The article explores artistic initiatives giving shape to the multiple relations between the (theatre) avantgarde and the post-war crisis of identity in Slovene and Central European art and culture. It closely examines manifestative thoughts on Europe in crisis by Srečko Kosovel, the leading Slovene avant-garde poet, and Ljubomir Micić, the leader of the Serbian avant-garde movement Zenitism; Ferdo Delak and August Černigoj's manifestos of New Slovene Stage; and the concept of an expressionist play by Slavko Grum. The aim of the study is to show how the aesthetic revolutions of the historical avant-gardes of the region from the Adriatic Sea to the Western Balkan, were the artistic and human responses of the avant-garde artists to the newly developed crisis in Europe after 1918.
The article focuses on the transnational aspect of Yugoslav Dadaism, which was already an integral part of its founding stage in Prague in 1920, when the main Yugoslav Dadaist, Dragan Aleksić, was a student there. Through an analysis of the already known (but rare) primary and secondary sources and a presentation of some newly found primary sources, the article presents the cooperation between Yugoslav and Czech artists and clarifies the circumstances of establishing this Yugoslav avant-garde movement. Furthermore, because Aleksić’s work was closely connected to Ljubomir Micić’s Zenitism and the activity of Branko Ve Poljanski in Prague, we compare their journals (Zenit, Dada-Jok, Dada Tank, Dada Jazz) and emphasize the points of conflict and competitiveness among them, which was a constructive part for the further development of Yugoslav Dadaism. Thus, the article contributes to both the local and international positioning of the Yugoslav Dada in the context of the Central European avant-garde.
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