TY  - BOOK
AU  - Richthofen,Esther von
TI  - Bringing Culture to the Masses: Control, Compromise and Participation in the GDR 
T2  - Monographs in German History
SN  - 9781845454586
AV  - DD286.3 .R55 2009eb
U1  - 306.0943/109045 22
PY  - 2009///]
CY  - New York, Oxford
PB  - Berghahn Books
KW  - HISTORY / Modern / 20th Century
KW  - bisacsh
KW  - History: 20th Century to Present, Cultural Studies (General)
N1  - Frontmatter --; CONTENTS --; ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --; LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS --; INTRODUCTION --; Prelude NONCONFORMITY, COERCION AND ALIENATION: THE 1950S --; PART I Bending the Rules While Upholding the Structures: Cultural Functionaries --; Introduction --; Chapter 1 NEITHER PUPPETS NOR OPPONENTS --; Chapter 2 ORGANISING CULTURE Compromise and Communication --; PART II Attempted Self-determination – Pursuing an Interest: The Participants --; Introduction --; Chapter 3 PATTERNS OF PARTICIPATION --; Chapter 4 COMMUNICATION WITH CULTURAL FUNCTIONARIES --; PART III From Utopianism to Pragmatism: Cultural Policy --; Introduction --; Chapter 5 RESPONDING TO DEVELOPMENTS AT THE GRASS ROOTS --; Chapter 6 FROM ART TO CULTURE --; Aftermath BREAKDOWN OF COMMUNICATION: THE LATE 1970S AND 1980S --; CONCLUSION --; BIBLIOGRAPHY --; INDEX; restricted access
N2  - Cultural life in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) was strictly controlled by the ruling party, the SED, who attempted to dictate how people spent their free time by prohibiting privately organized leisure time pursuits and offering instead cultural activities in state institutions and organizations. By exploring the nature of dictatorial rule in the GDR and analysing the population’s engagement with state-organized cultural activity, this book challenges the current assumptions about the GDR’s social and institutional history that ignore the interaction and inter-dependence between ‘rulers’ and ‘ruled’. The author argues that the people’s cultural life in the GDR developed a dynamic of its own; it was determined by their own interests and by the input of cultural functionaries, who often aimed to satisfy popular demands, even if they were at odds with the SED’s cultural policy. Gradually, these developments affected SED cultural policy, which in the 1960s became less focused on educationalist goals and increasingly oriented towards popular interests
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1515/9781845458942
UR  - https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9781845458942
UR  - https://www.degruyter.com/document/cover/isbn/9781845458942/original
ER  -