Abstract Within the span of only four years, two books on the same subject and with almost identical titles were published on two sides of Europe: Hans Prinzhorn's Artistry of the Mentally Ill (Berlin, 1922) and Pavel Ivanovich Karpov's Creativity of the Mentally Ill (Moscow, 1926). Whereas the first book was recognized as one of the key steps in the “discovery” of the psychotic art and its eventual mainstreaming, the second one quickly fell into obscurity. Its author perished in Stalinist purges of the 1930s, together with a number of his colleagues from the Russian Academy of Artistic Science (RAKhN, 1921-1931), in which he served as the head of the Commission for the Creativity of Mentally Ill. This article is the first in-depth study of Karpov's book and his theory of creativity, which he based on his extensive collection of the works of his patients (which was also lost in the purges). The article argues that his approach to psychotic art is completely independent from Prinzhorn's. Instead, it places this book in the context of the specific form of Kunstwissenschaft that was practiced in RAKhN, suggesting that this placement is of primary importance for understanding Karpov's methods and aims. More specifically, the article argues that in his research on the creativity of the mentally ill, Karpov engages in a productive dialogue with the philosopher and prominent RAKhN member Gustav Shpet's work on epistemology from the same period. The result is an original contribution to the clinical literature on art of the mentally ill patients.

Polyhydramnios is a condition related to an excessive accumulation of amniotic fluid in the third trimester of pregnancy and it can be acute and chronic depending on the duration. Published data suggest that during muscle development, in the stage of late histochemical differentiation decreased mechanical loading cause decreased expression of myosin heavy chain (MHC) type 1 leading to slow-to-fast transition. In the case of chronic polyhydramnios, histochemical muscle differentiation could be affected as a consequence of permanent decreased physical loading. Most affected would be muscles which are the most active i.e., spine extensor muscles and muscles of legs. Long-lasting decreased mechanical loading on muscle should cause decreased expression of MHC type 1 leading to slow-to-fast transition, decreased number of muscle fiber type I especially in extensor muscles of spine and legs. Additionally, because MHC type 1 is present in all skeletal muscles it could lead to various degrees of hypotrophy depending on constituting a percentage of MHC type 1 in affected muscles. These changes in the case of preexisting muscle disorders have the potential to deteriorate the muscle condition additionally. Given these facts, idiopathic chronic polyhydramnios is a rare opportunity to study the influence of reduced physical loading on muscle development in the human fetus. Also, it could be a medical entity to examine the influence of micro- and hypogravity conditions on the development of the fetal muscular system during the last trimester of gestation.

A review was conducted using PubMed/MEDLINE (published articles) as well as World Wide Web (video material) to determine the frequency of anterior and posterior presentation of the elephant at birth. Of 46 identified cases, 12 were in anterior and 34 in posterior presentation. The Fisher exact test (p=0.682) did not show a statistically significant difference in the distribution of presentations between the Loxodonta africana (2 anterior and 10 posterior presentation) and Elephas maximus (10 anterior and 24 posterior presentation). The ratio between anterior and posterior presentation 6:29 (18.51% versus 81.49%) at birth without knowing dystocia, is significantly different from the distribution anterior and posterior presentation 6:3 (66.7% versus 33.3%) in cases with dystocia (Fisher exact test p = 0.012). Obtained data shows that posterior presentation at birth in elephants is more often present than anterior, while anterior presentation is more often associated with dystocia.

1968 was a watershed year not only for the new left but even more so for the rise of the New Right. It turns out that, if 1968 “prepared” 1989 as the next turning point in European and world history, it was probably more through the new right’s forging of ideas that would eventually provide ideological justification for illiberal democracies in Central and Eastern Europe. Yugoslavia is an important site in this history not only because of its early exposure to the ideas of the new right through the work of the painter and publicist Dragoš Kalajić but also because in his seminal book The Philosophy of Parochialism (1969), Radomir Konstantinović anticipated the rise of the new right and offered a penetrating critique of its fundamental premises.

The election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States missed by a mere few weeks the 120th anniversary of the opening night of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu the King (10 December 1896). Numerous similarities between the 45th US president and the character that inaugu -rated the theatrical avantgarde didn’t go unnoticed. The poet Charles Simic wrote that the “story of his presidency and the cast of characters he has assembled in the White House would easily fit into Jarry’s play without a single word needing to be changed” (Simic 2017). British author Rosanna Hildyard had the same idea when she published her translation and adaptation of Jarry’s play under a tell-all title: Ubu Trump (2017). And early in 2018, Paula Vogel organized a “National UBU ROI Bake-Off” in which she invited playwrights to compose skits featuring key “ingredients” from Jarry’s play. So, on Presidents’ Day (19 February 2018) theatres across the country performed pieces that ranged from a farce about Trump and Anthony Scaramucci, who briefly and scandalously held the position of White House communications director, to a monologue by an actor playing Melania Trump, to Ubu’s funeral. More recently, in late February 2020, an advertisement from Verso Books for Hal Foster’s new book What Comes after Farce? landed in my inbox. The blurb is spot on:

In September 2019, Marina Abramović's exhibition, The Cleaner, billed as her “European retrospective,” opened in Belgrade. The funding for the exhibit was secured through a direct intervention that came from Serbian prime minister Ana Brnabić. The Cleaner quickly became the center of a vigorous political debate, which exposed hypocrisies of the regime of illiberal democracy currently in power in Serbia.