''Ma'' is a Hungarian magazine connected with the Magyar Aktivizmus (Hungarian Activism) artistic group whose title not only reflects their initials but also means "today". It was founded in 1916 in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

Lajos Kassák Lajos Kassák (March 21, 1887 – July 22, 1967) was a Hungarian poet, novelist, painter, essayist, editor, theoretician of the avant-garde, and occasional translator. He was among the first genuine working-class writers in Hungarian litera ...

, who continued to publish it in exile in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

until 1925.

History

Origins

''MA'' was launched after a previous journal '' A Tett'' ("The Action") had been banned by the prosecutor's office in October 1916. The first issue was published the following month. From 1917

Béla Uitz Béla Uitz (8 March 1887, Mehála, Kingdom of Hungary (today part of Timișoara, Romania) – 26 January 1972, Budapest, Hungary) was a Hungarian painter and communist activist. In 1907 he studied at the Hungarian National School of Applied Art ...

joined the editorial team followed by

Sándor Bortnyik Sándor Bortnyik (July 3, 1893 – December 31, 1976) was a Hungarian painter and graphic designer. His work was greatly influenced by Cubism, Expressionism and Constructivism. Life He moved to Weimar in 1922 and was connected to the Bau ...

, Jolán Simon, Sándor Barta and Erzsi Újvári.

Under the Hungarian Soviet Republic

Following the

Aster Revolution The Aster Revolution or Chrysanthemum Revolution ( hu, Őszirózsás forradalom) was a revolution in Hungary led by Count Mihály Károlyi in the aftermath of World War I which resulted in the foundation of the short-lived First Hungarian Peopl ...

, the MA activists were critical of

Mihály Károlyi Count Mihály Ádám György Miklós Károlyi de Nagykároly ( hu, gróf nagykárolyi Károlyi Mihály Ádám György Miklós; archaically English: Michael Adam George Nicholas Károlyi, or in short simple form: Michael Károlyi; 4 March 1875 � ...

's government. They agitated for a communist revolution publishing special issues in support of revolutionary change. When the

Hungarian Soviet Republic The Socialist Federative Republic of Councils in Hungary ( hu, Magyarországi Szocialista Szövetséges Tanácsköztársaság) (due to an early mistranslation, it became widely known as the Hungarian Soviet Republic in English-language sources ( ...

was established on 21 March 1919, at first it seemed that the MA group would play an important role in the new regime as Kassak and Uitz had positions in the directorates of literature and art. However, when they refused to subordinate their work to the control of the Party of Communists in Hungary, they were the attacked by the Hungarian Social Democrats, who accused

György Lukács György Lukács (born György Bernát Löwinger; hu, szegedi Lukács György Bernát; german: Georg Bernard Baron Lukács von Szegedin; 13 April 1885 – 4 June 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, literary historian, critic, and ae ...

, the Deputy Commissar for Public Education, of wasting money on their "incomprehensible" and "formalist" avant-garde art. However,

Bela Kun Bela may refer to: Places Asia *Bela Pratapgarh, a town in Pratapgarh District, Uttar Pradesh, India *Bela, a small village near Bhandara, Maharashtra, India *Bela, another name for the biblical city Zoara * Bela, Dang, in Nepal * Bela, Janakpur, ...

denounced the MA group as a product of "bourgeois decadence". Therefore, from a political point of view, the art of MA ended up in an interpretative vacuum. In July 1919, the regime faced a chronic shortage in paper, and the ''MA'' (as well as other periodicals) was discontinued. Kassák left for

Lake Balaton Lake Balaton () is a freshwater lake in the Transdanubian region of Hungary. It is the largest lake in Central Europe, and one of the region's foremost tourist destinations. The Zala River provides the largest inflow of water to the lake, and th ...

when ''MA'' was suspended. In August, following the fall of the Hungarian Soviet Republic he was imprisoned only being released in the winter thanks to the intervention of his partner, Jolán Simon. He then escaped to Vienna.

In Vienna

Kassák refounded the magazine in Vienna on May 1, 1920. He continued to publish it there until December 1, 1925. 33 issues were produced during this period. It was based Kassak's rented room in

Hietzing Hietzing () is the 13th municipal District of Vienna (german: 13. Bezirk, Hietzing). It is located west of the central districts, west of Meidling. Hietzing is a heavily populated urban area with many residential buildings, but also contains lar ...

, although he did a lot of editorial work in nearby cafés. The magazine generally contained articles written in Hungarian, Kassák was aiming at an international readership. His first programmatic text in exile was addressed to "all artists of the world". This increases level of interaction globally led Kassák to evolve his theoretical views, abandoning

Expressionism Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

in favour of

Dadaism Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Paris ...

and

Constructivism Constructivism may refer to: Art and architecture * Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes * Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in Russia in the 1920s a ...

. Kassák wrote to the Zürich Dada Movement, and received a number of periodicals from

Tristan Tzara Tristan Tzara (; ; born Samuel or Samy Rosenstock, also known as S. Samyro; – 25 December 1963) was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, comp ...

. On 20 November 1920 ''MA'' sponsored a "Russian Evening" featuring a slide show and lecture by

Konstantin Umansky Konstantin Aleksandrovich Umansky (russian: Kонстантин Aлександрович Уманский; 14 May 1902 – 25 January 1945) was a Soviet diplomat, editor, journalist and artist. Biography and career Umansky, who was Jewish, w ...

. In 1926 Kassák returned to Budapest and founded the journal ''Dokumentum'' which he saw as a successor to ''MA''. However it was discontinued after only five issues

Contributors

Contributors include:

Writers

Hans Arp Hans Peter Wilhelm Arp (16 September 1886 – 7 June 1966), better known as Jean Arp in English, was a German-French sculptor, painter, and poet. He was known as a Dadaist and an abstract artist. Early life Arp was born in Straßburg (now Stras ...

* Sándor Barta *

Blaise Cendrars Frédéric-Louis Sauser (1 September 1887 – 21 January 1961), better known as Blaise Cendrars, was a Swiss-born novelist and poet who became a naturalized French citizen in 1916. He was a writer of considerable influence in the European mod ...

Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (, , ; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the su ...

* Alexic Dragan *

Claire Goll Claire Goll (born Klara Liliane Aischmann) (29 October 1890 in Nuremberg, Germany – 30 May 1977 in Paris, France) was a German-French writer and journalist; she married the poet Yvan Goll in 1921. Biography Goll née Aischmann was born on 29 O ...

Vicente Huidobro Vicente García-Huidobro Fernández (; January 10, 1893 – January 2, 1948) was a Chilean poet born to an aristocratic family. He promoted the avant-garde literary movement in Chile and was the creator and greatest exponent of the literary m ...

Richard Huelsenbeck Carl Wilhelm Richard Hülsenbeck (aka Charles R. Hulbeck) (23 April 189220 April 1974) was a German writer, poet, and psychoanalyst born in Frankenau, Hessen-Nassau who was associated with the formation of the Dada movement. Life and work Huelsen ...

Ernő Kállai Ernő Kállai (9 November 1890, Săcălaz- 28 November 1954, Budapest) was a Hungarian art critic who was involved in the promotion of and theorisation around Constructivism. He encountered avant-garde art upon visiting the MA gallery of Lajos K ...

(under the pseudonym Péter Mátyás) *

Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...

* Franz Liebhard *

Ljubomir Micić Ljubomir Micić ( sr-cyr, Љубомир Мицић, 15 November 1895 – 14 June 1971) was a Serbs, Serbian poet, writer, critic, editor and actor. He was the founder of the avant-garde movement Zenitism and its magazine ''Zenit''. Both he and his ...

Gorham Munson Gorham Bockhaven Munson (May 26, 1896 – August 15, 1969) was an American literary critic. Gorham was born in Amityville, New York to Hubert Barney Munson and Carrie Louise Morrow. He received his B.A. degree in 1917 from Wesleyan University, wher ...

Nikolai Punin Nikolay Nikolayevich Punin (russian: link=no, Никола́й Никола́евич Пу́нин; – August 21, 1953) was a Russian art scholar and writer. He edited several magazines, such as ''Izobrazitelnoye Iskusstvo'' among others, and w ...

* Hans Richter * Andor Sugar

Artists

Theo van Doesburg Theo van Doesburg (, 30 August 1883 – 7 March 1931) was a Dutch artist, who practiced painting, writing, poetry and architecture. He is best known as the founder and leader of De Stijl. He was married to artist, pianist and choreographer Nelly ...

Petar Dobrović Petar Dobrović ( sr-Cyrl, Петар Добровић; ; 14 January 1890 – 27 January 1942) was a Serbian painter and politician. Biography Dobrović was born in Pécs, Kingdom of Hungary. A proponent of Serbian colorism, he was known for ...

Albert Gleizes Albert Gleizes (; 8 December 1881 – 23 June 1953) was a French artist, theoretician, philosopher, a self-proclaimed founder of Cubism and an influence on the School of Paris. Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote the first major treatise on ...

* Lajos Gulácsy *

Raoul Hausmann Raoul Hausmann (July 12, 1886 – February 1, 1971) was an Austrian artist and writer. One of the key figures in Berlin Dada, his experimental photographic collages, sound poetry, and institutional critiques would have a profound influence on ...

Iván Hevesy Iván Hevesy (; 7 December 1893 29 January 1966) was a Hungarian literature, photography and film theorist. Hevesy is best known for his pioneering role in the history of the Hungarian avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' ...

Vilmos Huszár Vilmos Huszár (5 January 1884 – 8 September 1960) was a Hungarian painter and designer. He lived in The Netherlands, where he was one of the founding members of the art movement De Stijl. Huszár was born in Budapest, Hungary. He emigrate ...

* János Kmetty *

Jacques Lipchitz Jacques Lipchitz (26 May 1973) was a Cubist sculptor. Lipchitz retained highly figurative and legible components in his work leading up to 1915–16, after which naturalist and descriptive elements were muted, dominated by a synthetic style of Cr ...

El Lissitzky Lazar Markovich Lissitzky (russian: link=no, Ла́зарь Ма́ркович Лиси́цкий, ; – 30 December 1941), better known as El Lissitzky (russian: link=no, Эль Лиси́цкий; yi, על ליסיצקי), was a Russian artist ...

* János Mácza * Hans Mattis-Teutsch *

László Moholy-Nagy László Moholy-Nagy (; ; born László Weisz; July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the i ...

Piet Mondrian Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (), after 1906 known as Piet Mondrian (, also , ; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), was a Dutch painter and art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He is known for being ...

* Jószef Nemes-Lampérth * Jacobus John Pieter Oud *

Francis Picabia Francis Picabia (: born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia; 22January 1879 – 30November 1953) was a French avant-garde painter, poet and typographist. After experimenting with Impressionism and Pointillism, Picabia became associated with Cubism ...

Man Ray Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, although his t ...

Oskar Schlemmer Oskar Schlemmer (4 September 1888 – 13 April 1943) was a German painter, sculptor, designer and choreographer associated with the Bauhaus school. In 1923, he was hired as Master of Form at the Bauhaus theatre workshop, after working at the wo ...

Vladimir Tatlin Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin ( – 31 May 1953) was a Russian and Soviet painter, architect and stage-designer. Tatlin achieved fame as the architect who designed The Monument to the Third International, more commonly known as Tatlin's Tower, whi ...

References

{{italic title Avant-garde magazines Defunct magazines published in Hungary Hungarian art Hungarian-language magazines Magazines established in 1916 Magazines disestablished in 1925 Magazines published in Budapest Magazines published in Vienna