Page:Knight (1975) Past, Future and the Problem of Communication in the Work of V V Khlebnikov.djvu/85

77 KHLEBNIKOV'S VIEWS on the artist's active role, his idea on a world government and his yearning for involvement in the affairs of mankind originated to a large extent (like his other ideas) in a revolt against certain implications of Symbolism. Essentially, they were his answer to the escapism of the Symbolists. Georgette Donchin writes:
 * Actually, almost the entire range of subjects in symbolist poetry can be correlated to the one theme of escapism. The importance attributed to art assumes a new significance if one considers, as the symbolists did, that art is the best means to forget life, for it allows the poet to live in a passive way and frees him from the duty of active participation in life. Escapism forces the modernists to prefer dreams to reality. Just as imaginative experience is preferred to life, the world of artificial inventions is preferred to reality and, at the same time, while the world is being transformed into a playhouse and man into an actor, the deepest emotions become simply theatrical subjects. Shunning life, the modernists move away from people, into solitude and death.

Khlebnikov‘s revolt against this escapist tendency was thorough-going. His struggle for the future, his mathematical preoccupations, his views about language and virtually all his interests and attempts can be seen as expressions of this revolt. Perhaps the most 'extreme' form of Khlebnikov's anti-escapism became clear when he began urging his colleagues to help in the establishment of a world government of artists and scientists which would transform the globe—the "Presidents of the Terrestrial Sphere".

However, this "governmental" project should not be taken as a peculiar "oddity" of Khlebnikov's but seen as a logical correlate of his linguistic and other strivings. Being a poet, and