Imaginism

Imaginism was a poetic flow inside Russian avant-garde which came about after the Revolution of 1917. It was founded in 1919 in Moscow by a group of poets (among them were Vadim Shershenevich and Sergei Yesenin), who wanted to distance themselves from Futurists; they had heard the name imagism and decided to name their group by the same name incidentally misspelling it, though stylistically they were also heirs to Ego-Futurism. Imaginists created poetry based on sequences of arresting and uncommon images. They widely used metaphors, sometimes producing long chains of them in their poems. Other members of the group were the poets Rurik Ivnev, Anatoly Marienhof, Alexander Kusikov, Ivan Grouzinov, Matvey Royzman, and the prominent Russian dramatist Nikolay Erdman. In January 1919 they issued a manifesto; Vadim Shershenevich was the main author of its text. Most of the imaginists were free-thinkers and atheists. Imaginism was a bipolar movement that had main centres in Moscow and St. Petersburg. There were also smaller centres of imaginism in Kazan, Saransk, as well as in Ukraine. Imaginists organised four poetry publishings, one of which was called Imaginism, and published the poetry magazine called Gostinitsa dlya puteshestvuyuschih v prekrasnom / Guesthouse for Travellers in the Land of Beauty.The group broke up in 1925, and in 1927 it was liquidated officially. Its heritage, though, is still strong in Russia. Poems by Sergei Yesenin and Vadim Shershenevich, memoirs by Anatoly Marienhof and plays by Nikolay Erdman are still in print and always in demand. After the disappearance of the group, the young imaginists declared themselves followers of this trend in early 1930s, and so did the meloimaginists in 1990s [Kudryavitsky A. Popytka zvuka. New Literary Review No 35, 1999] .

Literature

* Markov, V.: Russian Imaginism 1919-1924. Gießen 1980.
* Nilsson N. The Russian imaginists. - Ann Arbor: Almgvist and Wiksell, 1970. - 75 p.
* Ponomareff C. The image Seekers: Analysis of imaginists Poetic Theory, 1919-1924 / С. Ponomareff // The Slavic and East European journal. - 1986. -V. XII. - № 3.
* [http://meloimaginists.narod.ru Kudryavitsky A. Popytka zvuka NLO No 35, 1999]

Notes