Figurae Veneris Historiae

Goran Stefanovski is a leading Macedonian dramatist who is now based in Canterbury, Kent where he lectures in Scriptwriting at Canterbury Christ Church University. His new play Figurae Veneris Historiae is based on Sitten Geschichte des Weltkrieges (Sexual History of the First World War) by Magnus Hirschfeld, originally published in Berlin in 1931. Hirschfeld’s book is about the immoral history of the First World War. It documents its infamy, shame and evil. The theme of our play shows war as human mass orgy, a bachannalia. War is massive and organized violence. It is the crown of political pathology. Wars are perversion of history. The Hirschfeld material is explosive and disturbing and it cuts across a number of sensitive political and moral taboos. The genre of the play is a tragic farce.