As an artistic and literary movement, Russian futurism has diverse origins. Foremost, it is an extension of Italian futurism, which was an Avant-guard movement, which emerged from charismatic figures like F.T. Marinetti.

The Russian futurists, however, reject the Fascist tendencies of the Italian movement. There was also substantial influence from previous Russian art (impressionism) and literature (symbolism). James Richie will discuss the work by artist Elena Guro whose work evidences many of the trends in the transition from symbolism to futurism. As it became established, futurism adopted a poetics called “zaum” or “beyonsence” (meaning beyond the sensical) which challenged the very conventions of language itself. Velimir Khlebnikov, a master of this poetic style, will be the other writer discussed.

This conversation will be held on Zoom, at 4.00 pm PDT, 6.00 pm CDT, 7 pm EDT and will be streaming on the Globus Books YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/GlobusBooksSF/videos. To register for the Zoom conference, please send a private message to Globus Books Facebook page. Free, but with a limited number of seats.

James Richie is originally from Minnesota. He holds a Master of Arts in Language, Literature, and Translation from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. While he primarily studied Italian to English translation, his interest in Italian literature and the Russian language lead him to have a strong interest in the Russian futurist movement. He has published English translations of works by Khlebnikov, Kruchyonikh, and Guro. He frequently publishes translations in Four Centuries – Russian Poetry in Translation, and his translation of a Guro play will be published in the December 2020 issue of the University of Zadar’s [sic] - a journal of literature, culture and literary translation. He also publishes translations of Italian and Spanish translations in Ezra an Online Journal of Translation. He read his translation of a Khlebnikov poem as part of this year’s Alexis Levitin Bilingual Reading Series at the American Literary Translators Association Conference.

This program is produced and hosted by author Zarina Zabrisky.