Christina Bezari The Many Lives of the Ultraist Movement: Translation, Circulation and Dissemination of Ultraist Poetry Beyond Spain (1919–1923)

The Ultraist movement emerged in Spain in 1918, with the declared intention of opposing Modernismo, which had dominated the Spanish literary landscape since the end of the 19th century. In the Ultraist Manifesto (1919), which was published in the magazine Grecia (1918–1920), a group of Spanish intellectuals expressed a desire for artistic renewal and announced the publication of their own literary magazine: “We wish to launch this cry for renewal and announce the publication of a magazine that will bear the title Ultra, in which only the new will find a welcome.” One of the main ideas of the Ultraist Manifesto (1919) was the bringing together of all avant-garde currents that would allow poets to express innovative ideas. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the transnational importance of ultraism, and to explore the internationalization strategies of ultraist poets who wished to propagate their ideas beyond Spain. To examine the impact of Ultraism beyond borders, I will focus on two Belgian magazines, Lumière (1919–1923) and Ça Ira (1920–1923), which became important dissemination platforms for ultraist poets who wished to publish their works in French.

Christina Bezari is Senior post-doctoral fellow at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). Her research is located at the intersection of Spanish and comparative literature, translation studies and women’s history. She is the author of Transnational Modernity in Southern Europe: Women’s Periodicals and Salon Culture (Routledge, 2023) and the co-editor of Las Vanguardistas: Women and the Avant-Garde in Ibero-America (2022). Her current project at the ULB proposes a comparative study of Spanish and Belgian modernisms and examines the transnational networks that shaped early twentieth-century literary culture.