Popular Landscape of Entertainment in East-Central Europe, 1850–1939. An Introduction
Popular Landscape of Entertainment in East-Central Europe, 1850–1939. An Introduction

Summary/Abstract: “An outright abundance of amusements. Twenty out of thirty posters announce and praise the spectacles so far unparalleled. In Passage-Panoptikum, the Dahomeys laid out. I proceeded onwards to catch sight of some more people. (…) A huge, gilded hall flooded with rays of the sun, crowded and buzzing. Music plays a sentimental waltz. The masses smoke, and speak. White aprons of waiters cross the hall in diverse directions, and one may hear knocks of pitchers and a hoarse voice: – Beer! The hall is full of Dahomey. They squeeze between the tables with the dexterity of monkeys and wheedle money. They are almost naked and beautifully built. The black-and-ashen hue of their skin is velvety, glittering and invariably soft. A certain Dahomey Venus simpers and intrusively strives for selling a photograph of her. (…) two enchanters or bonzes wearing white coats came out to the forefront of the stage. One of them holds a monstrous deity, coarsely hewn of wood; and the second – a flat, cane basket and a long pipe made of reed. – Serpents! A serpent! Die Schlange! – the crowd yells and a strange kind of shiver pierced through everyone. (…) The snakes stood almost vertically and started to perform a kind of dance along slanting lines. Their long and greenish bodies writhed, bounced and fell on the ground hissing. There is commotion in the hall, but after a while the crowd erupts in applause, and this European, metropolitan mob is immersed in delight. (…) Gentlemen! Buy photographs showing the King of Dahomey. Only one mark a piece…” (Reymont 1894).

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