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)
of a movement), Kassák himself experienced that his writing only appeared in the journal if it met (or at least did not clash with) the aesthetic expectations of tradition-preserving modernism represented by Ernő Osvát, the editor of Nyugat. Kassák therefore published his avant-garde writing in his own journals. When he offered Nyugat an essay on avant-garde art during the period of publication of Dokumentum (probably the article /\ korszerű művészet él [Modern art lives]), he was rejected. ‘‘Osvát has not accepted your article. He said that if he accepted it, then you would bring your poems. Because he could never give space to writing he does not believe in. It is very well written, but what you assert in it, he really does not believe. [...] He is pleased to get writing from you, but just not this new creed”, wrote Jolán Simon to Kassák.18 Proposals to launch journals based on cooperation between established authors and those of the avant-garde held no attraction for Kassák. For example, he did not get involved in a 1926 initiative by two of his former associates, Árpád Szélpál and Aladár Tamás, to “include one prestigious writer in each issue", such as Frigyes Karinthy, Kassák, or Dezső Szomory.9 After returning to Hungary, Kassák must have realized in the first half of 1926 at the latest that if he was to re-establish his place in the milieu that had been his own before he went into exile, he would have to set up a vehicle for his ideal of art in the form a new journal. AN AVANT-GARDE UTOPIA: THE MODERN CITY Dokumentum focused on the prospects for modern life. It took as self-evident that for people of the day, life was taking place in newly-planned cities, or existing cities undergoing modernization. The authors took the view that artists had to learn from engineers and scientists and do their creative work with conscious awareness, taking greater account of the demands of the age and of society. Artworks had to take their effect in the same way as the form and function of modern machinery - straightforwardly and without frills.20 The issue of lifestyle also came into focus, inseparable from the questions of working conditions, the economic apparatus, urban spaces, the social fabric and art. An important conclusion drawn by the authors was that people’s lives could be transformed by rethinking the role of the city and the home, leading, 18 Letter from Jolán Simon to Lajos Kassák, Budapest, [July 1926]. KM-lev. 2063/143. Petőfi Literary Museum-Kassák Museum, Budapest. 19 Letter from Jolán Simon to Lajos Kassák, Budapest, 1 February 1926. KM-lev. 2063/116. Petőfi Literary Museum-Kassák Museum, Budapest. 20 See, e.g., Yves Labasque, A modern stilus [The modern style], Dokumentum, 1/1., 1926, 48. 220
