Collected Works of Velimir Khlebnikov: Prose, Plays, and Supersagas

408 Pages·1989·17.199 MB·English

by  Velimir Khlebnikov (Pauls Schmidt, Trans.)

Collected Worki of VelimirKhlebnikQV
volume π
Prose, Plays, and Supersagas
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Collected Worki of
Velimir Khlebnikgv
volume π
Prose, Plays,
and Supersagas
translated by Paul Schmidt
edited by Ronald Vroon
Harvard University Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England 1989
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Copyright © 1989 by the Dia Art Foundation
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21
This book is printed on acid-free paper, and its binding
materials have been chosen for strength and durability.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
(Revised for vol. 2)
Khlebnikov, Velimir, 1885-1922.
Collected works of Velimir Khlebnikov.
Translated from the Russian.
Vol. 2- edited by Ronald Vroon.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
Contents: v. 1. Letters and theoretical writings—
v. 2. Prose, plays, and supersagas.
i. Khlebnikov, Velimir, 1885-1922—Translations, English.
2. Khlebnikov, Velimir, 1885-1922—Correspondence.
3. Poets, Russian—20th century—Correspondence.
I. Schmidt, Paul, 1934-
II. Douglas, Charlotte, 1936-
III. Vroon, Ronald, 1948-
IV. Tide.
PG3476.K485A23 1987 89i.7i'3 87-8399
ISBN 0-674-14045-1 (v. 1)
ISBN 0-674-14046-X (v. 2)
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Preface
This volume includes all of Velimir Khlebnikov's published artistic
prose, dramatic texts, and those syncretic works for which he invented
the name "supersaga." The few pieces that have been omitted are pre-
paratory sketches or fragmentary drafts of the pieces included here. The
translations were based on texts drawn from three collections of Khleb-
nikov's works. The first and textually most reliable is Tvoreniia (Works),
ed. M. Ia. Poliakov, V P. Grigoriev, and A. E. Parnis (Moscow: So-
vetsky pisatel, 1986). For works not contained in that volume we turned
to the original Sobranie proizvedenii Velitnira Khlebnikova (Collected
Works of Velimir Khlebnikov), ed. N. Stepanov and Iu. Tynianov (Len-
ingrad: Izdatelstvo pisatelei ν Leningrade, 1928-1933), and Neizdannye
proizvedeniia (Unpublished Works), ed. N. Khardzhiev and T. Grits
(Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1940). These three collections
also served as the principal sources for annotations. Tvoreniia, in partic-
ular, contains a wealth of background material illuminating difficult and
obscure passages in KhlebnikoVs oeuvre. Other major sources con-
sulted include Khlebnikov's Stikhotvoreniia. Poemy. Dramy. Proza
(Poems, Plays, Prose), ed. R. V Duganov (Moscow: Sovetskaia Ros-
siia, 1986), and Henryk Baran, "Khlebnikov's Deti Vydry [Otter's Chil-
dren]: Texts, Commentaries, Interpretations" (dissertation, Harvard
University, 1976). The translations, notes, and commentary also reflect
our examination of manuscripts made available by the Central State
Archive of Literature and Art in Moscow.
The date and source for each Russian text are indicated at the end
of its translation. Abbreviations are as follows:
Roman and arabic numbers—volume and page of Sobranie
proizvedenii (Collected Works)
NP—Neizdannye proizvedeniia (Unpublished Works)
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Preface
Τ—Tvoreniia (Works)
TsGALI—Central State Archive of Literature and Art
Transliteration throughout follows the U.S. Library of Congress
system, slightly simplified. In the text we have used the normal spelling
for proper names when an English common usage has been established;
for example, the Russian -skit ending has been rendered -sky.
Places in the text marked "[illegible]" are so marked in the Soviet
editions. In the plays and supersagas, any stage directions set in square
brackets are interpolations we have introduced for the sake of clarity.
Ellipses in the Russian text—it is sometimes difficult to ascertain
whether they are KhlebnikoVs or the editor's omissions—are marked
here by five dots; gaps in the copy-texts are marked by three. The reader
should be aware that those texts in the present volume appearing pre-
viously in The King of Time (Harvard University Press, 1985) have been
revised, sometimes significantly.
A concise biography of Khlebnikov may be found in Volume I of
this edition, Letters and Theoretical Writings (1987). Those who wish to
explore the critical literature in greater depth should consult the bibli-
ographies in three recent studies of Khlebnikov's works: Raymond
Cooke, Velitnir Khlebnikov: A Critical Study (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1987); V P. Grigoriev, Slovotvorchestvo i smezhnye prob-
lemy iazyka poeta (Word Creation and Other Problems Relating to the
Poet's Language; Moscow: Nauka, 1987); and Ronald Vroon, The
Shorter Poems af Velimir Xlebnikov: A Key to the Coinages (Ann Arbor:
Michigan Slavic Studies, 1983).
Our work on this volume was supported by the Dia Art Foundation,
New York, and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
In the Soviet Union we received important and sympathetic help from
Alexander E. Parnis, Valentina Morderer, Mai Miturich, and the late
Vasily Katanian. Special thanks go to Henryk Baran, Charlotte Doug-
las, Nikolai Khardzhiev, Vladimir Markov, Stephen Rudy, and Kath-
erine Theodore. We are also grateful for generous assistance from the
administration and staff of the Central State Archive of Literature and
Art, Moscow.
vi
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Contents
Frontispiece Khlebnikov, about 1912 (age twenty-seven)
Translator's Introduction · χ
Prose
Introduction · 3
Self-Statement · 6
A Sinner's Seduction · 10
The I-Singer of Universong · 12
Hooder · 20
Murksong · 23
A Simple Story · 24
A Schoolgirl's Story · 25
Youngman Mecrocosm · 28
The Dead Son Leaves His Burial Mound · 29
Easter Day · 30
Oko · 33
"Lubny is a strange, godforsaken town" · 36
"Kolya was a handsome boy" · 38
Mountain People * 40
A Heart of Steel · 4S
Nikolai · 48
Usa-Gali · S3
Ka · s6
Notes from the Past · 7S
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Contents
"I went to Asoka" · 81
"We climbed aboard" · 82
Dream · 83
"Once again I followed the yellow paths" · 8s
The Scythian Headdress: Α Mysterium · 88
"Does a story have to start with childhood?" ·
"You could swim" · 99
"No one will deny" · 100
Yasir · 103
October on the Neva · 116
The Hunt · 12 3
The Scarlet Saber · 124
Before the War · 139
"Whose idea was it anyway?" · 144
Razin: Two Trinities · 146
The Willow Twig · iso
Plays
Introduction · iss
Snowhite · IS7
The Girl-God · 171
The Little Devil · 197
The Marquise des S. · 218
Asparuh · 230
"Laughing-Eyes" · 23s
Mrs. Laneen · 237
Backworlds · 242
"A coarse black face" · 251
Miss Death Makes a Mistake · 2/2
"A street of the future" · 2$9
The Gods · 261
The Tuberculosis Spirochete · 269
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Contents
Supersagas
Introduction · 27s
Otter's Children • 278
War in a Mousetrap · 308
Azia Unbound · 322
Zangezi · 331
Notes · 377
Russian Index of Titles • 402
English Index of lltles · 403
IX
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Translator's Introduction
Khlebnikov (1885-1922) ranks with Mallarme, Joyce, Pound, and Stein
among the great innovators of literary modernism. He blurred the dis-
tinctions between verse and prose and between one literary genre and
another. His experiments helped to break the hold of traditional verse
patterns in Russian poetry, as he worked with irregularities, unequal
line lengths, meters that varied from line to line in a single poem, vari-
able stanza lengths, irregular rhyme patterns. He made use of patterns
and tropes from folklore and from chants, incantations, and shamanis-
tic language. He managed to create an entire poetics in that area of
language the Anglo-American tradition tends to belittle as "play"—
neologisms, palindromes, riddles, puns. And, under the same impulse
that led Pound to the Cantos, he invented the supersaga, a new genre
capable of containing the diverse elements of the universe that deter-
mine human history.
An astonishing aspect of Khlebnikov's work is the way in which
he structures his poetic imagination—or lets it structure itself. New
forms, from the composition of a line of verse to the creation of a
genre, seem to grow organically through the cracking surfaces of old
forms, producing something rich and strange. This aspect of his writ-
ing seems to me revealed especially clearly in this volume, where the
texts listed as "plays" and "supersagas," taken as a whole, chart the paths
taken on his search for a new dramatic form. In Snowhite what begins
as a kind of fairy-tale operetta libretto is invaded first by outrageous
parody and then by cultural sloganeering. In The Girl-God, an attempt
to treat mythic history in the style of symbolist drama, the dramatic
structure falls apart under the shock of stylistic shifts and under the
pressure of the writing. ("The Girl-God was written in twelve hours
straight," he tells us, "without a single correction, from morning to
evening. I smoked and drank strong tea, writing feverishly the whole
time") Khlebnikov can find no dramatic form to contain his vision and
seems almost to be groping here for the superimpositions and dissolves
χ
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