BETWEEN FASCISM AND COMMUNISM: NIKOLAY PUNIN'S THEORY OF THE RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE.

The article examines one of the most vivid examples of convergence between avant-garde and totalitarian ideologies - theoretical heritage of a prominent representative of the Russian avant-garde, Nikolay Punin. His writings in the spheres of art criticism, philosophy, and politics are for the first time regarded in the present article as components of a single utopian project. The article traces the transformation of Punin's political and racist doctrines into the avant-garde/formalist vocabulary of notions. Punin's visual essentialism is freely blended with the discourses of racism, sexism and classism, while his expressionistic 'life philosophy' (Lebensphilosophie) includes protofascist ideas and concepts. Investigation of Punin's aesthetics (which can be interpreted as Tatlin/Punin's aesthetics) enables to reveal nationalistic/racist dimension of the Russian avant-garde. It can shed a new light on the issue of interaction of protofascist and communist components in the Russian Bolshevik revolution. At the same time it is necessary to stress the multidimensionality of Punin's art theory, which unites the ideas of the Russian and Italian Futurism with the German 'conservative revolution' programs and opens the road to the radical and extremist theories and practices of Stalinism and fascism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]