Page:Knight (1975) Past, Future and the Problem of Communication in the Work of V V Khlebnikov.djvu/188

180 APPENDIX 'A'.

A Note on Khlebnikov and Symbolism.

It is often argued that Futurism, far from being a revolt against Symbolism, was in reality the reverse: a continuation of it in more extreme form. A particularly vehement expression of this viewpoint has recently been made by Nadezhda Mandel'stam in her "Hope Abandoned". Noting that the Futurists "were received with open arms by the Symbolists, in an almost fatherly way", she comments:


 * It seems to me that the Symbolists showed discernment in regarding the Futurists as their direct descendants and heirs. The Futurists took what the Symbolists had begun to its logical conclusion...

Mrs. Mandel'stam is thinking of the anti-Christian, paganistic-mystical streak in Symbolism, its adoption of the principle that "all is permitted" in morals as in art, and its view of words as symbols capable of carrying the reader into a "world beyond". The exaggerated "license", lack of self—restraint, dissatisfaction with "this world" and artist-cult of the Symbolists led, in her view, to the Bolshevism of the Futurists. In her View, the real anti-Symbolist rebels were the Acmeists in general and her husband in particular. They were disciplined and restrained. They refused to probe the unknowable. They had no wish for "other worlds", accepting this one as the "God-given palace". They made no world—shattering claims of their art.

All of this is quite important and perceptive, and it is certainly true that Khlebnikov in particular to a large extent carried Symbolism to its "logical conclusions". In fact,