THE AVANT-GARDIST MANIFESTO PHENOMENA IN THE WEST-EUROPEAN CULTURAL CONTEXT OF THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY

Abstract

The article observes the West-European modernist manifestos of the early 20th century. The aim of the research is to show both similar and different features of the compared manifestos as well as to discover their role in the establishment of modernism and the relations the artistic movements and values which they promoted. The manifestos researched are the Symbolist manifesto of 1886 by J. Moreas, the German Expressionists’ manifesto of 1907, both versions of the Dada Manifesto, written by H. Ball and T. Tzara (1916; 1918), the Manifesto of the Italian Futurism by F.T. Marinetti (1909) and the main object of the research which is the English specimen of the phenomena – the Vorticist Manifesto published in 1914 by W. Lewis. The choice of the observed objects is caused by the most common aims, artistic connections and the timing coinciding with the first publication of the English Vortecist manifesto. Vorticism stands out as an English avant-gardist movement, analogous to the European ones, however, possessing its own peculiarities. The Vorticist manifestos are shown as provocative and pronouncing ambivalent attitudes towards the issues in question. Despite the artistic nationalism of the movement, the group was international. The nationalistic calls in the manifestos are found to be self-contradictory and valuable for research. The features described as common for the objects of the research compared are innovation, opposition to classical canons, domination of form over content. The main difference between the studied objects is their internationality opposed to artistic nationalism claimed in the manifestos. The existence of this kind of nationalism is also researched and explained in the article. The topicality of the research is based on the studying of the connection among the globalization processes of the early 20th century West-European culture and the role of the integration tendencies in the formation of modernism. The early modernist European manifesto phenomena and artistic nationalism in it have been research by Ukrainian scholars for the first time. Keywords: modernism, manifesto, symbolism, expressionism, dadaism, futurism, vortecism.