Diversité et Identité Culturelle en Europe AVANT-GARDISM AND LATINITY Petre Gheorghe BÂRLEA „Ovidius” University Constanța
[email protected] Abstract: The effects the Avant-garde had on the way of thinking of people belonging to various cultures and professions were bigger than expected. The fact that there were Dada promoters who belonged to nations of Latin origin, such as Tr. Tzara and G. M. Teles, led future theoreticians to advocate the idea of a Latin union which - through joint cultural actions - could change the entire political, economic, and spiritual life. Keywords: Avant-garde, Latinity, Latin union, economic progress, cultural reforms. The Dada extravagances and its permanent denial of any social conventions were expected to cause the rapid disintegration of an art movement whose central figures claimed they simply did not believe in progress. Nevertheless, according to the world history of this art movement1, their ideas decisively contributed to progress within some cultures that had never before experimented innovations in art. It is a fact that the ending signs of the Dada movement appeared just four years after its debut2, in spring 1920, when The First International Dada Fair, organized in Berlin, ended in a law suit which scattered its participants3. The misunderstandings continued later in Paris, although a 1This very fact, i.e. „the rapid international expansion”, was one of the characteristic features of the Avant-garde. 2Literary historians registered the debut of the Dada movement in Zürich, on February 2, 1916, cf. Marc Dachy, Archives dada – Chroniques, Éditions Hazan, Paris 2005, p. 20. 3 Roselee Goldberg, 2001, chapter 3.