{"id":278,"date":"2020-04-27T00:19:10","date_gmt":"2020-04-27T04:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/russian-poetry\/?page_id=278"},"modified":"2021-09-21T19:13:09","modified_gmt":"2021-09-21T23:13:09","slug":"biography-velimir-khlebnikov","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/russian-poetry\/biography-velimir-khlebnikov\/","title":{"rendered":"Biography Velimir Khlebnikov"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Velimir (real name: Viktor) Vladimirovich Khlebnikov<\/strong> (1885-1922)<\/strong>, poet and poetic theorist, one of the leading figures of Russian Futurism. He was born in Malye Derbety, Astrakhan province. He studied mathematics and the natural sciences at Kazan and St. Petersburg Universities. He began to publish his poetry in 1908.  The revolution of 1917 inspired him for <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 1910, his name is associated with the Futurists such as David Burliuk and Vasily Kamensky. Khlebnikov came up with the terms \u201cFuturian\u201d and \u201cPresidents of Planet Earth\u201d to describe his circle. Some of words invented by futurists became avant-garde concepts. For example, a word Mirskontsa<\/em> [\u2018Worldbackwards\u2019] invented by Kruchenykh and used by Khlebnikov as a title of his play (1912) (more discussion in Jacobson 1980). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the mid-1910s, he became fascinated with radio technology and its potential to connect the world, to his opinion, much like\u00a0zaum<\/em> “was connecting human souls in extra-linguistic comprehension” (Markov 1960). Khlebnikov invented the word zaum<\/em> (za<\/em> — beyond, um<\/em> — the mind) to name a trans-sense or transrational language that was developed by him along with his fellow Russian poet Aleksei Kruchenykh. Most of his made-up words led by metonymic and metaphoric associations, puns, sound patterns, alliteration, and paronomasia and can be understood only in the context of his poems. For example, in his poems Bobeobi pelis\u2019 guby<\/em>\u2019 (The lips sang red<\/em>) (1908-09) or in the poem-play Zangezi (1922)<\/em>, not only words but the syllables and sounds are assigned the emotional meanings . <\/em> A few neologisms that Khlebnikov created were adopted by contemporary Russian. For example, the noun lyotchik<\/em> (instead of loan words pilot or aviator) and the adjective iznemozhdyonniy<\/em> (drained of physical and mental resources). Khlebnikov was working on compiling a new alphabet based on universal meanings of sounds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of his innovative poems were written spontaneously. In some poems, the composition follows the model of magic rhymes and incantations known from Russian folklore. In others, he invented the words with Slavonic roots to compose the most extraordinary verses in the Russian poetry. One of Khlebnikov\u2019s most famous poem Incantation by Laughter (Zakliatie smekhom<\/em><\/em>) (1908) is based on experiments on Russian derivational morphology. Its twelve lines consist entirely of words derived from the root \u2013sme \u201claugh.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the most intriguing and longest Klebnikov’s poems, Ladomir<\/em> (1920), was meant to be an encyclopedia of Khlebnikov’s ideas on and dreams about the future of mankind. Ladomir is the name of the city of the future, where universal harmony is achieved and “technological and scientific progress helps mankind towards its ultimate happiness” (Markov 1960). Khlebnikov thought he had discovered the Laws of Time and Tables of Destiny, by which enlightened humans could live in harmony with themselves and with nature. (for discussion, see Baran 2002). Most of Khlebnikov\u2019s works were never published in his lifetime. He died aged thirty-six.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baran, Henryk. O Khlebnikove: Konteksty, Istochniki, Mify: [On Khlebnikov: Contexts, sources, myths]. RGGU, 2002.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jakobson, Roman. Subliminal Verbal Patterning in Poetry. Poetics Today. 1980. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Markov, Vladimir. The Literary Importance of Khlebnikov’s Longer Poems. The Russian Review<\/em> Vol. 19, No. 4 (1960), pp. 338-370.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Velimir (real name: Viktor) Vladimirovich Khlebnikov (1885-1922), poet and poetic theorist, one of the leading figures of Russian Futurism. He was born in Malye Derbety, Astrakhan province. He studied mathematics and the natural sciences at Kazan and St. Petersburg Universities. He began to publish his poetry in 1908.  The revolution of 1917 inspired him for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17249,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":28,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/russian-poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/278"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/russian-poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/russian-poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/russian-poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17249"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/russian-poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/russian-poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3173,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/russian-poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/278\/revisions\/3173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/russian-poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}