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Aksenov BOOK Other titles in the Södertörn Academic Studies series Lars Kleberg (Stockholm) is Professor emeritus of Russian at Södertörn University. He has published numerous Samuel Edquist, � �uriks fotspår: �m forntida svenska articles on Russian avant-garde theater, Russian and österledsfärder i modern historieskrivning, 2012. Polish literature. His book �tarfall: � �riptych has been translated into fi ve languages. In 2010 he published a Jonna Bornemark (ed.), �henomenology of �ros, 2012. literary biography of Anton Chekhov, �jechov och friheten Jonna Bornemark and Hans Ruin (eds.), �mbiguity of ([Chekhov and Freedom], Stockholm: Natur & Kultur). the �acred, forthcoming. Aleksei Semenenko (Stockholm) is Research fellow at Håkan Nilsson (ed.), �lacing �rt in the �ublic the Slavic Department of Stockholm University. He is the �ealm, 2012. author of �ussian �ranslations of �amlet and �iterary �anon �ormation (Stockholm University, 2007), �he Per Bolin, �etween �ational and �cademic �gendas, �exture of �ulture: �n �ntroduction to �uri �otman’s forthcoming. �emiotic �heory (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), and articles on Russian culture, translation and semiotics. Ларс Клеберг (Стокгольм) эмерит-профессор Седертoрнского университета, чьи многочисленные публикации посвящены театру русского авангарда и русской и польской литературе. Его книга Звездопад. Триптих была переведена на пять языков. В 2010 году вышла его биография А. П. Чехова �jechov och friheten [«Чехов и свобода»]. Алексей Семененко (Стокгольм) научный сотрудник Славянского института Стокгольмского университета, автор монографий �ussian �ranslations of �amlet and �iterary �anon �ormation и �he �exture of �ulture: �n �ntroduction to �uri �otman’s �emiotic �heory, а также работ по русской культуре, переводу и семиотике. Södertörns högskola [email protected] www.sh.se/publications Other titles in the Södertörn Academic Studies series Lars Kleberg (Stockholm) is Professor emeritus of Russian at Södertörn University. He has published numerous Samuel Edquist, � �uriks fotspår: �m forntida svenska articles on Russian avant-garde theater, Russian and österledsfärder i modern historieskrivning, 2012. Polish literature. His book �tarfall: � �riptych has been translated into fi ve languages. In 2010 he published a Jonna Bornemark (ed.), �henomenology of �ros, 2012. literary biography of Anton Chekhov, �jechov och friheten Jonna Bornemark and Hans Ruin (eds.), �mbiguity of ([Chekhov and Freedom], Stockholm: Natur & Kultur). the �acred, forthcoming. Aleksei Semenenko (Stockholm) is Research fellow at Håkan Nilsson (ed.), �lacing �rt in the �ublic the Slavic Department of Stockholm University. He is the �ealm, 2012. author of �ussian �ranslations of �amlet and �iterary �anon �ormation (Stockholm University, 2007), �he Per Bolin, �etween �ational and �cademic �gendas, �exture of �ulture: �n �ntroduction to �uri �otman’s forthcoming. �emiotic �heory (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), and articles on Russian culture, translation and semiotics. Ларс Клеберг (Стокгольм) эмерит-профессор Седертoрнского университета, чьи многочисленные публикации посвящены театру русского авангарда и русской и польской литературе. Его книга Звездопад. Триптих была переведена на пять языков. В 2010 году вышла его биография А. П. Чехова �jechov och friheten [«Чехов и свобода»]. Алексей Семененко (Стокгольм) научный сотрудник Славянского института Стокгольмского университета, автор монографий �ussian �ranslations of �amlet and �iterary �anon �ormation и �he �exture of �ulture: �n �ntroduction to �uri �otman’s �emiotic �heory, а также работ по русской культуре, переводу и семиотике. Södertörns högskola [email protected] www.sh.se/publications AKSENOV AND THE ENVIRONS АКСЕНОВ И ОКРЕСТНОСТИ Edited by Lars Kleberg & Aleksei Semenenko Södertörns högskola Huddinge Södertörns högskola 2012 Södertörn Academic Studies 52 ISSN 1650-433X ISBN 978-91-86069-54-4 © 2012 editorial matter Lars Kleberg and Aleksei Semenenko © 2012 individual contributors Cover design by Aleksei Semenenko Frontispiece: silhouette of Ivan Aksenov by S. Medvedevskii (1929) Distribution: Södertörns högskola, Biblioteket S-141 89 Huddinge Phone: + 46 (0)8 608 40 00 E-mail: [email protected] Contents Preface vii List of Illustrations viii Introduction 1 «Белые» и «темные» пятна биографии И. А. Аксенова 7 Наталья Адаскина Из истории хлебниковедения: О неизвестном докладе И. А. Аксенова 21 Александр Парнис [О Хлебникове] 55 Иван Аксенов Жизнетворчество Сусанны Map 77 Татьяна Никольская Аксенов – переводчик елизаветинцев 83 Михаил Мейлах Ivan Aksenov’s Novel The Pillars of Hercules 105 Lars Kleberg Vitrina and afisha 123 John Bowlt О поэзии и живописи: Иван Аксенов и Александра Экстер 133 Корнелия Ичин Иван Аксенов и окрестности. Заметки о восприятии Пикассо в России 147 Даниела Рицци Ivan Aksenov, Nikolai Berdiaev, Picasso, and the “Russian Soul” 161 Nicoletta Misler Аксенов, Эйзенштейн, или Кто был тенью отца Гамлета 173 Оксана Булгакова «Зрительная музыка Эйзенштейна». Заметки к Портрету художника И. А. Аксенова 195 Наташа Друбек Эйзенштейн – Аксенов – Эйзенштейн: как создаются биографии 209 Ирина Белобровцева Transcultural Dramaturgy: Aksenov, Eisenstein, the Elizabethans, and Mei Lanfang 221 Janne Risum «Романтический дискурс» Ивана Аксенова 231 Алексей Семененко Contributors 241 Preface The present book is the result of a symposium “Aksenov and the Environs” held in May 2008 at Krusenberg (Sweden). We thank the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies, the Swedish Research Council, Vera Sagers stiftelse, and Riksbankens Jubileumsfond for generously sponsoring and supporting the event. Throughout the book, Ivan Aksenov’s works are cited by volume and page num- ber from I. A. Aksenov, Iz tvorcheskogo naslediia v dvukh tomakh, ed. by Natal’ia Adaskina (Moscow: RA, 2008). With the exception of internationally known names such as Meyerhold, Eisen- stein, and others, Russian names in the English chapters follow the Library of Congress transliteration system. vii List of Illustrations 1. Афиша вечера в память В. Хлебникова, 30 мая 1924 г. 45 2. The Pillars of Hercules on the title page of Francis Bacon’s Instauratio Magna (1620) 119 3. А. Экстер. Флоренция (1914) 137 4. А. Экстер. Иллюстрации к сборнику Неуважительные основания И. Аксенова (1916) 143–144 5. И. Аксенов. Гамлет и другие опыты… (1930) 235 viii Introduction If one were to imagine a collective photo in which the Russian artistic avant- garde of the 1910s and 1920s—poets, painters, actors, musicians, directors, crit- ics—is gathered together in a single, big picture, Ivan Aleksandrovich Aksenov (1884–1935) would surely be in it. Just as certain, however, is that he would be standing hidden behind someone else, in the shadows, or, although present, would not be seen at all. Ivan Aksenov, critic, poet, and translator, was a brilliant representative of the genre-crossing and internationalist spirit of Russian avant-garde art. For differ- ent reasons, however, his life and works have remained unknown outside a small circle of initiated readers. During the Soviet era he was soon marginalized be- cause of his a-ideological position. Later, specialized scholars have for various reasons skipped over him, mentioning only en passant that he was an original member of the multi-faceted Russian avant-garde movement. Aksenov published one of the first theoretical books on Picasso in the year of the 1917 revolutions, but for obvious external reasons it evoked hardly any re- sponse at the time. In the 1920s he was close to the Constructivists and worked in Vsevolod Meyerhold’s theater, also serving as the dean of its directors’ school. Aksenov’s analysis of the problems of mise-en-scène, more geometrical than ideological, influenced a new generation of directors headed by Sergei Eisen- stein. The last decade of his life he devoted to translations and essays on Elizabe- than drama. It is precisely the amazing many-sidedness of Aksenov’s person that, para- doxically enough, has allowed his work to go unobserved by most specialists both in Russia and abroad. Nobody seems to have been able to place him com- fortably in any one category. Art historians have at best paid attention to his art criticism, but they have neglected its relation to his literary work. Philologists have taken interest in his futurist poetry and even included it in anthologies, but without considering the rest of his literary work, i.e., the large body of literary criticism and the whole oeuvre of original translations. Film specialists have noted Aksenov as the author of the penetrating portrait of his ex-student Sergei Eisenstein but they have devoted hardly any interest to what the teacher actually might have taught the young director about the art of drama, the problems of mise en scène, composition, etc. The logical place to find a synthetic portrait of a personality like Ivan Aksenov’s would seem to be an encyclopedia. But in Liter- Introduction aturnaia entsiklopediia of the 1930s his name has no entry. He is also conspicu- ously absent from Teatral’naia entsiklopediia and the eight-volume Kratkaia literaturnaia entsiklopediia of the 1960s. Only in the supplement to the latter, which was published in 1978, was Tatyana Nikolskaya able to present him in a short article. In the meantime, Vladimir Markov had sketched the first portrait of Aksenov as a poet and critic in his pioneering Russian Futurism (1968). One had to wait, however, till the publication of the first volume of the post- perestroika biographical
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