Collected Works of Velimir Khlebnikov, Volume I, Letters and Theoretical Writings

Velimir Khlebnikov

Translated by Paul Schmidt

Edited by Charlotte Douglas

    This first volume of a long-awaited three-volume set of Khlebnikov's collected works contains selected letters, autobiographical materials, and all his theoretical writings. Khlebnikov (1885-1922) enjoyed the reputation of a poet not of this world, a seer with an extraordinary talent and diversity. This volume starts to give us the reason why. The letters are a fascinating mixture of mundane details and statements about art, time, mathematics, sounds, semantics, and history...A wordsmith of unparalleled complexity, Khlebnikov offers theories on the relationship between sound and meaning, so-called 'beyonsense' (zaumny) language, the meaning of time and the relationship between the dates of major world events. This reflects an intimate marriage of a creative imagination to a highly structured scientific methodology. Artists, poets, biologists, historians, and linguists, will all find here an enchanting display from one of the most original minds of the 20th century. Beautifully produced with 22 pages of photographs and drawings, this fine book is highly recommended.
       --Choice

    It is good that Velimir Khlebnikov, too long ignored or neglected by the general literary public...should at last be receiving the recognition he deserves. Called by Mandelshtam 'a citizen of the whole of history, of the whole system of language and poetry' and by Mayakovsky 'a Columbus of new poetic continents', he is without a doubt the most exciting and original Russian poet of the twentieth century, and has even been called Russia's greatest poet since Pushkin...[This is] the first volume, sumptuously produced, and immaculately translated and edited, of a translation into English of Khlebnikov's complete works...This new edition will...allow poets other than Russians to acquaint themselves with his genius.
       --T. J. Binyon, Literary Review

    Surely one of the most remarkable practitioners in language who has ever written. [Khlebnikov] seems to inhabit the very heart of his language, exploring its roots, making it send up new and wonderful growths…In this volume we are given the extraordinary 'supersaga' Zangezi, in which the languages of birds and of gods, of prophecy and of street banter, join with 'beyonsense' sound poetry (zaum,) and large visions of historical change to produce a summa, a kind of crazier Zarathustra. That Schmidt can deal so confidently with this bodes well for his larger enterprise…A fine achievement.
       --Peter France, Times Literary Supplement

    Modern Russia's most brilliant, imaginative, and eccentric poet, Khlehnikov produced a body of literature that still amazes. Combining features of the avant garde (which he vigorously promoted with the Cubo--Futurists) and a scholarly interest in ancient Slavic roots and folklore, his work is a complex fabric appealing to the intellect, the imagination, the Russian national tradition, the ear (and often the eve), and the reader's sense of humor and the bizarre…Paul Schmidt [has] produced a brilliant tour de force a collection of poetry, prose fiction, declarations, and the theatrical 'supersaga' Zangezi, that gives both the general reader and the specialist (especially those interested in modern poetry) a very good idea of the range of Khlehnikov's extraordinary creativity.
       --Choice,

    The King of Time…represents a deft feat of translation…It offers readers the chance to imagine, experience and restore the full analogy between pictorial and verbal creation.
       --Elliott Mossman, New York Times Book Review

  • Cover: Collected Works of Velimir Khlebnikov, Volume I, Letters and Theoretical Writings

Paul Schmidt is the winner of the Max Hayward Prize for his translation of Velimir Khlebnikov, The King of Time: Selected Writings of the Russian Futurian (Harvard).