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Roaring Twenties? Europe in the interwar period
Roaring Twenties? Europe in the interwar period

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Glossary

Germania
The new name given to Berlin in Adolf Hitler’s and Albert Speer’s plans to transform the city into a monumental capital city at the heart of a greater German world empire. In 1937 Speer (the Nazi Party architect) was commissioned by Hitler to produce designs for the transformation of the city, which were released to the public in January 1938. The designs for the buildings and accompanying transport system were undoubtedly modern, though with classic overtones. Speer’s plans included two grand processional boulevards on a north-south and east-west axis, a Great Hall at the very centre of Berlin with a dome 16 times larger than St Peter’s in Rome, a massive Arch of Triumph, modern housing stock, ring roads and vehicle underpasses. Although work began almost immediately, the demands of waging war soon diverted attention away from the project.
high culture
Cultural traditions and phenomena predominantly created by and patronised by the higher classes or intellectuals in a society. The conditions in which such phenomena are created and disseminated often inhibit the participation of the ‘many’ (or lower social classes) in these cultural traditions.
mass culture
Primarily cultural phenomena that appeal to the ‘many’, or mass audiences, often cutting across class, gender and age boundaries. Mass culture is seen as distinct from popular culture, or as a modern development of popular culture. Where popular culture is associated with folk traditions, and seen as being made for the people by the people, mass culture is created for the people, but not by the people. Mass culture is also linked to the industrial and urban environment, as opposed to popular culture, the roots of which are said to be found in rural and community life. However, such distinctions often blur in reality, especially as mass culture is not devoid of authenticity and popular culture can be remade and re-emerge in new environments.
Piazza Augusto Imperatore
Directly translated as Emperor Augustus Square, the Piazza Augusto Imperatore was one of the great construction projects of Benito Mussolini, designed by fascist architect Vittorio Ballio Morpurgo in 1936 and built for the 1938 celebration of the 2000th anniversary of Augustus’ birth. It is an ideal example of the way in which Italian fascism made use of the grandeur of the Roman Empire as part of its futurist planning.
positive eugenic policies
Designed to encourage healthy parents to have children and pass on their good physique to the next generation. Negative eugenic policies aimed to discourage the physically and mentally weak from having children.
totalitarian
The OED defines totalitarian as the following: ‘A system of government which tolerates only one political party, to which all other institutions are subordinated, and which demands the complete subservience of the individual to the State.’
Trianon state
This refers to the new states of Austria and Hungary after the signing of the Treaty of Trianon, signed by the Allies and the new state of Hungary on 4 June 1920 as part of the Paris Peace Settlement, which dissolved the former Austro-Hungarian empire.