Art, like science, never stood still, and not only the achievements of the creators of our time can serve as proof of this. At the beginning of the twentieth century, society renounced many of the foundations of its former life; this tendency was traced in fashion, in laws, in social trends, and, of course, in literature. In this industry, one of the most non-standard and innovative at that time was the Oberiuts. This is a kind of association of writers who completely abandoned traditional forms of art, and now we will figure out what they took as a replacement.
Acquaintance with the group and its work
So, a poetic association called OBERIU originated in Soviet Russia, in the city of Leningrad. On January 24, 1928, a meeting took place in the House of Seals, called the “Three Left Hours,” all of whose participants announced their entry into the niche of “left” art. This abbreviation stands for “Association of real art”, while the letter “y” is added here only as a supplement. Many believe that this detail clearly demonstrates the worldview of these poets. On the same day, the first (and last) manifesto was published, which stated the rejection of the usual forms of art and reinforced new literary views. From now on, the work of the Oberiuts became avant-garde, a new semantic load appeared in the poems, which was focused on existentialism and other global issues of mankind.
History of creation
Oberiuts is a collective name that was officially assigned to poets in 1928, but it is worth saying that these trends appeared in literature long before this time. The formation of the group began in 1925, when the poets Kharms, Vvedensky, Zabolotsky and Bakhterev united under the common pseudonym “Chinari”. A year later, this name was changed to "Left Flank", and even later changed to "Academy of Left Classics." On January 24, in the evening of 1928, the “Three Left Hours” meeting was held in the House of Seals, at which the name “Oberiut Poets” was finally chosen, and the list of participants was also fixed.
- First hour - poets enter the group: A. Vvedensky, N. Zabolotsky, D. Harms, I. Bakhterev, K. Vaginov.
- The second hour - staging the play based on the story "Elizabeth Bam", which was written by Daniel Harms.
- The third hour - viewing the mounted film "Meat Grinder", which was created by Alexander Razumovsky.
Participants and supporters of avant-garde art
The meeting “Three Left Hours” documented the core of OBERIU, its foundation. Later, a composition was formed, the members of which officially joined this group. So, since 1928, the Oberiuts are D. Harms, I. Bakhterev, K. Vaginov A. Vvedensky, N. Zabolotsky, Yu. Vladimirov, and Doivber Levin. The creativity of these people was based primarily on the rejection of the “abstruse” language, from complex literary turns and techniques. It was based on grotesque, absurdity and alogism. Of course, such tendencies among the masses caused a negative reaction, especially among the ruling elite of the country. However, among the creative people , the Oberiut group found support. They could share their creative views: writer Eugene Schwartz, poet Nikolai Oleinikov, philologist Nikolai Khardzhiev, philosophers Leonid Lipavsky and Yakov Druskin. Support was also found by artists: Pavel Mansurov, Kazimir Malevich, Pavel Filonov, Vladimir Sterligov, as well as MAI community members, artists Alisa Poret and Tatyana Glebova.
Philosophy
In their manifesto, Oberiut writers publicly declared: “Who are we?” Why exactly us? ... We are poets of a new art and a new attitude. The meaning of art and words in our work deepens and expands significantly, but does not collapse. Any object is first of all cleansed of husks, literary and everyday, and only after that it becomes a creation. ”
The stronghold for poets became such principles as the lack of logic, speech and language anomalies, grammatical errors, fragmentation, self-denial or relativity. The essence of the last trick was that each subsequent fragment of the text refuted the previous one, which, in turn, was not removed. As an example, consider the story “Blue Notebook Number 10,” written by Daniel Harms. Its beginning is: "There was one red-haired man ...". After it becomes known that this person had neither hair, nor ears, nor nose - nothing.
Fifth Meaning
Writers reliably know that there are four meanings of the subject, among which are emotional, descriptive, aesthetic and target. However, it was necessary to create something that would ensure the very fact of the existence of the object - that is how the Oberiuts thought. It should have been such a meaning that would free the object from various conditional connections and make it independent. In theory, this aspect is difficult to comprehend, since this creativity is based on absurd theories, so now we will consider a concrete example. Vvedensky’s poem “Taking the tip of the letter, I raise the word closet” clearly shows us the presence of the “fifth meaning”. Here, any word can be considered as a separate subject, and the subject, in turn, as an independent word.
Creation
Oberiut experiments in the field of literature are quite diverse in their approach. Each individual author has his own "chips", his own style and focus. Unites poets, perhaps, the ubiquitous illogism, which completely destroys the stereotypes of perception of literature. A similar trend makes us look at the general picture through the prism of the grotesque, to see it in a completely different way than in the classical version. In addition, the lack of a sequence of events, atypical literary devices and numerous “mistakes” make the reader’s brain independently compare all the parts into the big picture. Well, now it's time to get acquainted with the features of the work of some of the most prominent representatives of this group of writers.
Alexander Vvedensky - poet-oberiut
This author is the most outstanding among the representatives of this trend, and all thanks to the fact that his work is as close as possible to the classics and easy to read. Vvedensky mainly works with the structure of the language itself. His creations have the usual dimensions (like Pushkin, for example), they do not have complex rhymes, dangling phrases and abstruse terms. The vocabulary is simple, speech structures are very common, words rhyme to pain simply, and it is easy to remember. It seems that everything is transparent, competent and understandable in his poems, but something elusive does not allow the reader to finally understand the essence of what is happening. The fact is that the poet uses absolutely unforeseen speech turns, he combines words that have never stood before, thereby forming an unformulated, elusive meaning.
Alas, there was a deplorable chair,
On the chair sat aul
There was a big sick man on it,
Sat to the living back.
He saw a river and forests,
Where the worn fox rushes.
Harms
The creativity of this poet, who is no less popular than the previous one, is based mainly on semantic nonsense. In many ways, Daniil Kharms is similar to Vvedensky - he also unites incompatible words, creates some kind of illusion of meaning. Reading his poems, at first glance it seems that everything is clear and understandable. But as soon as you finish the last line, the content is lost, you have to re-read, and more than once, in order to catch at least a fraction of what the author tried to convey. The second trait that characterizes Harms' creativity is “zaum.” He creates new words, inscribes them in poems, and, finding those in one line or another, you can guess their meaning.
I walked in the winter along the swamp
In galoshes
In Hat
And with glasses.
Suddenly someone rushed along the river
On metal
hooks.
I ran rather to the river,
And he ran into the forest,
I attached two planks to my feet,
Crouched
Jumped up
And disappeared.
Prose harms
This oberiut was known at one time not only as a poet, but also as a writer of plays and stories. Like the poems of the Oberiuts, Harms' prose was absurd in nature, based on meaningless phrases, events that are not related to each other, and frequent changes in mood. A notable feature of his stories was the everyday theme. Various life situations that could occur in a store, at a train station, during dinner or social events were brought to the grotesque. The author presented any dialogue in the works in a genre that did not have a name, but was clearly the opposite of the usual style of presentation.
Nikolay Zabolotsky
Zabolotsky's literary creations combine unusual and even slightly ridiculous metaphors, which, however, are united in a clear sense. After reading his poem to the end, the reader is aware of its essence and subject matter, understands what the author’s pen was aimed at. However, the work itself is literally filled with hyperbolas, atypical comparisons, the anthropomorphism of not only animals, but also household items, natural phenomena. It is also worth noting that the final thought or meaning of a verse is not always predictable. Zabolotsky’s works are one of those that will keep you energized until the last minute, and only at the end can you understand why all the higher semantic forms were written.
Look: not a ball, not a masquerade,
Here the nights go out of place
Unrecognizable from wine here
Laughter flies a parrot.
Nikolay Oleinikov
The poetry of this Oberiut has a very deep and reasonably clear to the reader. Despite allegories, metaphors and symbolism, the author correctly conveys the whole essence of his thought and forms it into simple rhymed drains. In many ways, Oleinikov’s work can be described as a parody in which he ridicules various weaknesses of people or systems, or shows us the wrong side of life, raises extremely important and even tragic questions. The most striking of his works is considered "Cockroach". This is a poem that tells us about the tragic fate of the insect, which became the subject of experiments. A cockroach is insignificant for a person, but the author tells us that he is also alive, also has a soul and wants to live.
- The cockroach is sitting in a glass,
Redhead sucks.
He got caught. He is in a trap.
And now he is waiting for the execution.
- The cockroach pressed against the glass
And looks, barely breathing.
He wouldn’t be afraid of death,
If I knew that there is a soul ...
Criticism of contemporaries
The existence of the union of real art threatened the new political and social trends of Soviet Russia. In the leading Leningrad publishing houses, members of this group received numerous refusals, the press was silent about their existence, and later called traitors, enemies and spies. In 1930, the last public performance was held, at which verses of the Oberiuts were read, and an entertainment program was conducted with the participation of magician Pastukhov. In honor of him, a devastating article was published in the newspaper Smena, in which this action was called "abstruse juggling," and all those involved in it were opponents of the proletariat and conspirators. This was followed by similar negative reviews and reviews, which promptly prompted government agencies to proceed with decisive action.
Repression and harassment
In 1931, the association of real art officially ceased to exist. Kharms, Vvedensky and Bakhterev were arrested in a state case, after which they were exiled without the right to further return. The remaining members of the group continued to cooperate, but they no longer spoke and were not published as before. In custody in 1941-1942, Vvedensky and Harms died, and the war that came to our land took the lives of Levin and Lipavsky. It is worth mentioning that Nikolai Oleinikov was shot in 1937. The remaining Oberiuts ended up in blocked Leningrad, which was constantly subjected to assault and attacks by the Nazis. Under these conditions, numerous achievements of the authors were lost, whole plays, collections of poems, and individual achievements were burned and lost. Because of these events, “Athlete” became the only adult work of Yuri Vladimirov that has survived to this day. Levin’s non-children’s works were completely lost, as were Vvedensky’s prose works, including the cult story “Killers Are You Fools.”
"Thaw"
After 1956, the people gradually began to resurrect the once-ruined work of great poets and writers. Children's poems by Kharms and Vvedensky began to be published. They were published not only in Russia, but also in the West thanks to the efforts of Vladimir Earl and Mikhail Maylakh. The ban on the creation of the Oberiuts was finally lifted during the years of perestroika, when Soviet censorship lost its significance and the creative range expanded significantly. It is worth saying that one of the poets of this group - Igor Bakhterev, managed to stretch all these years and retained his creative skills until his death in 1996. His works began to be published back in the 70s, while not only old developments were printed, but also new works. In the 80s and in the first half of the 90s, he continued to compose, while not changing the vanguard style.
Oberiutes for children
Due to the fact that the writers of the real art association were constantly under the hood of threats and reprisals from the government, many of them went, so to speak, into the children's niche of creativity. In particular, Vvedensky, Kharms, Bakhterev, Vladimirov and Zabolotsky actively wrote poems for children, which were simpler and more understandable than creations for an adult audience. But, strangely enough, even in the works so innocent at first glance, the tragic or satirical intention of the authors was contained. subsequently, this became one of the reasons why the main activists of the literary group were arrested.