A slap in the face of public taste

The name of the manifesto of Russian futurists (December, 1912), written by the poets David Davidovich Burliuk (1882-1967), Alexei Eliseevich Kruchenykh (1886-1968), Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (1893-1930) and Velemir Vladimirovich Khlebnikov (1885-J 922), and also an almanac (1912), to which he served as a preface.

Full name of the manifesto: A slap in the face of public taste. In defense of free art. The authors of the manifesto wrote:

“Reading our New First Unexpected.

Only we are the face of our time. The horn of time blows us in verbal art.

The past is tight. The Academy and Pushkin are more incomprehensible than hieroglyphs. Throw Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and so on. and so on. from the steamer of modern times.

Whoever does not forget his first love will not recognize his last.

Who, gullible, will turn his last love to Balmont's perfumery fornication? Does it reflect the courageous soul of today?

Who, cowardly, will be afraid to steal paper armor from the black tailcoat of Bryusov's warrior? Or are they the dawn of unseen beauties?

Wash your hands that have touched the filthy slime of books written by those innumerable Leonid Andreevs.

To all these Maxims Gorkys, Kuprins, Bloks, Sollogubs, Remizovs, Averchenkos, Chernys, Kuzmins (Sollogub, Kuzmin instead of Sologub and Kuzmin - these are the so-called "misprints of disrespect" deliberately made by the authors of the manifesto. - Comp.), Bunin and so on. and so on. All you need is a cottage on the river. Such an award is given by fate to tailors.

From the height of skyscrapers we look at their insignificance! ..

We command to honor the rights of poets:

1. To increase the vocabulary in its volume with arbitrary and derivative words (Word-innovation).

2. An irresistible hatred for the language that existed before them.

3. With horror, remove from your proud brow from bath brooms

the Wreath of penny glory you made.

4. To stand on a block of the word "we" in the midst of a sea of ​​whistling and indignation.

And if the dirty stigmas of your “common sense” and “good taste” still remain in our lines, then for the first time the Lightning Lightnings of the New Coming Beauty of the Self-valuable (self-sufficient) Word are already trembling on them.

(Quoted from: Silver Age. In poetry, documents, memoirs. M, 2001).

Jokingly-ironically about something that causes general indignation, insulting (teasing) established aesthetic tastes and habits.

See also Throw off modern steamer.

RUSSIAN FUTURIST MANIFESTOS

A Slap in the Face of Public Taste (1912)
A Slap in the Face of Public Taste [Leaflet] (1913)
First All-Russian Congress of Bayaches of the Future (1913)
Theater, cinema, futurism. V. Mayakovsky (1913)
Radiants and Futures (1913)
We Color (1913)
Go to hell! (1914)
A drop of tar. V. Mayakovsky (1915)
Trumpet Martian (1916)
Flying Futurist Federation Manifesto (1918)

Published according to the book: Russian Futurism: Theory. Practice. Criticism. Memories / Comp. V. N. Terekhina, A. P. Zimenkov. - M., Heritage, 2000. - 480 p.

A slap in the face of public taste

Reading our New First Unexpected.
Only we are the face of our Time. The horn of time blows us in verbal art.
The past is tight. The Academy and Pushkin are more incomprehensible than hieroglyphs.
Throw Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and so on. from the steamer of modern times.
Who will not forget his first love, does not recognize the latter.
Who, gullible, will turn the last Love to the perfumery fornication of Balmont? Does it reflect the courageous soul of today?
Who, cowardly, will be afraid to steal paper armor from the black tailcoat of Bryusov's warrior? Or are they the dawn of unknown beauties?
Wash your hands that have touched the filthy slime of the books written by those innumerable Leonid Andreevs.
To all these Maxim Gorky, Kuprin, Blok, Sollogub, Remizov, Averchenko, Cherny, Kuzmin, Bunin and so on. and so on. All you need is a cottage on the river. Such an award is given by fate to tailors.
From the height of skyscrapers we look at their insignificance! ..
We order honor rights poets:
1. To increase the dictionary in its scope arbitrary and derivative words (Word-innovation).
2. An irresistible hatred for the language that existed before them.
3. With horror, remove from your proud forehead from bath brooms the Wreath of penny glory you made.
4. To stand on a block of the word "we" in the midst of a sea of ​​whistling and indignation.
And if the dirty stigmas of your “common sense” and “good taste” still remain in our lines, then nevertheless they are already trembling for the first time Lightnings of the New Coming Beauty of the Self-valuable (self-made) Word.

Almanac “Slapping the Face of Public Taste. In defense of free art. Poems, prose and articles. [M.], ed. G. Kuzmin and S. Dolinsky. In addition to the four listed authors, Livshits and Kandinsky participated in the almanac. Circulation 500 or 600 copies. This is the first Russian futuristic manifesto and the most successful, it was a stormy reaction in society and in the press. There was no other such success for the manifestos. A few months later, a leaflet was released with similar text and a group photograph. The group did not yet refer to themselves as "Futurists". In everyday life, the group was called "Burlyuks", and Khlebnikov - "Budetlyane". The word "futurists" has so far been used only as a curse at someone else's address.

Sollogub, Kuzmin - "misprints of disrespect." That's right - Sologub, Kuzmin.

A slap in the face of public taste
[Leaflet]

In 1908, The Garden of Judges was published. - In it eniy - a great poet modernity - Velimir Khlebnikov first appeared in print. Petersburg meters considered " Khlebnikov crazy." They did not print, of course, not a single thing of the one who carried Revival of Russian Literature. Shame and shame on their heads!..
Time passed... V. Khlebnikov, A. Kruchenykh, V. Mayakovsky, B. Livshits, V. Kandinsky, Nikolai Burliuk and David Burliuk in 1913 published the book "A Slap in the Face of Public Taste".
Khlebnikov now he was not alone. A galaxy of writers grouped around him, who, if they followed different paths, were united under one slogan:“Down with the word-means, long live Self-sufficient, self-valuable Word! Russian critics, these merchants, these slobbering bastards, thick-skinned and unaware of beauty, blowing their daily bagpipes, burst into a sea of ​​indignation and rage. Not surprising! Whether they, brought up from the school bench on the models of Descriptive poetry, understand the Great revelations of Modernity.
All these countless lisping Izmailovs, Homunculus "s, eating scraps falling from the tables of realism - the revelry of Andreevs, Bloks, Sologubs, Voloshins and the like - assert (what a dirty accusation) that we are "decadent" - the last of them - and that we did not say anything new - neither in size, nor in rhyme, nor in relation to the word.
Were Russian literature justified in our orders to honor Poets' rights:
to increase the vocabulary in its volume with arbitrary and derivative words!
to an irresistible hatred for the existing language!
with horror to remove from your proud brow from bath brooms the wreath of penny glory you made!
to stand on a block of the word "we" in the midst of a sea of ​​whistling and indignation!

Leaflet. M., 1913. On the back of a four-page leaflet, as a comparison of old and new poetry, poems by Pushkin and Khlebnikov, Nadson and D. Burliuk, Lermontov and Mayakovsky, excerpts from Gogol and Kruchenykh were printed in pairs.

FIRST ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS OF BAYACHI OF THE FUTURE

We have gathered here to arm the world against us! The time for slaps has passed:
The crackling of blasters and the carving of scarecrows will stir up the coming year of art!
We want our adversaries to bravely defend their crumbling possessions. Let them not wag their tails, they will not be able to hide behind them.
We ordered crowds of thousands at meetings and in theaters and from the pages of our
clear books, and now they have declared the rights of bayachis and artists, tearing the ears of those who vegetate under the stump of cowardice and immobility:
1) Destroy the “pure, clear, honest, sonorous Russian language”, castrated and smoothed by the languages ​​of people from “criticism and literature”. He is unworthy of the great "Russian people"!
2) Destroy the outdated movement of thought according to the law of causality, toothless "common sense," symmetrical logic ", wandering in the blue shadows of symbolism and give a personal creative insight into the true world of new people.
3) To destroy the elegance, frivolity and beauty of cheap public artists and writers, constantly releasing more and more new works in words, in books, on canvas and paper.
4) For this purpose, by the first of August of this year, new books “Three” by Khlebnikov, Kruchenykh and E. Guro are being published. Rice. K. Malevich, "Celestial Camels" by E. Guro, "Dead Moon" - employees of "Gilei" - "Print and We", etc.
5) To rush to the stronghold of artistic stunting - to the Russian theater and resolutely transform it.
Artistic, Korshevsky, Alexandrinsky, Big and Small have no place in today! - for this purpose, the New Theater "Budetlyanin" is being established.
b) And several performances will be arranged in it (Moscow and Petrograd). Deim will be staged: Kruchenykh's "Victory over the Sun" (opera), Mayakovsky's "Railway", Khlebnikov's "Christmas Tale" and others.
The production is directed by the speech creators themselves, artists: K. Malevich, D. Burliuk and musician M. Matyushin.
Rather, sweep away the old ruins and raise a skyscraper tenacious like a bullet!

With genuine true.
Chairman: M. Matyushin
Secretaries: A. Kruchenykh, K. Malevich
Usikirko, July 20, 1913

For 7 days. SPb., 1913, August 15. The manifesto was adopted at the congress, which was attended only by its authors (Khlebnikov was unable to attend). In September 1913, M. Larionov came up with the projects of the Futu Theater, and on April 26, 1914, in gas. "Nov" appeared "Declaration on the Futuristic Theater", written by V. Shershenevich.

THEATER, CINEMA, FUTURISM

The great upheaval that we have begun in all areas of beauty in the name of the art of the future - the art of the futurists - will not stop, and cannot stop, at the door of the theatre.

Hatred for the art of yesterday, for neurasthenia cultivated by paint, verse, footlight, by nothing proven by the need to reveal the tiny experiences of people leaving life, makes me put forward, as proof of the inevitability of recognizing our ideas, not lyrical pathos, but exact science, the study of the relationship between art and life .

Contempt for the existing "magazines of art", such as "Apollo", "Masks", where tangled foreign terms float like greasy spots on a gray background of meaninglessness, makes me feel real pleasure from publishing my speech in a special technical cinematographic magazine.

Today I raise two questions:

1) Is modern theater an art?

And 2) Can modern theater compete with cinema?

The city, having filled the machines with thousands of horsepower, for the first time made it possible to satisfy the material needs of the world in some 6-7 hours of daily labor, and the intensity and intensity of modern life have caused an enormous need for the free play of cognitive abilities, which is art.

This explains the powerful interest of today's man in art.

But if the division of labor brought into being a separate group of beauty workers; if, for example, an artist, having given up writing "the charms of drunken metres", goes to broad democratic art, he must answer society under what conditions his work becomes socially useful from being individually necessary.

The artist, having declared the dictatorship of the eye, has the right to exist. Having approved color, line, form as self-sufficient quantities, painting has found an eternal path to development. Those who have found that the word, its outline, its phonic side determine the flourishing of poetry, have the right to exist. These are the poets who have found the way to the eternal prosperity of verse.

But does the theater, which until our arrival only served as an artificial cover for all kinds of art, have the right to exist independently under the crown of a special art?

The modern theater is furnished, but its furnishings are the product of the decorative work of an artist who has only forgotten his freedom and humiliated himself to a utilitarian view of art.

Consequently, from this side, the theater can only act as an uncultured subjugator of art.

The second half of the theater is "The Word". But here, too, the onset of the aesthetic moment is determined not by the internal development of the word itself, but by its use as a means of expressing moral or political ideas incidental to art.

And here the modern theater acts only as an enslaver of the word and the poet.

This means that before our arrival, theater as an independent art did not exist. But is it possible to find in history at least some traces of the possibility of its approval? Of course yes!

Shakespeare's theater had no scenery. Ignorant criticism explained this by unfamiliarity with decorative art. Was not this time the greatest development of pictorial realism. And the theater of Oberammergau does not shackle words with shackles of inscribed lines.

All these phenomena can only be explained as a premonition of the special art of the actor, where the intonation of even a word that does not have a definite meaning and the movements of the human body invented, but free in the rhythm, express the greatest inner experiences.

This will be the new free art of the actor.

At the present time, in transmitting a photographic representation of life, the theater falls into the following contradiction:

The art of the actor, essentially dynamic, is shackled by the dead backdrop of the scenery; this piercing contradiction destroys cinematography, which harmoniously fixes the movements of the present.

The theater has brought itself to ruin and must pass on its legacy to cinema. And the cinema, having made naive realism and artistry like Chekhov and Gorky a branch of industry, will open the way to the theater of the future, the unfettered art of the actor.

Vladimir Mayakovsky

* Thus, for example, the imaginary heyday of the theater over the past 10-15 years (Artistic) is explained only by a temporary social upsurge ("At the Bottom", "Peer Gynt"), since petty plays, having lived for several hours, die for the repertoire. (Author's note.)

Kine magazine. - M., 1913, No. 14

RADIANTS AND FUTURE
Manifesto

Timofey Bogomazov, Natalia Goncharova, Kirill Zdanevich, Ivan Larionov, Mikhail Larionov, Mikhail Le-Dantyu, Vyacheslav Levkievsky, Sergei Romanovich, Vladimir Obolensky, Moritz Fabry, Alexander Shevchenko.

Sat. "Donkey Tail and Target". M., 1913.

WHY WE COLOR
Futurist Manifesto

To the frantic city of arc lamps, to the streets spattered with bodies, to the huddled houses, we brought the painted face; the start is given and the track is waiting for runners.
Creators, we have come not to destroy construction, but to glorify and affirm. Our coloring is not an absurd invention, not a return - it is inextricably linked with the warehouse of our life and our craft.
Roaring a song about a man, like a bugler before a battle, she calls for victories over the earth, hypocritically hiding under the wheels until the hour of vengeance, and the sleeping guns woke up and spit on the enemy.
A renewed life requires a new community and a new preaching.
Our coloring book is the first speech that found unknown truths. And the fires caused by her say that the servants of the earth do not lose hope of saving the old nests, they gathered all their strength to protect the gates, they crowded, knowing that with the first goal scored we are the winners.
The course of art and the love of life guided us. Loyalty to the craft encourages us who fight. The steadfastness of the few gives strength that cannot be overcome.
We connected art with life. After a long solitude of the masters, we loudly learned life and life invaded art, it's time for art to invade life. Face painting - the beginning of the invasion. This is why our hearts are beating so fast.
We do not strive for one aesthetic. Art is not only a monarch, but also a newspaperman and a decorator. We value both font and news. The synthesis of decorativeness and illustration is the basis of our coloring. We decorate life and preach - that's why we paint.
Coloring - new folk jewels, like everything in our day. The old ones were incoherent and squeezed out by money. Gold was valued as an ornament and became expensive. We overthrow gold and stones from their pedestal and declare them priceless. Beware, those who collect them and keepers - you will soon be beggars.
Started in 05. Mikhail Larionov painted the model standing against the background of the carpet, extending the drawing on her. But there was no announcement yet. Now the Parisians do the same when painting the legs of dancers, and the ladies powder brown powder and lengthen their eyes in the Egyptian way. But this is age. We associate contemplation with action and rush into the crowd.
To the frantic city of arc lamps, to the streets spattered with bodies, to huddling houses - we brought what was not: unexpected flowers rose in the greenhouse and teased.
Citizens have long pinked their nails, lined their eyes, painted their lips, cheeks, hair - but they all imitate the earth.
We do not care about the earth, the creators, our lines and colors arose with us.
If we were given the plumage of parrots, we would pluck the feathers. for brush and pencil.
If immortal beauty were given to us - would it be smeared and killed - we, going to the end. The tattoo does not occupy us. Tattooed forever. We paint for an hour and the betrayal of experiences calls for the betrayal of coloring, as the picture devours the picture, as outside the window of the car, shop windows flicker invading each other - our face. The tattoo is beautiful but speaks of little - only about the tribe and deeds. Our coloring book is a newsboy.
Facial expressions do not interest us. What of the fact that they are accustomed to understand, too timid and not beautiful. Like the squeal of a tram warning the hurried hallways, like the drunken sounds of the great tango - our face. Facial expressions are expressive, but colorless. Our coloring is a decorator.
Rebellion against the earth and the transformation of faces in the searchlight of experiences.
The telescope has recognized the constellations lost in space, the coloring will tell about the lost thoughts.
We paint - because a clean face is disgusting, because we want to proclaim about the unknown, we rebuild life and carry the multiplied human soul to the upper reaches of being.

Ilya Zdanevich
Mikhail Larionov

J. "Argus". 1913. No. 12.

GO TO HELL!

Your year has passed since the release of our first books: Slap, Boiling Cup, Judges' Garden, etc.
The appearance of the New Poetry had an effect on the still crawling old men of Russian literature, like the white marble Pushkin dancing the tango.
Commercial old people stupidly guessed the value of the new before the public they were fooling and "out of habit" looked at us with their pocket.
K. Chukovsky (not a fool either!) delivered hot goods to all fair cities: the names of Kruchenykh, Burdyukov, Khlebnikov ...
F. Sologub grabbed I. Severyanin's hat to cover his bald talent.
Vasily Bryusov habitually chewed the poetry of Mayakovsky and Livshits with the pages of Russkaya Mysl.
Come on, Vasya, this is not a cork for you! ..
Was it not then that the old men patted us on the head in order to hastily sew an electric belt for themselves from the sparks of our defiant poetry to communicate with the muses?
These subjects gave rise to a herd of young people, previously without a specific occupation, to pounce on literature and show their grimacing face: the mezzanine of poetry whistled by the winds, the Petersburg Herald, etc.
And nearby a pack of adams crawled out with a parting - Gumilyov, S. Makovsky, S. Gorodetsky, Piast, who tried to attach a sign of Acmeism and Apollonism to faded songs about Tula samovars and toy lions, and then began to spin in a motley round dance around the established Futurists. Today we spit out the past that stuck on our teeth, declaring:
1) All futurists are united only by our group.
2) We discarded our random nicknames of ego and kubo and united in a single literary company of futurists:

David Burliuk, Alexei Kruchenykh, Benedict Livshits, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Igor Severyanin, Viktor Khlebnikov.

Roaring Parnassus, St. Petersburg, Zhuravl Publishing House, 1914. Here the authors of the manifesto called themselves futurists and sent all other futurists, in fact, to hell. As early as 1911, Severyanin called himself a futurist, more precisely, an "ego-futurist." But they almost immediately quarreled with him and did not contact him again.

DROP OF TAR
"A speech to be delivered at the first opportunity"

Gracious sovereigns and gracious sovereigns!

This year is the year of deaths: almost every day the newspapers sob with loud grief for someone with mastitis, who has gone to a better world ahead of time. Every day, with a lingering weeping, it sings over the multitude of names carved by Mars. What noble and monastically strict newspapers are published today. In the black mourning gowns of funeral announcements, eyes shining with the crystal tear of an obituary. That is why it was somehow especially unpleasant to see that this most grief-ennobled press raised such obscene fun about one death very close to me.

When critics harnessed in a train drove along the dirty road, the road of the printed word, the coffin of futurism, the newspapers trumpeted for weeks: “Ho, ho, ho! so it! take it, take it! finally!" (terrible excitement of the audience: “How did it die? Futurism died? What are you doing?”)

Yes, he died.

For a year now, instead of him, fire-worded, barely maneuvering between truth, beauty and the plot, on the stages of the audience, the most boring kogan-Eichenwald-like old men have been crawling. For a year now, the most boring logic has been in the classrooms, proving some sparrow truths instead of the cheerful ringing of decanters on empty heads.

Lord! don't you really feel sorry for this eccentric fellow, in red whirlwinds, a little stupid, a little uncultured, but always, oh! always bold and burning. However, how do you understand youth? The young, to whom we are dear, will not soon return from the battlefield; but you, who have remained here for a quiet occupation in newspapers and other offices; you are either rickets, unable to carry weapons, or old bags stuffed with wrinkles and gray hairs, whose business is to think about the most serene transition to another world, and not about the fate of Russian art.

And you know, I myself do not really feel sorry for the dead man, though from other considerations.

Relive in memory the first gala exit of Russian futurism, marked by such a resounding "slap in the face of public taste." From this dashing dump three blows under three shouts of our manifesto were especially remembered.

1. Crush the ice cream maker of all kinds of canons, making ice out of inspiration.
2. Break the old language, powerless to catch up with the leap of life.
3. Throw the old greats off the steamer of modernity.

As you can see, not a single building, not a single comfortable corner, destruction, anarchism. The townsfolk laughed at this as the eccentricity of the madmen, and it turned out to be a “devilish intuition” embodied in a stormy today. War, expanding the borders of states, and the brain makes you burst into the borders of yesterday unknown.

Artist! Do you need a thin mesh of contours to catch the rushing cavalry. Repin! Samokish! remove the buckets - the paint will spill.

Poet! do not put iambs and trochees into the rocking chair with a powerful fight - it will turn the whole rocking chair!
Breaking words, word innovation! How many of them, the new ones headed by Petrograd, and the conductor! die, northerner! Should the Futurists shout about the oblivion of the old literature. Who behind the Cossack boom will hear the trill of the mandolin player Bryusov. Today everyone is a futurist. Futurist people.

Futurism took Russia with a stranglehold.

Not seeing futurism in front of you and not being able to look into yourself, you screamed about death. Yes! Futurism has died as a special group, but in all of you it is flooded.

But since futurism has died as an idea of ​​the elite, we do not need it. We consider the first part of our program - destruction - completed. That is why do not be surprised if today in our hands you see, instead of a jester's rattle, a drawing of an architect, and the voice of futurism, yesterday still soft from sentimental daydreaming, today will pour out into brass sermons.

V. Mayakovsky

Published in the almanac “I took it. Drum of the Futurists": Mayakovsky, Pasternak, Khlebnikov, Aseev, O. Brik, V. Shklovsky. Petersburg, December 1915

PIPE MARTIAN

PEOPLE!
The brain of people still jumps on three legs (three axes of space)! We glue, cultivating the brain of mankind, like plowmen, to this puppy the fourth leg, namely the axis of time.
Lame puppy! You will no longer torture our hearing with your nasty barking.
People of the past are not smarter than themselves, believing that the sails of the state can only be built for the axes of space. We, dressed in a cloak of only victories, are starting to build a young alliance with a sail near the axis of time, warning in advance that our size is larger than Cheops, and the task is brave, majestic and severe.
We stern carpenters once again throw ourselves and our names into the seething cauldrons of beautiful tasks.
We believe in ourselves and indignantly push away the vicious whispers of the people of the past, who dream of pecking us on the heel. After all, we are bosses. But we are beautiful in the steady betrayal of our past, as soon as it entered the age of victory, and in the steady fury of the drift of the next hammer over the globe, already beginning to tremble from our trampling.
Black sails of time, make noise!

Viktor Khlebnikov, Maria Sinyakova, Bozhidar, Grigory Petnikov, Nikolai Aseev

Scroll. Kharkov, April 1916. All text belongs to Khlebnikov. After all, we are barefoot - concession to censorship. That's right - "After all, we are Gods."

MANIFESTO OF THE FLYING FUTURIST FEDERATION

The old system rested on three pillars.
Political slavery, social slavery, spiritual slavery.
The February Revolution abolished political slavery. The road to Tobolsk is paved with black feathers of a double-headed eagle. October threw the bomb of social revolution under capital. Far on the horizon are the fat backsides of fleeing breeders. And only the unshakable third whale stands - the work of the Spirit.
As before, he spews a fountain of stale water - called - old art.
Theaters still put on: "Jewish" and other "kings" (works by the Romanovs), as before, monuments to generals, princes - the royal mistresses and the queen's lovers with a heavy, dirty foot stand on the throats of young streets. In petty shops, arrogantly called exhibitions, they sell pure daubs of noblemen's daughters and dachas in the Rococo style and other Louis.
And finally, on our bright holidays we sing not our hymns, but the gray-haired Marseillaise borrowed from the French.
Enough.
We are the proletarians of art - we call the proletarians of factories and lands to the third bloodless, but cruel revolution, the revolution of the spirit.
We need to acknowledge:
I. Separation of art from the state.
The destruction of the patronage of privileges and control in the field of art. Down with diplomas, titles, official posts and ranks.
II. The transfer of all the material means of art: theaters, chapels, exhibition premises and buildings of the academy and art schools - into the hands of the masters of art themselves for the equal use of them by the entire people of art.
III. Universal art education because we believe that the foundations of the future free art can only emerge from the depths of democratic Russia, which until now has only been hungry for the bread of art.
IV. Immediate, along with food, requisition of all hidden aesthetic reserves for a fair and equitable use of all of Russia.
Long live the third Revolution, the Revolution of the Spirit!

D. Burliuk, V. Kamensky, V. Mayakovsky
Given to Moscow 1918, March.

Newspaper of the Futurists. M., March 15, 1918. In April of the same year, the residence of the futurists - the "Cafe of Poets" in Nastasinsky lane 1 (next to the "House of Anarchy", the headquarters of the anarchists) - was closed. David Burliuk emigrated to the USA in 1919 through the Far East. Mayakovsky shot himself in 1930.

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[From the almanac]

Reading our New First Unexpected.

Only we are the face of our Time. The horn of time blows us in verbal art.

The past is tight. The Academy and Pushkin are more incomprehensible than hieroglyphs.

Throw Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and so on. and so on. from the steamer of modern times.

Who will not forget his first love, does not know the last.

Who, gullible, will turn the last Love to the perfumery fornication of Balmont? Does it reflect the courageous soul of today?

Who, cowardly, will be afraid to steal paper armor from the black tailcoat of Bryusov's warrior? Or are they the dawn of unknown beauties?

Wash your hands that have touched the filthy slime of the books written by those innumerable Leonid Andreevs.

To all these Maxims Gorkys, Kuprins, Bloks, Sologubs, Remizovs, Averchenkos, Chernys, Kuzmins, Bunins and so on. and so on. All you need is a cottage on the river. Such an award is given by fate to tailors.

From the height of skyscrapers we look at their insignificance! ..

We order honor rights poets:

1. To increase the dictionary in its scope arbitrary and derivative words (Word-innovation).

2. An irresistible hatred for the language that existed before them.

3. With horror, remove from your proud forehead from bath brooms the Wreath of penny glory you made.

4. To stand on a block of the word "we" in the midst of a sea of ​​whistling and indignation.

And if, for the time being, the dirty stigmas of your “common sense” and “good taste” still remain in our lines, nevertheless, for the first time, the Lightning Lightnings of the New Coming Beauty of the Self-valuable (self-sufficient) Word are already trembling on them.

D. Burliuk, Alexander Kruchenykh,
V. Mayakovsky, Viktor Khlebnikov.

Notes:

Printed by: Mayakovsky V.V., Burlyuk D.D., Kruchenykh A.E., Khlebnikov V.V. A slap in the face of public taste: [From the almanac] // Mayakovsky V.V. Complete works: In 13 volumes - M .: State. Publishing House of Artists. lit., 1955-1961. T. 13. Letters and other materials. - 1961. - S. 244-245.

This refers to the lines from the poem by F. I. Tyutchev about Pushkin “Well, as the first love, the heart of Russia will not forget” (“January 29, 1837”). In 1912, the 75th anniversary of Pushkin's death was celebrated.

Moscow: Ed. G.L. Kuzmina, . Type-lithography, etc. "I. Dunkin and Ya. Khomutov”, Moscow, B. Nikitskaya. 9. Phone. 199-26. 112, p., in a publisher's cover covered with burlap. 25x19 cm. Circulation 600 copies. "Slap" - the first poetry collection of Cubo-Futurists (St. Petersburg poetic group "Gileya"), published on December 18, 1912. He is best known for the accompanying manifesto of the same name. The collection contains poems by all cubo-futurist poets - Velimir Khlebnikov, Vladimir Mayakovsky (debut), David Burliuk, Alexei Kruchenykh, Vasily Kamensky, Benedikt Livshits. The manifesto attached to the collection, re-released four months later as a leaflet, denied all previous aesthetic values ​​and, in a deliberately outrageous form, announced a break with the existing literary tradition. Of the seven authors of the collection (D. Burliuk, V. Khlebnikov, A. Kruchenykh, V. Mayakovsky, B. Livshits, N. Burliuk, V. Kandinsky), the first four signed the manifesto "in defense of the new art".The text of the manifesto was composed within one day at the Romanovka Hotel in Moscow.

Bibliographic sources:

1. Polyakov, No. 17.

2. The Russian avant-garde book/1910-1934 (Judith Rothschild foundation, no. 12), p. 63;

3. Lesman, No. 1835 (copy A. Blok), 1836;

4. Khachaturov. with. 42;

5 Compton. R. 125;

6. Rozanov, no. 4959;

8. Markov. with. 43-48;

9. Zheverzheev, no. 2244;

10. Book. l. 1913. No. 1776;

11. Livshits. with. 106-109;

12. Moscow-Paris. with. 248;

13. Markov V.F. "History of Russian Futurism", St. Petersburg, 2000;

"Literary manifestos from symbolism to the present day", M., 2000.

It was this collection that succeeded in achieving what the publishers of Judges' Garden were counting on - to attract everyone's attention. After the release, he caused a real wave of reviews and negative reviews in the press. Later they were collected by B. Livshitz in a special article "Pillory of Russian Criticism: Material for the History of Literary Morals" in the First Journal of Russian Futurists. Most of the collection is occupied by the works of Khlebnikov: “The Maiden God” (pp. 9-33), “Monument” (pp. 33-36), “I and E” (pp. 36-40), “Escape. Alferovo” (p. 47-51), “The Horse of Przewalski” (p. 51-53), a number of poems, incl. "Bobeobi". Several poems are presented by Mayakovsky (“Night” and “Morning”, pp. 91-92) and Kruchenykh (“Old tongs of sunset”, pp. 87-88). Livshits posted the poem “People in the Landscape” (pp. 63-64), which was inspired by Exter's painting, and which caused the most attacks in the press. N. Burliuk spoke with unusually expressive prose, glorifying the country of “abandoned temples and altars”, thus for the first time promulgating the fact of the existence of Gilea, the mythical homeland of the Budtlyans (“Silence of Hellas”, pp. 69-70). He also owns two stories “The Death of a Frivolous Young Man” (pp. 67-69) and “The Sunny House” (pp. 70-73). The latter almost literally portends the style of A. Hitchcock's famous film "Birds". The collection went out of print on December 18, 1912. Full titlemanifesto of Russian futurists (December, 1912), written by poets David Davidovich Burliuk (1882-1967), Alexei Eliseevich Kruchenykh (1886-1968), Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (1893-1930) and Velemir Vladimirovich Khlebnikov (1885-1922), as well as an almanac (1912), to which he served as preface: A Slap in the Face of Public Taste. In defense of free art. Manifest text "A slap in the face of public taste":

Reading our New First Unexpected.

Only we are the face of our Time. The horn of time blows us in verbal art.

The past is tight. The Academy and Pushkin are more incomprehensible than hieroglyphs. Throw Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and so on. and so on. from the ship Modernity.

Whoever does not forget his first love will not recognize his last.

Who, gullible, will turn the last Love to the perfumery fornication of Balmont? Does it reflect the courageous soul of today? Who, cowardly, will be afraid to steal paper armor from the black tailcoat of Bryusov's warrior? Or are they the dawn of unknown beauties?

Wash your hands that have touched the filthy slime of the books written by those innumerable Leonid Andreevs.

To all these Maxims Gorkys, Kuprins, Bloks, Sologubs, Remizovs, Averchenkos, Chernys, Kuzmins, Bunins and so on. and so on. - All you need is a cottage on the river. Such an award is given by fate to tailors.

From the height of skyscrapers we look at their insignificance!

We command to honor the rights of poets:

one). To increase the vocabulary in its volume with arbitrary and derivative words (Word-innovation).

2). To an irresistible hatred for the language that existed before them.

3). With horror, remove from your proud forehead from bath brooms the Wreath of penny glory you made.

4). To stand on a block of the word "we" in the midst of a sea of ​​whistling and indignation.

And if the dirty stigmas of your “common sense” and “good taste” still remain in our lines, then for the first time the lightning of the New Coming Beauty of the Self-valuable (self-sufficient) Word is already trembling on them.

Moscow, 1912. December D. BURLYUK, Alexander KRUCHENYKH, V. MAYAKOVSKY, Viktor KHLEBNIKOV.

(The name Alexander was included in the pseudonym of Kruchenykh under the manifesto in the Slap in the Face of Public Taste and in the Troy collection, then the poet began to use his real name Alexei or capital letter A. Sometimes (for example, in the Declaration of the word as such) he put the name Alexander in brackets after Alexei) .

In Benedict Lifshitz's "One and a half-eyed archer" (L., 1933) we read:

Since November 1912, my frequent visits to the capital began. In order to continue my stay there, I took leave not from the company commander, but from the battalion, who had the right to allow a week's absence from the garrison by his authority. At Christmas I again came to St. Petersburg. “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste”, by this time already printed in Moscow, was about to go on sale. And the wrapping paper, gray and brown, anticipating the type of newsprint of the twentieth year, and the lined cover, and the very title of the collection, designed to dumbfound the tradesman, hit right on target. The main trump card was the manifesto. Of the seven participants in the collection, only four signed the manifesto: David Burliuk, Kruchenykh, Mayakovsky and Khlebnikov. Kandinsky was an accidental person in our group, but as for Nikolai Burliuk and me, both of us were not in Moscow. David, who knew about my last agreement with Kolya, did not dare to add our signatures in absentia. And he did well. Even without that, I was dissatisfied with the fact that they did not send me material to Medved, at least in proofreading, while the text of the manifesto was completely unacceptable to me. I slept with Pushkin under my pillow - am I alone? Did he not continue in his sleep to disturb those who declared him more incomprehensible than hieroglyphs? - and to dump him, along with Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, from the "steamer of modernity" seemed to me hypocrisy. I was especially outraged by the style of the manifesto, or rather, the absence of any style: along with the extremely “industrial” semantics of the “steamboat of modernity” and “the height of skyscrapers” (only “our age of steam and electricity” was missing!) beauty" and "lightning of the new coming beauty". Who drew up the notorious manifesto, I did not manage to extort from David: I only know that Khlebnikov did not take part in this (it seems that he was not even in Moscow at that time). I was surprised to stumble upon the phrase about “the paper armor of the Bryusov warrior” in the general mishmash, which I dropped in a nightly conversation with Mayakovsky and for some reason remembered him, since only he could string it next to expressions that clearly belonged to him like “Balmont’s perfumery fornication” , “dirty mucus of books written by countless Leonid Andreevs”, “a wreath of penny glory made from bath brooms”, and an already typical call for him “we stand on a block of words in the midst of a sea of ​​whistling and indignation”.

However, with all the reservations that pertained mainly to the manifesto, the collection itself should have been recognized as militant for at least one fact that exactly half of the space in it was assigned to Khlebnikov. And what Khlebnikov! After two and a half years of forced silence (after all, not a single magazine agreed to publish this “nonsense of a madman”) Khlebnikov came out with such things as “The Horse of Przewalski”, “The Maiden God”, “Monument”, with the “Tale of the Stone Age” “And and E", with classical in terms of internal completeness and impeccability of the form "Bobeobi", "Winging in gold writing", and in theoretical terms - with "A sample of word innovations in the language" and the mysterious laconic "Look at 1917", in which, based on the study of "laws time" predicted in the seventeenth year the onset of a world event. Compared to Khlebnikov, who pushed the possibilities of the word to limits previously unthinkable, everything else in the collection seemed insignificant, although it contained two poems by Mayakovsky built on a “reverse” rhyme, and the charming, still unappreciated prose of Nikolai Burliuk, and his own article on "Cubism", which posed the most acute questions of contemporary painting. This was not how I pictured our first “attack” when we talked about it back in November, but you can’t turn back what has been done, and then Khlebnikov atoned for all sins, reconciled me with all the mistakes of David. In addition, the mistake could be corrected in the near future, since in a month, at most, in a month and a half, it was supposed to release the second "Judges' Garden", and on the same visit I had to agree on everything with M. V. Matyushin and E. G. Guro, who, according to David, put their soul into the publication of the collection. On the very eve of Christmas, I went to them, to Pesochnaya, with my inseparable companion, Nikolai Burliuk. I knew Guro only from the Barrel Organ and from things placed in the first Judges' Garden, and although I did not share the enthusiasm of my friends, I still considered it necessary to get to know her better. Finding myself in a wooden house with a shaky ladder leading to the second floor, I felt as if I were in a pile building.

I immediately felt uncomfortable: for the first time I felt the weight of my own body in an infinitely rarefied atmosphere, which hampered my movements, contrary to Julevern's speculation about the presence of a man on the moon. I did not realize what was happening to me, did not understand what caused this purely biological reaction of the whole organism, repelled by an alien environment, I only suddenly realized with incredible acuteness that I belonged to our planet, with pride I accepted its subjection to the laws of gravity. Thus, once and for all, I lost the opportunity to find a common language with Guro. Her peaceful transparency of a man who had already committed suicide, radiating to everything around him, was a silent challenge to me, who saw a personal insult in the existence of the beyond world. Poor Kolya Burliuk, who for some unknown reason considered himself to some extent responsible for our meeting, interpreted this mutual platonic hatred in an extremely simplified way. In his opinion, the whole trouble was that, "French to the marrow of my bones," I suddenly found myself - slightly misinterpreting Severyanin - "in something Norwegian, in something Finnish." It wasn't just that, of course. Not in the fragile, melting ice-like blueness of hospital walls; not in the quiet melody of bloodless words with which Guro tried to translate her astral glow into the spoken language (oh, these “pure”, oh, these “timid”, “shy”, “touching”, “immaculate”, “gentle”, “sensitive "- I was blown up by a mixture of Maeterlinck and Jamm, diluted in Russian jelly, I understood the fury of the young Rimbaud, enraged by "Namuna"); not in these dried-up bug corpses that hovered like flakes around me, not in the dull, skinny fata morgana, where even the word "Usikirko" seemed native, because the sparrow's chirping reminded of the earth - this, I repeat, was not the only thing. Physics collided with metaphysics in the pejorative sense that is now given to this term, a watershed was clearly outlined between the attraction to the otherworldly and love for the earthly: an abyss opened up, on one edge of which the already exhausted symbolism agonized, and on the opposite edge they fraternized and squabbled still in the maternal the womb of tomorrow's friend-enemies, buddlyane and acmeists. Guro, who had only four months to live, looked at me as if I were a person from the other side. I could not suspect her of a hostile attitude towards me, everything about her was quiet and goodness, but she shut herself up tightly, as if she held the key to the mysteries of the world, and from the height of her only known secrets meekly looked at my wise swarming. I didn’t know then what deep personal reasons forced Elena Genrikhovna to switch to this plan incomprehensible to me, what superhuman efforts she made to make the former non-existent and communicate reality to what was forever gone from her life. I judged her only from a narrow professional point of view and did not guess anything. All the more surprising seemed to me the warmth with which both she and Matyushin spoke about Kruchenykh, who brought our most extreme positions to the point of absurdity with his frivolous maximalism (who really had nothing to lose!) Only indifference to the elements of the word (in Guro, probably prompted by neglect of it as a rudimentary form of manifestation of the human “I” outside, in Kruchenykh - probably caused by the consciousness of complete helplessness in this area) could, in my opinion, give rise to this strange friendship : In all other respects they had nothing in common.

And here is what Alexey Kruchenykh later recalled about the historical moment about the “Slap”:

Burliuk introduced me to Mayakovsky in Moscow. It was probably at the very beginning of 1912, where and how - I don’t remember exactly. I can't say anything about our first meeting either. Later, I constantly saw Mayakovsky at the School of Painting and Sculpture - in the canteen, in the basement. [There he gorged himself on compote and spoke to death to the cashier, waitresses and visitors.] Vladimir Mayakovsky. From a group photo on the leaflet "Slapping Public Taste". Mayakovsky of that time was not yet a famous poet, but simply an unusually witty, hefty guy of 18-19 years old, who studied painting, wore long black braids to his shoulders, and smiled menacingly. His mouth was slightly sagging, almost toothless, so that many acquaintances already then jokingly called him “old man”. He constantly walked in the same velvet black shirt [he looked like an anarchist-nihilist]. I remember our first joint performance, the “first battle” at the beginning of 1912 at the “Jack of Diamonds” debate, where Mayakovsky gave a whole lecture on the fact that art corresponds to the spirit of the times, that, comparing the art of different eras, one can notice: there is no eternal art - it is diverse, dialectical.

He spoke seriously, almost academically. That evening I was an opponent by appointment, “for a bully”, and scolded and ridiculed the futurists and cubists. The idea that I held in my objection was very simple, and it was easy for me not to stray or get confused. I pointed out that since art is diverse, it means that it moves forward along with progress, and, therefore, the forms of our time must be more perfect than the forms of previous centuries. Where I bent, it was clear to the most narrow-minded mind.

The fact is that Mayakovsky and other speakers at this debate made excursions into distant eras and compared modern art with primitives, and especially with the naive works of savages. It goes without saying that primitives and savages produced the most perfect forms. And so I declared it retrograde - to compare myself with savages and admire their art. I scolded both the Jack of Diamonds and the Cubists, I switched from painting to poetry, and here I butchered all the innovators to the bone. Enthusiasm and bewilderment reigned in the audience. And I turned on the heat. About the eccentricities of innovators, I asked:

Isn't it true, they added to the devils. For example, how would you like this image: “disappointed lorgnette”?

The audience is laughing. Then I exposed:

This is an epithet from "Eugene Onegin" by Pushkin!

The audience in applause. Having shown in this way that our detractors themselves did not really know what they were talking about, I covered them along with the Cubists “defeated” by me. He performed with loud effect, kept himself free, worried only internally. This was the first dispute of the Jack of Diamonds. Burliuk, Mayakovsky and I then proposed to the "Jack of Diamonds" (Konchalovsky, Lentulov, Mashkov and others) to publish a book with the works of the "budetlyans". The title of the book was A Slap in the Face of Public Taste. They spent a long time tinkering with the answer and finally refused. The “Jack of Diamonds” then already had a bias towards “world art”. And if we add this last insult, it becomes clear why at the next dispute of the “jacks” Mayakovsky and I cruelly took revenge on them. During a boring introductory report, it seems, Rozhdestvensky, in the deathly, dejected silence of the entire hall, I began to yawn in a completely bestial way. Then, in the debate, Mayakovsky, pointing out that the "Jacks of Diamonds" had invited Apollonian Max Voloshin as a speaker, said, paraphrasing Kozma Prutkov:

If the worm of doubt crawled around your neck, Crush it yourself, and don't give it to a lackey.

Sodom rose in the audience, I ran up to the stage and began to tear the posters and programs attached to the pulpit. Konchalovsky, a healthy man with a bull's neck, shouted, rang the chairman's bell, called for order, but they did not hear him. The hall raged like the sea in autumn. Then Mayakovsky roared - and immediately drowned out the audience.9 He blocked everyone with his voice. Here, for the first time and “with my own eyes”, I became convinced of the extraordinary vocal power of the enraged Mayakovsky. He himself once said:

He had the trumpet voice of a tribune and agitator. Benedict Livshits, Nikolai Burliuk, Vladimir Mayakovsky, David Burliuk, Alexei Kruchenykh. 1912 In 1912–13 I spoke a lot with the Burliuks, Mayakovsky, especially often with the latter. We often fought with Mayakovsky, but David Davidovich, an organizer by vocation and “daddy” (he was much older than us), kept trying to make us friends. Circumstances helped this: in the summer of 1912, together with Mayakovsky, I rented a dacha in the Straw Lodge, near Petrovsky-Razumovsky.

The two will be cheaper, - Mayakovsky said, and at that time we were in poverty, every penny was accounted for. Actually, it was not a dacha, but an attic: one room with a balcony. I lived in a room, and Mayakovsky on the balcony.

It is more convenient for me to receive my friends of both sexes there! - he noticed.

Immediately, nearby, 1-2 houses away, lived the aviator G. Kuzmin and the musician S. Dolinsky. Taking advantage of the fact that both of them were sincerely interested in new art and treated us very well, Mayakovsky began to persuade them to publish our “brainchild” - “Slap in the Face”. The book was already ready, but the Jack of Diamonds betrayed us. And Kuzmin, a pilot, an advanced person, said:

I'll take a chance. I bet on you in the ordinary!

We all rejoiced.

Hooray! Aviation won!

Indeed, the publisher won - "Slap" quickly sold out and already in 1913 was sold as a rarity. Just before the book was published, we decided to write an introductory manifesto for it, taking advantage of the publisher's goodwill towards us. I remember only one case when V. Khlebnikov, V. Mayakovsky, D. Burliuk and I wrote one thing together - this same manifesto for "Slapping Public Taste". Moscow, December 1912. They gathered, it seems, at Burliuk's apartment, wrote for a long time, arguing over every phrase, word, letter. I remember I suggested:

"Throw out Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin."

"From the steamer of modern times".

Someone:

"throw off the ship".

Mayakovsky:

“To throw it off is like they were there, no, you have to throw it off the steamer...”

I remember my phrase:

"Perfume fornication of Balmont".

Correction by V. Khlebnikov:

"The fragrant fornication of Balmont" - did not pass.

More mine:

"Whoever does not forget his first love will not recognize his last."

This is inserted in spite of Tyutchev, who said about Pushkin:

"Well, as the first love, the heart of Russia will not forget you."

Khlebnikov's lines:

"We stand on the rock of the word."

“From the height of skyscrapers we look at their insignificance” (L. Andreeva, Kuprina, Kuzmina, etc.).

Khlebnikov, on the development of the manifesto, stated:

"I won't sign this... Kuzmin should be crossed out - he's gentle."

We agreed that Khlebnikov would sign for the time being, and then send a letter to the editor about his dissenting opinion. The world, of course, has not seen such a letter! Having finished the manifesto, we dispersed. I hurried to dinner and ate two steaks at once - so exhausted from working with the giants ...

Poliakov V.

Poetic manifestos

Futurism as a movement began with a manifesto. In itself, this is deeply natural, because futurism conceived itself not just as another artistic direction, but, above all, as a new worldview designed to change the world. Therefore, the pathos of rejection, especially at first, was very strong in the activities of the futurists. As we remember, speaking of Russian Buddhism, Livshits pointed out that "it wanted to be defined only negatively." Indeed, numerous appeals demanding to “quit”, “destroy”, “set fire”, etc. first of all attracted the attention of contemporaries. However, not in them, or rather, not only in them, was the essence of the movement itself. Destroying the old, futurism simultaneously affirms the new. In Marinetti's first futurist manifesto, only one of the eleven points was built entirely on denial (“10. We want to destroy museums...”). All the rest are a kind of program for the future activities of the futurists: each of the provisions contains an indication of the result that must be achieved in the future. The Russians inherited from the Italians this desire to combine negative pathos with declarative statements. But very quickly, a certain rearrangement of accents becomes noticeable in their manifestos. Even the different grammatical forms used by Russians and Italians are indicative. If Marinetti formulates his provisions, mainly referring to verbs that fix the state of desire (“we want” is repeated five times: “we want to sing ...”, “we want to glorify ...”, etc.), musts ( “poetry must...”) or motivating turns of the type “it is necessary that...”, then Russians prefer the verb form of the perfective form (“we realized ...”, “we stopped ...”) with its inherent shade of assertion . This seemingly random difference is a very important point. What should be declared - the Russians assert, while eliminating the temporal distance between the process of becoming (for example, “we will become new people”) and the already achieved fact of the state (“we are new people ...”). Before us is a typical example of a kind of substitution, when, through verbal spells, what is affirmed in words begins to acquire the status of a truly existing one. From all that has been said, it becomes clear why the genre of the manifesto turned out to be so desirable for the futurists. It was he who most fully allowed to express such sentiments. It is no coincidence that Berdyaev, in his analysis of Futurism, emphasized that "the propaganda materials of the Futurists prevail over artistic creativity." Although, to be precise, such a distinction is not entirely true, since the very “artistic creativity” of the futurists turned out to be “propaganda” through and through. It would be more correct to say that the creation of manifestos for them was one of the most important forms of artistic activity. You can find many confirmations of this idea. Almost all futurists in one way or another turned to the manifesto genre. He played a particularly important role in the work of those masters who acted with the rationale for any innovative trend in art. One can recall the names of Kandinsky, Larionov, Khlebnikov, Filonov, Kruchenykh, and finally, Malevich. In their “manifestation” activity, a very characteristic tendency makes itself felt, in which the process of creating a work of art is gradually balanced in its rights with the process of creating a manifesto, and in some cases, as, for example, with Malevich, it is replaced by it. In this sense, the American researcher Majorie Perlof turned out to be deeply right, noting that in futuristic creativity the manifesto begins to play the role of a kind of artistic form. In the history of the Russian futuristic manifesto, the noted trend manifested itself primarily as a trend, that is, the process of merging artistic and theoretical creativity proceeded gradually. The fact is that the Russians for a long time did not have the opportunity to publish their manifestos in the press. So they were forced to turn to the printed leaflet form. This “genre” had a long tradition in Russian grassroots culture, going back to the so-called charters and charming letters, with which in the old days the rebels “seduced” the people. Since then, a certain charge of opposition to the generally accepted has become an integral feature of the leaflet, which also met the intentions of the futurists. In addition, it must be borne in mind that, in terms of momentary impact, the leaflet, of course, surpassed all other types of printed matter. They did not refuse to use it even when it became possible to publish their collections and make statements in the press. In a sense, the Futurists continued the tradition of underground distribution of such publications. As an example, we can cite the well-known story of the “Gage of Judges”: leaving one of the evenings in the Ivanovo “Tower”, the Burliuks, who had penetrated there “very piously”, “put everyone present in their coats and overcoats into each pocket of the “Gage”. The story of the Kruchenykhs about how Khlebnikov pasted up a copy of the leaflet “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste” in a vegetarian canteen echoes with her. He then, "smiling slyly, laid out some of its copies on empty tables, like a menu." The desire for “anonymity” was especially characteristic of the early stage in the development of Russian futurism. The first two leaflets of Burliuk were published without the name of the author. They were intended for distribution at exhibitions, and this completely determined their character. Both leaflets were directed against the harsh criticism that unfolded in the press immediately after the first performances of young artists. Burliuk considered it necessary to refute the already traditional accusations of imitating the West. Therefore, the texts of his leaflets are, in fact, detailed articles “in defense” and do not yet contain specific features inherent in the manifesto as a “genre”. As a matter of fact, offensive tendencies make themselves felt for the first time in the famous manifesto, which opens the collection “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste”. Unlike the previous ones, they were already signed by its authors - four participants in the collection: Burliuk himself, Kruchenykh, Mayakovsky and Khlebnikov. By that time, the Russians were already familiar with the first manifestos of the Italian futurists. From there, they borrowed not only the style, but also the very form of the presentation of the main points “by points”. Livshits recalled that it was precisely at this time that Burliuk was “rushing about” with the idea of ​​publishing a manifesto that would express the programmatic guidelines of the new movement: You must send the article to me right now in any form. Be our Marinetti! If you are afraid to sign, I will sign: the idea comes first!.. However, these aspirations were only partially realized. In the text that opened Slap in the Face, as Livshits rightly remarked, a strong stylistic dissonance was really felt: “along with the extremely industrial semantics of the steamship of modernity,” there were also “dawns of unknown beauties that emerged from the provincial depths of the provincial.” One of the reasons for this was the haste in which this first “document” was created: Burliuk sometimes mechanically combined the ideas expressed by all the participants. And yet the fact that this was a manifesto of a new type became noticeable at once - especially in comparison with the two previous leaflets. In "Slap" the text becomes shorter, tending to be aphoristic. Instead of justifying and defending, the authors themselves go on the offensive. Undoubtedly successful and memorable was the call to “throw modernity off the steamer...”, and the selection of the names of those who were proposed to be “thrown” also hit the target exactly. Pushkin, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky provided the necessary attention from the shocked layman, while the names of Balmont, Bryusov and Andreev directly pointed to direct literary opponents. Finally, Burliuk managed to achieve the main thing - to attract public attention to the collection and to the group, to provoke a scandal. And at the same time, he was able, though not yet very clearly, to present a positive program with which the Bytolyans entered the arena of Russian literature - the idea of ​​word innovation and a statement about the beauty of the self-valued (self-sufficient) word. After the publication of the collection, as a response to the persecution unfolding in the press and simultaneously with propaganda goals, Burliuk issues a special leaflet, the title of which repeated the name of the collection. It contained not only texts, but also a photograph of the participants in the collection along with the publishers. Of particular interest is the text that opened it. He demonstrates the undoubted mastery of Burliuk in mastering all the laws of the genre. Printed in a bright "slogan" manner (Klebnikov's name and the most important ideas were in bold type), it, like a poster, was designed for an instant impact. This was also facilitated by the brevity and logical clarity of the presentation of the material itself. The goal that Burliuk set for himself in this case was to create a certain line for the development of a new movement. Lined up in a row, statements about the publication of “The Jail of Judges” in 1908, about the emergence of “a genius - the great poet of our time - Velimir Khlebnikov” and the unification around him of a “pleiad” of writers, “who, if they went in different ways, were united by one slogan: “Down with the word is a means, long live the self-sufficient, self-valuable Word!”, were supposed to ward off possible accusations of imitating the Italian futurists. The “orders” repeated in the second part of the text - the so-called “rights of poets”, previously published in the collection - were called upon to refute the accusations of criticism that the “budetlyans” did not say anything new - neither in size, nor in rhyme, nor in relation to the word. The witty move found by Burliuk also attracts attention: since the leaflet is folded in half, its main text was placed on the front side, while the inner pages were given away for a kind of “illustration” of the untruth of these accusations. They present samples of old and new poetry and prose, selected in such a way as to clearly, with the help of contrast, demonstrate the advantages of new literature: Pushkin is next to Khlebnikov, Lermontov is next to Mayakovsky, Nadson is next to Burliuk, and Gogol is next to Kruchenykh. . Responding in this way to the accusations of critics, Burliuk at the same time understood the certain insufficiency of his “answers”. Criticism, and even more so - the general public were incapable of perceiving the "Great Revelations of Modernity." Slogans extolling the “self-made” word, or statements about “irresistible hatred for the existing language” did not explain anything to them, they seemed vague. A program was needed that, in addition to negative and purely declarative statements, would contain an explanation of the very essence of the innovative aspirations of the group members. Such a program was placed in the following manifesto issued by Burliuk. Created by the “Gileans” in collaboration with M. Matyushin and E. Guro, it opened the second issue of “The Judges' Garden”. This manifesto should be recognized as one of the most "programmatic" among the works of this kind released by Russian futurists. Despite the well-known dependence of its very form, and many of the provisions contained in it, on the manifestos of the Italians (which we have already pointed out), it is in it that we first meet with a detailed justification of the “new principles of creativity”. Of the thirteen paragraphs that make up the manifesto, only the last contains statements of a general nature. All the rest form a rather coherent series of provisions describing the features of the new poetic language, which the Budutlyans put forward to replace the “existing” one. Despite the fact that these provisions, as in the previous case, belonged to different authors, they did not at all represent “okroshka”, as Livshits writes about it. On the contrary, behind them one felt a fairly unified concept, which had as its goal a change in the very attitude to the word. The word ceases to be perceived exclusively by its content side. The requirement “to give content to words according to their descriptive and phonetic characteristics” deprived the word once and for all of the meaning given to it. Appeal to the sound nature of the word in practice meant a return to its state when, according to A. Potebnya, it was only a pure “reflection of feeling in sounds”. The poet became a witness to the very process of the emergence of words in the language. The full importance of such a discovery can only be assessed if we take into account those “apostolic” sentiments of Russian buddhism, which we have already spoken about in the previous chapter. They gave seemingly narrow philological research the status of a creative act: the poet from the creator of images, using for this purpose an already “existing” language, turned into the creator of the language itself. “Linguistics,” said Khlebnikov, “gives the right to populate with new life... the impoverished waves of language. We believe they will play with life again, as in the first days of creation.” It is in the context of these ideas that the remaining theses of the manifesto should be considered. Their task is a preliminary, largely still schematic description of the basic principles of the "new" language. And that is why such attention in the manifesto is given to word creation. Not only prefixes and suffixes are “recognized”, but also the original elements of the language - vowels and consonants. Their role is revealed by analogy with the “primary” sensations for a person - space and time, color, sound, smell. Finally, the word turns out to be related to the elements of myth-making - its “primitive” state is capable of generating a myth. Analyzing the manifesto, we constantly meet with this utopian desire of its authors to return "to the first days of creation." In reality, it turns into a situation already familiar to us, when the futurists, in their search for the future, rush to the past. After all, the language, to the creation of which the efforts of the Budtlyans are directed, actually turns out to be the language of ... the distant past - it was then that the connection between the word and the feeling that gave rise to it made itself felt most fully. Here, apparently, one should look for the reason for the close interest that the Budetlyan poets experienced in the folklore tradition, believing that only “in a village near rivers and forests, language is still being created, every moment creating words that either die, or receive the right of immortality...”. The manifesto, which opened the second "Judges' Garden", became a key point in the development of the poetic concept of Russian futurism. We will meet numerous impulses emanating from him both in poetry and in the theoretical thought of the Budtlyans. They received their sharpest embodiment in the work of A. Kruchenykh. Following Burliuk, he also turns to the practice of propagating his ideas by "publishing" them in special manifestos. It is in them that A. Kruchenykh theoretically substantiates his concept of a “transrational” language. Sometimes Kruchenykh is considered the sole author of this concept, although its emergence was probably largely due to the comprehension of Khlebnikov's poetic experiments. In any case, the first books of the Kruchenykhs (“Old Love”, “Game in Hell”) are still devoid of “zaum”: for the first time it makes itself felt only in “Mirskonets” and in “Lipstick”, with its famous “hole bul schyl” - books prepared jointly with Khlebnikov. Only after their publication, Kruchenykh releases his first theoretical manifesto - “Declaration of the word as such”. The theses of this manifesto, despite the fact that they are arranged in an “abstruse” order (paragraph 4 comes first, then paragraphs 5, 2, 3, and only then the first one), betray their direct dependence on the provisions put forward in the Judges' Garden II. Kruchenykh brings them to their logical conclusion, modeling the same situation of the “first days of creation”. “The artist,” he declares, “saw the world in a new way and, like Adam, gives everything his own names.” In this way, the poet restores the original purity of the very process of naming things: “Lily is beautiful,” he gives the example of Kruchenykh, “but the word lily is ugly captured and “raped”. Therefore, I call the lily eyy - the original purity is restored. The situation of “naming things”, as is known, was also recreated by Khlebnikov in his work. However, in his search, he sought to capture the semantics of a single sound - to understand why this particular sound, and not any other, is associated in consciousness with this or that thing. For Kruchenykh, the process of "naming" was more subjective - this is evidenced by the given example with a lily. For him, much more important than the semantic nature of these sounds was their original “non-sense” expressiveness. To fix the stage when the primary sound material has not yet lost its connection with the feeling that gave rise to it and at the same time has not yet had time to be filled with meaning - Kruchenykh saw his task in this. Hence his attention to the “rows” of vowels and consonants, capable of “unconsciously” building a “universal language”. Here lies the reason for the poet's close interest in all manifestations of the "initial" stage of the language in modern life, whether it be children's speech, shamanic incantations or Khlyst chants. It is noteworthy that Kruchenykh, however, does not think of the “abstruse” language as the only language of the future. In his next manifesto - "New Ways of the Word" - he argues that "to represent the new and the future, completely new words and a new combination of them are needed." These words can be formed in different ways: by means of “arbitrary word innovation” (that is, “abstrusely”, in the spirit of “holes bul schyl”), by “unexpected word formation” - meaning Khlebnikov’s method of “shortening words”. However, the use of “traditional” words is not excluded - provided that they are combined “according to their internal laws, which are revealed to the speech creator, and not according to the rules of logic and grammar ...” In fact, Kruchenykh gives here a complete list of artistic means inherent in poetic practice futurists. The main thing that unites all these “paths” is that the “word (and the sounds that make it up) obtained with their help is not only a vague thought, not only logic, but mainly abstruse”, that is, the word turns out to be “wider than the meaning” . But let us pay attention - as an illustration of these provisions, not “abstruse” words are given, but words formed according to Khlebnikov’s “method” (and, possibly, suggested by him): “gladiators and swordsmen”, “mortuary and troupe”, “university - all-scholarship. In these pairs, the “traditional” word turns out to be borrowed, and the “new”, similar in meaning, is “built” by analogy with other words in the Russian language. It is significant that the poetic practice of Kruchenykh himself during these years also does not single out any one “method”. In "The Duck's Nest" he uses the technique of an unexpected combination of traditional words, in "Blow Up" and "Resurrection" he gives examples of "unexpected word formations" and "arbitrary word formations". Only two years later, the poet will declare that poetry has finally “reached a dead end and the only honorable way out for it ... to move on to abstruse language ...”. The Kruchenykh album "Universal War" will already consist entirely of "abstruse" poems. As we can see, in the manifestos of the Kruchenykhs, as well as in the manifestos of Burliuk considered earlier, declarations related to poetic creativity proper occupy a somewhat isolated position. Questions of a general nature concerning future changes in society and the universe as a whole, of course, are present in these manifestos - without them, they would immediately lose their futuristic character. However, their connection with “poetic” attitudes is rather implied. The first who truly merged both of these areas in his work was Larionov. In this regard, his manifestos are among the most "futuristic" in Russia. The artist himself perceived them as the beginning of a grandiose “invasion” of art into life.