On Velimir Khlebnikov

I am haunted by Henry Corbin's implicit desire to outline a contemporary theology of the icon. He thought that Russian Orthodox Christianity exhibited a barely repressed docetism, and referred to Russian theologians fairly often. So I was especially struck by this reference on Jerome Rothenberg's blog. -

Osip Mandelstam said of Velemir Khlebnikov's work that he had written “one enormous all-Russian book of prayers and icons from which, for centuries and centuries to come, everyone who may will find something to draw on.” (Osip Mandelstam, "Storm and Stress," in Mandelstam, Osip, Jane Gary Harris, and Constance Link. 1979. Mandelstam: the complete critical prose and letters. Ann Arbor: Ardis, p. 178).

There is not too much of Khlebnikov translated into English, but there is this, now out of print: The King of Time - Selected Writings of the Russian Futurian, (Harvard, 1990).

Comments

Popular Posts