Imaginism was a Russian avant-garde poetic movement that began after the
Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...
.
History
Imaginism was founded in 1918 in
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
by a group of poets including
Anatoly Marienhof
Anatoly Borisovich Marienhof or Mariengof (russian: Анато́лий Бори́сович Мариенго́ф; 6 July (24 June O.S.) 1897 – 24 June 1962) was a Russian poet, novelist, and playwright. He was one of the leading figures of ...
,
Vadim Shershenevich, and
Sergei Yesenin
Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin ( rus, Сергей Александрович Есенин, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej ɐlʲɪkˈsandrəvʲɪtɕ jɪˈsʲenʲɪn; ( 1895 – 28 December 1925), sometimes spelled as Esenin, was a Russian lyric poet. He is one o ...
, who wanted to distance themselves from the
Futurist
Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abo ...
s; the name may have been influenced by
imagism
Imagism was a movement in early-20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. It is considered to be the first organized literary modernism, modernist literary movement in the English language. ...
.
Stylistically, they were heirs to
Ego-Futurism
Ego-Futurism was a Russian literary movement of the 1910s, developed within Russian Futurism by Igor Severyanin and his early followers. While part of the Russian Futurism movement, it was distinguished from the Moscow-based cubo-futurists as it ...
. Imaginists created poetry based on sequences of arresting and uncommon
image
An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensio ...
s. They wrote many
verbless poems.
Other members of the group were the poets
Rurik Ivnev
Rurik Ivnev (russian: Рю́рик И́внев), born Mikhail Alexandrovich Kovalyov (russian: Михаи́л Алекса́ндрович Ковалёв) ( – 19 February 1981), was a Russian poet, novelist and translator.
Biography
Earl ...
,
Alexander Kusikov,
Ivan Gruzinov,
Matvey Royzman, and the prominent Russian dramatist
Nikolay Erdman. In January 1919 they issued a manifesto, whose text was largely written by Shershenevich.
Most of the imaginists were freethinkers and
atheists
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...
. Imaginism had its main centres in Moscow and
St. Petersburg. There were also smaller centres of imaginism in
Kazan
Kazan ( ; rus, Казань, p=kɐˈzanʲ; tt-Cyrl, Казан, ''Qazan'', IPA: Help:IPA/Tatar, ɑzan is the capital city, capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan in Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Volga and t ...
,
Saransk
Saransk (russian: Саранск, p=sɐˈransk; mdf, Саранск ошсь, Saransk oš; myv, Саран ош, Saran oš) is the capital city of the Republic of Mordovia, Russia, as well as its financial and economic centre. It is located ...
, and
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...
. Imaginists organised four poetry publishing houses, one of which was called simply Imaginism, and published the poetry magazine ''Gostinitsa dlya puteshestvuyuschih v prekrasnom'' ("Guesthouse for travellers in the beautiful").
The group broke up in 1925, and in 1927 it was liquidated officially. Its heritage, though, is still strong in Russia. Poems by Yesenin and Shershenevich, memoirs by Marienhof, and plays by Erdman are still in print and always in demand.
After the disappearance of the group, the "young imaginists" declared themselves followers of this trend in the early 1930s, and so did the "meloimaginists" of the 1990s.
[ Kudryavitsky, "Popytka zvuka."]
Literature
* Markov, V. ''Russian Imaginism 1919-1924''. Gießen 1980.
* Nilsson, N. ''The Russian imaginists''. Ann Arbor: Almgvist and Wiksell, 1970.
* Huttunen, T. ''Imazhinist Mariengof: Dendi. Montazh. Ciniki''. Moscow: NLO, 2007.
* Ponomareff, C. "The Image Seekers: Analysis of Imaginists Poetic Theory, 1919-1924." ''The Slavic and East European Journal'' 12 (1986).
* Kudryavitsky, A.
Popytka zvuka" ''Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie'' 35 (1999).
See also
*
Verbless poetry
Notes
{{reflist
External links
Russian Imaginism
Russian poetry
Literary movements