The first half of the 20th century was a time that will never be forgotten. War, violence, and death touched the whole world. Numerous totalitarian leaders came into power. Millions and millions of lives were taken from soldiers and civilians. Two great World Wars occurred. Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia's labor camps killed tens of millions of people alone, almost all due to genocide. Then of course, the end of World War II marked the introduction of the nuclear bomb to war. There was The Russian Revolution, The Chinese Revolution, The Spanish Civil War and democracy's arch rival, communism.
Whether it was rooted from one's own government, or from another nation, war affected just about everybody on the planet, directly or indirectly. It was a time of misery and despair. As you probably would have guessed, the arts of the first half of the 20th century were greatly influenced by the massive death and destruction. Many writers and photographers documented the horrors to share with the world. Some used their own stories to give readers an idea of what life surrounded by death was like. Then others tried to find meaning in a world of death, despair, and suffering that did not seem to have any meaning. Alexander Solzhenitsyn and
. . .
"Everything is confused forever,/ And it's not clear to me/ Who is a beast now, who is a man,/ And how long before the execution. Matryona Vasilyevna represents, in Solzhenitsyn's eyes, everything moral, ethical, and, in general, right in life. the gifts reserved for age/ To set a crown upon your lifetime's effort. Picasso knew what the painting meant, but never shared his views. Matryona was good in a society containing much evil, yet she never changed. The beginning is the spiritual state that we have experienced before life on Earth started, where everything is good, possibly a heaven.
Tadeusz Borowski uses a similar approach to writing Ladies and Gentlemen, To The Gas Chamber as Solzhenitsyn did when writing Matryona's Home. Instead of losing sight of meaning in a world that seemd to have none, he held on to it in spite of all the war and death around him. It is true that Borowski risked himself to expose the true horrors of concentration camps. It was a large painting of many figures representing horror, death, suffering, and overall, war. Some artists found it, and some artists did not, but the opportunity was present.
Approximate Word count =
2393
Approximate Pages =
10 (250 words per page double spaced)
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