CEFRES Team, Non classé

Honorata Sroka – Research & CV

“Practices of Self-historicization and Historical Art by Neo-avant-gardes in Central-Eastern Europe during the 1960s and 1970s“

Research area 2: Norms and Transgressions

Contact : hksroka[@]gmail.com

Honorata Sroka is a literary scholar specialised in both avant-gardes and archival studies. Her PhD project was conducted at the University of Warsaw and is entitled “The Archive of the Avant-Garde. Interpretations of the Franciszka and Stefan Themerson Correspondence” The project was funded by the National Science Centre, Poland (referential number: 2023/49/N/HS2/00284) and aimed to explore the art and archive of the Themersons, who rank among the most important European vanguard artists of the 20th century. Even though the Themersons’ art is internationally recognized, their archive stored in the National Library of Poland remains unexamined. This project systematically investigated the specifics of the artists’ collection and used their archive as a case study to reflect in a more general sense on the nature of the avant-garde archive.

Sroka joined CEFRES in December 2024 as a post-doctoral researcher co-funded by CEFRES and Charles University. Her project – entitled “Practices of Self-historicization and Historical Art by Neo-avant-gardes in Central-Eastern Europe during the 1960s and 1970s” – is a continuation of the aforementioned research. Since the 1910s vanguard movements proclaimed the necessity to break with the past, customs and traditional institutions such as museums, libraries or archives. However, countless memoirs, archival sources and life-writing forms show that vanguard authors undertook the practices of self-historicization rather than the proclaimed destruction of institutions. From the 1960s to the present, researching and commemorating its own history has been a pivotal trend in experimental art, eventually called “historical art”. So far, scholars have mostly discussed neo-avant-garde historical art from the perspective of Western art, which had developed in different cultural, political and social contexts than Eastern-Central European avant-gardes. To take the current state of the art one step further, in her post-doc project Sroka will compare and contrast the selected Hungarian, Czechoslovak and Polish examples of. The main research question is: how and why neo-avant-garde artists decided to create subversive forms of historiography.

CV
Research experience

  • 2024-2026: The PI of the projekt “The Archive of Avant-Garde. Interpretations of Franciszka and Stefan Themerson Correspondences”. The project is funded by the National Science Centre Poland (reference number: 2023/49/N/HS2/00284).
  • 2024: Three-months research stay at the University of Toronto.
    The project under the supervision of dr. Magdalena Cabaj. Funded by the Joanna DeMone Visiting Graduate Student Award, the University of Toronto (Canada)
  • 2023: Four-months research stay at the KU Leuven (Belgium). The project under the supervision of prof. Sascha Bru. Funded by the University of Warsaw, Poland (reference number: PSP 501-D130-20-0004410).
  • 2021-2024: Research scholarship in the project “Life writing competitions. Memoirwriting practices in Poland 1918-1939 (analysis – reception – meaning)”. The project under the supervision of prof. Paweł Rodak. Funded by the National Science Centre Poland (reference number: 2020/37/B/HS2/02154).
  • 2021: The participation in the project “Literary Experiment in Central Europe in 20th and 21st Century: Media, Practices, Discourses”. The grant under the supervision of prof. Katarzyna Bazarnik. Funded by the Jagiellonian University (reference number: PSP U1U/P01/NO/02.03).

Selected publications

  • Sroka Honorata (2022). The Experimental Avant-Garde Art of Franciszka and Stefan Themerson a Way of Dealing with Crisis. “Crisis” The Avant-Garde and Modernism in Critical Modes, Ed. Sascha Bru, Kate Kangaslahti, Li Lin, Iveta Slavkova and David Ayers Volume 7th in the series European Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies. Berlin – New York: de Gruyter.
  • Sroka Honorata (2023). The Great Boredom of Contemplation: Franciszka Themerson’s Experimental Records of Illness, “Forum of Poetics”, no 33-34.
  • Sroka Honorata (2022). Empatia kuratorów i biografów [The Empathy of Curatorships and Biographers]. “Teksty Drugie”, no 6.
  • Sroka Honorata (2019). Autobiographical Interpoetics. Wartime Works by Franciszka and Stefan Themerson. “Forum of Poetics”, no 18.
  • Sroka Honorata (2021). Na przecięciu, w zestawieniu, z dystansu. Antypolityczność Stefana Themersona [At the Intersection, in the Comparison, from the Distance. The Anti-politics of Stefan Themerson]. In: “Polityki/Awangardy” [Avant-garde Politics]. Ed. Agnieszka Karpowicz, Jakub Kornhauser, Marta Rakoczy, Aleksander Wójtowicz. Cracow: Jagiellonian University Publishing House.

Selected conference presentations

  • “Avant-Garde and War” organised by the Jagiellonian University and the European Network for Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies (EAM). My paper: “The Themersons, Bertrand Russell and Their Anti-War Manifesto”. Cracow, scheduled: September 17-19th 2024.
  • 2. “Fragmented Lives” organised by the International AutoBiography Association (IABA), the Centre for Studies in Memory and Literature, the University of Iceland. My paper: “Fragmentary Identities and Geographical Imaginary in Memoir-Writing Practices in Poland 1932-1939”. Reykjavik June 12-15th 2024.
  • 3. The co-organisation of the conference “Life-Writing in Times of Crisis”. The conference was organised by the International AutoBiography Association (IABA) and the University of Warsaw. My paper: “Franciszka Themerson’s Wartime Drawings”. Warsaw July 5-8th 2023.
  • 4. “Globalising the Avant-Garde” organised by the NOVA University of Lisbon and the European Network for Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies (EAM). My paper: “The Internationalism of the Themersons”. Lisbon, September 1st- 3rd 2022.
  • 5. “Revisiting the Avant-Garde Total Work of Art” organised by the KU Leuven and the MDRN research lab. My paper: “The Avant-Garde Archive as Total Work of Art”. Leuven, May 23rd-24th 2022.

Professional Memberships

  • Since 2020: The membership of the European Network for Avant-garde and Modernism Studies (EAM).
  • Since 2022: The membership of the Avant-Garde Research Centre Jagiellonian University.
  • Since 2023: The membership of the International AutoBiography Association (IABA).