About
Russian Formalists
--A.Charumati Ramdas
Russian Formalism or Decadence or Modernism, as it was termed in
Russia/Soviet Union was actually a bunch of several formalistic groups and was
not confined to only Symbolism or OPOYAZ or Scythians alone.
Roots of formalist movement could be traced back to the end of XIX /
beginning of XX century.
As we know it was a period of transition for Russia which was standing on
the threshold of Great October Revolution. The old socio-political-cultural
order was about to crumble, the new structure was not yet in site and there was
uncertainty prevailing everywhere.
If we look at the literary scenario, it can be observed that there were
three types of trends prevailing at that time:
1. Critical Realism
2. Socialistically oriented literature
3. Modernism
Proponents of Critical realism (L.N.Tolstoy, A.P.Chekhov, V.G. Korolenko,
V.M.Garshin) were for the destruction of old social order. They were proposing
to create a new, clean society by way of moral-perfection of each individual through
self-analysis and self-criticism (Tolstoy); through WORK and education
(Chekhov) and through armed revolution (Korolenko). The method used by
Korolenko was called Revolutionary-Romanticism and it was followed by Maxim
Gorky in his early romantic stories.
Maxim Gorky, A.S.Serafimovich, Demyan Bednyi and a few others were
creating socialistically- oriented literature. They too called for overthrowing
Tsarist regime. They had a clear idea about the type of society they were going
to build.
The modernists, formalists had a rather pessimistic view about the whole
thing. They were of course not happy with the existing social order but were
looking to escape the scene rather than struggling for the change.
By Modernism we mean the general trend that was prevailing in Europe at
that time. Russian modernism was to some extent influenced by French and German
type but it had its originality as well.
First pre-modernist (pre-decadent, as they were termed in Russia)
characteristics were observed in the works of K.M.Fofanov. Three volumes of his
poems appeared in 1887, 1889 and 1892 respectively. In one of his poems Fofanov
declares:
“We are a timid, sick generation…
We are cold to the world.”
K.K. Sluchevsky is considered founder of Russian Modernism. His poems
seem pessimistic.
The Russian Modernism was like a colourful bouquet. It consisted of such
anti-realistic movements as Symbolism, Akmeism, Futurism, Impressionism,
Naturalism etc.
Of these, Symbolism was the first to make its presence felt in Russian
literature. Symbolism was born in the 80s of XIX century and it registered a
fast growth in the 90s. Famous representatives of Russian Symbolism were
V.Solovyov, K.D.Balmont, D.S.Merezhkovsky, V. Bryusov, Alexandr Blok, Andrei
Belyi, F. Sologub , Vyacheslav Ivanov, N.M.Minski, Zinaida Gippius. M.Voloshin,
I. Annenskyi.
The theoretical position of Symbolist poetry was put forward by
D.S.Merezhkovsky in his book “About
the reasons of fall and new trends in modern Russian literature” (1893). Merezhkovskyi informs that “there has
never been any real great literature in Russia which could stand along with
other literatures of the world”. While commenting upon the state of
contemporary literature, he remarks that “There is boredom, inaction,
deterioration of language, anarchy of journalistic language” and “absence of
great talent.” About the emerging trends in Russian literature, Merezhkovsky
says, “these are the main elements of new art: mystic substance, symbols and
widening of artistic impressionability”, he calls for creation of symbolic
poetry, which is the basis of creation of Symbolists.
Symolists opined that the real (earthly) world is just a distorted
reflection of mystic world. They replaced a concrete artistic image by a
subjective symbol. Minskyi says that symbolism is meta physical poetry.
Individualism, going to the extent of self-love is one of the
characteristic features of symbolists:
“Ruthless is my road:
It leads me to death.
But I love myself like God,
Love will save my soul.”
[Zinaida Gippius, 1894]
Symbolists rejected the social commitment of literature:
“Our hymns are our moans;
For the sake of new beauty
Destroy we all the rules,
And trample all boundaries.”
[Merezhkovsky D.S., 1892]
An urge to go somewhere up, into the other world is often observed in
their poetry:
“I need that, which is not in the
world
Which is not in the world.”
[Zinaida Gippius, 1893]
Symbolists get attracted towards mysticism, abstraction:
“Dear friend, don’t you see;
That all that is visible to us -
Is just a reflection, just the shadow
Of that which is not visible to eyes?”
[Solovyov V., 1892]
As a result of internal differences between symbolists a new group called
Akmeists was formed after the revolution of 1905,. Akmeism announced itself
through their journal “Hyperbola” (1912) and a few numbers of “Workshop of
Poets”. Manifesto of Akmeists was signed by N. Gumilyov and S. Gorodetsky.
Others who joined this group were Anna Akhmatova, M. Zenkevich, Osip
Mandelshtam, El. Kuzmina-Karavaeva etc.
Akmeists were opposed to Realism. They propagated the theory of “Pure
Art”. We observe their aspiration towards the ‘unknown’. Akmeist poetry
reflects pessimism, loneliness, disappointment:
“…now I am weak, as if under the
spell of sleep;
Sick is my soul; extremely sick;
I have come to know, what is fear,
Buried here within four walls;
Even the glitter of arms, and splash of waves
Are not keen to tear this chain.”
[Gumilyov, 1910-12]
Individualism too is characteristic of Akmeist poetry:
“I am the one, who could be the best among the poems,
A loud violin or a white rose.”
[Gumilyov,1910-12]
Akmeists were not bothered about the content of a work, they spoke only
about its form. One of the early inventions of akmeists was ‘the reverse
Hyperbola’ where the properties of an object are diminished, instead of
exaggeration. To give an example, we see
S. Gorodetsky ‘comparing the Sun with the disk of a musician’.
Along with the Akmeists, in the beginning of 1910s, another literary
movement - the Futurism- too announced its arrival (1910-12). It was
characterized by heterogeneity and internal differences (like other modernist
groups). It consisted of extremely talented poets like D. Burlyuk, V.
Mayakovsky, V. Kamensky, A. Kruchenykh, V. Khlebnikov, N. Aseev, I. Severyanin,
Boris Pasternak etc.
Futurists considered themselves as creators of FUTURE. This group was
formed under the influence of Italian Futurism, and introduced itself through
such manifestos as ‘Sickly Moon’, “ Milkers of exhausted toads” , “Go to
Hell!”, “ Milk of Mares” and similar others.
The formal manifesto of Futurists – A slap in the Face of Public Taste - was signed by Mayakovsky and others.
Futurism can be considered as one
of the formalist movements of Russian literature in the beginning of XX
century. We shall dwell for a while on this group:
Futurists – creators of the Art of Future – rejected everything in
literature which existed till their arrival:
“We alone are the Face of Our
Time.
The Past constricts us. Akademi and Pushkin are more incomprehensible
than hieroglyphics. Throw down Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy etc from the ship
of Modernity.”
Futurists considered that Futurism is Revolution of Form, hence they
performed various experiments to innovate the form of a literary text.. While
completely rejecting the achievements of Masters, they established their own
laws regarding the form. One of their manifestos says:
“We stopped looking at
word-construction and word-pronunciation as per grammatical rules. We trampled
syntax. We started to provide meaning to words as per their graphic and
phonetic characteristics.
We understand vowels as ‘Time and Space’, and consonants as colour,
sound, fragrance.”
Let’s have a look at a poem consisting of only vowels:
“ е у ю
И а о
О а е е и е я
О а э
Е у и е и
И е е
И ы и е и ы “
[Balmont K.D.]
The following lines make aт
interesting combination of words and sounds:
“ дыр
бул щил
Убъеш шур
Скум
Вы со бу
р л из “
[Kruchenykh A., 1913]
Futurists constructed words having no meaning or idea, sometimes from
just one root was created a whole chain of words. For example:
“смейво, смейво,
Усмей, осмей, смешики, смешики,
Смеюнчики, смеюнчики,
О, рассмейтесъ, смехачи!
О, засмейтесъ,
смехачи!
Что смеются смехами,
Что смеянствуют смеялъно,
О, засмейтесъ,
усмеялъно!
О, рассмешиц надсмеялъных -
Смех усмейных смехачей!”
[Khlebnikov V, 1909-1910]
Sometimes intentional wrong spellings are observed:
“ Остался жяренный баклажян.”
Futurists paid special attention to such devices of sound-combination as
alliteration, assonance, anaphora, internal rhyming, thinking that combination
of sounds creates an internal link between things.
Here is an example:
“Глаз глав окончен
Слух слуг утончен
На кавказе лис кис
На лысине растёт рис”.
[Kruchenykh V.]
Sometimes a complex word would be disintegrated into smaller entities. V.
Kamensky in his poem Я has used this technique:
“Излучистая
Лучистая
Чистая
Истая
Стая
Тая
Ая
Я”
Here’s an example of destruction of canonical meter, internal and reverse
rhyming which was so characteristic for futurists:
“У
лица
лица
у
догов
годов
рез-
че
че-
рез
железных коней
с окон бегущих домов
прыгнули первые кубы”
[Mayakovsky V. 1913].
Futurists could be considered as innovators in the field of Russian
Formalist-Literature. They rejected the old literature and tried to create New
literature for the New Man who was standing on the threshold of great
socio-political upheaval.
.
*****
After the October Revolution of 1917 Russia suffered from the civil war
which lasted for almost five years. To bring back economy to its normal course,
New Economic Policy (NEP) was announced. NEP allowed some freedom in the
socio-political and literary fields. It was during these 12-14 years of NEP
that literature witnessed stunning experiments. This is called Silver Age of
Russian literature.
Taking off from where they were, the formalists (Modernists) continued
their fascinating activities. Many new literary groups were formed – they grew like
mushrooms! Morning announced the birth of a new literary group and evening
announced its dissolution. These groups didn’t have any serious goal before
them; each one had their own manifest. They had peculiar names as well.
A group called ‘Nichevoki’(Nothing Doers) said:
“Don’t write anything!
Don’t read anything!
Don’t say anything!
Don’t publish anything!”
Then there was a group called Fuists which called for ‘dilution of
brain’; while another, called Bio-cosmists emphasized ‘eternity and promised to
convert the Earth into a cosmic ship, which will be driven by “the wise will of
bio-cosmists.”
We shall talk about the literary groups of more serious nature which left
a deep impression on the literary process of 20s-30s of XX century.
They can be classified like this:
1. Those based on the ideological – aesthetic
principles of modernists-decadents (Formalists): OPOYAZ, Futurists, Pereval,
Imaginists, Constructivists, ‘Skify’ etc;
2. Those based on principles of classical literature:
Serapion Brothers and “Fellow-Travellers (Poputchiki);
3. Those based on socialistically-oriented views: RAPP,
VOKP, LOKAF, Oktyabr, Molodaya Gvardia, Kuznitsa, VOAPP, Proletkult, etc.
But they were all ‘Formalistic’ in nature.
There were a few things common to all these groups:
1. They wanted freedom to create a literature free from
government interference;
2. They wanted to isolate literature from political
diktats;
3. In spite of ideological differences they were sure
that they were serving the task of Revolution;
4. None of these groups opposed the Revolution;
5. Almost all literary groups did daring experiments
for the innovation of form of their work;
6. They believed in creating ‘Art for Art’s sake’ and
‘Pure Art’.
Let’s have a look at some prominent literary groups:
OPOYAZ : OPOYAZ was a
very famous group which did pretty bold experiments to innovate form of a
literary work. Full form of OPOYAZ is Obschestvo po izucheniyu Poeticheskova
Yazyka (Society for Study of Poetic Language).
This group was formed in 1916 by such famous
masters of words like Victor Shklovsky, who later joined Futurists, Boris
Eikhebaum, B. Tomashevsky, L. Yakubinsky, Roman Yakobson. Their first journal
was published in 1916. After the October Revolution activities of this group
increased a lot and their theoretical positions strongly influenced the young
writers.
OPOYAZ aspired to isolate literature from political
tasks, to remove all ideological content, social meaning/commitment from it.
They demanded that literature should be isolated
from social activities. It should be independent of socio-political
commitments.
Victor Schklovsky emphasized that ‘ideology is alien
to art’. He simply rejects just any substance in literature where, according to
him, everything is dictated only by FORM.
OPOYAZians focused their attention on the study of
FORM, at the same time negating any connection between the FORM and social
ideology. They emphasized that only study of FORM will make literary-science a
specific science and will provide it a definite place among other sciences.
About the ‘birth’ of NEW FORM, Schklovsky says that
“the New Form is born not to depict the new reality, it is born to replace the
OLD FORM, which has already lost its artistic properties.”
OPOYAZians propagated the principle of ‘Zatrudneniye
Formi (Making difficult)”.
They also invented ‘Theory of Content”. They
emphasized that content of a literary work is the sum total of all formal
devices, and the more complicated the content is more precious did it seem to
them.
OPOYAZians considered that their school is
‘Revolutionary’ B. Eikhenbaum writes, “Within the limits of literary science,
FORMALISM is the Revolutionary movement, as it emancipates art from old, worn
out traditions and forces to have a fresh look at basic concepts and plans.”
Theoretical principles of OPOYAZ influenced many
writers who were members of groups like LEF, Serapion Brothers, Constructivists
and others.
Theoretical position of FUTURISM was very close to
that of OPOYAZ.
FUTURISTS:
Formed in 1910-12 the group of Futurists continues
its activities even in the 20s of XX century. They follow their
pre-revolutionary practices, but now they are trying to project themselves as
artists of proletariat. They declared that FUTURISM is - Art of the State. They
considered that they are serving the cause of Revolution. Mayakovsky writes,
“Revolution of content – Socialism – Anarchism – is not possible without
Revolution of FORM, that is – FUTURISM”.
Like OPOYAZ, FUTURISTs too demanded that art should
be free from government control; they rejected social commitment of literature.
As a result of sharp differences between themselves
the group disintegrated very soon, Many new sub-groups were emerging from time
to time from this parent group. In 1919 a group of KOMFUTs (Communist-Futurist) was formed.
FUTURISTs, as in the beginning rejected art of the
past. They tried to “Tear off, destroy, wipe off all the old artistic forms
from the Earth’s face, as the NEW, PROLETARIAN artist need not think about
them.
FUTURISTS considered that their art is FORMALISTIC.
They aimed at destroying punctuation and syntax of the work and give it the
look of a Telegram. Here’s an example from Kamensky’s poem “Степан Разин - Сердце Народное” where the peasants’ movement is poeticized. There is no mark of
punctuation in this example:
“Сарынъ на кичку
Кистенъ за пояс
В башке зудит
Разгул до дна
Свисти - глуши
Зевай - раздайся
Слепая стерва - не попадайся
В в в в в – а”
[V. Kamensky, 1912-16]
A number of examples from Mayakovsky’s works can be
given where formalistic characteristics are reflected. Here’s an extract from
his poem 150,000,000 (1919-1920) which shows how he is playing with words:
“Пули погуще!
По оробелым!
В гущу бегущим
Грянъ парабеллум!
Самое это!
С донышка душ!
Жаром,
Жжением,
Железом
Светом,
Жаръ,
Жги,
Режъ,
Рушъ!”
In 1923 Futurists formed a new group called “LEF
(Levyi Front Isskustva). V. Mayakovsky, N. Aseev, S.Kirsanov, O.Brik,
S.Tretyekov, Boris Pasternak, A.Kruchenykh, V.Kamensky , Yu. Tynyanov were
prominent members.
Lefovtsi called for war against decadence,
formalism, Naturalism, for strengthening realism, based on use of technical devices
of all revolutionary art schools. But they remained formalists only.
They considered that in the future socialist society
art will become redundant and will die its natural death. Literature should be
based only on FACTS, hence they are called ‘FAKTOVIKS as well. They gave
importance to sheer information without decorating it by any means, thus they
rejected the ideological-aesthetic role of literature.
LEFOVTSI tried to make language loaded, difficult.
They wanted to MAKE it in laboratories. Here are a couple of examples of this
Laboratory language:
“Згара - амба
Згара - амба
Згара – амба
Згара - амба
Амб
Шар – шор – шур - шир
Цин – драх – там - ззз - etc.
[V. Kamensky, 1923]
Among other famous formalist groups we can name
Imaginists and Constructivists. Constructivists tried to load the text:
“ This was – trumpet, drum!
Their last – da, raba!
And deci - zhikh – zhakh!
Sive fight – Niv and Shakht!
With Inter – bullets – nati
Dzum – pryikh - onalism
Take – pipes,- n, by race – drums
Human – Dun! V
v v!.....”
Along with the words, there are sounds of musical
instruments inserted here and there in the text thus making it
incomprehensible. One has to decode each and every line of this poem to
understand it. This incomprehensibility was considered an achievement by
Constructivists.
By the end of 20s this group too disintegrates.
Under the influence of socialist views were formed
such groups as Pereval, Rapp and others. They had blessings of Government and
hence their membership also increased. Though they were close to the
authorities these groups too were formalistic in nature and also demanded that
Art should be free from government interference. But Pereval was considered
anti- revolutionary.
There were two more groups which left a deep
impression on the literary process of that time they were SKIFY (Scythians) and
Serapion Brothers.
Skify was the first such group which supported
Revolution. Famous poets A.Belyi, Alexandr Blok, R.V.Ivanov-Razumnik, Evgenyi
Zamyatin were members. Except Blok, all other members migrated to Europe.
Desire for absolute freedom was specialty of
Scythians. They also said that Revolutions were infinite, endless, one
revolution has to be followed by another. Members of the group were extremely
talented, and each one had his independent views about literature. But their
demand for absolute freedom and idea of Endless revolutions put them in the
category of enemies of Revolution.
Serapion Brothers too was another group consisting
of such intelligent writers as M. Zoshenko, V. Kaverin, Vs Ivanov. M.Slonimsky,
K. Fedin, N. Tikhonov.
The so called socialist groups were becoming stronger
and many of formalist writers could not withstand the insult they faced at
their hands. Many of them migrated/crossed over to RAPP but were always looked
upon suspiciously. Mayakovsky was one who suffered most, he committed suicide,
S. Esenin (Imaginist) too met the same fate. Their poems are so popular even
today! Pasternak too was not treated properly.
By 1934, the NEP came to an end and Government
established full control over everything including literature. All the surviving
literary groups were liquidated and a single Union of Soviet Writers was formed
thus ending the saga of Formalism in Soviet Union.
****
