The paper considers the issues of modernist and pragmatic discourses in the works of the Ancient Greek writer of the 2nd century AD. Lucian of Samosata. His fa-mous work The Passing of Peregrinus is placed in the conceptual field of “Theory of the avant-garde” by Renato Poggioli, terminologically close to the conception of the menippea of Mikhail Bakhtin. Ancient modernism and pragmatism are analyzed in connection with the modern European intellectual history and general theory of culture. The author comes to the conclusion that it is necessary to separate the elements of modernist aesthetics and pragmatic theory in the work of Lucian. In addition, the author insists on the identification of several proper modernist discourses competing with Lucian (and the corresponding classification of conno-tations): primitivist (populist) and intellectualist (elitist). Lucian's philosophical instrumentalism becomes an ideal background for the collage (intertextual) aesthetics of novelty and shock, the autonomy of the aesthetic sphere. At the same time, the rejection of ontologism and metaphysics by Lucian leads to a situation of considering artistic, political and philosophical problems within the framework of a kind of unified media theory, which also anticipates contemporary conceptual approaches.