Item #1672 [RUSSIAN FUTURISM AND ITS MUSES] Zor [i.e. Vision]. N. Aseev.
[RUSSIAN FUTURISM AND ITS MUSES] Zor [i.e. Vision]
[RUSSIAN FUTURISM AND ITS MUSES] Zor [i.e. Vision]
[RUSSIAN FUTURISM AND ITS MUSES] Zor [i.e. Vision]

[RUSSIAN FUTURISM AND ITS MUSES] Zor [i.e. Vision]

Item #1672

Moscow: Liren’, 1914. [2], 16 pp.+1 p. of ad. 18x13,5 cm. In original illustrated wrappers. Covers slightly faded and restored, otherwise very good.
Lithographed throughout. One of 200 copies. Extremely rare.
An early book of poetry by one of the founders of the Left Front of the Arts, researcher of Russian verse and poet Nikolai Aseev (1889-1963). He studied at the historical and philological faculties of Moscow and Kharkiv universities from which he graduated in 1913. In Kharkiv, he only enjoyed visiting the Sinyakov sisters. They are called muses of Russian futurism. According to Lily Brik, “Boris Pasternak courted Nadezhda, David Burliuk was close with Maria, Grigory Petnikov courted Vera while Nikolai Aseev was romantically linked with Ksenia”. At the insistence of his father, Aseev moved from Kharkiv to Moscow and enrolled in the Moscow Commercial Institute. The main event for the poet was acquaintance with V. Mayakovsky.
In 1913, the poems of Nikolai Aseev were published in the almanac “Lirika” [Lyric]. In the same year, together with B. Pasternak and S. Bobrov, Aseev organized their own group of futurists “Tsentrifuga” [Centrifuge]. Soon they were joined by new members: V. Khlebnikov, M. Sinyakova, Bozhidar [B. Gordeev], G. Petnikov. Over the next four years, Aseev released five collections of poems: ‘Nochnaia fleita’ [Night Flute], ‘Zor’ [Vision], ‘Letorey’, ‘The Fourth Book of Poems’ and ‘Oksana’.
Cover design of ‘Zor’ was created by one of the sisters, graphic artist Maria Siniakova (1890-1984). She was a member of Khlebnikov’s “Society of Chairmen of the Globe” and Aseev’s “Centrifuge”. In 1910-1940, she worked on books by Kruchenykh, Aseev, Chukovsky, Mayakovsky, et al. Aseev dedicated almost all poems of ‘Zor’ to another sister, Ksenia Siniakova whom he married in 1917. An exception is the poem “Tun’”. This work was devoted to the designer Maria Siniakova-Urechina.
After the Revolution, Aseev continued his leftist path in the Far East where he turned up during the Civil War. He was a member of the art group ‘Tvorchestvo’ [Creativity] headed N. Chuzhak until Lunacharsky called Aseev for return to Moscow in 1922.
The last leaf advertises other books of the Liren’ publishing house.
Paper copies are located in Yale and Harvard Universities, Getty Institute, Amherst College, NYPL.

Price: $6,500.00

See all items in Avant-garde
See all items by