Sarrasani's theatre of the world: Monumental circus entertainment in Dresden, from Kaiserreich to third Reich

German History

Volumn 17, Issue 4, 1999, Pages 527-542

  Otte, Marline ^a  

^a LEWIS AND CLARK COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY; CULTURAL FACTOR; ECONOMICS; EDUCATION; ETHNOLOGY; GERMANY; HEALTH; HISTORY; LEISURE; POLITICAL SYSTEM; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; REVIEW; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR; SOCIAL CHANGE; SOCIAL PROBLEM; SOCIOECONOMICS; URBAN POPULATION;

ANTHROPOLOGY, CULTURAL; CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS; GERMANY; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; LEISURE ACTIVITIES; POLITICAL SYSTEMS; RACE RELATIONS; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR; SOCIAL CHANGE; SOCIOECONOMIC FACTORS; URBAN HEALTH; URBAN POPULATION;

EID: 63849087654     PISSN: 02663554     EISSN: 1477089X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1191/026635599669435101     Document Type: Review

References (48)

1. For the concept of 'legitimate culture' see Lawrence Levine, 'William Shakespeare and the American People. A Study in Cultural Transformation', in Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson (eds.), Rethinking Popular Culture. Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies (Berkeley, Calif., 1991), p. 170
2. For much the same view today, see Karin Nietzschke and Lothar Koch (eds.), Dresden. Stadt der Fürsten, Stadt der Künstler (Bergisch-Gladbach, 1991)
3. Karl Heinrich Pohl, 'Power in the City: Liberalism and Local Politics in Dresden and Munich', in James Retallack (ed.), Saxony in German History: Culture, Society, and Politics, 1830-1933 (Ann Arbor, Mich., forthcoming)
4. David Blackbourn and Richard J. Evans (eds.), The German Bourgeoisie (London, 1991)
5. and Thomas Nipperdey, 'Verein als Soziale Struktur in Deutschland im späten 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhundert', in Nipperdey, Gesellschaft, Kultur, Theorie (Göttingen, 1976), pp. 174-205
6. Harry C. Boyte, 'The Pragmatic Ends of Popular Politics', in Craig Calhoun (ed.), Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Mass., 1992), pp. 342-3
7. For further details and attendance figures, see Marline Otte, 'Jewish Identities in German Popular Entertainment, 1890-1930', Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Toronto, 1999
8. Ernst Günther and Dietmar Winckler, Zirkusgeschichte (Berlin, 1986), p. 121
9. Bim Mason, Street Theatre and other Outdoor Performance (London, 1992), p. 17
10. An excellent introduction to the history of European circuses is provided by Jewgeni Kusneszow, Der Zirkus der Welt (Berlin, 1970)
11. on German circuses see also Günther and Winkler, Zirkusgeschichte; Robert A. Jones, Art and Entertainment: German Literature and the Circus, 1890-1933 (Heidelberg, 1985)
12. Joseph Halperson, Das Buch vom Zirkus, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Wanderkünstlerwelt (Düsseldorf, 1926)
13. Günter Bose and Erich Brinkmann, Circus. Geschichte und Ästhetik einer niederen Kunst (Berlin, 1978)
14. Wolgand Carlé, Das hat Berlin schon mal gesehn. Eine Historie des Friedrichstadt-Palastes (Berlin, 1982)
15. G. B. Eberstaller and Paul Christian, Circus (Vienna, 1976)
16. J. Merdert (ed.), Zirkus, Circus, Cirque. 28. Berliner Festwoche (Berlin, 1978)
17. a quite different approach is taken in Paul Bouissac, Circus and Culture. A Semiotic Approach (Bloomington, Ind., 1976)
18. Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, (Frankfurt/Main, 1972), reviewing Ramon Gomez de la Serra, Le Cirque
19. For the 'utopian element' in popular entertainment see Richard Dyer, Only Entertainment (London, 1992), pp. 18-25
20. and John Baxendale, '"... Into Another Kind of Life in which Anything Might Happen ..." Popular Music and Late Modernity, 1910-1930', Popular Music, 13 (1995), 139
21. Gert Hohorst, Jürgen Kocka, and Gerhard A Ritter (eds.), Sozialgeschichtliches Arbeitsbuch II, 2nd edn (Munich, 1978), p. 45
22. Joachim Menzhausen, 'Dresdner Reformbewegung nach 1900', Dresdner Hefte, 11:36 (1993), 2-3
23. Otto Richter, Geschichte der Stadt Dresden in den Jahren 1871 bis 1902, 2nd edn (Dresden, 1904)
24. Ernst Günther, Sarrasani wie er wirklich war (Berlin, 1991), p. 89
25. Günther and Winkler, Zirkusgeschichte, p. 122
26. Kusneszow, Zirkus der Welt, p. 211
27. See Diethart Kerbs and Jürgen Reulecke (eds.), Handbuch der deutschen Reformbewegungen, 1880-1933 (Wuppertal, 1998)
28. Günther, Sarrasani, p. 101
29. See the programme of Sarrasani's opening in Dresden: Arthur Vollrath, Circus. Kleine Plaudereien von Arthur Vollrath (Dresden, n.d.), p. 6, Circus, Varieté- und Artistenarchiv, Marburg
30. Bouissac, Circus and Culture, p. 7
31. On the concept of orientalism, see Edward Said, Orientalism (New York, 1979)
32. Vollrath, Circus, p. 4
33. On a related question see the discussion of the 'electric fairyland' in Rosalind Williams, 'The Dream of Mass Consumption', in Mukerji and Schudson (eds.), Rethinking Popular Culture, p. 217
34. See Erika Fischer-Lichte, 'What are the Rules of the Game? Some Remarks on The Yellow Jacket', in Fischer-Lichte, The Show and the Gaze of the Theater (Iowa City, 1997), p. 75
35. Heinrich August Kober, Ich wanderte mit dem Zirkus (Frankfurt/Main, 1958), cited in Günther, Sarrasani, p. 78
36. 'Ein Circusman verwaltet ein Museum. Zu den Gedenktagen Karl Mays im Jahre 1932', Das Program, no. 1564, 27 March 1932, Documenta artistica, Märkisches Museum Berlin
37. For further references to the 'Old Indians' see O. v. Hahnke, Zirkus Sarrasani: Hinter den Kulissen einer Weltschau (Berlin, 1952), p. 201
38. See René Wasner, 'Karl May und seine Künstlerfreunde', Dresdner Hefte, 16:54 (1998), 87-9, citing Rolf Günther and Klaus Hoffmann, Sascha Schneider & Karl May - eine Künstler-freundschaft (Freital/Radebeul, 1989), pp. 49-50
39. May often attributed Roman facial features to Native American heroes; see Martin Lowsky, Karl May (Stuttgart, 1987), p. 87
40. See Helmut Schmiedt, Karl May. Studien zu Leben, Werk und Wirkung eines Erfolgsschriftstellers (1987), pp. 236-7
41. Franz Xaver Dworschak, Meister der Manege. Zirkusleute erzählen aus ihrem Leben (Berlin, 1943), pp. 307-8
42. Werner G. Schmidtke, Billy Jenkins - Ein 'wahrer' Held. Wirklichkeit und Phantasie eines ungewöhnlichen Lebens (Braunschweig, 1979), p. 17
43. Schmiedt, Karl May, pp. 242-3
44. Hahnke, Zirkus Sarrasani, p. 197
45. Betty Kirkpatrick (ed.), Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (Oxford, 1993), p. 336
46. Erika Fischer-Lichte's concept of the 'empty sign' refers to signs on stage that gain their meaning 'as a consequence of a particular relationship between perception, movement, and speech, which not only the actor, but the spectator must establish as well'. Fischer-Lichte, The Show and the Gaze, p. 88
47. Schmidtke, Jenkins, p. 13
48. Benjamin Lapp, 'Der Aufstieg des Nationalsozialismus in Sachsen', in Reiner Pommerin (ed.), Dresden unterm Hakenkreuz (Cologne, 1998), p. 1; Günther and Winckler, Zirkusgeschichte, p. 127