Восхищение

Russian Library

by Iliazd, Илья Зданевич

Этот роман — не только самоценное повествование о любви наделённого чудодейственным даром разбойника Лаврентия и прекрасной девушки Ивлиты, но и аллегорическое изложение истории футуризма: как доказывает исследователь Илья Терентьев, прототипом Лаврентия стал Маяковский, в понимании Зданевича губящий поэзию. «Восхищение», относительно «нормативный» текст Зданевича, входит в ряд малоизвестных шедевров русской модернистской литературы и выглядит как постскриптум к одному из этапов её истории.

Genres: Fiction, Russia, Classics, Russian Literature

222 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1930

About the author

Ilia Mikhailovich Zdanevich (Georgian: ილია ზდანევიჩი, Russian: Илья́ Миха́йлович Здане́вич) (April 21, 1894 – December 25, 1975), known as Iliazd (Georgian: ილიაზდ), was a Georgian and French writer and artist, and an active participant in such avant-garde movements as Russian Futurism and Dada.
He was born in Tbilisi to a Polish father, Michał Zdaniewicz, who taught French in a gymnasium and a Georgian mother, Valentina Gamkrelidze, who was a pianist and student of Tchaikovsky. (His older brother Kiril also became a well-known artist.) He studied in the Faculty of Law of Saint Petersburg State University. In 1912 he and his brother, along with their friend Mikhail Le-Dantyu, became enthusiastic about the Tbilisi painter Niko Pirosmanashvili; Ilya's article about him, “Khudozhnik-samorodok” (“A natural-born artist”), his first publication, appeared in the February 13, 1913, issue of Zakavkazskaia Rech'. Later in 1913 he published a monograph Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov under the pseudonym Eli Eganbyuri (Russian: Эли Эганбюри). In June 1914 the journal Vostok published his article “Niko Pirosmanashvili,” in which he mythologized the biography of the older artist, linking him with the Silver Age and the Russian avant-garde. He became involved with the new Futurist movement, participating in their discussions and writing about them and Marinetti in the Russian press, and was drawn to other avant-garde movements as well, such as Zaum and dadaism.
During World War I Zdanevich returned to the Caucasus as a newspaper correspondent, and from 1917 to 1919 he lived in Tbilisi, where he published several collections of poetry in the zaum style (Yanko Krul Albansky, Ostraf Paskhi, and Zga Yakaby). In 1918, he joined Aleksei Kruchenykh and others in the Futurist group “41°.” Zdanevich in 1919 adopted the pseudonym Iliazd. He left Tiflis for Batumi, and in October 1920 left the country to investigate the new artistic currents of France. After a year spent in Constantinople acquiring a French visa, he arrived in Paris in October 1921, where together with other artists he organized the group Cherez (“Across”), whose aim was to bring Russian émigrés together with representatives of French culture. In 1923 he began his novel Parizhachi, about four couples who agree to dine together in the Bois de Boulogne; in the course of two and a half hours (each chapter has an exact time for a title, from 11.51 to 14.09) they all manage to betray each other, and the novel itself breaks all manner of orthographic, punctuational, and compositional rules. Zdanevich continued working on this “hyperformalist” novel (which he described as an opis', or “inventory”) until 1926, but it was not published until 1994. His second novel, Voskhishchenie (“Rapture”), was published in a small edition in 1930 and was ignored at the time. Set in a mythical Georgia among mountaineers, on the surface a crime novel, it is actually a fictionalized history of the Russian avant-garde, full of allusions to world literature; it could be said to anticipate magic realism. The language of the novel is innovative and poetic, and the Slavist Milivoje Jovanović called it “undoubtedly the summit toward which the Russian avant-garde was striving.”
Zdanevich's 1923 poster for his and Tristan Tzara's Soirée du coeur à barbe [Evening of the bearded heart] is a widely known example of avant-garde typography and graphic design. During the last forty years of his life in Paris, Zdanevich was active in a variety of areas. He did analyses of church elevations, created fabrics for Chanel, and above all consecrated himself to the creation of artist's books with the collaboration of Picasso, Max Ernst, Miro, and others. His innovative typographic and design work has been exhibited at the New York Public Library, MOMA, in Montreal, in Tbilisi in 1989 in a joint exhibition with his brother Kiril, and in many other venues. Catalogs for many of these exhibitions exist and contain considerab

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Ilya had been living in Paris for over a year and had become friends with Picasso. The Zdaneviches spoke about Ilya as if he had just gone out of the room…
At first, I conscientiously read Ilya’s poems ‘The Ass for Hire’, ‘Yanko, King of Albania’ – but could make very little of them. They gave me a headache. But I could not admit it: failure to understand Ilya’s poetry was, for his friends and relations, a sign of philistinism and utter lack of talent in the reader.” – This is what Konstantin Paustovsky tells about the author of this novel in Story of a Life: Southern Adventure.
Rapture is a surrealistic novel but it is so thick with magic that nowadays Ilia Zdanevich surely would’ve been ranked among the most proficient adepts of magic realism…

Innumerable pieces of ice broke away from the heights and hung in the air, pretending to be diamonds and supported by an unknown power (nothing special among these lavish miracles), and inexplicable singing burst out of the crevasses. Brother Mocius stood up and began to howl
Instantly, who knows from where, angels small in stature, followed by swifts, flitted out and started tracing patterns above Brother Mocius while chiming in. Eagles, their white beards loosed to the wind, stooped, screeching. Swarms of fierce bees streaked by, obedient and humming; diverse butterflies swished, vipers crawled from their dens, whistling, and hyenas leapt out, sobbing and weeping. Howl, peep, roar, flutter. Everything was keening. Even the humble gentian and saxifrage, customarily dumb, as is meet for plants, contributed a barely audible squeak, not to mention the slender lizards, darting in with their hatchlings

Wretchedness and ugliness… Ignorance and maliciousness… The narration is grotesquely dark and at times even ominous…

Only death could provoke genuine merriment. Only its presence could compel all assembled to sing, drink, kiss, and dance tirelessly. At weddings, they drank from slop basins; at funerals, they drew drafts from buckets. The musicians would attain such raving that they couldn’t calm down; the dancers, once they had entered the circle, would refuse to cede their places to others; the bonfires would turn into blazes, and the orgy would drag on well beyond any proposed limit.

There are murders and robberies… There is a morbid fatal love… There is a crooked revolutionary underground… And the protagonist – Laurence – is a greedy bandit and a merciless killer…

“This system is corrupt unto abomination and we will destroy it. But behold, just when everything’s ready to fall apart, by the ultimate contradiction, in place of a human being dying of thirst to be sold, a prodigal dying with the desire to squander arrives. You, Laurence, imagine you’re a peacock from the highland thieves’ nests, and that’s all, but you’re the monetary system’s fledgling – you, dying with the desire to spend as lavishly as you can. Therefore, you’re money’s greatest foe and our fellow traveler. And I hurried after you into the mountains, convinced – what you will accomplish no one else can do”

Evil stands against evil… Evil devours itself… Evil dies and is resurrected… Evil is imperishable.

[Max Nemtsov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Совершенно дивный модернистский текст заведующего французской текстильной фабрикой: эдакий этносюрреализм - напряженный, убеждающий сказ, нить не теряется ни разу, не говоря о том, что в нем нет т.н. "зауми" (у чуваков тогда вообще были своеобразные представления о "речевом остатке"). Из него вырос, как минимум, "Реквием по живущему" Черчесова (интересно, кто-нибудь эти романы сопоставлял? Тема для чьей-нибудь диссертации наверняка). Но это теперь.

Тогда же не очень понятно было стремление автора непременно опубликоваться в ссср: видимо, тормозной путь слишком длинен, желаемое хотелось выдать (и оно какое-то время выдавалось) за действительное - к 1930 году все с совроссией уже было понятно. Там у романа не было б ни шанса ни при каком раскладе - его читатели по большей части уехали, не для кого было его "Федерации" издавать. Такая литература и тогда была слишком уж хороша для т.н. "русской культуры" (сварганенной из мещанских представлений о прекрасном, уголовной романтики и пролеткультовского казенного воляпюка), и теперь и подавно никому не нужно.

Из прекрасного: "человечество кал земли" (и не поспоришь), "пожимание плечми" (совершенно легитимная словоформа; как и "мотают грудьми", собственно), горы противопоставлены "плоскости" (читатели "Внутреннего порока" оценят).

[Mandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am indebted to other reviews and especially to the long - and invaluable – introduction (nearly 20% of the published book) for my understanding of this, to me, rather odd and impenetrable novel. On one level it is simply an adventure story about a young bandit called Laurence who gets involved in increasingly violent acts of derring-do, and his love for an ethereal maiden called Ivlita. I can see that it can be enjoyed on this surface level (although to be honest I personally didn’t enjoy it) but it is in fact a multi-layered text with many allusions and subtexts and it really needs an expert to fully grasp its meaning. In Paul E Richardson’s helpful review on Amazon he states that it isn’t the story line or characters that matter but the words with which they are created, the subtexts and literary references. However, I do in fact look for story and character when I read a novel and there was nothing here to engage me. Knowing it is clever and a major work of the Russian avant-garde doesn’t compensate for a somewhat fantastical tale and the mixture of “slapstick and philosophy” didn’t work for me. Having said that, as a lover of all things Russian, I was delighted to discover this writer, whose life story is for me far more interesting than his novel, and even if I didn’t much enjoy it, I was equally delighted to discover this little-known work of Russian modernism.

[Yuri Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with Hofmannsthal’s The Letter, which I reviewed last week, I think there is too much weight placed upon this work. The belated and rather contrived reputation ascribed to it by the translator, who nevertheless has written an informative Introduction, is, I believe, unsustainable. Rather than a rediscovered masterpiece, it is more accurately described as an historical curiosity.

[ReemK10 (Paper Pills) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a read that captivates the reader's attention. It is odd, certainly peculiar and quite funny! One wonders how it is that one has never even heard of Iliazd, the nom de plume of the Russian author, Ilia Zdanevich? This is a novel that must be read! If I did not know Thomas Kitson, who did a fabulous job translating Iliazd's Rapture, I would certainly never have ever read this hidden piece of Russian literature! Definitely check it out! Read, and spread the word! I was fascinated throughout the entire read! Kitson's introduction alone is absolutely riveting!!

Check out this excerpt!
https://publicseminar.org/2018/06/rap...

Also check out: Watch "What’s Old is New: Gender and Power in Iliazd’s Neglected Rapture" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/Wbf7JO97yzs

[Jordan Wannemacher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I work for the publisher.

Finished reading the galley of my first Russian Library book, forthcoming from Columbia University Press. This short but action packed novel is quite a ride! It combines a kidnapping/love story, elements of mythology, political terrorism, and murder laced through fantastic prose. Beautiful series cover design by @robertodevicq @rdevicq

[Vanessa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I sorted of floated on the top of this novel - the lyricism is both a boon and a burden in that respect. You can admire this work but not quite touch it and that distance impaired my reading experience. I'm not usually a person that needs to connect with characters, really, but here it's just a bit too much.
I received an ecopy from the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a deeply weird book. A fairytale setting, with strange political rumblings and shocking brutality, magical creatures hovering in the wings. And, at least in the translation, the language is vivid, direct, entrancing. But did I like it? Who can tell. Of all the books I’ve read, it reminds me most of Death in Spring.

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Comes close to Pedro Paramo in terms of melding high modernism with the cultural periphery. A book I could see myself returning to again in order to make sense of the cryptic energy overlaying the more genre-forward adventure plot.

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to Columbia University and the Russian Library for publishing so many great but out of print or previously untranslated Russian novels! I’ve enjoyed almost every book in the growing series.

[Nathalia T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The beauty in this book lies on the lyrical and poetic-like structure the novel has...

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finished RAPTURE (1930) by Iliazd, penname for Ilia Zdanevich (1894-1975), avant-garde poet, critic, artist, in addition to his early legal training. Iliazd self-published RAPTURE in Paris; the novel fell into obscurity until translations were made decades later. On the surface, the novel is about a young brigand, Laurence, who murders randomly and leads a gang that terrorizes the local villages. He becomes enamored with the beautiful Ivlita, who is ostracized for being the mistress of a bandit. Finally disgusted with his violence, she betrays him to the police. Laurence escapes from prison, intent on killing Ivlita, but both die as she’s giving birth to their child. I could easily imagine the novel adapted into a Cormac McCarthy-style western. The title word “rapture” appears throughout the novel whenever Laurence or Ivlita experience a moment of pleasure or enlightened joy, only for it to be crushed—in true Russian literary fashion. Below the surface, as explained in the translator’s long introduction, the novel is really about the demise of avant-garde poetic language as it attempts to undermine societal norms. Like Saul becoming Paul, RAPTURE represents the freeing of Zdanevich from his literary past into becoming Iliazd. There is a secondary plot of Laurence recruited as a dupe by a Russian revolutionary—both advocate violence as a means of economic redistribution. But whereas Laurence wants to become rich, the manager of assassins explains that he kills, steals, and destroys so “everyone will be equally poor.” Spoken like a true progressive.