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)
Eszter Balázs: Avant-Garde and Radical Anti-War Dissent in Hungary-A Tett (1915-1916)
tic of contemporary avant-garde movements: the search for the transcendent and the scientific approach. This implied openness to the sciences, but also to spiritualism, eroticism and technical developments, and the need to help society and individuals release their creative strengths. THE INTERNATIONAL HORIZON OF A TETT A Tett gave space for representatives of current Western ‘isms’ ranging from French Post-Symbolism to Italian Futurism and German Expressionism,35 regardless of their stances regarding the war. Walt Whitman, the father of free verse, was also an important intellectual point of reference for the journal.36 37 The journal’s internationalism clearly declared its affinity to the European avant-garde networks, although it was not connected to them. Kassák considered the sweeping vitality shared by representatives of all the ‘isms’ to be a force that counteracted the extreme regulation of society. He based this view primarily on the anti-rationalist philosophy of Henri Bergson, the idea that everything was under the influence of the dynamics of energy and flow. As Merse Pál Szeredi has shown, the originals of many of the translations published in A Tett had been published before the war. Their presence reflects Kassák’s interest in the intellectual currents of the French avant- garde around 1909, connected with Post-Symbolism and Henri Bergson’s Anti- Rationalism." The journal even gave space to the Futurists: Libero Altomare and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, whose 1911-1912 poem Csata (Súly+Szag) [Battle (Weight+Smell)] celebrating the Italo-Turkish War appeared without any critical comments.38 By omitting to introduce Marinetti to readers or even give the name of the translator, Kassák displayed a contradictory attitude to Futurism and to Marinetti: he was attracted by this new form of artistic expression, but rejected its militarism.39 Poems by Guillaume Apollinaire, the critic of French Cubist painters and avant-garde poet, also appeared in the journal, but his wartime patriotism, unlike that of Marinetti, was probably unknown to Kassák.40 The Polish-born Apollinaire entered the French army in return for 35 Merse Pál Szeredi, The international horizon of A Tett, in Gábor Dobó-Merse Pál Szeredi (eds.), Signal to the World, War D Avant-Garde fi Kassák, Kassák Foundation, Budapest, 2016,70. 36 Walt Whitman, Könnyek [Tears], translated by Andor Halasi, A Tett, 1/4., 1915, 62. 37 Merse Pál Szeredi, The international horizon of A Tett, op. cit., 71-72. 38 F. T. Marinetti, Csata (Súly+Szag) [Battle (Weight+Smell)], [translated by Aladár Komját], A Tett, 2/15., 1916, 251-253. 39 Kassák Lajos, Programm, op. cit., 154. 40 Guillaume Apollinaire, Saint-Merry muzsikusa [The musician of Saint-Merry], translated by Tivadar Raith, A Tett, 1/1., 1915, 8-10. Lajos Kassák, A magyar avantgárd három folyóirata [Three journals of the Hungarian avant-garde], Helikon, 10/2-3., 1964,221. 42
