Elite and Popular Culture - AP European History

Rudyard Kipling wrote many famous works of British literature at the turn of the twentieth century. They often centered around the British imperial experience, particularly in India. Although he was widely beloved in his time period and his works continue to be influential to this day, he has often been criticized in the last century for his belief in the "civilizing" missions of British imperialism.

Duma were assembled councils created by Czar Nicholas II. While they were assembled to appease, and ostensibly give voice to, the people, the Duma were largely weakened by the fact that the Tzar retained the power to disband them, so although they attempted to represent common people's interests, they were still totally under the power of the Tzar, who would frequently dissolve them for suggesting actions with which he did not agree.

Punch and Judy, imported from Italian comedic theater, was a popular marionette show in France, Britain, and the United States during the 18th century. It became more popular with children as the target audience in 19th century Britain.

Chaucer managed to write the Prologue, as well as 24 of 120 planned stories for The Canterbury Tales (1475). The other authors were not contemporaries of Chaucer. Geoffrey of Monmouth died in 1155, and none of the other choices were either alive or dead in the year 1400.

William Pitt was Prime Minister of Britain. Napoleon Bonaparte was Emperor of France. The famous Gillray print depicts the two carving up the world for their respective kingdoms.

Seen as the primary symbol of French extravagance and excess, Marie-Antoinette, wife of King Louis XVI, was executed in 1793.

The term “Soviet” originally refers to a series of localized legislative assemblies of lower-income workers and soldiers that were formed during the March Revolution. The name “Soviet Union” comes from the idea that all of these various assemblies of workers would come together to form one collective socialist Soviet Union. In some older history texts, the March Revolution is referred to as the February Revolution. The events did, in fact, mostly take place in March, 1917, and the March Revolution is now the commonly accepted name for these events.

After his father Charles I's execution in 1649, Charles II lived in exile for eleven years as "King" while the Puritan Oliver Cromwell ruled England in a republic as "Lord Protector." Cromwell's stern moralism and harsh rule combined to see most forms of popular entertainment banned in England, including the theater, bear baiting, and even public holidays such as Christmas. Upon Charles' Restoration to the throne in 1660, the theater was brought back, and saw a period of flourishing in comedies, works often known as "Restoration comedy."

Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene is the long epic allegorical poem to which this question refers. The eponymous Faerie Queene can be read as allegorically representing Queen Elizabeth I, and numerous other characters in the work relate similarly to individuals famous in Spenser's era.

Throughout early European history, religious dissent and reformation was much more likely to begin among the educated elite, or members of the clergy, than it was to begin with the common people. The reasons for this are obvious and many. The lives of many European peasants were not materially comfortable, nor stable enough, to allow them time to organize dissent. The main factor, however, was the low rates of literacy common throughout Europe in its early history. Unable to access, or to read, materials of dissent such as leaflets, political tracts, or dissenting religious texts, most people non-nobles were instead focused on subsistence and survival. Also, the common people were far more likely to embrace the use of the vernacular in literature because the common people were already speaking in the vernacular. It is accurate to say that popular culture was passed down orally, in the form of verbal storytelling, because the vast majority of common people could not read until the last couple of centuries.

Elite culture in Europe, since at least the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, has revered the intellectual and philosophical traditions of Ancient Rome and Greece. The renewed appreciation for the societies of Ancient Rome and Greece in the early years of the Renaissance contributed directly to the rise of Humanism; however, it is important to note that this reverence was experienced almost exclusively by the nobility. Due to the low levels of literacy among common people throughout Europe, and the lack of public education systems, for much of European history this appreciation of Ancient writing and philosophy was largely restricted to cultural and social elites.

World War I is sometimes referred to as the first “total war” in European history. The phrase “total war” means a war in which the entirety of the population is mobilized to contribute to the war effort. Those who were not fighting were expected to sacrifice and work hard to keep the country going forward. During World War I, the population of Europe experienced extreme rationing of resources and lower socioeconomic classes suffered greatly from disease and malnutrition. Propaganda, in a modern sense of the word, was employed by the governments of Europe to ensure loyalty and industry among their lower-income labor forces.

The Great Depression began in the United States, but spread rapidly to Europe and around the world. It wrecked the economies of many European countries and caused widespread suffering and hunger among the working classes of Europe. The institutions of democracy and capitalism were heavily scrutinized across wide swaths of European society, and in many countries they were overthrown to be replaced by fascism, autocracy, or communism. Even in those countries that did not witness revolution, it was eminently possible, as working class or reactionary parties found favor in France, Britain, and elsewhere. The extreme deprivation created by the Great Depression essentially polarized a great deal of political thinking in Europe at the time. Fascism and communism, arguably the two most extreme alternatives to democracy at the opposite end of the political spectrum, both saw a massive rise in cultural and political prominence. While it can be argued that World War I directly contributed to, or at least exacerbated, many of the problems of the Great Depression, it was the financial crisis that directly gave rise to more revolutionary thought in the inter-war period.

When Berlin was captured at the end of the Second World War, it was quickly occupied by the Soviets, the Americans, the British, and the French. The country of Germany was divided into East Germany (communist and under Soviet control) and West Germany (capitalist and under American control). Berlin, which is located in East Germany, was divided into four sections, one for each of the invading powers. The French, British, and American sections were combined to form “West Berlin,” and the Soviet section became “East Berlin.” In 1961, in an attempt to prevent East Berliners from fleeing into West Germany, the Soviets erected the Berlin Wall. It came to represent a popular symbol of the fundamental divide, and underlying tension, of world relations during the Cold War. When it was torn down, almost thirty years later, it was like the physical representation of the disunity and suffering of the German people being torn down as well.

The years after World War II witnessed a remarkable growth of prosperity in Western Europe and the United States. Class distinctions became much less important, and middle-class workers found themselves elevated to previously implausible levels of wealth and influence. This led to the emergence of a “consumer culture” among the common people, where the majority of people worked hard to buy the many things that were being sold to them as “fun,” “necessary,” “fashionable,” or “entertaining.” "Consumer culture" is often attributed to the proliferation of disposable income among increasingly varied socio-economic classes.

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were German storytellers whose main focus was on collecting and preserving popular culture. During the nineteenth century popular culture, as distinct from elite culture, was being identified and analyzed throughout Europe. Many feared that social homogenization as a logical offshoot of the increases in literacy. The possible result of this social homogenization was that popular (largely oral) culture would be lost forever. The Brothers Grimm (as they are popularly called) collected folks tales and fables from German popular culture (previously passed along over generations in oral formats) and preserved them for posterity.

Much of the history that has been written is based almost entirely on an understanding of elite culture. Only recently has popular culture been discussed as being of equal importance. The primary reason why popular culture is more challenging for historians to reproduce is that popular culture was often not recorded in writing (especially prior to the invention of the printing press) and was instead passed down orally. Elite culture was much more likely to be written down, and thus survived for centuries to be examined by historians in great detail.

World War I brought about death, disfigurement, and permanent psychological damage to millions of young men (the “lost generation”). This would have unexpected consequences for those Europeans who survived the war. Women's roles in workplaces, which, while economically vital, had been largely ignored and restricted to specific kinds of labor previously, began to emerge (women's suffrage was passed in many European countries in 1918 and 1919), and social customs and rules became less strict. For the next decade (“the roaring twenties”), society became more open.

Father Georgy Gapon was a priest in the Russian Orthodox Church who enjoyed great popularity among the common people. In 1905 he led a march of hundreds of thousands of peasants and workers on the Winter Palace of the Tsar. Troops opened fire, killing many of the protestors, in an event usually called “Bloody Sunday.” Gapon was assassinated a year later in mysterious circumstances.