The Avant-Garde and “Anarchy”: Four Rebellious Months of Self-Governed Enlightenment

НЕЗАКОННОЕ ПОТРЕБЛЕНИЕ НАРКОТИЧЕСКИХ СРЕДСТВ, ПСИХОТРОПНЫХ ВЕЩЕСТВ, ИХ АНАЛОГОВ ПРИЧИНЯЕТ ВРЕД ЗДОРОВЬЮ, ИХ НЕЗАКОННЫЙ ОБОРОТ ЗАПРЕЩЕН И ВЛЕЧЕТ УСТАНОВЛЕННУЮ ЗАКОНОДАТЕЛЬСТВОМ ОТВЕТСТВЕННОСТЬ.

This book explores the short window of opportunity to create a system of cultural self-governance that opened up to Moscow’s anarchists from March to July 1918.

During this period the Moscow Federation of Anarchist Groups and the newspaper Anarkhiya (Anarchy) launched fifteen cultural projects of ambitious global scope. The anarchists were behind the launch of reforms in the film industry and higher artistic and literary education. The foundations were laid for experimental communal pedagogics, children’s theater, theater of mass performances, expressionist poetry, nonfiction literature, and a new type of museum.

Artists, poets, actors, directors, and musicians were engaged in producing new forms of organizing art, which was the essence of their revolutionary creativity.

The research is accompanied by a selection of texts from Anarkhiya, which was published daily from late 1917 through the spring of 1918, as well as a map of anarchist locations in Moscow.