Page:Knight (1975) Past, Future and the Problem of Communication in the Work of V V Khlebnikov.djvu/124

116 Ever since the "Lay of Igor's Campaign" and the period of the byliny, real word-art had fallen into disuse and
 * everything was done to muffle the primeval feeling for the native language...

The word had become an automatic, mechanical, repetitive instrument of thought, while
 * everything which connects it with its kinsmen and the springs of existence—is unnoticed.

It was in a revolt against the reign of byt in language that Kruchenykh made such exaggerated statements as
 * the more disorder we introduce into the construction of sentences—the better.

We have noted that Khlebnikov championed Russia's "singers" as opposed to her "writers". He believed that "the song" and "the book" in Russia belonged in "different camps". He yearned for a "bonfire of books" —and also for a "second language of songs." He described his word-creation technique as "the enemy of the bookish fossilization of language." Livshits praised Khlebnikov for "a discovery of language in its liquid state." Khlebnikov condemned "language borrowed from dusty libraries" as "alien, not one's own language". And he curiously associated the overthrow of this "bookish-fossilized" language—with the unification of mankind and the overthrow of all "states of space."