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)

ment, linked these arguments with its new line of attack on the avant-garde in Hungary as early as summer 1915, in its review of Kassák’s book Eposz Wagner maszkjában: “Are there still some people who see their ideal of literature not in beauty and eternal human values, but in the sick, mongrel Futurists?".62 In autumn 1916, the weekly Pesti Futár [Pest Courier], upon the banning of A Tett, also talked of “literary lunacy” and “unparalleled drivel",63 64 and the journalist István Lendvai, writing in Új Nemzedék, which had published Kassák early in the war, declared that Kassák “had Hungarian thorns on his Futurist brow”. Lendvai considered the ban to be excessive, saying that A Tett was only the work of madmen, “paper anarchists”. Some daily newspapers, however, like the sensationalist A Nap [The Day], the government-aligned Az Újság [The News] (for which Kassák had been an occasional author until autumn 1915) and the Social Democratic Népszava [People’s Voice] expressed their solidarity with the editor of A Tett and mourned the passing of a valuable literary journal for the new generation.65 A Tett was therefore not completely isolated in Hungarian society. Some periodicals followed it with friendly sympathy, and when it was banned, even more spoke up in solidarity, and for freedom of the press.

Following the ban of A Tett, Kassák and his associates launched another literary and art journal, MA, in autumn 1916. They followed a new philosophy, continuing to voice their protests against the war but temporarily refraining from direct political comment and reducing the publication of foreign authors. By holding exhibitions, running a publishing operation and schools, and integrating into international avant-garde networks, however, they launched an artistic programme that unequivocally transmitted the international avant- garde. In addition, MA appeared just when the war was entering a new phase: although censorship was tightened, public opinion regarding the war began to waver and more and more people openly demanded peace. This new situation - and the reduced publication of foreign authors - enabled Kassák's new journal to run without interference for the remainder of the war.

62 N.n., Éposz Wagner maszkjában [Review of Kassák's Epic in Wagner’s mask], Új Idők, 21/28., 1915, 48-49.

63 N.n., A “Hördülő fintor”, vagy miért tiltották be A Tett című lapot [The “Dismayed grimace", or why they banned the journal A Tett], Pesti Futár, 13 October 1916,10-11.

64 Csongor [István Lendvai], Tövisek és rózsák [Thorns and roses], Új Nemzedék, 3/41., 1916,10-11.

65 N.n., A Tett-et betiltották [A Tett banned], A Nap, 5 October 1916, 5. N.n., A Tett című szépirodalmi lapot betiltották [Literary journal A Tett banned], Népszava, 5 October 1916, 8.

50