Impossible Histories

This is a critical survey of the extraordinary experiments in the arts that took place in the former Yugoslavia from the country's founding in 1918 to its breakup in 1991. The combination of Austro-Hungarian, French, German, Italian and Turkish influences gave Yugoslavia's avant-gardes a distinct character unlike those of other Eastern and Central European avant-gardes. Censorship and suppression kept much of the work far from the eyes and ears of the Yugoslav people, while language barriers and the inaccessibility of archives caused it to remain largely unknown to Western scholars. Many Westerners have never heard of the movements Belgrade Surrealism, Signalism, Yugo-Dada and Zenitism, the groups Alfa, Exat 51, Gorgona, OHO, and Scipion Nasice Sisters Theatre, or the magazines Danas, Red Pilot, Tank, Vechaceknost and Zvrk.