Balázs Eszter: Art in action. Lajos Kassák's Avant-Garde Journals from A Tett to Dokumentum, 1915-1927 - The avant-garde and its journals 3. (Budapest, 2017)

Merse Pál Szeredi: Kassákism - MA in Vienna (1920-1925)

bér 1920, recited Kassák’s poems translated into German at the first Viennese activists’ matinee.42 Schnabel-Hoeflich also performed Kassák’s poems at MA's “first German propaganda evening” on 22 March 1925, while Mura Zypero- witsch, an artist of Russian origin from Hoeflich’s circle, performed a modern dance composition. [Figs. 33-34] The Viennese press reported ironically on the evening, and even Eugen Hoeflich wrote the following in his diary: “the babble of MA activists that evening where Mirjam helped out was tiring and pointless. These decadent Hungarian writers want to realise Europe’s apotheosis in life, to make a new era from the modern era - and still don’t get further than praising the latest inside toilet. I’ll need days to recover from that constructivists’ evening”.43

AVANT-GARDE BUDAPEST - KASSÁK’S RETURN HOME IN 1926

Kassák viewed his forced emigration in Vienna as a temporary condition, and from 1924 onwards, constantly sought ways to return home. MA continued to be published in Hungarian, its primary aim being to bring Western European “new art” to the Hungarian public in Hungary and Austro-Hungarian Empire successor states (today Romania, Slovakia, Serbia, and Ukraine). The editions smuggled into Budapest by Jolán Simon provided an important point of reference for those who had remained in the country following the collapse of the Soviet Republic, and thus forced to conform to the new political climate. The first significant avant-garde journal of this era was Magyar írás [Hungarian Writing], edited by Tivadar Raith, a member of Kassák’s circle during the First World War. Magyar írás set out as an organ for late Expressionism, but quickly became the most important journal of “new art” in Hungary. The milieu around Raith opened up opportunities for many young critics and writers, and a number of similar journals were set up following its model. The Dadaist paper IS [Also], edited by Imre Pán and Árpád Mezei, or Iván Hevesy and Ödön Palasovszky’s manifesto-like volumes aligned themselves with the avant-garde, yet their platforms diverged from those of Kassák. For instance,

42 [N. n.], A MA felolvasó estélye [The soirée of MA], Bécsi Magyar Újság, 18 November 1920, 7. See also MA, 6/3., 1921, 36.

43 [-st], Kennen Sie “MA”? [Do you know "MA"?], Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung, 24 March 1925, 6. [N. n.], Aktivistischer Abend [Activist Evening], Arbeiter-Zeitung, 21 March 1925, 8. [N. n.], MA, Ein futuristischer Kunstabend [MA, A futurist evening], Neues Wiener Tagblatt, 23 March 1925, 6. Armin A. Wallas (ed.), Eugen Hoeflich (Moshe Ya’akov Ben-Cavriél), Tagebücher 1915 bis 1927 [Eugen Hoeflich (Moshe Ya'akov Ben-Cavriél), Diary between 1915 and 1927], Böhlau, Vienna, 1999, 222.

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