Velimir Khlebnikov
 |
|
| Born | Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikov 9 November [O.S. 28 October] 1885 Malye Derbety, Russian Empire |
|---|---|
| Died | June 28, 1922 (aged 36) Kresttsy, USSR |
| Pen name | Velimir Khlebnikov |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Literary movement | Russian Futurism |
|
Influences
|
|
|
|
|
Velimir Khlebnikov (Russian: Велими́р Хле́бников; first name also spelled Velemir; last name also spelled Chlebnikov, Hlebnikov, Xlebnikov), pseudonym of Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikov (9 November 1885 (28 October 1885 (O.S.)) – 28 June 1922), was a central part of the Russian Futurist movement, but his work and influence stretch far beyond it.
Khlebnikov belonged to Hylaea, the most significant Russian Futurist group, (along with Vladimir Mayakovsky, Aleksei Kruchenykh, David Burliuk, and Benedikt Livshits), but had already written many significant poems before the Futurist movement in Russia had taken shape. Among his contemporaries, he was regarded as "a poet's poet" (Mayakovsky referred to him as a "poet for producers") and a maverick genius.
Khlebnikov is known for poems such as "Incantation by Laughter", "Bobeobi Sang The Lips", “The Grasshopper” (all 1908-9), “Snake Train” (1910), the prologue to the Futurist opera Victory over the Sun (1913), dramatic works such as “Death’s Mistake” (1915), prose works such as “Ka” (1915), and the so-called ‘super-tale’ (сверхповесть) “Zangezi”, a sort of ecstatic drama written partly in invented languages of gods and birds.
Wingletting with the goldenscrawl
Of its finest sinews,
The grasshopper loaded its trailer-belly
With many coastal herbs and faiths.
"Ping, ping, ping!" tra-lah-ed the zingzinger.
O, swanderful!
O, illuminate!
In his work, Khlebnikov experimented with the Russian language, drawing upon its roots to invent huge numbers of neologisms, and finding significance in the shapes and sounds of individual letters of Cyrillic. Along with Kruchenykh, he originated zaum.
He wrote futurological essays about such things as the possible evolution of mass communication ("The Radio of the Future") and transportation and housing ("Ourselves and Our Buildings"). He described a world in which people live and travel about in mobile glass cubicles that can attach themselves to skyscraper-like frameworks, and in which all human knowledge can be disseminated to the world by radio and displayed automatically on giant book-like displays at streetcorners.
In his last years, Khlebnikov became fascinated by Slavic mythology and Pythagorean numerology, and drew up long "Tables of Destiny" decomposing historical intervals and dates into functions of the numbers 2 and 3.
Khlebnikov died of paralysis while a guest in the house of his friend Pyotr Miturich near Kresttsy.
[edit] Legacy
A minor planet 3112 Velimir discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh in 1977 is named after him.[1]
[edit] External links
- The World of Velimir Khlebnikov (English)
- Introduction to Khlebnikov (English)
- Selected Poems by Khlebnikov (Bilingual)
- Large Russian website devoted to life and works of Khlebnikov (Russian)
- Velimir Khlebnikov: biography, poems (Russian)
- Internet edition of Khlebnikov, Tvoreniia, Moscow, 1986 (Russian)
- Poems. Khlebnikov (Russian)
- Selected works (Russian)
- Khlebnikov House-Museum in Astrakhan (Russian)
- Studies of Khlebnikov's life and works (Russian)
- "Artists of the World!" in Pusteblume journal of translation (Bilingual)
- Digitized Russian avant-garde books
- Listen to an interpretation of Khlebnikov's "Radio of the Future" at Acousmata music blog
- English translations of 5 poems
- English translations of 7 poems
[edit] References
 |
Wikisource has original text related to this article: |
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Velimir Khlebnikov |
- Khlebnikov, Velimir, The King of Time (Schmidt, Paul, trans.; Douglas, Charlotte, ed.) Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1990. ISBN 0-674-50516-6
- MacKay, John. Inscription and Modernity: From Wordsworth to Mandelstam. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-253-34749-1
