{"id":5237,"date":"2010-05-17T00:00:06","date_gmt":"2010-05-16T22:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=5237"},"modified":"2010-05-08T11:39:27","modified_gmt":"2010-05-08T09:39:27","slug":"velimir-khlebnikov-the-futurian-1895-1922","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2010\/05\/velimir-khlebnikov-the-futurian-1895-1922\/","title":{"rendered":"Velimir Khlebnikov: The Futurian (1895-1922)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Only the bridge of Beauty will be strong enough for crossing from the bank of Darkness to the side of Light <\/em>– Nicholas Roerich<\/p>\n

The United Nations General Assembly in resolution A\/RES.62\/90 has proclaimed the year 2010 as the International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures \u201cto promote universal respect for, and observation and protection of, all human rights and fundamental freedoms.\u201d Cultures encompass not only the arts and humanities but also different ways of living together, value systems and traditions.\u00a0 Thus 2010 should provide real opportunities for dialogue among cultures.\u00a0 It is true that to an unprecedented degree people are meeting together in congresses, conferences and universities all over the globe. However, in themselves, such meetings are not dialogue and do not necessarily lead to rapprochement of cultures. There is a need to reach a deeper level.\u00a0 Reaching such deeper levels takes patience, tolerance, the ability to take a longer-range view, and creativity.\u00a0 Thus we are pleased to present the creative efforts of individuals who have helped to create bridges of understanding among cultures.<\/p>\n

Velimir Khlebnikov: The Futurian (1895-1922)<\/strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n

My soul is a seer<\/em><\/p>\n

Who has seen in the skies<\/em><\/p>\n

The constellations beginning to rise.<\/em><\/p>\n

And the thunderstorm fly like a bird.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>So wrote the Russian poet Velimir Khlebnikov on the eve of his death in 1922.\u00a0 Khlebnikov was part of an active avant-garde circle of writers and painters known as the Cubo-Futurists, although Khlebnikov used the term \u201cfuturian\u201d to separate himself from the urban-military-technological themes of Italian futurism represented by Marinettti. Khlebnikov had a strong sense of what Russia could bring to the modern world despite the hardships that the 1917 Revolution brought to the avant-garde.\u00a0 In 1920 he wrote:<\/p>\n

Russia, I give you my divine<\/em><\/p>\n

white brain. Be me. Be Khlebnikov.<\/em><\/p>\n

I have sunk a foundation deep in the minds<\/em><\/p>\n

of your people. I have laid down an axis,<\/em><\/p>\n

I have built a house on a firm foundation.<\/em><\/p>\n

We are Futurians.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>The group produced most of its work from 1910 until the start of World War I and then was scattered by the War and the Revolution.\u00a0 The group which included the spiritually-inclined painter Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935) was inspired by the paintings of Henri Matisse\u00a0 which existed in private collections in Moscow, but basically the group found its inspiration in the native art of Russian folklore \u2014 folklore which had a wisdom beyond intellect.\u00a0 In his essay \u201cOn Poetry\u201d Khlebnikov wrote \u201cIf we think of the soul as split between the government of intellect and a stormy population of feelings, then incantations and beyondsense language are appeals over the head of the government straight to the population of feelings, a direct cry to the predawn of the soul.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>Yet Khlebnikov does not fit into any one school or trend.\u00a0 As Paul Schmidt, the translator of his collective works points out \u201cTaken as a whole, his work explores a unique and much broader terrain.\u00a0 In addition to poems and plays, stories and essays, he wrote political and artistic manifestos, essays on history, architecture, and social problems, literary theory, and journalistic pieces on current events.\u00a0 His passion for internationalism in politics and the arts prompted him to envisage a world-wide brotherhood of creative scientists, writers, and thinkers dedicated to understanding nature and to counteracting all the social evils fostered by political leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khlebnikov, who died when he was 36, is in many ways a short-lived Walt Whitman whom he much admired. \u201cAttentively I read the springtime thoughts of the Divinity in designs on the speckled feet of tree-toads, Homer shaken by the awful wagon of a great war, the way a glass shakes at the passing of a wagon.\u00a0 I have the same Neanderthal skull, the same curving forehead as you, old Walt.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>Khlebnikov\u2019s \u201cO Garden of Animals\u201d is directly influenced by Whitman:<\/p>\n

\u201cO Garden of Animals,<\/em><\/p>\n

Where iron bars seem like a father who stops a bloody fight to remind his sons they are brothers; Where a clean-shaven soldier throws dirt at a tiger, all because the tiger is greater. <\/em><\/p>\n

Where a camel knows the essence of Buddhism, and suppresses a Chinese smile; Where I search for new rhythms, whose beats are animals and men.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>Like Whitman, Khlebnikov was an innovator of language and form.\u00a0 At first sight, his poetry was considered anarchic and destructive of accepted rules.\u00a0 Khlebnikov wanted a clear break with the past.\u00a0 As he wrote in 1916 as the war ground on \u201cOld Ones, you are holding back the fast advance of humanity; you are preventing the boiling locomotive of youth from crossing the mountain that lies in its path.\u00a0 We have broken the locks and see what your freight cars contain: tombstones for the young.\u201d <\/em>He saw himself as a creator of new forms that would penetrate below the surface of phenomena and give a new art that might change the human condition.\u00a0 As we look more deeply at his writings, we see the metaphysical structure of order behind the innovative lines.\u00a0 His break with the past was to discover the true laws of nature.\u00a0 As Paul Schmidt writes \u201cThis passionate belief in the sovereignty of a lawful nature gave Khlebnikov a great intellectual freedom in the pursuit of its boundless variety, in poetry and in the various languages he devised for poetry.\u00a0 It removed the constraints of common forms and opened words to the wide prospects enjoyed by natural objects, while making them subject to the deep scrutiny of analytic dissection.\u00a0 Khlebnikov was thus able to proceed to the work of the poet with the methodological precision of the scientist and to partake of the passion of both.\u00a0 To unite mankind into harmony with the universe \u2014 that was Khlebnikov\u2019s vocation.\u00a0 He wanted to make Planet Earth fit for the future, to free it from the deadly gravitational pull of everyday lying and pretence, from the tyranny of petty human instincts and the slow death of comfort and complacency.\u00a0 He wanted to transform the World through the Word.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khlebnikov\u2019s metaphysics are largely Taoist, more likely a rediscovery of the workings of yin <\/em>and yang<\/em> than a conscious influence of Chinese philosophy although he had a wide knowledge of Slavic and Indian mythology and a general interest in Asia.\u00a0 In a wry little poem of 1914, he describes concisely the underlying principle of his view of history, the idea of an equilibrium produced by the shift from positive to negative states:<\/p>\n

The law of the see-saw argues<\/em><\/p>\n

That your shoes will be loose or tight<\/em><\/p>\n

That the hours will be day or night,<\/em><\/p>\n

And that the ruler of earth the rhinoceros<\/em><\/p>\n

Or us.<\/em><\/p>\n

We find the same sense of the working of equilibrium in a section of \u201cThe Song of \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One Comes to Confusion\u201d:<\/p>\n

These tenuous Japanese shadows,<\/em><\/p>\n

These murmuring Indian maidens,<\/em><\/p>\n

Nothing sounds so mournful<\/em><\/p>\n

As words at this last supper.<\/em><\/p>\n

Death \u2014 but first life flashes past<\/em><\/p>\n

Again: unknown, unlike, immediate.<\/em><\/p>\n

This rule is the only rhythm<\/em><\/p>\n

For the dance of death and attainment.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>Death came too soon.\u00a0 1913 had been a high point of cooperation among the Cubo-Futurists when they staged the opera \u201cVictory over the Sun\u201d. The music was by Mikhail Matiushin (1861 -1934) with the sets and costumes by Kazimir Malevich and the prologue by Khlebnikov.\u00a0 War, revolution, civil war and exile broke up these creative groups.\u00a0 Although they were unable to create the future they had envisaged, the ideas are powerful beacons and can still reach a wider audience.<\/p>\n

See: Raymond Cooke. Velimir Khlebnikov<\/em> (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) and Paul Schmidt\u2019s translations The King of Time (<\/em>1985) and Collected Works <\/em>(1987 and 1989) both published by Harvard University Press.<\/p>\n

________________________<\/p>\n

Ren\u00e9 Wadlow, Representative to the United Nations, Geneva, Association of World Citizens. Member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment.<\/em><\/p>\n


\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed the year 2010 as the International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures. Thus we are pleased to present the creative efforts of individuals who have helped to create bridges of understanding among cultures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5237\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}