Abstract
This chapter discusses the importance of mathematics in the historical Russian avant-garde movement using examples taken from different authors. I will limit myself to three writers: Velimir Khlebnikov (1885–1922), Evgenij Zamyatin (1884–1937), and Daniil Kharms (1905–1942). Each author differs in their specific approach to incorporating mathematical themes into their literary work, as I will show with a focus on numbers and geometry. To situate the analyses, I will start by introducing the general character of the authors and their works.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Barker, Murl G. 1977. “Onomastics and Zamiatin’s We.” Canadian-American Slavic Studies XI, no. 4: 551–60.
Clarke, Bruce. 2001. Energy Forms. Allegory and Science in the Era of Classical Thermodynamics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Cooke, Leighton Brett. 1988. “Ancient and Modern Mathematics in Zamyatin’s We.” In Zamyatin’s We. A Collection of Critical Essay, edited by Gary Kern, 149–67. Ann Arbor: Ardis.
Gretchko, Valerij. 1999. Die Zaum’-Sprache der Russischen Futuristen. Bochum: Projekt.
Gricanchuk, Nikolaj, Nikita Sirotkin, and Vladimir Feshchenko, eds. 2008. “Doski sud’by.” Velimira Khlebnikova. Tekst i konteksty. Stat’i i materialy. Moskva: Tri Kvadrata.
Hacker, Andrea. 2008. “Introduction to Velimir Chlebnikov’s Doski Sud’by (I).” Russian Literature 63, no. 1: 5–55.
Hansen-Löve, Aage A. 2001. “Zur Poetik des Minimalismus in der russischen Dichtung des Absurden.” In Minimalismus: Zwischen Leere und Exzeß: Tagungsbeiträge des Internationalen Wissenschaftlichen Symposiums am Institut für Slawistik der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin vom 11. bis 13. November 1999, edited by Mirjam Goller, 133–86. Wien: Otto Sagner.
Henderson, Linda Dalrymple. 2013. The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art. Revised edition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Hersh, Marion. 1993. “Zamyatin’s ‘We’: A Mathematical Model Society.” Rusistika 7: 19–26.
Ivanov, Vjacheslav V. 1986. “Khlebnikov i nauka.” Puti v neznaemoe: pisateli rasskazyvajut o nauke 20: 382–440.
Jaccard, Jean-Philippe. 1991. Daniil Harms et la fin de l’avant-garde russe. Bern: Lang.
Jakobson, Roman, and Kystyna Pomorska. 1983. Dialogues. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Jakovljevic, Branislav. 2009. Daniil Kharms: Writing and the Event. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Jampol’skij, Mikhail. 1998. Bespamjatstvo kak istok (Chitaja Kharmsa). Moskva: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie.
Kharms, Daniil. 1989. The Plummeting Old Women. Dublin: Lilliput Press.
———. 1997a. Polnoe sobranie sochinenij. Tom 2. Proza i scenki. Dramaticheskie proizvedenija. Sankt-Peterburg: Akademicheskij proekt.
———. 1997b. Polnoe sobranie sochinenij. Tom 3. Proizvedenija dlja detei. Sankt-Peterburg: Akademicheskij proekt.
———. 2009. Today I Wrote Nothing. The Selected Writings of Daniil Kharms. New York: Ardis.
———. 2013. “I Am a Phenomenon Quite Out of the Ordinary.” The Notebooks, Diaries, and Letters of Daniil Kharms. Boston: Academic Studies Press.
———. 2017. Russian Absurd. Selected Writings. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Khlebnikov, Velimir. 1987. Collected Works of Velimir Khlebnikov. Vol. 1: Letters and Theoretical Writings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
———. 1989. Collected Works of Velimir Khlebnikov. Vol. 2: Prose, Plays, and Supersagas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
———. 1997. Collected Works of Velimir Khlebnikov. Vol. 3: Selected Poems. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
———. 2005. Sobranie sochinenij v shesti tomach. Vol. 6,1: Statʹi (nabroski), uchenye trudy, vozzvanija, otkrytye pisʹma, vystuplenija: 1904 - 1922. Moskva: IMLI RAN [et al.].
———. 2008a. “Doski Sud’by. Otryvok I. Zarej venchannyj / The Tables of Fate. Fragment I. Crowned by Down.” Russian Literature 63, no. 1: 71–166.
———. 2008b. “Doski Sud’by. Otryvok II. Vzor na 1923-ij god / The Tables of Fate. Fragment II. A Glance at the year 1923.” Russian Literature 64, nos. 2–3: 269–372.
———. 2008c. “Doski Sud’by. Otryvok III. Azbuka neba / The Tables of Fate. Fragment III. The Alphabet of the Sky.” Russian Literature 64, nos. 2–3: 374–441.
Klosty Beaujour, Elisabeth. 1988. “Zamiatin’s We and Architecture.” The Russian Review 47: 49–60.
Koll-Stobbe, Amei. 1986. “Cognition and Construction: Chlebnikov’s √-1 as a Metaphoric Process.” In Chlebnikov 1885–1985, edited by Johanna Renata Döring-Smirnov, Walter Koschmal, and Peter Stobbe, 107–15. München: Otto Sagner.
Lahusen, Thomas, Elena Maksimova, and Edna Andrews. 1994. O sintetizme, matematike i prochem…. Roman “My” E. I. Zamyatina. – On Sintetizm, Mathematics and Other Things… E.I. Zamyatin’s Novel We. Sankt Peterburg: Astra-Ljuks [et al.].
Lawton, Anna, ed. 1988. Russian Futurism through its Manifestoes. 1912–1928. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
Lönnqvist, Barbara. 1979. Xlebnikov and Carnival. An Analysis of the Poem Poėt. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.
Niederbudde, Anke. 2006. Mathematische Konzeptionen in der Russischen Moderne. Florenskij – Chlebnikov – Charms. München: Otto Sagner.
———. 2011. “Mathematisches Erzählen im antiutopischen Text. Evgenij Zamyatins Roman Wir (My).” In Zahlen, Zeichen und Figuren. Mathematische Inspirationen in Kunst und Literatur, edited by Andrea Albrecht, Gesa von Essen, and Werner Frick, 437–52. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Roberts, Graham. 1997. The Last Soviet Avant-garde: OBERIU—Fact, Fiction, Metafiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tynjanov, Jurij N. 2000. “O Khlebnikove.” In Mir Velimira Khlebnikova. Stat’i, issledovanija 1911–1998, edited by Vjacheslav V. Ivanov, Zinovij S. Papernyj, and Aleksandr E. Parnis, 214–23. Moskva: Jazyki russkoj kul’tury.
Vöhringer, Margarete. 2007. Avantgarde und Psychotechnik. Wissenschaft, Kunst und Technik der Wahrnehmungsexperimente in der frühen Sowjetunion. Göttingen: Wallstein.
Vroon, Ronald. 1983. Velimir Xlebnikov’s Shorter Poems: A Key to the Coinages. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.
Zamyatin, Yevgeny. (1970) 1993. A Soviet Heretic: Essays by Yevgeny Zamyatin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
———. 1993. We. Translated by Clarence Brown. New York: Penguin Books.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Niederbudde, A. (2021). Mathematics in Russian Avant-Garde Literature. In: Tubbs, R., Jenkins, A., Engelhardt, N. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Literature and Mathematics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55478-1_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55478-1_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-55477-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-55478-1
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)