Kruchenykh, A. "Dyr bul shchyl," from Pomada (1913)
1 2017-02-23T10:50:44-08:00 Dexter Blackwell 92e005ca94195f836c6089cf147faff4c74fa79e 12041 8 First instance of Zaum, or "transrational" poetry plain 2017-04-30T06:37:54-07:00 2/25/1913 Moscow, Russia Christopher Gilman 1985b99a2acd541caa12a10c3ebf6896565283abThis page has annotations:
- 1 2017-02-23T11:12:00-08:00 Dexter Blackwell 92e005ca94195f836c6089cf147faff4c74fa79e In Russian, the vowel "ы" should not be used after certain consonants. Kruchenyk violates this rule with his Zaum language. Dexter Blackwell 1 plain 2017-02-23T11:12:01-08:00 Dexter Blackwell 92e005ca94195f836c6089cf147faff4c74fa79e
- 1 2017-02-23T11:15:07-08:00 Dexter Blackwell 92e005ca94195f836c6089cf147faff4c74fa79e The final line seemingly begins with individual letters. Or are they supposed to be words themselves? Dexter Blackwell 1 plain 2017-02-23T11:15:07-08:00 Dexter Blackwell 92e005ca94195f836c6089cf147faff4c74fa79e
- 1 2017-02-23T11:19:54-08:00 Dexter Blackwell 92e005ca94195f836c6089cf147faff4c74fa79e The whole poem goes back and forth between following the conventions of the Russian language, and then breaking it. Dexter Blackwell 1 plain 2017-02-23T11:19:54-08:00 Dexter Blackwell 92e005ca94195f836c6089cf147faff4c74fa79e
- 1 2017-02-23T11:20:38-08:00 Dexter Blackwell 92e005ca94195f836c6089cf147faff4c74fa79e Larionov's depiction of a female figure. Dexter Blackwell 1 plain 2017-02-23T11:20:38-08:00 Dexter Blackwell 92e005ca94195f836c6089cf147faff4c74fa79e
- 1 2017-02-23T11:21:14-08:00 Dexter Blackwell 92e005ca94195f836c6089cf147faff4c74fa79e This poem is the first of three in a series by Kruchenyk. Dexter Blackwell 1 plain 2017-02-23T11:21:14-08:00 Dexter Blackwell 92e005ca94195f836c6089cf147faff4c74fa79e
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- 1 2017-04-23T12:54:46-07:00 Christopher Gilman 1985b99a2acd541caa12a10c3ebf6896565283ab Timeline of Russian Artist Books Christopher Gilman 24 timeline 2017-04-30T07:07:44-07:00 Christopher Gilman 1985b99a2acd541caa12a10c3ebf6896565283ab
- 1 2017-03-01T14:14:13-08:00 Craig Dietrich 2d66800a3e5a1eaee3a9ca2f91f391c8a6893490 Timeline Craig Dietrich 2 timeline 2017-03-01T14:16:58-08:00 Craig Dietrich 2d66800a3e5a1eaee3a9ca2f91f391c8a6893490
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2017-02-23T11:33:24-08:00
The 'Deliberate Woman/Nude' in Mirskonsta (1912) and Pomada (1913)
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Utopians Prospectus - Lewis
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2017-03-27T14:45:01-07:00
In their groundbreaking 1912 text, Mirskontsa [Worldbackwards], poets Aleksei Kruchenykh and Velimir Khlebnikov collaborated with painters Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov to produce a text towards the heart of linguistic 'meaning' through opening-up new possibilities within a literary-artistic item. These texts were unique for several reasons; primarily, though, their handmade quality and collaborative stylistic produced an entirely alternative model for the representation of language.
Mirskontsa is noted for its odd drawings, multiple and diverse copies, and its use of zaum [transrational] poetry. However, Mirskontsa, is also marked by a prevalence of oftentimes-nude female forms. Perhaps in keeping with the Neo-Primitivist tradition (Perloff 2) that existed within Russian Futurism, Mirskontsa is littered with images of the naked woman. The figures in Mirskontsa are notable in three thematics: Firstly, the female figures across the images do not look directly out at the reader-- their glances are slanted or attending some other image; Secondly, there is a repeated presentation of the 'woman' with the 'natural' and the 'woman' and the 'supernatural/angelic'; and Thirdly, there are no figures with openly observable genitals, the only deliberate nudity is in the presentation of bare breasts.
What is interesting is the occasion for what I will call the 'deliberate nude/woman' in Mirskontsa. This 'deliberate nude/woman' is noted as such because the existence of such a figure in a work that seeks to come to the limit/rule of sound-images necessarily must fit in the system. Initial insights about a 'worldbackwards' represented through a tetrad of artists center on the linkage between a naive eroticism--one that barely even attempts to call the reader into seduction, let alone sexual fervor--and sound. Following this linkage, the consideration of the sound of the sensual-- especially as it relates to the natural and the supernatural-- becomes ground for analysis. Further questions on these images lead into the deeper intentions of the artists. One of the first obvious questions is simply, who painted these women-figures? Was it Natalia Goncharova or her late-in-life husband Mikhail Larionov? Was the Dryad painted in collaboration with the poetic text, or does the figure exist in complete distinctness from language?
Mirskontsa is not the only book of zaum poetry to feature nude women. In Kruchenykh and Larionov's 1913 Pomada [Pomade], the nude woman is again a unique figured occasion in the text. However, the women of Pomada are not as deliberately visible as they are in Mirskontsa. In the famous poem-painting 'dyr bul shchyl,' there is a nude woman hidden in what simply appears to be scratch marks and scribblings on the page. This nude is the only figure in either Mirskontsa and Pomada to seemingly expose their genitals. It is notable that in alternative versions of 'dyr bul shchyl,' Kruchenykh's soon-to-be wife Olga Rozanova altered the image of the nude woman to produce an image seemingly more in line with female representations in Mirskontsa. Later on in the Pomada and in contrast to the "urban prostitutes" (Perloff 75) 'dyr bul shchyl,' a peasant woman with her breasts exposed carries a basket or some other burden. As Pomada lengthens the image of the woman-as-figure becomes more oblique and it begins to discern the sex of the figure at all. In the final image of what appears to be a woman figure, the defining motif of these female nude becomes itself obscured. Is this figure-in-horror exposing their breasts, or do they raise their arm to their chest in quiet exclamation?
Citations:
Perloff, N. (2016). Explodity: Sound, Image, and Word in Russian Futurist Book Art. Los Angeles, CA: The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. 2, 74-75.
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2017-04-13T11:04:35-07:00
Dyr bul schul and the Dominant
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2017-04-29T18:52:15-07:00
As a vital component to Russian Formalist theory, the Dominant is the ruling force of an artistic work. According to Roman Jakobson's description of the Dominant, each type of work holds a system of values, which are organized into a hierarchy. The time period determines which of these values is at the top of the hierarchy, thus becoming the dominant. Furthermore, the dominant form which existed during the era of the Russian avant-garde was the textual, which began with the rise of the novel during the Romantic period and through the poetry of Pushkin.
When asked to explain Anna Karenina, Tolstoy replied that he would have to re-write the whole book, exactly the same. This is to say, there is no reduction of the novel's textual form. In terms of the Russian avant-garde, Gerald Janecek examines the visual and material elements of the page, especially in the works of Kruchenyk and Khlebnikov. Evidently, his inquiry is influenced by this notion of the dominant textual form. However, Kruchenyk's Dyr bul schul has at least three different textual forms created by the author, all quite different in their appearance. This suggests that the textual aspect is not the dominant feature of the poem. Instead, sound has become the dominant feature of Zaum poetry.
According to Jakobson, cultural change reflects itself through a re-ordering of values in artistic works, therefore asserting a new dominant. Pre-dating the Russian avant-garde was the so-called "Golden Age" of Russian literature. The 19th century saw the rise and acclaim of novelists and poets such as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Pushkin, who remain as some of Russia's most celebrated writers. Their literary dominance, as well as the influence of the Romantic era in general, made the textual form the dominant aspect of the era.
However, the dominant form was changing amongst the Russian avant-garde. Starting in 1913, Alexei Kruchenyk authored at least three different versions of his Zaum poem Dyr bul schul. These three versions had varied textual presentations, sourced from the same author. The first, as shown above, appeared in his book Pomada in 1913. This version included an illustration of a nude woman by Mikhail Larionov, creating an eroticized, masculine poem.
A second version was produced in the book Te li le, a written collaborative effort by Kruchenyk and Khlebnikov, illustrated by Olga Rozanova. This version of Dyr bul schul from 1914 is the richest of the three in color and is the only one to have a feminine creative influence, as Rozanova was deemed responsible for its creation. Some of the letters in this version are heavily faded on the page, which resulted in a different first reading for myself and the class. Despite this, the oral qualities of the original first printing of the work remain.
Lastly, in his 1913 essay The Word as Such (Слово как таковое), Kruchenyk printed yet another version of the poem to use as an example in the work. It is devoid of illustration and any handwritten creation, existing only in print on the page. Unlike the previous two, this printed version makes a clear distinction in the second line. The phrase "убышщур" is clearly intended to be one word. In the other versions, it is not evident that this is the case, where the line appears to look like two Zaum-like words "убыш" and "щур." In addition to the spacing in the handwritten versions, a native Russian speaker would most likely parse Kruchenyk's Zaum language in the same manner. According to standard Russian word formation, the sounds "ш" and "щ" do not occur sequentially in the same word. However, it is possible to end a word with one of the sounds and begin the following word with the other, and vice versa. In assuming that the text as the dominant, this leads us astray when examining the handwritten letters and the page itself. On the other hand, there is virtually no difference when considering the oral component of the poem. Since we have no grasp on the semantic qualities of the sounds as comprehensible words, the difference between "убышщур" and "убыш щур" is negligible.
The only things that are consistent between these three variations of Dyr bul schul are the authorship and the sounds of the recitation of the poem itself. This should lead us to acknowledge sound as the Dominant force of Kruchenyk's poem, rather than its textual and artistic elements.
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2017-02-23T10:18:50-08:00
Finding Meaning from Zaum
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Utopians, Prospectus - Blackwell
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2017-03-14T10:47:57-07:00
How does Kruchenyk's Zaum language relate to the rules of Russian? How can we extract meaning from certain characteristics of this work?
Kruchenyk's poem, as stated by the author, is written in the Zaum language, rather than Russian. Zaum, which roughly translates to "beyond the mind," fills the poem with entirely nonsensical words. In writing this piece, Kruchenyk alternates between following certain conventions of Russian, yet at the same time breaking them through his Zaum language.
In constructing the words of the piece, Kruchenyk generally sticks to the rules of Russian. However, while both "dyr" and "bul" follow the phonological patterns of Russian, but the last word of the line, "schul," does not. After a certain set of seven consonants, the vowel "И" should be used instead of "Ы."
The final line, "р л эз" is also worthy of discussion. If we understand the constituents of this line to be simply letters, then the poem seems to break down from more complex constructions to its individual parts. However, the inclusion of "эз" makes this difficult to corroborate. On the contrary, we could perceive these three to be words themselves. I choose the latter, and see this poem as an exercise in demonstrating the possibilities of the Zaum language. The sounds are more important than the printed letters.
What seems to be scribbles underneath the poem is actually Mikhail Larionov's depiction of a nude woman, a contemporary of Aleksei Kruchenyk. Similar to the construction of the poem, Larionov's creation purposefully distances itself from the conventional process of drawing and artistry.
Starting from the top, we transition from language as we know it, to dabbling in Zaum, to Zaum in artistry. The three components of the page work together to mark this transition into the practice of the Zaum language. The notion of a grammar and a lexicon is what makes the opening statement differ from the poem. I believe that Kruchenyk, unknowingly, is trying to challenge this notion through this piece.