also by the author:
Dreamverse [Intro]

by Karel Teige

translated from the Czech by Jed Slast

artwork by the author

A selection of Karel Teige's most important essays on Surrealism that discuss its origins, antecedents (both French and Czech), historical development, and relationship to revolution, Marxism, Communism, and Stalinism, the latter of which ultimately producing rifts in both the French and Czechoslovak groups. The centerpiece of this volume is Surrealism Against the Current, originally published as a pamphlet in 1938 to address the split with Vítězslav Nezval, who unilaterally disbanded the Surrealist Group of Czechoslovakia (it continued without him), over how to respond to the Soviet Union's increasing repression of freedom of expression and the arts. Teige makes a forceful argument for equating Stalinism with Nazism, and this brought down on his head the ire of the communist press both at home and abroad. These essays explain his position while providing an insightful theoretical overview of Surrealism's philosophical underpinnings.

The contents include:
"Surrealist Revolution" (1930-31)
"Ten Years of Surrealism" (1934)
"Poetry and Revolution" (1935-36)
"From Artificialism to Surrealism" (1937-38)
"Surrealism Against the Current" (1938)
"International Surrealism" (1947)

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