Yugoslav Avant-Gardes and Metropolitan Dada (1916–1927): A Multi-directional and Transnational Genealogy
Project Focus
The project focuses on the under-researched heritage of the South Slavic avant-gardes of the former Yugoslavia (Ljubljana–Zagreb–Belgrade, 1921–1927). It examines their productive interactions with parallel Western European movements, particularly Swiss and French Dadaism (1916–1922). Utilizing open-access digitalized archive sources, the project will map and analyze their most innovative literary and visual narratives, thereby contributing to the integration of the history of South Slavic avant-gardes into the mainstream narratives of European avant-gardes.
Short Project Description
The European artistic avant-gardes that emerged after World War I (1914–1918) profoundly influenced the perception of the role of art in contemporary society. Recognizing the ongoing significance of this avant-garde heritage, this project addresses the lack of historical research and theoretical reflection concerning the South Slavic avant-gardes of the former Yugoslavia (Ljubljana–Zagreb–Belgrade, 1921–1927) and their productive interactions with historically parallel “metropolitan” Western European movements.
Specifically, it focuses on the existing but under-explored dialogue of the Yugoslav avant-gardes with the Swiss and French phases of Dadaism (Zurich–Paris, 1916–1920, 1919–1922). The project leverages the recent expansion of open-access digitalized archival sources, which offers a unique opportunity for fresh insights into the trajectories, influences, and development of modernism and avant-garde art in Europe. The research centers on questions of national and transnational politics and culture, aiming to reveal the processes of subjectivization these radical movements sought to establish and the methods they employed.
The project will examine the politics and poetics of the Yugoslav avant-gardes by mapping, categorizing, and analyzing their most innovative and experimental forms of literary and visual narratives, using the Swiss and French periods of the Dada movement as a primary point of reference. This literary-theoretical research—grounded in the semiotics and imagology of avant-garde magazines (e.g., Zenit, Tank, Dada)—will gather source material from both digital and physical archives accessible in Belgrade, Zagreb, Ljubljana, Zurich, and Paris. Establishing these conceptual frameworks and mapping these artistic manifestations and their mutual networks will directly contribute to integrating the history of the South Slavic historical avant-gardes into mainstream European avant-garde studies, as well as into the local cultural traditions of the former Yugoslav states.