Scythianism in Early Twentieth-century Russian Culture and the Scythian Theme in Russian Futurism

Abstract

This article considers the Scythian myth in Russian culture in the early twentieth century. The author explores the role of Scythian motifs in Symbolist poetry and its links to occult thought. The article also shows how Scythianism played an important role in the development of Russian Futurist poetry and aesthetics. The article concludes with a discussion of the persistence of Scythian themes in the aftermath of the Revolution of 1917.

KEYWORDS:

• Scythian
• symbolism
• futurism
• Russian poetry
• Velimir Khlebnikov
• David Burliuk
• Vladimir Solovev

Notes

1. A. Zakrzhevskii, Rytsari bezumiia. Futuristy [Knights of derangement: the futurists] (Kiev: Petr Barskii, 1914), 4 and 55.

2. R. Ivanov-Razumnik, Ispytanie v groze i bure [Ordeal by storm] (Berlin: “Skify,” 1920), 196–7. The contours of revolutionary Scythianism as an anti-Western and anti-bourgeois trend were outlined in 1912 in a series of articles by Ivanov-Razumnik: R. Ivanov-Razumnik, “Chelovek i kul’tura” [“Man and culture”], Zavety, no 6 (1912).

3. D. Merezhkovskii, Griadushchii kham [Ham impends] (Saint Petersburg: M.V. Pirozhkov, 1906), 21.

4. E. Lundberg, Zapiski pisatelia [A writer’s notes] (Berlin: Ogon’ki, 1922), 119.

5. Herodotus, Istoriia [History] (Leningrad: Nauka, 1972), 195.

6. Lundberg, Zapiski pisatelia, 118–19.

7. M. Mikhailov, Estetika nemetskikh romantikov. Kommentarii [Aesthetics of the German romantics. Commentary] (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1987), 595–6.

8. Papus, Esotericheskie besedy" [“Esoteric conversations”], Isis, no 12 (November, 1912): 11.

9. A. St-Yves d’Alveydre, Missiia Indii v Evrope. Missiia Evropy v Azii [The Mission of India in Europe: the Mission of Europe in Asia] (Petrograd: Novyi chelovek, 1915).

10. É. Schuré, Velikie posviashchennye [The great initiates] (Kaluga: Tipografiia Gubernskoi Zemskoi Upravy, 1914), 32.

11. Ibid., 38.

12. M. Eliade, Occultism, Witchcraft, and Cultural Fashions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 53.

13. N. Berdiaev, Samopoznanie [Self-knowledge] (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1990), 187. Mikhail Agurskii in his study of the Russian Revolution stresses the importance of sectarian movements: “A mass movement of revolutionary religious nihilism undermined the foundations of the pre-revolutionary regime, and played a prominent role in the 1917 revolution, both in February and October. The religious nihilism of the sectarians soon found common ground with Bolshevism, despite their apparently contrary natures. This was primarily their aspiration to destroy the old world in its entirety and replace it with a new messianic center of the Earth.” M. Agurskii, Ideologiia Natsional-Bol’shevizma [The ideology of national Bolshevism] (Paris: YMCA Press, 1980), 26. Sectarian mysticism caught the attention of many cultural figures, including Rozanov, Berdiaev, Balmont, Belyi, Gippius, Evreinov, Blok, Kliuev, Kuzmin, Radlov, Kruchenykh, Guro, and Khlebnikov. Vast amounts of literature appeared, devoted to a great variety of sects, and many historians of religion date Sectarian Studies as an independent academic discipline from this time. On the influence of sectarianism on the work of many authors, see, passim: G. Ivask, “Russian Modernist Poets and the Mystic Sectarians,” in G. Gibian and H.W. Tjalsma, eds., Russian Modernism: Culture and the Avant-garde (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1976); G. Ivask, “O khlystakh i khlystovskoi poezii” [“The Khlysts and Khlyst poetry”], Vozrozhdenie (1970): CCXXV; T Nikol’skaia, “Tema misticheskogo sektantstva v russkoi poezii 20-kh godov XX veka” [“The theme of mystical sectarianism in Russian poetry of the 1920s”], Uchenye zapiski Tartuskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta 883 (1990): 157–169; A. Etkind, Sodom i Psikheia [Sodom and psyche] (Moscow: Its-Garant, 1996); and A. Etkind, Khlyst. Sekty, literatura i revoliutsiia [The Khlyst. Sects, literature and revolution] (Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 1998).

14. Z. Mints, “O nekotorykh neomifologicheskikh tekstakh v tvorchestve russkikh simvolistov” [“Some neo-mythological texts in the works of Russian symbolists”], Uchenye zapiski Tartuskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta 459 (1979): 78.

15. Lundberg, Zapiski pisatelia, 108.

16. V. Khlebnikov, Tvoreniia [Creations] (Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel’, 1986), 646.

17. B. Livshits, Polutoraglazyi strelets [The one and a half-eyed archer] (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1991), 80.

18. The sculpture depicted in this painting is one of Goncharova’s own works. She was guided by archaic design. I would like to thank G.G. Pospelov for pointing out this important detail.

19. S. Bobrov, Vertogradari nad lozami [Guardians of the vineyard] (Moscow: “Lirika,” 1913), 111–12.

20. Khlebnikov, Tvoreniia, 256.

21. D. Burliuk, Fragmenty iz vospominanii futurista [Fragments from a Futurist’s memoirs] (Saint Petersburg: Pushkinskii fond, 1994), 28.

22. Livshits, Polutoraglazyi strelets, 36.

23. The excavations were undertaken in 1911 by the archaeologist Viktor Goshkevich, and the Burliuks’ father also took an active part in the investigation of the Scythian past. He and Vladimir are included in a list of supporters of the Kherson Museum of Antiquities who in 1909, 1910 and 1911 “presented various items to the Museum or donated their work to it.” Khersonskii gorodskoi muzei Khersonskogo kraia. Letopis’ muzeia [Kherson Municipal Museum of the Kherson Region. Annals], compiled by V. Goshkevich (Kherson: Tipografiia S. D. Khodushinoi, 1912), 32, 34 and 27.

24. Livshits, Polutoraglazyi strelets, 37.

25. Khlebnikov, Tvoreniia, 708.

26. V. Kamenskii, Kniga o Evreinove [A book about Evreinov] (Petrograd, 1917), 41.

27. N. Evreinov, Teatr kak takovoi [Theater as such] (Saint Petersburg: N.I. Butkovskaia, 1912), 27–9.

28. Ibid., 30.

29. N. Evreinov, Teatr dlia sebia [Theater for oneself] (Petrograd: N.I. Butkovskaia, 1915–17), 59.

30. N. Goncharova, Indusskii i persidskii lubok. Vystavka ikonopisnykh podlinnikov i lubkov [Hindu and Persian popular prints: an exhibition of original icons and popular prints] (Moscow: Khudozhestvennyi salon, 1913), 11–12.

31. B. Livshits, “My i zapad” [“The West and us”], Terent’evskii sbornik 1 (1996): 256–7.

32. Lundberg, Zapiski pisatelia, 110.

33. Mikhail Agurskii writes of the post-revolutionary alliance between the new Scythians and the Bolsheviks, and about the importance of their Scythian ideology: “This was a temporary coalition, but its consequences long outlasted the participation of the Socialist Revolutionaries in the Bolshevik government, because it was during this brief period that the ideology of Scythianism was propounded by the Left SRs, and that was to exert exceptionally strong influence on the later Soviet society.” Agurskii, Ideologiia Natsional-Bol’shevizma, 16. Some motifs of Scythian mythology found their way into the ideology of Eurasianism, and interesting parallels can be found between Eurasianism and Futurism. This refraction of Futurist Scythianism and the messianism of the “budetlianye,” as well as other contributions of the avant-garde of the second decade of the century to the culture of the 1920s and 1930s, will require separate consideration.

34. Full members of the Academy included M. Matiushin, A. Lure, B. Kushner, and N. Punin. Lure and V. Shklovskii gave talks regularly. L. Bruni gave a talk on Tatlin, and Punin on “Khlebnikov and ‘The State of Time.’” In 1923 two meetings were devoted to the work of Elena Guro. E. Ivanova, “Vol’naia Filosofskaia Assotsiatsiia. Trudy i dni” [“The Free Philosophical Association: works and days”], in Ezhegodnik rukopisnogo otdela Pushkinskogo doma na 1992 god [Yearbook of the Manuscript Division of Pushkin House for 1992] (Saint Petersburg: IRLI RAN, 1996).

35. Anon, “Vmesto predisloviia” [“In place of a preface”], Skify, no 1 (1917): 7–11.

36. Ibid., 7–9.

37. R. Ivanov-Razumnik, Vladimir Maiakovskii. “Misteriia” ili “Buff” [Vladimir Mayakovsky: “Mysterium” or “Buffo”] (Berlin: “Skify,” 1922), 16, 19 and 31.

38. Agurskii, Ideologiia Natsional-Bol’shevizma, 25.

39. V. Khlebnikov et al., “A skit for workers with song, brush and chisel,” Bez muz, no 1 (1918): 47.

40. Ibid.

41. E. Metner, Rok i providenie [Fate and providence], Otdel rukopisei, Gosudarstvennoi Rossiiskoi Biblioteki [Manuscript Department, Russian State Library, Moscow], fond 167.

42. E. Metner, Chemberlen. Kul’tura i rasa [Chamberlain. Culture and race], Otdel rukopisei Gosudarstvennoi Rossiiskoi Biblioteki, fond 167.

43. O. Schrader, Indoevropeitsy [The Indo-Europeans] (Saint Petersburg: Izdanie P. Soikin, 1913), 23.

44. Schuré, Velikie posviashchennye, 27.

45. A. Belyi, “Pamiati A. Bloka” [“In memory of A. Blok”], in Pamiati A. Bloka (Tomsk: Vol’naia Filosofskaia Assotsiatsia, 1996), 39.

46. Ivanov-Razumnik, Ispytanie v groze i bure, 37.

47. Lundberg, Zapiski pisatelia, 137.

48. R. von Maidel, “O nekotorykh aspektakh vzaimodeistviia antroposofii i revoliutsionnoi mysli v Rossii” [“Some aspects of the interaction of Anthroposophy and Revolutionary thought in Russia”], Uchenye zapiski Tartuskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta 917 (1990): 69 and 74.

49. Agurskii, Ideologiia Natsional-Bol’shevizma, 41.

50. D. Burliuk, V. Mayakovsky, V. Kamenskii, “Manifest letuchei federatsii futuristov” [“Manifesto of the Flying Federation of Futurists”], Gazeta Futuristov, no 1 (1918).

51. V. Kamenskii, Ego–Moia biografiia Velikogo Futurista [His–my biography of a great Futurist] (Moscow: Kitovras, 1918), 176. Notions of a third spiritual revolution were also actively developed by the Tvorchestvo (Creativity) group, consisting of N. Aseev, D. Burliuk and S. Tretiakov, which formed in the years immediately after the revolution in the Far East around N. Chuzhak, who supported “Left” painters. One of those involved in the first issue of A Cage for Judges, Sergei Miasoedov, organized an “Alliance for the Spiritual Revolution” in Petrograd to “combat those remnants of the past which have firmly nested in the psyche of every person.” Novaia zhizn’, no 25 (May 1917): 6.

52. Ivanov-Razumnik, Ispytanie v groze i bure, 12–13. The cultural sphere was regarded by the new Scythians as an area where revolutions occurred that were of no less power and value than social and political revolutions. In 1918 Andrei Belyi wrote: “Revolution begins in the spirit; we see in it a rebellion against the material body; developing the spiritual profile comes later; in the revolution of economic and legal relations we see the effects of a wave of spiritual revolution … The revolution in the relations of production is a reflection of the revolution, not the revolution itself. The pure revolution, the revolution as such, is still only emerging out of the mists of the coming era. In relation to this revolution, all others are just warning tremors, because they are bourgeois and occur within the evolutionary compass of a huge epoch we call ‘history’; the impending era is ahistorical and global.” Andrei Belyi, “Revoliutsiia i kul’tura” [“Revolution and culture”], in Simvolizm kak miroponimanie [Symbolism as a mode of understanding] (Moscow: Respublika, 1994), 297 and 303.

53. On this level, Scythianism itself is associated (although its propagandists are often not entirely aware of the fact) with the deep sources of many religious movements dating back to the first centuries of Christianity. This may explain the persistent interest in sectarian mysticism evinced by such members of the Scythian movement as Blok, Belyi, Kliuev, and Remizov. A similar interest is evident among such Futurists as Kruchenykh, Khlebnikov, Guro, Kamenskii, and Matiushin. Mikhail Agurskii emphasizes the fundamental importance of sectarian mysticism for Scythian ideology: “One of the sources of Scythianism was radical sectarianism, particularly that part of it which was fraught with revolutionary nihilism that expressed itself in a religious repudiation of the state, society, all secular laws, and even religious commandments, which were seen as no longer binding on someone possessed of a personal revelation of the Holy Spirit … Russian religious nihilism, just like nihilistic medieval cults, was profoundly apocalyptic. It lived in the expectation of a cataclysm, ahead of which the ‘abomination of desolation’ upon the earth had reached such a degree, that the world was in need of a cleansing fire.” Agurskii, Ideologiia Natsional-Bol’shevizma, 25.

54. Mircea Eliade, Aspects du mythe [Aspects of Myth] (Paris: Gallimard, 1963), 218.

55. Lundberg, Zapiski pisatelia, 150.

56. Quoted from Bengt Jangfeldt, Majakovskij and Futurism, 1917–1921 (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1977), 70.

57. Livshits, “My i zapad,” 227.