Pogrom and Avant-Garde: Peretz Markish's Di kupe

Through a close reading of Peretz Markish's Di kupe (The Mound), this article suggests that the avant-garde is less a movement directed at a determined future than one that escapes an impossible past. One of the major works of the Yiddish avant-garde poetry, Di kupe reflects a materialist vision of history, repudiating thereby an age-old Jewish tradition, its martyrology, and its concept of history. Di kupe, I argue, highlights the avant-garde as a subversive gesture that not only repudiates the past but also flouts any order as such. The article traces the ways by which the cubo-futuristic and constructivist aesthetics of the poem reflect Markish's materialist vision.