Deathstacy!

The contribution explores the avant-garde’s engagement with war through the lens of three significant civilizational conflicts: World War I, World War II, and the currently ongoing invasions of Ukraine and Palestine. Drawing directly on the literary works of Slovenian poet Srečko Kosovel, German playwright Bertolt Brecht, and Ukrainian poets Mykola Khvylovy, Victoria Amelina, and Artem Chekh, as well as Palestinian poets Najwan Darwish and Saleem Al-Naffar, the contribution examines how avant-garde literary figures respond to and are shaped by war. Spanning the three interwar and postwar periods in a comparative perspective, particular interest is placed in the tension between death and humanity as increasingly dependent on technology that cripples the human body and mind most destructively in times of war.