Aleksander Bošković and Steven Teref, eds. <i>Zenithism (1921–1927): A Yugoslav Avant-Garde Anthology</i>

Zenithism (1921–1927): A Yugoslav Avant-Garde Anthology is a collection of English translations of the most important works in the cultural tradition known as “Zenithism,” emerging in the early twentieth century in Yugoslavia centered on the magazine Zenit and the publishing house Biblioteka Zenit founded in 1921 by Anuska and Ljubomir Micić and Branko Ve Poljanski. While Zenit featured works from various European avant-garde movements, it stood out with its focus on hybrid writing, making it a core element of their creative approach.The editors are Aleksander Bošković, a Macedonian anthropologist at the Federal University of the North Rio Grande in Natal (Brazil), and Steven Teref, a translator and essayist. The anthology features the diverse expressions of Zenithism in literature, poetry, theater, and public interventions. Unlike other early-twentieth-century movements, Zenithism aimed to unify experimental literature and art into a single avant-garde movement equipped with a periodical, a press.The anthology is structured partly chronologically and partly thematically offering a view of the movement’s various phases and expressions. It is organized into eight main sections, mapping out the development of the movement’s personality from its birth to its more mature and diversified array of artistic and cultural forms. Each section starts with an introduction.First, “The Barbarians Are Coming, or a Savage Rhythm,” includes foundational documents of the birth of the movement, like Ljubomir Micić’s “Man and Art” and Ljubomir Micić et al.’s Manifesto of Zenithism.Second section, “The Barbarogenius, the Balkanization of Europe, and Cultural Nihilism,” highlights the features of the movement, combining elements imported from European Futurism-Dadaism, Expressionism, and Constructivism, yet rejecting European civilization and war-making capitalism. In this stage, the movement still struggled to acquire its separate identity, celebrating the Balkan “Barbarogenius”: the genius of the artist as an organic Balkan product. The movement vindicated the use of denigrating terms Europeans had used to refer to Balkan societies (e.g., primitivism and barbarism).The development of more expressive forms, drawing from European cultural movements while innovating along the lines of Zenithism, is presented next: “The Second Road of the Barbarogenius: The Hybrid Novel, Prose Poetry, and the Serpentinella.” It emphasizes Zenithistic innovations, including conceptual writing and the “Serpentinella”: a unique form of prose poetry.The following section, “The Third Road of the Barbarogenius: Conceptual Writing,” introduces more mature products of the movement; literary essays of greater depth and scope, addressing poetically vexing social problems, some of them using psychoanalytic elements.The sections “The Barbarogenius at the Gates: Zenithist Theater, Soirees, and Public Interventions” and “The Nadir of Zenithism” cover the last years of the covered period. In the “Afterword: The Zenithist Legacy,” the editors reflect on the Zenithist Legacy: its impact on avant-garde movements, in the Balkan region and beyond, calling for further study and translations.What makes this anthology unique is its comprehensive and carefully compiled material, including relatively obscure yet profoundly impactful works. It presents the main works and ideas of Zenithism in a hybrid chronological and thematic sequence, offering an in-depth look into a movement often overshadowed by its Western European counterparts.The editors bring together a range of literary primary sources, many not previously accessible to English (non-Serbo-Croatian) readers. Their compilation broadens the scope of avant-garde studies and highlights the significant contributions of Balkan artists and thinkers to the broader European avant-garde landscape.Overall, this work is a remarkable contribution to the field of avant-garde studies. It fills a gap in the scholarship by bringing to light a movement that significantly influenced the regional cultural and artistic landscape of the early twentieth century. Its extensive bibliography and index enhance its value as a research tool for scholars and students alike.A minor editorial shortcoming is the insufficient historical context in the introductions to each section. The contemporaneous impact and subsequent relevance of Zenithism cannot be well understood without considering the instability of Balkan societies in the interwar period. The emergence of Yugoslavian national identity, amid economic and political disorder (plus the pressure of fascist Italy on the West and Soviet Russia on the East), after the collapse of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, had to find artistic and cultural vehicles, and, to some extent, Zenithism fulfilled this role among the enlightened youth – avant-garde intellectuals and artists.In brief, this is the most comprehensive compilation of Zenithist works in the English language. It will prove useful to scholars in the English-speaking world interested in the cultural and artistic history of the region.