Reviews 351 

Selected works of Velimir Khlebnikov, Russia's outstanding modernist writer, and 
a notoriously difficult one to translate, have at long last appeared in English, thanks 
to the editorial efforts of Gary Kern, aided by Vladimir Markov. In Snake Train, 
Kern has included his own and others' annotated renditions of long and short poems, 
experiments, dramatic works, prose fiction, and visions and theories ("pieces of way-
ward character," as Markov once referred to t h e m ) . That the prose and drama work 
better in English than the poetry is understandable. Yet one feels that the spirit of the 
poetry could have been better conveyed if Kern had given either strictly linear trans-
lations or freely poetic renderings, rather than choosing a fatal compromise between 
the two. 

Three appendixes provide a chronology of Khlebnikov's life, a memoir by his 
Futurist friend Dmitrii Petrovskii, and Russian texts of some of the poems. Trans-
literations of the shortest ones appear together with the translations. This unreasonable 
inconsistency constitutes one of the major shortcomings of the book. As is often the 
case with works published by Ardis, the intentions are laudable, but the execution 
unsatisfactory. For example, it is puzzling to find the translation of a single short poem 
("I went, a youth, alone") at the end of the last section, "Visions and Theories," but 
its original in the middle of the Russian texts, apparently in place. The notes are quite 
valuable, but occasionally are not as helpful as they might be. In the case of excerpts 
from longer poems, it would be useful to have some description of the entire poem. One 
would also welcome a select bibliography of secondary material available in English. 

E L E N A SOKOL 

University of Washington 

K I S T O R I I R U S S K O G O A V A N G A R D A ( T H E R U S S I A N A V A N T - G A R D E ) . 
By Nikolai Khardshiev, Kasimir Malevich, and Mikhail Matiushin. Edited by 
Nikolai Khardshiev. Postscript by Roman Jakobson. Stockholm: Hylaea Prints, 
1976. 189 pp. + 40 pp. plates. Sw.kr. 165. Distributed by Almqvist & Wiksell 
International, Stockholm. 

This book appears twenty years too late. Nikolai Khardzhiev must be praised for 
many achievements, but, because he has long been in possession of the documents 
presented here, he should be criticized harshly for his reticence, inertia, and silence 
on subjects that are of universal significance to all historians of twentieth-century art. 
Khardzhiev frequently emphasizes that recent studies of the Russian avant-garde by 
Soviet and Western scholars have been marred by inaccuracies and misattributions 
and have fallen victim to unfounded speculations. Many researchers in this area, such 
as Andersen, Bowlt, Karshan, Kovtun, and the Marcades, are brought to task and 
cautioned by Khardzhiev in this volume. As his laconic comments and emendations 
demonstrate, Khardzhiev possesses vast published and unpublished resources pertaining 
to the Russian avant-garde; had he made these accessible even ten years ago, he would 
have facilitated the task of historical documentation and helped scholars to avoid 
many pitfalls. But it is highly questionable whether Khardzhiev, a friend of Mayakov-
sky, Malevich, and Matiushin, can rescue the "truth" from the dense mythology that 
now surrounds the Russian avant-garde. In any case, much of the information that 
Khardzhiev has guarded so jealously and that he now presents has already become 
available from the current research of other Soviet scholars. 

The book is divided into four main sections: a version of Khardzhiev's successful 
study of Mayakovsky and the visual arts (which first appeared in Maiakovskii: 
Materialy i issledovaniia, Moscow, 1940; revised and republished in Khardzhiev and 
Trenin, Poeticheskaia kul'tura Maiakovskogo, Moscow, 1970) ; a partial autobiography 
by Kazimir Malevich; a fuller autobiography by Mikhail Matiushin; and Matiushin's 



352 Slavic Review 

essay "Opyt khudozhnika novoi mery." These texts are complemented by Khardzhiev's 
detailed introduction, prefaces, and footnotes, and by a short postscript by Roman 
Jakobson. The book is illustrated with one color and numerous black-and-white repro-
ductions, many appearing here for the first time. 

Khardzhiev's article on Mayakovsky is the least innovative of the four contribu-
tions simply because it has long been accessible. But a rereading of this piece reveals 
once again the thoroughness of Khardzhiev's scholarship here, and its juxtaposition 
with the Malevich and Matiushin texts gives it a new, comparative value. What is 
immediately clear from the article is that the poets and painters of the Russian avant-
garde moved in very close proximity and that their ethical and aesthetic systems had 
much in common. Khardzhiev reminds us of this by drawing attention to the literary 
interests of Malevich and Rozanova and to the artistic interests of Guro, Kamenskii, 
Khlebnikov, Kruchenykh, and others. Thus, the fact that Mayakovsky started his 
career as a painter is symptomatic of the "synthetic" inclination of the Cubo-Futurists. 
Khardzhiev's careful delineation of Mayakovsky's work as a painter and lubok 
designer (during the First World W a r ) , of his relations with David Burliuk, Larionov, 
and others, and of his participation in the various avant-garde exhibitions helps 
further our understanding of this dynamic interchange of literary and artistic ideas 
just before and after the revolution. 

The topic of the second section, the Malevich autobiography, promises much of 
interest, but, in fact, the text deals largely with Malevich's childhood and adolescence 
and not with his mature, professional years. Of course, it is interesting to read of 
Malevich's youth in the village of Parkhomovka in the Ukraine, of his admiration for 
the Ukrainian peasants, of the beet factory where his father worked, and of his 
impressions of Kiev, Kursk, and "ikonnaia Moskva" (p. 117). Still, central questions 
remain unanswered; for example, we learn nothing of the cultural level of Malevich's 
family and still do not know if his parents were educated or even literate. On the 
other hand, thanks to Khardzhiev's precise annotations, we now have a firm chronology 
of Malevich's early life, and this can replace the rhapsodical versions provided in 
previous publications. Malevich's memoir does not proceed beyond his Impressionist 
stage; consequently, the urgent need for information on his assimilation and develop-
ment of Cubism and Futurism or on his formulation of Suprematism is not fulfilled. 
The same is true of Malevich's subsequent activities in Vitebsk and Leningrad. In 
fact, if it were not for Khardzhiev's preface and notes, the Malevich autobiography 
would have very little relevance to the theme of the book. At the same time, one 
wonders why, exactly, Khardzhiev decided to publish this particular passage and to 
what degree he edited and truncated it. For all Khardzhiev's emphasis on historical 
accuracy, we would do well to heed Nadezhda Mandelstam's warning that Khardzhiev, 
"incapable of semantic analysis," is not averse to redating, distorting, and destroying 
archival materials {Vtoraia kniga [Paris: YMCA-Press, 1972], pp. 534 and 536). 

The Matiushin autobiography is more exciting both because of its detailed survey 
of the early phase of the avant-garde and because of its lucid style. Moreover, Matiu-
shin the artist is less familiar to us than Malevich, although, as his texts demonstrate, 
his ideas were as provocative as Malevich's. Once again, an indisputable value of this 
section, together with Khardzhiev's preface and comments, is the establishment of 
an accurate record of the events, persons, and personalities that affected the lives of 
Matiushin and his wife, Elena Guro. Frequent reference is made to the Union of 
Youth group, to the production of Victory Over the Sun, to the "cellar" The Stray 
Dog, and to painters, poets, and aesthetes, such as Filonov, Malevich, Khlebnikov, 
Kruchenykh, Kul'bin, and Puni. The supplementary essay on Matiushin's spatial 
theory sheds light on his formulation and development of the system known as 
"Zorved" (literally, "See-Know"), according to which he endeavored to expand the 
optical radius to 360 degrees. But despite (or perhaps because of) the autobiography 



Reviews 353 

and the essay, it is still difficult to recognize where, in Matiushin's philosophy, alchemy 
and astrology ended, and where chemistry and astronomy began. How did Matiushin's 
"impressionism" differ from Kul'bin's? Why does Khardzhiev regard Matiushin as a 
"venerable representative of the international 'avant-garde' of the twentieth century" 
(p. 131), but Kul'bin as a "dilettante" (p. 124) ? Such issues remain enigmatic. 

On the whole, Khardzhiev's bittersweet footnotes form a positive and much 
needed directory to names and dates relating to the Russian avant-garde. On occasion, 
however, Khardzhiev's attempts to inflict his authoritarian views are both vexing and 
questionable. When many members of the avant-garde such as Chekrygin, Punin, and 
Tatlin were discussing the ideas of Nikolai Fedorov, why assume that Malevich "was 
never interested in him" (p. 89) ? When, in his diaries and letters of the 1920s, Punin 
described Malevich's experiments at the Leningrad Institute of Artistic Culture and 
drew parallels between the work of Malevich, Matiushin, and himself, why dismiss 
this obvious connection as "fiction" (p. 124) but then refer to the collaboration of 
Malevich and Matiushin at the same institute a few pages later (p. 132) ? When 
Kul'bin created many abstract appliques of colored paper in 1913-14—one of which 
was shown at the 1973 exhibition commemorating The Stray Dog in Leningrad and 
three of which belong to Kul'bin's nephew in Leningrad—why reject Kul'bin as a 
"dilettante" and the works as "fakes" (p. 125) ? In seeking to impose his pedantic 
and exclusive opinions on the course of history, Khardzhiev may distort it even more 
than his colleagues have done. 

J O H N E. BOWLT 

University of Texas 

T H E O N E A N D A H A L F - E Y E D A R C H E R . By Benedikt Livshits. Translated, 
annotated, and with an introduction by John E. Bowlt. Newtonville, Mass.: 
Oriental Research Partners, 1977. 272 pp. Illus. $25.00. 

A well-known memoir of Russian Futurism now makes its rather expensive debut in 
English translation. The "archer" of the title is both the destructive Scythian riding 
out of the East and the thoroughly Westernized half-blind promoter of the Russian 
avant-garde, David Burliuk. Burliuk once declared that twenty-five years was the 
proper "life span for any truth." In this case, Livshits's recollections must be read 
in the perspective of 1933 (when they appeared in Russian), as well as of 1911-14 
(when the events described took place). 

Specialists know this memoir of the Hylaeans (a group of provincial avant-
garde poets and painters including the Burliuks, Mayakovsky, Alexandra Ekster, 
Velemir Khlebnikov, and Livshits himself) from either the 1933 original or the 1971 
French translation. The familiar stories are all here: Ekster returning from Paris 
with photographs of the latest artistic novelty; schoolboy friends on vacation at Bur-
liuk's Crimean home deciding to create the Hylaea movement in 1911 because "a label 
was indispensable"; Burliuk's father's comment that he could "paint better with my left 
foot"; Burliuk's discovery of Mayakovsky; and the painted faces, scandalous perfor-
mances, and toilet-paper manifestoes of the young Futurists. According to Livshits, 
Russian Futurism was a poetic search for Russian roots whose genius was Khlebnikov, 
not Mayakovsky, a movement which "died without heirs" during World W a r I. H e 
states that Mayakovsky "joined the Revolution independent of Futurism, if not in 
spite of it," and maintains that Russian Futurism was unconnected with the Russian 
Revolution and did not survive it. 

Livshits's interpretation of Russian Futurism must be understood in the context 
of 1933, when a 47-year old Jewish artist and critic recanted his youthful mistakes 
under party pressure. Livshits himself wrote that his memoir was intended to "expose