Lukas Michelitsch

The Kampfgruppe Avantgarde represents a fascinating yet forgotten group of the antifascist resistance in Austria who were active in the border region between Styria, Carinthia, and Slovenia. Also known as the Koralm Partisans, they were made up of international resistance fighters, some of whom had previously been volunteers in the Spanish Civil War. Supported by the Soviet Union and driven by political ideals for a postwar Austria, they fought against the Nazis in the Koralpe region beginning in 1944.

While the partisans saw themselves as the country’s legitimate liberators, they played no more political role after the war and are largely forgotten today. Lukas Michelitsch’s piece is based on oral history and archival documents. Presented as a live radio play, the audience experiences it as a concentrated spoken-word performance with live sound. Kampfgruppe Avantgarde offers a new perspective on the region as a stage for “History with a capital H,” where the course for the postwar era and Austrian identity was set.

Lukas Michelitsch (1996, Deutschlandsberg, Austria) is a director as well as a junior curator at steirischer herbst. In his work, he deals with classical drama and subject matter as well as contemporary texts and dramatizations of prose works. He focuses especially on spaces in which audiences and actors meet. His production of Thomas Köck’s eure paläste sind leer (ALL WE EVER WANTED) premiered in 2023. For Ulrike Haidacher’s Die Party: Eine Einkreisung at Schauspielhaus Graz, he was nominated for the Nestroy Prize as Best Newcomer in 2024. He lives in Vienna.