| Popis: |
In this chapter I discuss the histories of two national theatre institutions from the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Eliel Aspelin-Haapkyla’s Suomalaisen teatterin historia I–IV (The History of the Finnish Theatre, I–IV), published in 1906–10, and Tharald Blanc’s Christiania Theaters Historie. Tidsrummet 1827–1877 (The History of the Christiania Theatre), published in 1899. Both histories were written when the vernacular, or semi-vernacular, theatre groups of the two capitals Christiania1 and Helsinki acquired new, grand theatre buildings in the city centres and were consequently officially renamed as national theatres. It was no coincidence that the renaming of theatre enterprises and moving to the new premises happened simultaneously. Shabby, old, wooden theatre buildings in the outskirts of the town would have given a peculiar picture of the cultural maturity of the nation in question. Theatre was, after all, one of the central means to create, communicate and maintain the idea of the particularity and imagery of the national past, elemental in the establishment of the new nation-states in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe. |
