Excavations Under construction 3.5.1999 continue

 

OBERIU

THE ASSOCIATION FOR REAL ART
THE ASSOCIATION FOR REAL ART

 
Vvedensky Alexander

6.12.1904 Saint-Peterburg - 20.12 (officially).1941
Poet

Born in Saint-Petersburg. Studied at Petrograd University. One of the founders of literary association of absurdists - OBERIU (Obyedineniye Realnogo Isskustva - The Association For Real Art). He published children's poetry in the official press. Was arrested in 1932. Spent a year in prison. Then moved to Kharkov in 1936. Arrested again in 1941. Died in prison in the unknown circumstances. Interest in him began in the 1970s. His Works in two volumes were published in USA.

 

Oleinikov Nikolai

23.7.1898-24.11.1937
 Writer

Born in Kamenetskaya-on-Don. Worked as a journalist in the provinces. Moved to Leningrad in 1925. In 1920s joined the OBERIU group. Known as an author of children's books. Edited children's magazines. Along with other children's writers he was arrested in Leningrad in 1937 in the aftermath of Kirov's assassination (Soviet politician; one of Stalin's chief aides whose assassination set off Stalin's political purges in the 1930s Soviet Union). He was executed in jail on November 24th 1937. Officially the date of his death was announced as 5.5.1942 of typhoid.

His unpublished poetry was circulated in the samizdat (a system of clandestine printing and distribution of banned or dissident literature) in 1950-60s. Some of his works were published in the West.

 

Harms Daniil (Uvachev)

 30.12.1905-1942
 writer, poet, playwriter

Born in Saint-Petersburg. A prominent member of the literary group OBERIU in 1920s. In 1930s he wrote for children only. Was arrested in August 1941. Died of hunger in Leningrad prison during the war blockade. In 1960s interest in his modernist work re-emerged. He was officially accepted in the Soviet Union. His Works were published in Germany, 1978-80. A movie about his life by the Yugoslavian director S.D. Pesic was shown in Cannes, 1988. In the 1990s in Russia there was a huge interest in his creative work.

Biography of Daniil Charms

 

Zabolotsky Nikolai 

 7.5.1903-14.10.1958
 Poet

Born in Kazan. Studied in Moscow and Leningrad. He began as a children's writer. Later his reputation grew as a modernist in poetry (under the influence of Velemir Khlebnikov): "Pillars", 1929 and "The Triumph of Agriculture", 1933. He combined the pantheist approach towards nature with primitivist stylistic experiments. Was arrested in 1938 and sent to GULAG in Siberia - later exiled in Kazakhstan. A long poem "Rubruk in Mongolia" was published posthumously in 1960.

 

 



 
A. Vvedensky

N. Oleinikov and A. Vvedensky Oleinikov and Vvedensky. 1930s

Nikolai Oleinikov 
 
      A cockroach sits in a glass
      Sucking its rust-red paw
      He's got caught, he's in a trap
      Now expecting death on death row.

      With sorrowful eyes, at the sofa he glances
      Where the vivisectors sit with their knives and axes

      The cockroach nestles up to the glass, barely breathes
      He wouldn't be scared of death,
      Would he know that the soul breathes
      But science! it has proved that the soul does not ... exist
      And that liver, fat and bones, that's what the soul consists of
      There are only joints intact and connexions after that.

      <1934>

       

       

      Little fish, fried sprat,
      Where's your smile from yester-day?
      What's destroyed you, thrown down here,
      Where it's not so nice, where there's a frying pan.

      He'll never stir his feather-fins
      He'll never call a pilchard his beloved.

       

© translated by Peter Morley

 

Daniil Harms (Kharms, Charms ect) 

 
D. Harms and Alisa Poret. 1930
AN OBSTACLE

 

    Pronin said:

    'Very beautiful stockings, you have.'

    Irena Mazzer said:

    'Do you like my stockings?'

    Pronin said:

    'Oh, yes. Very much,' and stroked them with his hand.

    Irena said:

    'And why do you like my stockings?'

    Pronin said:

    'They are very smooth.'

    Irena raised her skirt a little and said:

    'See how long they are?'

    Pronin said:

    'Wow, yes, yes.'

    Irena said:

    'But here they already end. It's a naked leg from here on.'

    'Wow, what a leg!' said Pronin.

    'I have very fat legs,' said Irena. 'And my thighs... I'm very broad.'

    'Show me,' said Pronin.

    'No can do,' said Irena, 'I don't have panties.'

    Pronin knelt in front of her.

    Irena said:

    'Why did you kneel?'

    Pronin kissed her leg just above the stocking and said:

    'That's why.'

    Irena said:

    'Why do you raise my skirt even higher? I've told you I don't have panties on.'

    Still Pronin raised her skirt and said:

    'All right, all right.'

    'What do you mean "all right"?' said Irena.

    But just then somebody knocked at the door. Irena quickly straightened her skirt, and Pronin got up from the floor and went over to the window.

    'Who's there?' asked Irena through the door.

    'Open up the door,' said a harsh voice.

    Irena opened the door, and a man in a black coat and high-boots came into the room. After him two army men, junior rank, with rifles in hand came in, and after them came a janitor. The junior ranks stood at the door, and the man in the black coat came up to Irena Mazzer and said:

    'Your name?'

    'Mazzer,' said Irena.

    'Your name?' asked the man in the black coat addressing Pronin.

    Pronin said:

    'My name is Pronin.'

    'Do you have a weapon?' asked the man in the black coat.

    'No,' said Pronin.

    'Sit here,' said the man in the black coat pointing Pronin to the chair.

    Pronin sat.

    'And you,' said the man in the black coat, addressing Irena, 'put your coat on. You'll have to drive with us.'

    'Why?' asked Irena.

    The man in the black coat didn't answer.

    'I have to change,' said Irena.

    'No,' said the man in the black coat.

    'But I need to put on something else,' said Irena.

    'No,' said the man in the black coat.

    Irena silently put on her fur-coat.

    'Farewell,' said she to Pronin.

    'Talk is forbidden,' said the man in the black coat.

    'And me, do I have to go with you as well?' asked Pronin.

    'Yes,' said the man in the black coat. 'Get dressed.'

    Pronin stood up, took his coat and hat from a peg, put them on and said:

    'OK, I'm ready.'

    'Let's go,' said the man in the black coat.

    The junior ranks and the janitor tapped their soles.

    All of them went out into the corridor.

    The man in the black coat locked the door of Irena's room and sealed it with two brownish stamps.

    'Get to the street,' said he.

    And they all went out of the apartment, loudly slamming the front door.

<1940>

© translated by Peter Morley

Happenings      Happenings

. . .


<15> Four illustrations of how
the new idea stuns a man
who wasn't prepared for it
I

W r i t e r:  I am a writer.
R e a d e r:  And to my mind, you're a shit!

For several minutes the Writer stands still struck by that new idea and falls dead. He's carried out.

II

P a i n t e r:  I am a painter.
W o r k e r:  And to my mind, you're a shit!

The Painter immediately turned pale like a canvas. And shook like a reed. And suddenly passed away. He's carried out.

III

C o m p o s e r:  I am a composer.
V a n y a  R o u b l y o v:  And to my mind, you're ...!

The Composer just sank down heavily breathing. He's suddenly carried out.

IV

C h e m i s t:  I am a chemist.
P h y s i c i s t:  And to my mind, you're ...!

The Chemist didn't say another word and crushed heavily to the floor.

April 13, 1933

© translated by Peter Morley

 

 

 

THE LINK

 
Philosopher!
 

1. I'm writing to you in reply to your letter which you are going to write to me in reply to my letter which I'd written to you. 2. One fiddler had bought himself a magneto and was carrying it home. On the road hooligans attacked him and knocked his hat off. The wind caught the hat and carried it along the street. 3. The fiddler put the magneto down on the ground and ran for the hat. The hat had blown into a puddle of nitric acid and disintegrated. 4. In the meantime the hooligans grabbed the magneto and disappeared. 5. The fiddler returned home without an overcoat and without a hat, because the hat had disintegrated in the nitric acid, and the disconcerted fiddler had left his overcoat on a tram. 6. The conductor of that tram took the overcoat to the flea market and traded it for some sour cream, grains and tomatoes. 7. The conductor's father-in-law over-ate the tomatoes and died. The corpse of the conductor's father-in-law was put to the mortuary, but then it got mixed up and some old granny was buried instead of the conductor's father-in-law. 8. On the old granny's grave a white wooden pillar was erected saying "Anton Sergeyevich Kondratiev". 9. Within eleven years worms had demolished that pillar and it had fallen down. And the cemetery watchman sawed it into four parts and burned it in his oven. And the wife of the cemetery watchman made a cauliflower soup on that fire. 10. But when the soup was already cooked, a fly on the wall fell into that pan of soup. They gave the soup away to a beggar by the name of Timofei. 11. The beggar Timofei ate the soup and told the beggar Nikolai about the kindness of the cemetery watchman. 12. The next day the beggar Nikolai came to the cemetery watchman and began to ask for alms. But the cemetery watchman didn't give anything to the beggar Nikolai and drove him away. 13. Beggar Nikolai got very angry and set the house of the cemetery watchman on fire. 14. The fire spread to the church, and the church burned to the ground. 15. There was a long investigation, but the cause of the fire wasn't established. 16. On the very place where the church had been - a club was built, and on the day of the opening a concert was held, where the same fiddler who lost his overcoat fourteen year ago was playing. 17. Among the listeners was a son of one of those hooligans who fourteen years ago knocked off the hat of that fiddler. 18. After the concert they went home on the same tram. And on the tram which followed them, the driver was that same conductor who had sold the fiddler's overcoat at the flea market. 19. And so they drove late at night through the city: the fiddler and the hooligan's son in front, and behind them - the driver, a former conductor. 20. They drive along and they have no idea what kind of link exists between them, and they will not know until death itself.

 
14 September, 1937 

 

 

© translated by Peter Morley

 

N. Zabolotsky
N. Zabolotsky. Self-Portrait

 

 

© Translated by Peter Morley, 1998
[to be continued..]
created April 16, 1998		 Russian Avantgarde Web Ring 

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