Literary Journal 2023/2. Kassák

The issue dedicated to the memory of Lajos Kassák focuses on the literary, literature organizing, and fine art activity of the determining author of Hungarian avant-garde and also on its effect and afterlife. He was almost unknown to a wide audience and we present his ever-renewing ars poetica in its complexity.

We asked literary historians and art historians about Kassák's role in Hungarian and international avant-garde, about his spiritual legacy, and about the work of the museum named after him. This issue also presents Kassák’s magazines, art programs, his contact with Nyugat and Mihály Babits, and with the artists’ group European School. The work analyses – including the Attila József effects – focus on some of his poems, his novel, and his biography The Life of a Man. Besides Kassák’s painting, we present the reception of his oeuvre and his effect on contemporary poetry and neo avantgarde, and also his place in public education. There are short essays inspired by Kassák besides the interviews and studies.

The texts are accompanied by archive portraits, cover pages, reproductions of Kassák’s works, and other visual poetry and fine artworks connected to Kassák’s views.