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The odd and brilliant works of Daniil Kharms and Alexander Vvedenskii were lost to both Russia and the West for some thirty years* It was the misfortune of these writers to be nurtured in a period of literary experiment that was cut off suddenly just as they were starting out. Their first steps, taken under the aegis of an antic literary group called Oberiu, turned out to be the only public testament of their career, and to this day Oberiu remains the touchstone of their notoriety in the West. The connection is unfortunate, because the silence that was forced on the group became paradoxically the silence under which Kharms and Vvedenskii matured as writers. Their later works, masterpieces of black humor with an infusion of the sacred, are firmly rooted in the Russian tradition, and bear comparison with the finest works of the European theater of the absurd.
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Wiener Slawistischer Almanach ∙ Sonderband ∙ 5 (eBook - Digi20-Retro)
Alice S. Nakhimovsky
Laughter in the Void An Introduction to the Writings of Daniii Kharms and Aleksandr Vvedenskij
Verlag Otto Sagner München ∙ Berlin ∙ Washington D.C. Digitalisiert im Rahmen der Kooperation mit dem DFG-Projekt „Digi20“ der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek, München. OCR-Bearbeitung und Erstellung des eBooks durch den Verlag Otto Sagner: http://verlag.kubon-sagner.de © bei Verlag Otto Sagner. Eine Verwertung oder Weitergabe der Texte und Abbildungen, insbesondere durch Vervielfältigung, ist ohne vorherige schriftliche Genehmigung des Verlages unzulässig. «Verlag Otto Sagner» ist ein Imprint der Kubon & Sagner GmbH.
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ALICE STONE NAKHIMOVSKY
LAUGHTEE IN THE VOID An introduction to the writings of DaniilKliarms and Alexander Vvedenskii
WIENER SLAWISTISCHER ALMANACH SONDERBAND 5
00064810
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WIENER SŁAWI STI SCHER ALMANACH SONDERBAND (L IT ER A R IS C H E R E I H E ,
5
HERAUSGEGEBEN VON A.
h a n s e n -l ö v e )
Wien 1982
Titelgraphik: Plakat für einen OBÈRIU-Abend "Tri levych časa" vom 24.1.1928
DRUCK
Offsetschnelldruck Anton Riegelnik, A-1080 Wien, Piaristengasse 19 Zu beziehen über: Wiener Slawistischer Almanach, Institut für Slawistik der Universität Wien, A-1010 Wien, Liebiggasse 5 ©
WIENER SLAWISTISCHER ALMANACH
00064810
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In one form or another, this book has been in the works for seven years. But my first acknowledgements go back farther than that, to George Gibian, my professor at Cornell, who introduced me to the works of Kharms and Vvedenskii and was extraodinarily generous in sharing manuscripts and giving advice. A number of people at Cornell were of great help with the manuscript in its various stages. Richard L. Leed read the poetry sections with a linguist1s eye for metrics, prodding them into considerable improvement. Patricia Carden took time out to give me the benefit of her sharp editorial skills. Of the friends and colleagues who read various chapters, I would particularly like to thank Elizabeth Dobbs of Grinnell, an incisive reader of great patience, and Henry Orlov of Williams, who was an invaluable source of information for philosophical and historical background. Mikhail Meilakh, editor of the collected works of Kharms and Vvedenskii,
let me see unpub-
lished manuscripts and answered questions. Irina Paperno and Boris Gasparov,
late of Tartu University and now of Stanford,
gave me intellectual and moral support, and only Slava Paperno knows what egregious pitfalls his meticulous reading and bilingual typing have spared me. To Ilya Levin of the University of Texas, Austin, my great thanks for his participation in the Great Manuscript Exchange and for all his help thereafter. My colleagues at Colgate,