From pre-war years in Paris to the end of the 1920s in Kyiv, Ukrainians or artists from Ukraine produced some of the world's greatest avant-garde art and made major contributions to painting, sculpture, theatre, and film-making. This book tells their story and explores the roots of their inspiration.

"Myroslav Shkandrij's collection of essays addresses the discomfort with films like Enthusiasm and artists like Vertov in Ukraine today. Remembering the avant-garde is now contested: Were they a tragic executed renaissance, as Iurii Lavrinenko argued? Fellow travelers of a violent political project? True believers or artists simply trying to make a living? This 'contested memory' lies at the heart of Shkandrij's book."

-Mayhill C. Fowler, Stetson University, Harvard Ukrainian Studies