.com/Delineator/Nov_1920/Women/EveningWear.htm
7. American Influence
“In the 1920s, Paris rebounded from World War I with frenetic
jubilation and artistic creativity. Contributing to the energy were
the Americans, including many African Americans, who either served in
the armed forces during the war and declined to return home, or who
traveled to Paris to experience its cordial racial and artistic
climate.”
“The Jazz Age in Paris 1914-1940”
http://www.si.edu/ajazzh/jazzage.htm
I also found a number of books that could help you in your research
about 1920s Paris culture. One of them features recipes and anecdotes
about French food in that era.
“Found Meals of the Lost Generation: Recipes and Ancedotes from 1920s
Paris”
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0571199259/ref%3Dnosim/skylightgallery/104-1723761-6941553
“Paris Was Yesterday, 1925-1939”
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0156709902/qid=1057121437/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-1723761-6941553?v=glance&s=books
“Fireworks at Dusk: Paris in the Thirties”
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0316092754/qid%3D1057121558/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/104-1723761-6941553
------------------------------
Russia
Russia during this time as you know is having a political and social
upheaval due to communism so a comparison between the two from my
readings is virtually inappropriate. One (Paris) is having a liberal
cultural revolution while the other is in the grips of fear and
uncertainty (Russia). However we can see some glimpse of a Russian’s
life during these times.
Let us first at the social ranks in Russia in the 19th century so as
to get a historical perspective of where the rich are coming from
before the 1920s.
“In the nineteenth century, only genealogy of the nobility existed–a
paper trail further enabled by Peter the Great’s fourteen-step Table
of Ranks. All ranks were classified into three groups: military,
civilian, and court.”
“Other classes included merchants, clergy, tradesmen, peasants, petty
bourgeoisie, and Jews. Each class had its own representative body such
as the Noble Assembly and the Merchant and Tradesmen Councils.”
“The nobility had to prove their status to the Empire. They received
substantial benefits, including the right to own land and serfs, and
the right to vote.”
“Research in Russia”
http://www.ancestry.com/library/view/ancmag/5080.asp
Our next link however will show that by the 1920s such classes were
wiped out by communism.
“Authoritarian regime defeated opponents through terror, emigration of
1-3 million middle & upper-class, refusal to accept unfavourable
votes, Red Army & Lenin’s 1921 New Economic Policy, reintroducing
small-scale private enterprise. Achieved in face of strikes, mutinies
& ferocious resistance to grain seizures.”
“THE RISE OF COMMUNISM, 1917-1949: LECTURE SUMMARY”
http://www.uclan.ac.uk/facs/class/histcrit/modules/hy1113a.doc
During the 1920s, there were two well off segments of the society
mainly the Kulaks and the Jews.
The Kulaks:
“IN THE early 1920s Russia's new government were forced to
re-introduce a widespread capitalist market to revive the economy from
the devastation inflicted on it. This successfully boosted food
production but also created a new class of rich farmers called
kulaks.”
“Socialist opponents of Stalin, particularly Leon Trotsky, warned that
the kulaks' economic power would eventually grow so much that they
would threaten the regime. Stalin ignored this for years, but then
panicked when danger was imminent in the late twenties and took
drastic steps to transform Russia from a predominantly agricultural to
an industrial society.”
“A five-year plan was introduced to build up heavy industry at
breakneck speed and a programme of repression implemented to
"liquidate the Kulaks as a class". The new line was given an
ideological cover under the slogan of building "socialism in one
country", which consciously rejected the internationalism that until
then was at the heart of socialist thinking.”
“What about Russia?”
http://www.worldsocialist-cwi.org/index2.html?/eng/2002/06/19Stalinism.html
“…Stalin in particular sought to eliminate the wealthiest peasants,
known as kulaks. Generally, kulaks were only marginally better off
than other peasants, but the party claimed that the kulaks had
ensnared the rest of the peasantry in capitalistic relationships. In
any event, collectivization met widespread resistance not only from
the kulaks but from poorer peasants as well, and a desperate struggle
of the peasantry against the authorities ensued. Peasants slaughtered
their cows and pigs rather than turn them over to the collective
farms, with the result that livestock resources remained below the
1929 level for years afterward. The state in turn forcibly
collectivized reluctant peasants and deported kulaks and active rebels
to Siberia.”
“Russia Industrialization and Collectivization”
http://www.workmall.com/wfb2001/russia/russia_history_industrialization_and_collectivization.html
The Jews:
“In the early years of the Soviet Union, Jews gained much more freedom
to enter the mainstream of Russian society. Although relatively few
supported the explicit program of the Bolsheviks, the majority
expected that the new state would offer much greater ethnic and
religious tolerance than had the tsarist system. In the 1920s,
hundreds of thousands of Jews were integrated into Soviet economic and
cultural life, and many acquired prominent positions. Among them were
communist leaders Leon Trotsky, Lazar Kaganovich, Maksim Litvinov, Lev
Kamenev, and Grigoriy Zinov'yev; writers Isaak Babel', Veniamin
Kaverin, Boris Pasternak, Osip Mandel'shtam, and Ilya Ehrenburg; and
cinematographer Sergey Eisenstein. Special Jewish sections were
established in the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik)”
“Then, in the 1930s the purges initiated by Stalin targeted groups for
their ethnic and social identities.”
“Judaism in Russia”
http://atheism.about.com/library/world/KZ/bl_RussiaJudaism.htm
Russian Society:
“In many respects, the NEP period was a time of relative freedom and
experimentation in the social and cultural life of the Soviet Union.
The government tolerated a variety of trends in these fields, provided
they were not overtly hostile to the regime. In art and literature,
numerous schools, some traditional and others radically experimental,
proliferated.”
“In family life, attitudes generally became more permissive. The state
legalized abortion, and it made divorce progressively easier to
obtain. In general, traditional attitudes toward such institutions as
marriage were subtly undermined by the party's p romotion of
revolutionary ideals.”
“Society and Culture in the 1920s”
http://216.239.53.100/search?q=cache:BQAZaq3pHd8J:www.1upinfo.com/country-guide-study/russia/russia36.html+1920s+russia+society&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
However, such relative freedom was only short lived and the government
implemented tight control among its citizens.
“Concomitant with industrialization and collectivization, society also
experienced wide-ranging regimentation. Collective enterprises
replaced individualistic efforts across the board. Not only did the
regime abolish private farms and businesses, but it collectivized
scientific and literary endeavors as well. As the 1930s progressed,
the revolutionary experimentation that had characterized many facets
of cultural and social life gave way to conservative norms.”
“Considerations of order and discipline dominated social policy, which
became an instrument of the modernization effort. Workers came under
strict labor codes demanding punctuality and discipline, and labor
unions served as extensions of the industrial ministries.”
“Literature and the arts came under direct party control during the
1930s, with mandatory membership in unions of writers, musicians, and
other artists entailing adherence to established standards.”
“The party also subjected science and the liberal arts to its
scrutiny… In the writing of history, the orthodox Marxist
interpretation employed in the late 1920s was modified to include
nationalistic themes and to stress the role of great leaders t o
create legitimacy for Stalin's dictatorship.”
“The Purges”
http://216.239.41.100/search?q=cache:ye6iSOyoaLIJ:www.1upinfo.com/country-guide-study/russia/russia38.html+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Search terms used:
1920s Paris Russia History Social life
“everyday life”
I hope these links would help you in your research. Before rating this
answer, please ask for a clarification if you have a question or if
you would need further information.
Thanks for visiting us.
Regards,
Easterangel-ga
Google Answers Researcher |
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