Russian Futurism

Russian Futurism is the broad term for a movement of Russian poets and artists who adopted the principles of Filippo Marinetti's "Manifesto of Futurism", which espoused the rejection of the past, and a celebration of speed, machinery, violence, youth, industry, destruction of academies, museums, and urbanism; it also advocated for modernization and cultural rejuvenation.^{[citation needed]}

Russian Futurism began roughly in the early 1910s; in 1912, a year after Ego-Futurism began, the literary group "Hylea"—also spelt "Guilée" and "Gylea"—issued the manifesto A Slap in the Face of Public Taste. The 1912 movement was originally called Cubo-Futurism, but this term is now used to refer to the style of art produced. Russian Futurism ended shortly after the Russian Revolution of 1917, after which former Russian Futurists either left the country, or participated in the new art movements.^{[citation needed]}

Notable Russian Futurists included Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, David Burliuk, Kazimir Malevich, Vladimir Mayakovsky, and Velimir Khlebnikov.

The Manifesto celebrated the "beauty of speed" and the machine as the new aesthetic. Marinetti explained the "beauty of speed" as "a roaring automobile is more beautiful than the Winged Victory" further asserting the movement towards the future. Artforms were greatly affected by the Russian Futurism movement within Russia, with its influences being seen in cinema, literature, typography, politics, and propaganda. The Russian Futuristic movement saw its demise in the early 1920s.

Initially the term "futurism" was problematic, because it reminded them too much of their rivals in Italy; however, in 1911, the Ego-futurist group began. This was the first group of Russian futurism to call themselves "futurist"; shortly afterwards, many other futurists followed in using the term too.

The most important group of Russian Futurism may be said to have been born in December 1912, when the Moscow-based literary group Hylaea (Russian: Гилея [Gileya]) (initiated in 1910 by David Burlyuk and his brothers at their estate near Kherson, and quickly joined by Vasily Kamensky and Velimir Khlebnikov, with Aleksey Kruchenykh and Vladimir Mayakovsky in 1911) issued a manifesto entitled A Slap in the Face of Public Taste (Russian: Пощёчина общественному вкусу). The Russian Futurist Manifesto shared similar ideas to Marinetti's Manifesto, such as the rejection of old literature for the new and unexpected.

In addition to the forenamed authors, the group included artists Mikhail Larionov, Natalia Goncharova, Kazimir Malevich, and Olga Rozanova.

Although Hylaea is generally considered to be the most influential group of Russian Futurism, other groups were formed in St. Petersburg (Igor Severyanin's Ego-Futurists), Moscow (Tsentrifuga, with Boris Pasternak among its members), Kiev, Kharkiv, and Odessa. While many artforms and artists converged to create "Russian Futurism", David Burlyuk (born 1882, Ukraine) is credited with publicizing the avant-garde movement and increasing its renown within Europe and the United States. Burlyuk was a Russian poet, critic, and publisher who centralized the Russian movement. While his contribution to the arts were lesser than his peers, he was the first to discover many of the talented poets and artists associated with the movement. Burlyuk was the first to publish Velimir Khlebnikov and to celebrate the Futurist poetry of Vladimir Mayakovsky. Russian futurism also adopted ideas from "French Cubism" which coined the name "Cubo-Futurists" given by an art critic in 1913. Cubo-futurism adopted ideas from "Italian Futurism" and "French Cubism" to create its own blended style of visual art. It emphasized the breakdown of forms, the use of various viewpoints, the intersection of spatial planes, and the contrast of colour and texture. The focus was to show the intrinsic value of a painting, without it being dependent on a narrative.