The Neo-Futurists

Abstract

Abstract Interest in the Russian Futurist poetry of the first two-and-a-half decades of the twentieth century was revived in Soviet literary circles in the mid-1950s. Initially focused on the work of Vladimir Mayakovsky, interest spread to other writers. At the turn of the fifties and sixties, this revival resulted in regular “unsanctioned” poetry readings at the Mayakovsky monument in Moscow, which were eventually banned by the authorities. Against this backdrop, several young poets tried to build on the creative strategies of the Futurists. Gennady Aigi, who debuted as a Chuvash-language poet, was the first of these poets to arrive on the literary scene. Vladimir Kazakov and Vadim Kozovoy, poets who came onto the literary scene in the sixties, consciously established their styles at the intersection of the Russian and international avant-gardes, trying to overcome the isolationism of Soviet poetry. In the seventies, poems by their elder contemporary, Elizaveta Mnatsakanova, claiming to complete the project of a revived Futurism, were published abroad. All four poets borrowed numerous formal features of their work from Russian Futurism and sought to see themselves as its successors, while setting aside the avant-garde’s socio-political agenda and its desire for a radical transformation of culture and society.