Baumgarten

The Russian Home, which marks 75 years of its existence these days, plays an important part in cultural life of
Belgrade as an institution which presents to the Serbian public cultural achievements of the Russian people and gathers
together members of the Russian community as a substitute for the real, often inaccessible or lost home. In terms of
architecture, the building is a rarity in these parts, not only by its specific style but also as one of a number of works by its
renowned designer.
Architect Vasilij (Wilhelm) Fiodorovic Baumgarten (1879 Saint Petersburg – after 1945 Buenos Aires) built in Serbian
community several structures, all of them of outstanding architectural significance: the Headquarters of the Army of the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1928), the Officers’ Home in Skopje (1929), the Russian Home of Emperor Nikolai II in Belgrade
(1933), the Mortgage Bank in Pančevo (1940). The Russian Home building stands apart from the rest of his works, as
well as from the entire corpus by Russian emigration, by Russian identity it displays and by its clear-cut paraphrase of the
Russian Empire Style – the style which in this building appeared for the last time.
The Russian Home was erected on the property which has been in the ownership of the Russian Consulate since the
middle of the XIX century, at the place in the Queen Natalija Street where an older building used to stand, which also served
for the activities of the Russian community. The funds for the construction of the new and representative building came
from donations by the members of the Russian community in emigration but also from king Aleksandar in person, members
of the court, patriarch Varnava, state ministries and numerous Serbian organizations, all testifying to the importance Serbian
community attached to this institution.

0) Hans Adler, Subscriptio: Mark Tansey, The Innocent Eye Test; 1) Hans Adler, Lynn Wolff, Einleitung; 2) Hans Adler (Madison), Horizont und Idylle; 3) Ulrich Gaier (Konstanz), Leibliche Erkenntnis; 4) Caroline Torra-Mattenklott (Zürich), Zwischen sinnlicher Offenbarung und Idolatrie der Vernunft. Hamanns ästhetische Bildwörter und seine Kritik an Mendelssohns Jerusalem; 5) Richard Hibbitt (Leeds), Baudelaire, Baumgarten and Sensate Knowledge; 6) Jörn Steigerwald (Bochum), Humorism: Literary Insights in Modern Times, According to Luigi Pirandello; 7) Florence Vatan (Madison), “Und die Kunst sucht Wissen”: Robert Musil und literarische Erkenntnis; 8) Christian Jäger (Berlin), Intensitätszonen. Zur Prosa Hans Henny Jahnns; 9) Lynn L. Wolff (Madison), Literary Knowledge of the Past: Seeing/Remem- bering/Imagining; 10) Literatur zum Thema; 11) Namenregister

Excluded from the philosophical logos, excess can even be seen to be the “subject” of literature. From the epic poem and the platonic divine furor to the baroque esthetic, and from romanticism to Freudian sublimation, a line can be drawn together with a theory of artistic genesis as arising out of limit experiences: excess is the mark of an encounter with a real which overpowers the signifier. The birth of the esthetic in of itself, conceived of in Baumgarten's terms, arises out of the consideration of literature and art as testifying to a truth of the confused and of the singular, inaccessible to logical reasoning in so far as it exceeds the capacity of the concept.