A Futurist Emulation of Horace

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of Alexey Kruchenykh’s and Velimir Khlebnikov’s collective poem Pamiatnik (The Monument), published in the futurist brochure Slovo kak takovoe (“The Word as Such”; 1913). The poem belongs to the “genre” of emulations of Horace’s “Exegi monumentum aere perennius…” (Carmina III, 30), quite widespread and important in Russian poetry. Kruchenykh’s and Khlebnikov’s poem contains, on the one hand, parodistic references to the well-known “monument” poems of Alexander Pushkin and Gavriil Derzhavin. At the same time, the futurist Monument represents an entirely serious continuation of the tradition of the Horace emulations, reflecting the authors’ self-confident conviction of their poetic immortality and of the avoidance of the oblivion by means of the proper creative work.

Keywords

• a.e. kruchenykh
• v.v. khlebnikov
• a.s. pushkin
• g.r. derzhavin
• poetological poetry