Velimir Khlebnikov’s Futurist Essays: A Hybrid Genre?

Velimir Khlebnikov is one of the most renowned and idiosyncratic Russian authors of the early twentieth century. The writer has been largely associated with his experimental poetry, with the effect that particular aspects such as his ‘transrational’ language (zaum’) and neologisms stand for Khlebnikov’s entire literary production. However, Khlebnikov did not only write poetry, but also a stream of prose works, which have been overshadowed by his poetic and theatrical writings. Within the author’s corpus, these essays, dialogues, appeals, declarations and manifestos are considered to be marginal and are often disregarded, even though they constitute a significant aspect of his literary œuvre to which the poet devoted much time throughout his literary career. The aim of my contribution here is to investigate Khlebnikov’s essays as a group of texts characterized by a purpose that was not meant to be ‘artistic’ or ‘literary’ in the first place but should still be paid due consideration because of their outstanding rôle in the author’s poetic and aesthetic system.