On the basis of sources that have only recently become available, including the editorial archive of the Graz literary magazine manuskripte and the private notebooks of its long-time editor Alfred Kolleritsch (16.2.1931 - 29.5.2020), the project examines the conditions that made possible a decidedly avant-garde literary movement in Austrian literature that was established in Graz after 1945. This project also examines the directions this modern movement took and its widespread impact. It looks at a development of almost 14 years, from the founding of the Forum Stadtpark and the literary magazine manuskripte in 1959/1960 to the founding phase of the Grazer Autorinnen Autorenversammlung (GAV) in 1974. 

The project focuses specifically on processes of institutionalization that make the emergence, establishment and success story of manuskripte transparent while also rendering the overarching connections between commitment, resistance and avant-garde as well as the emergence of a whole new generation of authors. The goal of this research project is to trace the establishment of avant-garde literature in Graz on the basis of 1) the founding of the literary magazine manuskripte (as an organ of the avant-garde and/or subculture) and the Forum Stadtpark against a conservative literary landscape in Graz. 2) To describe the institutionalization of the avant-garde in Graz, which, in addition to the magazine manuskripte and its authors, also includes the founding of the avant-garde festival steirischer herbst in 1968, in particular its literary symposia. It will also show how the Graz avant-garde of the 1960s and early 1970s related to the Viennese avant-garde of the 1950s and 1960s and also to the historical avant-garde of the 1920s. 3) The aim is to show how these developments led to the founding of the GAV in 1973. 

The project will result in a printed monograph that complements current research on crucial aspects: Cultural and discursive points of intersections between the manuskripte, Forum Stadtpark, steirischer herbst and GAV that made possible the emergence of a literary avant-garde in Graz will be comprehensively presented before the background of a theory of the avant-garde. The monograph introduces new perspectives in research by uncovering and examining not only new accessible sources but also new connections in already processed archives.