From Montmartre to the Latin Quarter: Paris at the forefront

At the beginning of the 20th century, Paris stopped being merely the capital of France—it became a laboratory for a new vision of the world. But this Paris was neither ceremonial nor glittering; it was born in the cold attic rooms of Montmartre, amidst the smoke of cheap cigarettes, cabarets, poverty, and an uncompromising belief in a new art.

In his memoir From Montmartre to the Latin Quarter, Francis Carco offers not a dry history of painting or literature, but a living, sensory chronicle of the era. It is a geography of freedom: from the cobbled streets and smoke-filled Bateau-Lavoir, where Picasso painted his Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, to the cafes of Montparnasse and the bookstores of the Latin Quarter, where the center of gravity of interwar intellectual life shifted.

We will talk about how a handful of outsiders, poets, vagabonds, and artists severed ties with classical aesthetics and created the myth of the "Parisian bohemia." We will discuss how personal friendships, betrayals, poverty, and genius shaped the language of the modern avant-garde—from cubism and fauvism to a new poetic sensibility that still defines our view of freedom, the city, and creativity.

At the lecture, we will discuss:

• The Parisian topography of revolution: how the city's geography determined aesthetic shifts in art

• Literature as a document of the era

• The anatomy of bohemia

• Masters and rebels: Picasso, Modigliani, Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Soutine

• The legacy of the Parisian myth

Lecturer: Bohdana Nosenok – Doctor of Philosophy, culturologist. A researcher of French cultural studies and the methodology of the "new historical science" of the Annales school, as well as interdisciplinary approaches to culture analysis. Translator of literary works from English, French, and Italian. Author of the travel novel Distance.

• Venue: Offline (Plato's Cave / Pechera Platona) + Online (Zoom)

• Duration: 2–3 hours

• Recording: Yes, included for participants

• Language: Ukrainian

If you wish to receive the recording only, please register via "online participation".