A Glossary of Catchwords of the Czech Avant-Garde is a collective enterprise aimed at reconstructing some of the landmark concepts and ideas that the Czech avant-garde brought primarily into literature and the visual arts. In general, the reader will not find here entries on the traditional groupings, the various "isms", periodicals or standard categories from the history of art and literature giving a typical description and history of them. The entries seek instead to give a "reconstructive" account of the concepts concerned, mindful of the principle of crossover between media, but also of specific creative methods and practices. They have been conceived, therefore, as reconstructions of interactions (text, picture, music, theatre, film, photography) with the period context in scholarship and cultural philosophy and socio-political activity.
