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Bohemia. Art-born Gypsies.

Insight / PAVEL GRATA

The romantic atmosphere created around the concept of “Bohemia” by storytellers and composers of the 19th century could not dispel storms of the 20th century. Bohemia is the most enduring of all subcultural phenomena and is the most fashionable of all the marginalized ones...

They have created the ideology that gave great importance to aesthetics and challenged traditional social values. It was a strong mixture and a direct attack against the capitalist world. However, a century later, the social rotation blew away contemptuously "gypsy" and heroically sacrificial connotations from the definition of the term. Gradually boho chic, laced with a taste of the approaching apocalypse and permissiveness, lured into an artistic environment of calculating monster and enemy — the bourgeoisie.
Having found an arising tendency to merging these two spheres, an American sociologist and columnist of "New York Times" David Brooks put forward the suggestion of creating a separate class. So, neologism "Bobo" (bourgeois-bohème) has become available to the public.
Representatives of the new tribe, Michurinsky's mixture of the bourgeois and bohemians, no longer have to die of hunger and tuberculosis anticipating the recognition, to feed fleas and, like the heroes of Henry Murger, drink only water when they don't have enough money for wine. They were given the opportunity to freely enjoy the expensive to their heart grants, lofts, caftans, suffer from narcissism, infantilism and absenteeism of originality. It's a true, fruitless pop-hedonism!
Modern generations of neophytes should remember that the true bohemians of the 19th century called themselves “art-born gypsies”. Just as another source of role models of bohemian hipsters positioned themselves simply as "white negroes". It is a seamless blend of adventure, lack of fear of looking ridiculous, of affectivity and a touch of vulgarity. The main difference from the current subcultures is trying on its colorful outfit!
Have a closer look, identification with the marginalized and oppressed classes is not an accident; it enabled them to rise or even to disengage from the world of bourgeois complacency. In addition to free work schedule and careless pastime, bohemian lifestyle always included the ability to treat yourself with humor, soberly assessing the reality.
Ambition constantly pushed the bohemians to conquest the future, and the world, living with the feeling of being trapped, gave occasion rather to sneer and mock, than to be seriously upset. They were not freethinkers on the weekends, clerks in everyday life, as most of modern "bobo", and appreciated the creativity in man.
Everything has mixed up... you can't recognize the previous items, the old categories don't fit. And it is not yet known whether a modified form of Bohemia is able to provide significant results?!
There is a challenge for “Bobo”: being in the vanguard of progress and acting as a mobilizing force to release the inexhaustible creative potential of the population, reviving the open, diverse, and creative society.
Unfortunately, a huge source remains unreaziled, and if we react wrong or even ignore, as it happened in the past, the tragic "fin de siecle" awaits for everybody.

 

 

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