As I sat in the gardens opposite the former home of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, otherwise known as Lenin, these were the questions I was asking myself. Did Lenin ever meet any of the Dadaists? If so did any of them know who each other was? Did he ever actually enter the tavern christened the Cabaret Voltaire? And if so what would he have made of what was going on inside. First and foremost I wondered exactly how such a neutral and placid city as Zurich had been a haven for such revolutionaries and rebels.
Lenin's House
The unmistakable plaque of white stone placed on the wall of Spiegelgasse 14 signifies how Lenin, here described as "Der Fuhrer Der Russischen Revolution," lived here (with his wife Nadeshda Krupskaya in fact) from February 1916 until 2 April 1917. They lived, in the words of Nadeshda, "A jog-trot life," while the international situation grew steadily more revolutionary.
By all accounts Lenin had enjoyed the simplicity of his living quarters here; he would drink his coffee from a cup with a broken handle, the food was plain but sufficient. At the time, a sausage factory adjoined the yard and Lenin would complain of the stink. Carrying his work off to the library, he would often stay there for the whole of the day. The sausage factory no longer exists; the lower floor of the house is now occupied by a neat little shop called AHA that offers tidy little artefacts including Rubik Cube sculptures and, naturally, a bust of Lenin himself.
Zurich Old Town
The Speigelgasse itself is situated in Zurich Old Town on the right bank of the River Limmat. There are little architectural details everywhere. As I strolled along the narrow street I notice one perched towards the top of one building. It appears to be a statuette of Atlas holding up the world. Here he also seems to be holding up the roof. As I reached the end of the street I came across the small tavern that marks the intersection of Speigelgasse and the kilometre long Niederdorfstrasse, a cobbled thoroughfare that sprouts a web of intriguing alleyways and bijoux squares. The tavern, now a café and Dada archive open to the public, bears a small grey plaque, more artistic than the one signifying Lenin’s former residence and evidently a little more poetic in inscription; it reads,
"In diesem haus wurde am 5 Febr 1916 das Cabaret Voltaire eroeffnet und der Dadaismus begrundet" which literally translates as: "In this house on 5 feb1916 the Cabaret Voltaire opened and Dadaism was reasoned."
So it was almost simultaneously that as Lenin took residence at Speigelgasse 14, Hugo Ball – the German friend and biographer of Herman Hesse – and his girlfriend Emmy Hemmings (a German writer and venue performer) founded the Cabaret Voltaire. They were soon joined by the Romanian poet Tristan Tzara and others such as the German painter Hans Arp. This was the beginnings of the movement known as Dada.
The DADA Movement
Dada was a nonsensical word chosen at random from a dictionary signifying literally – nothing. The movement ridiculed contemporary culture that had led the world to war. While the rumble of warfare raged in the distance, the artists of Dada would sing, paint, paste and write poems for all they were worth. They produced works that were absurd and playful and which reflected a cynical attitude towards social values. Reflecting the thoughts of Lenin, their struggle – although perhaps tinged with absurdity – was nonetheless organised, according to all the rules of the arts, by people professionally engaged in revolutionary activity. As one former member, the painter Marcel Janco recalled,
"We had lost confidence in our culture. Everything had to be demolished. We would begin again after the Tabla Rasa. At the Cabaret Voltaire we began by shocking common sense, public opinion, education, institutions, museums, good taste, in short, the whole prevailing order."
The Attraction of Zurich
Zurich is undoubtedly a beautiful little city. Its face is turned towards the crystalline waters of Zürichsee, a lake considered clean enough to be certified as safe enough to drink. On a similar note, the Irish writer James Joyce (who worked on parts of Ulysses here) once described the Bahnhofstrasse to be so clean "you could eat minestrone soup off it." As I continued, my careful footsteps echoed loudly through the narrow streets of Zurich's old town. Slowly the answer to my question began to become clear.
As well as the placid neutrality of the city, obvious are the lack of splendour in the public buildings and the discretion of the locals in their open aversion to any display of wealth. The whole colour of Zurich appears to be tinged with the hue of freedom of thought, hence the attraction for the likes of Lenin and the Dadaists. Lenin himself, in fact, believed that Switzerland could become the centre of the future social revolution.
Just for a moment at least, all was quiet and the area seemed to exude an ambience of a floating calm. I remembered some words of Tristan Tzara that went something along the lines of how some will never understand that life is a pun, for they will never be alone enough to reject hatred, judgments, and all these things that require an effort...everything is equal and without importance.
Wise words? Lenin would probably have balked. For him the theory of knowledge required that we think dialectically; in other words our knowledge is not ready-made and unalterable but emerges from ignorance. As Dadaism began to spread through Europe towards the middle of 1917 Lenin, ready to charm even the bourgeoisie with his orations on class collaboration, boarded a sealed train and headed for Russia and what was the melting pot of the second Russian Revolution.
Sources
Stephen Wilton - Stephen is a qualified copy-editor and proofreader and is an associate member of The SfEP. He spent fifteen years as a touring rock ...
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