Projects / Programmes
Yugoslav Avantgardes and Metropolitan Dada (1916–1927): A Multidirectional and Transnational Genealogy
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 6.07.00 |
Humanities |
Literary sciences |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| H000 |
Humanities |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 6.02 |
Humanities |
Languages and Literature |
Historic avantgarde, Yugoslav avantgarde, Dadaism, Zenithism, national, transnational, semiotics, imagology, politics of literature
Researchers (1)
| no. |
Code |
Name and surname |
Research area |
Role |
Period |
No. of publicationsNo. of publications |
| 1. |
51537 |
PhD Kristina Pranjić |
Literary sciences |
Head |
2019 - 2021 |
145 |
Abstract
The European artistic avantgardes that emerged in the wake of World War I (1914–1918) have profoundly affected the way we see art’s role in society today. Acknowledging the contemporary relevance of the legacy of the avantgardes, this project addresses a persisting shortcoming in the general history of European avantgarde: the lack of research into the South Slavic avantgardes of the former Yugoslavia (Ljubljana-Zagreb-Beograd; 1921–1927) and their productive interactions with the historically parallel “metropolitan” Western European avantgardes. Particularly interested in the acknowledged but under-researched dialogue of the Yugoslav avantgardes with the Swiss/French Dada (Zürich-Paris; 1915–1920, 1919–1922) movement, the project will exploit the recent increase in open-access digitalization of archival resources as an opportunity for new insights into the historical pathways, impact, and development of modernism and avantgarde art in Europe. Research will be focused on the questions of national and transnational politics and culture, and will aim to uncover the strategies of subjectivization that these movements wished to enact, and the methods they used. This project will investigate the politics and poetics of the Yugoslav avantgarde movements by mapping, categorizing and analyzing the most innovative and experimental forms of their literary and visual narratives, while using the Swiss and French phases of the Dada movement as an important reference point. Interdisciplinary research in semiotics and imagology of avantgarde journals (e.g. Zenit, Tank, Dada) will rely on digital and physical archival materials in Belgrade, Zagreb, Ljubljana, Zürich, and Paris. Creating conceptual clusters and mapping these artistic manifestations and their interactions will contribute to the integration of the history of South Slavic historical avantgardes into the main currents of European avantgardes, and into local tradition of former Yugoslav countries.
Significance for science
The project contributes to the history and theory of avant-garde by adequate mapping of transnational network of movements of European avantgarde. By this it will address one of main issues of the field – the fact that the South Slavic (inc. Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian) and Yugoslav (as a self-standing shared political and cultural identity prevalent among members of the major groups of the South Slavic avantgarde) avantgarde is missing from the general theories of the avantgarde. This research is of regional interest, as the results of this research can provide reference-point knowledge for cultural identity and social significance studies of the East European region, mapping its cultural production in relation to the main currents of 20th century art and literature.
The qualitative research in the field of literary studies will be used for work in cultural history, cross-cultural analysis, and history of ideas and ideologies, which will result in establishing principal features of national and trans-national identity in European avantgarde movements, especially in Yugoslav avantgarde and Swiss/French Dadaism. Conceptual clusters of auto- and hetero-stereotypes of national images in avantgarde poetics will be created with the study of signs and the perspective of imagology. On this theoretical basis the research will contribute to the understanding of the concept of politics of literature, following the work of Jacques Ranciere.
By using the approach of imagology, this project will also contribute to widening the scope of literary genres on which imagology can be applied – it will link imagology with avantgarde journals and manifestoes that ?re always on the boundary between fiction and non-fiction, originally representing a way for disseminating political aims exclusively. Used methodology (semiotics and imagology) is an analytical tool that holds potential for linking the literary studies and philology with other scientific disciplines and creating opportunities for interdisciplinary study of literature as a complex cultural formation, initiating new research questions, and introducing innovative research methods connecting research in semiotics and imagology in the field of visual and media culture.
The topic of this project will be of interest not only to researchers in the fields of literary studies and art history, but also in other fields, especially those dealing with the subjects of identity and nationality, which are important and persisting questions in humanities, while also representing two fundamental social science concepts. Semiotic and discourse analysis of various immediate creative outputs and of the declarative meta-level statements of the groups and individuals will be performed in order to establish, describe, and map the aspirations of the entire generation, their active participation in European movements, and their position in the cultural and social scene of the pre-war Yugoslavia.
Significance for the country
The project contributes to the history and theory of avant-garde by adequate mapping of transnational network of movements of European avantgarde. By this it will address one of main issues of the field – the fact that the South Slavic (inc. Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian) and Yugoslav (as a self-standing shared political and cultural identity prevalent among members of the major groups of the South Slavic avantgarde) avantgarde is missing from the general theories of the avantgarde. This research is of regional interest, as the results of this research can provide reference-point knowledge for cultural identity and social significance studies of the East European region, mapping its cultural production in relation to the main currents of 20th century art and literature.
The qualitative research in the field of literary studies will be used for work in cultural history, cross-cultural analysis, and history of ideas and ideologies, which will result in establishing principal features of national and trans-national identity in European avantgarde movements, especially in Yugoslav avantgarde and Swiss/French Dadaism. Conceptual clusters of auto- and hetero-stereotypes of national images in avantgarde poetics will be created with the study of signs and the perspective of imagology. On this theoretical basis the research will contribute to the understanding of the concept of politics of literature, following the work of Jacques Ranciere.
By using the approach of imagology, this project will also contribute to widening the scope of literary genres on which imagology can be applied – it will link imagology with avantgarde journals and manifestoes that ?re always on the boundary between fiction and non-fiction, originally representing a way for disseminating political aims exclusively. Used methodology (semiotics and imagology) is an analytical tool that holds potential for linking the literary studies and philology with other scientific disciplines and creating opportunities for interdisciplinary study of literature as a complex cultural formation, initiating new research questions, and introducing innovative research methods connecting research in semiotics and imagology in the field of visual and media culture.
The topic of this project will be of interest not only to researchers in the fields of literary studies and art history, but also in other fields, especially those dealing with the subjects of identity and nationality, which are important and persisting questions in humanities, while also representing two fundamental social science concepts. Semiotic and discourse analysis of various immediate creative outputs and of the declarative meta-level statements of the groups and individuals will be performed in order to establish, describe, and map the aspirations of the entire generation, their active participation in European movements, and their position in the cultural and social scene of the pre-war Yugoslavia.
