A Sampling of Russian Futurist Manifestoes

Slap in the Face of Public Taste

To the readers of our New First Unexpected.
 We alone are the face of our Time. Through us the horn of time blows
in the art of the word.
 The past is too tight. The Academy and Pushkin are less intelligible
than hieroglyphics.
 Throw Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc., etc. overboard from the
Ship of Modernity.
 He who does not forget his first love will not recognize his last.
 Who, trustingly, would turn his last love toward Balmont's per-
fumed lechery? Is this the reflection of today's virile soul?
 Who, faintheartedly, would fear tearing from warrior Bryusov's
black tuxedo the paper armorplate? Or does the dawn of unknown
beauties shine from it?
 Wash Your hands which have touched the filthy slime of the books
written by those countless Leonid Andreyevs.
 All those Maxim Gorkys, Kuprins, Bloks, Sologubs, Remizovs,
Averchenkos, Chomys, Kuzmins, Bunins, etc. need only a dacha on
the river. Such is the reward fate gives tailors.
 From the heights of skyscrapers we gaze at their insignificance!
 We order that the poets' rights be revered:

 1. To enlarge the scope of the poet's vocabulary with arbitrary and
derivative words (Word-novelty).
 2. To feel an insurmountable hatred for the language existing before
their time.
 3. To push with horror off their proud brow the Wreath of cheap
fame that You have made from bathhouse switches.
 4. To stand on the rock of the word "we" amidst the sea of boos and
outrage.

 And if/or the time being the filthy stigmas of Your "Common sense"
and "good taste" are still present in our lines, these same lines/or the
first time already glimmer with the Summer Lightening of the New
Coming Beauty of the Self-sufficient (self-centered) Word.

D. BURLIUK, ALEXANDER KRUCHENYKH, V. MAYAKOVSKY, VICTOR KHLEBNIKOV

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(Untitled) From "A Trap for Judges" 2

Finding the principles stated below fully expressed in the first issue of
"A Trap for Judges" and having already given impetus to the much-
discussed and wealthy (if only in the sense of Metzl & Co.) Futurists.
WE nonetheless believe that we have traveled this path through and,
leaving its reworking to those who do not have any new tasks, we now
use a certain form of orthography in order to focus public attention on
the new tasks already arising before us.
 We first brought to the fore the new principles of creativity which
were clear to us in the following order:

 1. We ceased to regard word formation and word pronunciation
according to grammatical rules, since we have begun to see in letters
only vectors of speech. We loosened up syntax.
 2. We started to endow words with content on the basis of their
graphic and phonic characteristics.
 3. Through us the role of prefixes and suffixes was fully realized.
 4. In the name of the freedom of individual caprice, we reject normal
orthography.
 5. We modify nouns not only with adjectives (as was usual before us),
but also with other parts of speech, as well as with individual
letters and numbers:
 a. considering as an inseparable part of the work its corrections and
the graphic flourishes of creative expectation.

...

We despise glory; we know feelings which had no life before us.

We are the new people of a new life.

DAVID BURLIUK, ELENA GURO, NICHOLAS BURLIUK,
 VLADIMIR MAYAKOVSKY, KATHERINE NIZEN, VICTOR
 KHLEBNIKOV, BENEDICT LIVSHITS, A. KRUCHENYKH

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From "Explodity" by A. KRUCHENYKH

Emotional experience cannot be put into words (frozen ones, con-
cepts), word-tortures, gnoseological isolation. Therefore, we strive for
a transrational free language (see my declaration of the word), that is
the means of expression a person resorts to at crucial moments. Here is
an example, the speech of the flagellant, V. Shishkov: "nosoktos
lesontos futr lis natrufuntru kreserefire kresentre fert cheresantro ul-
miri umilisantru" -- here, we have the genuine expression of an ex-
cited soul, religious ecstasy.
     I cite my verses in the transrational and universal language (of
vowels):
                         i
                         che
                         de
                         mali
                         iu
                         iukh
                         ddd
                         ddd
                         se
                         v
                         m'
                         m'
                         serzhamelepeta
                         senial ok
                         risum
                         meleva
                         alik a lev amakh
                         li li Hub biul

because of a foul
       contempt for
women and
       children in our
language there will be
only the masculine
       gender

On April 27 at 3 o'clock in the afternoon I instantaneously mastered
to perfection all languages    Such is the poet of the current era
I am here reporting my verses in Japanese Spanish and Hebrew:

                        ike mina ni
                        sinu ksi
                        iamakh alik
                            zei
                          GO OSNEG KAID
                          M R BATUL'BA
                        VINU AE KSEL
                        VER TUM DAKH
                            GIZ
                            SHISH