Russian futurist poets. Futurists of the Silver Age

holes bul schyl ubeschur skum you with burlez A.E. Kruchenykh

Russian futurism originally emerged as a school of painting, and received its name from the Latin futurum - future. The emergence of a group of artists and poets in 1909 is associated with the beginning of Russian literary futurism "Gilea" ("Budetlians").

The aesthetics of Cubo-Futurism was characterized by:

1. Denial of harmony.
2. De-aestheticization of creativity: artistic techniques (comparisons, epithets, hyperboles, etc.) were not intended to enhance beauty and imagery, but, on the contrary, to profane it: “The street has sunk like the nose of a syphilitic. The river is voluptuousness, spread in drool...” (V.V. Mayakovsky, “But still”);
3. The predominance of form over content: the form of the word, rhythm and melody of the text are more important than its meaning.
4. Word creation: an attempt to replace the traditional language with an “abstruse language”*, numerous neologisms (words created by the author): “winged”, “swanlike”, “zinziver”, “vremirey”, “laughing”, “lyubyonochek”. Velimir Khlebnikov (“Bobeobi lips sang…”, “The Spell of Laughter”) and Alexey Kruchenykh (“holes bul schyl...”) succeeded in this direction. To find a new meaning in a word, futurists decomposed the word: n: X; at the same time, language experiments made it possible to discover the inexhaustible richness of the Russian language - see, for example, Khlebnikov’s poem “The Spell of Laughter” **.
5. The inhumane nature of creativity: the art of the futurists was directed not towards man, but from him.

By deforming reality, the futurists sought to emphasize the disharmony of the world. However, the energy of destruction led to the fact that the art of futurism began to be anti-human in nature. The too radical statements of the futurists scared off the general reader, and the “abstruse language” that they invented never became the language of the future. The futurists wanted to go from zero to infinity, but they went the other way, because a person without a past resembles a one-day butterfly, born at dawn and dying in the evening.

From 1913 to 1917 there was a group of poets called "Centrifuge", which formed the third, last movement in Russian futurism. The brightest representatives of this trend were the novice poets Boris Pasternak And Nikolay Aseev. The focus of the poets of "Centrifuge" was not the word itself, but non-standard syntactic and rhythmic structures.

In 1917, Russian futurism died quietly, leaving no heir.

Of the poets associated with futurism, only B.L. remained in “great literature”. Parsnip.

* Zaum, or abstruse language- this is an attempt not to destroy the language, but, on the contrary, to semantize it as much as possible. Velimir Khlebnikov assumed that the creation of an abstruse language would make it possible to decompose the language into elements and create “something like Mendeleev’s law.” Zaum proceeded from two premises: 1) “the first consonant of a word controls the entire word, orders the rest”; 2) words starting with the same consonant are united by some common concept. For example, words starting with Ch, according to Khlebnikov, mean “one body in the shell of another”: cup, vat, skull, stocking. Khlebnikov believed that an abstruse language could become the language of the future and unite all people.

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 “Gileya” 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 Kiev, 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 “authentic” word, experiments to create 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 Kiev, 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 a lyrical work, the focus of attention shifted 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 also experimented with the visual 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. As a genre, “peasant poetry” was formed in the middle of the 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 expressive means of imagists is metaphor, often metaphorical chains that compare various elements of 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 in his 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 and collective collections, the magazine “Hotel for Travelers 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.

futurism literary Russian

The birth of Russian futurism is considered to be 1910, when the first futurist collection “The Fishing Tank of Judges” was published (its authors were D. Burliuk, V. Khlebnikov and V. Kamensky). Together with V. Mayakovsky and A. Kruchenykh, these poets soon formed the most influential group of cubo-futurists in the new movement: “cubo” - from the cubism they promoted in painting, “futurum” - the future. This futuristic group also had another name - “Gilea” (this is the name in ancient Greek for that part of the Tauride province where the Burliuk family lived in the 1910s and where the poets of the new association came in 1911). The poet V. Khlebnikov gave the group another name - Budutlyans; according to V. Mayakovsky, “the people of the future are the people who will be. We are on the eve.”

In December 1912, a collection of Cubo-Futurists, “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste,” was published. This collection opened with a programmatic article signed by D. Burliuk, A. Kruchenykh, V. Mayakovsky, V. Khlebnikov). The group's position was destructive and scandalous. “Only we are the face of our Time,” they asserted.

But the Cubo-Futurists were not the only literary futurist group:

• · in St. Petersburg in 1911, ego-futurists led by I. Severyanin announced their appearance; the group included K. Olimpov, I. Ignatiev, V. Gnedov, G. Ivanov.
• · the group “Mezzanine of Poetry” in 1913-1914 consisted of V. Shershenevich, R. Ivnev, S. Tretyakov, B. Lavrenev, Khrisanf.
• · during 1914-1916 there was a futuristic group “Centrifuge”, which included S. Bobrov, N. Aseev, B. Pasternak, K. Bolshakov, Bozhidar.

The existence of each of the futurist groups was short-lived: they appeared before the First World War and disbanded in the first war years. Each of these groups, as a rule, considered itself to be the exponent of the ideas of “true” futurism and conducted fierce polemics with other groups.

When talking about futurists, they most often mean the most famous of them - the Cubo-Futurists: Vladimir Mayakovsky, Velimir Khlebnikov, Alexey Kruchenykh, Vasily Kamensky and others. A clear idea of ​​their literary program is given by quotes from their collections ("The Fishing Tank of Judges P", "A Slap in the Face of Public Taste", etc.): "Throw Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc., etc. From the Steamboat of Modernity"; “The Budet people love to use parts of bodies, cuts, and the Budet people love to use chopped words, half-words and their bizarre, cunning combinations (abstruse language)”; “We have loosened the syntax... We began to give content to words according to their descriptive and phonic characteristics”; “We understand vowels as time and space (the nature of aspiration), consonants as color, sound, smell”; “We have crushed rhymes. Khlebnikov put forward the poetic meter of the living spoken word. We have stopped looking for meters in textbooks...”; “We consider the word to be the creator of myth: the word, dying, gives birth to myth, and vice versa.”

The futurists announced the arrival of an artist with a new view of the world, a herald of a new world, and A. Kruchenykh, in the article “Declaration of the Word as Such” (1913), stated: “The artist saw the world in a new way and, like Adam, gives everything its own name. The lily is beautiful, but the word lily, captured and “raped” is ugly. That’s why I call the lily euy - the original purity has been restored.”

The aesthetic and literary principles of the Futurists, as well as the names of their collections ("A Slap in the Face of Public Taste", "Dead Moon", "Milkers of Exhausted Toads", "Tango with Cows") shocked their contemporaries, causing indignation and all sorts of reproaches. Futurism as a phenomenon went beyond the scope of literature itself: it was embodied in the very behavior of participants in the movement. A necessary condition for its existence was the atmosphere of a literary scandal. The public speeches of the futurists were formalized provocatively: the beginning and end of the speeches were marked by the striking of a gong, K. Malevich appeared with a wooden spoon in his buttonhole, V. Mayakovsky - in a “female”, according to the criteria of that time, yellow jacket, A. Kruchenykh carried a sofa cushion on a cord through his neck and so on. In reality, not everything that the futurists surprised the public with should be taken seriously. V. Mayakovsky himself soon, with the outbreak of the war, admitted: “... we had a lot of tricks just to shock the bourgeoisie... futurism for us, young poets, is the red cloak of a bullfighter...”

The general basis of the movement was a spontaneous feeling of “the inevitability of the collapse of old things” (V. Mayakovsky) and the desire to realize and express through art the coming world revolution and the birth of a new man. But the goal was not only to realize and express the change of eras, art itself was to become an active transformative force capable of transforming the world.

Unlike their Symbolist predecessors, the Futurists sought to make literary art, the literary word democratic, mass (poetry had to break out of the prison of the book and sound in the square); sought to provide modern means of self-expression that were adequate to the new dynamic times in art. V. Khlebnikov even tried to offer humanity a new universal language. In terms of the scope of their life-creative claims, the Futurists were superior to the Symbolists.

For the futurists, the word was objectified, that is, it became valuable, self-sufficient (not reflecting, but replacing objects and phenomena, itself becoming an object); it could be split up, altered, and new combinations of morphemes and sounds created. The experiments of the futurists (primarily V. Khlebnikov, V. Mayakovsky, A. Kruchenykh) in the field of verse and the poetic word were interesting. Thus, at one time, the “poem” by A. Kruchenykh “Dyr - bul - schyl...” became scandalous:

Hole - bul - schyl

You - so - boo

A. Kruchenykh himself asserted: “... there is more Russian national in this five-line poem than in all of Pushkin’s poetry.” Should we take this statement seriously? Is there anything in this “poem” other than the desire to shock the audience? Since we cannot talk about the content side of this work (there is simply no reason for this), then the whole point here, obviously, lies in the sound shell - the sound (phonosemantics) of the invented Twisted “words”. Otherwise, is the sound shell, the clothing of the word, meaningful? How to relate to the “abstruse language” (“zaumi”) of the futurists?

According to research by A.P. Zhuravlev and other scientists, information is carried not only by words (their lexical meanings), but also by sounds, the sound shell of a word. For example, sounds have color correspondences: [a] - bright red; [o] - bright light yellow or white; [i] - light blue; [e] - light yellow-green; [y] - dark blue-green; [s] - dull dark brown or black. The sounds also have emotional correspondences: [d] - dark, cold, sad; [r] - rough, etc.

Based on the emotional and color characteristics of the sounds included in the “poem” of A. Kruchenykh, it can, with a certain amount of imagination, be “interpreted” as an image of a thunderstorm (possibly accompanying a change in historical formations). According to one of the proposed versions of the 1st reading of this “poem”, the words “hole”, “bul”, “schyl” are associated with something black, cold, sad, rough, heavy, frightening. Perhaps they depict the pre-storm state of nature: “holes”, “shchyl” - a dark black sky; "bul" - dark blue-green vegetation on the ground; the word "ubeshchur" is associated with dark, slow, scary, dull, with glimpses of light yellow-green color. Perhaps these are light yellow-green flashes on a dark blue-green field. The word "skum" is something cold, evil, quiet, dark, powerful and arrogant. It looks like the dark blue surface of the clouds. All this can be perceived as a preface, as a premonition of thunderstorm events, as if clouds are creeping across the sky; And here's a turn - a bright flash illuminated the sky: "You - so - boo." “You” is active, big, cheerful, loud and majestic; "co" - flash; cold, light, light and large; "boo" - rough, cold, like a blow. Perhaps it's a bright white flash on a dark blue background. “R - l - ez” - the first sounds repeat the sounds of the first line, but only briefly and expressively, as if darkness had enveloped the sky after a flash. “Ez” is something majestic, bright, fast, ringing and optimistic. It looks like the reflections of lightning flashes on the ground.

Futurism (from Latin futurum - future), avant-garde movement in European art of the 1910s - 20s, mainly in Italy and Russia. In an effort to create “the art of the future”, he declared (in the manifestos and artistic practice of the Italian poet F. T. Marinetti, the Russian Cubo-Futurists from “Gilea”, participants in the “Association of Ego-Futurists”, “Mezzanine of Poetry”, “Centrifuge”) the denial of traditional culture (heritage " past"), cultivated the aesthetics of urbanism and machine industry. Painting (in Italy - U. Boccioni, G. Severini) is characterized by shifts, influxes of forms, multiple repetitions of motifs, as if summing up the impressions received in the process of rapid movement. For literature - the interweaving of documentary material and fiction, in poetry (V.V. Khlebnikov, V.V. Mayakovsky, A.E. Kruchenykh, I. Severyanin) - language experimentation ("words in freedom" or "zaum"). (Big Encyclopedic Dictionary)

Simultaneously with Acmeism in 1910-1912. Futurism arose. Like other modernist movements, it was internally contradictory. The most significant of the futurist groups, which later received the name Cubo-Futurism, united such Silver Age poets as D.D. Burlyuk, V.V. Khlebnikov, A. Kruchenykh, V.V. Kamensky, V.V. Mayakovsky, and some others. A type of futurism was the egofuturism of I. Severyanin (I.V. Lotarev, 1887-1941). Soviet poets N.N. began their creative career in a group of futurists called “Centrifuge”. Aseev and B.L. Parsnip.

Futurism proclaimed a revolution of form, independent of content, absolute freedom of poetic speech. Futurists rejected literary traditions. In their manifesto with the shocking title “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste,” published in a collection of the same name in 1912, they called for throwing Pushkin, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy off the “Steamboat of Modernity.” A. Kruchenykh defended the poet’s right to create an “abstruse” language that does not have a specific meaning. In his writings, Russian speech was indeed replaced by a meaningless set of words. However, V. Khlebnikov (1885 - 1922), V.V. Kamensky (1884 - 1961) managed in their creative practice to carry out interesting experiments in the field of words, which had a beneficial effect on Russian and Soviet poetry.

Among the futurist poets, the creative path of V.V. began. Mayakovsky (1893 - 1930). His first poems appeared in print in 1912. From the very beginning, Mayakovsky stood out in the poetry of Futurism, introducing his own theme into it. He always spoke out not only against “all sorts of old things,” but also for the creation of something new in public life.

In the years leading up to 1917, Mayakovsky was a passionate revolutionary romantic, an exposer of the kingdom of the “fat,” anticipating a revolutionary storm. The pathos of denial of the entire system of capitalist relations, the humanistic faith in man sounded with enormous force in his poems “Cloud in Pants”, “Spine Flute”, “War and Peace”, “Man”. The theme of the poem “A Cloud in Pants,” published in 1915 in a censored form, was subsequently defined by Mayakovsky as four cries of “down with”: “Down with your love!”, “Down with your art!”, “Down with your system!”, “ Down with your religion!” He was the first of the poets who showed in his works the truth of the new society.

In Russian poetry of the pre-revolutionary years there were bright individuals who are difficult to attribute to a specific literary movement. These are M.A. Voloshin (1877 - 1932) and M.I. Tsvetaeva (1892 - 1941). After 1910, another direction emerged - futurism, which sharply contrasted itself not only with the literature of the past, but also with the literature of the present, entering the world with the desire to overthrow everything and everyone. This nihilism was manifested in the external design of futuristic collections, which were printed on wrapping paper or the back of wallpaper, and in the titles - “Mares’ Milk”, “Dead Moon”, etc.

In the first collection, “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste” (1912), a declaration was published, signed by D. Burliuk, A. Kruchenykh, V. Khlebnikov, V. Mayakovsky. In it, the futurists asserted themselves and only themselves as the only exponents of their era. They demanded “Throw away Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc. and so on. from the Steamboat of Modernity,” they at the same time denied the “perfume fornication of Balmont,” spoke about the “dirty slime of books written by the endless Leonid Andreevs,” and indiscriminately discounted Gorky, Kuprin, Blok, etc.

Rejecting everything, they affirmed “Dawns of the new coming Beauty of the Self-Valuable (Self-Valuable) Word.” Unlike Mayakovsky, they did not try to overthrow the existing system, but sought only to update the forms of reproduction of modern life. The basis of Italian futurism with its slogan “war is the only hygiene of the world” in the Russian version was weakened, but, as V. Bryusov notes in the article “The Meaning of Modern Poetry,” this ideology “... appeared between the lines, and the masses of readers instinctively shunned this poetry."

“Futurists were the first to raise form to the proper height,” says V. Shershenevich, “giving it the meaning of an end in itself, the main element of a poetic work. They completely rejected poetry that is written for an idea.” This explains the emergence of a huge number of declared formal principles, such as: “In the name of personal freedom, we deny spelling” or “We have destroyed punctuation marks, - which is why the role of the verbal mass was put forward for the first time and realized” (“Tank of Judges”).

The futurist theorist V. Khlebnikov proclaims that the language of the world of the future “will be the language of the abstruse.” The word is deprived of its semantic meaning, acquiring a subjective coloring: “We understand vowels as time and space (the nature of aspiration), consonants - paint, sound, smell.” V. Khlebnikov, trying to expand the boundaries of language and its capabilities, proposes the creation of new words based on root characteristics, for example: (roots: chur... and char...)

We are enchanted and shunned. Enchanting there, shying away here, Now a churakhar, now a churakhar, Here a churil, there a churil. From the churyn the gaze of the enchantress. There is churavel, there is churavel. Charari! Churari! Churel! Charel! Chares and chures. And shy away and be enchanted.

The futurists contrast the emphasized aestheticism of the poetry of the Symbolists and especially the Acmeists with deliberate de-aestheticization. Thus, in D. Burliuk, “poetry is a tattered girl,” “the soul is a tavern, and the sky is trash,” and in V. Shershenevich, “in a spit-stained square,” a naked woman wants to “squeeze milk from saggy breasts.” In the review “The Year of Russian Poetry” (1914), V. Bryusov, noting the deliberate rudeness of the futurists’ poems, rightly notes: “It is not enough to vilify with abusive words everything that happened and everything that exists outside one’s circle in order to find something new.” He points out that all their innovations are imaginary, because we met some of them in the poets of the 18th century, others in Pushkin and Virgil, and that the theory of sounds and colors was developed by T. Gautier.

It is curious that, despite all the denials of other movements in art, the futurists feel their continuity from symbolism. It is curious that A. Blok, who followed Severyanin’s work with interest, says with concern: “He has no theme,” and V. Bryusov, in an article in 1915 dedicated to Severyanin, points out: “Lack of knowledge and inability to think belittle the poetry of Igor Severyanin and extremely narrow its horizon.” He reproaches the poet for bad taste, vulgarity, and especially sharply criticizes his war poems, which make a “painful impression”, “winning cheap applause from the public.” A. Blok had his doubts back in 1912: “I am afraid of the modernists that they do not have a core, but only talented curls around emptiness.”

Russian culture on the eve of the October Revolution of 1917 was the result of a complex and enormous path. Its distinctive features have always remained democracy, high humanism and genuine nationality, despite periods of brutal government reaction, when progressive thought and advanced culture were suppressed in every possible way.

The richest cultural heritage of pre-revolutionary times, cultural values ​​created over centuries constitute the golden fund of our national culture.

On March 16, 1915, because of a fight caused by the young futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, the Petrograd police closed the Stray Dog club of artists and poets. Maria Molchanova understands the phenomenon and faces of Russian pre-revolutionary futurism.

Several literary and artistic groups, constantly at odds with each other and challenging the title of true futurists, could not form a united front of the new art. There was no generally recognized leader in Russia: neither Khlebnikov, nor Mayakovsky, nor Larionov, nor Burliuk could be considered the creators and inspirers of Russian futurism.

The theory of “free creativity,” which Vladimir Markov and Nikolai Kulbin formulated in their articles and lectures, gave all the advantages not to the conceptual integrity of aesthetics, but to manifestations of creative energy, not bound by any standards of style or program.

Tommaso Marinetti. (wikipedia.org)

In the formation of futuristic aesthetics in Russia, the activity of Nikolai Kulbin became an important factor. He, “one of the most fantastic figures of that significant era,” as composer Lev Lurie recalled about him, not only organizationally and propagandistically supported the emerging group of young artists and poets, but also developed a number of theoretical positions essential for futurist aesthetics: the meaning of dissonant structures in a work of art, the connection of art with life, the role of those elements in art that are addressed to the unconscious level of perception, the study of the psychology of the creative process, the “psychology of the image,” the problem of joint creativity between the artist and the viewer.

Source: wikipedia.org

The first programmatic declarations of Russian futurism appear in 1912, although some participants in this movement place the date of their appearance earlier. Thus, David Burliuk points out that Russian poets and artists began using the word “futurism” to define their activities in 1911. The “Gileya” group, instead of the foreign word “futurism”, proposed the Russian name “Budetlyane”, which has a similar meaning. The Larionov group "Donkey's Tail" called themselves "future workers."

However, it was in January 1912 that Igor Severyanin (who was the first to use the word “futurism” in his collection) and Konstantin Olimpov released a manifesto leaflet “Tablets of the Academy of Egopoetry (Ecumenical Futurism).” More aesthetic in spirit than avant-garde-radical, these notes declared the credo of the “Association of Ego-Futurists,” which included, in addition to Severyanin and Olympov, Ivan Ignatiev and Vasilisk Gnedov. Two provisions revealed the foundations of the egofuturist program. The first is the expansion of the boundaries of language, since with the words existing in our rich language, futurists could not convey all the new ideas, impressions and concepts that overwhelmed their heads. The second is the affirmation of the triangle as a symbol of its unification as a sign of eternity.

Source: wikipedia.org

In December of the same 1912, the Gileya group released a collection of poems and articles, “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste.” The manifesto that opened it and was signed by David Burliuk, Alexei Kruchenykh, Vladimir Mayakovsky and Velimir Khlebnikov, with its offensive intonation and sharp polemical attacks against literary enemies, fully corresponded to all the canons of futurist declarations. The rejection of the art of the past (“the past is cramped”), the focus on modernity (“we are the only faces of our time”) and calls to “throw Pushkin, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy from the Steamship of Modernity” were obvious signs of the futuristic nature of the Hylean program.

Mikhail Larionov, emphatically attentive to the form of representation of his artistic experiments, skillfully using provocation and scandal as a factor in the development of art, not so much in style as in the very spirit that he sought to establish in art, can be considered the most futuristic Russian painter. Among his associates, Ilya Zdanevich, a poet, art critic and theorist of new art, one of the best experts on Italian futurism, was a consistent supporter of purely futuristic assertiveness and the energetic introduction of art into life.

Source: wikipedia.org

In Larionov’s group, Natalya Goncharova, Mikhail Le-Dantu, and Alexander Shevchenko also showed interest in futurism. In Larionov’s group of futurists, the most clear formulation was given to the concept of the eastern roots of Russian futurism, which determined the uniqueness of its aesthetics.

The manifesto “Radiants and Future” - one of the most daring declarations of Russian artists - appeared in 1913. The combination of two paradoxical trends determined the aesthetic program of the future: orientation to the East (“Long live the beautiful East! ... We are against the West, which vulgarizes our and Eastern forms”), to the national roots of art (“Long live nationality!”) and admiration for the rhythms and forms of modern urban life (“the whole brilliant style of our days - our trousers, jackets, shoes, trams, cars, airplanes, railways, grandiose steamships - such charm, such a great era, which had no equal in the entire history of the world”).

In the summer of 1913, a message about the “First All-Russian Congress of Bayaches of the Future (futurist poets)” appeared in the magazine “For 7 Days.” The declaration of the congress, whose delegates were Kruchenykh, Malevich, Matyushin, proclaimed the task: “To 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 to give personal creative insight into the true world of new people.”

The declaration, in addition, announcing the creation of the Budetlyanin Theater, opened up a new field of activity for the futurists. In December of the same year, at the St. Petersburg Luna Park Theater, futurists staged two famous productions of “Tragedy. Vladimir Mayakovsky" and the opera "Victory over the Sun".

Andrey Shemshurin, David Burliuk, Vladimir Mayakovsky. Moscow, 1914. (wikipedia.org)

In September 1913, the Moscow press actively discussed the sensational walk along the Kuznetsky Bridge of the futurists Larionov and Bolshakov with painted faces. At the end of the year, the Futurist Manifesto was published in Argus magazine. Why do we paint”, signed by Zdanevich and Larionov. “We connected art with life. After a long solitude of the masters, we loudly called life and life invaded art, it’s time for art to invade life,” the manifesto proclaimed.

Futuristic delight in the ephemeral poetry of sensations that corresponds to the rapidity of modern life, and the perception of bright shop windows, electric lighting, trams and cars as elements of a grandiose theatrical scenery, which was likened to urban space - all this became the basis for the equally ephemeral and rapid art of futuristic makeup.

At the same time, notes and interviews with Larionov appear in a number of magazines and newspapers, outlining his radical and fantastic projects for a futuristic theater, in which “the scenery is in motion and follows the artist, the audience lies in the middle of the hall in the first act and is in a grid, under ceiling, in the second." In addition, in 1913, with the participation of Larionov and Goncharova, the first (and only) futuristic film “Cabaret No. 13” was staged.

In 1914, the famous tour of the futurists (Burliuk, Mayakovsky and Kamensky) through the cities of Russia began. The lectures and debates given by the Budutans were staged by them as a kind of theatrical performances. Their spectacular character, the very form of propaganda of the new art, meant no less than the ideology they preached.

Futurism (from the Italian futurum - future) is one of the trends of decadence; futurism appeared in Russia around 1910 - 1912. Despite the fact that futurism was a very alien thing for Russian classical literature, it became a real continuation of the lack of ideas of Russian literature. Previously, lack of ideas was expressed in decadence. The first Russian poet to use the term “futurism” was Igor Severyanin.
Futurism in Russian literature broke up into several associations, the most famous of which were “Gilea”, “Centrifuge” (Moscow) and ego-futurists (St. Petersburg). “Gilea” was considered the most influential association.
Futurism had its main features: rebellion, futurism expressed the mood of the people; denial of cultural traditions; denial of customary norms and concepts of poetic form; various experiments with rhythm and rhymes; an attempt to create the art of the future.
Russian futurism, like many other movements of that time, is characterized by inconsistency and heterogeneity. The Futurists tried to demonstrate as much as possible their hostile and disdainful attitude towards current literary and social mores. Futurists insisted on the destruction of the old world.
Futurists in Russia openly declared themselves in 1912 with the release of a collection with a title characteristic of the futurist movement, “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste.” The collection was accompanied by a brief but significant manifesto containing a call to “throw off” Pushkin, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy from the “steamship of modernity.” This manifesto went down in history, and the phrase about the steamer became a very famous quote. The manifesto also formulated the following rights of futurist poets: the right to expand the vocabulary with derivative words and neologisms; the right to hate language that predates the futurists.
Russian futurists strengthened and emphasized their independence from the Italian futurists and called themselves “budetlyane” (people of the future). The first collection of poems by the “Budetlyans” was published in 1910 and it was called “The Tent of Judges.” The association of poets at that time included V. Mayakovsky, D. Burliuk, Khlebnikov and others. In 1914, Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote that people of the future were born, meaning the futurists. Igor Severyanin and Vladimir Mayakovsky were the two extreme poles of futurism in Russian literature. Ideological fluctuations within futurism were very great, but this did not in the least prevent each poet from expressing his specific ideas.
The movement of futurism existed in Russia not only in literature, but also in architecture, design, music, cinema and many other areas of the arts.
It is obvious that a “pure” direction or style cannot exist in anything, including futurism. In Russia, the only “pure” representative of futurism can be called the architect Ya. Chernikhov. He published “The Book of Architectural Fantasies” and “Architecture of the Future.”
Russian futurism was subjected to very strong criticism from bourgeois society. The works of the futurists were not published anywhere, no one wanted to buy them. In turn, the futurists themselves very boldly criticized modern literature. The Symbolists (the Symbolists tried to transform the world with art, which brought upon themselves the wrath of the Futurists), the Acmeists, and some other movements were also criticized by the Futurists.
When Soviet power was finally established in Russia, Russian futurism began to gradually disappear, as it could not withstand the tightening of criticism in its direction. As a result, many authors simply emigrated (for example, Igor Severyanin), Vladimir Mayakovsky committed suicide, Velimir Khlebnikov and some other poets died, others completely renounced the ideas of futurism (Boris Pasternak) and created their own style; some of the famous representatives of Russian futurism completely move away from literature and begin to engage, for example, in the sale of rare books, which was prohibited in those days. Futurism reflected the change that took place in people's minds at the beginning of the 20th century. Futurism existed as a unique movement of avant-gardeism, which gave another strong impetus to the development of culture.