OBERIU: An Anthology of Russian Absurdism

by Eugene Ostashevsky (Editor)

Overview

OBERIU is an anthology of short works by three leading Russian absurdists: Alexander Vvedensky, Daniil Kharms, and Nikolai Zabolotsky. Between 1927 and 1930, the three made up the core of an avant-garde literary group called OBERIU (from an acronym standing for The Union of Real Art). It was a movement so artfully anarchic, and so quickly suppressed, that readers only began to discover its strange and singular brilliance three decades after it was extinguished—and then only in samizdat and émigré publications.

Some called it the last of the Russian avant-garde, and others called it the first (and last) instance of Absurdism in Russia. Though difficulty to pigeon-hole, OBERIU and the pleasures of its poetry and prose are, with this volume, at long last fully open to English-speaking readers. Skillfully translated to preserve the weird charm of the originals, these poems and prose pieces display all the hilarity and tragedy, the illogical action and puppetlike violence and eroticism, and the hallucinatory intensity that brought down the wrath of the Soviet censors. Today they offer an uncanny reflection of the distorted reality they reject.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780810122932
Publisher:	Northwestern University Press
Publication date:	08/14/2006
Series:	European Classics
Edition description:	1
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	5.12(w) x 7.75(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

EUGENE OSTASHEVSKY is a master teacher of the humanities in the General Studies program at New York University. In 2003 he won the Wytter Bynner Foundation Translation Prize.

MATVEI YANKELEVICH is a doctoral student in comparative literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and the editor of the Eastern European Poets Series for Ugly Duckling Presse, where he also co-edits 6x6 magazine.

Read an Excerpt

OBERIU
An Anthology of Russian Absurdism

---

By EUGENE OSTASHEVSKY
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 2006
Northwestern University Press
All right reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8101-2293-2

---

Chapter One Kuprianov and Natasha

Kuprianov and his dear lady Natasha after walking those swinish guests to the door prepare for bed.

KUPRIANOV [said, taking off his majestic tie]:

Frightening the dark the candle burns, it has silver bones. Natasha, why do you stroll about yearning, the guests are probably for certain long since gone. I even forgot, Marusia, Sonia, O darling let us go to bed, I want to dig around in you in search of interesting things. It's not for nothing they say we have different constitutions.

NATASHA [taking off her blouse]:

Kuprianov, there's little sense in this candle, I fear it wouldn't have lit up a poodle, and there's two of us here. I fear I will howl from anguish, passion, terror, thought, I fear you O mistress shirt, you that hides me within, I'm entangled in you like a fly.

KUPRIANOV [taking off his jacket]:

Soon you and I, Natasha, will embark on our funny recreation. The two of us, the two of us will occupy ourselves with procreation. We will become like tuna.

NATASHA [taking off her skirt]:

O God, I'm left without a skirt. What am I to do in my painted pants.

Meanwhile on chairs stood goblets, rather silver and pert, wine blackened like a monk and the moribund worm twitched.

I resume. I feel even shame. I'm becoming naked like the sky, nothing is visible as yet, but soon a star will twinkle. It's so disgusting.

KUPRIANOV [taking off his pants]:

I too will soon appear at your side almost naked like the tide. I do remember at such moments once I felt transported by a sacred rapture as I encountered a woman's fountainhead green or blue but it was red. I laughed like somebody who's lost his mind, petting the satin hemispheres of her behind. Yes, I was happy. And I thought woman is a reed, she is almost human, an unattainable duck. Hurry up please.

NATASHA [taking off her pants]:

Shedding my plumage I think of how I'm causing stimulation to your olfactory glands and optic nerves. You gorge yourself upon my earthly image and can foretaste the pleasure of standing upon me like a tower two o'clock. You glimpse the hair through my shirt, divine the beating of my wave, but why then does my mind cloud up, I'm half asleep like boredom.

KUPRIANOV [taking off his lower pants]:

I'll take these off too, I suppose, to make me different from a corpse, to bring our epidermises close. Let us examine our faces in the glass: I'm moderately mustachioed. This flush is caused by passion. My eyes flash and I tremble. And you are beautiful and clear, your breasts are like two basins, maybe we're devils.

NATASHA [taking off her shirt]:

Look, I'm absolutely naked, I have become one long face, that's how I get in the bathtub. Here from my sides two brown shoulders stick out like candles, beneath them swell two breasts, the nipples lie on them like medals, a belly sits below, deserted, and also my modest furry entrance and two extremities, significant and sparkling, between which we are left darkling. Perhaps you wish to see the landscape of my dark, perhaps you wish to see the landscape of my back. Here are two pleasant shoulder blades like soldiers slumbering in tents and further on the wondrous seat, its heavenly sight must strike you.

And the moribund worm twitched, nothing sang as she displayed her intricate body.

KUPRIANOV [taking off his shirt]:

How everything is boring and monotonously nauseating, look, like a naked herring I stand before you, luxuriating, and my fourth arm points mightily to the skies. If only someone came to look at us, we are alone alone with Christ upon this icon. It's interesting to know how long we took to undress. Half an hour, I reckon. What's your guess?

Meanwhile they embraced and approached the marriage bed. "You are definitively dear to me Natasha," says Kuprianov. She lies below and lifts her legs and tongueless the candle burns.

NATASHA:

So, Kuprianov, I am down. Make the dark come. The last ring of the world that isn't yet pried apart is you upon me.

And the black apartment smirked momentarily above them from afar.

Lie down lie down Kuprianov, we'll die soon.

KUPRIANOV:

No, I don't want to. [Leaves.]

NATASHA:

How horrible, I am alone, I am a stone, I am a moan, I am so sad, I am so lonely moving my hand only. [Cries.]

KUPRIANOV [indulging in solitary pleasure on a chair]:

I entertain myself. OK, it's over, get dressed.

The moribund worm nods off.

NATASHA [putting on her shirt]:

I took you off for the act of love because the world is not enough, because the world does not exist, because it's above me. So here I am a solitary ape with my insane shape.

KUPRIANOV [putting on his shirt]:

Look Natasha it's getting light out.

NATASHA [putting on her pants]:

Leave me alone. Get out of my sight. I tickle myself. I swell with marvelous joy. I am my own fountainhead. I love another. I silently put on slumber. From my state of nakedness I will pass to the conflagration of clothes.

KUPRIANOV [putting on his lower pants]:

I have no hopes. I feel myself grow smaller, airless and angrier. The eyes of such emotional ladies send fires through my body's alleys. I'm not myself.

The moribund worm yawns.

NATASHA [putting on her skirt]:

What shame, what shamelessness. I'm with a total bastard. He is the ordure of humanity and the likes of him will also become immortal.

It was night. There was nature. The moribund worm yawns.

KUPRIANOV [putting on his pants]:

O natural philosophy, O logic, O mathematics, O art, it's not my fault I believed in the force of the last emotion. O how everything goes dark. The world ends by choking. I make it sick, it makes me sick. Dignity sinks into the final clouds. I never believed in any quantity of stars, I believed in one star. It turned out I was a solitary rider and we didn't become like tuna.

NATASHA [putting on her blouse]:

Look idiot look at the extremities of my breasts. They vanish, they retreat, they float off, touch them you fool, they are on the edge of a long sleep. I turn into a larch tree, I swell.

KUPRIANOV [putting on his jacket]:

I said that the female is almost human, she is a tree. What's there to do. I'll smoke, I'll sit around, I'll think. It seems stranger and stranger that time still moves, that it breathes. Can time be stronger than death, maybe we're devils. Farewell dear Natasha larch tree. The sun rises violent as light. I understand nothing.

He gets smaller and smaller and disappears. Nature indulges in solitary pleasure.

September 1931 Translated by Eugene Ostashevsky

Rug/Hydrangea

I regret that I'm not a beast, running along a blue path, telling myself to believe, and my other self to wait a little, I'll go out with myself to the forest to examine the insignificant leaves. I regret that I'm not a star, running along the vaults of the sky, in search of the perfect nest it finds itself and earth's empty water, no one has ever heard of a star giving out a squeak, its purpose is to encourage the fish with its silence. And then there's this grudge that I bear, that I'm not a rug, nor a hydrangea. I regret I'm not a roof, falling apart little by little, which the rain soaks and softens, whose death is not sudden. I don't like the fact that I'm mortal, I regret that I am not perfect. Much much better, believe me, is a particle of day a unit of night. I regret that I'm not an eagle, flying over peak after peak, to whom comes to mind a man observing the acres. I regret I am not an eagle, flying over lengthy peaks, to whom comes to mind a man observing the acres. You and I, wind, will sit down together on this pebble of death. It's a pity I'm not a grail, I don't like that I am not pity. I regret not being a grove, which arms itself with leaves. I find it hard to be with minutes, they have completely confused me. It really upsets me terribly that I can be seen in reality. And then there's this grudge that I bear, that I'm not a rug, nor a hydrangea. What scares me is that I move not the way that do bugs that are beetles, or butterflies and baby strollers and not the way that do bugs that are spiders. What scares me is that I move very unlike a worm, a worm burrows holes in the earth making small talk with her. Earth, where are things with you, says the cold worm to the earth, and the earth, governing those that have passed, perhaps keeps silent in reply, it knows that it's all wrong. I find it hard to be with minutes, they have completely confused me. I'm frightened that I'm not the grass that is grass, I'm frightened that I'm not a candle. I'm frightened that I'm not the candle that is grass, to this I have answered, and the trees sway back and forth in an instant. I'm frightened by the fact that when my glance falls upon two of the same thing I don't notice that they are different, that each lives only once. I'm frightened by the fact that when my glance falls upon two of the same thing I don't see how hard they are trying to resemble each other. I see the world askew and hear the whispers of muffled lyres, and having by their tips the letters grasped I lift up the word wardrobe, and now I put it in its place, it is the thick dough of substance. I don't like the fact that I'm mortal, I regret that I am not perfect, much much better, believe me, is a particle of day a unit of night. And then there's this grudge that I bear that I'm not a rug, nor a hydrangea. I'll go out with myself to the woods for the examination of insignificant leaves, I regret that upon these leaves I will not see the imperceptible words, which are called accident, which are called immortality, which are called a kind of roots. I regret that I'm not an eagle flying over peak after peak, to whom came to mind a man observing the acres. I'm frightened by the fact that everything becomes dilapidated, and in comparison I'm not a rarity. You and I, wind, will sit down together on this pebble of death. Like a candle the grass grows up all around, and the trees sway back and forth in an instant. I regret that I am not a seed, I am frightened I'm not fertility. The worm crawls along behind us all, he carries monotony with him. I'm scared to be an uncertainty, I regret that I am not fire.

1934 Translated by Matvei Yankelevich

Frother

3 PARTS

The sons stood by the wall, flashing their feet shod in spurs. They rejoiced and said:

Promulgate to us dear father What is this thing called Frother.

The father, flashing his eyes, replied:

Do not confuse, my sons The day of the end and the knight of spring. Blue, terrible and grizzled is Frother. I am your angel. I am your father. I know its cruelty, My death is close at hand. Bald spots gape on my head, Empty patches. I am bored. And should my life drag on, Neither a falcon nor a tuft of hair Will remain anywhere. This means death is at hand. This means hello boredom.

The sons twinkled their bells and then rattled their tongues:

But that wasn't our question, Our thoughts gestate like mansions. Won't you tell us dear father What is this thing called Frother.

And the father exclaimed, "The prologue! In the prologue what matters is God. Go to sleep, sons. There are dreams: watch some."

The sons lay down to sleep. Having hid mushrooms in their pockets. Even the walls seemed obedient. Many things seemed, what of it. Actually not much seemed to us nor to them. But hark! What was that? Once more the father didn't give a direct answer. And to the sons who woke anew this is what he said, exclaiming and flashing his eyebrows:

Let the gray-haired people Sing and dance. Let them wave their arms Like a man. On a placid, beautiful day You diminish in breath. How soon I will apprehend The perfection of death. The horses rush like waves, Hooves clop. The steeds are dashing and ablaze, Vanished they gallop. But how to clasp their abatement, And are all of us mortal? What can you tell me, O moment Will I understand you? The bed stands before me I'll softly lie, And under the wall I'll feign to be A flag and gladioli. Sons, sons. My hour approaches. I'm dying. I'm dying. Don't ride in coaches. The end, it comes.

In rows, flashing their feet, the sons begin to dance a quadrille. The first son, or is it the first pair, says:

Please do tell us dear father What is this thing called Frother.

And the second son, or is it the second pair, says:

Maybe Frother is a tether, A teether or a head in feathers.

Then the third son, or is it the third pair:

I can't understand O father Where is Frother? What is Frother?

The father, flashing his eyes, moans menacingly:

O, I wallow in pillows!

The first son:

Father, I pallow in willows. You must not die Before you ply reply.

The second son, dancing like a loyal subject:

O Frother, Frother, Frother. O father, father, father.

Finally the third son, dancing like a gunshot:

Dolls and dunce caps have burned out, I'm a boat a boat a bout.

The sons stop dancing, because it can't all be fun and games, can it. They sit mutely and quietly by their father's expired bed. They look into his wilting eyes. They wish to repeat everything. The father is dying. He becomes fleshy like a bunch of grapes. We are terrified to look into his, so to speak, face. The sons say nothing as each of them enters his own superstitious wall.

Frother is the cold froth forming on the dead man's brow. It is the dew of death, that's what Frother is.

PART TWO

The father is flying over the writing desk. But don't think he's a spirit.

I saw, as you'd have it, a rose, This tedious petal of earth. The flower apparently was Thinking its last thoughts. It caressed the neighboring mountains With the terminal breath of its soul. Princesses floated and stars Above in the heavenly pall. As my sons went away And my horse like a wave Stood and clacked its hoof, The moon yellowed nearby. O flower convinced of delight, The godly hour is at hand. The world comes to like the dawn And I have gone out like a light.

The father stops speaking in verse. He takes a puff on a candle, holding it in his teeth like a flute while sinking pillowlike into the armchair.

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from OBERIU by EUGENE OSTASHEVSKY
Copyright © 2006 by Northwestern University Press . Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Contents Acknowledgments....................xi
Editor's Introduction....................xiii
Note to the Reader....................xxxiii
Alexander Vvedensky Kuprianov and Natasha....................5
Rug/Hydrangea....................13
Frother....................17
A Certain Quantity of Conversations, or The Completely Altered Nightbook....................28
Elegy....................52
Where. When....................55
Daniil Kharms The Story of Sdygr Appr....................63
The Ewe....................73
Thing....................75
The Measure of Things....................80
The Saber....................84
Notnow....................91
To Ring-To Fly (Third Cisfinite Logic)....................93
The Werld....................95
An Evening Song to She Who Exists by My Name....................97
The Daughter of Patruliov....................100
Before Coming to See You....................105
The Constancy of Dirt and Joy....................106
An American Story....................108
Fenorov in America....................109
Kolpakov, Braggart....................113
Anton Antonovich Shaved Off His Beard....................115
The Career of Ivan Yakovlevich Antonov....................117
Holiday....................118
The Street Incident....................119
On the Death of Kazimir Malevich....................120
One Fat Man....................122
Death of a Little Old Man....................123
The New Mountain Climbers....................124
The Blue Notebook....................126
One Man Fell Asleep....................137
A Magazine Article....................138
A Man OnceWalked Out of His House....................140
How I WasVisited by Messengers....................141
Passacaglia 1....................143
Maltonius Olbren....................145
The Four-Legged Crow....................146
The Adventure of Katerpillar....................147
Nikolai Zabolotsky The Signs of the Zodiac Go Dark....................151
The Temptation....................154
The Triumph of Agriculture....................158
The Battle of Elephants....................172
The Test of the Will....................175
The Poem of Rain....................178
Time....................180
Nikolai Oleinikov In Service of Science....................187
Gluttony: A Ballad....................190
To a Lady Unwilling to Renounce Consumption of Meat from Cherkassy....................194
An Epistle to a Theatrical Actress....................195
For the Recovery of Heinrich....................196
Charles Darwin....................198
The Fly....................199
Zeros....................201
Leonid Lipavsky Water Tractatus....................205
Yakov Druskin Death....................219
Letter to Kharms....................236
The End of the World....................237
Editor's Notes....................241
Works Cited....................255

Editorial Reviews

"For anyone intersted in Soviet literature, this book fills an enormous gap. It also presents some beautiful, heartbreaking poetry." —Publishers Weekly



"The work of Oberiu is as relevant to our moment as when it was written."  —The Believer 



"Oberiu is as relevant today as ever." —BookForum

From the Publisher