Velimir Khlebnikov | |
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| Born | Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikov 9 November [O.S. 28 October] 1885 |
| Died | 28 June 1922(1922-06-28) (aged 36) |
| Pen name | Velimir Khlebnikov |
| Language | Russian, Zaum |
| Literary movement | Russian Futurism |
Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikov, better known by thepen nameVelimir Khlebnikov[Note 1] (Russian:Велими́р Хле́бников,IPA:[vʲɪlʲɪˈmʲirˈxlʲɛbnʲɪkəf];[Note 2] 9 November [O.S. 28 October] 1885 – 28 June 1922), was a Russian poet andplaywright, a central part of theRussian Futurist movement, but his work and influence stretch far beyond it. Influential linguistRoman Jakobson hailed Khlebnikov as "the greatest world poet of our century".[1][2]
Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikov was born in 1885 inMalye Derbety,Astrakhan Governorate,Russian Empire (in present-dayKalmykia). He was ofRussian,Armenian andZaporozhian Cossack descent.[3] His younger sister, Vera Khlebnikova, was an artist. He moved toKazan, where he attended school. He then attended school inSaint Petersburg. He eventually quit school to become a full-time writer.[4] His earliest works are from 1908.[2]
Wingletting with the goldenscrawl
Of its finest sinews,
The grasshopper loaded its trailer-belly
With many coastal herbs and faiths.
"Ping, ping, ping!" tra-lah-ed the zingzinger.
O, swanderful!
O, illuminate!
In 1909-10, he met the to-be Russian FuturistsVasily Kamensky,David Burliuk, andVladimir Mayakovsky.[2] Soon Khlebnikov would belong toHylaea, the most significant Russian Futurist group (along with Mayakovsky,Aleksei Kruchenykh, David Burliuk andBenedikt Livshits). However, he had already written many significant poems before the Futurist movement in Russia had taken shape. Among his contemporaries, he was regarded as "a poet's poet" (Mayakovsky referred to him as a "poet for producers") and a maverick genius.[citation needed] Khlebnikov was involved in the publication ofA Slap in the Face of Public Taste in 1912, which was a critical component of the Russian futurist poetry.[4]
Khlebnikov is known for poems such as "Incantation by Laughter", "Bobeobi Sang The Lips", "The Grasshopper" (all 1908-1909), "Snake Train" (1910), the prologue to the Futurist operaVictory over the Sun (1913), dramatic works such as "Death's Mistake" (1915), prose works such as "Ka" (1915), and the so-called 'super-tale' (сверхповесть) "Zangezi", a drama written partly inzaum. He publishedSelected Poems with Postscript, 1907–1914 circa 1914.Kazimir Malevich andPavel Filonov co-illustrated it.[4]
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In his work, Khlebnikov experimented with theRussian language, drawing upon its roots to invent huge numbers ofneologisms, and finding significance in the shapes and sounds of individual letters ofCyrillic. Along with Kruchenykh, he originatedzaum, a language defying translation. He wrotefuturological essays about such things as the possible evolution of mass communication ("The Radio of the Future") and transportation and housing ("Ourselves and Our Buildings"). He described a world in which people live and travel about in mobile glass cubicles that can attach themselves toskyscraper-like frameworks, and in which all human knowledge can be disseminated to the world byradio and displayed automatically on giant book-like displays at streetcorners. In 1912, he also published a method to predict historical events; one of the examples given was a "collapse of an empire in 1917".[2]
Although Khlebnikov had supported the1917 Russian Revolution and shared many of its utopian visions, his works were criticized by the Soviets for not conforming to the structures ofsocialist realism.[5]
In 1921, he was able to travel to Persia; excited at his arrival, he wrote poems chronicling exciting events and the sights around him.[6] He also made friends with severaldervishes. He was forced to go back to Russia in August of that year.
In his final years, Khlebnikov became fascinated withSlavic mythology andPythagorean numerology, drawing up long "Tables of Destiny" decomposing historical intervals and dates into functions of the numbers 2 and 3.
Khlebnikov died while a guest in the house of his friend Pyotr Miturich nearKresttsy, in June 1922. There has been no medical diagnosis of his last illness; he suffered fromgangrene and paralysis (he seems not to have recovered the use of his legs after his 1920 hospitalization in Kharkov), and it has been suggested that he died of blood poisoning or toxemia.[7]
Aminor planet3112 Velimir discovered bySoviet astronomerNikolai Stepanovich Chernykh in 1977 is named after him.[8][page needed]
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