The aim of the project is to develop femtosecond optical control of magnetism: a new area at the junction of coherent nonlinear optics, near-field optics and magnetism. In particular, I am aiming to investigate nonthermal effects of light on magnetic order and to apply this knowledge for highly efficient ultrafast (10-12 seconds and faster) optical control of magnetism at the nanoscale.The ever increasing demand for faster information processing has triggered an intense search for ways to manipulate magnetically stored bits at the ultimately short time-scale. Although efficient, ultrafast and nonthermal laser control of magnetism may open new prospect of magnetic data storage and manipulation, many fundamental questions concerning the mechanisms that are responsible for the nonthermal effect of photons on spins and ultrafast laser induced changes of magnetic order are poorly understood. This is mainly because an ultrashort laser pulse brings a medium into a strongly non-equilibrium state where conventional description of magnetic phenomena in terms of thermodynamics is no longer valid. In this proposal I am planning to address these fundamental questions using novel experimental approaches for both the excitation and observation of magnetism on an ultrafast timescale. In particular, the proposal involves: a) development of polarization pulse shaping, where specially shaped laser pulses yield control over coherent optical excitations in a medium; b) exploring the ultrafast response of magnetic order with advanced optical and X-ray techniques.The ultimate goal is to combine the fundamental knowledge of femtosecond opto-magnetism obtained in this project with the methods of near-field optics to achieve ultrafast control of spins in magnetic nanostructures.