Marta Filipová has written a thorough and engaging monograph that examines First Republic Czechoslovakia’s participation in eight world’s fairs between 1922 and 1938. She demonstrates that “behind the primary concern with establishing trade relations at the world’s fairs was a complex array of motivations about what kind of Czechoslovakia should be displayed, who should represent it, and how” (16). Czechoslovakia’s entries in the world’s fairs did not reflect the diverse multiethnic, multi-confessional country but instead “prioritized the Czechs” who brought civilization to Slovaks and Ruthenians. The country’s three million German speakers rarely featured in the pavilions’ narratives, and Hungarians and Poles were altogether absent. Ideas for the national displays originated in Prague-based government ministries, and the exhibitions often posited a “mythical” image of Czechoslovakia as an “island of democracy and freedoms” (8). Yet, Filipová “look(s) beyond” the displays’ surfaces to reveal the various debates, challenges, and criticisms of the content and aesthetics of the Czechoslovak pavilions (8). Filipová’s book draws on rich archival collections in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and the United States, and she grounds her analysis in theories of nationalism, eugenics, gender, and modernity. Further, her analysis contributes to the reassessment of the First Republic by historians and other scholars since the 1990s.
The book’s six chapters are organized thematically. The first three chapters examine the concept of the world’s fair, pavilion design, and exhibition content. Filipová’s analysis builds on her earlier work on the relationship between folk art and modernism in Bohemia and Moravia. While ethnographers wanted the national pavilions to highlight rural culture through folk costumes and traditional crafts, Czechoslovakia’s leading architects and artists favored modern design. Even within the modernist community, though, artists differed in their approach to design. Art deco enthusiasts favored a degree of ornamentation, whereas functionalists called for a radical, sleek style.
Chapter 4 explores the economic and commercial aspect of world’s fairs. Filipová uses the glass industry as a case study for the slippery identity of multiethnic, multi-confessional Czechoslovakia. Every interwar world’s fair featured Czechoslovak glassware, art glass, and architecture that incorporated glass. The malleable material demonstrated the long history of high-end craft in the region as well as the newest innovations in art and architecture. The Moser glass company, which specialized in art glass pieces, participated in almost every Czechoslovak world’s fair exhibit. Moser was founded in 1857 in Karlový Vary (Carlsbad), Bohemia, by a German-speaking Jewish family. Czechoslovak exhibition organizers were happy to feature a German-Jewish company when its work highlighted the country’s industry and innovation, but they de-emphasized the company’s origins. “Bohemian glass” became swiftly known as “Czech glass” at the world’s fairs, even when its production took place in German-speaking or Slovak regions of Czechoslovakia. Similarly, the Czechoslovak pavilions of the late 1930s showcased Pilsner Urquell beer as “so characteristically Czechoslovak … [and] a staple of our republic” while failing to acknowledge that German speakers had founded the company (157).
Filipová views world’s fairs as dynamic events that rely on the interaction of many actors, including designers, bureaucrats, businessmen, exhibitors, workers, and visitors. Chapter 5 focuses on “the people of the fair” and shows that audiences and workers played crucial roles in creating and maintaining world’s fair exhibits. She reminds readers that these pavilions were built by workers and artisans and staffed by various employees, including chefs, brewers, food servers, souvenir sellers, maintenance workers, and cleaners. She discusses the role of gender, acknowledging that women participated “mainly as providers of services rather than initiators or leaders” (180).
Filipová also examines the role of immigrant communities, especially during the Chicago World’s Fair of 1933. Immigrant associations organized exhibits, parades, gymnastics performances, and dance shows. Most immigrants had come to the United States during the Habsburg era, and few Czech-Americans had a strong sense of unity with Slovaks. Bohemian German immigrants tended to relate more to German-American cultural groups than to a Czechoslovak identity. Ruthenian-Americans found very little representation at Czechoslovakia’s world’s fair pavilions beyond “references to the forested landscape and natural resources of the regions” (189). Generational divides also played a role in how attendees responded to the Czechoslovak exhibits. Second and third generation Czech- and Slovak-Americans, who had grown up in urban environments, felt disconnected from the emphasis on rural culture, which they described ironically as exhibits of “lace and sheep” (190).
Chapter 6 examines the underlying themes of race and eugenics in the world’s fairs of the 1920s and 1930s. Filipová offers sophisticated discussions of biological nationalism, hygiene, and racial and class hierarchies that influenced Czechoslovakia’s projected image. This theme helps define the Zeitgeist of the 1920s and 1930s, but the chapter’s material strays from the book’s focus on world’s fairs. Many of the exhibits discussed in this chapter took place at eugenics or hygiene conferences rather than at world’s fairs. Even when there was a eugenics display in the 1933 Chicago World Fair’s Hall of Science, it was “not extensive” (231).
The book ends in 1939, when the world became enveloped in war. While this is a logical conclusion, Filipová could have alluded to the significance of world’s fairs for Czechoslovakia’s postwar government. For example, the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels marked a turning point for Czechoslovakia. The Communist Party allowed artists and designers considerable freedom in creating the national exhibition, and Czechoslovakia’s pavilion took first prize at the fair. Recently, several scholars have eschewed traditional periodization to look for continuities and ruptures between the First Republic and the Communist era on topics such as national identity.
This monograph will interest scholars and students of history, art history, and cultural studies. Readers will also enjoy the images of paintings, architecture, advertisements, memorabilia, and people at various world’s fairs. Filipová’s book offers a model for interdisciplinary scholarship.
