Tristan Tzara

Tristan Tzara emigrated from Romania to Zurich in 1916 and, together with Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings and Hans Arp, helped found Dada at the Cabaret Voltaire that year. His role expanded from reciting his own and others' poetry to actively coordinating and promoting Dada events and publications, and he became one of the movement's most visible polemicists through manifestos that pushed its anti-rationalist, provocative program. After leaving Switzerland in 1919 he settled in Paris, where he continued Dadaist activity alongside Andre Breton and Louis Aragon before the movement's energies fed into Surrealism. He later disputed with fellow Dadaist Richard Huelsenbeck over who actually coined the word Dada itself, a contested point within the movement's own internal history.