The article examines the theoretical discussions on the dualism of "form" and "content" in literature and art that took place in Soviet Ukraine in the mid-1920s. The subject is considered in the context of the development of two competitive approaches of study of literature and art - Russian formalism and Marxism.
The problem is observed through the comparison of ethical and ideological positions of the modernists and Marxists in Russia and Ukraine in the 1920s.