GEOGRAPHIES OF DISSENT

GEOGRAPHIES OF DISSENT

The section is devoted to mapping the phenomena of literary and artistic dissent which developed in Italy, France and the USSR. It includes a filing process of the main groups and movements active on the international scene, divided into the two macro-areas identified, that is to say, the Western area (Italy and France) and the Eastern area (Soviet Ukraine, Soviet Belarus and Soviet Russia). The parameters of selection and cataloguing of the material are described in the menu item “Criteria”.

WESTERN AREA

The section is devoted to the filing process and description of a series of Italian and French movements and groups, selected on the basis of their relevance in the cultural and political panorama in which they are included, as well as the presence of a clear cultural strategy, characterized by a programmatic correlation between aesthetic production and political or social intervention.

The distinction between Groups and Movements is based on the different nature of the phenomena considered. “Groups” are examined as structured collective formations that define themselves as such. They are characterized by common initiatives, such as conferences, events, publications (anthologies, magazines, etc.). Among the major examples of this type we can mention “Group 63” in Italy and the group gathered around the magazine “Tel Quel” in France. The “collective” groups are structured collective formations that define themselves as such.

Within the much wider denomination of “Movements”, less structured, mostly international groups are included. In this context current groups are also taken into account; an example of this phenomenon is Situationism, the Beat phenomenon and the Provo movement, but also some inter-artistic experimentation movements in the field of visual poetry.

EASTERN AREA

This section describes the active groups and aggregation phenomena that existed in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus and belonging to the so-called ‘second culture’ (“vtoraia kul’tura”), that were active from the beginning of the de-Stalinization era (1956) to the collapse of the Soviet Union (1991). The records, divided by location (Leningrad, Moscow, Kiev, Minsk), are referred both to self-represented groups through the drafting of real manifestos and to more magmatic and hardly traceable aggregation phenomena.