Slavoj Žižek, Rastko Močnik & Zoja Skušek: Punk Suprematism

Rab-Rab Press, 2021, Softcover, 144 pages, 19 × 12.5 cm

Contribution by Sezgin Boynik

Punk Suprematism includes the first English translation of theoretical writings on punk, art, socialism, bureaucracy, and nationalism by Slavoj Žižek, Rastko Močnik, and Zoja Skušek. Written in the first half of the eighties, these texts are a unique mixture of punk attitude with theoretical concepts borrowed from Althusser, Lacan, and avant-garde art. Written in a turbulent period of Yugoslav socialism, these texts were trying to understand the political importance of punk as a mass movement of impoverished youth. The conclusions of these interventions had a lasting effect on the theoretical formation of Yugoslav post-Marxism, as well to the organizational forms of the socialist alternative. The book also includes a foreword on the historical context of the eighties and the extensive narrative bibliography of punk related publications in the Socialist Republic of Slovenia written by Sezgin Boynik. In addition to this, it also includes translations of the two editorials to Punk Problemi written by renowned Slovenian theoreticians.