The Department of German Studies, School of languages, Doon University, Dehradun in collaboration with the Austrian Cultural Forum, Austrian Embassy, New Delhi has organised a week-long exhibition titled “The Eventful lull before the Storm: The period before 1914”.
The exhibition was inaugurated on Monday by the Austrian Ambassador Bernhard Wrabetz. Chandrika Kumar, assistant professor of German at the university, said the exhibition was a part of the world-wide commemoration of 100 years of the outbreak of World War-I. It will remain open for public till Saturday from 9.30 am to 5.30 pm.
The inauguration was followed by welcome notes by the vice-chancellor of Doon University Prof VK Jain and by the registrar BM Harbola. Two interactive sessions involving Wrabetz were held. The first session targeted the students and faculty members of School of languages. The second session was held specifically for the students of Department of German Studies, wherein specifically subject oriented questions were asked.
The Austrian Embassy gifted students and faculty members of the Department of German Studies with copies of Rama Pandey’s Hindi adaptation of Franz Kafka’s novel Der Prozeß.
The event hosted by the Doon University also marked the first ever visit of a European Ambassador to Dehradun, Uttarakhand. It was attended by academicians, educators and publishers from the region. The exhibition displays information on Austria and Austrian culture and art covering 100 years starting 1914.
The visual exhibition “The Eventful lull before the Storm” showcases the rich artistic, scientific and philosophic culture in Austria in the years before the First World War. Austria was undergoing a time of feverish change in the pre-war period, making a last giant leap into modernity in many areas: Sigmund Freud was carrying out research on the unconscious level of our existence, women were starting to emancipate themselves, Zionists longed for the Jewish State, music was abandoning the foundations of harmony and painting was freeing itself rapidly from realism.
Around the year 1900, Vienna had a population of more than two million, coming from all regions and provinces of the Danube monarchy and the city had a feel of creative forces of modernity. In the years before 1914, all advantages and disadvantages of the old and new Europe were played off against one another and put to the test: traditional, artistic, individual and social boundaries as well as moral and theoretical foundations, new technical approaches and urban settings.