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[FUTURISM] Rzhanoe slovo : Revoliutsionnaia khrestomatiia futuristov [i.e. Rye Word : Futurists’ Revolutionary Reader]

Item #1679

Petrograd: 18-ia Gosudarstvennaia tipografiia, 1918. 58 pp. 27x20,5 cm. Original front cover preserved. Back cover supplied. Front cover restored. Otherwise very good and clean internally.
Civil wartime edition. One of 5000 copies.
Cover design was created by Vladimir Mayakovsky and, according to O. Brik, the introductory article ‘Everybody Should Read This Book’ was also written by him. “We have limited our book with those Russian poets whose verses we considered rye and relevant” – Mayakovsky stressed in this manifesto of futurism.
The collection contains poetry by N. Aseev, D. Burliuk, V. Kamenskii, V. Mayakovsky, V. Khlebnikov and prose by B. Kushner. Calling themselves revolutionaries of the word, young poets praised class struggle, extolled horrors and romance of contemporary changes. They expressed ideas through chaotic rhythms, grotesque images and new words. In the foreword, A. Lunacharsky endorsed futurists’ publication: “The Commission of Education willingly helped them with the edition ‘Rye Word’. They are young and youth is revolutionary. In Mayakovsky’s poetry, we hear lots of notes that won’t leave any young revolutionary indifferent”.
Nikolai Aseev contributed four poems from the book ‘Oksana’ (1916) printed at the Centrifuge publishing house. David Burliuk added four poems previously published in ‘Newspaper of Futurists’ (1918) and ‘Fall Anthology’. During the revolutionary years, Vasily Kamensky’s play ‘Stepan Razin’ was popular and its fragment was taken from the book ‘Zvuchal’ vesneianki’ (1918). Boris Kushner published prose from the book ‘Rally of Palaces’ (1918). Then, Vladimir Mayakovsky’s three works followed. Earlier they were introduced in the editions ‘Newspaper of Futurists’ and ‘War and Peace’ (1917). The last section features two works by Velemir Khlebnikov, including a poem from ‘Impressionist Studio’ (1910).
Of them, Boris Kushner was executed in 1937 and later all his literary heritage was banned.
Paper copies are located in Harvard, Yale, Illinois, Duke, Brown Universities, Getty Institute, Amherst College.

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