Velimir Khlebnikov Overview

Velimir Khlebnikov pseudonym of Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikov, was a central part of the Russian Futurist movement, but his work and influence stretch far beyond it. Khlebnikov belonged to the most significant Russian Futurist group Hylaea (along with Vladimir Mayakovsky, Aleksei Kruchenykh,... [more]

Velimir Khlebnikov pseudonym of Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikov, was a central part of the Russian Futurist movement, but his work and influence stretch far beyond it. Khlebnikov belonged to the most significant Russian Futurist group Hylaea (along with Vladimir Mayakovsky, Aleksei Kruchenykh, David Burliuk, and Benedikt Livshits), but had already written many significant poems before the Futurist movement in Russia had taken shape. Among his contemporaries, he was regarded as "a poet's poet" (Mayakovsky referred to him as a "poet for producers") and a maverick genius. Khlebnikov is known for poems such as "Incantation by Laughter", "Bobeobi Sang The Lips", 'œThe Grasshopper' (all 1908-9), 'œSnake Train' (1910), the prologue to the Futurist opera "Victory over the Sun" (1913), dramatic works such as 'œDeath's Mistake' (1915), prose works 'œKa' (1915), and the so-called '˜super-tale' (свеÑÑ…Ð'овесть) 'œZangezi', a sort of ecstatic drama written partly in invented languages of gods and birds. In his work, Khlebnikov experimented with the Russian language, drawing upon its roots to invent huge numbers of neologisms, and finding significance in the shapes and sounds of individual letters of the Cyrillic alphabet. Along with Kruchenykh, he originated zaum. He wrote futurological essays about such things as the possible evolution of mass communication ("The Radio of the Future") and transportation and housing ("Ourselves and Our Buildings"). He described a world in which people live and travel about in mobile glass cubicles that can attach themselves to skyscraper-like frameworks, and in which all human knowledge can be disseminated to the world by radio and displayed automatically on giant book-like displays at streetcorners. [show less]