Page:Knight (1975) Past, Future and the Problem of Communication in the Work of V V Khlebnikov.djvu/189

181 one could make a convincing case for the idea that Khlebnikov's version of Futurism was nothing but Symbolism in "extremist" form. What to Bely, Ivanov and others were merely fascinating ideas with some relevance to the realms of the mind, Khlebnikov took seriously and literally, and insisted on putting into practice in the most uncompromising way. Had words a magic power? To Khlebnikov, the answer was that they had, or should have. But Bely's "magic" was all in the realms of the mind. Words, for him, were "world-creating"-—but they created neither heaven nor earth but some "third world“ of a mystical character in between. Khlebnikov wanted to take Bely's own idea much more seriously than that. He wanted to create a language of literally earth-changing force. His "transrational language" was to abolish war, abolish territorial states and unite all mankind in a "state of time". Nadezhda Mandel'stam is right to see in this a certain relationship with both Symbolism and the atmosphere of extreme optimism characteristic of the artists: who supported the Bolsheviks and later were organized into LEF. Khlebnikov's reaction against the Symbolists was primarily focussed on their pessimism, which led them to "betray", in a sense, some of their own most meaningful (to Khlebnikov) promises and ideals.

One can say something similar of the Symbolists' belief in the use of words as symbols through which the mind is brought into touch with "another world". Admittedly, the fundamental point of futurist theory was that the word was not a symbol, and not a means to any end other than itself. But what of the significance to Khlebnikov of "the future"? Was this not in a sense "a world beyond“? In actual fact, the parallel here is quite close. Khlebnikov wrote of the