LEF (journal)

LEF
The first two issues of the journal.
First issue1923; 101 years ago (1923)
Final issue1929; 95 years ago (1929)
CountrySoviet Union
LanguageRussian

LEF ("ЛЕФ") was the journal of the Left Front of the Arts ("Левый фронт искусств" – "Levy Front Iskusstv"), a widely ranging association of avant-garde writers, photographers, critics and designers in the Soviet Union. It had two runs, one from 1923 to 1925 as LEF, and later from 1927 to 1929 as Novy LEF ('New LEF').[1] The journal's objective, as set out in one of its first issues, was to "re-examine the ideology and practices of so-called leftist art, and to abandon individualism to increase art's value for developing communism."

  1. ^ "Soviet Film 1920s: Translations from LEF, Novy LEF, Brik, Kuleshov, Shklovsky, Vertov. Mayakovsky Film Scenarios. Politics and Production: The work of Godard. Marinetti and Mayakovsky". Screen Volume. Vol. 12, no. 4.