LATVIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF ARTGOETHE-INSTITUT RIGA L’INSTITUT FRANCAIS DE LETTONIE

AN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

1914 WAR AND MODERNISMDEDICATED TO THE FIRST WORLD WAR

ABSTRACTS

AT THE GOETHE-INSTITUT RIGA19–20 MARCH 2014

PROGRAM OF THE CONFERENCE: 19th MARCH

09.30–10.00 Registration10.00–10.30 Opening of the conference: speeches Director of the Goethe Institut in Riga Ulrich Everding Director of the Latvian National Museum of Art Māra Lāce Curator of the thematic line “Brīvības iela” / Street of Liberty / Gints Grūbe Curator of the Project “1914” Ginta Gerharde-Upeniece

I SESSION HEAD OF THE SESSION GINTA GERHARDE-UPENIECE

10.30–11.00 The First World War and Latvia: The main problems Dr.hist. Ēriks Jēkabsons, University of Latvia, Latvia11.00–11.30 Formation of the first Latvian troops (end of the 1918 / beginning of the 1919) Juris Ciganovs, Latvian War museum, Latvia

11.30–12.00 Coffee break

12.00–12.30 Russia’s commemoration of the First World War. Comments to the politics of history and commemorative culture Ph.D. Kristiane Janeke, History Service TRADICIA, Germany12.30–13.00 Versalles, 1919: a Peace Treaty or Preparation for War? Ph.D. Annie Deperchin, Lille University 2, France

13.00–14.30 Lunch

II SESSION HEAD OF THE SESSION AIjA BRASLIņA

14.30–15.00 The birth of Latvian modernism Dr.art. Dace Lamberga, Latvian National Museum of Art, Latvia15.00–15.30 Old Radicality and New Mentality: Czech Art at The Break Out of WWI Ph.D. Vojtech Lahoda, Institute of Art History, Czech Republic15.30–16.00 Modern Hungarian Art Movements from the Early 1900s to the End of the 1920s Ph.D. Mariann Gergely, Hungarian National Gallery, Hungary 16.00–16.30 Early Works of josip Seissel (jo Klek) in the Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb and His Contribution to Avant-Garde Developments in Croatia Nataša Ivancević, Museum of Contemporary Art of Zagreb, Croatia 16.30–17.00 Serbian Avant-garde and The Great War Ph.D. Bojan Jović, Institute for Literature and Art in Belgrade, Serbia

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PROGRAM OF THE CONFERENCE: 20th MARCH 10.00–11.00 Visit of the exhibition 1914 Dr.art. Ginta Gerharde-Upeniece, Latvian National Museum of Art, Latvia Daina Auziņa, Latvian National Museum of Art, Latvia

III SESSION HEAD OF THE SESSION DACE LAMBERGA

11.00–11.30 Modernism and the First World War’s consequences – the case of Slovakia Ph.D. Katarina Bajcurova, Slovak National Gallery, Slovak Republic11.30–12.00 Ivan Meštrović and the Great War – sculptor between politics and religion Barbara Vujanović, Ivan Meštrović Museums - Meštrović Atelier, Croatia 12.00–12.30 Art Criticism and Finland’s road to Independence Ph.Lic. Timo Huusko, Ateneum Art Museum, Finnish National Gallery, Finland

12.30–13.00 Coffee break

13.00–13.30 Woman and the First World War Dr.hist. Vita Zelče, University of Latvia, Latvia13.30–14.00 In the front line with a pencil Edvarda Šmite, Latvian National Museum of Art, Latvia 14.00–14.30 The New Europe. Intellectual and cultural resources in the League of Nations Dr.art. Ginta Gerharde-Upeniece, Latvian National Museum of Art, Latvia 14.30–15.15 Discussion

Closing of the conference

Languages of the conference: Latvian, English, French, German (with a simultaneous translation into Latvian)

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Dr. Hist. Ēriks jēkabsons

LU History and Philosophy Faculty Associated Professor. Author andco-author of seven monographs, four biographical dictionaries, and four volumes of documents. He has also written 186 scientific articles (of which half have been published overseas) and participated in 123 international science conferences in Latvia, Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Russia, Estonia, USA, Rumania, Moldova, Czech Republic, France and Germany. Member of the University of Latvia’s History Promotion Council, as well as being a member of the Latvian Historians’ Commission, expert for the Latvian Council of Science, overseas expert for the Rumanian Scientific Research National Council’s research programmes, and a member of the editorial team for five Latvian and 14 overseas science publications. Recipient of the Polish Gold Cross of Merit. In 2012, he was awarded the USA State Department’s Fulbright Grant for research work at Stanford University.

WORLD WAR I AND LATVIA: THE MAIN PROBLEMS

This lecture outlines and considers the main problems related to current research of the aforementioned subject. This is done, outlining the place and role of the territory of Latvia during the course of warfare and in processes and events related to this, as well as changes taking place within society in Latvia (national, social, etc.); moreover – in connection with processes taking place throughout Europe. Particular attention has been paid to the aforementioned events, noting existing impressions in the historiography of Latvia, as well as highlighting subjects and aspects that have been either insufficiently researched to date or not been studied at all. Overall, one has to divide up several blocks of problems, each of which contain sub-problems: 1) Course of warfare - Warfare in the territory of Latvia, including in contemporary Latvian territorial waters - Participation of Latvian riflemen’s battalions-regiments in warfare 2) Changes in the size and composition of the population as a result of the movement of refugees and other processes 3) Characteristics of the German occupation regime 4) Changes in the public mood in its various national and social groups; the genesis of the idea of Latvian statehood 5) Latvian riflemen’s units as a national phenomenon 6) Other changes in society, the growing role of women, etc. 7) Changes in cultural perceptionOne must conclude that currently none of the aforementioned subjects has been studied in-depth in the historiography of Latvia and Latvians, utilising an eclectic base of sources, despite the fact that serious studies have been conducted in some of them. Accordingly, this remains a future task facing historians and researchers in other fields, particularly given the necessity to view developments and events in Latvia as an element of overall European events.

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juris Ciganovs

Historian. In 1996, he graduated from the University of Latvia’s Faculty of History and Philosophy with a Bachelor’s degree in history, and in 1998 he received a Master’s degree in history from the same institution. Currently, he is studying in the University of Latvia’s doctoral programme. Since 1995, he has worked at the Latvian War Museum. From 1996–2001, he was the head of the museum’s inter-war history department and from 2001 he has been the deputy museum director in research work. From 2010, he has been Board Secretary of the Latvian National Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM). From 2012, he was appointed as a member of the working group of the joint Latvian and Russian historians’ commission. Member of the Ministry of Defence’s symbolica and heraldry commission. Author of more than 30 scientific publications. Research interests – the military political history of the Republic of Latvia’s inter-war period, history of the armed forces and uniformology.

FORMATION OF THE FIRST LATVIAN MILITARy UNITS (LATE 1918 – EARLy 1919)

The Latvian Army occupied an important role in the structural system of the state and was one of the guarantees of Latvia’s external security. Undoubtedly, the Latvian Army played an important role in the War of Independence (1918–1920) when, thanks to the army’s victories, the existence of the Republic of Latvia was ensured. Initially small armed units loyal to the temporary government of the Republic of Latvia began to form soon after the declaration of independence. During the spring of 1919, the first larger units of the Latvian armed forces were formed: the 1st Latvian Independent Brigade and the Northern Latvia Brigade, which merged into the united Latvian Army on 10 July 1919. During this period, the armed forces’ united organisational structure began to take shape. At the end of the War of Independence, there were about 75,000 enlisted soldiers in the Latvian Army.

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Ph. D. Kristiane janeke

History and Slavonic studies in Bonn, Berlin and Moscow, scholarship holder at the Robert Bosch foundation. Since 2008, freelance work as historian, curator, museum consultant, cultural manager.  Prior to that, participation in international exhibitions and museums in Berlin, Karlsruhe, Dresden, USA and Russia, among those, head of the German-Russian museumBerlin-Karlshost. 2010–2013, residence in Minsk/Belarus. Research in intercultural communication and German-Russian cultural exchange.

RUSSIA`S COMMEMORATIONOF THE FIRST WORLD WAR. COMMENTS TO HE POLITICS OF HISTORy AND COMMEMORATIVE CULTURE

Russia commemorates the 100th anniversary since the outbreak of World War I with numerous events, conferences, publications, exhibitions, museum foundations and memorials. This surprises insofar as the war during the Soviet Union and beyond first was marginalised, then forgotten. Since the collapse of the USSR in 1991, this repressed memory has gradually returned, however, a profound change in the collective memory is out of the question. It is rather about a top-down memory of the “forgotten heroes” with the objective of a “patriotic education of citizens”. Thus, the politics of history fall back on well-known patterns of commemoration, as they apply to the “Great Patriotic War”. Regarding the revived memory of World War I and likewise World War II, it has not to do with individual memory or coming to terms with history, but with the strengthening of national self-esteem from history.

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Ph. D. Annie Deperchin

Lawyer, legal historian, Doctor of Laws (dissertation: ‘Law during the First World War’, University of Lille 2, 1998), scientific research leader (2007). Vast experience as a university lecturer (civil law and insurance law). Currently, Associated Researcher at the University of Lille 2 Centre for Legal History. Member of the Council of Director at the Centre of Research of the Historial de la Grande Guerre, Péronne (France). Scientific research:Justice and law during the First World War, including questions regarding international law (conferences and international agreements related to war law, treaties, international institutions and international justice) and legal activity.Law, justice and diplomacy during the colonial era (the role of law and justice in the formation and development of French protectorates, especially accenting the international aspect of competition among colonial powers).Powers of attorney and colonies, resolving the matter of the liquidation of the consequences of the First World War (League of Nations).

VERSAILLES, 1919:A PEACE AGREEMENT OR PREPARATION FOR WAR?

The postulation of the subject may seem provocative. Today, we know that the peace agreement signed at Versailles was very brief. Nowadays, it might be tempting to instigate legal proceedings against the agreement that the humiliated Germany was forced to sign.However, when the Paris peace conference began in January 1919, it was the subject of enormous hope. In addition to the question of compensation for the material consequences caused by the conflict, the primary task was ensuring an enduring peace. The First World War, which created so much suffering, had to become ‘der des der’ - ‘the last of the last’ (wars). War was followed by peace which was ensured by the new international order based on democracy and a new map of Europe. The lecture will consider the facts that formed the background to the treaty and illuminated its drafting.

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Dr. art. Dace Lamberga

The Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga, Latvia, curator.Dace Lamberga is responsible for the preparation of exhibitions, including study of particular field of art history, creation of exhibitions concept and catalogues. She is curated more than 50 exhibitions in Latvian National Museum of Art and abroad. Among them most recent in the LNMM: Latvian Art in Exile (2013), Colour. Red (2012), Still Life. The 20th - 21st centuries; Realism. New Objectivity. 1920–1930s (both 2004); The Riga Artists Group (2001); Symbolism and Art Nouveau in the Fine Art of Latvia (1999), Cubism in Latvian Art (1998). Abroad: Symbolism in the Fine Art of Latvia (2010, Belgium, Luxemburg); Classical Modernism (2005, France); New Frontiers: Art from New EU Member States (2003, Ireland), Surprising Art of Latvia (2002, Netherlands), Ars Baltica. List frá Eystrasaltlöndunum (2001, Island), Symbolism and Art Nouveau in the Fine Art of Latvia (2001, Czech Republic), Oväntat möte. Estnisk och lettisk modernism fran mellankrigstiden(1993, Sweden).Dace Lamberga has published more then 300 articles of the Latvian Classical modernism and reviews on 20 century art and books: Rūdolfs Pērle (Rīga: 2014), Valdemārs Tone (Rīga: 2010), Klasiskais modernisms. Latviešu māksla 20.gadsimta sākumā (Classical Modernism: Early 20th Century Latvian Painting) (Rīga: 2004, 2005 in French; Tallinn: 2010, in Estonian). Dace Lamberga has participated in more than 30 conferences in Latvia, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Lithuania, USA and Sweden.

THE BIRTH OF LATVIAN MODERNISM

The First World War – riflemen and refugees – is a markedly national theme in Latvian art, one which has fortunately been rendered relevant once more nowadays by the formal language of modernism. War and art, destruction and creative work; what could be more contradictory or unnatural? However, at least in Latvia’s case, history proves the opposite. The movements of the avant-garde were born in France, Russia, Germany and Italy before the war including Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism, Futurism and Abstractionism. In the new nations, the conditions of warfare and the melting pot of tragedy and hope reinforced the desire to focus on innovatory quests. The contemporary form manifesting the depiction of the subject of warfare and refugees initiated by Jāzeps Grosvalds. Aleksandrs Drēviņš, Ģederts Eliass, Jēkabs Kazaks, Ludolfs Liberts, Romans Suta, Valdemārs Tone, Oto Skulme, Uga Skulme and Konrāds Ubāns - creative quests within the parameters of Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism and Suprematism.

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Ph. D. Vojtěch Lahoda

Director of the Institute of Art History of The Academy of Sciences of The Czech Republic; Professor of art history at Charles University, Prague. He specializes in Czech and Central European Modernism and Avant-Garde. Author and co-author of number of books and exhibition catalogues on Czech modern art, e.g. František Kupka – The Road to Amorpha. Kupka’s Salons: 1899–1913 (Prague, 2012), The End of Avant-garde? From Munich Agreement to the Communist Coup (Prague, 2011), Black Suns. The Disclosed Face of Modernity 1927–1945 (Ostrava, 2011), Emil Filla Archive (Kutná Hora, 2010), Jan Autengruber (2009), Dialogues of Colour and Sound. Works by Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis and his Contemporaries (Vilnius 2009), Emil Filla (Prague, 2007), Czech Cubism 1909–1925 (Prague, 2006), Josef Sudek. The Commercial Photography for Družstevní práce (Jyväskylä 2003), The History of Czech Fine Art 1890–1938 Vol. IV. (Prague, 1998). He contributed to the exhibition catalogues Geomeetriline inimene. Eesti Kunstnikkude Rühm ja 1920–1930. aastate kunstiuuendus / Geometrical Man. The Group of Estonian artists and art innovation in the 1920s and 1930s, KUMU Museum, Tallin 2012, Der Sturm. Zentrum der Avantgarde. Bd. 2: Aufsätze, Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal, 2012, Picasso Peace and Freedom, Tate Liverpool 2010, Picasso Frieden und Freiheit, Albertina Wien 2010, Nyolcak Európája (The Europe of the Eight), Pécs, Hungary (2010). He is working on essay to the exhibition catalogue on Viennese artist association Hagenbund (Galerie Belvedere, Vienna).

OLD RADICALITy AND NEW MENTALITy:CZECH ART AT THE BREAK OUT OF WWI

When art critic Václav Nebeský evaluated the Czech art after the WWI, he emphasized the difference of the status of modern art before and after the WWI. Modern art before the WWI consisted of clear defined isms (Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism), which were easily recognized. In a new founded state this clearness of several distinctive pre-war styles faded. According to Nebeský modern art can be seen as a flow of different, often penetrating tendencies, which not only diluted the pre-war “fundamental“ canonical styles, but also expanded the range of options of modern creativity. Nebeský called postwar trend as a “diversified modernity“. He understood it not just as a return to order (neoclasicism), as art history have described the post war situation especially in the case of France. Neoclassicism became only one of the manifestations of post-war situation on the specter from radical to moderate. The radical manifestations were not connected with the innovation of form, as happened before the WWI (Cubism), but rather with the social reflection of reality. The radicalism goes social as part of the “new mentality” (Gutfreund) during and especially after the WWI. It is remarkable how easily and painlessly pre-war radical Cubists or Expressionists (Otto Gutfreund, Otakar Nejedlý, Vincenc Beneš, Otakar Kubín = Othon Coubine) became representatives of different more or less moderated and visually understandable realisms.

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Some of these artists even did not adhere to their pre-war creation, they considered it completely wrong. Similarly in the work of Czech CubistEmil Filla we can see the abandonment of conceptual and monochromatic Cubist paintings from the Dutch years of 1914–1917. The „housewives” iconography in his realistic Cubism in the first half the 1920s is striking. The same shift can be seen in the work of Czech Cubist architects (Pavel Janák, Josef Gočár), who created after 1920 so called “National style”, described by Czech art historians as “Rondocubism”.

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Ph. D. Mariann Gergely

Art historian, Chief Curator of the Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest 1976–1985 Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Faculty of Arts (Cultural Education, Art History).Dissertation (1985): Vilmos Huszar and theDutch De Stijl. Doctoral Dissertation (1989): Concepts and Personalities. The Dutch De Stijl Movement (PhD 1997).Field of research is the modern movements of the early 20th century Hungarian and European art, the theoretical questions and contacts of the Hungarian and international avant-garde. Publishes articles and texts in different professional publications and art magazines. Since 1981 curator, then chief curator of the Hungarian National Gallery (19th–20th Century Collection, Painting Department). As the chief curator of the Hungarian National Gallery she makes exhibitions in Budapest and abroad, writes and edits catalogues.Since 1990 she participates as a curator and as a member of the board in the activity of a nonprofit foundation (Budapest Art Expo Foundation) organizing contemporary art exhibitions and fairs. (Since 1998 speciallyfor beginners and young artists).

MODERN HUNGARIAN ART MOVEMENTS FROM THE EARLy 1900s TO THE END OF THE 1920s

The modernist tendencies in the 20th–century Hungarian art drew inspiration from numerous sources. József Rippl-Rónai (1861–1927), the Hungarian “Nabi”, the first modern painter in Hungarian art, upon his homecoming from Paris in 1900, was initially received with hostility in Hungary. During his Paris period (-black period-) his works reveal the influence of the French symbolists following in the footsteps of Art Nouveau and Gauguin’s Synthetism. Coming home he changed his style, started to paint Postimpressionist genre scenes and achieved great reputation.The private school of Simon Hollósy (1857–1918) in Munich and his Painters’ Colony in Nagybánya (today Baia Mare, Romania) was a challenger of the Munich Academism. The Hungarian plein-air painting (Plein-air Naturalism) was a special combination of naturalistic and impressionistic elements.In the summer of 1906 there was an art revolution among the young Nagybánya students. The “Neo-Impressionists (Neos)” moved to study to Paris, saw the Fauve exhibitions and the works of Cézanne and the Cubists. Detached from Naturalism, they used decorative forms and expressive compositions. followers and other young painters with the leadership of Károly Kernstok (1873–1940) set up a modern art group known as The Eight. The eight artists reached back to Cézanne classical modernism. They adopted the analytical method of painting and developed structural approach of pictorial composition.

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Lajos Kassák (1887–1967) and the young activists around him represented a pacifist stand against the background of the tragic events of the First World War. The two art magazines of Kassák: A Tett/ The Action and after its suppression the MA/ Present brought a really new, modern, international attitude in art life. MA opened up an art gallery in Budapest where the activists could show their works. After the fall of the Commune the center of Hungarian Avant-garde shifted from Budapest to Vienna. Kassákre-started his art magazine and MA acquired a high reputation among the other international newspapers. He co-operated with Laszlo Moholy-Nagy who lived in Berlin and later worked in the Bauhaus. Kassák himself started to paint in the 1920s, he created compositions- so called Bildarchitektur (Pictorial Architecture).In the second half of the 1920s – after the destruction caused by the First World War – the official line of the Hungarian cultural politics promoted the creation of modern art in harmony with an aesthetic order based on classical values. The so called Arcady philosophy was manifested in the works of young artists who were later the representatives of theneo-classicist Roman School movement in Hungary.

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Nataša Ivančević

Deputy Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb.Nataša Ivančević was born in Rijeka, Croatia, in 1968. She completed her MA in Art History and Comparative Literature (1994) at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. In 1995, she became a curator at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in Rijeka where she was promoted to senior curator (in 2003), and also held the position of Head of the Collection of Sculpture, Photography and Media Art. During 2008, she served as acting director at the MMCA. Since 2010 she has been working as the Head of Collections and Chief Curator of Sculpture Collection at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb (MSU), where she was appointed as Deputy Director in 2011 and promoted to Chief Curator in 2013. Besides museum work, for more than fifteen years, Ms. Ivančević has been systematically involved in organizing exhibitions of contemporary art (more than 60 exhibitions). Her research is focused mostly on modern and contemporary sculpture, and she has curated around twenty exhibitions of contemporary sculpture. In 2013, she curated the first retrospective exhibition of Vojin Bakić, one of the most significant Croatian abstract sculptors. She is also a long-standing member of professional associations (ICOM, CIMAM, Croatian Museum Association). She actively participates at national and international symposiums as well as scientific and professional conferences. She also occasionally writes art critiques. In 2013, she was admitted to the PhD programme in Art History at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb.

EARLy WORKS OF jOSIP SEISSEL (jO KLEK)IN THE COLLECTION OF THE MUSEUMOF CONTEMPORARy ART, ZAGREBAND HIS CONTRIBUTION TO AVANT-GARDEMOVEMENTS IN CROATIA

The collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art comprises some of the most important works of Josip Seissel from the early 1920s created under the pseudonym Jo Klek. By using formal analysis, interpretation and comparison, we will try to shed light upon the creation of these works, as well as their sources and influences. The most radical of them is his collage Pafama (1922) composed of geometric elements and pure colors, and considered the first abstract composition in Croatian art (the collage name is an acronym of the words Papier Farben Malerei). This emblematic image from the holdings of the Museum of Contemporary Art, which became a kind of trademark for the Museum, occupies a dominant place in the permanent collection as part of the unit entitled Projekt i sudbina [Project and Destiny]. The young Seissel came into contact with Russian Constructivism and Suprematism through international magazines, but also through the Zenit magazine, which was published in Zagreb from 1921 to 1923.

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The contributors to the magazine were some of the most influential artists and theorists of the period. Important for Seissel’s contact with the Russian avant-garde was the double issue No. 17/18, published in 1922 by editors Ilya Ehrenburg and El Lissitzky, and dedicated to new Russian art. Lissitzky designed the cover and furnished the issue with the reproductions of his and the works of Tatlin, Rodchenko, and Malevich. Because of its reactionary content, the publication of the magazine was banned in Zagreb, and the founder and editor of the Zenit, the poet Ljubomir Micić, moved to Belgrade where the publication of the magazine was resumed from 1924 to 1926. When the last 43th issue was banned for spreading communist propaganda, Micić left Belgrade and went to Paris. Zenitism was an avant-garde movement born around the magazine. The Zenitist Manifesto of June 1921 proclaimed humanist and anti-war ideals, and called for the creation of a new and united Europe. In the use of framing in the work of Josip Seissel we also see the influences of the spatial experience of the films of that time. In 1923, Seissel organized and took part in the first Dada performance in Zagreb entitled I oni će doći [They Are Coming]. It was a Zenitist performance that Seissel and a group of his friends, who formed an informal theater group called Traveleri [Travellers], gave in the auditorium of the high school they attended. It was essentially a collage of various texts published in the Zenit magazine, as well as the first Yugoslav performance of Marinetti’s futurist play Vengono. At the end of the performance it became clear that the young men expressed sharp criticism of the society and the conservative milieu. A donkey was brought on stage, and when the actor asked where the donkey came from, a voice in the auditorium answered, “From the audience.” There was a scandal, and the students were forced to flee to Belgrade in order to avoid persecution. The performative activities of the Travellers headed by Josip Seissel were an early anticipation of happenings. Upon arrival in Belgrade, Josip Seissel collaborated with Micić on the Zenith and worked on advertisements and set design. Together with the leading figures of Futurism, Constructivism and Suprematism, he exhibited at the Zenit’s First International Exhibition of New Art staged by Micić in Belgrade in 1924.

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Ph. D. Bojan jovic’s

Born on the April 25th, 1963 in Belgrade, where he finished primary and secondary school. Graduated in 1986 as the best student of his generation at the Philological Faculty in Belgrade, department of World literature and theory of literature. Gained a MA degree with the thesis “The Lyrical Novel (based on Serbian Expressionism material)” in 1989. He gained a PhD degree in 2000 with the thesis “Poetic Principles of Rastko Petrović in the Context of European Avant-garde”. An employee of the Institute for Literature and Art in Belgrade since 1988. As a professorial fellow, he is engaged in researching relationship between Serbian and European avant-garde, science fiction, utopian and seriously-comical literature, as well as in comparing general characteristics and histories of Serbian and foreign literary forms and genres. He also investigates poetic traits of XIX and XX century Serbian literature, and theoretical-methodological issues connected with comparatistics and literary theory. Manager of the project „Comparative research of Serbian literature (in European context)”, from 2006–2010. From 2011. manages the project “Serbian literature in European cultural space”. Worked as editor in „Književna reč“, „Itaka“, Ezoterija, Stubovi kulture, ZepterBookWorld, „Književna istorija“. Editor-in-chief of „Književna reč“ from 1994 to 1995. Representative of Serbia and a member of the Executive board in the action COST A32 Open Scholarly Communities on the Web within the domain „Individuals, Societies, Cultures and Health“ (ISCH) of European scientific and technical cooperation. Member of EAM (European Network for Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies). Member of Research project for International Surrealism in collaboration of GDR 2223 du CNRS and Institute for Literature and Art in Belgrade.

SERBIAN AVANT-GARDE AND THE GREAT WAR

This paper shows that the First World War had decisive part in forming group dynamics as well as the poetics of the first wave of the Serbian avant-garde. During the exodus 1915–1918, Serbian writes and artists formed particular interpersonal ties on account of common historical fate, through collaboration with periodical Krfski zabavnik (Corfu Entertainment Newspapers) published in Corfu during the WWI. Their companionship continued after the liberation (Paris), and resulted in formation of a number of avant-garde groups and magazines in Serbia and Yugoslavia. War is inevitable and in many cases the most important topic of the first generation of Serbian avant-garde writers and poets, as a general rule expressed through short novel with expressionistic / lyrical characteristics. However, in spite of favorable outcome of conflict, there is no triumphalism whatsoever, as the actual experience was too painful and traumatic for the generation of young authors, resulting in general criticism of the meaningless death and destruction, followed by the longing for the New Mankind. It should be mentioned that in other arts, especially painting, there are very few examples of thematizing war experiences.

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Ph. D. Katarína Bajcurová

Graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy of Comenius University in Bratislava, with a degree in Art History and Theory and went on to work at the Institute of Art History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. She has been working at the Slovak National Gallery since 1994 and served as its general director from 1999 to 2009. She specializes in Slovak painting and sculpture of the 20th century. Her activities at the Slovak National Gallery have included the preparation of numerous exhibitions and catalogues at home and abroad. She has published several monographs, including Art in Changing Times. Painting & Sculpture in Slovakia 1890–1949 (together with Ján Abelovský, Slovak edition: 1997, 2000; English edition: 2000); Martin Benka (2005); Ľudovít Fulla (2009) etc.

MODERNISM AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR’S CONSEqUENCES – THE CASE OF SLOVAKIA

World War I and its aftermath had far-reaching effects on the social, political and cultural life of several nations in Central Europe. Slovaks linked their destiny with their historically and spiritually closest Slavic neighbor, as the Czechoslovak Republic (1918) became one of the countries that rose from the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Until 1918, we cannot talk about an unbroken, continuous development of “Slovak” art culture. From the very beginning, Slovak culture was created on the basis of isolated regional wholes with their own, nationally mixed traditions within a wider Central European context. Thus, multiculturalism and multinationalism were essential factors in the development of art in Slovakia after 1900. New cultural contexts favorable for the development of Slovak art emerged after the birth of the Czechoslovak Republic and it finally acquired the “justification of its existence and goals.” The two basic streams (international/cosmopolitan and domestic/national) that formed are classified under the term Slovak Modernism. The first was connected to the city of Košice in Eastern Slovakia, which in the 1920s became a most significant developmental site and a truly international center for international avant-garde. As part of the new Czechoslovakia, Košice was a temporary asylum for many leftist representatives of the Hungarianavant-garde who fled Horty’s regime (Alexander Bortnyik, Gejza Schiller, Eugen Krón etc.), and Czech art (František Foltýn), while the work of domestic artists (Anton Jasusch, Konštantín Bauer) also corresponded with their activities. The art created by the Košice modernists from 1919–1928, ranging from Art Nouveau Expressionism, through touches of Cubism and Symbolism (Synthetism) up to the primitivizing Cézannism of social art, was the first expression of authentic Modernism in Slovakia. The second stream of Modernism emphasized the search for a national identity, and the “nationalization” of Western European modernist movements helped to create a specific domestic variant. Martin Benka, who introduced the concept of monumentalizing and exalting the myths about the Slovak land and people, was its leading figure. Other alternative – also critical – models of “Slovak-ness” (Janko Alexy, Miloš Alexander Bazovský), which culminated in a radical modernist synthesis (Mikuláš Galanda and Ľudovít Fulla), later appeared in national genre painting. My work will discuss the origin, reception and development of Modernism in Slovakia in the first decades after the founding of the independent Czechoslovak State.

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Barbara Vujanović

Barbara Vujanović (Zagreb, 1983) graduated from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in 2007, at the departments of Art History and French language and literature. Since 2009 she has been employed as curator in the Meštrović Atelier (the Ivan Meštrović Museums) in Zagreb. Since 2003 she has regularly published reviews and articles in papers, journals and specialised periodicals. She has written prefaces in catalogues and devised curatorial conceptions for independent and group exhibitions in the domain of modern and contemporary art.  She has taken part in a number of conferences at home and abroad featuring research into the life and work of Ivan Meštrović.She was engaged as expert associate in 2012 at the exhibition Ivan Meštrović –Croatian Expression in the Musée Rodin in Paris. In 2013 she was the editor of the catalogue Meštrović – Milles and co-author of one of the texts for the exhibitionMilles at Meštrović organized in the Meštrović Atelier in cooperation of the Ivan MeštrovićMuseums and Millesgården. The same year she was the co-author and curator of the exhibition Meštrović at Milles in the Millesgården in Stockholm.She is the author of the MEŠTART programme which was launched in order to show the continuous relevance of the oeuvre of Ivan Mešrović in the light of the new readings stimulated by contemporary forms of artistic expression. She is the author ofThe Mark of Meštrović in Zagreb,a project in which the Museums of Ivan Meštrović are presenting Meštrović’s public sculptures, monuments, architecture and works in other museums and churches in Zagrebthrough publications and various actions.She is currently writing her doctoral dissertation on Ivan Meštrović for the art history department of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb.

IVAN MEšTROVIć AND THE GREAT WAR – SCULPTOR BEETWEEN POLITICS AND RELIGION

The World War I influenced profoundly the life and art of the Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović (Vrpolje, Croatia, 1883 – South Bend, USA, 1962). During his student period in Vienna (1901 - 1906) and while participating in the Secession movement (1903–1910) Meštrović expressed his political beliefs in his works,exhibition activities and in joining and cooperating with the artistic societies of national orientation in Central and Eastern Europe.During his Parisian period (1908 – 1909) he conceived the Vidovdan temple, the mythological paradigm of the liberation of Slavic peoples, and their transnational identity, which he introduced on the XXXV. Secession exhibition (Vienna, 1910). The following year, while participating in the International Exhibition (Rome), he decided to exhibit in the Serbian pavilion, not in the Austro-Hungarian, making a strong political statement. In the years to come, his engagement intensified– he was the founding member of the Yugoslav Committee (1914–1918), a group of South Slavs from Austria-Hungary seeking to join the existing south Slavic nations in an independent state.

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Meštrović used the platform of one man exhibitions (Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 1915) and joint projects (Exhibition of Yugoslav Artists, Petit Palais, Paris, 1919) as the tool of the dissemination of cultural and political diplomacy.Yet, at the time when the Great War ravaged Europe, Meštrović changed both his thematic and stylistic interests. He leaves the war thematic, thesubject of warriors and widows and his own rhetoric of monumentalism and turns toward religious thematic and the expressionism and mysticism. The war revealed to him all human monstrosities and he would never be the same, as he later admitted.This presentation aims to track the political engagement of Ivan Meštrović during the dissolution of Austrian-Hungarian Empire and the establishment of Yugoslavia. Also, we will discuss the relation of war and modernism in the case of this Croatian artist: the influence of war events to thenew stylistic direction of Ivan Meštrović.

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Ph. Lic. Timo Huusko

The Chief Curator of Collections in Ateneum Art Museum, Finnish National Gallery. At the moment he works as Acting Director. He has published a research of Finnish Art Criticism between 1908–24, where questions of aesthetic modernism and its relation to national art are central discourses.

ART CRITICISM AND FINLAND`SROAD TO INDEPENDENCE

Abstract: In the period from 1908 to 1920, the avant-garde came to play an important role in discussions about the characteristics and core elements of a national culture in Finland. Of special interest are the works of Tyko Sallinen and the activities of the “November Group”, which were seen respectively as a genuine manifestation of Finnishness or - in primitivist terms - as an expression of the “Asian” or “Mongolian” nature of the Finnish people. Modernistic idea of painting as an autonomous entity which should be judged according to its composition, colours and forms became a prevailing discourse in art criticism in Finland for a short time between 1912–14. The period after 1918 saw the growth of a conservative nationalist tradition and the avant-garde was increasingly regarded as a manifestation of “cultural bolshevism” incompatible with Finnish national identity.

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Dr. hist. Vita Zelče

Professor at the University of Latvia’s Social Sciences Faculty’s Communication Studies Department. Research interests – communications and media history, social history, women’s history, social memory and the politics of history. Major publications: “Krišjānis Valdemārs. Business and Private Correspondence” (science editor), “Unknown: Women of Latvia in the Second Half of the 19th Century”, “The Marginal Ones or Fund No. 1376” (co-author: Vineta Sprugaine), “Latvian Newspapers in the Context of Their Times, 1822–1865)”, “(Two) Sides. Latvian War Stories. The Second World War in Diaries of Soldiers” (science editor, together with Uldis Neiburgs).

WOMEN AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR

The First World War was the first total war in the history of mankind: the majority of combatant nations engaged their whole populations and economic resources in it. The result was unprecedented militarily implemented/motivated destruction and slaughter which cost of millions of people their lives. The war also destroyed the belle époque or essential values of the good old days, such patriotic loyalty, faith in progress, trust in human reason, and belief in the permanence of the foundations of patriarchal culture. People were subjected to a cardinally new social experience, which created changes in their lives, daily existence, mutual relations and attitudes towards the state, society and culture.Women and war is a subject that has received increasing publicity in recent years, because assessments of military conflicts are no longer confined to lists of registers of victories and defeats, killed and injured soldiers, and military equipment, etc. Increasingly important and more interesting is the experience of survival under the extreme conditions of military conflicts and existence itself. In the Western world, the existential foundations for women as a large social group began to change during the First World War. That is, women entered the public space en masse – they increasingly worked in paid jobs, mastered new professions, undertook the role of ‘head’ of and provider for the family, and independently managed finances and other material resources; there was also a change in the outer appearance and domestic and behavioural norms of women. The work and social activity of women influenced the political life and military activity of nations. However, it is only in recent years that these processes have come to be depicted in the historical narrative.Latvia’s situation – near the front, at the front and in occupied land – also rendered the conditions of existence for women during the First World War altogether complicated. The history of the women of this era can be told in various stories. Firstly, the travails of women as refugees in Russia. Secondly, the fight for existence in territory occupied by German armed forces. Thirdly, women and the proximity of the front line; the change in virtuous and sexual norms. Fourthly, women, family, children and daily life. Fifth, women and the nation. And there are other subjects of interest; what they have common is life in a situation of existential crisis.

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Edvarda šmite

Master of Arts (1997). From 1967–1976, she studied at the Art Academy of Latvia, specialising in art history and theory, attaining the qualification of art historian. Since 1972, she has held various positions at the Latvian National Museum of Art (formerly known as the State Art Museum) as: the museum’s senior research fellow, custodian of sculpture funds, head of the propaganda research department, senior specialist, public relations specialist and art historian.

ON THE FRONT LINE WITH A PENCIL

This lecture is intended to offer an insight into that part of wartime fine arts, which practically lies beyond the realm of modernism.Upon the commencement of the war, artists were first of all required to put their skills to use in designing layouts for various illustrated publications. At the start of the war - for approximately 9-10 months, Latvian artists had no direct contact with events at the front. This connection was formed through the creation of regiments of Latvian riflemen, when artists were assigned other tasks - to observe and document events, in order to accumulate materials for the prospective Latvian War Museum and to provide a foundation for the next major works of art. Here, manifestations of modernism were limited, because in printed works the specifics of the audience had to be taken into consideration; likewise, the necessity to respond or document quickly and precisely also imposed its dictates.

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Dr.art. Ginta Gerharde-Upeniece

Head of the Latvian Visual Arts Department, Latvian National Museum of Art. ICOM LATVIA ex-president. Curator of exhibitions, Lecturer in Art History, Latvian Academy of Music (1995-1998). Doctoral thesis: The Visual Art Life and Latvian State (1918–1940). Art Academy of Latvia (2011). Major exhibition projects: Mark Rotko’s centennial exhibition (from the collection of Washington National Gallery, 2003) Coordination of exhibitions in the Latvian National Museum of Art – Festival France-Latvia: Étonnante Lettonie (Surprising Latvia, 2005) and Printemps français (French Spring, 2007); Painted in Normandy, in cooperation with the Museum of Arts, Lille and the Association Flux des Arts, French Institut, Latvia (2010). Regular participation in international conferences. Major publications: Book – 50 masterpieces of Latvian painting. Rīga: Jumava, 2013; Oļģerds Grosvalds (1884–1962). The Role of Diplomacy in the Representation of Latvian Art on an International Scale. 1930s. Proceedings of the Latvian Academy of Sciences. Jelgava: Jelgavas tipogrāfija, 2013; The Genealogy and Resonance of a Conflict. 1914. Rīga: Latvian National Museum of Art; Neputns, 2013. Curator of project „1914” – programme – Riga Cultura Capital of Europe 2014.

THE NEW EUROPE INTELLECTUAL AND CULTURAL RESOURCES WITHIN THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

The events of the so-called Great War were at once both tragic and beneficial for Europe, because the collapse of empires, revolutions in Russia and Germany, and the revision of each nation’s balance of power lead to a “complicated peace”, concluded in the form of the symbolic Versailles peace treaty. The formation of the League of Nations (1919–1920) gave rise to great hope in the development of the idea of European unity. This lecture will provide an overall assessment of the initiatives offered by the League of Nations in the realms of culture and science, reviewing the activities of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (1922), the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation (1924) and the International Museums Office (1926), and describing the significance of the pacifism movements instigated by the Institute and the idea of the defence of peace in Europe during the inter-war period. Information exchange was also relevant for newly established countries, including Latvia. The lecture will focus on the work of Latvia’s National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, as well as review the aforementioned organisation’s work in promoting cultural links.

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