Peter Zusi, Tendentious Modernism. Karel Teige's Path To Formalism, Slavic Review, Vol. 67, No. 4, Winter 2008, Pp. 821-839.

Tendentious Modernism: Karel Teige's Path to Functionalism
Author(s): Peter Zusi

Source: Slavic Review, Vol. 67, No. 4 (Winter, 2008), pp. 821-839
Published by: Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
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ARTICLES
Modernism:
Tendentious
Karel Teige's Path to Functionalism
Peter
Zusi
accounts
of tendentiousness
sits uncomfortably
within most
The category
its
of twentieth-century
aesthetics.
With
didactic,
dogmatic,
European
as a concept
tendentiousness
conservative
and aesthetically
inclinations,
to have resisted
to the triumphant
than contributed
de
rather
appears
seem inherent
to
of
modernism.
The
would
velopment
high
opposition
the constitutive
which
translates
the ideal of political
logic of modernism,
was often understood
revolt to the realm of artistic form. Such translation
as
from political
aims
the fascist and
(for example,
among
inseparable
mo
but
between
the
the
aesthetic
wars),
left-wing
avant-garde
especially
ment
of formal
fundamental.
innovation
remained
Tendentious
always
broad
and is thus fun
demands
ness, on the contrary,
comprehensibility
at
of
criterion
odds
with
the
formal
Indeed,
damentally
experimentation.
a
the
aesthetic
and
encouraging
reductively
by deemphasizing
political
litera
tendentiousness
of historical
discourse,
(as a matter
record)
placed
ture and art ominously
diktat and
under
of self-interested
the authority
a
of twentieth
role in the antimodernist
cultural
politics
played
pivotal
once
at
and
thus
totalitarianism.
The
appears
century
category
persistent
enormous
to
to
dis
the
cultural
pressures
attesting
applied
peripheral,
courses under
of
the
1930s
and
1940s.1
the emerging
catastrophes
and po
the ideals of aesthetic
between
experimentation
Antagonism
a macro-narrative
of the major
Euro
constitutes
litical tendentiousness
so
of
consciousness
much
This
is
the
modernist
traditions.
pean
unhappy
at the
held
version
of this essay at the Czech Workshop
University
early
to
of the workshop,
I am
in April
2005.
Toman,
organizer
Jindfich
grateful
I
In addition,
discussion
that ensued.
for the productive
the other
participants
as well as the anonymous
for and editors
referees
would
like to thank Tim Beasley-Murray
and suggestions.
criticism
of Slavic Review
for their helpful
far too many
found
of course,
is messier
1. History,
schema:
than my
avant-gardists
in
the
But
themselves
totalitarian
cultural
power
rarely
ideologues
sympathies.
embracing
or even
to
clear
that despite
the sentiment.
This
should
make
returned
any totalizing
to the
for
one may wish
Boris
to ascribe
talitarian
does,
(as
Groys
avant-garde
impulse
Aesthetic Dictatorship,
and
The Total Art of Stalinism:
in his influential
Avant-Garde,
example,
cannot
movement
be equated
with
trans. Charles
this
[Princeton,
1992])
Rougle
Beyond,
case of Stalinist
socialist
that in the extreme
tendentiousness.
also argues
realism,
Groys
and can be seen as positing
of clear
became
coded
tendentiousness
the criterion
eerily
as a
collective
surrealism"
in aesthetic
of society
the transformation
terms,
"party-minded,
it was nonetheless
have become,
realism may ultimately
socialist
surreal
(52). But however
creative
revolt
and
than ideals of individual
control
rather
of political
motivated
by criteria
and aesthetic
the division
between
freedom:
in this respect
efficacy
political
experimental
remained
innovation
clear.
I presented
of Michigan
to all
and
Slavic
Review
an
67, no.
(Fall
2008)
822
Slavic Review
modernist
dada, constructivism,
early to mid-twentieth-century
thought:
and
critical
familiar
surrealism,
(to name only the most
examples
theory
on the Left) all
for
the
for a paral
of
the
"two
argued
unity
avant-gardes,"
lel between
aesthetics
and politics?and
all met
the unflinching
skepti
a clear,
mes
cism of those
demanding
expressed
political
unambiguously
from
art.2
sage
as absolute
But
as it seems? Was
is this opposition
the conceptual
divide
between
those
who
claimed
between
unbridgeable
compatibility
aesthetic
and political
revolution
and those who denied
it? Examining
this issue through
the micronarrative
of less familiar
cultural
discourses
a
fresh
and
the
is
Czech
open up
might
perspective,
example
particularly
For within
here.
of modern
the context
Czech
his
cultural
intriguing
to
cir
tendentiousness
could
linked
tory, twentieth-century
easily appear
cumstances
from
the
national
Czech
emerging
early nineteenth-century
to the
revival:
to judge
in terms of
cultural
predisposition
phenomena
their efficacy or "functionality"
for the realization
of national
aspirations.
In Alexej Kus?k's
from the period
from the early
formulation,
stretching
era "Czech culture
national
a
revival through
the Biedermeier
inherited
value
functional
value
imma
system that placed
[funkcni hodnota] above
nent value. The criterion
for evaluation
thus could not be the greatness
. .but rather its
or
act.
of a cultural
in the
its usefulness
originality
utility,
. . . also became
a
of
the
nation.
This
then
political
functionality
struggle
criterion
for the ethical
value of a work."3 The accentuation
of political
over aesthetic
to be the mark of cultural belat
criteria might
easily appear
two centuries
edness:
of Habsburg
Czech
cultural
domination
burdened
discourse
with a reductively
For
the
acrimoni
agenda.
political
example,
over the
debates
but in fact forged
ancient
ous, decades-long
allegedly
and
in the nine
invoked
Kr?lov?dvorsky
Zelenohorsky manuscripts
(widely
as "proof" that the Czech
teenth century
was older
tradition
than
literary
or
the German
and therefore
cultural
Koll?r's
possessed
Jan
legitimacy),
in Sl?vy dcera (Daughter
of glory, 1824) of the poet as teacher
conception
re
his nation
about
its past accomplishments
and sufferings,
educating
a role
veal how central
and
in
didactic
considerations
political
played
2. The
troubled
see,
between
relationship
for
Matei
the
Calinescu,
"two avant-gardes"
is a classic
theme
in the
Five Faces
Avant
Modernism,
ofModernity:
and Renato
The
112-16;
1987),
Poggioli,
scholarship:
example,
Garde, Decadence,
Kitsch, Postmodernism
(Durham,
trans. Gerald
8-12.
Mass.,
1968),
Theory
of the Avant-Garde,
Fitzgerald
(Cambridge,
My
on
examination
here
focuses
cen
of the early and mid-twentieth
left-wing
avant-gardes
the question
most
of political
Texts
such
tury, since
they confronted
engagement
directly.
as Lev Trotskii's
and Revolution,
as Producer,"
Literature
Walter
"The Author
Benjamin's
Andr?
Breton's
"The Political
of Today's
Position
Sartre's
"What Is Litera
Art," Jean-Paul
are among
ture?" and Theodor
W. Adorno's
"Commitment"
the most
famous
documents
of the various
"aesthetics
and politics"
of this period.
debates
that Karl Marx
Arguments
and Friedrich
an aesthetic
themselves
leaned
toward
in their
that was modernist
Engels
time
A. Rose, Marx's
Lost Aesthetic:
Karl Marx
and the Visual Arts
(see, e.g., Margaret
[Cam
the historical
of antimodernist
record
cultural
1984] ) do not change
bridge,
Eng.,
politics
states.
in communist
3.
Where
Kus?k,
Alexej
not
indicated
Kultura
otherwise,
politika
translations
v Ceskoslovensku,
are my own.
1945-1956
(Prague,
1998),
23.
Tendentious
Modernism:
Karel
Teige's Path
toFunctionalism
823
Czech
this
and Slovak
culture.4
forward,
nineteenth-century
Projecting
seen as
trend has been
macronarrative
the
described
above
into
merging
of literature
that
and as anticipating
the utilitarian
conception
political
from
the
of orthodox
criticism
much
characterized
Czech Marxist
literary
leftist
Czechoslovak
cul
for example,
1920s onward.
Kus?k,
discussing
of many
variants
of the
ture in the interwar period,
"the Czech
writes:
character
later slogans of popular
[ lidovosti],
engage
comprehensibility,
here
in
etc. have their roots precisely
character
ment,
[stranickosti],
party
has
in
of
rhetoric
Kus?k
The
the Vorm?rz or Biedermeier
type
period."5
one of the most
when
the
here was solidly established
mind
1920s,
early
by
is not a slogan, but
"A poem
left-wing Czech poets could write:
prominent
as our
as
and
effective
cannot
if our proletarian
be
clear,
poems
simple,
to the devil with all art, and let
to the devil with all poetry,
then
slogans,
us become
rather than good poets for the
for the proletariat
good orators
sort
Marxist
cultural dis
orthodox
of
this
while
Thus,
petite bourgeosie."6
its
in Czechoslovakia
course achieved
in interwar Europe,
broad currency
belatedness
by local circumstances:
was?arguably?amplified
reception
currents
to the cultural
the
resistance
shared
begot dogmatism
through
to
rise
modernism.
that ultimately
gave
4.
Scholars
manuscripts
most
famous
be
forgeries
(Prague,
Scandal
in
have
considerable
devoted
constructing
attention
to the
community"
"imagined
and
in 1817-18
emerged
manuscripts
See Vladimir
in 1886.
For
127-28.
1983),
in Bohemia:
Herder,
Znameni
Macura,
in English,
discussions
and
Goethe,
Masaryk,
function
political
Czech
the nascent
of
the
were
of
the forged
The
nation.
see,
demonstrated
conclusively
Cesk? obrozeni jako kulturni
Susan Helen
e.g.,
Reynolds,
the
'War of
zrodu:
Publi
the Manuscripts,"'
cations of theEnglish Goethe Society 72 (2003): 53-67; Alfred Thomas,
to
typ
"A
"Forging Czechs: The
in Judith
and Alfred
Tho
in the Bohemian
of National
Lands,"
Ryan
Identity
Selves
41-44;
York,
2003),
Nations,
(New
eds., Cultures
esp.
Making
Making
of Forgery:
in Mikul?s
of the National
"Problems
and Paradoxes
Vladimir
Revival,"
Teich,
Macura,
"In Memory
of
Roman
inHistory
182-97;
1998),
ed., Bohemia
Jakobson,
(Cambridge,
Eng.,
and
Pomorska
in Literature,
ed. Krystyna
V. V Hanka,"
in Jakobson,
Rudy
Stephen
Language
in
"The Manuscript
and Milan
Ot?hal,
397-405;
Mass.,
1987),
Controversy
(Cambridge,
see Robert
B.
On Koll?r,
5 (1986):
247-77.
Cross Currents
National
the Czech
Revival,"
and Personality
Czech and Slovak Ideas of Nationality
(Budapest,
Questions
Pynsent,
of Identity:
43-99,
1994),
esp. 59.
et al., eds.,
see
cesk?
Kultura
5. Kus?k,
26, and 121. Also
D?jiny
PavelJanousek
apolitika,
as the
this reception
identifies
Kus?k
1945-1989
2:24-25.
2007),
implicit
(Prague,
literatury
two of
and Zden?k
Neumann
Kostka
framework
Nejedly,
by Stanislav
adopted
conceptual
in the interwar
trends
of
and
modernist
critics
Marxist
the most
avant-gardist
dogmatic
one of the
of
had been
1910s Neumann
In the 1900s and
poets
groundbreaking
period.
known
but from
the early 1920s on he became
and civilist movements,
anarchist
the Czech
for
intellectuals"
crass denunciations
of "bourgeois
for his increasingly
(and in particular
of
and his unrelenting
the USSR)
Return from
of
Gide's
his strident
Andr?
rejection
critique
in the
influence
in
exercised
which
modernism
Nejedly,
period.
great
post-1948
general,
of education
1948 and the
after
minister
a music
became
historian,
ultimately
by training
of cultural
He was a major
of Sciences.
of the Czechoslovak
first president
shaper
Academy
and
Derek
era. See Kus?k,
Kultura
the
Gottwald
135;
24,
72,
Sayer,
apolitika,
during
policy
and Jaromir
and 303-9;
A Czech History
217-18
The Coasts
1998),
(Princeton,
of Bohemia:
a Skutecnosti
ortelu: Dokumenty?Vzpominky?Iluze
Doba
,68-72.
(Brno,
1992)
Hofec,
v soci?ln?
in Step?n
revoluci"
"Um?n?
Vlas?n,
Kostka
6. Stanislav
Neumann,
(1923),
Reinvention
mas,
ed.,
Avantgarda
1971),
(Prague,
zn?m?
a nezn?m?,
vol.
1, Od
prolet?rsk?ho
um?n?
k poetismu,
1919-1924
1:457.
824
Slavic Review
Czech
it is striking
that several of the most
Nonetheless,
significant
to the interwar
on modernism
contributions
involve
discourse
European
the insistent
of the categories
of function
and functionalism.
exploration
The
of
and Prague
functions
elaborated
typology
by Jan Mukafovsky
as do the
School
structuralism
stands out in this regard,
signal achieve
ments
of Czech
were
functionalist
these discourses
architecture.7
Indeed,
on
intertwined
and mutually
texts
Karel
theoretical
reinforcing:
Teige's
an
contact
for example,
of
constructivism,
represent
important
point
between
or the
structuralism
and Czech modernist
architecture
Prague
in general.8
on functions
this emphasis
is not unique
Clearly,
a
to
and
extent
reflects
modernist
trends
avant-garde
large
in
and
elsewhere,
France,
Holland,
developing
particularly
Germany,
Yet perhaps
nowhere
else did theo
(somewhat
later) the Soviet Union.
on the
retical reflection
of functionalism
link such a wide range
concept
of significant
cultural
to general
from architecture
aesthetics
discourses,
to economic
So
the
arises:
these
should
theory.
question
why
develop
ments
have found
such an enthusiastic
and fruitful elaboration
reception
in interwar Czechoslovakia?
The post-national
men
revival discourse
of cultural
tendentiousness
tioned above
in
itself
context.
this
To
be
tenden
sure,
presents
naturally
tiousness
does not have precisely
or function
the same meaning
in the
nineteenth
that
in
it
the
Yet
twentieth.
the
century
acquired
early exag
of the political
function
of culture could plausibly
have produced
geration
avant-garde
to the Czech
7. For
important
lish, see Jurij Striedter,
Structuralism
Reconsidered
Structures:
of
the
The Prague
significance
see
Jean-Louis
Other
Writings,
1-5 and
the
esp.
ness of
Building?A
the
of
early
economic
with
on Czech
in Eng
structuralism
bibliographies
and Value: Russian
Formalism
and Czech
Evolution,
and Fran tisek William
Historic
Mass.,
Galan,
1989);
good
Structure,
Literary
(Cambridge,
School Project,
1928-1946
of Czech
functionalism
Cohen's
and
text
studies
"Introduction"
trans.
Irena
references
Cautionary
twentieth-century
of the
theory
to Karel
Zantovsk?
in Cohen's
Tale,"
Czech
(Austin,
within
the
Teige,
Murray
and
notes;
Grey Room
functionalist
1985).
history
Modern
and
For
recent
of modernist
Architecture
re-appreciations
architecture,
in Czechoslovakia
Britt
(Los Angeles,
2000),
"The Unbearable
Sayer,
Light
16 (2004):
In the con
6-35,
esp.10-16.
one
discourses
should
also mention
David
Derek
and politician
Karel
whom
economist,
philosopher,
Englis,
on
influence
structuralism.
Prague
influences
between
see Kv?toslav
and Teige,
"Karel
Chvat?k,
Mukafovsky
teoretik
Od avantgardy
k druh? moderne
a
jako
Teige
avantgardy,"
(Cestami filozofie
literatury)
96-98.
no
noted
the influence
of architectural
2004),
(Prague,
Jan Mukafovsky
explicitly
tions of functionalism
on
School
in "The Place
structuralism
of the Aesthetic
Func
Prague
tion among
the Other
in Peter
Steiner
and John
eds. and
Functions,"
trans.,
Burbank,
and Function:
Selected Essays
37. See also
Structure,
(New Haven,
Sign,
1978),
Mukafovsky,
"On the Problem
of Functions
in Architecture,"
between
ibid., 239. The
cross-pollination
the scholarly
activities
of the Prague
School
and the endeavors
of Czech
art
avant-garde
and architects
in the 1920s
and
a sense
1930s was grounded
not
ists, writers,
in
of
only
shared
but also, often
in personal
See in this
the poet
purpose
enough,
friendships.
regard
Vitezslav
Nezval's
to
effusive
dedication
in
3-5. On
the
(Brno,
1932),
Mukafovsky
P?tprst?
broader
interconnections
between
and Prague
School
structuralists
avant-gardists
(espe
see
a Common
The Magic
Toman,
cially Roman
Jakobson),
Jindfich
of
Jakobson,
Language:
and
the Prague
Circle
Mathesius,
Mass.,
Trubetzkoy,
11;
1995),
Linguistic
(Cambridge,
chap.
Vratislav
"Roman
and
the Czech
Avant-Garde
between
Two
Effenberger,
Jakobson
trans.
Iris Urwin,
American
Wars,"
2 (1983):
13-21;
Journal
of Semiotics
Jifi Veltrusky,
'Jan
Structural
and Esthetics,"
Poetics
Poetics Today 2, no. lb (Winter
Mukafovsky's
1980-1981):
a
Strukturalismus
129; and Kv?toslav
Chvat?k,
1970).
avantgarda
(Prague,
cited
Mukafovsky
8. On mutual
as an
Modernism:
Tendentious
Karel
Teiges Path
toFunctionalism
825
to the variety of functions

could fulfill and
culture
sensitivity
heightened
aesthetic
an
the specifically
of
to
led
have
ultimately
exploration
might
this al
aesthetics.
One detects
of Czech modernist
hallmark
function?a
and art journals
de si?cle. Literary
fin
the
of
in
Czech
the
culture
ready
revue (from 1894) and Voln? sm?ry (from 1896), for exam
such as Modernz
culture up to broader
Czech
are
for opening
remembered
primarily
ple,
as
and the secession
movements
such
decadence,
symbolism,
European
from subordination
discourse
to liberate Czech
cultural
and for helping
a
fin de si?cle represents
the Czech
in this respect
to political
criteria;
of
the avant-garde
and anticipates
rhetoric
revivalist
break with
crucial
Xaver
the critic Frantisek
the interwar period.9 Moreover,
Salda, an edi
in Czech
is one of the first figures
tor of Voln? sm?ry in the early 1900s,
as a whole
the early functional
with
to link modernist
culture
culture
Her
such as H. P. Berlage,
of figures
rationalism
ist or "constructive"
not
did
Salda
mann Muthesius,
and Otto Wagner.
Nonetheless,
argue for
on
aesthetic
culture
and
to
architecture
modernist
this
purely
approach
und
review of Berlage's
end of his glowing
the
At
Grundlagen
grounds.
at
out
the
lashed
Salda
for
der
Architektur,
develop
example,
Entwicklung
monu
an architectural
ers of the Prague Municipal
House
(1903-1912),
continued
Salda
ment
of the Czech
maintained,
which,
secession,
merely
"If only a
historicism:
of Czech
decorativism
and willful
in the whimsical
concerns
the
this
were
to
that
understand
thousand
very spiritual
people
the municipal
confound
then Imaintain
of the nation,
health
they would
as the so-called
itself with such an artistic vulgarity
that has dirtied
politics
a day would
not
for
the
House
House]:
[i.e.,
Municipal
Representational
and artistic
was
in
national
this
who
with
contend
anyone
complicit
they
his
still
couched
Salda
In
the
embarrassment."10
therefore,
early 1900s,
modernism
in a didactic
modernism
of international
defense
argument:
as aes
Functionalism
nation.
to the Czech
cultural maturity
would
bring
to create a coherent
not only for its promise
was desirable
thetic principle
a cosmopolitan,
and
to cultivate
culture but also for its potential
modern
culture.11
national
therefore
"healthy,"
a
9.
See
in Robert
Turn
Robert
B.
Pynsent,
B.
Essay:
"Conclusory
Pynsent,
and Innovation:
ed., Decadence
121. As Pynsent
1989),
(London,
of the Century
and
such as Jaroslav
of writers
Vrchlicky
see Pynsent,
"Czech
revivalist
rhetoric;
generation
with
break
and
Innovation,"
Decay
Art at the
Life and
Austro-Hungarian
the preceding
out elsewhere,
points
the
initiated
had already
Zeyer
Julius
Decadence,
in Marcel
Decadence,"
Cornis-Pope
and
Cultures
Neubauer,
eds., History
Europe: Junctures
of East-Central
of the Literary
of the other major
349. One
in the 19th and 20th Centuries
2004),
(Amsterdam,
Disjunctures
state explic
does
cesk? moderny"
the "Manifest
of the Czech
documents
(1895),
moderna,
and Bohemian
between
Czechs
Germans,
such as greater
aims,
cooperation
itly political
is
life. This
and cultural
into social
of women
and greater
universal
integration
suffrage,
individual
the critical
and thus fits well with
a call for a tolerant
however,
politics,
clearly
fin
of these
the cosmopolitanism
and with
in the "Manifesto"
elsewhere
ism espoused
as a whole.
movements
de-si?cle
der Ar
und
"H. P. Berlage:
10. Fran tisek Xaver
Salda,
Entwicklung
Grundlagen
Soubor d?a
and Karel
Felix Vodicka,
in Jan Mukafovsky,
eds.,
Dvorak,
chitektur"
(1909),
and
John
16:353.
1953),
(Prague,
Saldy
not have been
seconded
claims would
11. To be sure, Salda's
by the editors
to make
that "the attempt
for example,
who wrote,
revue, such as Jif? Kar?sek,
craft." Kar?sek,
of art into literary
leads to the denigration
and beneficial
useful
F. X.
of Moderni
art
socially
"Soci?ln?
Slavic Review
826
of functional
modernist
then, the rigorously
concept
Paradoxically,
for reasons
in
ism just may have found
Czechoslovakia
such fertile ground
as
a claim
then one
If
is
such
generally
regarded
regressive.
plausible,
to
national
the
would
revise the easy, bipolar
scheme whereby
clearly have
antimod
of
the
revival
national
tendentiousness
legacy
only
anticipated
such an
ernist currents
in interwar Czech
culture. More
broadly, however,
as an
would
that the macronarrative
of tendentiousness
suggest
affinity
to
character
"anti-aesthetic"
the radical
and cosmopolitan
antagonistic
of modernism
and the avant-garde
than at
conceals
greater
complexities
first appears.
The figure of Karel Teige
the most
influential
(1900-1951),
propaga
tor of
a fasci
in
culture
interwar Czechoslovakia,
avant-garde
represents
case
was
in
context.
this
the 1920s, Teige
the major
nating
study
During
theorist
and spokesperson
for Dev?tsil,
the most
of
important
grouping
Czech
artists and writers,
and an avant-gardist
of impeccable
avant-garde
and European
credentials
stature.12 A vehement
Marxist
and the major
theoretician
of Czech
's
and
constructivism,
surrealism,
Teige
poetism,
too radical even for his
views were often
Teige
avant-gardist
colleagues.13
as a
formulated
his exuberant
defense
of modernism
routinely
rejection
of nineteenth-century
historicism
and "academicism,"
which he explicitly
linked with
the didactic
and nationalist
strain in Czech
culture.
Finally,
uzitecnost
umen?"
here
(1895),
1894-1925
revue,
(Prague,
the protagonists
behind
among
was influential
line of argument
cited
erni
from
Otto
292.
1995),
Moderni
M. Urban
There
and
were
Lubos
Merhaut,
numerous
of
eds., Mod
contention
points
but Salda's
revue, Voln? sm?ry, and the "Manifest,"
not only within
the discourse
of the Czech
fin de si?cle but
also among
the interwar
Even
the explicitly
elitist
and
individualist
avant-garde.
figures
of the fin de
never
si?cle
Kar?sek
al
shunned
nationalist
themes,
himself)
(including
was often
see
their treatment
"Czech Decadence,"
351. Pe
though
idiosyncratic;
Pynsent,
ter
and Pynsent,
"Czech decadence
claims:
has,
arguments
Bugge,
by Macura
synthesizing
to be decadent,
to
or
but
this gesture
Czech,
reject
anything
'naturally'
'conventionally'
not only
of negation
inscribes
it in an
Czech
it also puts
it in the
tradition,
archetypically
service
to rebel
of a project
it by nature
had
the development
of Czech
national
against:
see
or How
"Naked Masks:
to Be a Czech
Arthur
Slovo
culture";
Decadent,"
Bugge,
Breisky
a smysl/Word ?f Sense 5 (2006) :262.

12. An
in English
of Teige's
is pre
interests
and activities
varied
extremely
and Rostislav
Terrible
Sv?cha,
eds., Karel Teige, 1900-1951:
LEnfant
Avant-Garde
Mass.,
1999).
of the Czech Modernist
(Cambridge,
on the Left,
13. In cultural
debates
the more
took
radical
side. This
Teige
typically
in 1921
that
Dev?tsil
to com
should
declare
began
early:
Teige
argued
openly
loyalty
sented
overview
in Eric
munism
rather
Dluhosch
than
Vratislav
Effenberger,
z dila
(hereafter
VzD),
ert Kalivoda,
3 vols.
B?chler
famous
polemic
project
(major
in the
Finally,
1920s,
wald
Teige
ed. Jifi
Brabec,
and nonpartisan
idea of revolution;
generalized
as the afterword
to Karel
which
appears
Teige,
Vratislav
Kv?toslav
and
Chvat?k,
Effenberger,
see
Vybor
Rob
Dev?tsil's
functionalist
andra
um?ni,"
1:584. Rostislav
Sv?cha
has documented
1966-94),
(Prague,
Teige's
over his strict
section
architectural
of the
(Ardev)
understanding
see Sv?cha,
The Architecture
trans. Alex
1895-1945,
imperative;
ofNew Prague,
These
conflicts
275-76.
Mass.,
1995),
(Cambridge,
clearly
presaged
Teige's
with
conflicts
a more
support
"Nov?
with
Le
so-called
took
the
over
Corbusier
documents
of
Generational
side
of
those
within
the Czech
leadership
in light of postwar
developments
the
are
this debate
Discussion
defending
Communist
(see
the
of
"academicism"
translated
that
the
ascent
Party?an
commentary
the
in Oppositions
shook
Dev?tsil
of
latter's
4
Mundaneum
[1974]:
83-108).
at the end of the
the hard-line
that
allegiance
in VzD, 1:566-68).
Klement
is bitterly
Gott
ironic
Tendentious
Modernism:
Karel Teige's Path
toFunctionalism
827
as a
and
of communism
himself
regarded
Teige
loyal propagator
to disturbingly
at times of resorting
of Soviet policy?capable
defender
as
for
and dogmatic
reductive
spokesman
prominence
arguments?his
on the
more
into
conflict
often
him
the Czech
sharp
brought
avant-garde
versions
the Czech
of tendentious
Left with proponents
art, specifically
commu
a
the
after
As
of Proletkul't
socialist
realism.14
result,
and, later,
as the em
criticism
for vicious
in 1948, Teige was targeted
nist takeover
of
The radicalism
and consistency
of "decadent
formalism."15
bodiment
at the least, to identify
it surprising,
make
would
views
modernist
Teige's
functionalism
of international
in his understanding
any traces of the cul
Czech
of
that
tural legacy he so vociferously
nineteenth-century
rejected:
tendentiousness.
national
of the brief,
traces are there. One of the striking features
Nonetheless,
while
in which
mid-1922)
attempted
Teige
art" being
for the "proletarian
prac
most
soon abandoned
of
which Teige
with
the ideals
in common
had much
of Stanislav Ko
the sponsorship
under
most
Proletkultwere
and
Kmen
stka Neumann
(whose journals
responsible
in
and argued
into the Czech
Soviet Proletkul't
for translating
context)
and widely
tendentious
favor of art that was both politically
comprehen
and Dev?tsil
one year, however,
of roughly
the course
sible. Over
Teige
of the con
the mainstream
to a platform
that lay firmly within
shifted
of
as was
their
by
adoption
expressed
avant-garde,
temporary
European
as
twin
of
their
elaboration
constructivism
and, shortly thereafter,
poetism
(from early 1921 until

early period
to articulate
theoretical
principles
was the speed with
ticed by Dev?tsil
art"
"Proletarian
those principles.
it initially flourished
of Proletkul't:
tions
distor
the historical
between
has
analyzed
trenchantly
parallels
and
later
surrealist
texts from
the
in certain
rhetoric
period
key
a
deformov?n?
"Cetba
see
communist
permanentni
jako
Vojvod?k,
practice;
Ani
labuV ani Luna
sborn?ku
m?chovsk?ho
ke koncepci
textu: N?kolik
pozn?mek
1929-1953
and Karel
in Lenka
(Prague,
Cesky Surrealismus,
Srp, eds.,
Bydzovsk?
14. Josef Vojvod?k

and absolutizing
dogmatic
zra?ov?n?
(1936),"
1996), 219-35.
often
15. Teige's
often
line, most
party
as the 1936 Moscow
he
never
after
1948
trials.
questions
but
also
his
hampered
on inflammatory
his
cited
"undisciplined
Teige
official
Communist
Party. The
in Mojmir
formulated
Grygar's
Indeed,
the Czechoslovak
joined
was most
never
convictions
rigid Marxist
in aesthetic
ability
to criticize
the
issues
such
political
as
nature"
campaign
the
reason
against
Teige
"Teigovstina?
polemic:
42-44
1036-38,
1008-10,
trocistick?
20, nos.
(1951):
agentura
Doba
1060-62.
animus)
and
(with considerable
by Hofec,
Teige's
251-52.
Parneti
2d ed.
and Vaclav
1992),
1945-1972,
(Brno,
103-5;
ortelu, 97 and
Cerny,
and
between
of letters
is the depressing
in this context
Teige
exchange
Symptomatic
retroac
in which
in VzD, 3:581-93,
in 1950,
Stoll
Ladislav
attempted
Teige
reproduced
dur
and of culture
of education
Stoll was minister
his prewar
to
positions.
tively
explain
in Czecho
cultural
communist
of official
architect
and a central
1950s
the
ideology
ing
of
model
historical
for the reductive
after
slovakia
1948; he was primarily
responsible
or,
literature
Czech
camps,
"reactionary"
against
"progressive"
pitting
twentieth-century
Ha
Frantisek
and
the poet
the poet Jiri Wolker
and
Neumann
Teige
against
roughly,
Breton
circulated
the rumor
death
time after Teige's
las. For some
by Andr?
(repeated
In fact
in the face of official
suicide
committed
that he had
hounding.
others)
among
in Teige,
see Vratislav
"Edicn? pozn?mka,"
of heart
he died
Vyvojov?
failure;
Effenberger,
sv?ta (Prague,
v um?n?
1992),
Seifert,
336; and Jaroslav
1966),
Vsecky kr?sy
(Prague,
prom?ny
509-11.
acerbically
v nasi
Tvorba
kultufe,"
is described
vilification
828
Slavic Review
In many
theoretical
banners.16
this rapid shift from proletarian
respects,
art to the
as a
reversal:
dualism
appears
complete
constructivism/poetism
a move
a
into
from
cultural position
(which later evolved
away
regressive
a
a
as
the strident
antimodernism
of
toward
such
Neumann)
pro
figure
cri
Marxist
the target of orthodox
(which became
gressive
avant-gardism
from
the
commentators
But
noted
1930s onward).
have
tique especially
that the shift between
never
these early positions
took the form of an open
break.17 While
from the mid-1920s
Teige's
fiercely
avant-gardist
positions
the 1930s have been
the subject of increasing
interest
in recent
through
this
no
curious
has attracted
almost
attention
in
years,
early development
the
What
follows will examine
the logic
English-language
scholarship.18
that guided Teige
that early shift from
art to the avant
during
proletarian
in 1922, focusing
on the
terms
of lidovost
gardist
positions
adopted
key
and tendence (tendentiousness
or
character)
(popular
tendency).
My claim
16. Neumann's
role
in this
is
in the 1920s and
1930s he was without
story
complex:
Czech
critics of modernism,
one
had earlier
he
been
yet
of its most
In 1920 his
trans
Kmen published
the first Czech
important
supporters.
journal
lation of any text by Franz Kafka
of "The Stoker"),
translation
in
and
(Milenajesensk?'s
1919 another
he edited,
Karel Capek's
translation
of Guillaume
Cerven, published
journal
as a watershed
in the
of Czech
"Zone," widely
mod
Apollinaire's
regarded
development
ernist
"Francouzsk?
in Miroslav
See, e.g., Jan Mukafovsky,
poetry.
(1936),
po?sie K. Capka"
Cervenka
and Milan
and Deborah
Garfin
eds., Studie II (Brno,
300-304;
Jankovic,
2007),
'Pasmo'
and the Construction
of
the Art of
kle, "Karel Capek's
Literary
Modernity
through
Slavic and East
Review
The
345-66.
Translation,"
Dev?tsil
47', no. 3 (2003):
European
young
took
from Neumann's
earlier
re
and essays
and
generation
inspiration
poetry
initially
him as a mentor:
Seifert's
v slz?ch
first volume
of poetry, M?sto
is
garded
Jaroslav
(1921)
to Neumann,
dedicated
"one of the kindest
of poets." More
Dev?tsil's
break
dramatically,
a
1922 anthology,
features
the title of Neumann's
Zivotll,
through
two-page
spread where
1920 essay collection,
At iije zivot! is
in red ink over
the text?an
in
splashed
diagonally
use of such
novative
in avant-garde
On
Neumann's
overprinting
typography.
early support
see Kvetoslav
for Dev?tsil,
a
Bedfich
V?clavek
Chvat?k,
vyvoj cesk? marxistick?
estetiky (Prague,
2. Neumann's
a
from
modernism
and toward
1962),
chap.
away
development
agi
sharply
tational
line was
thus in many
the inverse
of Teige's
and Dev?tsil's.
ways
17. Elsewhere
I have examined
how
of the mid
and later
Teige's
avant-garde
positions
1920s
retain
sublated
structures
from
art
the proletarian
See Peter
conceptual
period.
"The Style of the Present:
on Constructivism
Karel Teige
Zusi,
and Poetism,"
Representations
88 (Fall 2004):
see Esther
Also
on Cinema
102-24.
"Karel Teige
and Utopia,"
Levinger,
Slavic and East
"Mezi prolet?fskou
48, no. 2 (2004):
247-74;
Zden?kPesat,
European]ournal
a
Cesk?
literatura 50, no. 5 (2002):
and Mark?ta
Der
poezi?
poetismem,"
500-505;
Brousek,
Poetismus:
Die Lehrjahre
der tschechischen
und
ihrer
marxistischen
Kritiker
(Munich,
Avantgarde
85.
does not
account,
between
1975),
the early
however,
Levinger's
sufficiently
distinguish
of
Pesat's
art as a distortion
of proletarian
of
phases
Teige's
development.
interpretation
the "natural"
line of Czech
not account
does
for the
de
developmental
poetics
ongoing
and echoes
of proletarian
art in socialist
realism.
Brousek
contrasts
the "fluid
velopment
of Teige's
to
the "new
marked
of
process"
(85)
development
beginning"
by Nezval's
joining
Dev?tsil
critical
in fact echoes
the judgment
Salda
in 1928
(79). This
tendency
expressed
that "there
or
is no break
the so-called
our
and poetist
abyss between
proletarian
layers of
movement."
"O nejmlads?
in Soubor d?aF
X.
Salda,
youngest
cesk?,"
poetic
poesii
Saldy,
ed. Jan
and Felix Vodicka,
z cesk?
vol. 8, Studie
134.
Mukafovsky
1961),
(Prague,
literatury
For Teige's
own
of this
of
(albeit
retrospective
analysis
period
pressures
political
reflecting
see his letter
the early
in VzD, 3:581-86.
1950s),
reproduced
18.
has recently
examined
similar
Chitnis,
themes
in the early
however,
Rajendra
of the modernist
chairman
of Dev?tsil)
Vladislav
development
prose writer
(and founding
see Chitnis,
Vladislav
Vancura:
The Heart
Vancura;
of the Czech Avant-Garde
2007),
(Prague,
36-41.
doubt
one
of
the most
vociferous
Tendentious
Modernism:
Karel
Teige's Path
829
toFunctionalism
as
is that Teige did not simply turn with
the winds
of theoretical
fashion,
so many
of his detractors
in interwar Czechoslovakia
His
liked to believe.
that
rather than radical reversal:
smooth
evolution
concepts
logic reveals
some of his most
as
to
count
led
Teige
commonly
aesthetically
regressive
modernist
rigorously
positions.
is not to sug
it must be emphasized,
The point of this examination,
or that Czech modernism
was
ineluc
that
gest
Teige
"secretly" regressive
is to show
the point
traces
of
bears
cultural
Rather,
provincialism.
tably
that are all too
of conceptual
and flexibility
the complexity
oppositions
the
as static. Within
historical
the Czech
context,
often conceived
literary
confutes
functionalism
and modernist
tendentiousness
between
relation
the
realism with
socialist
of later Czech
association
the overly
schematic
national
revival. But more
the
of
"utilitarian"
early
broadly, Teige's
legacy
and con
modernism
reveals crucial contact points between
development
to modernism.
The micro
deemed
trends generally
antagonistic
ceptual
a less trodden
the
case thus follows
of the Czech
narrative
path through
and
takes shortcuts
this byroad
of modernism:
conceptual
topography
this alternate
conceals.
that the macronarrative
follows detours
Mapping
the stri
modernism?even
of
how
route results
in a better
appreciation
to and
dent subset known as the historical
receptive
avant-garde?proved
own ends.19
to
its
hostile
able to appropriate
concepts
seemingly
Lidovost
Responses:
Spontaneous
and Mass
Culture
of proletarian
of Teige's
art, the first key
early articulation
associa
of
semantic
a
wide
subsumed
term,
range
lidovost,
particularly
"folkness"
sense itmeant
immediate
tions. In the usual and most
literally
and folk art. In this sense the
and conjured
peasant
images of traditional
in
lands often
the Czech
of Romanticism?in
the rhetoric
term evoked
or folk
national
of a unique
with notions
tertwined
by
inspired
"genius"
a major
role in the wake of
had played
Herder?and
Gottfried
Johann
as the
for what was widely
revival as a designation
the national
perceived
of
to the high culture
as
of the heartland,
culture
Czech
opposed
"truly"
in very
Even
and
Bohemian
the Germanized
bourgeoisie.20
aristocracy
In the context
19.
not
I do
ism from
address
here
the avant-garde?a
used
commonly
example,
the movements
examined
below,
for
radically
the face
combative
positions.
the
the
that
rarely
terms
now
My
issue
often-discussed
distinction
interchangeably.
termed
the historical
conviction
is that
of how
bothered
In
modern
to differentiate
theorists
of
the
time.
regard
to
the
issues
Teige,
to be
the most
assumed
avant-garde
even
in
can be revealed
if ambiguities
even
relevance
hold
those ambiguities
under
that have
gone
traditionally
then
oppositions,
sharply
pointed
differentiated
and more
phenomena
the label of high modernism.
on the Czech Lan
Second Conversation
can be seen as early as Josef Jungmann's
20. This
a
Czech
consider
those
I say about
"What should
[who]
peasant
language?
(1806):
guage
is a peasant
it is at home
that where
don't know
Poor devils!
language,
every
language
They
"O jazyku
of the land." Jungmann,
inhabitant
is the most
that the peasant
and
important
o
n?roda:
obrozen?
in
Felix
ed.,
Rozmlouv?n?
Vodicka,
cesk?m:
druh?,"
Vyborz dita Josefa
Boj
resonances
a useful
account
of the ideological
44. Sayer gives
1948),
(Prague,
Jungmanna
see
the turn of the twentieth
around
of the ceskylid, especially
century;
Sayer,
of the notion
in the Czech
see, e.g., Jaromir
influence
On Herder's
lands,
118-20.
Coasts
of Bohemia,
637-53.
u n?s," Cesk? literatura
53, no. 5 (2005):
Louzil,
oj. G. Herder
"Kz?pasu
for
of
these
the broader
830
Slavic Review
early texts, however,

Teige
to sarcastic critique.
dovost
subjected
He wrote:
this traditional
understanding
of
li
Folk art [lidov? umen?]} Ah, yes, our wonderful

national costumes, which
we tell ourselves
the whole world should envy! The regional costumes of
Moravia and Slov?cko, a profusion
of colors, the
of reds and a multitude
essential yield of the artistic labors of the Czechoslovak
people! What a
feast for the eyes when national and Slavic flags flutter, festooning
the
facades of tall buildings,
otherwise gray and sullen. And at every festive
the wide avenues overflow with gallant lads and fine lasses,
opportunity
for it is customary
to display the national consciousness
and Hussite na
ture of our tribe by
national
dress!"21
donning
slov?cky
In contrast
to the
or
nostalgic
romanticizing
image of lidovost he mocks
to
reserve
term
a
wished
use. He used
the
for
different
it to
here, Teige
not
"folk
art"
but
rather
to
connote
and
character,"
designate
"popular
wide popular
and intimate
connection
with
"the people,"
which
appeal
not
identified
with
the
but
rather
the
with
Teige
peasantry
proletariat:
"By
character'
national
eth
[lidovosti] we do not mean
'popular
specificity,
etc. There
is just one people
the modern
[lid] from pole to pole:
nography,
while
claimed
that the lidovost of
art
proletariat'"22 Thus,
Teige
proletarian
would
result in a new strain of folk art (lidov? umen?), he
not
did
certainly
intend
this as a call to imitate
traditional
folk art. Rather,
traditional
folk
art was to function
as an
or ideal for art as an
analogy
integral component
of everyday
life. For Teige,
the essence
of lidovost did not consist
in any
or
aesthetic
forms
traditional
folk art presented,
not a
specific
practices:
for
an
but
rather
ideal that could
inform an
artists,
pattern
contemporary
a
to
new
historical
situation.
response
original
In his vision of a new folk art that would
be urban
rather
than rural,
and modern
rather than traditional,
was
a small volume
Teige
inspired by
of meditative
and author Josef
essays by the painter
Capek, Nejskromnejsi
umen? (The humblest
This
eclectic
a remark
collection
constitutes
art).23
able though
little-known
document
in the history of modern
in
art, whose
on the Czech
fluence
interwar avant-garde
deserves
particular
emphasis.24
on the
focuses
his attention
of artistic
on
Capek
peripheries
activity:
over
on
wooden
on
children's
outmoded
painted
signs
shop doors,
toys,
on
and on the aesthetics
furniture,
of old
family bric-a-brac,
photographs,
as well as on modern
American
cinema.
These
share failure:
objects
they
21.
zn?m?
enjoyed
ethically
Guardia
22.
Revolucn?
23.
Karel
a nezn?m?,
a vogue
"Nov? um?ni
Teige,
1:150. Slov?cko?a
certain
among
folk culture.
"unspoiled"
182-85.
(Paris,
1992),
Rarel
"Um?n? dnes
Teige,
sborn?k Dev?tsil
(Prague,
See Teige,
"Nov? um?n?
lidov?
region
fin-de-si?cle
See
on
tvorba"
in Vlas?n,
(1921),
ed., Avantgarda
between
Moravia
and Slovakia?
the emblem
of an
and
ethnically
de la
Prague Fin de Si?cle, trans. Maev
the border
as
artists
Petr Wittlich,
a zitra"
in Karel
and Jaroslav
(1922),
Seifert,
Teige
200. Emphasis
in the
1922),
original.
alidov?
tvorba,"
152Josef
Capek, Nejskromn?js?um?n?'(
was
the volume
in 1920,
several
of the
published
reprint,
1997). Although
Prague,
were
in
in 1918-1919.
published
journals
24.
um?n? also
Nejskromn?js?
clearly
in
na
Capek,
Marsyas,cili
okraj literatury
Karel Capek's
gle volume,
essays appeared
eds.,
1920;
essays
the essays
Karel
anticipates
brother,
by Josef's
Before
into a sin
collected
1931).
(Prague,
being
in journals,
for the most
in the late 1920s.
part
Tendentious
Modernism:
Karel Teige's Path
831
toFunctionalism
nor modernist
of art. Rather
than
definitions
traditionalist
or
eternal
ideals
convention,
they
boisterously
challenging
embodying
while
of kitsch,
derision
subsist on the border
offering
suffering
humbly
as
have a Benjaminian
observations
At times Capek's
ring (such
delight.
aura
on
of
in his reflections
the unique
mid-nineteenth-century
portrait
of mate
or his obsessive
the odd fragment
with
fascination
photography
he sounds
at other moments
rial culture washed
up from the past), while
a
darkened
as
of
in
his
such
almost Heideggerian,
entering
description
late in the evening:
kitchen
meet
neither
in darkness and hidden from

that a moment
ago were engulfed
Things
and the black iron plates
now
tiled
surfaces
to
exist:
white
your eyes
begin
and this
in their mutual
of the oven start to take outline
oppositions,
that
or reflections;
of
shade
without
occurs without
gradations
lights,
extend
the
soft
oven pushes
old
darkness,
familiar
through
intimately
an almost gentle certainty; and now these things
ing and rising up with
with all of their
are here, living in their full dimensions
finally are, they
being.25
one with sheer be

Humble
they confront
captivate Capek because
objects
with
be impossible
would
of materiality
experience
ing, and this intimate
art
life.26 Capek's most humble
that were not part of everyday
"art" objects
a fundamental
it represented
Rather
was thus hardly unobtrusive.
point of
made miraculous.
contact with the world: mundanity
dis
The first was Capek's
from
two main
took
Capek.
points
Teige
of rural folk art. Of the
from any specific heritage
of lidovost
sociation
in
was most
interested
discussed,
Teige
objects Capek
range of everyday
and that represented
those that came from urban experience
specifically
was
second
The
first and foremost.
cinema
modern
point
phenomena:
a
from
of the term lidovost
transformation
description
implicit
Capek's
was
less
a form of perception.
to
or formal
of a genre
Capek
category
the
in
than
intended
the artist or craftsman
in what
interested
impres
the everyday world. Teige,
the way it shaped
sion the object made,
again,
for the
crucial
he deemed
a
form of perception
particular
emphasized
he wrote,
and laughter.
Lidovost,
urban proletariat:
"requires
enjoyment
a z?bavnost]
,"27
value
and amusement
[srozumitelnost
comprehensibility
the proletariat
between
connection
was the sign of a positive
Laughter
the spontaneity
so threatening
and the otherwise
everyday world. Further,
when
a guarantee
of truthfulness:
of laughter
large numbers
represented
a force
to be
was
this
to
with
of people
laughter,
something
responded
with
lidovost
ideas
identified
on
twist
taken seriously. Thus Teige's
Capek's
be
was
lidov?
would
art
that
a
compre
spontaneously
response:
particular
to the broad masses.
and attractive
hensible
avant
of most
made
this criterion
suspicious
openly
Teige
Precisely
in 1921 and early 1922.
innovation
and modernist
garde experimentation
added.
umen?, 9. Emphasis
Capek,
Nejskromnejsi
of the particular
as a source
of use-value
discussion
12. Capek's
Ibid.,
see
its "constructive
to
intentions";
art also led him
humble
emphasize
in VzD, 1:57.
"Nov? umen?
(1922),
27. Rarel
prolet?fsk?"
Teige,
25.
26.
most
of
power
ibid., 19.
the
832
Slavic Review
The
to broad
of avant-garde
works was an obstacle
complexity
he
noted
for
that Pablo Picasso,
reception:
critically,
Georges
example,
were not
and Paul Verlaine
(lidov?) and that Ale
Braque,
truly "popular"
ksandr Blok's works
could not approach
the readership
enjoyed
by the
of
authors
was
Buffalo
Bill
convinced
novels.28 Further,
anonymous
Teige
that the horrors
of the war had
that even
discredited
utterly
anything
resembled
fetishism
of technology
and progress.
Italian futurism, with
its
of "war ... as the
for the world"
glorification
only hygiene
represented
an obvious
but Teige
also criticized
the affirmative
target in this respect,
of
Czech
civilism as well as the "machinism"
"technological
megalomania"
he felt characterized
of the Soviet
much
at
avant-garde.29
Finally, Teige
this stage was
to
characterize
all
of
avant
the previous
quick
practically
as
of the late
rather than any
garde movements
agonies
bourgeois
epoch
sort of cultural
rebirth. Thus,
and dada represented
for
expressionism
him (much as
later for
the "final consequences
they would
Georg Luk?cs)
of the
of the previous
the
art," raising to an even higher
bankruptcy
power
chaotic
swirl of cultural confusion
that typified art of the
era
and
bourgeois
that proletarian
culture was to overcome.30
texts at
earliest
Indeed, Teige's
times struck an
antimodernist
note: he
for
outright
complained,
example,
that the "old art"
the entire
avant
(by which he meant
practically
European
at that time) was bad because
it was too much
like modern
garde
cities,
"which we also do not like. For
are
and spineless,
aim
they
simply chaotic
less conglomerations
of individual
not
but
wealth."31
energies,...
quantity
These
of much
of the
re
and anything
early suspicions
avant-garde
a machine
cult were
the flip side of
claim
that
sembling
Teige's
recurring
the new art was
"humanist."
that "only a human
intrinsically
Teige asserted
can form the content
no means
the object!)
being
(by
ofaworkofart,"and
he contrasted
this orientation
with the machine
fetishism
that, he felt, had
led Fernand
to
the machine
L?ger
proclaim
gun as an ideal art object.32
formal
28.
See Teige,
29.
Karel
prolet?fsk?,"
1:520. The
Teige,
45; and
"Um?n?
a z?tra,"
dnes
"Obrazy
and
"Nov? um?n?
Teige,
prolet?fsk?,"
in VzD,
"Nov?
(1921),
1:26; Teige,
Ilia
Yet It Turns,
Erenburg's
quoted
futurism
did not prevent
Dev?tsil
members
189;
pfedobrazy"
1923
review
of
58.
um?n?
in VzD,
Teige's
toward
Italian
from
skepticism
F. T. Marinetti
at
house.
graciously
hosting
Teige's
30.
a
28. See also
"Nov? um?n?
Teige,
"Obrazy
pfedobrazy,"
49;
Teige,
prolet?fsk?,"
and Karel
"Um?n?
in Zivot II: Nov?
Teige,
soudob?
intele
pf?tomnosti,"
um?n?,
konstrukce,
ktueln? aktivita
120. Teige
to characterize
continued
as the culminat
1922),
(Prague,
dada
of
social
crisis even after he
to
ing product
its
as
bourgeois
began
appreciate
importance
a
movements.
See his
preparatory
stage for later avant-garde
in Host
6 (1926):
"Dada,"
38-39
and translated
in
O. Benson
and Eva Forg?cs,
Timothy
eds., Between Worlds: A Source
book of Central
1910-1930
Avant-Gardes,
European
379-80.
Also
Mass.,
2002),
(Cambridge,
see
"Dada Well-Constructed:
Toman,
Karel Teige's
Jindfich
in Um?n?
Early Rationalism,"
1-2
43, nos.
and Jindfich
(1995):
"O dada,
29-33;
a cesk?m
surrealismu,
Chalupecky,
in Cestou necestou
um?n?,"
194-228.
1999),
(Jinocany,
31.
a
29. See also
claim
that peinture
Teige,
"Obrazy
pfedobrazy,"
Teige's
pure and the
simultaneous
of Apollinaire
"forms
that were
poetry
presupposed
mechanical,
surprising,
and
the foundation
of
with wide
sharp,
commercial
resembling
fac
avenues,
megalopolises
as well as
tories, and skyscrapers"
inhuman
monstrous,
and
"gigantic,
transmissions,
pistons,
levers."
sm?rem"
in Vlasin,
Teige,
"Novym
zn?m? a nezn?m?,
(1923),
1:91.
ed., Avantgarda
32. Teige,
a
27. See also
93.
"Obrazy
pfedobrazy,"
sm?rem,"
Teige,
"Novym
Tendentious
Modernism:
Karel
Teige's Path
833
toFunctionalism
was not very clear. But it related

this humanism
entailed
what
Precisely
a relation
to
of
that could appear
back
the
lidovost,
category
semantically
or the
a
as well,
term lid, meaning
the
Czech
since
people
etymological
as
hu
root
of
lidstvo
and
the
also
forms
such
words
lidskost, denoting
folk,
or humaneness.33
in general
and the quality of humanity
mankind
revised most of these anti-avant-gardist
fundamentally
positions
Teige
a few months).
these
a few years (in some cases within
within
Nonetheless,
or
an immature
as expressions
of
cannot be discounted
statements
simply
some
reten
in
For
is
transformation
it
the
cases,
even,
(or
phase.
passing
a new context)
that is striking within
of these claims
tion within
Teige's
art over the course
of
the
from
away
proletarian
paradigm
development
in
this: while
of humanism
of 1922 and 1923. His concept
clearly reflects
to any artistic ori
texts this had grounded
the earliest
antagonism
Teige's
as
or technological
that took the machine
entation
progress
inspiration,
a
even after he had become
of humanism
this vocabulary
retained
Teige
the
of
aesthetic
also
thus
of
constructivism
fervent
(and
pri
proponent
as a
constructivism
of technological
Teige
presented
macy
production).
to
over technology,
control
could
humankind
which
regain
by
practice
was
created
machine
"The
into
servitude.
it
fallen
had
he
claimed,
which,
but now the machine
[utv?f?] and even rules over
shapes
by humankind,
back
was to turn this relation
the avant-garde
of
the
task
thus
humanity";
understand
an
From
then,
around.34
the right way
Teige's
early point,
was infused with
of technology
as the humanization
ing of constructivism
would
that
humanism
Marxist
classical
of
the
themes
of
several
gain such
and Economic
of Karl Marx's Philosophical
with the publication
at the end of the decade.35 Nor did this humanist
vocabulary
strin
as one of the most
after Teige had become
(in) famous
disappear
could write
As late as 1928 Teige
of functionalism.
theoreticians
gent
prominence
Manuscripts
33.
v?lkisch
resonances
these
distinguish
Precisely
to construe
lidovost
and allowed
Teige
cosmopolitan.
the course
all
too
with
of
efficient
communist
interpretation,
etymological
Teige's
the 1940s
(and especially
directly
fascist
in absorbing
("v?lkisch")
as
(such
terminology
Activists,
lidov?
term
term
the German
from
the Czech
and
as something
progressive
potentially
Over
little influence.
exerted
however,
the adjective
the war)
after
lidovy proved
them
in fusing
indeed
and
connotations
republika
the Little
see Robert
B.
republic]);
[peoples'
Central
and Germans,"
Czech
Man,
Jews,
"Conclusory
Essay:
5, no. 2 (2007):
esp. 268-73.
a basen (Prague,
28. See
in Stavba
a um?n?"
1927),
"Doba
34. Karel
(1923),
Teige,
was
the
in VzD,
1:120. Cinema
architektufe"
"K nov?
also Karel
perhaps
(1923),
Teige,
the alienating
reclaimed
saw ground
in which
central
against
being
Teige
phenomenon
fascination
in Zivot II, 156. Teige's
"Foto kino
film,"
of technology;
see, e.g.,
tendencies
in its
art form but also
in its status as a technological
not only
was
cinema
with
grounded
as
mass
remarks,
and
Thus,
Teige
implicitly
undeniable
Levinger
appeal.
spontaneous
on Cinema
"Karel Teige
art." Levinger,
form of proletarian
as "a modern
cinema
regarded
Pynsent,
Europe
247.
and Utopia,"
can
35. Teige
plausibly
who
the thinkers
anticipated
be
counted,
along
of
the themes
with Georg
a humanist
Luk?cs
or
and Karl Korsch,

well
Marxism
reform
among
before
ed. Marx
in V. Adoratskij,
texts
of Marx's
Gesamtausgabe,
/Engels
the publication
key early
such an
one of the reasons
is
This
3
why Teige
represented
1932).
likely
1, pt.
(Berlin,
in the 1960s:
Kalivoda,
see, e.g., Robert
reform Marxism
for Czech
inspiration
important
mod
and Kv?toslav
Chvat?k,
a marxismus
skutecnost
Smysl
duchovni
1970),
Moderni
(Prague,
vol.
ern?ho um?n?
(Prague,
1965),
esp.
78-79.
834
Slavic Review
that
"Constructivism
man
proclaims
as the
[clov?ka]
principle
stylistic
of
architecture."36
to
was how
crucial, however,
Perhaps most
early commitment
Teige's
in the early to mid-1920s
lidovost
translated
with mass
into a fascination
culture.37 Early on Teige
in:
identified
the purist forms of lidovost
Buffalo
westerns,
movie
jugglers,
Nick
Bills,
or
serials
Chaplin's
minstrels,
wandering
Carter
sentimental
novels,
amateur
grotesques,
clowns
and
acrobatic
American
novels,
comedy
circus
vari?t?
theater,
riders,
spring
a
time folk celebrations,
in short almost everything
Sunday football match,
on which the cultural life of the vast
of
the proletariat
thrives.
majority
These
of
will
deformities?are
you
say
literary forms?many
nowadays
the single most characteristically
[lidovou] literature.38
popular
The
link between
these disparate
of
culture was their
examples
popular
to
masses
entertain
of
their
proven
(i.e.,
z?bavnost). Again,
ability
people
the essence
of lidovost
in the capacity
to evoke a particular
Teige viewed
For this reason he felt that
art must not sim
response.
positive
proletarian
the
in
world
which
or
the
to
lived
ply depict
proletariat
attempt
mytholo
or aestheticize
union
factories,
gize
leaders, and so on.
housing
projects,
art had to be an art to which
the proletariat
Rather,
proletarian
spontane
"not
stories
of
life's
not
of mine
shafts
miseries,
ously responded:
pictures
and steelworks,
but of the tropics and of
a
of
free
lands, poetry
faraway
and active
to the worker
a
not
that
life, which
crushes
but
brings
reality
"39
rather a reality and a vision that
and
The
inspire
strengthen!
proletariat
was to act as the consumer
or audience
rather than the object or
topic of
art.
In
this
mass
culture
would
reinforce
the
construction
proletarian
way,
of a
working-class
subjectivity.
was aware of the
of
mere
art, even
Teige
danger
producing
escapist
if he did not have an
to
solution
at
this
this
adequate
problem
stage.
or traditionalist
art, for Teige, was always bourgeois
art that
Truly escapist
its viewers
to escape
to a museum,
or church
in order
required
gallery,
to view it. The
for
mass
to
and
justification
forms, with
turning
popular
their exoticism
and potential
was
the
fact
escapism,
simply
indisputable
that "the
to
it:
in
this
one
could
let
the
people"
responded
way
only
pro
letariat dictate
the terms of its own art. This criterion
re
of spontaneous
that the new proletarian
art would
not be
felt, guaranteed
sponse, Teige
but would
rather hit a nerve
and touch on
simply frivolous
something
modern.
Thus
the criterion
that
truly
Teige
increasingly
emphasized
the new art be
and
that
its
to
be
entertaining
engrossing,
goal
primary
make
its spectators
a
This
is
fundamental
contact
of
between
happy.
point
36.
Karel
grounding
often
been
the
Teige,
of
Teige's
overlooked
latter's
37.
Levinger,
38.
39.
design
See,
e.g.,
"Karel
Teige,
Ibid.,
for
Jan
Teige
"Nov?
"K teorii
konstruktivismu"
radical
functionalism
in accounts
of
Teige's
the Mundaneum.
See
conception
famous
1929
Zusi,
"The
D?jiny
cesk?
Utopia,"
58.
prolet?fsk?,"
251.
Mukafovsky,
on Cinema
um?n?
(1928),
in a
ed.,
and
in VzD,
1:365.
of humanism
Precisely
is what
has
with Le Corbusier
polemic
113-15.
Style of the Present,"
literatury
(Prague,
1995),
4:199;
59.
this
too
over
and
Tendentious
Teige's
Modernism:
Karel
Teige's Path
art and
of proletarian
understanding
835
toFunctionalism
the
later
"felicitology"
of
a criterion
of
the
poetism.40
The
of
association
lidovost
reveals
with
what
I have
termed
how
between
shifted
response
spontaneous
smoothly
Teige
discourses
of the Proletkul't
and the avant-garde.
The
from
the
of
neity emerged
category
comprehensibility
or even anti-intellectualism
the anti-elitism
inherent
of sponta
and
(srozumitelnost)
in the demand
that
art and literature
In this
from working-class
culture.
take their inspiration
doc
the orbit of Proletkul't
the early Teige
remained
well within
regard
mass
as
culture
trine. Simultaneously,
however,
paradigmatic
by presenting
ensured
art's deeper
rooted
that allegedly
for the spontaneous
response
of a
ness in society, Teige
the achievement
with
identified
that response
as
art
life.
this
modern
and
direct
of
(even organic)
Clearly,
integration
of tradi
art with mass culture came at the expense
sociation
of proletarian
thus implicitly posit the
formulations
of artistic value. Teige's
tional notions
of art and life" commonly
autonomous
the "reuniting
art"
and
of
"negation
Neu
to the historical
movements.41
as fundamental
avant-garde
regarded
some of his
and
of
mann
the
sensed
shift,
Teige's
immediately
implications
the latter's understanding
with Teige concerned
earliest polemics
precisely
of proletarian
doctrine
of lidovost.42 The Czech
art, therefore,
represents
two cultural currents
source from which
a common
emerged?
ideological
of a fig
and the antimodernism
like Teige
of a figure
the avant-gardism
ever more
become
would
ure
like Neumann?that
bitterly
opposed.43
The
Efficacy
of Art:
Tendence
criterion
and Functionalism
a swift
term in Teige's
second
The
tendence, underwent
early writings,
key
of a radical
later proponent
For Teige?the
evolution.
and surprising
as such?began
content
if not narrative
of didactic
elimination
tendency
The
as an earnest
career
of tendentiousness.
defender
his theoretical
cowrote with one of the
that Teige
umen?"
"Prolet?fsk?
manifesto
early
makes
the poetjifi
art movement,
voices of the proletarian
Wolker,
major
Proletar
tendentious.
of its task has been
this clear: "Every art conscious
of its
conscious
since it is more
than others,
tendentious
ian art is more
at
even quote
Wolker
and
itself concretely."44
task and expresses
Teige
40.
term
The
is from
Oleg
Sus,
"Cesky
no.
Divadlo,
1924,"
poetismus
(October
1964): 28.
41.
Peter
represents
42.
Theory
Burger's
influential
the most
of the Avant-Garde,
of
formulation
trans. Michael
these
Shaw
1984)
(Minneapolis,
claims.
a
tf?dn?ho
um?n?
"K ot?zce
Kostka
Stanislav
See
Neumann,
prolet?fsk?ho"
Also
a
II: Stati o um?n? a kulture
in Konfese
1988),
esp. 406-11.
(Prague,
(1923),
konfrontace
73-76.
see Chvat?k,
Bed?ch
V?clavek,
in der
Moderne
der europ?ischen
in this respect,
43. See,
"Rezeption
Jifi Stromsik,
und der tsche
in der deutschen
Moderne
in Klaus
tschechischen
ed.,
Schenk,
Avantgarde,"
52-53.
chischen Literatur
2000),
(T?bingen,
44. Jifi Wolker
[and Karel Teige],
"Prolet?fsk? um?n?" (1922), in D?ojif?ho Wolkera,
1:288. Levinger
5th ed.
1930),
(Prague,
Novotny,
content"
was
to reject
all tendentious
(248),
gular
position
from
"Prolet?fsk?
this claim even quotes
containing
paragraph
ed. Miloslav
claims
and
at
um?n?"
that
the
end
while
"Dev?tsil's
of
the
ignoring
sin
same
the
836
Slavic Review
a statement
on tendentiousness
in art by the poet and political
length
Karel
to the post
Havlicek
thus
journalist
Borovsky,
alluding
explicitly
Biedermeier-era
of
further
cultural
The
evolution
legacy
politicization.45
of Teige's
of
this
how the
reveals
however,
concept,
understanding
clearly
a con
could
and
the
tensions
within
early Teige
exploit
emphasize
logical
to end up in a
that
cept in order
appears
position
diametrically
opposed.
A key text in this evolution
is the 1922 essay "Nov? um?ni
prolet?fsk?"
first major
(The new proletarian
art), which
represents
attempt
Teige's
to redefine
the concepts
set forth in "Prolet?fsk?
um?n?" and thus stands
the doctrine
art and constructivism.
of proletarian
halfway between
Teige
as a critical
here retains
tendence
to
that, in contrast
category,
claiming
the "artistic bankruptcy"
of futurism
move
and other recent avant-garde
the most
current
art is characterized
ments,
and col
by "tendentiousness
But
to
he
also
between
the
under
"usual
lectivity."^
begins
distinguish
own
and
his
of
tendence.
The
citation
from
Havlicek
standing"
concept
returns once
Borovsky
again and provides
Teige with a foil against which
the "pseudovalues"
of such
Czech and Slovak patriotic
nineteenth-century
as Koll?r,
writers
Frantisek
Ladislav
are
and Josef Kajet?n
Celakovsky
Tyl
as
revealed
demand
that
tendentious
empty. Havlicek
Borovsky's
poetry
"must above all truly bePOETRY,
because bad poetry with the
tendentious
finest
ness will never be tendentious
for
poetry," serves as Teige's model
denouncing
"the common
tendentious
of
The
of such
pseudopoetry
today."47
origin
tendentious
a
in
historical
misunder
pseudopoetry,
Teige
argued,
lay
and a failure
to
between
two forms of tendentious
standing
distinguish
ness. The first form,
as
tendentiousness
understood?that
is,
commonly
literature
that functioned
as
the stamp of
party propaganda,
"bearing
and inspired
from above"?was
a
in fact
party bureaucracy
only
subgenre
of tendentious
art and represented
the artistic
to meet
style appropriate
the specific demands
on art
made
during
openly
revolutionary
periods.48
To raise such a narrow
of tendentiousness
to the level
understanding
of a fundamental
criterion
for art at all times, as
the
Teige now accused
of doing, was an error.
Proletkurt
The second, broader
form of tendentiousness
not art's
upheld
obliga
tion to communicate
or
information
but rather
its
particular
viewpoints
fundamental
to
seek
social
relevance
and
en
effective
forms
of
obligation
This form of tendentiousness
a cogent
gagement.
represented
response
call for artistic
so
tendentiousness
in that essay. This
confusion
reflects
expressed
stridently
of Dev?tsil's
art and
Levinger's
while
her claim
is valid
blurring
proletarian
poetist
phases:
for the period
abandoned
not accurate
for the
after Dev?tsil
art, it is clearly
proletarian
earlier
silence
about
this
to tendentiousness
phases.
Levinger's
forces
early commitment
her into
contortions
when
she later tries to
the emergence
logical
is in fact
(which
explain
a
of a
tendentious
side to some of
re-emergence)
in the
crudely
Teige's
writings
early 1930s.
See Levinger,
on Cinema
"Karel Teige
and
262-63.
Utopia,"
45. To be sure,
the Havlicek
was
to
attractive
and Wolker
quote
particularly
Teige
it
because
to defend
the
of
tendentiousness
its cruder
attempted
category
against
manifestations.
46.
47.
53
(his
48.
"Nov? umen?
49.
in the
Teige,
prolet?fsk?,"
Emphasis
original.
of Havlicek
Ibid., 54 (Teige's
with
quotation
Borovsky,
Borovsky's
own comment).
Ibid.,
emphasis)
55.
and
Tendentious
Modernism:
Karel
Teige 'sPath
toFunctionalism
837
for
to the claim that the highest
for art, and the first prerequisite
criterion
of the
freedom
the absolute
For Teige,
freedom.
the artist, was absolute
in the doctrine
of Tart pour Tart,
culminating
artist?ultimately
bourgeois
not a form of libera
or an art answerable
to nothing
of itself?was
outside
access
he felt it represented
to hidden
truths. Rather,
tion or privileged
artistic
of absolute
The doctrine
and delusion.
loneliness,
banishment,
beliefs
individual
was deluding
it substituted
because
freedom
contingent
ten
form
of
the proper
thus linked
truth. Teige
for binding
collective
of
the
chaos
to overcome
to the need
the aesthetic
dentiousness
present
of
visions
artistic
the incompatible
between
(the result of competition
as
serve
that
could
artistic principles
and to identify
individual
artists)
who
To
those
cultural
communal
a foundation
for a unified,
paradigm.
and
in the loss of artistic freedom
resulted
tendentiousness
that
objected
not
all
forms
that
to extra-artistic
in bondage
Teige
responded
principles,
with the
he associated
liberation
The aesthetic
were desirable.
of freedom
to the
so
dear
freedom
not the negative
was certainly
revolution
October
a
com
in
ended
remove
all obstacles
artist, which
by striving to
bourgeois
a
most
art
been
has
of
freedom
"The absolute
lack of commitment:
plete
have
aestheticians
and
artists
for many
Many
people.
principle
precious
un
its
and
the world
outside
order,
art to endure
considered
temporal
a
vacuum
bound
of
in
and moral
hindered
laws; art floating
by political
in concrete
life."49 Teige
to anchor
itself securely
was unable
less freedom
the October
revolution,
enacted
liberation
the positive
that
by
argued
into areas from which
art and culture
released
on the other hand,
they
them back into contact with
and brought
been banished
had previously
revolution
as a whole:
"The cultural
begins
activity of the Russian
society
between art
and
connection
of the reciprocal dependence
the realization
with
it to
in that it once
artistic practice
and life and it liberates
again binds
or
social
of
the criterion
a social calling."50 Thus
political
engagement
a
not
for Teige
commitment?that
is, tendentiousness?represented
con
a
from
the
liberation
rather
but
or loss of freedom
form of bondage
artists remained
truths in which
individual
fines of the merely
bourgeois
of freedom.
their negative
concept
trapped by
of
of lidovost,
therefore,
As with
the category
understanding
Teige's
but
doctrine
up a
tendence
simultaneously
opened
grew out of Proletkul't
on the "reciprocal
its
emphasis
through
perspective
avant-gardist
distinctly
of art
connection between art and life" The social engagement
and
dependence
tendentiousness
art
and
of
reunion
life;
the
into
was translated
everyday
art's autonomy.
for overcoming
as a codeword
functioned
on
influence
a more
exerted
But this early usage of tendence
specific
would
that
influence
as
well?an
an
to
shift
program
avant-garde
Teige's
in
on the manner
attention
have far-reaching
By focusing
consequences.
or ef
relevance
art's
for
on
criteria
the
and
art
which
judging
operates
soon became
toward what
led Teige
of tendence
the concept
fectiveness,
49.
art began
responded
svobody"
50.
Ibid.,
with
with
(1922),
Teige,
over
33. The
argument
Novak's
the critic Arne
an
argument
in D?lofir?ho
"Nov?
um?n?
similar
Wolkera,
prolet?fsk?,"
the
of
freedom
criticism
to Teige's
1:292-94.
33-34.
of
the
the
artist
text
quoted
Emphasis
in relation
"Prolet?fsk?
above.
See
to proletarian
Wolker
um?n?."
"Ochr?nci
in the original.
um?leck?
838
Slavic Review
a fundamental
the term tendence
for him
trans
concern:
art as
theoretical
Teige
function.51
means
lated
into a measure
of art as a
of the adequacy
of achieving
art is
its particular
end:
"The tendentiousness
of modern
of tendentiousness
[ucelnost] ."52This equation
given by its purposefulness
with purposefulness
to view the
allowed Teige
di
unavoidable
apparently
lemma of choosing
or
between
either
l'art
Fart
uncommitted
socially
pour
were
art as a false dilemma:
tendentious
both options
socially dogmatic
due to their
of the proper purpose
(?cel) or
misguided
misunderstanding
function
of art.53 Ultimately
the term function
the
assumed
simply
positive
role originally
to the
of tendentiousness:
"[art] does
assigned
category
not have any tendence at all?it
have a certain natural
func
does, however,
tion."54 Teige's move
art and toward the precepts
away from proletarian
of international
constructivism
thus occurred
a
shift
through
conceptual
that saw tendentiousness
first with social engagement,
then with
equated
aesthetic
and finally with function.
purposefulness,
This
an
constitutes
and
under
developmental
logic
important
factor in the rapid consolidation
as a ma
of constructivism
acknowledged
The external
influences
jor orientation
point for the Czech
avant-garde.
on
formulation
of constructivism
are well known:
Le Corbusier
Teige's
(whom Teige met during his visit to Paris in mid-1922),
Soviet constructiv
ism (and the variants
of international
constructivism
in
currency
gaining
and elsewhere
in the course of 1922), Roman
Germany
(not only
Jakobson
for his mediation
of Russian
after his arrival in
avant-garde
poetry
Prague
but also for his concern
with
the specific function
of "poetic" as
opposed
to
circle
and, later, the Prague
"ordinary"
language),
linguistic
(although
to
as
was
was
one of mutual
noted
Teige's
above,
relationship
Mukafovsky,
it should be clear that these external
influence).
Nonetheless,
influences
did not descend
the early
as some sort of deus ex machina
upon
Teige
a radical
reversal but rather reinforced
and chan
instigating
conceptual
a
neled
that was
in
his
development
already
taking place
thought.55
The double
evolution
traced above?from
to functional
tendence
to mass culture?needs
ism, and from lidovost
to be borne
in mind when
formulations
of the mid-1920s
examining
Teige's
"high avant-gardist"
onwards.
two early terms
The
characteristic
tensions
clearly foreshadow
within
later thought:
the early
of
tendence
and
lidovost
Teige's
pairing
the familiar
later dualism
of constructivism
and poetism,
with
anticipates
all of its internal
in particular
the conflict
ra
between
tensions,
logical
tional and irrational models
of modern
culture. Even in
texts
Teige's
early
51.
See
Peter
"Echoes
of the Epochal:
Historicism
and
the Realism
Debate,"
no. 3 (2004):
a
"Barbafi
220; and Jan Wiendl,
apostolov?:
Crty k
a
v cesk?
literature
20. let 20. stoleti,"
Slovo a
neporozum?ni
pocatku
no.
1 (2004):
160.
smysl/Word?fSense2,
52. Teige,
a zitra,"
"Um?n?
dnes
200. Emphasis
in the original.
The
term
tendence
to become
started
for Teige
after he wrote
this article.
decisively
derogatory
shortly
53. See
"Doba a umen?,"
36.
Teige,
54.
Ibid., 45.
Literature
Comparative
ot?zce
tendencnosti
55.
In addition,
early proto-constructivist
106.
Present,"
Zusi,
56,
one
must
texts.
bear
in mind
See
Brousek,
Czech
such as Salda's
influences,
important
Der Poetismus,
103; and Zusi,
"Style of the
Tendentious
Modernism:
Karel
Teige's Path
839
toFunctionalism
of use-value
and aesthetic
the seamless
posited
integration
to
mass
due
of
him
the
absence
attracted
culture
precisely
to
of
its
ulterior
the
entertainment
value.56
any
anti-instrumentality
utility,
are taken into account,
on
influences
When
thought
only external
Teige's
the constructivism/poetism
of the mid-1920s
dualism
(and
easily appears
or forced,
as if
has often been
as) willful
simply wished
Teige
interpreted
trends he deemed
to accommodate
number
of the foreign
the greatest
of
the
dualism
examined
form
The embryonic
above, how
important.57
saw
these
into how Teige
ever, provides
contradictory
apparently
insight
The gap separating
sides of his thought
goal-oriented
fitting
together.
as
was not nearly
eudaemonism
from anti-instrumental
functionalism
were
two
nature:
these
as
their shared
for him
phenomena
important
this
life. In the case of functionalism,
both unavoidable
aspects of modern
reali
to
economic
and
functionalism
physical
responded
logic is obvious:
But for the early
them to the engineer's
ties and manipulated
advantage.
it pro
The
a
force.
coercive
mass culture also represented
response
Teige,
was
it
exerted
attraction
was
the
the populace
voked among
spontaneous,
a
sense
in this
and unavoidable:
undeniable
reality
laughter
represented
the unavoidability
as reinforced
steel. Teige perceived
as compelling
just
of their truth. Modern
life, he felt, was
of these two forces as the guarantor
and
the
forms and compelling
immanent
its specific,
adoption
revealing
era.
a
to
of a lifestyle appropriate
celebration
radically
changed
from an
both emerged
and felicitology
function
In short, for Teige,
of
direct
ideal
This
with modern
reality.
engagement
uncompromising
life
united
of
modern
the immanent
or engagement
with
contact
shapes
on tendentious
from his early statements
endeavors
theoretical
Teige's
that
of
aesthetic
art to the critique
autonomy
by the mid-1920s
proletarian
Euro
the
of
mainstream
the
him
contemporary
squarely within
placed
cannot
be
art
reason
For this
stage
proletarian
Teige's
pean avant-garde.
a rem
of
historical
the
lens
contingency?as
simply through
interpreted
lands
in the Czech
of culture
nant,
politicization
say, of the "regressive"
as
cultural
and
thus
the fall of the Habsburgs,
before
baggage
merely
he was able to emerge
and shed before
to sift through
that Teige needed
of the international
as a
unburdened
avant-garde.
spokesman
progressive
from one po
to shift quickly
in
these
Nor should Teige's
early years
ability
as youthful
be dismissed
sition to its diametrical
whimsy;
simply
opposite
for such
was
too
consistent
to
have
he
followed
the logic
shown)
(I hope
seized
to be satisfying. Rather,
an explanation
upon
logical poten
Teige
of proletarian
structure
art, po
the ideological
within
tials lying dormant
have made
cultural politics
lines of modernist
that the later battle
tentials
and the
are also points
of contact,
of conflict
But points
seem startling.
can
thin the line of separation
how
reveals
of
"inconsistency"
Teige's
logic
and its Others.
modernism
be between
functionalism
value, while
56.
Later
those
controlling
reflections.
57.
19205,
On
the
see Zusi,
become
would
Teige
culture
the
various
"The
Style
much
industry,
theoretical
of
but
more
this
interpretations
the Present."
aware
critical
of mass
moment
of Teige's
culture's
was
dual
absent
for
value
utility
in his earlier
program
of
the mid

Peter Zusi, Tendentious Modernism. Karel Teige's Path To Formalism, Slavic Review, Vol. 67, No. 4, Winter 2008, Pp. 821-839.

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Author(s): Peter Zusi

cations of theEnglish Goethe Society 72 (2003): 53-67; Alfred Thomas,

"Forging Czechs: The

to the variety of functions

a smysl/Word ?f Sense 5 (2006) :262.

Karel Teige's Path

(from early 1921 until

14. Josef Vojvod?k

early texts, however,

Folk art [lidov? umen?]} Ah, yes, our wonderful

Karel Teige's Path

in darkness and hidden from

one with sheer be

was not very clear. But it related

and Karl Korsch,

44. Jifi Wolker

[and Karel Teige],

"Prolet?fsk? um?n?" (1922), in D?ojif?ho Wolkera,

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