Item #121 [FUTURIST LANGUAGE] Grammatika yazyka chelovechestva AO, perevod s AO [i.e. Grammar of the Language of the Mankind. Translated from AO]. Beobi, V. L. Gordin.
[FUTURIST LANGUAGE] Grammatika yazyka chelovechestva AO, perevod s AO [i.e. Grammar of the Language of the Mankind. Translated from AO].

[FUTURIST LANGUAGE] Grammatika yazyka chelovechestva AO, perevod s AO [i.e. Grammar of the Language of the Mankind. Translated from AO].

Moscow: Chelovechestvo [i.e. Mankind], [1920]. Item #121

[2], 20 pp. 16x13 cm. In contemporary wrappers. Tears and soiling of the wrappers. Otherwise very good.

In 1915 Velimir Khlebnikov founded ‘Soyuz 317’ (i.e. The Unity of 317 or The Society of the Chairmen of the Globe), and soon it was joined by the members of artistic avant-garde elite like Prokofiev or Rabindranath Tagore. Khlebnikov’s proclamations of that time transmitted ideas of universal brotherhood and the unity of people of culture who are destined to rule the universe. This brochure was created by Gordin brothers who were influenced by Khelbnikov’s ideas (hence the pseudonym of the author of the text – Beobi which was taken from Khlebnikov’s poem). The Gordin brothers took futuristic ideas on the new anarchic level.
Brothers Aba (1887-1964) and Volf Gordin were theoreticians of anarchism, followers of Kropotkin and Bakunin. Aba was the founder of a new movement — individualist anarchism (or universalist anarchism). They’ve created their own organization and called themselves «panarchists». In 1917-1920 they published several brochures on panarchism. In 1920 Volf created language of international communication and named it AO. On the first page of this grammar book it’s stated: «There is no god, no nature. Talk like humans, use ‘AO’». In the brochure they give alphabet, pronunciation rules, parts of speech, abbreviations etc. There were only eleven sounds in the language, five vowels and six consonants. In writing sounds were depicted by numbers. Gordin stressed that his language is universal, and universality excludes any existing alphabets. In 1924 writing of the language was reformed, and AO-2 was presented at the First International exhibition of interplanetary machines and mechanisms in 1927 as the language of cosmic communication. This brochure isn’t recorded anywhere. Possibly one of the few copies produced.

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