DAV. Umenie, Kritika, Politika, Filozofia, Literatura.

The only full publication of this legendary journal of the Slovak avant-garde

Large quarto 34.3 x 25 cm, cloth, 1496pp. The reprint* of the legendary, most radical journal of the Slovakian avant-garde which appeared from 1924-26 and 1931-37 (here all published). It began as an artistic venture by the Davisti group of artists, writers and intellectuals spearheading the latest Slovak arts and literature. Always leftist in persuasion with Vlado Clementis as publisher, it went to a more political direction after three years and leaned to Soviet policy. Clementis himself was in and out of favor with Moscow. He objected to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, exiled in Paris and London during the war. Returning afterward he became Czechoslovak Foreign Minister in 1948 and in 1952 was arrested with Slanský, from that he was convicted and hanged. He was rehabilitated in 1963, which enabled this production to go forward by the Slovak Academy of Sciences with his name now acceptable..

During its first period it employed the experimental spirit of the day with covers and vignettes by Mikulaš Galanda, and L'udo Fulla, typography and page design strongly influenced by Teige and Devětsil, with Heartfield photomontages,and richly illustrated with work by Grosz, Chagall, Masareel, Otto Dix and others. It presented new literature, architecture, drama and music with an international scope. Literati include Czech, German and Slovak writers such as Josef Hora, Rob Poničan, E.E. Kisch, Karel Radek, Julius Fučik, Ilja Erenburg, Clementis, Lajos Kassák, S.K. Neumann, inter alia. Later years employed heavier caricature and photos, with a reduced visual emphasis in page design. DAV also regularly chronicled cultural and political events and issues in the remote parts of Slovakia (Subcarpathia, Tatras) which otherwise received little coverage from the press in Czechoslovakia altogether.

The third volume is highly important as it also includes a supplement with a listing of the confiscated issues and suppressed individual articles, printing them in full. These never reached public access and if they were acturally printed were destroyed. It also includes indices for authors, art, illustrations, poems and poets, articles and reviews as well as listing personalities who appeared throughout the publication.

The first printings of this journal are all but unobtainable. The only institutional copies are found at the University of Olomouc which has a few scattered numbers.

*Although this is nominally a "reprint" edition it includes articles and numbers never released, and can be seen as the most complete presentation of this extraordinary journal which documented the experimental, avant-garde art and literature in Slovakia during the interwar years. OCLC locates this work in 14 North American libraries. This set fine.

Refs: Drug, Štefan: DAV a davisti. Československá spoločnosť pre šírenie politických a vedeckých poznatkov. Bratislava 1965; https://sk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davisti