Shemyakin, Ya. G. Avant-Garde as a Phenomenon of Socio-Cultural ‘Frontier’: the Paradox Since the Origination of Integrity under the Conditions of Dominating Variety

Abstract: The article inspired by the work ‘Avant-Garde in Culture of the 20th Century (1900-1930): Theory. History. Poetics’ views avant-garde from the point of view of the ‘frontier’ conception. The author of the article describes the heuristic potential of the system approach and raises a question about specifying the civilization ‘look’ of avantgarde. The author concludes that as a socio-cultural phenomenon avant-garde is global but not universal and its archaic origins are limited to Indo-European area. During the Þ rst three decades of the 20th century avantgarde movement covered the closely related civilizations of the two types: ‘classical’ Western sub-ecumene and ‘frontier’ civilizations of Russia, Latin America, Pyrenean Europe and the Balkans. The East was, and still is, affected by the avantgarde movement but its affect has been rather superÞ cial and avant-garde has been more of a foreign innovation there.

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