OBERIU and the Conversations of the Lipavsky Circle

This article distinguishes the avant-garde group OBERIU and its predecessors, led by the poets Daniil Kharms, Alexander Vvedensky, and Nikolai Zabolotsky and performing openly in Leningrad between 1925 and 1930, from the informal circle of the 1930s, which also included the poet Nikolai Oleinikov and the philosophers Leonid Lipavsky and Yakov Druskin. Prevented from making their writings public, in 1933–1934 members of this underground circle of friends documented their interactions in Lipavsky’s Conversations. A history of the two overlapping groups, emphasizing their social aspects, is followed by a synopsis of the philosophy of the circle. The article argues that the montage-based composition paradigms of the avant-garde, replacing determinism, causality, and rationality with contiguity and the non sequitur, are reflected in Kharmsian play with numbers and in his concept of the “real,” as well as in the phenomenological methods of Druskin and Lipavsky, which seek perspectival, qualitative, and embodied knowledge that science cannot grant.

YEGOR LETOV AND DANIIL KHARMS: A POETICAL COMPARISON

Важная сторона творческого сознания Е. Летова приоткрывается в процессе рассмотрения специфики внутренней его взаимосвязи с творческим сознанием Д.И. Хармса, которая становится весьма заметной как в опубликованном (печатном), так и песенном тексте поэта. An important aspect of the creative consciousness of YE. Letov is revealed in the process of considering the specifics of its internal relationship with the creative consciousness of D.I. Kharms, which becomes very noticeable both in the published (printed) and song lyrics of the poet.

Black humor in Daniil Kharms`s works

Daniil Kharms` s works have been a hot topic of research worldwide for several years. The present study discusses Kharms’s black humor writings of the 1930s, exposes aesthetic potential and humanistic content of black humor as an avant-garde phenomenon, and defines the role of black humor in the plot of works containing allusions to arrest in secret, hospitals and the life of Soviet children. As paper suggests the themes and subjects of Kharms’s black humor are designed to enhance humanistic content. In Kharms’s art world of black humor, “purity” is a kind of harmonious world order representing the earth as “a space, filled with madness and fear” on a real level while on an artistic level it functions as the purity of creative mind generating circular compositional structure and using semantic shift and narrative interruption. In other words, purity embodies the real world while belonging to it. The popularity of Kharms may be, firstly, explained by a clear feeling of absurdism and black humor, the root of which is his requirement for humanization of life and firm faith in God. Kharms believed that religion is “ambiguous and amorphous” and should be expressed in some form or object, without which the essence of religiosity would be lost, even if the most reliable authority and firm dogma are there. Thus, overtly inhuman elements which give a false impression of writer’s spiritual value, do not express the essence of his worldview, but reflect surrounding senseless reality. Out of dissatisfaction with reality, Kharms uses black humor to respond to the evil and absurdity of life.

“Chinary” in M. Kuzmin’s Journals

The paper presents selected records from Mikhail Kuzmin’s diary that deal with – directly or indirectly – Daniil Kharms and his literary associates since the first mentioning of “mystic-futurist Vvedensky” on March 16, 1924, and up to the arrest of Kharms and Vvedensky in “Gosizdat Juvenile Sector case” in December 1931. The records reveal lots of new biographical facts and aspects of literary life of the time. The publication is provided with the necessary commentary and the introductory article that recreates the background of Kuzmin’s relations with “Chinary” and later with OBERIU in the context of Leningrad culture of the late 1920s-early 1930s. A special attention is paid to the writers of “Kuzmin circle” that had personal relationships with Vvedensky and Kharms.

Play and Interruption as a Mode of Action in Arendt, Dostoevsky, and Kharms

This essay uses Hannah Arendt’s theory of action and her critique of modern politics to explore the themes of predictability and unpredictability in human affairs, and the political meaning of interruption and refusal. It draws on the life and literature of the Russian avant-gardist, Daniil Kharms (1905- 1942), alongside Fyodor Dostoevsky and several contemporary theorists, to offer a reading of action as taking the form, specifically, of playful interruption and generative refusal. A marginal figure whose deeds and writings were disruptively strange, Kharms is taken as an exemplar of action in this ludic mode. This serves to elaborate upon Arendt’s concepts of plurality and natality, while challenging some weaknesses in her theory of action as a whole.

Annotating Kharms

The paper is dedicated to the quest for the sources of the two notes made by Daniil Kharms in his notebooks and dated May 1927 and July 1933. The first one is devoted to someone “great Rebbe from Liadi”: Kharms was going to get his book with musical score from Doibver Levin. The motif in question is the arba bavot nigun, also called “the great nigun”, ascribed to Schneur Salman Schneerson von Liadi, the founder of Liubavich Hasid dynasty, The paper analyses the “magic” context of Kharms interest in nigun (which, according to the followers of Habad, could influence reality) and the circumstances of the hypothetic visit of Levin, Kharms and Bekhterev to the sixth Liubavich Rebbe Joseph Yitzhak Schneerson, who was then residing in Leningrad. The second part of the paper is dedicated to the origins of Kharm’s note on the ship “Pyatnitsa” (“Friday”) alledgedly created to fight superstitions. It is demonstrated that the form of the legend written down by Kharms points to its direct source — Fenimore Cooper’s novel The Red Rover. However the Russian source could have been the first edition of the novel that contained the author’s note telling the legend; this note was withdrawn from all later reeditions.

Daniil Kharms in China

Daniil Kharms — a distinguished representative of the post-revolutionary avant- garde — was rediscovered in Russia in the 1990s. Chinese scholars began the study of his literary heritage in 2010 after a number of Kharms’ works had been translated into Chinese. Today, Kharms studies have become one of the most relevant trends within Chinese Slavic studies. This paper aims to examine Chinese interpretation of the core philosophical and aesthetic features of Kharms’ poetics in comparison with Russian scholarly interpretations and to analyze the mechanisms of reception of Kharms’s poetry and philosophy in China. Chinese scholars relate Kharms’ artistic techniques to the idea of the helplessness of a human being in the face of ontological problems. In general, Chinese scholars share an opinion that the originality of Kharms’ poetics meets the requirement of the new artistic style characterized by deconstruction of causality and the shift of the space-time continuum. The new state of art corresponds to the logic of human knowledge: within the process of renunciation (negating the negation itself), the new knowledge develops out of the opposite side of the old knowledge, which explains why the avant-garde is eternal.

“Hidden” Anecdote: About the “Historical Episode” by D. I. Kharms

Daniil Kharms created the short story “Historical episode” in 1939 inspired by the performance of the opera “Ivan Susanin”. Deep and profound critical reflection on a particular cultural event is concealed behind humor and playful attitude towards Russia’s past. The libretto of the monarchist opera by M. I. Glinka had to be rewrit-ten in accordance with the Stalinist concept of patriotism. At the same time, “A Life for the Tsar” was chosen not only to create an image of “the classic Soviet opera”. The ultimate goal of this revised and updated version was to influence international relations, mainly to serve as the instrument of propaganda when it came to Russian-Polish ones. The reminder of the victory over the Poles in the Time of Troubles served the majority of the Soviet people as the distraction from the memory of from the defeat of Stalin in the Warsaw campaign of 1919. Kharms, being a keen admirer of musical culture, viewed the new production as a historical anecdote. His rejection and non-acceptance of the opera is reflected in the mocking attitude towards the character of Ivan Susanin.

Daniil Kharms in His Father’s Diaries: Selected Passages

This publication presents selected passages from the diaries of Ivan Pavlovich Yuvachev (1860‒1940), which are directly related to his son, Daniil Kharms. These selections are presented in accordance with Vol. 9 of Yuvachev’s “Collected Diaries,” published by the “Galeev-Gallery” in 2020. They cover the diary entries made from October 7, 1922 through March 29, 1931. That volume of “Collected Diaries” reflects the beginning of Kharms’ literary activities and their gradual increase until his arrest in the “Case of the Children’s Literature Sector of the Gosizdat” on December 10, 1931. Yuvachev’s diaries depict Kharms at home in an everyday environment and demonstrate uneasy relationship with his father and the rest of the family. Yuvachev does not approve of his son’s creative pursuits, but sincerely worries about him and is constantly looking for the common ground. Therefore, his diary entries at least partially touch upon Kharms’ literary work, including the performances of the Collective of Real Art (OBERIU). Also, they mention his creative collaborators – Alexander Vvedensky, Nikolai Zabolotsky, Boris (Doyvber) Levin, Leonid Lipavsky, Samuil Marshak. The publication is accompanied by an introductory article and a necessary commentary, intended to reconstruct episodes of Kharms’ literary biography against the background of the Leningrad culture of the 1920s and early 1930s.