Russian Futurism

Literary and artistic movement in Russia

"Russian Futurists" redirects here. For the band, see The Russian Futurists.

Group photograph of some Russian Futurists, published in their manifesto A Slap in the Face of Public Taste. Left to right: Aleksei Kruchyonykh, Vladimir Burliuk, Vladimir Mayakovsky, David Burliuk, and Benedikt Livshits.

Russian Futurism is the broad term for a movement of Russian poets and artists who adopted the principles of Filippo Marinetti's "Manifesto of Futurism", which espoused the rejection of the past, and a celebration of speed, machinery, violence, youth, industry, destruction of academies, museums, and urbanism;[1] it also advocated for modernization and cultural rejuvenation.[citation needed]

Russian Futurism began roughly in the early 1910s; in 1912, a year after Ego-Futurism began, the literary group "Hylea"—also spelt "Guilée"[2] and "Gylea"—issued the manifesto A Slap in the Face of Public Taste. The 1912 movement was originally called Cubo-Futurism, but this term is now used to refer to the style of art produced. Russian Futurism ended shortly after the Russian Revolution of 1917, after which former Russian Futurists either left the country, or participated in the new art movements.[citation needed]

Notable Russian Futurists included Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, David Burliuk, Kazimir Malevich, Vladimir Mayakovsky, and Velimir Khlebnikov.

## Style

[edit]

The Manifesto celebrated the "beauty of speed" and the machine as the new aesthetic.[1] Marinetti explained the "beauty of speed" as "a roaring automobile is more beautiful than the Winged Victory" further asserting the movement towards the future. Artforms were greatly affected by the Russian Futurism movement within Russia, with its influences being seen in cinema, literature, typography, politics, and propaganda. The Russian Futuristic movement saw its demise in the early 1920s.

## Name

[edit]

Initially the term "futurism" was problematic, because it reminded them too much of their rivals in Italy; however, in 1911, the Ego-futurist group began. This was the first group of Russian futurism to call themselves "futurist"; shortly afterwards, many other futurists followed in using the term too.

## Origins

[edit]

The Knifegrinder (1912–13), by Kazimir Malevich, is an example how Cubism and Futurism crossed over to create Cubo-Futurism, a combined art form. Игра в Аду (A Game in Hell; Moscow 1914 edition) is an example of the collaborations of Futurist writers and visual artists. It fused Khlebnikov and Kruchenykh's poems with Malevich and Rozanova's bold imagery.

The most important group of Russian Futurism may be said to have been born in December 1912, when the Moscow-based literary group Hylaea (Russian: Гилея [Gileya]) (initiated in 1910 by David Burlyuk and his brothers at their estate near Kherson, and quickly joined by Vasily Kamensky and Velimir Khlebnikov, with Aleksey Kruchenykh and Vladimir Mayakovsky in 1911)[3] issued a manifesto entitled A Slap in the Face of Public Taste (Russian: Пощёчина общественному вкусу).[4] The Russian Futurist Manifesto shared similar ideas to Marinetti's Manifesto, such as the rejection of old literature for the new and unexpected.[1]

In addition to the forenamed authors, the group included artists Mikhail Larionov, Natalia Goncharova, Kazimir Malevich, and Olga Rozanova.[5]

Although Hylaea is generally considered to be the most influential group of Russian Futurism, other groups were formed in St. Petersburg (Igor Severyanin's Ego-Futurists), Moscow (Tsentrifuga, with Boris Pasternak among its members), Kiev, Kharkiv, and Odessa. While many artforms and artists converged to create "Russian Futurism", David Burlyuk (born 1882, Ukraine) is credited with publicizing the avant-garde movement and increasing its renown within Europe and the United States.[6] Burlyuk was a Russian poet, critic, and publisher who centralized the Russian movement. While his contribution to the arts were lesser than his peers, he was the first to discover many of the talented poets and artists associated with the movement. Burlyuk was the first to publish Velimir Khlebnikov and to celebrate the Futurist poetry of Vladimir Mayakovsky.[7] Russian futurism also adopted ideas from "French Cubism" which coined the name "Cubo-Futurists" given by an art critic in 1913.[6] Cubo-futurism adopted ideas from "Italian Futurism" and "French Cubism" to create its own blended style of visual art. It emphasized the breakdown of forms, the use of various viewpoints, the intersection of spatial planes, and the contrast of colour and texture. The focus was to show the intrinsic value of a painting, without it being dependent on a narrative.[6]

## Modernity

[edit]

Like their Italian counterparts, the Russian Futurists were fascinated with the dynamism, speed, and restlessness of modern machines and urban life. They purposely sought to arouse controversy and to gain publicity by repudiating the static art of the past. The likes of Pushkin and Dostoevsky, according to A Slap in the Face of Public Taste, should be "heaved overboard from the steamship of modernity".[8] They acknowledged no authorities whatsoever; even Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, when he arrived in Russia on a proselytizing visit in 1914, was obstructed by most Russian Futurists, who did not profess to owe him anything.[1]

## Cinema

[edit]

Russian Futurist cinema refers to the futurist movement in Soviet cinema. Russian Futurist cinema was deeply influenced by the films of Italian futurism (1916–1919) most of which are lost today. Some of the film directors identified as part of this movement are Lev Kuleshov, Dziga Vertov, Sergei Eisenstein, Vsevolod Pudovkin and Aleksandr Dovzhenko. Sergei Eisenstein's film Strike was seen as "the mordern Futurist art form par excellence" by Olga Bulgakowa. Bulgakowa theorized how the camera could change one's perceptions of reality and how it could make it seem like time was speeding up or slowing down during the film.[9]

## Literature and typography

[edit]

In contrast to Marinetti's circle, Russian Futurism was primarily a literary rather than a plastic philosophy. Although many poets (Mayakovsky, Burlyuk) dabbled with painting, their interests were primarily literary. However, such well-established artists as Mikhail Larionov, Natalia Goncharova, and Kazimir Malevich found inspiration in the refreshing imagery of Futurist poems and experimented with versification themselves. The poets and painters collaborated on such innovative productions as the Futurist opera Victory Over the Sun, with music by Mikhail Matyushin, texts by Kruchenykh and sets contributed by Malevich.[6]

Cyclist (1913) by Natalia Goncharova. This painting is an example of how Russian Futurism affected her later works.

Members of Hylaea elaborated the doctrine of Cubo-Futurism and assumed the name of budetlyane (from the Russian word budet 'will be'). They found significance in the shape of letters, in the arrangement of text around the page, in the details of typography. They considered that there is no substantial difference between words and material things, hence the poet should arrange words in his poems like the artist arranges colors and lines on his canvas. Grammar, syntax, and logic were often discarded; many neologisms and profane words were introduced; onomatopoeia was declared a universal texture of verse. Khlebnikov, in particular, developed "an incoherent and anarchic blend of words stripped of their meaning and used for their sound alone",[10] known as zaum.

## Politics

[edit]

With all this emphasis on formal experimentation, some Futurists were not indifferent to politics. In particular, Mayakovsky's poems, with their lyrical sensibility, appealed to a broad range of readers. He vehemently opposed the meaningless slaughter of World War I and hailed the Russian Revolution as the end of that traditional mode of life which he and other Futurists ridiculed so zealously. Although never a member of the Russian Communist Party (RKP(b)), he was active in early 1919 in the attempt to set up Komfut as an organisation promoting Futurism affiliated to the Viborg District Branch of the Party.[11]

## The Bolshevik Agit-trains

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War correspondent Arthur Ransome and five other foreigners were taken to see two of the Bolshevik propaganda trains in 1919 by their organiser, Burov. The organiser first showed them the "Lenin",[12] which had been painted a year and a half ago

> when, as fading hoardings in the streets of Moscow still testify, revolutionary art was dominated by the Futurist movement. Every carriage is decorated with most striking but not very comprehensible pictures in the brightest colours, and the proletariat was called upon to enjoy what the pre-revolutionary artistic public had for the most part failed to understand. Its pictures are 'art for arts sake', and can not have done more than astonish, and perhaps terrify, the peasants and the workmen of the country towns who had the luck to see them.

The "Red Cossack"[12] was quite different. As Burov put it with deep satisfaction, "At first we were in the artists' hands, and now the artists are in our hands". Initially the artists were so revolutionary that at one point Burov had delivered the Department of Proletarian Culture some Futurists "bound hand and foot", but now "the artists had been brought under proper control".[13]

The other three trains were the "Sverdlov", the "October Revolution", and the "Red East".

## Demise

[edit]

Black Square (1915), by Kazimir Malevich, was featured at the 0,10 Exhibition, the last exhibition of Russian Futurist paintings. The exhibition was held from 19 December 1915 to 17 January 1916.

After the Bolsheviks gained power, Mayakovsky's group—patronized by Anatoly Lunacharsky, Bolshevik Commissar for Education—aspired to dominate Soviet culture. Their influence was paramount during the first years after the revolution, until their program—or rather lack thereof—was subjected to scathing criticism by authorities. In December 1920 the Central Committee of the Communist Party officially condemned Futurism among the artistic movements that were "hostile to Marxism".[14] By the time OBERIU attempted to revive some of the Futurist tenets during the late 1920s, the Futurist movement in Russia had already ended. The most militant Futurist poets either died (Khlebnikov, Mayakovsky) or preferred to adjust their very individual style to more conventional requirements and trends (Aseyev, Pasternak).[15] The decline of futurism can also be seen in Russia when Kruchenykh attempted to publish Fifteen Years of Russian Futurism 1912-1927 in 1928 and the Communist Party made it clear they did not want any futurist influence in Soviet literature. This marked an abrupt fall from grace for Kruchenykh's writing and futurism as a literary movement.[15]

## See also

[edit]

* Futurism
* Russian avant-garde
* Ego-Futurism
* Russian cosmism
* Universal Flowering
* Cubo-Futurism

## References and sources

[edit]

References

1. ^ a b c d Lawton, Anna; Eagle, Herbert, eds. (1988). Russian Futurism through Its Manifestoes, 1912-1928. United States: Cornell University Press. pp. 1–3\. ISBN 0-8014-9492-3.
2. ^ Severini, Gino. The Life of a Painter. Princeton. pp. 294–7.
3. ^ Victor Terras, Handbook of Russian Literature (Yale University Press, 1990), s.v. "Hylaea", p. 197.
4. ^ "Selected Poems with Postscript, 1907–1914". World Digital Library. 1914. Archived from the original on 28 November 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2013.
5. ^ Gurianova, Nina (2002). "Game in Hell, Hard Work in Heaven: Deconstructing the Canon in Russian Futurist Books". In Rowell, Margit; Wye, Deborah (eds.). The Russian avant-garde book, 1910–1934. New York: Museum of Modern Art. OCLC 49779415.
6. ^ a b c d "Cubo-Futurism | art movement". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 23 December 2019. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
7. ^ "David Davidovich Burlyuk | Russian poet, painter, critic, and publisher". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 27 March 2019. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
8. ^ Burliuk, David; Kruchenykh, Alexander; Mayakovsky, Vladmir; Khlebnikov, Victor (1917). "A Slap in the Face of Public Taste". Archived from the original on 14 April 2021. Retrieved 26 November 2024 – via Marxists Internet Archive.
9. ^ Ioffe, Denis G.; White, Frederick H. (2012). Russian avant-garde and radical modernism: an introductory reader. Academic Studies Press. ISBN 978-1-936235-29-2. OCLC 899529219.
10. ^ "Futurism". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 2 January 2013. Retrieved 30 June 2013.
11. ^ Jangfeldt, Bengt (1976). Majakovskij and Futurism 1917-21 (PDF). Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International. Archived (PDF) from the original on 23 December 2018. Retrieved 23 December 2018.
12. ^ a b Jonathan Smele, The "Russian" Civil Wars, 1916–1926: Ten Years that Shook the World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015; pg. 248.
13. ^ Ransome, Arthur (2010) [1921]. The Crisis in Russia, 1920 (2 ed.). London: Faber. pp. 68, 69. ISBN 978-0-571-26907-5.
14. ^ Fitzpatrick, Sheila (6 June 2002). The Commissariat of Enlightenment: Soviet Organization of Education and the Arts Under Lunacharsky, October 1917-1921. Cambridge University Press. p. 241\. ISBN 978-0-521-52438-4.
15. ^ a b Markov, Vladimir. (1969). Russian futurism. MacGibbon & Kee. OCLC 216203127.

Sources

* Markov, Vladimir (1968). Russian Futurism: a History. Berkeley; Los Angeles, Ca: University of California Press.
* Petrova, Ye (2000) Russkiy futurizm ('Russian Futurism'). SPb.
* V. N. Terekhina, A. P. Zimenkov (1999) Russkiy futurizm. Teoriya. Praktika. Kritika. Vospominaniya. ('Russian Futurism. Theory. Practice. Criticism. Memoir.'). Nasledie: Moscow.

## External links

[edit]

* "A Slap in the Face of Public Taste", Russian Futurist manifesto

* v
* t
* e

Futurism

Italian Futurists|

* Giacomo Balla (list of works)
* "Barbara"
* Umberto Boccioni
* Anton Bragaglia
* Benedetta Cappa
* Carlo Carrà
* Franco Casavola
* Nikolay Diulgheroff
* Luigi De Giudici
* F. T. Marinetti
* Marisa Mori
* Bruno Munari
* Aldo Palazzeschi
* Ugo Piatti
* Francesco Balilla Pratella
* Antonio Russolo
* Luigi Russolo
* Antonio Sant'Elia
* Gino Severini
* Ardengo Soffici

Ego-Futurists|

* Graal Arelsky
* Vasilisk Gnedov
* Boris Gusman
* Georgy Ivanov
* Igor Severyanin
* Dmitri Kryuchkov
* Konstantin Olimpov
* Rurik Ivnev
* Pavel Shirokov

Russian Futurists and
Cubo-Futurists|

* Alexander Archipenko
* Nikolai Aseev
* Vladimir Baranoff-Rossine
* Lilya Brik
* Osip Brik
* Alexander Bogomazov
* Kseniya Boguslavskaya
* David Burliuk
* Vladimir Burliuk
* Joseph Chaikov
* Aleksandra Ekster
* Nina Genke-Meller
* Natalia Goncharova
* Elena Guro
* Vasily Kamensky
* Velimir Khlebnikov
* Ivan Kliun
* Aleksei Kruchyonykh
* Nikolai Kulbin
* Mikhail Larionov
* Aristarkh Lentulov
* El Lissitzky
* Benedikt Livshits
* Kazimir Malevich
* Mikhail Matyushin
* Vladimir Mayakovsky
* Boris Pasternak
* Victor Palmov
* Lyubov Popova
* Ivan Puni
* Olga Rozanova
* Vadim Shershenevich
* Nadezhda Udaltsova
* Ilia Zdanevich (Iliazd)

Aeropittura|

* Giacomo Balla
* "Barbara"
* Benedetta Cappa
* Giuseppe Caselli
* Tullio Crali
* Fortunato Depero
* Gerardo Dottori
* Fillìa
* Sante Monachesi
* Marisa Mori
* Enrico Prampolini

Other Futurists|

* Alice Bailly
* Mina Loy
* Almada Negreiros
* C. R. W. Nevinson
* Emilio Pettoruti
* Valentine de Saint-Point
* Jules Schmalzigaug
* Mykhaylo Semenko
* Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso
* Frances Simpson Stevens
* Mary Swanzy
* Růžena Zátková

Techniques, sub-genres
and inventions|

* Anti-neutral suit
* Intonarumori
* Italian futurism in cinema
* Futurist architecture
* Futurist cooking
* Futurist literature
* Futurist music
* Noise music
* Zaum

Selected output|

* Abstract Speed + Sound
* Antigrazioso
* The Art of Noises
* BÏF§ZF+18
* The City Rises
* Cyclist
* Development of a Bottle in Space
* Drama in the Futurists' Cabaret No. 13
* Dyr bul shchyl
* Dynamism of a Car
* Dynamism of a Cyclist
* Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash
* Dynamism of a Human Body: Boxer
* Dynamism of a Soccer Player
* Dynamism of a Speeding Horse + Houses
* Futurist Painting: Technical Manifesto
* The Knifegrinder
* Girl Running on a Balcony
* The Hand of the Violinist
* Lacerba
* Man of Smoke
* Manifesto of Futurism
* Manifesto of Futurist Musicians
* Mercury Passing Before the Sun
* The Poem of the End
* Poesia
* The Street Enters the House
* The Street Light
* Thaïs
* Tango with Cows
* Unique Forms of Continuity in Space
* Universal War
* Victory over the Sun
* Vladimir Mayakovsky
* Zangezi
* Zang Tumb Tumb

Associated people|

* Luisa, Marchesa Casati
* Gabriele D'Annunzio
* Sergei Diaghilev
* Benito Mussolini
* Wyndham Lewis
* Léonide Massine
* Igor Stravinsky

Groups influenced|

* Agitprop
* Agit-train
* Constructivism
* Dadaism
* Donkey's Tail
* Grosvenor School
* Jack of Diamonds
* Neo-Primitivism
* Oberiu
* Panfuturism
* Precisionism
* Rayonism
* Soyuz Molodyozhi
* Suprematism
* Supremus
* Vorticism

See also|

* 0,10 Exhibition
* 5×5=25
* Cubism
* Divisionism
* Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art
* Le Chahut
* Pointillism
* Primitivism
* Robert René Meyer-Sée
* Russian avant-garde
* Russian Ballet
* Sackville Gallery
* Ukrainian avant-garde
* Verbovka Village Folk Centre
* Zveno (art)

* v
* t
* e

Russian art and literary movements

* Abramtsevo Colony
* Acmeist poetry
* Russian avant-garde
* Second Russian avant-garde
* Conceptualism
* Constructivism
* The Five
* Russian Futurism
* Cubo-Futurism
* Ego-Futurism
* Zaum
* Imaginism
* Lieutenant prose
* Metarealism
* Mir iskusstva
* Natural school
* New peasant poets
* Oberiu
* Peredvizhniki
* Rayonism
* Russian postmodernism
* Russian symbolism
* Socialist realism
* Soviet nonconformism
* Stroganov school
* Suprematism
* Village prose

* v
* t
* e

Avant-garde movements

Visual art|

* Abstract expressionism
* Art Nouveau
* Art & Language
* Conceptual art
* Constructivism
* Proto-Cubism
* Cubism
* Functionalism
* Bauhaus
* Grosvenor School
* Devětsil
* Divisionism
* Fauvism
* Impressionism
* Neo-Impressionism
* Post-Impressionism
* Color Field
* Incoherents
* Lyrical Abstraction
* Mail art
* Minimalism
* Mir iskusstva
* Multidimensional art
* Neoplasticism
* De Stijl
* Neue Slowenische Kunst
* Nonconformism
* Nouveau réalisme
* Orphism
* Performance art
* Pop art
* Process art
* Purism
* Rayonism
* Suprematism
* Temporary art
* Vorticism

Literature
and poetry|

* Acmeism
* Angry Penguins
* Asemic writing
* Conceptual poetry
* Cyberpunk
* Ego-Futurism
* Experimental literature
* Flarf poetry
* Hungry generation
* Imaginism
* Imagism
* Language poets
* Neoavanguardia
* Neoteric
* Nouveau roman
* Oberiu
* Oulipo
* Slam poetry
* Ultraísmo
* Visual poetry
* Zaum

Music|

| By style|

* Funk
* Jazz
* Free funk
* Yass
* Pop
* Rock
* Prog
* Punk
* Metal

|

Others|

* Aleatoric music
* Ars nova
* Ars subtilior
* Atonal music
* Electroacoustic music
* Electronic music
* Industrial music
* Experimental pop
* Free jazz
* Free improvisation
* Futurism
* Microtonal music
* Minimal music
* Drone music
* Music theatre
* Musique concrète
* New Complexity
* No wave
* Noise music
* Post-rock
* Rock in Opposition
* Second Viennese School
* Serialism
* Spectral music
* Stochastic music
* Textural music
* Totalism
* Twelve-tone technique

Cinema
and theatre|

* Cinéma pur
* Dogme 95
* Drop Art
* Epic theatre
* Experimental film
* Experimental theatre
* Modernist film
* Poetic realism
* Postdramatic theatre
* Remodernist film
* Structural film
* Theatre of the Absurd
* Theatre of Cruelty

General|

* Constructivism
* Dada
* Expressionism
* Fluxus
* Futurism
* Russian Futurism
* Cubo-Futurism
* Lettrism
* Modernism
* Minimalism
* Postminimalism
* Neo-minimalism
* Neo-Dada
* Neoism
* Postmodernism
* Postmodernist film
* Late modernism
* Primitivism
* Situationist International
* Social realism
* Socialist realism
* Surrealism
* Symbolism
* Russian symbolism

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