The Paris Commune on the stage: Vallès, Grieg, Brecht, Adamov

Four plays on the Paris Commune, by authors generally considered to be Marxists, turn out to be vastly different. The book discusses and compares the presentation of the historical material in relation to the authors' professed aims, both with regard to dramatic/literary techniques and ideological contents. The central focus is on Brecht's Die Tage der Commune, as the most significant treatment of the topic, which offers a radically politicized correction of Grieg's rather pessimistic Defeat as well as the model for Adamov's highly complex and contradictory Le Printemps 71. The analysis of Brecht's play is the first comprehensive interpretation undertaken in the West.