Transnational Public in Russian Berlin
The Avant-Garde Revue Veshch – Gegenstand – Object in 1922
Susanne Marten-Finnis, Igor Duchan
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Of the Russian avantgarde revues that came and went in the 1920s, Veshch was one of the most spectacular. Published in Russian, German, and French by El Lissitzky and Ilia Ehrenburg, it sounded an international rallying call to avantgarde artists who had been scattered by the Great War. Conceived as a forum for exchange between Soviet avantgarde artists and their West European colleagues with the aim of transcending national borders, Veshch was unique among Berlin’s other Russian émigré or Yiddish publications. It deliberately contrasted with the former’s nostalgic tone, while refraining from identifying with the latter’s striving for a new style.
(Osteuropa 3/2008, pp. 37–48)