Krugovi koji se šire: nacrt jednog istraživanja

The history of literary theory is to a much greater extent the history of the acti-vities of its circles, groups, and schools than it is the result of individual contributions. Alt-hough today we often experience Theory through the individual contributions of exceptio-nal individuals who gained significant symbolic capital in the field of intellectual production that is subject to market functioning, we forget that many great ideas that revolutionised the field, not only in the literary sciences, but also in the humanities arose from specific group dynamics. They are born out of common interests, are upheld through dialogue and exchange (criticism and polemics alike), depend on the intellectual climate and, as Silvi Sa-lupere and Marina Grishakova note, “function as fragile heterogeneities permanently on the verge of falling apart”, while at the same time calling for additional efforts in order to survive. Like avant-garde art groups, they gathered and disappeared intending to change the field of their activity, and sometimes much broader – the way we observe the world. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between avant-garde collective artistic practices and the functioning of theoretical schools and circles. What are their dynamics and are their ambitions identical? Did the theoretical circles cease to expand with the sunset of the avant-garde in the 1920s and 1930s?