Before the 30s crisis Society

The New Interwar Entertainments

Many are alarmed by the workers’ movement, which is even seen as a wave of barbarianism, wiping out culture… At the core of the workers’ movement is an aspiration to develop through culture… But how could these barbarians gain culture? one hears. It is precisely that these barbarians do not want to be

Antonio Machado, 1934

Mass-marketed culture gave intellectuals both anxiety (Ortega y Gasset) and hope (the above-cited Machado). The impact of technology on the spread of art also became the subject of serious consideration, by Walter Benjamin, for one. Ordinary people took advantage of additional free time, but also of new media, which were often more accessible than traditional forms.

In the relatively impoverished Portugal, even “before the advent of sound cinema […] films were screened in 400 places Low ticket prices contributed to the development of cinematography. “In 1931, a trip to the cinema cost one peseta, though there were also general admission cinemas […] where a seat cost fifty centimes, and an entrance fee [without a seat] was In Madrid, a carpenter may have earned 8-12 pesetas daily, and a baker: Even an unqualified worker could afford to go. In Italy, which was relatively affluent, 343 million tickets were sold in

illustration: Maja Starakiewicz

Another popular invention spreading culture was the radio. Poland was behind in this department, yet in 1934 over 300,000 people were tuned in Germany the same year there were four million listeners. Great Britain had the lead in Europe, as “by the late 1930s most working-class families might boast […] a radio in the living

In 1938, for thirty-five marks you could buy a small radio in Germany, officially called the “people’s” (Volksempfänger), and unofficially, “Goebbels’s mouthpiece” (Goebbelsschnauze). By way of comparison, a decade earlier Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks cost two and a half marks (in a mass-market edition), and The Magic Mountain was twelve

At the same time, the publishing market was always developing, both in terms of the press and books. Both democratic and totalitarian states attempted to combat illiteracy and build a network of libraries, appreciating the propaganda and educational virtues of these institutions. Film was a bit more difficult. Stalin dreamed of creating a “Soviet Hollywood” on the Black Mussolini also wanted his own “version” of the Los Angeles studio (in Cinecittà). In either case, however, they failed to build the necessary infrastructure, although individual works of Soviet, Italian, and German cinema, generously supported by the state, were made on a very high technical level.