SUMMARY:

This is a contribution to the forum “Conceptualizing National Modernism” inspired by the publication of the new book by Galina Babak and Alexander Dmitriev, The Atlantis of Soviet National Modernism: The Formal Method in Ukraine (1920s–Early 1930s) (Moscow: NLO, 2021). Nadezda Gribkova and Julia Vaingurt focus on the interpretation of the formal method by book’s authors. Gribkova and Vaingurt find that the formalist theory of estrangement, with its absolute prioritization of form over content, ill-fits the authors’ belief in the prospect of cultivating national content out of universal form. Gribkova and Vaingurt outline possible solutions to this conundrum of universalism and national specificity.