1. Digital Critical Edition of the Correspondence of Lajos Kassák and Jolán Simon between 1909 and 1928, and New Perspectives for Modernism Studies

Digital Critical Edition of the Correspondence of Lajos Kassák and Jolán Simon between 1909 and 1928, and New Perspectives for Modernism Studies

Digital publication of Lajos Kassák’s correspondence with his associate Jolán Simon offers an important contribution to the interpretation of twentieth-century Hungarian art. Kassák is mainly known as a writer, but he was also a substantial artist, and recently his work as a magazine editor has become widely acknowledged. Students learn about Kassák’s poems in primary school, and his work is part of the Hungarian canons of literature and art, and is educational material. To further expand this knowledge base is thus an important aim. By contrast, the work of the performance artist and organizer Jolán Simon, who was also active in the international modernist scene, has – like that of many avant-garde women elsewhere in the world – only recently come out of the shadows and gained the attention of scholars. This is the first dedicated publication of the letters of Simon and Kassák, and the few that have previously been published have always appeared in connection with the work of others. Digitization will bring the material to a wide public, and a digital critical edition is capable of uncovering deep levels and complex interrelationships that are particularly useful for scholarship and have educational applications. The facility for reading or browsing Kassák’s magazines and correspondence together will give primary and secondary school students a glimpse into questions of magazine editing and learn how the question of networking – taken for granted in the digital age – was also crucial for Kassák.

OTKA FK-139325

1 October 2021 – 30 September 2025
 

Principal investigator
 

Gábor Dobó PhD
 

Senior research fellows

Eszter Balázs PhD
Edit Sasvári
György Tverdota PhD
 

Junior research fellows

Sára Bagdi
Merse Pál Szeredi
 

Digital philology expert

Eszter Mihály (OSzK DBK)


Objectives of the research project

The project has two basic objectives: to produce a born digital critical edition of the correspondence between Lajos Kassák and Jolán Simon from 1909 to 1928 and to develop an interdisciplinary interpretation of the correspondence from a culture studies perspective. Kassák was one of the central figures of the Hungarian avant-garde, and publication of these 600 letters sent between him and his associate Jolán Simon will be a substantial contribution to modernism studies. The online critical edition, based on a collection in the Kassák Museum, will be produced in collaboration with the Petőfi Literary Museum Centre for Digital Humanities (PIM DBK). The widely-used TEI markup language has been chosen for the work, which will enable the resulting critical edition to be processed using semantic web technology and be easily integrated into international digital humanities projects.  

The other objective, the interdisciplinary interpretation of the correspondence, concentrating on Jolán Simon, will open up several previously-neglected but fundamental questions such as the role of women in the avant-garde. The research group integrates scholars from various areas of study and includes several young researchers. We aim to build on the correspondence publication and the related contextualization work to formulate theoretical questions of relevance to Hungarian and international scholarly discourses. To pursue these aims, we will organize a workshop within Hungary and an international conference panel; publish papers in Hungarian and English (including in peer reviewed journals); produce an online volume of essays, and make preparations for an exhibition.         

Basic research questions  

The basic research question is to determine which criteria and methods may be used to interpret the activity of figures in the Hungarian avant-garde who, despite their importance, have for various reasons been overlooked in the process of historicizing modernism. Our hypothesis is that if artists falling outside the canon of literary and art history are to be made visible, there is a need for criteria that can deal with the unique internal dynamics of the avant-garde movements. Narratives that address literary and art history as a series of outstanding oeuvres and artworks often pass over artists and writers who were typically autodidacts from outside the institutional art system and were often socially marginalized. In addition, the history of the avant-garde cannot be reduced to the lives of emblematic figures. On the contrary, the distinctive feature of these groups is their movement-like structure built on collective work. Their activities were shaped through cooperation and conflict with figures of different status and embeddedness. Through our study of the correspondence, we aim to frame questions that will generate a nuanced account of the avant-garde. How did multiply-marginalized figures – typically working-class artists, many of them women – whose activities were often barrier-breaking, ephemeral and thus hardly-documented, make themselves visible and have their voices heard in the avant-garde groups? And how can their stories be told, especially when we consider that they were subject to the partial reproduction within the avant-garde movements of the oppressive and hierarchical dynamics of majority society?         

Significance of the research project  

The annotated publication of the correspondence of Kassák and Simon between 1909 and 1928 forms part of the digital critical edition project of the Petőfi Museum of Centre for Digital Humanities (PIM DBK). Digital humanities is the fastest-growing area of the humanities. The process enables the creation of a text edition that meets scholarly standards, has broad accessibility and may be used in education – adult education in the case of the Kassák Museum. Digital editions span facsimile, text publication and annotations. It can be further developed, corrected, expanded and furnished with additional meta-data. Through the facilities of the semantic web, it can be connected to other – Hungarian and international – projects on which further research, grant applications (such as EU cultural heritage grants) and institutional collaborations.  

The Kassák Museum plays a catalyst role. The project will be continue working in several areas of scholarship, embedded in Hungarian and international academic activities, which we have conducted jointly with new graduates. In our work over a period of more than ten years, and particularly since 2016, funded by OTKA (Hungarian Scientific Research Fund), we have implemented several long-term collaborations with other institutions. It is partly through our work that Kassák and the Hungarian avant-garde have, in the last ten years, constantly featured in exhibitions and books on modernism that have hitherto had a Western European focus. The project will play an integral part in the Kassák Museum’s research and exhibition profile, which has centred in recent years on studies that contextualize the avant-garde and neo-avant-garde in the Central and Eastern European region and reinterpret previous narratives.   

By producing the first comprehensive, dedicated publication of Kassák’s and Simon’s letters and conducting associated interdisciplinary research, the project will have a specific significance for research into the modernism and avant-garde of Central and Eastern Europe. It will bring together digital humanities work, museum practice and scholarly analysis, and the outcome, as is essential for avant-garde studies, will be positioned in the international academic space.