Reading proletarian avant-garde periodicals

We cordially invite you to the lecture from the cycle Collegium historiae artium, which will be given by Gábor Dobó (Kassák Foundation / Kassák Museum–Petőfi Literary Museum–MNMKK) on the topic of Reading proletarian avant-garde periodicals.

The lecture will take place on Wednesday, May 27, 2026 at 4.30 pm in the Institute of Art History CAS, room 117, Husova 4, Prague 1.

Research on the history of reading has recognized the marked distinctions in reading practices among different social classes. Early twentieth-century working-class reading techniques differed in many ways from those of the higher classes, including the availability of dedicated places and time for reading, access to cultural and financial capital, and the overall scope of reading. This is the immediate historical context in which avant-garde artists—often connected to one of the branches of the heterogeneous workers’ movements in the successor states of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy—launched their periodicals.

My talk explores how the merging of pre-existing working-class reading habits with avant-garde print culture contributed to the formation of a distinct workers’ movement counter-culture in East-Central Europe during the interwar period. I will examine how avant-garde techniques and existing collective interpretative methods influenced one another—for example, in the cases of speaking choirs or “living journals,” in which news articles, embodied by non professional performers, engaged in debate with one another. Special emphasis will be placed on the visuality of readable objects—from typography to reproductions—and on the circulation of images.