This article focuses on ‘Josefína Rykrová’s Autobiography’ (‘Vlastní životopis Josefíny Rykrové’) by Milada Součková, dealing in particular with issues related to the motif of memory in the form of ...labyrinthine prose. The collection of texts that is the subject of this analysis presents a retrospective narration based on the memories of Josefína Rykrová (although it makes multiple references to the biography of Milada Součková). Of particular importance is the fact that, at various times in the text, the subject position is split, suggesting a certain play with identities. Having created the figure of Josefína Rykrová, the author points to the splitting and loss of the self in the memories of others, which in turn become part of one’s own memory. Josefína, the titular heroine and the author of the memoirs, gets to know herself not only through her mother’s stories, but also through photographs. In this case, she draws from descriptions written on the back of the photos as an additional source of information. Součková shapes her text on the basis of an architectural metaphor of memory: the labyrinth. Moving towards the centre of this labyrinth is a complex process of remembering and erasing the traces of the past. The reconstruction of memories is aimed at reaching the first memory which remains entirely untainted. In this labyrinth, it is impossible to find the truth about oneself, yet the multiplicity of voices and images causes the subject to lose any certainty about this ‘self ’. Any certainty regarding the ontological status of the narrator is thus also lost by the reader. The labyrinth of the text, even though it uncovers the reality of intimate memories, never creates any intimate space for the subject, because it is interrupted by other voices — quotes, interjections, comments. Going through the labyrinth of memory is a symbolic attempt to confront one’s own identity and determine who one is.
Karel Teige’s enduring interest in the essence of poetry may help explain the outward promotion of his 1920s textual-visual works in contrast to his more muted treatment of the Surrealist ...photomontage collages that he produced from 1935 to 1951. Teige, a central figure of the Czechoslovak avantgarde, demonstrated throughout his voluminous theoretical pieces a continuous fixation on poetry. He wrote and published rationales for his earlier textual-visual works, yet left a lack thereof concerning his 374 Surrealist photomontages. Though Teige declared himself a Surrealist in 1934, Surrealism may not have interested him in the same way as Czechoslovak Poetism or the implementation of aesthetic concepts borrowed from his counterparts in Russia and Germany. In this essay, Teige’s proclamations about pictorial matters, poetry, modern art ideologies, typography, and the ‘inner model’ theory have been applied towards his pre-Surrealist, textual-visual works, in contradistinction to his later photomontages, to suggest why he did not promulgate the latter artworks to the same extent as the former. Examples of his 1920s picture poems in a lucid Poetist style present harmonized layouts of words, symbols, and cut-outs arranged into semiotic order. As a typographer, Teige stressed the importance of the ‘nature, rhythm, and flow’ of poetic texts, and his works also reveal careful reflection on the design of graphemes. It is, however, his fascination with linguistic matters, e.g. poetry and letters — a matter in which many of his Surrealist collages appear not to have taken much interest — that remains most obscure, lacking any contextual explanation. Suffused with fragmented corporeal forms and erotic imagery amid variegated scenery, Teige’s vivid post-1935 photomontages have drawn the attention and speculation of many art historians.
This article examines the role of the so-called Novo Mesto Spring movement, particularly the role of the poet Anton Podbevšek, on the dynamics of Slovenian avant-garde art in the first decade after ...the World War I. It outlines Podbevšek's controversial rise to celebrity status soon after his arrival in Ljubljana in 1920, his extraordinary influence on contemporary young poets, reflected in the literary contributions to the first issue of the magazine Trije labodje (The Three Swans, 1922), and, finally, analyzes Podbevšek's irrevocable decline after 1925. Podbevšek's (self)destructive behavior in this period proves to be among the important reasons why the attempt to consolidate Slovenian historical avant-garde art, which might have taken place around The Three Swans, failed.
Članek obravnava značilnosti umetnosti in literature v obdobju ruskega srebrnega veka s posebnim poudarkom na specifikah simbolistične in avantgardistične poetike in estetike. Ugotavlja, v kolikšni ...meri slednja - novotarska gibanja avantgarde - zares prelamljajo s simbolistično tradicijo in v kolikšni meri gre v njunem odnosu za kontinuiteto in zaostritev skupnih literarno-umetniških in svetovno-nazorskih specifik, povezanih s tradicijo romantizma, na katerih sta osnovana oba modernistična pojava z začetka 20. stoletja.
This paper presents the dissertation of writer Jiří Weil, defended in 1928, in which Weil considers the work of N. V. Gogol in its connection to the English novel of the 18th century. The ...contribution presents Weil’s work in its historical context and in the context of the author’s interwar output and activity. It also draws attention to Weil’s inspiration — the concepts and beliefs of Russian formalism —, exploring its conditions and consequences, and on Weil’s connection with (Russian) avantgarde and Russian revolutionary literature and culture, demonstrating how Weil’s uncommon familiarity with this environment, together with his fascination for the Russian Revolution, in both the social and artistic sphere, significantly influenced the resulting form of his work.
Prispevek gradi pojmovno mrežo zaumnega jezika in poskuša odgovoriti na vprašanji, ali je zaumni jezik sploh jezik (komunikativnost zauma) in kaj nam sporoča tisto, kar je "za" umom (informacija ...zauma). Predoktobrska avantgarda je zavrgla idejo umetniškega proizvajanja kot mehanične imitacije in osvobodila literaturo (in literarno vedo) od zunajliterarnih elementov zgodovine in kulture. Sočasno se je človek poglabljal v lastno psiho, da bi prikazal univerzalno morfologijo subjektivnega izkustva. Zaum prepoznavamo kot eno izmed tehnologij zgodnje ruske avantgarde za predrugačenje človekovega govora in mišljenja, ki bi posledično prerodilo celotno kulturo.
In the early 1940s, Karel Teige, a prominent theorist of the Czech avant-garde, returns to Max Dvořák’s concept of history of art as ‘history of the spirit’. Starting in the late 1930s, Teige pursued ...a sustained inquiry into the essence of the so-called imaginative (or ‘phantasizing’, in Teige’s own terminology) art, and his findings, which he intended to synthetize in a broadly conceived Phenomenology of Art (left unfinished), led him to the view that the essence of imaginative art consists in the visualization of ‘spiritual forms’ of an inner model. Primarily, it consists in a substantial transformation of one’s relationship to the external world: specifically, an internalization of senseperception and its metamorphosis into spiritual forms of subjective perception and consciousness. This is where Teige might have been influenced precisely by Dvořák’s abolition of any antithesis between naturalism and idealism, internal and external image, and his quest for a unity of Kunstwissenschaft and artistic practice. Teige was aware that this problem is central and constitutive for the entire era of Modernity and of the avant-garde, just as Dvořák was aware that the history and theory of modern art cannot consist in a mere mechanic continuation of the traditional arthistorical method; rather, it must reflect upon the creative processes of modern art.
Tokratni zvezek Amfiteatra prinaša pester konglomerat besedil, tako po tematikah kot zvrsteh. Tomaž Toporišič se v svoji razpravi loteva premisleka o avantgardah, tej še zmeraj vroči temi. Obravnava ...jih skozi prizmo razmerij med središčem in obrobjem Srednje in Vzhodne Evrope, pri čemer izhaja iz predpostavke, da srednje- in vzhodnoevropskih avantgard ne smemo razumeti kot nepopolne derivate gibanj iz velikih zahodnih središč, temveč kot samostojne, avtentične izraze. Zemljevid zahodnih centrov modernistične in avantgardne umetnosti 20. stoletja je raziskovalcem dobro znan, toda tovrstne pregledne strukture za Vzhodno in Srednjo Evropo ni. Razprava seže od zgodovinskih avantgard v dvajsetih in tridesetih letih prejšnjega stoletja (predvsem zenitizem in konstruktivizem) prek neoavantgard k (slovenski) retroavantgardi proti koncu dvajsetega stoletja, ki ni le oživila nekatere prvotne ideje, temveč je hotela tudi eksplicitno ustvariti alternativne zemljevide evropske umetnosti.
The article shows how Italian literary reviews at the beginning of the 20th century have been influenced by Esotericism and Occultism. In the Italian literary reviews, between 19th and 20th century, ...appeared many articles and studies dealing with Spiritism, Esotericism an Irrationalism in general, due to the development of the Occult Sciences and Esotericism in Europe. In Italy, in particular, the above mentioned influence was a reaction against Positivism and Scientism. Also James’s, Nietzsche’s an Bergson’s philosophy played an important role in the cultural scenario where the literary reviews come from. The article focuses on several important Italian literary reviews like: Leonardo, La Voce, L’Italia Futurista etc. and shows with examples how these literary reviews have been influenced by esoteric culture.
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