Original scientific paper
A Hundred Years of Art as Device: Is the Revolutionary Theory (Still) Revolutionary?
Zvonimir Glavaš
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb
Abstract
Every anniversary in 2017 was indubitably overshadowed by the anniversary of the October revolution. However, in the shadow of the Red October there are few more anniversaries worthy of a renewed attention. The article focuses on one of them, a centenary as well, which is closely intertwined with the October revolution centenary. Taking that connection as its starting point, the article aims to illuminate the revolutionary potential of Viktor Shklovsky’s Art as Device [1917], which was published in revolutionary Petrograd, and it is nowadays considered as the main manifesto of the OPOYAZ group and one of the founding works of the Russian Formalism. Encouraged by the overlapping of the two anniversaries, the article primarily strives to answer its titular question: is the revolutionary theory (still) revolutionary? By the term “revolutionary theory,” this analysis principally denotes the theoretical corpus of the Russian Formalism, along with the so-called Bakhtin’s Circle, which shares significant common points with the Formalists. The question of the revolutionary is stated on three different-but-interconnected levels: (1) was the Formalist theory revolutionary compared to other theoretical currents in its original historical context?; (2) is the Formalist theory revolutionary in the sense of immanent politicalness and a link with the October Revolution?; and (3) is the Formalist theory still revolutionary, or at least relevant, in the contemporary theoretical context, in the light of new revolutions and epistemological breaks?
Keywords
Russian Formalism; Bakhtin’s circle; the October revolution; Marxism; post-Marxism; Viktor Shklovsky; Art as Device
Hrčak ID:
190760
URI
Publication date:
15.12.2017.
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