Page:Knight (1975) Past, Future and the Problem of Communication in the Work of V V Khlebnikov.djvu/44

36 Chapter Six:

FUTURISM AND THE CONCEPT OF 'BYT'.

This chapter develops the concept of what Khlebnikov's art stood against. In previous chapters, it was shown that Khlebnikov fought against the "condemnation of time", and it was suggested that his art represented a revolt against many aspects of civilization, including its individualism, its loneliness and its literacy. This chapter shows how the art of Khlebnikov and his colleagues was directed against what in Russian is thought of as 'byt', a concept which in a way unites the idea of being "condemned by time" with the idea of the fixed, stable norms which civilization represents.