12. Velimir Khlebnikov
"Well, and so on"
Today we will talk about Velimir Khlebnikov, one of the most interesting poets of the 20th century. The remarkable researcher Mikhail Leonovich Gasparov even believed that this was the most interesting Russian poet of his era. And in one of the most - I almost said "difficult", but just the task and purpose of today's lecture will be, among other things, to try to show that if you read Khlebnikov's works from a certain angle, they are not at all as complicated as they usually are. believe. A certain myth has developed about Khlebnikov, which today we will try, if not to dispel, then somehow at least shake a little.
It would probably be worth starting this conversation with the fact that Khlebnikov was the main figure of Russian cubo-futurism, which we have already talked about, but at the same time he was not its leader. The leader was David Burliuk, an extremely energetic person, an artist with excellent organizational skills.
Khlebnikov was not a leader for one simple reason: the make-up of his personality, the make-up of his character, was completely different. All memories of Khlebnikov, especially about how he read poetry, boil down to a description of how a quiet person goes on stage, whispers something, shouting from the audience “Louder! Louder! ”, He adds a little, then again begins to speak quietly, and then interrupts the reading and with the words“ Well, and so on ”leaves the stage.
And indeed, many readers, many listeners had the impression that Khlebnikov was a modest, inconspicuous, quiet person, who was inflated by the Burliuk company, whose work was promoted by the Burliuk brothers, calling Khlebnikov a poet greater than Pushkin, dedicating enthusiastic panegyric notes to him, giving him places most of all in futuristic collections. Now, this is the wrong impression. Despite the fact that Khlebnikov did not read poetry loudly, his ambitions were extremely high. Perhaps they were even the greatest of all Russian poets of this era. And as, I think, we have already seen, even listening to these lectures, the ambitions of the poets of this era were very great in almost all authors.
Out of space and out of time
We have already said that futurism, especially cubo-futurism, could be called such extremist symbolism, because, like the symbolists of the second wave, the junior symbolists, the cubo-futurists sought nothing less than to transform the life of mankind with their poems. Let me remind you that the Young Symbolists tried to do this primarily in the religious sphere. Cubo-futurists tried to do this with the help of language, and to do it - this is a very important difference! - not gradually, not slowly, but do it immediately, now!
And if we talk about Khlebnikov's work, about what he tried to do with the Russian language, about how he himself looked at the tasks of his poetry, then here - we all the time offer such key formulas for the work of this or that author - for Khlebnikov , it seems to me that the formula proposed, but not very developed in his works by the great philologist Grigory Osipovich Vinokur, is remarkably suitable. This is the formula "Out of space and out of time." He proposed this formula, but did not develop it. Here we will now try to understand a little what it is with the help of the analysis of Khlebnikov's texts. In the meantime, I'll try to describe in words.
Khlebnikov wanted no more, no less than he wanted the boundaries to be erased, first of all, the spatial ones. Those. he dreamed that all of humanity would unite in such a single huge collective. And secondly, in time too. He tried to erase the difference between the past, the future, and the present in time. It was not for nothing that Khlebnikov suggested calling the Futurists non-Futurists; he was an opponent of foreign borrowings in general; people who live in today, but in fact are representatives of the future.
Khlebnikov, like many futurists, loved fantasy novels, the novels of Wells, and in his poetry and prose, imagery often appears, as if taken from fantasy novels. And Khlebnikov considered language to be the main means, the main way to unite all people outside of time and space. In fact, what he did - he tried to form, select from the already existing words of the Russian language (because he believed that the Russian language should be the basis) and add his own words, tried to create a language that would unite all people. Agree that the task is extremely ambitious. Of course, she was utopian. But, by the way, any almost great poetic project just turns out to be utopian.
And Khlebnikov tried to do this not in general, not in the abstract, but with almost every text of his, with every work of his, he put one more grain of sand on these scales. Each of his works was an experience of creating such a universal, as Khlebnikov himself said, stellar language. Those. a language that would unite all mankind under the eyes, under the gaze of the stars.
Brief biography of V. Khlebnikov
We will now talk about Khlebnikov's autobiography, but perhaps it is worth first very briefly setting out the objective facts of his biography, especially since it was swift and short. Khlebnikov was born in 1885. Together with his family - his father was a fairly well-known ornithologist, scientist - he lived in Kazan, entered Kazan University, but did not graduate from it.
Moved to Petersburg. In St. Petersburg, at first he was a student, like almost all the poets of his generation, the main teacher, whose name we have already heard with you, the Symbolist Vyacheslav Ivanov, went to his Tower and was treated kindly by him, and by the student of the poet Mikhail Kuzmin. Then he met those who became his like-minded people - the Burliukov brothers, Benedikt Livshits, Alexei Kruchenykh, Vladimir Mayakovsky. He was proclaimed by them the best poet of our time, he called himself the chairman of the globe, he accepted, unlike many of his contemporaries, not only the February, but also the October revolution. Wandered, wandered around different parts, reached Persia, returned to Moscow.
In Moscow, Mandelstam tried to help him settle down, fit into literary life. But Mandelstam himself was a rather helpless person in the everyday sense. And Khlebnikov left, literally went to the steppe, where he died in 1922 in front of his student, the artist Pyotr Miturich, who left a wonderful portrait of Khlebnikov. This portrait is called "The last word -" Yes "". Indeed, Khlebnikov's last word was the word "yes."
Analysis of the "Autobiographical note" by V. Khlebnikov
And the first text that I would like you and I to briefly try to parse, a fragment of this text, is Khlebnikov's autobiographical note, which he wrote in 1914. At the same time, we will talk a little about Khlebnikov's biography. And it was such a completely official autobiography. He did not require a literary text, and we ourselves, apparently, compiled such autobiographies a million times: born, studied, married ... We have this experience that does not require any creative approach at all. Khlebnikov, I repeat once again, approached every slightest of his text with very high standards. Including this text also solved the problems of creating a stellar language and overcoming - I emphasize that the main thing that was in this text was Khlebnikov's own overcoming, victory over space and time. Now let's try to see what it is.
Khlebnikov begins like this: "Born October 28, 1885...". This is the traditional beginning of any autobiography. But we will not meet further with anything traditional in this text. So, “I was born on October 28, 1885 in the camp of Mongolian nomads who profess Buddha - the name is “Khan's headquarters”, in the steppe - the dried-up bottom of the disappearing Caspian Sea (the sea of forty names)”. Here we immediately see a very dense conglomeration of images that unite various languages, which unite different spaces in a single circle, and at the same time, the theme of history immediately arises too. And all this is only the birth of Khlebnikov. It is clear that the Mongols immediately make you remember, say, the Tatar-Mongol invasion of Russia, Buddha, nomads - the theme of the movement arises absolutely immediately.
Then a theme arises that is very significant for Khlebnikov, which almost always marks in him the theme of time and space at the same time - the theme of the sea, the theme of water. We remember all the wonderful Derzhavin lines from which the 19th century began, this is one of the first great poems of the 19th century: “The river of times in its aspiration / Carries away all the affairs of people ...”. This image, of course, was not invented by Derzhavin, but Derzhavin, perhaps, embodied it most vividly in Russian poetry: the image of the river of times, current time, which, on the one hand, turns out to be a symbol of the main time, on the other hand, connects different spaces.
We will now see that for Khlebnikov this is an extremely important image. And here, too, we are talking about the steppe and the dried-up bottom of the disappearing Caspian Sea. And then the key: "the sea of forty names." What, strictly speaking, does Khlebnikov mean here? He means a very simple thing: that this is the sea, on the shores of which forty peoples settled and lived, and each of these peoples gave the Caspian Sea its name in its own language. Thus, the reader of this autobiography immediately finds himself immersed in a point of confusion, a junction of languages, a junction of various historical associations, various spaces. So far, as we see, there is no overcoming of space and overcoming of time. But it will start soon.
Let's read further. “During the trip of Peter the Great along the Volga ...” (here Peter appears, another important figure, and the most important Russian river - again the theme of time and space, this trip fits into the historical scenery) “... my ancestor ...” (here Khlebnikov includes himself , he does not forget that he is at the center of this whole process) "... treated him with a goblet with chervonets of robber origin."
And then Khlebnikov makes a very characteristic move, so metaphorical. Then he says: “There is in my veins” ... Yes? Just now we were talking about the river, just now the water was flowing along the river, now we are looking at the river that flows through the veins of Khlebnikov himself. “In my veins there is Armenian blood (Alabovs) and the blood of the Cossacks (Verbitskys)…” He combines such great bloods: the blood of the first Christians, Armenians, with the blood of the Cossacks – behind this also stands a wide layer of cultural and historical. And further (he does not stop there): "... a special breed of which ..." (these Cossacks) "... affected the fact that Przhevalsky, Miklukho-Maclay and other land seekers were descendants of the chicks of the Sich."
Those. he ends this paragraph with a mention of the great travelers, i.e. now the theme of overcoming, the theme of victory over time and space through travel, is already beginning to arise, not yet directly. Here, immediately, digressing from the analysis of this biography for a second, we can say that Khlebnikov was such a classic vagabond. He traveled on foot throughout Russia, he walked as far as Persia, he died on the journey. In this, it seems to me, not only in his poetic work, but in this, too, one must see such a real attempt to overcome space and time.
Further, see: “I belong to the meeting place of the Volga and the Caspian Sea (Sigai). Over the centuries it has held the scales of Russian deeds in its hand and shaken the bowls.” Again river, sea, history, "belong" - I am at the intersection of all these lines. Further: "He lived on the Volga, Dnieper, Neva, Moscow, Goryn." Here, too, it is necessary, of course, to pay attention to this. As we usually say: “I lived in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Saratov”, we call the cities. Khlebnikov deliberately names the rivers near which he lived, because it is the river that turns out to be the main symbol for him. Let us recall that in Gumilyov's late poem, which we analyzed, "The Lost Tram", the journey also takes place along the rivers, such an unexpected combination of acmeist and futuristic here.
And at the end of the fragment that we are analyzing, he already directly tells us how he conquers time and space. “Having crossed the isthmus connecting the reservoirs of the Volga and Lena, he forced several handfuls of water to swim instead of the Caspian Sea in the Arctic.” Those. what he did: he stood, on one side he had the Volga, on the other side he had the Lena, and he drew water from the Volga and poured it into the Lena, i.e. the river that flows north. Well, it’s clear how many handfuls he could scoop up there - well, five, well, six - it doesn’t matter at all! He feels himself at this moment as a man who commands time and space. He himself draws this water instead of God, who directs these rivers to or fro, he himself turns out to be the lord of time and space, but this is not enough for him, because further he says: “I swam across the Sudak Bay (3 versts) and the Volga near Enotaevsk.” This river crossing turns out to be another victory over time and space. And one way or another, these motives always arise in Khlebnikov.
"Where the waxwings lived..."
But now, perhaps, we will move on to the area, probably the most interesting - we will try to see how in the texts, as in the poems, Khlebnikov tries to conquer time and space. How he tries to create a stellar language, such a language that would be understood by absolutely everyone. Here is a poem from 1908, a program poem by Khlebnikov.
Where the waxwings lived, Where the firs swayed quietly, A flock of light timers flew and flew away. Where the fir trees rustled softly, Where the yuns sang a cry, A flock of light times flew by, flew away. In the chaos of the wild shadows, Where, like the haze of old days, A flock of light times revolved and rang. A flock of easy times! You are poyunna and vabna, You intoxicate the soul like strings, You enter the heart like a wave! Come on, sonorous poyuns, Glory to easy times!
What do we pay attention to here, briefly analyzing the poem? First, we will pay attention to the fact that the theme of time arises here simply directly - the key, often repeated word is the word "time". And then I just want to draw your attention to the fact that Khlebnikov's neologisms, Khlebnikov's complexities in general, are actually extremely... I would like to say - head ones. Those. they are never arbitrary. Same here. As a matter of fact, we must ask ourselves the question, Khlebnikov expects this from us - what kind of bird is this, time? Why does Khlebnikov call her that?
It seems the answer is pretty simple. Khlebnikov takes two words, "time" and "bullfinch", and combines them into one word "vremir", which seems to him more important, more accurate. Because snow is less... Snow means, in fact, what? The arrival of winter. Khlebnikov puts the more important word “time” in its place, and now this flock of timebirds arrives, which means the arrival of winter, and the departure of these bullfinches from our lands means, on the contrary, the onset of spring, and Khlebnikov contrasts these times with other birds, which he here calls "poyun". It seems that it is also clear why this opposition arises: the bullfinch is not a songbird. And almost all songbirds, on the contrary, fly away for the winter from central Russia, from Russia. Strictly speaking, this is what Khlebnikov writes about. A flock of timers flew in, the poyuns sang a cry, and timers appear in their place.
Next line. I think you have already noticed that we are analyzing this text, paying attention primarily to neologisms, i.e. to those words that Khlebnikov himself composed and constructed. Here is the time, here are the poyuns. And one more line: "You are poyunna and vabna, / You will captivate the soul, like strings." Well, what is “poyunna” seems to be more or less clear, i.e. they are the birds that sing. But the meaning of the word "wabna" is rather difficult to explain. So, it is not a neologism! This word is regional, it was used by those who lived in Ancient Russia. It means "seductive, beautiful." And this line, it seems to me, is such a wonderful example of how Khlebnikov constructs his stellar language. He takes one neologism word, a word from the future, "poyun", another word from the deep past - "vabna" - and combines them in one line. And there is a language that combines the past and the future.
But perhaps even more interesting is how Khlebnikov works extremely economically and, in my opinion, extremely witty, not only with vocabulary, not only with words, but also with syntax, how he builds his text. You have probably already noticed that here, of course, such an incantatory principle plays an important role. Remember, we once analyzed Bryusov's poem "Creativity", and there we talked about how repetitions hypnotized listeners.
Here, too, the hypnotic role of the word, it seems to me, is very easily revealed. Here is the constantly repeating "flew, flew away" through the entire text, hypnotizing the listener. But the ending of this poem seems even more interesting to me. “You intoxicate the soul like strings, // you enter the heart like a wave! // Come on, sonorous poyuns, // Glory to the easy times!" It is fairly easy to see that in the final two lines of this poem, Khlebnikov omits a verb. There is no verb, it sounds a little unusual, but it's quite easy to answer the question why he skips this verb. “Come on, sonorous poyuns ...”, sing it - this verb is missing, right? "Glory<для>easy time!" Why is the verb missing? Because Khlebnikov constricts it into a noun. The songbirds that are supposed to sing - Khlebnikov replaces this whole clumsy construction with one word "poyuny".
Is this language becoming stellar? Does it become clear to everyone? Of course it doesn't. But it was important for Khlebnikov to create attempts at such texts. He, apparently, really sincerely hoped ... There are his texts written by representatives of different peoples. He has a letter to young Japanese, for example, where he just encourages these Japanese to learn to speak this new stellar language. Moreover, he is not such an egoist, he says - let's take something from your language, let's meet, explain ourselves and continue to create this universal language together.
"Elephants fought with tusks so..."
The next poem that I would like you and I to read is a poem, the analysis of which, it seems, will show what a big role composition plays in Khlebnikov, what a big role the structure of the text plays in Khlebnikov, the structure of the text. Because when a new language is created, not only words, not only vocabulary, but also how the text is arranged are important. Now we will read one poem, which, at first glance, is perceived as such a chain of indistinct comparisons, but we will see that this is a mathematically constructed text. Let me remind you, by the way, that Khlebnikov studied for some time at the Faculty of Mathematics of Kazan University, that he also tried to build all kinds of mathematical patterns, and in particular, for example, even before the revolution, using mathematical calculations, he predicted that 1917 would be an important, key year in the world stories.
In general, I, probably, like you, am rather cautious about such things, but you can’t argue against this, there really is a book in which this is written in black and white, and this book was published before 1917.
So, here is that poem, that free verse (a poem written in free verse, that is, it could be considered prose if it were not written in a column), which we will now analyze, written in 1910-1911.
Elephants beat their tusks so that they seemed like a white stone Under the artist's hand. Deer plaited their antlers in such a way that it seemed that they were connected by an old marriage With mutual hobbies and mutual infidelity. The rivers flowed into the sea in such a way that it seemed: the hand of one strangles the neck of another.
We have already said that the text most often tells you how to parse it. We pay attention to something special, something unusual in this text, and then, like a knitting needle, we cling to this hole, this loop and begin to unwind the text like a ball. Here it is very clearly seen that in this text the main feature is this: there are repeating segments. There is a repeating piece of text: "as it seemed." “So that they seemed” - once; "as it seemed" - once again; and “as it seemed” - the third time, i.e. three comparisons. “So it seemed” is a piece of text that separates other pieces of text, turning the entire text into a detailed comparison.
Now let's try with you to mentally write down this text in the form of a table. And first, let's see what we get to the left of this "as it seemed." It turns out like this: “elephants fought with tusks”, “deer plaited their antlers”, “rivers poured into the sea”. It's on the left. Now let's see what we get on the right. "White stone at the hand of the artist"; further it will be long: "... Were braided horns so / That it seemed that they were connected by an old marriage / / With mutual hobbies and mutual infidelity." And finally, the last: "the hand of one strangles the neck of another."
Now let's try to answer a simple question: is it possible to choose a word for the left side of the poem that would unite all these images? “Elephants fought with tusks”, “deer plaited their horns”, “rivers poured into the sea” - it seems obvious that such a word can be chosen, and this word is “nature”.
On the left, in this mental resulting table, nature is described. Moreover, Khlebnikov works extremely subtly. One could say "wildlife", i.e. fauna. Elephants, deer... The rivers appear in the last line, i.e. he expands: not only animals, but nature in general. So, on the left we have nature.
What do we have on the right? “A white stone at the hand of the artist”, “they were connected by an old marriage // With mutual hobbies and mutual infidelity”, “the hand of one strangles the neck of the other.” It seems obvious that here we can pick up a word that will unite all these images. That word is "man". One way or another, we have all the images on the right side are united by this word. And now we already see, we already have the conclusion of the first level ready: in this poem, Khlebnikov, apparently, compares the world of nature with the world of man.
Now let's ask ourselves the following question: is there any logic in how the images from the left side of the table replace each other? “Elephants fought with tusks”, “deer plaited their antlers”, “rivers poured into the sea”. It seems obvious that this logic can also be revealed. It all starts with a warlike clash: elephants fight with their tusks in a fight, in a fight, maybe for a female, maybe not. Further dual linkage arises: "the deer plaited their antlers." Perhaps they are also fighting for the female, or perhaps this is a love game. It is known that reindeer both the female and the male have long antlers, and perhaps they ... Maybe some of you remember the picture in the program "In the Animal World" that starts this program, there is such an image - deer are braiding their antlers . Those. through militant clash to dual linkage, and to what? "The rivers flowed into the sea." Everything ends, shall we say, with a positive merger. Rivers flow into the sea. Let me remind you that the image of the river, the image of the sea is extremely important for Khlebnikov.
Certain logic on the left side of the table is visible. Now let's see if there is logic on the right side of the table? It begins: "with a white stone at the hand of the artist." Where does it all begin? With positive creativity. Further: "they were connected by an old marriage // With mutual hobbies and mutual infidelity." Then comes the duality, because this marriage, on the one hand, the word "hobby", on the other hand - mutual infidelity, such an image arises.
And how does it all end? And everything ends in war: the hand of one strangles the neck of another. And here Khlebnikov again works very subtly: everything begins with a creative hand, the hand of an artist, everything ends with the hand of one, which strangles the neck of another. What do we see? We see - if we really looked at this table, we would see it even more clearly, but it seems that this is already visible - how, according to Khlebnikov, the world of nature and the world of man correlate.
The world of man turns the world of nature. If in the natural world everything begins with a war, with a battle, then everything moves through duality to a positive merger, in the human world everything is arranged absolutely, exactly the opposite. It starts with creativity, with positivity, then dual linkage, and then war. This, it turns out, is what this poem is about, and Khlebnikov does it extremely clearly, if we only look at this text from a certain angle.
I want to draw your attention to some, in my opinion, wonderful details of this poem. For example, this is vers libre, it does not rhyme even once, except for one case.
The deer plaited their antlers so that it seemed that they were connected by an old MARRIAGE.
This rhyme, “so” - “marriage”, and it also arises in a completely non-random way, because when it comes to marriage, that is, in fact, about human rhyme, the rhyme is husband and wife, then Khlebnikov is here , exactly in the middle of the poem, and resorts to this rhyme. This time. In addition, of course, here is a rather playful joke arises. "Deer plaited their antlers in such a way, / That it seemed that they were connected by an old marriage / / With mutual hobbies and mutual infidelity." We know that one of the symbols, one of the incarnations of infidelity is exactly the antlers, so the deer, braiding their antlers, evoke this image.
And, finally, the last thing I would like to draw your attention to while analyzing this text. This is the most "white stone at the hand of the artist." Even today we have already talked quite a lot about how Khlebnikov overcomes the past. I think that in almost every attentive reader, one of the most famous myths of the stone coming to life at the hand of the artist almost inevitably arises in the head, in the mind. This, of course, is the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea, which Khlebnikov here also includes literally in one line in his poem.
"When horses die, they breathe..."
And, finally, the last text, which I would like you and I to analyze again in order to see how wonderfully Khlebnikov builds his texts economically - this time; and how intelligible it really is, how clear it is if you read it carefully, if you read its texts from a certain angle. This is perhaps Khlebnikov's most famous vers libre, a short four-line poem from 1912.
When horses die, they breathe; When grasses die, they dry; When suns die, they go out; When people die, they sing songs.
Let's take a look at this poem. And the first thing we see, already with the experience of reading the poem "Elephants beat their tusks so ...", is that it again talks about the ratio. About what - we still do not know, we do not understand. On the ratio of nature / man. Horses, grasses, suns, people - these are the participants in the process that Khlebnikov describes, the process of dying.
And now I propose to look again at the syntax, at how this text is arranged. And it is arranged in the same way: first comes the adverb “when”, then the verb “die” all four times, then nouns are substituted - horses, grasses, suns, people. Then a dash, and then verbs follow: breathe, dry, go out, sing. But now I want you to pay attention to one oddity in the third line of this poem: “When the suns die, they go out” ... Here it is, this oddity, because, in fact, this personal pronoun “they” is not needed from a semantic point vision. Why say "they"? One could well say:
When horses die, they breathe, When grasses die, they dry up, When suns die, they go out, When people die, they sing songs.
All! For some reason, Khlebnikov inserts “they” into the third line. And first, I suggest that you mentally look at this poem and make sure that due to this “they”, the third line of the poem turns out to be the longest, it sort of draws a line between the natural world and the human world.
But perhaps the most important thing is not even that. We will understand the most important thing when we try, on the contrary, we substitute this word “they” in each line. Let's try to do this. "When horses die, they breathe." Indeed, this line in meaning turns out to be equal or almost equal to the line "When horses die, they breathe." “When herbs die, they dry” - well, it also suits itself quite well. “When the suns die, they go out” - well, that’s how Khlebnikov has it. And now the fourth line. "When people die, they sing songs." But we see, it seems obvious, that the line “When people die, they sing songs” and “When people die, they sing songs” are different lines. And it seems that this is the main thing that Khlebnikov wants to tell us.
What does he want to tell us? And he wants to tell us the following: if in that poem it was that the world of nature is better than the world of man, then here it is exactly the opposite. He tells us what is arranged in the human world - I don’t know if the word “better” is appropriate here, how to say it ... In any case, it is more comforting for a person than in the natural world. Because horses, dying, breathe heavily - we can see this picture, horses breathing heavily - and die, die without a trace. Herbs, when they die, wither and die without a trace. Suns, when they die, explode and go out without a trace. But when people die...
And here you need to think about what to substitute? Probably the most reasonable would be to substitute "about them." When people die, songs are sung about them. And thus, these people do not die without a trace. Songs are sung about them, they remain in songs, and when those people who now sing songs die, the next generation will sing songs about them. Etc., etc. Those. it is actually about memory, apparently, which distinguishes people from the rest of nature.
And I will note, quite already in conclusion, that Khlebnikov makes such a rather cunning move: if we read this text inattentively, he cradles us, we look at repeated, close words, and it seems to us that everything is actually arranged very similarly in the natural world and the human world. If we read this text carefully, we see that in fact everything is arranged differently, that people have a memory, and that this memory of the past and the memory of the future allows us to connect space and time together, which was what the wonderful Russian poet Velimir Khlebnikov aspired to .
Velimir (born Viktor) Vladimirovich Khlebnikov (1885-1922) - Soviet and Russian poet, public figure, founder of futurism. His work influenced many famous personalities, including Vladimir Mayakovsky. Like-minded people considered the poet a genius and innovator, but he had very few readers. Due to a total misunderstanding, Khlebnikov faced various difficulties, his biography is filled with pain and hard feelings. Only long after his death, people were able to appreciate the talent of Viktor Vladimirovich.
Childhood and education
The future poet was born on November 9 (October 28 according to the old style) 1885 in the village of Malye Derbety in Kalmykia. At that time, his native village was part of the Astrakhan province of Russia. The Khlebnikovs were descendants of an old merchant family. Victor had two brothers and two sisters, one of whom later became an artist. Vera Khlebnikova was the most dear person for the writer, until the end of his days he never managed to start a family.
Parents from childhood taught their offspring to art and science. Mother, Ekaterina Nikolaevna Verbitskaya, was from a wealthy family, among the woman's ancestors were Zaporozhye Cossacks. Ekaterina graduated from the Smolny Institute, she helped her five children get an excellent education, instilled a love for literature and history. Already at the age of four, Velimir brilliantly read French and Russian, and was engaged in drawing.
The father was engaged in ornithology, the children often went to the steppe with him. There they admired the sky and clouds, listened to birds singing for hours, kept records. Subsequently, Vladimir Alekseevich founded the first reserve on the territory of the USSR. The family moved frequently, in 1898 they went to Kazan with their children. There Velimir studies at the gymnasium, experiencing a special thrill while studying mathematics and biology. Already in the last classes, he begins to compose poems.
In 1903 Victor became a student of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at Kazan University. A year later, he decided to transfer to the natural department, so he filed a letter of resignation. In 1908, the young man entered the natural faculty of St. Petersburg University. Shortly after that, he transferred to historical and philological. In 1911, Khlebnikov was expelled because he could not pay for his studies.
In 1903, the futurist went on an expedition to Dagestan, two years later he repeated this experience in the Northern Urals. In 1906, the student was accepted into the Society of Naturalists, but shortly after that, he finally stopped paying attention to ornithology.
First poems
Since childhood, the poet began to keep fenitological and ornithological records during campaigns with his father. In his notebooks, biology and psychology were bizarrely combined with reflections on philosophy and ethics, and even sketches of an autobiography. As a student, the young man publishes several articles of a scientific nature. From the age of 11 he writes short poems.
Several times in 1904, Victor sent his poems and stories to A.M. Gorky in the hope of being published by his publishing house. However, the writer never received an answer. From a young age until 1906, he wrote the autobiographical story "Yenya Voeikov", which remained unfinished.
In 1908, the young man met Vyacheslav Ivanov, a Crimean poet. For some time they communicate, the futurist even enters the circle of the Academy of Poetry, but then the paths of the writers diverge. At this time, he also intersects with Gumilyov and Kuzmin, the latter the poet calls his teacher.
It was after meeting Ivanov that the poet first published his poem in the journal Vesna, signing himself Velimir. The debut was a work called "The Temptation of a Sinner." Readers did not take his work too enthusiastically, fame came to Victor a little later. In 1909, he published the poems "Bobeobi", "The Spell of Laughter" and "The Menagerie", which were highly appreciated by the subscribers of the magazine.
Adjacency to "budetlyany"
In 1910, the poet became a member of the Gilea group, together with Vasily Kamensky and David Burliuk. Later, Vladimir Mayakovsky and Benedikt Livshits joined this association. Despite close contact with symbolists, acmeists and artists, Velimir already then begins to adhere to his own style.
In 1910, the futuristic collection "The Garden of Judges" was published, which included some of Khlebnikov's works. At the same time, his books “Roar!”, “Creations 1906-1908” and others are published. In 1912, the collection "A Slap in the Face of Public Taste" was released, most of the poems in it were written by the poet. On the last pages, the poet inserted a table with the dates of the fall of great states. He added the phrase "Someone 1917" to the calculations. Later, such information was published in the book "Teacher and Student".
Since 1915, the poet has been developing the theory of the Government of the Globe, consisting of 317 chairmen. He dreamed of peace on the planet, an equal and healthy society, where everyone respects each other. At this time, all the organizations to which Velimir was related disintegrate. Mayakovsky claims that Futurism is "dead as a special group".
Modern scientists attribute his work to cubo-futurism, while Khlebnikov called himself a "budetlyan". The writer took the language extremely seriously, protecting it from foreign borrowings. In return, he came up with many new words, but they did not take root.
Futurist worldview
Khlebnikov was always on the side of justice, so he often had conflicts with the authorities. Even while studying at the university, the young man participated in a student demonstration, after which he spent a month in prison. According to some reports, this was the reason for the expulsion from the Faculty of Mathematics in November 1903.
Unlike many futurists, Velimir was never arrogant and impudent. On the contrary, he behaved extremely absent-mindedly, did not take care of his compositions. Sometimes he even used them for heating, spending the night in the steppe. The young man rebelled against bourgeois life, devoted all his time to science and creativity, because of this he lived extremely poorly. Most often, the poet wandered around the apartments of friends in different cities and countries, sometimes he rented small rooms.
Victor attracted people around him due to his unusual personality. He remained true to his principles and views, despite pressure from the outside. The poet had many different hobbies and interests. He studied the Japanese language, the philosophy of Plato and Spinoza, was engaged in crystallography and painting. The poet also tried himself in music, he devoted a lot of time to science.
Khlebnikov set ambitious goals for himself that no one else could achieve. Some of them were on the verge between reality and fantasy, but the futurist believed in everything he did. He wanted to know his country through scientific analysis, studied the language for a long time and zealously, was fond of history. The writer did all this for the sake of the future, he was sure that with a certain level of knowledge many events could be predicted.
After the Battle of Tsushima, which took place during the Russo-Japanese War, Victor began to look for the "law of time." He hoped it would help justify all the historical deaths. Subsequently, Khlebnikov was able to accurately predict the date of the October Revolution, he also foresaw the First World War.
War and sickness
In April 1916, the poet was drafted into the army, until May 1917 he stayed in the reserve regiment in Tsaritsyn. These years become the most difficult for Khlebnikov, he writes a huge number of letters to his acquaintances. According to him, during these months Velimir went through "the whole hell of reincarnation into a mindless animal." He composed many anti-war poems, subsequently published in the collection "War in a Mousetrap".
In 1917, psychiatrist N. Kulbin helps the poet return from mobilization. He appoints him a commission, first in Tsaritsyn, then in Kazan, later the man hides in Ukraine, on the territory of the Kharkov psychiatric hospital. Even before that, he tries to be in the thick of the events of the October Revolution, so he changes his place of residence several times. He supported the people, hoping that the revolution could fix everything for the better.
In 1921, the poet went to Pyatigorsk, where he worked as a night watchman in Terskaya ROSTA. After that, he briefly returns to Moscow, finishing his unfinished poems there. In December 1921, a "super-story" by a writer called "Zangezi" was published. Also during this period, he released the works "Night Search", "Hot Field", "Coast of Slaves" and "Chairman of the Cheka".
In May 1922, Khlebnikov, with the artist P. Miturich, went to the village of Santalovo, Novgorod province, where he fell ill. Velimir died on June 28, 1922 in the remote village of Santalovo from malnutrition and paralysis of his legs. In 1960, the ashes of the poet were transferred to Moscow. He is buried at the Novodevichy cemetery, the inscription on the tombstone reads "Chairman of the globe."
Name: Velimir Khlebnikov (Viktor Khlebnikov)
Age: 36 years
Activity: poet, writer
Family status: not married
Velimir Khlebnikov: biography
A star of futurism and Russian avant-gardism, the brightest reformer of poetic language, a bold experimenter in word creation, one of the few compatriot poets who used morphological absurdity in writing, "the chairman of the globe."
And this is all about him, Velimir Khlebnikov, who stands apart even among such extraordinary, talented poets as, and.
The largest linguist of the twentieth century, Russian-American literary critic Roman Yakobson called Khlebnikov "the greatest world poet of the present century."
Childhood and youth
The future poet was born in the late autumn of 1885 in the Kalmyk village of Malye Derbety, at that time the administrative center of the Maloderbetovsky ulus of the Astrakhan province. Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikov himself called the place where he spent his childhood "the camp of the Mongolian nomads professing Buddha" and said that he was born "in the steppe - the dried-up bottom of the disappearing Caspian Sea."
Parents are educated people with a rich pedigree, impoverished aristocrats. Father is a prominent botanist and ornithologist, founder of the first state reserve at the mouth of the Volga. Velimir Khlebnikov's grandfather was an honorary citizen of Astrakhan and a merchant. On the paternal side, Russian and Armenian blood mixed in the veins of the poet.
Mom - nee Ekaterina Verbitskaya - was educated at the Smolny Institute, a historian. She came from a wealthy family, whose roots went back to the Zaporozhye Cossacks. Thanks to her, five offspring (Velimir is the third child) understood literature, history and painting.
At the age of 4, the future futurist poet read in Russian and French, and his drawings spoke of the artist's talent. The poet's sister, Vera Khlebnikova, became an avant-garde artist.
Because of his father's service, the family often changed their place of residence. When Victor was 6 years old, the Khlebnikovs moved to the Volyn province, and 4 years later - in 1895 - to Simbirsk. The 10-year-old boy went to the gymnasium. He studied for 3 years and again changes: the head of the family was sent to Kazan.
In 1903, Viktor Khlebnikov became a student at Kazan University, where he chose the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. The student studied at the mathematical department until November and ended up in jail for a month for participating in a demonstration. The young man did not want to continue his studies at the mathematical department, so in the summer he transferred to the natural department of the same faculty.
Professors praised the capable student and predicted a career as a brilliant naturalist. The spread of Khlebnikov's interests and talents was enormous: he studied mathematics, physics, made progress in chemistry, biology and philosophy. Independently studied Japanese and Sanskrit.
The literary debut of the future futurist is called the work in prose - the play "Elena Gordyachkina", which Khlebnikov sent to the St. Petersburg publishing house "Knowledge", but did not approve the publication.
Since 1904, the novice writer participated in ornithological expeditions in Dagestan and the north of the Urals. In 1906, he was admitted to the University Society of Naturalists: Khlebnikov found a new kind of cuckoo on an expedition. But this was the end of scientific research in the field of ornithology - the young man focused on literature.
Literature
The creative biography of Velimir Khlebnikov received a new impetus in St. Petersburg, where the young man arrived in 1908. He again joined the university fraternity, by inertia choosing the natural faculty, which he soon, having become close to the symbolist poets, changed to historical and philological.
Visiting the poetic "environments" of Vyacheslav Ivanov, he met acmeists and received the creative pseudonym Velimir.
Lyubov Sidorova reads poems by Velimir KhlebnikovIt fell to Khlebnikov to live in an era of change, the destruction of the old state system. He keenly felt and grieved at the defeat of Russia in the war with Japan, the First Russian Revolution. The mass death of compatriots prompted the young scientist and writer to search for the numerical laws of time that affect the fate of mankind.
In 1908, Velimir Khlebnikov published his first poem entitled "The Temptation of a Sinner". At the same time, he met David Burliuk and the poets of the Gilea group, whom he soon joined. Soon, the "Hileans" called Khlebnikov the main theorist of futurism, the founder of its offshoot - "budetlyanstvo" (from the word "will be").
In 2010, the poet's works were included in the collection "The Garden of Judges", to which the futurists loudly announced the birth of the poetic movement.
The sensational collection of futurists "A Slap in the Face of Public Taste", published in 1912, included Velimir Khlebnikov's poems "Grasshopper" and "Bobeobi sang lips." On the last page of the collection, they printed a table for calculating the laws of time, invented by the poet, in which Khlebnikov mathematically predicted the fall of the state in 1917.
Veniamin Smekhov reads a poem by Velimir Khlebnikov "Bobeobi sang lips"The poetic-linguistic research of the scientist formed the basis of zaumi, the abstruse language that Khlebnikov developed in tandem with his friend and colleague Alexei Kruchenykh. Together, using zaum, they composed the poem "Game in Hell".
The outbreak of the First World War prompted Khlebnikov to continue studying past wars in the digital dimension. The result of the research was 3 books. In 1916, Velimir Khlebnikov was drafted into the army. Later he wrote that, being in the Tsaritsyn reserve regiment,
"the whole hell of the reincarnation of the poet into a mindless animal has passed."
A familiar doctor helped the poet to free himself from the service, using Khlebnikov's mental illness as the reason. The poet constantly wanders around Russia and dreams of creating a society of "Chairmen of the globe", a member of which could be anyone who "hurts" the fate of mankind.
Velimir Khlebnikov witnessed the October events of 1917 with his own eyes in Petrograd, describing his impressions in verses and poems. He visited Astrakhan, Ukraine, where he saw the defeat of Denikin's army, the Caucasus and Northern Iran. Passed through the Caspian steppes.
In 1920 he composed the poem "Ladomir", in which he brought out the image of humanity united with nature, opposing the war. In the last years of his life, these were the main themes of Khlebnikov's work.
Victor Persik reads a poem by Velimir Khlebnikov "Once again, once again ..."The features of the avant-garde artist's work were the use of different sizes in one, even a short poem. He allowed the "dance of sizes" intentionally, but he especially liked vers libre. Resorting to such rare tricks as a palindrome (he called it "inverted") and zaumi language, Velimir Khlebnikov gained both admirers and fierce critics.
Personal life
Khlebnikov did not marry, but there were women in his life. He, like many poets, was amorous. Anna Akhmatova, with whom Velimir was unrequitedly in love, is put in a number of muses that inspired Khlebnikov. She also called the poet "crazy, but amazing."
The futurist had tender feelings for his Kharkov colleagues - the Sinyakov sisters, for Vera Budberg and Ksana Boguslavskaya. About love, his poems “People, when they love”, “The body of lace is the inside out ...”, “Experience of the cutesy”.
There was no woman who would love Khlebnikov - homeless, unsettled and impoverished. His lyrics were admired, called a genius and an eccentric, but they did not dare to associate life with him.
Death
Death Velimir Khlebnikov prophesied himself. He once dropped that "people of my task" often leave at 37 years old.
And so it happened. Tired, undermined by wanderings and poverty, the poet was taken care of by Pyotr Miturich, the husband of Vera's sister. Khlebnikov dreamed of getting to his relatives in Astrakhan, but there was no money and strength for the long journey. Miturich took Velimir to Santalovo, a village near Novgorod, to restore his health, and then went to Astrakhan.
In Santalovo, the poet suddenly fell ill - his legs were paralyzed. He was taken by cart to the village hospital, but there they shrugged and sent him to die. Khlebnikov died in the summer of 1922. The cause of death was paresis.
He was buried in the cemetery of the neighboring village of Ruchy, but in 1960 he was reburied at the Novodevichy cemetery. The grave of the poet is located next to the resting places of his mother and sister. In 1975, an unusual tombstone was installed on the grave - a “stone woman” - a memory of the place of his birth, his origins.
Shortly before his death, Velimir Khlebnikov seemed to “warn” his critics in the poem “Once again, once again” that woe to those who took the “wrong corner of the heart” to him:
"You will break on the stones,
And the stones will mock
How did you laugh
- Due to the fact that the poet often moved from one living space to another, many manuscripts were lost during the move. Friends of the figure spoke about absent-mindedness and negligence, recalling one incident from life: during the next expedition, Velimir had to kindle a fire in the steppe on a cold night, where there was not a single tree or bush. In order not to freeze, the writer calmly began to burn his work.
- Thanks to his father, Victor became interested in the natural sciences, together with him he spent hours in the forests and steppes, watching birds, visiting the camps of Kalmyk nomads. For the rest of his life, he was impressed by the Kalmyk astrologers zuharchi, who predicted the future using the zuharchin modi (boards of fate). One of the most mysterious of his works is called "The Boards of Destiny". In it, the poet says that in our world everything obeys certain numerical patterns. According to Khlebnikov's theory of time, all events occurring in the world are a multiple of 317.
- In a letter dated the end of 1916, Viktor Vladimirovich wrote: "It is only 1.5 years until the external war turns into a dead swell of the internal war." It all happened. The First World War, which shook the world, was predicted by Khlebnikov back in 1908. In his appeal to Slavic students, he wrote: "In 1915, people will go to war and will witness the collapse of the state."
- In 1920, Khlebnikov began the utopian poem Ladomir with the following words: “And the castles of world trade, where chains shine with poverty, With the face of gloating and delight You will one day turn to ashes.” In 2001, when the towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed by terrorists in New York, these words of Khlebnikov were remembered especially often.
- In The Swans of the Future (1918), he quite accurately describes the Internet and LiveJournal under the name of "shadowbooks", where "the novelties of the Globe, the affairs of the United States of Asia, this great union of working communities, poems, sudden inspiration of their members, scientific novelties, notifications of relatives of their relatives, orders of councils. Some, inspired by the inscriptions of shadow books, retired for a while, wrote down their inspiration, and after half an hour, thrown by a glass of light, it, in shadow verbs, was shown on the wall.
- Everything that Khlebnikov writes in the autumn of 1921 in his Radio of the Future obviously predicts the advent of the Internet. Even the word "web" is guessed. “Let's imagine the main camp of the Radio: in the air there is a web of paths, a cloud of lightning, then fading, then rekindling, moving from one end of the building to the other. A blue ball of round lightning hanging in the air like a shy bird, tackles outstretched obliquely. From this point on the globe every day, similar to the spring migration of birds, flocks of news from the life of the spirit spread.
Bibliography (lifetime editions)
- 1912 - "Teacher and student"
- 1914 - “Khlebnikov, Velimir. Creations"
- 1922 - "Zangezi"
Biography
After the death of this poet, several decades have passed, and disputes about his work continue to this day. Some see in him only an abstruse poet, others call Khlebnikov the greatest poet - an innovator. Khlebnikov's real name is Viktor Vladimirovich.
Victor graduated from the gymnasium in 1898 in Kazan and entered the university there. Already at this time, he was seriously interested in literature, and began to write while still in the gymnasium.
In 1908, Khlebnikov continued his studies at St. Petersburg University at the natural department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. But after 3 years he was expelled because he did not pay the tuition fee.
In St. Petersburg, he became close with the Symbolists and often visited the famous "Tower", as the poets called the apartment of the head of the Symbolists, Vechaslav Ivanov. Khlebnikov soon became disillusioned with the style of symbolism. In 1910, Khlebnikov published his programmatic poem "The Spell of Laughter", which was created on the basis of the single word "laughter". In 1912, a new collection appeared with the program of the futurists "A slap in the face of public taste." It caused a storm of indignation not only for its content. The collection was printed on wrapping paper, and everything was topsy-turvy. Khlebnikov spent the spring of 1912 near Kherson on the estate, where D. Burliuk's father served as manager. In the same place in Kherson, he published his first brochure with numerical and linguistic materials - "Teacher and Student". Khlebnikov dreamed of creating a universal culture in which the culture and art of different peoples would unite on an equal footing. In his work, he pays special attention to the culture and poetry of the East. In the poems "Medium and Leyli", "Khadzhi-Tarkhan", the prose story "Esir", in many other works, Khlebnikov reflects the psychology, philosophy, history of the peoples of the East, trying to find the common thing that unites people all over the world. In the spring of 1922, Khlebnikov arrived in Moscow from the south already seriously ill.
In June of the same year. The poet died in the village of Santalovo, Novogorodsk province, where he went to his friend to rest for medical treatment. In 1960, the ashes of Viktor Khlebnikov were transported to Moscow and buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery.
Velimir Khlebnikov was born on October 28, 1885 among the Kalmyk steppes. Mother is a historian, father is a learned archaeologist, Khlebnikov's real name is Viktor Vladimirovich.
Perhaps, none of the poets of the fertile Silver Age caused so much controversy in the circles of literary critics and connoisseurs of poetry. The rebel, the futurist, the great mystifier, cherished the dream of remaking the stubborn word, of releasing it from the tight framework of grammar and phonetics.
The family moved a lot for the needs of the service. First, Velemir went to study at the Simbirsk gymnasium in 1985, upon arrival in Kazan, he entered the 3rd Kazan gymnasium. There he began his studies at the university, transferred to St. Petersburg in 1908 to the department of physics and mathematics, but three years later he was expelled for non-payment of studies.
He is fond of literature and writing, being a high school student. In St. Petersburg, he closely communicates with the Symbolists, writes a lot and excitedly more than a hundred works, without stopping searching for himself.
It happens in the "Tower" - the headquarters of the movement. He invents his pseudonym as a response to his passion for ancient Slavic, pagan symbols, because Velemir means "big world".
1912 - the release of the iconic collection of futurists "Slap in the Face of Public Taste". The writing world has never seen anything like this, and young talented rebels called for throwing the classics off the steamer of modernity and moving on to freedom of word creation. Almost half of the collection consisted of Khlebnikov's poems, untranslatable into understandable Russian. The public was indignant, but the collection was bought up, criticized, but the futurists published on wrapping paper were read, which was what Khlebnikov and his associates wanted.
In the same year, Velemir moved to Kherson, where he published the brochure "Teacher and Student", combining linguistic and numerical materials. Khlebnikov dreams of creating a multiculture for all mankind, a symbiosis of East and West.
In June 1922, Velemir Khlebnikov died of a serious illness in the village of Santalovo, leaving a non-trivial creative heritage, neologisms, the true meaning of which remains a mystery to this day.
Oh, Dostoevsky of a running cloud! Oh, fluffy notes of a darting noon! The night looks like Tyutchev, Immeasurably full of peace.
1908 - 1909
Poets of Russia of the XX century.Author and presenter Vladimir Smirnov
Where the waxwings lived
Where they swayed quietly ate,
Have flown, flown away
A flock of light timers.
Where they quietly ate,
Where poyuny sang a cry,
Have flown, flown away
A flock of light timers.
In a mess of wild shadows,
Where, like the haze of old days,
Twirled, rang
A flock of light timers.
A flock of easy times!
You are poynna and vabna,
You intoxicate your soul like strings
You enter the heart like a wave!
Come on, sonorous poyuns,
Glory to easy times!
Khlebnikov family
Viktor Khlebnikov was born on November 9, 1885 in the Kalmyk steppe: the village of Dundutovo, Maloderbatovskiy ulus, Astrakhan province. His father, Vladimir Alekseevich, was a famous naturalist, ornithologist and forester, he founded the first Astrakhan reserve in the USSR.Victor often accompanied his father on official, scientific and hunting trips in the Volga steppes and forests. Vladimir Alekseevich instilled in his son the skills of scientific observations of animals and birds, and Victor kept phenological ornithological records from childhood.
In 1903, after graduating from high school, Viktor Khlebnikov entered Kazan University in the mathematical department, then moved to the Faculty of Natural Sciences, and later transferred to St. Petersburg University. There Khlebnikov met Gorodetsky, Kuzmin, Gumilyov, became interested in Remizov, visited the "towers" of Vyacheslav Ivanov. It was at this time that the poet took the pseudonym Velimir.
By 1910, Khlebnikov left the circle of symbolists, to which he initially joined, and, in essence, made a turn in literature.Forming the principles of a new artistic method,he laid the foundation for a new aesthetic. New directionKhlebnikovcalled "budetlyanstvo" - the art of the future.
Rushing like a narrow snake
So I would like a jet
So the vodka would like,
Run away and disperse
Khlebnikov was painted by many artists: Filonov, Tatlin, Miturich, Annenkov.
Portrait by Yuri Annenkov.
sketch-Khlebnik self-portraitova. 1909
The Volga is not silent for a long time.
She grumbles like a she-wolf.
The waves of the Volga are like wolves,
Windy weather.
Curly silk flap.
And at the Volga at the hungry
Drooling of hunger.
Velimir Khlebnikov was looking for ways to transform sound into color. He saw sounds colored. There are people with such a device of hearing and inner vision that every sound causes a certain association in them. Nabokov in "Other Shores" colored the Russian alphabet. Scriabin introduced the party of light into the score of Prometheus.
Arthur Rimbaud wrote about the different colors of vowels: A - black, E - white. For Khlebnikov, consonants had color, catch the colorvowelshimdisturbed themKhlebnikovelusive femininity. Here is the scale(partially): B - red, rye, P - black, with a red tint, T - yellow, L - ivory. If you read: “Bobeobi sang lips”, substituting these colors in place of consonants, then you can see the speaking painted lips of a woman: the redness of lipstick, whiteness with a slightly noticeable yellowness - “ivory”, the darkness of a slightly opening pharynx.
Mandelstam wrote: "Khlebnikov fiddles with words like a mole, he dug passages in the earth for the future for a whole century."
Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikov played with words like a juggler. His author is Slovak", critic -" sudri mudri", the poet -" skydream" or " song song”, literature -“ letters". Actor - " player», gamer” and even “oblikmen”. Theatre - " playful", performance - " contemplation", troupe -" people", drama -" speaking", comedy -" jester”, opera -“ voice", household play -" vitality". Sometimes his words create images that are irresistible in their illogicality.
Winged in gold writing
thinnest veins,
Grasshopper put in the body of the belly
There are many coastal herbs and vera.
"Kick, kick, kick!" the zinziver rattled.
Oh swan!
Oh shine!
Pushkin, Nekrasov, Blok, Bryusov have neologisms. But Russian poetry has not yet known such a bold approach to the sound structure of the word. Let's remember Severyanin: "greasers", "surprisers", "grace", "poets", "minionette"- here we have to say goodbye to the Russian language. Depiction of the sound of Velimir Khlebnikov is meaningful and pleasing to the ear.The word "ridiculous"for example, it seems primordially Russian, it sounds affectionately and warmly, like the hawthorn beloved by the people.
Chukovsky, admiring Khlebnikov’s word formation, emphasized that only by deeply feeling the whole element of the Russian language, one can create such words as “ sumnotichi" and " sad people», « two-tone dreams", who lived not in the halls, but in" dreamers". It seemed that only in screams of the dawn"and" with clouds"this can be born and rush into" height poiunnost", descending then to " lakes of sadness", on the banks of which" silent palaces», « silent streams', where at dawn ' the funny child frolicked».
Yuri Annenkov recalled how he enthusiastically admired the new revolutionary abbreviations like a child: “Er Es Ef Es Er! Che-ka! Nar-com! This is an abstruse language, this is my phonetics, my phonemes! This is a monument to Khlebnikov!” he exclaimed. He liked that Petrograd in the October days - quite in the spirit of his poetics - was renamed Vetrograd, he admired the most characteristic word, not even a word, but the all-encompassing cry of the era: "Give it!" - it was Khlebnikov who first introduced it into literature:
When a knife is hidden in the fingers,
And the pupils opened wide open revenge -
This time howled: give!
And fate answered obediently: “Yes!”
Shortly after the February RevolutionVelimir Khlebnikov wrote the Appeal of the Chairmen of the Globe. He called for the creation of an "independent state of time", free from the vices inherent in the "states of space". A democrat in all his essence, he took the side of the revolution.
Freedom comes naked
Throwing flowers at the heart
And we, walking in step with her,
We talk with the sky on "you". -
In 1922, Khlebnikov wrote the story The Planks of Fate, saying that he had discovered the "pure laws of time." He considered his studies on the calculation of the laws of time the main thinglife, and poetry and prose - a way of their living presentation. Reading them, it is difficult to determine whether it is poetry or prose, philosophy or art, mathematics or mythology. On these "Boards of Destiny" are indicated the laws of the death of states, revolutions, the laws of historical change. Khlebnikov did not just calculate, he thought in numbers and even, in some incomprehensible way, felt and sensed the world in numbers. Unfortunately, Khlebnikov did not have time to finish this work.
I don't need much!
loaf of bread
And a drop of milk.
Yes, this is the sky
Yes, those clouds!
Deprivation, danger and hard work undermined the health of the poet. In December 1921Khlebnikovreturned to Moscow, being seriously ill, knowing that his days were numbered. Spring 1922is hetogether with your friendartist Miturich- husbandhis younger sister Vera, who became an artist, - left for the Novgorod province. There, in the village of Santalovo, he died on June 28, 1922. The poet was buried in a village churchyard, the inscription on the coffin read: "The chairman of the globe."
When horses die, they breathe
When grasses die, they dry
When the suns die, they go out
When people die, they sing songs.
Mayakovsky called Khlebnikov a poet "not for consumers, but for producers." Mayakovsky, Aseev, Martynov, Selvinsky, Tikhonov, Pasternak, Tsvetaeva experienced his powerful influence.and. They areconsidered him their teacher. Andrey Platonov,studied with Khlebnikovskillrevealing the originalitythe words.
Mayakovsky said: « Khlebnikov did not write poems and poems, but a huge breviary-image from which for centuries and centuries everyone who is not lazy will draw..
Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikovdefinition of Vladimir Mayakovsky - "honest knight" poetry.
http://www.site/users/4514961/post192130140/
"In the homeland of a beautiful death - Mashuk,
Where the military smoke was blowing
Wrapped the prophetic eyes in a canvas,
Big and beautiful eyes...
Velimir Khlebnikov wrote these lines about the death of Lermontov in 1921.
Asia
Always a slave, but with the homeland of kings on
Dark chest
And with the state seal in return
Earrings at the ear.
That girl with a sword, who did not know conception,
That midwife is a rebellious old woman.
You turn the pages of that book
Where the handwriting was the pressure of the hand of the seas.
People sparkled with ink at night,
The execution of kings was an angry sign
exclamations,
The victory of the troops served as a comma,
And in the field - dots, whose fury is not timid,
People's anger
And the cracks of centuries are a parenthesis.
1921
