От издателя «Чего только не умел делать Даниил Хармс! Он писал стихи, рассказы, пьесы, играл на фисгармонии и валторне, неплохо пел, великолепно танцевал чечетку, рисовал, показывал фокусы, прекрасно читал с эстрады свои и чужие стихи, искусно играл на бильярде, умелходить по перилам балкона на последнем этаже Ленинградского Дома книги, любил изобретать игры, умел изображать муху в тот момент, когда та размышляет, куда бы ей полететь, умел писать заумные стихи, философские трактаты и комедийные репризы для цирка… Веселый гейзер выдумок не иссякал». А. Александров. «Чародей»
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Проза Стихи c. 7-152 Сценки: Охотники Пьеса c. 153-155 Грехопадение, или познание добра и зла . Дидаскалия Пьеса c. 155-159 Обезоруженный, или Неудавшаяся любовь. Трагический водевиль в одном действии Пьеса c. 159-160 «Петя входит в ресторан…» I и II Пьеса c. 160-162 Дедка за репку. Балет Пьеса c. 162-164 Всестороннее исследование Пьеса c. 165-170 Тексты автобиографического и квазиавтобиографического характера Статья c. 171-200 Циклы и сборники: 1. <Голубая тетрадь> Стихи c. 201-210 2. <Случаи> Стихи c. 211-250 Незавершенное и отвергнутое Статья c. 251-284 Трактаты c. 285-344 Письма c. 345-362 Хармс Комментарии c. 363-369 От составителя Комментарии c. 370-373
Daniil Ivanovich Yuvachev (Даниил Хармс) was born in St. Petersburg, into the family of Ivan Yuvachev, a well known member of the revolutionary group, The People's Will. By this time the elder Yuvachev had already been imprisoned for his involvement in subversive acts against the tsar Alexander III and had become a religious philosopher, acquaintance of Anton Chekhov during the latter's trip to Sakhalin.
Daniil invented the pseudonym Kharms while attending high school at the prestigious German "Peterschule". While at the Peterschule, he learned the rudiments of both English and German, and it may have been the English "harm" and "charm" that he incorporated into "Kharms". Throughout his career Kharms used variations on his name and the pseudonyms DanDan, Khorms, Charms, Shardam, and Kharms-Shardam, among others. It is rumored that he scribbled the name Kharms directly into his passport.
In 1924, he entered the Leningrad Electrotechnicum, from which he was expelled for "lack of activity in social activities". After his expulsion, he gave himself over entirely to literature. He joined the circle of Aleksandr Tufanov, a sound-poet, and follower of Velemir Khlebnikov's ideas of zaum (or trans-sense) poetry. He met the young poet Alexander Vvedensky at this time, and the two became close friends and inseparable collaborators.
In 1927, the Association of Writers of Children's Literature was formed, and Kharms was invited to be a member. From 1928 until 1941, Kharms continually produced children's works and had a great success.
In 1928, Daniil Kharms founded the avant-garde collective OBERIU, or Union of Real Art. He embraced the new movements of Russian Futurism laid out by his idols, Khlebnikov, Kazimir Malevich, and Igor Terentiev, among others. Their ideas served as a springboard. His aesthetic centered around a belief in the autonomy of art from real world rules and logic, and the intrinsic meaning to be found in objects and words outside of their practical function.
By the late 1920s, his antirational verse, nonlinear theatrical performances, and public displays of decadent and illogical behavior earned Kharms — who always dressed like an English dandy with a calabash pipe — the reputation of being a talented but highly eccentric “fool” or “crazy-man” in Leningrad cultural circles.
Even then, in the late 20s, despite rising criticism of the OBERIU performances and diatribes against the avant-garde in the press, Kharms nurtured a fantasy of uniting the progressive artists and writers of the time (Malevich, Filonov, Terentiev, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Kaverin, Zamyatin) with leading Russian Formalist critics (Tynianov, Shklovsky, Eikhenbaum, Ginzburg, etc.,) and a younger generation of writers (all from the OBERIU crowd—Alexander Vvedensky, Konstantin Vaginov, Nikolai Zabolotsky, Igor Bakhterev), to form a cohesive cultural movement of Left Art. Needless to say it didn't happen that way.
Kharms was arrested in 1931 together with Vvedensky, Tufanov and some other writers, and was in exile from his hometown (forced to live in the city of Kursk) for most of a year. He was arrested as a member of "a group of anti-Soviet children's writers", and some of his works were used as an evidence. Soviet authorities, having become increasingly hostile toward the avant-garde in general, deemed Kharms’ writing for children anti-Soviet because of its absurd logic and its refusal to instill materialist and social Soviet values.
He continued to write for children's magazines when he returned from exile, though his name would appear in the credits less often. His plans for more performances and plays were curtailed, the OBERIU disbanded, and Kharms receded into a very private writing life. He wrote for the desk drawer, for his wife, Marina Malich, and for a small group of friends, the “
Edvard satt og leste denne boken. Edvard hørte en mystisk lyd og så ut av vinduet. Det stod det en gedigen babushka som manglet en nese (samt høyre øyevippe) Babushkaen skrek noe på russisk, som Edvard ikke forstod, og som han heller aldri kom til å forstå. Plutselig ble Edvard forvandlet til en billig krakk. The end.