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)

Gábor Dobó: Generation Change, Synthesis and a Programme for a New Society - Dokumentum in Budapest (1926-1927)

ture], the title of which encapsulates the question of currency.16 17 Nyugat gave space to the avant-garde on its pages, but took the edge of its attack and disguised its political character.

As a permanent contributor to Nyugat (from the beginning of his career, and gaining recognition there as a poet, writer and critic, but not as the leader

[9.] Dokumentum’s artists' evening at the Chamber Hall of the Music Academy, Programme, 5 March 1927, Budapest [the leaflet was also preserved in the archives of Gyula Illyés]

16 Mihály Babits, Ma, holnap és irodalom [Today, tomorrow and literature], Nyugat, 9/17., 1916, 328-340.

17 Revealing in this regard is the reception of the book version of Kassák’s autobiography Egy ember élete [The Life of a Man] from 1927. The critics set it apart from Kassák’s avant-garde oeuvre, and challenged Kassák’s own interpretation, calling it a psychological novel or confessions. For more details, see Gábor Dobó, Kassák Lajos Egy ember élete című önéletrajzának fogadtatása, 1927-1928 [The reception of Lajos Kassák’s autobiography The Life of a Man, 1927-1928], Literatura, 41/3., 2015, 277-288. On the theory behind this debate, see Pierre Bourdieu, The Market for Symbolic Goods, in Pierre Bourdieu, The Rules of Art, op. cit., 141-177. On the issue of the neutralization of the avant-garde, see András Kappanyos, A Nyugat és az avantgárd [Nyugat and the avant-garde], Literatura, 34/4., 2008, 423-432. In greater depth on the complex relations between Nyugat and the avant-garde, see György Kálmán C., Élharcok és arcélek [Front lines and profiles], Balassi, Budapest, 2008. Anne-Rachel Hermetet, Poursortir du chaos, op. cit.

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