Bohemianism
For Bohemian fashion, see Bohemian style and boho-chic.For other uses, see Bohemian (disambiguation).
Though a
Bohemian is a native of the
Czech province of
Bohemia, a secondary meaning for
bohemian emerged in
19th century France. The term was used to describe
artists,
writers, and disenchanted people of all sorts who wished to live non-traditional lifestyles.
"The term 'bohemian' has come to be very commonly accepted in our day as the description of a certain kind of literary gypsy, no matter in what language he speaks, or what city he inhabits .... A bohemian is simply an artist or littérateur who, consciously or unconsciously, secedes from conventionality in life and in art." (Westminster Review, 1862, noted at Online Etymology Dictionary.)
The term reflects the French perception, held since the
15th century, that the
gypsies had come from Bohemia. Literary
bohemians were associated in the French imagination with roving gypsies, outsiders apart from conventional society and untroubled by its disapproval. The term carries a connotation of arcane enlightenment (the opposite of '
Philistines'), and also carries a less frequently intended, pejorative connotation of carelessness. Bohemians were often associated with
drugs and self-induced poverty.
Henri Murger's collection of short stories,
Scènes de la Vie de Bohème (Scenes of Bohemian Life), published in
1845, popularized the term's usage in France. Ideas from Murger's collection formed the theme of
Giacomo Puccini's
opera La bohème (
1896).
In English,
bohemian in this sense was first popularized in
William Makepeace Thackeray's novel,
Vanity Fair, published in
1848. Even the Spanish gypsy in a French opera
Carmen set in
Seville is referred to as a
bohémienne in Meilhac and Halévy's libretto (1875).
The term has become associated with various
artistic or
academic communities and is used as a generalized
adjective describing such people, environs, or situations:
bohemian' (
boho - informal) is defined in
The American College Dictionary as "a person with artistic or intellectual tendencies, who lives and acts with no regard for conventional rules of behavior."
Many prominent
European and American literary figures of the last 150 years belonged to the bohemian counterculture, and any comprehensive 'list of bohemians' would be tediously long. Bohemianism has been approved of by some
bourgeoisie writers such as
Honoré de Balzac, but most conservative cultural critics do not condone the bohemian lifestyle. Ironically enough, bohemianism by definition can only exist within a framework of conservative values.
Bohemia meant any place where you could live and work cheaply, and behave unconventionally; a community of free souls far beyond the pale of respectable society. Several cities and neighbourhoods came to be associated with bohemianism in the
19th and
20th centuries:
Montmartre and
Montparnasse in
Paris;
Greenwich Village and the
Lower East Side in
New York City;
North Beach,
Haight-Ashbury, and the
Mission District in
San Francisco; the
French Quarter in
New Orleans;
Chelsea,
Bedford Park,
Fitzrovia and
Soho in
London;
Schwabing in
Munich;
Ipanema and
Leblon in
Rio de Janeiro;
Skadarlija in
Belgrade.
Modern bohemias include
Barranco in
Lima,
Peru;
Dali in
China;
Chiang Rai in
Thailand;
Kathmandu in
Nepal;
Amsterdam in the
Netherlands;
Prague in the
Czech Republic;
Užupis in
Vilnius,
Lithuania, and
Vama Veche in
Romania. In
Australia, there is
North Adelaide (in
Adelaide,
South Australia),
Newtown in
Sydney and
Fitzroy in
Melbourne, and
Kensington Market in
Toronto and
Mile End in
Montreal.
*
Jonathan Larson's
Broadway musical and film
Rent, based on Puccini's
La bohème, depicts the Bohemian culture of
New York City in the late
1980s. One of the feature numbers,
La Vie Boheme, addresses the
death of bohemia as an end of the neighborhood as a haven for these bohemians, while celebrating the ideals and history that formed this
counterculture.
* The movie
Moulin Rouge! by
Baz Luhrmann bears relation to the opera La bohème and includes many references to the Bohemian subculture.
*
Queen's song, "
Bohemian Rhapsody."
* The fashion for so-called "Bohemian" or
"boho" chic in the early 21st century included a number of elements from earlier eras.
*
Avant-garde*
Beat generation Bohemian Manifesto*
Edie Brickell & New Bohemians*
Goth*
Hippie*
Jianghu*
Literary KicksMetropiaMoulin Rouge*
Rent*
Bohemianism and Counter-Culture
