1. Concept
The salon is a quintessential European venue of memory and a sociocultural phenomenon of longue durée with origins in the 16th century. The connotations of the term, which has a broad semantic range, vary according to period and cultural sphere. In German, they are often pejorative (Salonliterat, “salon writer”; Salonkommunist, “champagne communist”). It denotes the reception room, the re…