Research on the avant-garde(s): Case study: Zenitism and the Central European contacts

New and seminal approaches to the historical avant-garde have begun on the global level in the 1960s, continued and expanded particularly in the 1970s, with different, sometimes even radically opposite interpretations. The determination, meaning and importance of the avant-garde were very much the product of the great divides in world society at the time. Therefore, not all historical material was available for research, and important social context and political conditions could not be openly discussed and clearly emphasized everywhere. The end of the 20th century introduced new interests, new orientations and a general rejection of major leftist ideas, which the avant-garde had historically belonged to. Therefore it is not surprising that the decline of research in avant-garde movements did not bring about a comprehensive reading of various cultural, particularly leftist phenomena from the first half of the 20th century. The case of the Yugoslav revue Zenit (Zagreb, Belgrade 1921-1926) and the entire movement of Zenitism had a particular social and cultural position. Completely marginalized and almost forgotten after World War II, it was only identified with the controversial personality of its founder Ljubomir Micic (1895-1971), considered in post-war Yugoslavia to be a nationalist and a conservative. Comparative studies of similar European avant-garde revues, their histories, objectives, poetics, manifestations and practices were leading in early 1980s towards a new, broader and much deeper reading of the Zenit revue and its significance for the Yugoslav cultural milieu of the 1920s. With various types of activities, a large number of collaborators and written manifestos with particular ideological determination, it became obvious that Zenit was not an isolated occurrence, but was very much connected to almost all progressive periodicals, intellectuals, writers and artists all over the world. It had a great humanistic, however utopian mission ahead: modernization of the entire society through the social role of international culture and art.