The talk reflects on the methodological and theoretical stakes of studying the entanglements of workers’ culture, labor movements, and the avant-garde in East-Central Europe. Focusing on questions of circulation, readership, and the cultural politics of avant-garde journals, the presentation situates the project within broader debates on cultural practices as sites of political struggle. It asks how avant-garde artistic strategies travelled into working-class culture and, conversely, how engagement with workers and labor movements transformed avant-garde artistic practices themselves.

The panel as a whole examines workers’ culture not as a fixed ideological formation, but as a constellation of lived and performed practices—including choirs, amateur theatre, sport activities, political festivals, and emotionally charged commemorative events—that shaped collective identities through the body and the senses. Particular emphasis is placed on the aesthetics of working-class politics, the emotional dimensions of collective action, and the role of culture in forging anti-fascist alliances and alternative public spheres.

Bringing together perspectives from labor history, performance studies, art history, and cultural studies, the panel also addresses contemporary questions of historiography and curatorial practice: how histories of workers’ culture are shaped by geopolitical hierarchies of knowledge production, and how embodied and emotional dimensions of labour history can be made visible today through archives, exhibitions, performances, and education.

The panel is chaired by Martin Bernátek and Georg Spitaler.