Term first used in 1913 in a lecture, later published, by the Russian art critic Korney Chukovsky (1882-1969) in reference to a group of Russian avant-garde poets whose work was seen to relate to French Cubism and Italian Futurism; it was subsequently adopted by painters and is now used by art historians to refer to Russian art works of the period 1912-15 that combine aspects of both styles. Initially the term was applied to the work of the poets Vladimir Mayakovsky, Aleksey Kruchonykh, Velimir Khlebnikov, Benedikt Livshits (1886-1939) and Vasily Kamensky (1864-1961), who were grouped around the painter David Burlyuk. Their raucous poetry recitals, public clowning, painted faces and ridiculous clothes emulated the activities of the Italians and earned them the name of Russian Futurists. In poetic output, however, only Mayakovsky could be compared with the Italians; his poem 'Along the Echoes of the City', for example, which describes various street noises, is reminiscent of Luigi Russolo's manifesto L'arte dei rumori (Milan, 1913).
See the Abbreviations for further details.
