Futurism (from the Latin word "futurum" - future) is an artistic avant-garde movement in literature and art, formed in Italy in 1909 and developed in Russia in 1910-1921. Futurists who proclaimed a demonstrative break with everyone traditional rules and customs, were primarily interested not in the content, but in the form of versification; for this they used professional jargon and vulgar lexical expressions, used the language of documents and posters, and invented new words.
The generally recognized founder of futurism is the Italian poet Filippo Tomaso Marinetti, who in the “Manifesto of Italian Futurism”, published in the newspaper Le Figaro in 1909, called for “destroying museums, libraries, fighting moralism” and, being an associate of Benito Musolinni, found common features in fascism and futurism.
Futurism, like other modernist movements, denied old norms and classical traditions, but in contrast to them it was distinguished by its extreme extremist orientation, a complete nihilistic denial of all previous artistic experience. The world historical task of futurism, according to Marinetti, was “daily spitting on the altar of art.”
(Natalya Goncharova "Cyclist")
Adherents of futurism advocated the complete destruction various forms and conventions in art and the creation of its completely new form, which would organically fit into the accelerated life processes of the twentieth century. This trend is characterized by motives of admiration for strength and aggression, exaltation of one’s own personality and a feeling of contempt for the weaker, fanatical worship of war and destruction. As one of the directions of avant-garde art, it was very important for futurism to attract as much attention as possible; for this, the use of shocking techniques, various extreme methods in the behavior of authors, and the creation of an atmosphere of literary scandals were perfectly suited. For example, Mayakovsky read his poems in a yellow women's blouse, Kamensky performed with a painted face and wrote poems on scraps of wallpaper, Alexey Kruchenykh walked everywhere with sofa cushion, fastened to the neck with a cord.
The main character in the works of the futurists was depicted as a resident of a large, modern city filled with movement, dynamics, here life takes place high speeds, there is a lot of different technology around, life is constantly improving and reaching new stages of development. The lyrical “ego” of futurists is characterized by the denial of classical norms and traditions and the presence of a special way of thinking that does not accept syntactic rules, norms of word formation and lexical compatibility. Their main goal was to convey their worldviews and understand the events happening around them in any way that was understandable and convenient for them.
(Gennady Golobokov "Monument")
The socio-political situation that developed in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century led to the fact that futurism in Russia attracted great attention from young avant-garde poets, who in 1910-1914 created several different groups of this movement:
- Cubo-futurists who united in the group “Gileya” and called themselves “Budetlyans”: David Burliuk, Velimir Khlebnikov, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Alexey Kruchenykh, Vasily Kamensky, Benedikt Livshits. Their collections “Dead Moon” (1913), “Gag”, “Roaring Parnassus” (1914);
- Moscow ego-futurists of the moderate wing who created the group “Mezzanine of Poetry” - Vadim Shershnevich, I. Lotarev, R. Ivnev. Collections “Vernissage”, “Crematorium of Sanity”;
- St. Petersburg egofuturists - Igor Severyanin, Ivan Ignatiev, G. Ivanov;
- Futuristic group "Centrifuge" - Nikolay Aseev, Sergey Bobrov, Boris Pasternak. Collections “Rukonog”, “Liren”, “Second collection of Centrifuge” (1914).
The history of Russian futurism represents a complex relationship between these four groups, each of them considered itself a representative of true futurism and insisted on its leading role in this movement, which ultimately led to hostility and disunity among the ranks of futurist poets. That, however, did not prevent them from sometimes getting closer and even moving from one group to another.
(Nikolay Dyulgerov "Rational Man")
In 1912, members of the Gileya group published a manifesto, “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste,” in which they boldly called for “throwing Pushkin, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy off the ship of modernity.”
In his poems, the poet Alexei Kruchenykh defends the poet’s rights to create his own “abstruse” language, which is why his poems were often a meaningless collection of words.
Vasily Kamensky and Velimir Khlebnikov in their work (poem “I and E” (1911-12), “musical” prose “Menagerie” (1909), play “Marquise Dezes”, collection “Roar!”, “Collection of poems. 1907- 1914") carried out various language experiments, distinguished by freshness and originality, which later had a very fruitful influence on the development of Russian poetry of the twentieth century.
(G. Egoshin "V. Mayakovsky")
One of the brightest representatives of futurism was the outstanding poet of the Silver Age, Vladimir Mayakovsky, who actively opposed not only various “old things”, but also for the creation of something new in the life of society. His first poems, published in 1912, introduced new themes into this direction, which immediately distinguished him from other representatives of futurism. In his works (the poems “The Flute-Spine”, “Cloud in Pants”, “Man”, “War and Peace”) he denied the existing capitalist relations and promoted his humanistic views and faith in human capabilities. He was one of the first Russian poets to show the whole truth of the new society.
(Severini Gino "Boulevard")
After the Bolshevik Party came to power in Russia in 1917, futurism as a literary movement gradually began to fade away. The fate of many of its representatives is sad and tragic, some of them were shot (Igor Terentyev), some were sent into exile, some became emigrants and left the country of the Soviets, Mayakovsky committed suicide, Aseev and Pasternak moved away from the ideals of futurism and developed their own individual style. Some futurists who accepted revolutionary ideals tried to continue their activities and created the organization LEF (Left Front of Art), which ceased to exist in the late 20s of the twentieth century.
Futurism as a literary movement in Russian poetry of the Silver Age, along with symbolism and acmeism, played a very important role for its further development and brought many fruitful and innovative ideas that became the basis for the poetry of the next generation.
Futurism is an avant-garde, heterogeneous literary movement of 1910-20. Russian futurism is an independent phenomenon in line with the pan-European revolution in art; its connection with Italian futurism is assessed differently. The starting point of this direction, which grew out of “symbolism” and “ impressionism", there was a revolution in the field of form, especially in the field of literary language.
Russian futurism as a movement in literature
The most important group in 1910 was formed cubo-futurists, this included V. Khlebnikov, David and Nikolai Burlyuk and A. Kruchenykh. They sought first of all autonomy and liberation of speech, while the form and sound of “the word as such” meant more to them than its content. Hence the experiments to create an abstruse language (“zaum”). Other experiments concerned syntax (for example, David Burliuk's refusal of prepositions), the creation of neologisms, the system of versification and rhyme. The provocative aspect of futurism was revealed in the 1912 manifesto A slap in the face to public taste with his rejection of all previous literature.
The Cubo-Futurists welcomed the October Revolution, seeing in it an opportunity to realize their radical ideas about art. In this regard K. Chukovsky wrote in 1922 about three trends observed among them: firstly, urbanism, emphasizing the technical-industrial, secondly, the desire for origins, the rejection of culture, and thirdly, anarchism, almost unconscious, insisting on the destruction of all laws and values, which seems to Chukovsky to be a typically Russian phenomenon.
The group stood apart egofuturists who adopted the name of futurism; it was founded in 1911 by Igor Severyanin in St. Petersburg, in 1912-14 the group was headed by Ivan Ignatiev. Based on egoism as the driving force of life, egofuturism advocated individualism and demanded the abolition of moral and ethical restrictions in art. Some members of this short-lived group later united under the name of the Imagists (R. Ivnev and V. Shershenevich).
Closer to the ideas of the Cubo-Futurists group "Centrifuge", which existed in Moscow from 1914 to 1922 and advocated primarily for the renewal of poetic means - metaphors and figurative language in general. This included S. Bobrov, B. Pasternak, N. Aseev; according to literary critic Markov, “of all the other futurist groups, this perhaps represented futurism most widely and deeply.”
Along with the three main ones, there were many other directions of futurism, respectively, interconnected; for example, G. Petnikov and N. Aseev with their Kharkov publishing house “Liren”, who worked together with Khlebnikov, or the Moscow group “Mezzanine of Poetry”, close to egofuturism, which existed for 4 months in 1913.
Despite the positive attitude of the futurists, especially Mayakovsky, towards the revolution, the Soviet regime had a negative attitude towards futurism, as well as towards the LEF group that arose from it and the Leningrad association that was influenced by it Oberiu. The guidelines that guided the “orthodox” communist literary societies “ October"and RAPP in the fight against these opponents of bourgeois culture and revolutionaries in art, who followed an independent path, did not change until the collapse of the USSR: futurism was considered a bourgeois direction and decadent.
Futurism (from the Latin word futurum, meaning "future") - avant-garde art in Europe 1910-1920, mainly in Russia and Italy. It sought to create the so-called “art of the future,” as representatives of this movement declared in their manifestos.
In the works of F. T. Marinetti, the Italian poet, Russian Cubo-Futurists from the Giley society, as well as participants in the Mezzanine of Poetry, the Association of Ego-Futurists, and Centrifuge, traditional culture was denied as a legacy of the “past”, and the aesthetics of machine industry and urbanism were developed. .
Characteristics
Painting of this direction is characterized by influxes of forms, shifts, and multiple repetitions of various motifs, as if summing up impressions obtained as a result of rapid movement. In Italy, the futurists are G. Severini, U. Boccioni. In literature there is a mixture of fiction and documentary material, in poetry there is experimentation with language (“absurd” or “words in freedom”). Russian futurist poets are V.V. Mayakovsky, V.V. Khlebnikov, I. Severyanin, A.E. Kruchenykh.
Groups
This direction arose in 1910-1912, simultaneously with Acmeism. Acmeists, futurists and representatives of other movements of modernism were internally contradictory in their creativity and association. The most significant of the Futurist groups, later called Cubo-Futurism, united various poets of the Silver Age. Its most famous futurist poets are V.V. Khlebnikov, D.D. Burlyuk, V.V. Kamensky, A. Kruchenykh, V.V. Mayakovsky and others. The egofuturism of I. Severyanin (poet I.V. Lotarev, years of life - 1887-1941) was one of the varieties of this trend. The famous B. L. Pasternak and
Freedom of poetic speech
Russian futurists proclaimed the independence of form from content, its revolution, and the unlimited freedom of poetic speech. They completely abandoned literary traditions. In a manifesto with the very daring title “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste,” which they published in a collection of the same name in 1912, representatives of this trend called for such recognized authorities as Dostoevsky, Pushkin and Tolstoy to be thrown off the “Steamboat of Modernity.” A. Kruchenykh defended the poet’s right to create his own, “abstruse” language that has no specific meaning. In his poems, speech was indeed replaced by an incomprehensible, meaningless set of words. But V.V. Kamensky (life years - 1884-1961) and V. Khlebnikov (years of life - 1885-1922) were able to achieve very interesting experiments with language, which had a fruitful impact on Russian poetry.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky
The famous poet Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (1893-1930) was also a futurist. His first poems were published in 1912. Vladimir Vladimirovich brought his own theme to this direction, which from the very beginning distinguished him from other representatives. Mayakovsky the futurist actively advocated the creation of something new in the life of society, and not just against various “old things”.
In the time preceding the revolution of 1917, the poet was a revolutionary romantic who denounced the so-called kingdom of the “fat” and foresaw the impending revolutionary storm. Denying the entire existing system of capitalist relations, he proclaimed a humanistic faith in man in such poems as “The Spine Flute,” “A Cloud in Pants,” “Man,” and “War and Peace.” The theme of the poem “A Cloud in Pants”, published in 1915 (only in a truncated form by censorship), was later defined by the poet himself as 4 cries of “Down!”: down with love, art, order and religion. He was one of the first Russian poets to show in his poems the whole truth of the new society.
Nihilism
In the years preceding the revolution, there were bright individuals in Russian poetry who were difficult to attribute to a specific one: M. I. Tsvetaeva (1892-1941) and M. A. Voloshin (1877-1932). After 1910, another new direction appeared - futurism, which opposed itself to all literature, not only of the past, but also of the present. It entered the world with the desire to subvert all ideals. Nihilism is also visible in external design collections of poets that were published on back side wallpaper or on wrapping paper, as well as in their titles - “Dead Moon”, “Mares’ Milk” and other typical futurist poems.
"A slap in the face to public taste"
The first collection, “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste,” published in 1912, contained a declaration. It was signed by famous futurist poets. These were Andrei Kruchenykh, Vladimir Mayakovsky and Velimir Khlebnikov. In it they asserted their exclusive right to be the spokesmen of their era. Poets rejected Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Tolstoy as ideals, but at the same time Balmont, his “perfume fornication,” Andreev with his “dirty mucus,” Maxim Gorky, Alexander Blok, Alexander Kuprin and others.
Rejecting everything, the Futurist manifesto established the “lightnings” of the self-valued word. Not trying, unlike Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky, to overthrow the existing social system, they only wanted to update its forms. In the Russian version, the slogan “War is the only hygiene in the world,” which was considered the basis of Italian futurism, was weakened, however, according to Valery Bryusov, this ideology still “appeared between the lines.”
According to Vadim Shershenevich, the Futurists of the Silver Age for the first time raised the form to the proper height, giving it the significance of the main, self-purposed element of the work. They categorically rejected poetry that is written only for the sake of an idea. Therefore, many formal declared principles arose.
New language
Velimir Khlebnikov, another futurist theorist, proclaimed the new "abstruse" language as the future language of the world. In it, the word loses its semantic meaning, acquiring instead a subjective connotation. Thus, vowels were understood as space and time (the nature of aspiration), consonants - sound, color, smell. Striving to expand linguistic boundaries, he suggests creating words based on their roots (roots: char..., chur... - “we are enchanted and shunned”).
The futurists contrasted the aestheticism of symbolist and especially acmeistic poetry with emphasized de-aestheticization. For example, “poetry is a worn-out girl” by David Burliuk. Valery Bryusov, in his review “The Year of Russian Poetry” (1914), noted, noting the deliberate rudeness of the futurists’ poems, that it is not enough to scold everything outside one’s circle in order to find something new. He pointed out that all the supposed innovations of these poets are imaginary. We meet them in the poetry of the 18th century, in Virgil and Pushkin, and the theory of sound-colors was proposed as early as
Relationship difficulties
It is interesting that, despite all the denial in art, the futurists of the Silver Age still felt the continuity of symbolism. Thus, Alexander Blok, who observed the work of Igor Severyanin, speaks with concern that he lacks a theme, and in an article from 1915, Valery Bryusov notes that his inability to think and lack of knowledge degrade his poetry. He reproaches Northerner for vulgarity and bad taste, and especially criticizes his poems about the war.
Back in 1912, Alexander Blok said that he was afraid that modernists did not have a core. Soon the concepts of “futurist” and “hooligan” became synonymous for the moderate public of those years. The press eagerly followed the “exploits” of the creators of new art. Thanks to this, they became known to wide sections of the population and attracted huge attention. The history of this movement in Russia is a complex relationship between representatives of four main groups, each of which believed that it was they who expressed the “true” futurism, and fiercely polemicized with others, challenging main role. This struggle took place in streams of mutual criticism, which increased their isolation and hostility. But sometimes members of different groups moved from one to another or became closer.
Futurism
Futurism was the first avant-garde movement in Russian literature. Assigning itself the role of a prototype of the art of the future, futurism as its main program put forward the idea of destructing cultural stereotypes and instead offered an apology for technology and urbanism as the main signs of the present and the future. Members of the St. Petersburg group “Gilea” are considered the founders of Russian futurism. "Gilea" was the most influential, but not the only association of futurists: there were also ego-futurists led by Igor Severyanin (St. Petersburg), the groups "Centrifuge" and "Mezzanine of Poetry" in Moscow, groups in Kyiv, Kharkov, Odessa, Baku .
Russian futurism is one of the directions of the Russian avant-garde; a term used to designate a group of Russian poets, writers and artists who adopted the tenets of Tommaso Filippo Marinetti's manifesto.
- 1. Main features
- -rebellion, anarchic worldview, expression of mass sentiments of the crowd;
- - denial of cultural traditions, an attempt to create art aimed at the future;
- -rebellion against the usual norms of poetic speech, experimentation in the field of rhythm, rhyme, focus on the spoken verse, slogan, poster;
- -searches for a liberated “autonomous” word, experiments in creating an “abstruse” language.
The history of futurism
The founders of Russian futurism are considered to be the “Budetlyans”, members of the St. Petersburg group “Gilea” (Velimir Khlebnikov, Alexei Kruchenykh, Vladimir Mayakovsky, David Burliuk, Vasily Kamensky, Benedict Livshits), who in December 1912 issued the manifesto “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste.” The manifesto called for “throwing Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc., etc., off the ship of modernity” and formulated 4 rights of poets:
1. To increase the poet’s vocabulary in its volume with arbitrary and derivative words (Word is innovation).4. Standing on the rock of the word “we” amid a sea of whistles and indignation.
“Gilea” was the most influential, but not the only association of futurists: there were also ego-futurists led by Igor Severyanin (St. Petersburg), “Centrifuge” (Moscow), groups in Kyiv, Kharkov, Odessa, Baku. The members of the Hylea adhered to the doctrine of Cubo-Futurism; within its framework, abstruse poetry appeared, invented by Khlebnikov and Kruchenykh. With the establishment of Soviet power in Russia, futurism gradually began to disappear. Former futurists formed the core of LEF (Left Front of the Arts), which disintegrated by the end of the 1920s.
Many of the authors emigrated (David Burlyuk, Igor Severyanin, Ilya Zdanevich, Alexandra Ekster), died (Velimir Khlebnikov, Alexander Bogomazov), committed suicide (1930 - Vladimir Mayakovsky), some moved away from the ideals of futurism and developed their own, individual style ( Nikolai Aseev, Boris Pasternak). Since the 1930s, after the death of Mayakovsky and the execution of Igor Terentyev, Kruchenykh has moved away from literature and lives by selling rare books and manuscripts, which was also far from welcomed then. At the end of the 1920s, an attempt to revive futurism was made by the OBERIU association.
In addition to general futuristic writing, egofuturism is characterized by the cultivation of refined sensations, the use of new foreign words, and ostentatious selfishness. The leader of the movement was Igor Severyanin, Georgy Ivanov, Rurik Ivnev, Vadim Shershenevich and Vasilisk Gnedov, who was stylistically close to cubo-futurism, also joined ego-futurism.
"Mezzanine of Poetry"
A poetic association created in 1913 by Moscow egofuturists. It included Vadim Shershenevich, Rurik Ivnev (M. Kovalev), Lev Zak (pseudonyms - Khrisanf and Mikhail Rossiysky), Sergei Tretyakov, Konstantin Bolshakov, Boris Lavrenev and a number of other young poets.
The ideological inspirer of the group, as well as its most energetic member, was Vadim Shershenevich. The Mezzanine of Poetry was considered in literary circles to be a moderate wing of Futurism.
The association collapsed at the end of 1913. Three almanacs were published under the label “Mezzanine of Poetry”: “Vernissage”, “Feast during the Plague”, “Crematorium of Sanity” and several collections.
"Centrifuge"
Moscow futurist group, formed in January 1914 from the left wing of poets previously associated with the Lyrics publishing house.
The main members of the group are Sergei Bobrov, Nikolai Aseev, Boris Pasternak.
The main feature in the theory and artistic practice of the group members was that when constructing lyrical work the center of attention moved from the word as such to intonation-rhythmic and syntactic structures. Their work organically combined futuristic experimentation and reliance on tradition.
Books under the Centrifuge brand continued to be published until 1922.
Russian futurism in comparison with Italian
Russian futurism, unlike Italian, was a more literary movement, although many of the futurist poets experimented with fine arts. On the other hand, Futurism was a source of inspiration for some avant-garde Russian artists such as Mikhail Fedorovich Larionov, Natalya Sergeevna Goncharova and Kazimir Severinovich Malevich. An example of the joint work of poets and artists was the futurist opera “Victory over the Sun,” the libretto of which was written by Alexey Kruchenykh, and the scenery was designed by Kazimir Malevich.
In terms of ideology, there were also differences between Italian and Russian futurism. Italian Futurism glorified militarism, and its leader Marinetti was accused of chauvinism and misogyny. Marinetti later became a supporter of Italian fascism. At the same time, representatives of Russian futurism were characterized by leftist and anti-bourgeois beliefs; a number of them welcomed the October Revolution (Vladimir Mayakovsky, Velimir Khlebnikov, Vasily Kamensky, Osip Brik, Nikolai Assev, Vasily Kandinsky) and sought to develop art in a revolutionary spirit. There are many anti-war works in Russian futurism, in contrast to the militarism of Marinetti (the poem “War and Peace” by Mayakovsky, “War in the Mousetrap” by Khlebnikov).
Cubofuturism
Cubo-futurism is a movement in avant-garde art at the beginning of the twentieth century, which in painting combined the achievements of Italian futurists (for example, Boccioni) and French cubists (such as Braque).
The poetry of futurism and the painting of cubo-futurism (this term was publicly voiced in 1913 by Korney Chukovsky) are closely intertwined in history. In Russia, “Cubo-Futurism” was also one of the self-names of the poetic group “Gilea”, which contrasted it with the ego-futurism of Igor Severyanin and his followers (and subsequently with other futurist groups, such as “Mezzanine of Poetry” and “Centrifuge”). Cubo-futurist poets included Velimir Khlebnikov, Elena Guro, David and Nikolai Burliuk, Vasily Kamensky, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Alexey Kruchenykh, Benedikt Livshits. Many of them also acted as artists.
Egofuturism
Emgofuturism is a Russian literary movement of the 1910s, which developed within the framework of futurism. In addition to general futuristic writing, egofuturism is characterized by the cultivation of refined sensations, the use of new foreign words, and ostentatious selfishness.
In 1909, a circle of St. Petersburg poets formed around Igor Severyanin, which in 1911 adopted the name “Ego,” and in the same year I. Severyanin independently published and sent to newspaper offices a small brochure entitled “Prologue (Egofuturism).” In addition to Severyanin, the group included poets Konstantin Olimpov, Georgy Ivanov, Stefan Petrov (Grail-Arelsky), Pavel Kokorin, Pavel Shirokov, Ivan Lukash and others. Together they found a society of egofuturists, published several leaflets and manifestos formulated in extremely abstract and esoteric expressions (for example, “The Prism of Style - Restoration of the Spectrum of Thought”); Such “old school” poets as Mirra Lokhvitskaya and Olympov’s father Konstantin Fofanov were declared the forerunners of the ego-futurists. The group members called their poems “poets.” The first group of egofuturists soon disintegrates. In the fall of 1912, Igor Severyanin separated from the group, quickly gaining popularity among Russian Symbolist writers and then the general public.
The organization and promotion of egofuturism was undertaken by the 20-year-old poet Ivan Ignatiev, who founded the “Intuitive Association”. Ignatiev got down to business actively: he wrote reviews, poems, and the theory of egofuturism. In addition, in 1912, he founded the first ego-futuristic publishing house, “Petersburg Herald,” which published the first books by Rurik Ivnev, Vadim Shershenevich, Vasilisk Gnedov, Graal-Arelsky and Ignatiev himself. Ego-futurists were also published in the newspapers “Dachnitsa” and “Nizhegorodets”. In the early years, ego-futurism was opposed to cubo-futurism (futureism) on regional (St. Petersburg and Moscow) and stylistic grounds. In 1914, the first general performance of ego-futurists and byutlyans took place in Crimea; at the beginning of this year, Severyanin briefly spoke with the Cubo-Futurists (“First Journal of Russian Futurists”), but then decisively dissociated himself from them. After Ignatiev's suicide, the Petersburg Herald ceases to exist. The main ego-futurist publishing houses are the Moscow Mezzanine of Poetry by Vadim Shershenevich and the Petrograd Enchanted Wanderer by Viktor Khovin.
Egofuturism was a short-term and uneven phenomenon. Much of the attention of critics and the public was transferred to Igor Severyanin, who quite early distanced himself from the collective politics of the ego-futurists, and after the revolution he completely changed the style of his poetry. Most egofuturists either quickly outlived their style and moved on to other genres, or soon abandoned literature completely. Imagism of the 1920s was largely prepared by egofuturist poets.
According to Andrei Krusanov, a researcher of the Russian avant-garde, an attempt to continue the traditions of ego-futurism was made in the early 1920s. members of the Petrograd literary groups “Abbey of Gaers” and “Ring of Poets named after. K. M. Fofanova.” If the “Abbey of Gaers” was simply a circle that united young poets Konstantin Vaginov, brothers Vladimir and Boris Smirensky, K. Mankovsky and K. Olimpov, and little is known about its activities, then the “Ring of Poets” created in 1921 (V. and B. Smirensky, K. Vaginov, K. Olimpov, Graal-Arelsky, D. Dorin, Alexander Izmailov) tried to organize high-profile performances, announced a wide publishing program, but was closed by order of the Petrograd Cheka on September 25, 1922.
New Peasant Poetry
The concept of “peasant poetry,” which has entered historical and literary usage, unites poets conventionally and reflects only some common features inherent in their worldview and poetic manner. They did not form a single creative school with a single ideological and poetic program. How the genre “peasant poetry” was formed in mid-19th century. Its largest representatives were Alexey Vasilyevich Koltsov, Ivan Savvich Nikitin and Ivan Zakharovich Surikov. They wrote about the work and life of the peasant, about the dramatic and tragic conflicts of his life. Their work reflected both the joy of the merging of workers with the natural world, and the feeling of hostility to the life of a stuffy, noisy city alien to living nature. The most famous peasant poets of the Silver Age were: Spiridon Drozhzhin, Nikolai Klyuev, Pyotr Oreshin, Sergei Klychkov. Sergei Yesenin also joined this trend.
Imagism
Imaginism (from the Latin imago - image) is a literary movement in Russian poetry of the 20th century, whose representatives stated that the goal of creativity is to create an image. The main means of expression of the Imagists is metaphor, often metaphorical chains that compare various elements two images - direct and figurative. The creative practice of Imagists is characterized by shocking and anarchic motives.
Origin
The style and general behavior of Imagism was influenced by Russian Futurism. According to some researchers, the name goes back to English Imagism - the English-language poetic school (T. E. Hume, E. Pound, T. Eliot, R. Aldington), which became known in Russia after the article by 3. Vengerova “English Futurists” (collection “Sagittarius”, 1915). The connection of the term and concept “imagism” with Anglo-American imagism is debatable.
Imagism as a poetic movement arose in 1918, when the “Order of Imagists” was founded in Moscow. The creators of the “Order” were Anatoly Mariengof, who came from Penza, former futurist Vadim Shershenevich, and Sergei Yesenin, who was previously part of the group of new peasant poets. Features of a characteristic metaphorical style were also contained in the earlier works of Shershenevich and Yesenin, and Mariengof organized a literary group of imagists back in hometown. The Imagist “Declaration”, published on January 30, 1919 in the Voronezh magazine “Sirena” (and on February 10 also in the newspaper “Soviet Country”, on the editorial board of which Yesenin was a member), was also signed by the poet Rurik Ivnev and the artists Boris Erdman and Georgy Yakulov. On January 29, 1919, the first literary evening of the Imagists took place at the Union of Poets. Poets Ivan Gruzinov, Matvey Roizman, Alexander Kusikov, Nikolai Erdman, Lev Monoszon also joined imagism.
In 1919--1925 Imagism was the most organized poetic movement in Moscow; they organized popular creative evenings in artistic cafes, published many author’s and collective collections, the magazine “Hotel for Traveling in Beauty” (1922-1924, 4 issues were published), for which the publishing houses “Imaginists”, “Pleiada”, “Shikhi” were created -Pikhi" and "Sandro" (the last two were led by A. Kusikov). In 1919, the Imagists entered the literary section of the Literary Train named after. A. Lunacharsky, which gave them the opportunity to travel and perform throughout the country and largely contributed to the growth of their popularity. In September 1919, Yesenin and Mariengof developed and registered with the Moscow Council the charter of the “Association of Freethinkers” - the official structure of the “Order of Imagists”. The charter was signed by other members of the group and approved by the People's Commissar of Education A. Lunacharsky. On February 20, 1920, Yesenin was elected chairman of the Association.
In addition to Moscow (“Order of Imagists” and “Association of Freethinkers”), centers of imagism existed in the provinces (for example, in Kazan, Saransk, in the Ukrainian city of Alexandria, where the poet Leonid Chernov created an imagist group), as well as in Petrograd-Leningrad. The emergence of the Petrograd “Order of Militant Imagists” was announced in 1922 in the “Manifesto of Innovators”, signed by Alexei Zolotnitsky, Semyon Polotsky, Grigory Shmerelson and Vlad. Korolevich. Then, instead of the departed Zolotnitsky and Korolevich, Ivan Afanasyev-Soloviev and Vladimir Richiotti joined the Petrograd Imagists, and in 1924 Wolf Ehrlich.
Some of the Imagist poets presented theoretical treatises (“The Keys of Mary” by Yesenin, “Buyan Island” by Mariengof, “2x2=5” by Shershenevich, “The Basics of Imagism” by Gruzinov). The Imagists also became notorious for their shocking antics, such as “renaming” Moscow streets, “trials” of literature, and painting the walls of the Strastnoy Monastery with anti-religious inscriptions.
Imagism actually collapsed in 1925: Alexander Kusikov emigrated in 1922, Sergei Yesenin and Ivan Gruzinov announced the dissolution of the Order in 1924, other imagists were forced to move away from poetry, turning to prose, drama, and cinema, largely for the sake of making money. Imagism was criticized in the Soviet press. Yesenin, according to the generally accepted version, committed suicide, Nikolai Erdman was repressed.
The activities of the Order of Militant Imagists ceased in 1926, and in the summer of 1927 the liquidation of the Order of Imagists was announced. The relationships and actions of the Imagists were then described in detail in the memoirs of Mariengof, Shershenevich, and Roizman.
The followers of imagism, or “younger imagists,” included the poetess Nadezhda Volpin, also known as a translator and memoirist (mother of Alexander Yesenin-Volpin, mathematician and dissident).
In 1993-1995 in Moscow there was a group of meloimaginists developing the poetry of images, which included Lyudmila Vagurina, Anatoly Kudryavitsky, Sergei Neshcheretov and Ira Novitskaya
In 2008, the cellular communications company MTS launched two image videos in which they used A. Blok’s poem:
Night, street, lantern, pharmacy,
Pointless and dim light.
Live for at least another quarter of a century...
Everything will be like this. There is no outcome.
If you die, you'll start over again
And everything will repeat itself as before:
Night, icy ripples of the channel,
Pharmacy, street, lamp.
and I. Severyanin:
Both I and I are exhausted in separation!
And I am sad! I'm bending under a heavy burden...
Now I'll hide my happiness under lock and key,--
Come back to me: I’m still good...
These poems acted as accompaniment to the video sequence. A. Blok's poetry turned out to be more advantageous and memorable.
In the 1910s, simultaneously with Acmeism, many avant-garde movements. The term "avant-garde" means "advanced detachment." Artists, supporters this direction in all areas of art, in particular in literature, they preached innovation, renewal, and rejection of established canons and traditions. They saw the value of the work in the novelty and boldness of its content and form. Avant-garde movements appeared in painting: futurism, cubism, abstractionism, primitivism. Art rebels overthrew previous traditional art systems. Young “geniuses” - artists, performers, poets, musicians - gathered in the notorious St. Petersburg cafe called " Stray dog", where they put forward crazy plans, argued, quarreled, sang, played. Here such poets as K. Balmont, F. Sologub, N. Gumilyov, O. Mandelstam, A. Akhmatova and others read their poems. Futurists were especially active.
Futurism originated in Italy. The theory of this movement in modernist (avant-garde) art was developed by the famous publicist and philosopher Filippo T. Marinetti in the articles “Manifesto of Futurism” (1909), “Let’s Kill the Moonlight” (1911), etc., calling for “refusal to be understood”, “boldly create the ugly”, “daily spitting on the altar of art”, “follow the maximum disorder."
Despite the initial delight, Russian artists did not accept Marinetti’s theory of preaching violence and asserting the “iron energy of wars.” Russian futurists found understanding only of his ideas of the cult of industrialization and a break with past traditions. For many young people, futurism has become a way of life. They proclaimed anarchy in everything, complete freedom of the individual, neglected the rules of good manners and thereby frightened the inhabitants. Striving for the “supernova”, they were most afraid of “similarity”, “standard”. The collections of the futurists bore pretentious and unusual titles: “ Dead moon», « Mares' milk», « Go to hell"etc.
Futurists were divided into Byutlyan(from the word “will”, that is new life) - that's what they called themselves cubo-futurists and egofuturists (“ego” means “I”).
First creative association futuristic poets was called “ Hylea" It included the Burliuk brothers, A. Kruchenykh, V. Khlebnikov, V. Kamensky, V. Mayakovsky, E. Guro. The group consisted of Budutlyans (Cubo-Futurists), associated with Cubism in painting. There were other groups, for example, " Mezzanine of Poetry"(V. Shershnevich, B. Ivnev, B. Lavrenev, etc.), " Centrifuge"(an active member of which was B. Pasternak, as well as S. Bobrov, N. Aseev).
In 1912, the Cubo-Futurists published their manifesto - a collection of poems " A slap in the face to public taste" The foreword to it was signed by D. Burliuk, A. Kruchenykh, V. Khlebnikov and V. Mayakovsky. The poets demanded a revolution of freedom of experiment, not constrained by conventions: “Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc. and so on. from the Steamboat of Modernity." The futurists expressed their disdain for both realists and symbolists, and rejected everything that was not futurism. The Budutlyans called for “not to reflect reality, but to remake it, revealing the disharmony of the world.” They argued that "The Word must be free from all meaning." Supporters of the art of the future rejected syllabic tonics, ignored punctuation marks, etc. The composition of the futurists was very diverse, many were “carried” to extremes. An example is the work of Alexey Kruchenykh (1886-1968), who worked on updating poetic speech and tried to create a “non-verbal” poetic language without meaning or rhyme, he typed lines of poetry in different fonts without punctuation. He called this new language “liberated words.” And thereby achieved reverse effect: not renewal, but destruction of language.
