Russian modernist manifestos: the genre characteristics

Saveleva Mariya Sergeevna PhD in Philology Associate professor, Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation 76 Prospekt Vernadskogo str., Moscow, 119454, Russia savelyeva.mgimo@gmail.com

Kritskaya Nadezhda Aleksandrovna Student, Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation 76 Prospekt Vernadskogo str., Moscow, 119454, Russia na.kritskaya@my.mgimo.ru

Russian Russian modernism manifestos have been firmly included in the "canon" of school and university studies of Russian literature of the twentieth century for more than a century since the end of the Silver Age, and have been published several times in anthologies. ^{[11, 10, 9, 8]}. However, as for the scientific understanding of this genre, it is still quite little developed in Russian science. "... The manifesto as a theoretical problem is insufficiently reflected," says the modern researcher I.Y. Ivanyushina ^{[2, p. 309]}. Introductory articles in Soviet and Russian collections of theoretical speeches by Russian writers are mainly descriptive or journalistic, not analytical. The exception is the preface by Yu.K. Gerasimov to the publication of modernist manifestos prepared by the Pushkin House (2017), in which, however, important observations are contained rather in the form of notes, sketches for research. Significant work in this direction has been done by T.S. Simyan ^[18], who notes the "arbitrariness of interpretation" of the manifesto genre in the Soviet years, but does not indicate the reasons for such a broad understanding of the boundaries of the genre, and also takes as the basis of his research manifestos not of domestic, but of Western literature. It is noteworthy that in English-language scientific works, the problem of theoretical understanding of the manifesto has also been raised only in recent decades ^{[21, p. 355]}.

The objectives of our article is to analyze the features of the manifesto genre (or those texts that are commonly called this word in Russian literary studies) based on the material of the program speeches of Russian modernism, to highlight their functions, to answer the question of why the word "manifesto" has firmly entered the domestic scientific usage, first Soviet, and then, by inertia, and post-Soviet. In our review work, we certainly do not set ourselves the goal of covering all the theoretical performances of Russian modernism and limit ourselves to the most famous of them.

The term "manifesto" is found in the titles of all Soviet and Russian collections containing program speeches of modernism: "Literary manifestos. Russia. From Symbolism to October" (1924), "Literary Manifestos from Symbolism to October" (1929), "Literary Manifestos from Symbolism to the Present Day" (2000), "Literary Manifestos and Declarations of Russian Modernism" (2017). Russian Russian, meanwhile, as T.S. Simyan rightly notes, referring to the explanatory dictionary of V.I. Dahl, at the end of the XIX century, when D.S. Merezhkovsky announced the birth of Russian modernism, the word "manifesto" had a political meaning in the Russian language as the main one, which is now largely outdated: ""open sheet, letter; announcement, announcement by the government of some kind of state; nationwide announcement" ^{[19, vol. 2, pp. 297-298]}, and the most famous text of this genre was the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" by K. Marx and F. Engels ^{[18, pp. 131-132]}. We find the same political connotation in the "Explanatory Dictionary of the living Great Russian language" and in the word "declaration", which is now perceived as a synonym for the literary term "manifesto": "declaration, agreement, announcement; communication on paper between states, with some final conclusion, condition, agreement" ^{[19, vol. 1, p. 426]}. The Russian modernists did not call their theoretical speeches the word "manifesto" before the Futurists, and the Futurists had it marginal (see Saratov "Manifesto of Psycho-Futurists"). Later, this genre name will flash, for example, in the "Manifesto from nichevokov". The word "declaration" was used by Russian modernists more often: there was a "Declaration of abstruse language" of futurists, a "Declaration" and "Almost declaration" of imagists, a "Declaration of Luminists", etc. At the same time, in the most famous literary encyclopedias there is no term "declaration", but there is the word "manifesto" ^{[5; 3; 13; 4]}.

It is curious that in the modern collection of theoretical speeches of modernism, which was prepared by the Pushkin House, the genre framework in the title is expanding: these are already "manifestos and declarations". The same tendency to liberate from the Soviet paradigm and expand genre definitions is found in the title of the collection "Manifestos and Programs of Russian Futurists" published in Munich in 1967 with a preface by emigrant V. Markov ^[20].

Let's highlight the functions of those texts that are commonly called manifestos of modernism, and follow how these functions were reflected in subsequent cultural practice.

The declaration of a new aesthetic program is, of course, the leading function of the manifesto, which was implemented, however, in different keys, with varying degrees of emotionality and imperativeness. At first it acquired a restrained sound: "These are the three main elements of the new art ..." ("On the causes of decline and on new trends in modern Russian literature" by D. Merezhkovsky), but already K. Balmont in the report "Elementary words about symbolic poetry" imperatives appear, albeit with subordinate clauses of the condition: "If you love a direct impression, enjoy the symbolism of the novelty and luxury of the paintings inherent in it. If you like a complex impression, read between the lines...". The call sounds from Fr . Mandelstam: "Let's prove our case in such a way that the whole chain of causes and effects from alpha to omega shudders in response to us..." ("Morning of Acmeism"). The manifesto of the futurists takes the form of an order: "We order to honor the rights of poets..." ("A slap in the face to public taste"), "To be written and looked at in the blink of an eye!" ("The word as such"), "Black sails of time, make noise!" ("The Trumpet of the Martians").

Modern researchers have repeatedly noted that the need for theoretical expression as an addition to poetic creativity was in the era of modernism a symptom of the crisis, and at the same time evidence of "attempts to overcome it" [1: 4]. However, there have been times in Russian culture since then when this shaky, "crisis" era became the foundation for strengthening new trends. The battles of the Modernists were used in a peculiar way in the 1920s to reinforce proletarian theoretical constructions. In the first three editions of the Russian literary "manifestos" (that is, up to 2000), the program speeches of modernists were printed under the same cover with the declarations of proletarian writers. In the 1929 edition, the modernist part was significantly reduced compared to the 1924 edition, but its presence was clearly explained: "In our days of increased interest in the theory and sociology of art and the desire to summarize the complex search for a "great" literary style that would meet the demands of our modernity, which has such great historical meaning, this look back the stages of the literary path traversed in its theoretical formulas are necessary, first of all, to clarify the main tasks of the art of poetry ..." ^{[18, p. 5]}. And already in modern times, in post-Soviet Russia, the manifesto is becoming a popular critical genre based on an extensive tradition ^{[16, 14]}.

The assertion of a group, collective principle in the generation and perception of art. Yu.K. Gerasimov noted that futurists were more inclined to a group manifesto, symbolists valued a personal one ^{[17, p. 5]}. However, even in quite restrained and theoretically-oriented performances of symbolism, "we" sounds: "we cannot be content", "we demand..." (D.S. Merezhkovsky, "On the causes of decline and on new trends in modern Russian literature"), "we don't care...", "in the name of others, in the name of ourselves, we must" (A. Bely, "Criticism and symbolism"), "we defend", "we read" (Viach. Ivanov, "Two Elements in Modern Symbolism"). Another plural pronoun, "you", sets the character of the appeal in K. Balmont's report "Elementary words about symbolic poetry": the construction "if you" becomes a leitmotif, a ring covering this text. The manifestos of the Acmeists as a whole are rather restrained and abstract, but sometimes their authors also used the pronoun "we" ("The Legacy of Symbolism and Acmeism" by N.Gumilev, "The Morning of Acmeism" by O. Mandelstam). Of course, one of the dominants of the most famous theoretical speeches of the futurists was the "lump of the word "we"", opposed to "you" ("Wash your hands ...", "A slap in the face to public taste"). "We" sounds like an anaphora in the collective performances of "The Judges' Cage" and "The Trumpet of the Martians", N. Burliuk's "Supplementum to Poetic Counterpoint" begins with the same pronoun.

Of course, Soviet cultural figures who partially legalized the modernist manifesto as a genre could not but have had in mind this function, the focus on the collective beginning in art.

The same feature of the manifesto was used by the authors of the manifestos of the latest Russian literature. It can be said that the leading form of existence of the literary process of our time are prizes aimed at competitiveness, competition, struggle. Manifestos (bearing opposite principles: both the desire for competition and the potential for unification) in a certain sense overcome this trend by uniting, rather than separating, writers in the conditions of the loss of literary-centric culture.

Embedding a new direction in the modernist paradigm. There is no doubt that all branches of modernism were guided in their theoretical constructions by the experience of symbolism, even if they were based on it in words. Subsequently, the variety of such sample texts expanded. Thus, the "Declaration" of the imagists, verbally denying futurism, from the point of view of style, of course, relies heavily on it in its nihilistic indelicacy ("We are ashamed, ashamed and joyful from the consciousness that we have to shout the old truth to you today"), in the invention of neologisms ("futurism and futurism death"), in the composition ("you" and "we" as an anaphora, see above about the futurist declarations "The Judges' Cage" and "The Martians' Pipe"), even in the appeal to the images of the city ("You... peddlers of paint and lines", "we ... who cleans the form from the dust of the contents better than a street cleaner boot"). 

At the same time, it is necessary to understand that the genre unity of the modernist "manifestos" was felt by contemporaries and even by the authors of these texts to a much lesser extent than it is felt today thanks to the work of the compilers of the anthologies. At the turn of the XIX–XX centuries, these theoretical speeches had very different genre forms: a brochure, a lecture, an article, etc.

Analysis of the creativity of close and distant predecessors, search for similar and different. Russian Russian literature of the XIX century is described in the most detailed way in D. Merezhkovsky's brochure, which served as one of the starting points of Russian modernism, and the author finds a symbolic beginning not only in the works of his immediate Western predecessors, but also in ancient cultures, for example, in one of the bas-reliefs of the Acropolis. Viach. Ivanov in his work "The Testaments of Symbolism" refers to Pushkin as a forerunner. Of course, Acmeism was guided by the broadest tradition: "In circles close to Acmeism, the names of Shakespeare, Rabelais, Villon and Theophile Gautier are most often pronounced" ("The Legacy of Symbolism and Acmeism" by N. Gumilev). Paris Notre Dame and Bach's music become examples of art for O. Mandelstam ("Morning of Acmeism"). Cubofuturists in their theoretical ideas, dismissing their predecessors, still make a certain selection and thereby elevate the representatives of realism, symbolism and even the art of the ancient Egyptians named by them: "our size is larger than Cheops" ("The Trumpet of the Martians"). Sergey Yesenin in his imagist speech "Keys of Mary" mentions a whole scattering of names of authors of world literature, but stops at Russian folklore as a source of genuine expression.

As we can see, the range of authors and cultural phenomena that Russian modernists addressed in their theoretical constructions is unusually wide. Yu.K. Gerasimov wrote on this occasion: "Even in the most talented, insightful articles of this kind, the authors were rarely free from subjectivity, tendentious one-sidedness, exaggerations, some reinterpretations" ^{[1, p. 4]}. Probably, such freedom of interpretation of texts could not but be useful to the theorists of proletarian literature.

The struggle with the closest predecessors. Russian Russian culture at the end of the XIX century began symbolism with the search for "causes of decline", and the controversy with it, in turn, is contained even in the names of the first Acmeist "manifestos": "The Legacy of Symbolism and Acmeism" by N. Gumilev, "Some trends in Modern Russian poetry" by S. Gorodetsky. But a particularly fierce struggle unfolded around futurism, which put itself in an aggressive position towards other aestheticians and subsequently received an equally emotional response not only from imagists (see in S. Yesenina in the work "Keys of Mary": "The impotence of futurism was expressed mainly in the fact that by turning a pine tree with its roots up and planting a crow on its branch, he failed to give life to this pine tree without supports"), but also from other branches of futurism. The emigrant philologist V. Markov wrote in the introductory article to the collection "Manifestos and Programs of Russian Futurists": "Manifestoes in the strict sense of the word were not always connected with theory. Most of them were largely aggressive and vitriolic attacks on preceding and contemporary literature, more often on fellow-futurists" ("Manifestos in the strict sense of the word were not always connected with theory. Most of them were attacks, often arrogant and sarcastic, on previous and current literature, most often on fellow futurists") ^{[20, p. 5-6]}.

Demonstration of modernist styles, practical development of poetry techniques in a prose text. The symbolists were very traditional in choosing the form of their theoretical speeches, however, in their so-called "manifestos", of course, the techniques of the new aesthetics were used. Thus, in the report "Elementary words about symbolic poetry" K. Balmont reveals a detailed artistic image of the crowd, which appears differently to the perceiving subject when he looks at it from the window and when he himself is in it. The author compares these two ways of perceiving the environment with realism and symbolism. It can be said that to some extent this fragment uses the techniques of symbolist prose, which is also often prone to generalizations and theoretical conceptualizations.

Acmeists even create the names of their theoretical speeches ("Morning of Acmeism", "Adam") as poetic, figurative. Decisive steps in this direction are made by futurists (with the texts "A slap in the face to public taste", "A cage of judges", "A drop of tar") and imagists ("2x2 = 5. Sheets of the imagist", "The main Imagism", "Keys of Mary"). However, the principle of the construction of names in the manifestos of Russian modernism, rational and irrational in them seems to us a topic for separate future studies.

The first of the Russian modernists brought theoretical speeches as close as possible to poetic futurists, who took a text with a short line or paragraph as a model of the manifesto, complicating it as much as possible with tropes and rhetorical techniques.

Summing up. A. Blok in the report "On the current state of Russian symbolism", Viach. Ivanov in the "Testaments of Symbolism", V. Mayakovsky in the "speech" "A drop of tar" talk about the end of symbolism and futurism, respectively. A.Y. Narkovich calls such "manifestos" "a posteriori" ^{[15, p. 577]}. As we can see, the corpus of texts that are commonly called modernist manifestos in Russian literary studies includes theoretical speeches pursuing opposite goals: both to announce the emergence of a new direction and to summarize its fate.

Building a special relationship between theory and practice. This function is especially actively analyzed in English literary studies and is little discussed in Russian. Foreign colleagues raise questions about what is primary, the manifesto or poetry associated with it, whether the authors of the manifestos deny subsequent criticism of their works, whether it is possible to perceive the works of avant-gardists without reading their manifestos, whether the manifesto is a reliable source for a subsequent literary historian ^[21].

A similar set of issues seems important from the point of view of understanding social realism. It should be noted that the gap between the theory and practice of socialist realism led to its collapse, and their relationship is one of the most pressing problems in this area.

***

It is obvious that the word "manifesto" in relation to the theoretical performances of modernism was borrowed by Russian futurists, and then by Soviet literary critics from Italian futurists and F.T. Marinetti with his "First Manifesto of Futurism" in 1909, "Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature" in 1912, (Manifesto del Futurismo, Manifeste technique de la litt?rature futuriste) and other "manifestos". It is significant that in 1914 the book "Manifestos of Italian Futurism" was published in Moscow, which fixed this name in the Russian cultural consciousness. Even later, when the aspirations of the new Soviet government partially coincided with the worldview of the Russian futurists, it was this term that was taken as the basis for the systematization of the program texts of modernism. For many years, the name "manifesto" has been a kind of security certificate for the publication of theoretical speeches of Western literatures (French realists in 1935, classicists and romantics in 1980 ^{[12, 6, 7]}).

Thus, the tradition of using the word "manifesto" to denote the theoretical statements of Russian modernism clearly had a political subtext in Soviet times, declarative texts emphasized the beginning of the struggle, the search for a new one.

The genre of the manifesto itself, as it is understood by today's literary criticism, is to a certain extent an artificial construct, not comprehended by contemporaries to the extent that it is familiar to us, and created, in fact, later by the compilers of anthologies. Nevertheless, he has already firmly entered the history of Russian culture. The various functions of the modernist manifesto actualized the theoretical performances of the Silver Age in different epochs and were reflected in the mirror of subsequent aesthetics.