Page:Knight (1975) Past, Future and the Problem of Communication in the Work of V V Khlebnikov.djvu/13

5 He was sent down from University in February 1904, although he was re-admitted in July of the same year. It was at about this time that Khlebnikov began writing poetry, some of it in imitation of Russian folk-lore.

Khlebnikov was deeply affected by the sinking of the Russian fleet by the Japanese at Tsushima, and made a pledge, which he carved into the bark of a tree, to discover the mathematical laws which he felt lay behind this event. He was impressed with the idea that a new force was arising in the East. He was also aroused by the ensuing 1905 Russian revolution, becoming, according to Stepanov, enthusiastically involved in meetings, in protecting Jews from pogroms and in the work of an unknown revolutionary-terrorist circle. His sister recalls:

"I remember how joyfully he first went to university. Everyone looked inquisitively at this blue-eyed lad in his brand—new student's uniform. But that was only at first. The lectures began to dissatisfy him, he began skipping them, preferring to read books instead. Then, probably around the year 1905, he began taking an interest in politics, and then in the revolutionary movement. I remember how he once locked the door of his room and solemnly took out from under the bed a gendarme's coat and sabre. According to him, it was into such dress that he and his comrades had to change in order to hold up some mail coach. But the thing was called off. And one day, with my childish assistance, he sewed it all up in his mattress, far from our parents' eyes!"

Khlebnikov's delving into revolutionary politics had not, it seems, been very serious or practical, but it had set a pattern in his sympathies which he was never to lose.

In the autumn of 1908 Khlebnikov enrolled at the University of St. Petersburg, where he was to study biology and