6 PM, 31 March, 2010 | 4th floor, College Hall
The Utopian ideas of the Russian avant-garde were directly influenced by the “apocalyptic events” of the first twenty years of the twentieth century: the First World War (1914-1918), the two revolutions of 1917 – the liberal February Revolution and the Bolshevik October Revoluti…on – the Civil War, and the social revolutions which shook the world from Germany to Persia and China. The Russian avant-garde movement thought of these contemporary events as the stages of a total transformation of the world. They were attracted by the idea of participating in the creation of this new world and a new kind of man. In such an era, it seemed possible to achieve the incredible.
The poet and mathematician Velimir Khlebnikov (1885-1922) stands out as a champion of Utopianism, even in this age characterized by unusual ideas. Specifically, he planned to discover the laws of time and make it possible to plan the future scientifically, and to save humankind from future wars with the help of science. He intended to create a ‘scientifically-designed’ world language, and to summon scholars and inventors to create a world government. He planned to create new cities with hundreds of glass buildings. Apartments in these cities would be portable: they could be taken them out of one building and carried to another. He believed that people would be able to broadcast art exhibitions through the air and project them onto the clouds. He proposed to solve the food crisis by chemically transforming the soil into bread, and to develop an art which would “easily awaken us from dreams” and allow us to travel into space. His future world would extend “certain civil rights” to monkeys and other primates, establish “freedom for horses,” and “equal rights for cows.” The image of Khlebnikov – mad genius, “King of Time,” visionary scientist, bewitched wanderer – who needed only “the sky and the clouds” occupies an important place in the cultural mythology of Russia of the twentieth century.
In his talk Professor Vinitsky will introduce some of Khlebnikov’s most bizarre and soaring ideas and consider them within their actual historical and cultural contexts. He will also offer a very short text by the poet for students’ discussion.
Try Velimir! Test your sanity! Feel slightly mad!
Ilya Vinitsky received his diploma with honor in teaching Russian Language and Literature at Moscow State Pedagogical University in 1991, took his Ph.D. (kandidat filologicheskikh nauk) in Russian Literature at Moscow State Pedagogical University in 1995, and received his PhD habilitation (doctor filologicheskikh nauk) in 2005. Vinitsky’s main fields of expertise are eighteenth- and nineteenth- century Russian literature, the history of madness, and nineteenth- century intellectual and spiritual history. He was a recipient of the Dashkov Scholarship of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a Fulbright Fellowship, and the Harriman Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship. Based on his research, Vinitsky has given guest lectures at Princeton, Harvard University, University of Chicago, Brown University, the New College (Oxford University), and Northwestern University. Philo thinks he’s really awesome.
