Velimir Khlebnikov
Velimir Khlebnikov (Russian: Велими́р
Хле́бников; first name also spelled
Velemir; last name also spelled
Chlebnikov, Hlebnikov, Xlebnikov),
pseudonym of Viktor Vladimirovich
Khlebnikov (9 November 1885 (28 October
1885 (O.S.)) – 28 June 1922), 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", “The Grasshopper” (all
1908-9), “Snake Train” (1910), the
prologue to the Futurist opera Victory
over the Sun (1913), dramatic works such
as “Death’s Mistake” (1915), prose works
“Ka” (1915), and the so-called
‘super-tale’ (сверхповесть) “Zangezi”, a
sort of ecstatic drama written partly in
invented languages of gods and birds.
Khlebnikov's book Zangezi (1922).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.
In his last years, Khlebnikov became
fascinated by Slavic mythology and
Pythagorean numerology, and drew up long
"Tables of Destiny" decomposing
historical intervals and dates into
functions of the numbers 2 and 3.
Khlebnikov died of paralysis while a
guest in the house of his friend Pyotr
Miturich near Kresttsy.
A minor planet 3112 Velimir
discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai
Stepanovich Chernykh in 1977 is named
after him.
