Steven A. Mansbach Knihy

With the publication of this stunningly illustrated account of the Hungarian avant-garde movement, an important missing link in early modern art can now be fully recognized.

This pioneering and award-winning study provides the world with the first coherent narrative of Eastern European contributions to the modern art movement. Analyzing an enormous range of works, from art centers such as Prague, Warsaw and Budapest, (many published here for the first time), S.A. Mansbach shows that any understanding of Modernism is essentially incomplete without the full consideration of vital Eastern European creative output. He argues that Cubism, Expressionism and Constructivism, along with other great modernist styles, were merged with deeply rooted, Eastern European visual traditions. The art that emerged was vital modernist art that expressed the most pressing concerns of the day, political as well as aesthetic. Mansbach examines the critical reaction of the contemporary artistic culture and political state. A major groundbreaking interpretation of Modernism, Modern Art in Eastern Europe completes any full assessment of twentieth-century art, as well as its history. Modern Art in Eastern Europe is the recipient of the 1997 C.I.N.O.A. Prize, awarded by La Confédération Internationale de Négociants en Oeuvres d'Art. The prize is awarded to defray the costs of publication in order to encourage publishers to produce maunscripts of particular merit and the works of younger art historians.

For years, art historians have explored the concept of East Central Europe as an artistic region. Steven Mansbach provides a compelling perspective, illustrating that from the Fin-de-siècle to the onset of World War I, the area from the Baltic to the Balkans formed a coherent art-historical meso-region with distinct national traditions and innovations. He emphasizes the critical role of urban centers in shaping artistic movements, particularly in a predominantly rural Eastern Europe where cities are scarce. In his 2013 Oskar Halecki Lecture, Mansbach focuses on Riga, Latvia’s capital, as a pivotal hub for the Baltic countries and the broader Baltic Sea Region. He employs Klaus Zernack’s meso-regional concept of “Nordosteuropa,” likening it to a ‘Mediterranean of the North’ that fostered economic, military, cultural, political, and ethnic interactions from the early modern period through the interwar years. Mansbach showcases how Riga’s modernism was influenced by Hanseatic commercialism, Russian imperialism, Latvian nationalism, and Soviet communism, resulting in a “novel eclecticism” that blends inventive modernism with the constraints of Soviet politics. The legacy of this region, including its Soviet past, remains integral to its identity, as exemplified by Riga.