July 21: David Burliuk – the father of Russian Futurism
On July 21st, David Burliuk, a poet and artist known as the father of Russian Futurism, was born on a farm near Kharkiv. He became a first-wave émigré: first to Japan, then to the United States, where he spent the rest of his life, maintaining his avant-garde principles.
The soul is a tavern, and the sky is rags,
Poetry is a tattered girl,
And beauty is blasphemous trash
Childhood and disability
Burliuk's father worked as a manager on large estates in southern Russia, and his mother was a passionate artist. The family often staged home theater performances and read books aloud.
As a child, Burliuk lost his left eye during a fight with his younger brother. He wore a glass prosthesis and a lorgnette—a detail later recalled by poet Nikolai Aseyev:
artificial eye
covered himself with a lorgnette;
a sarcastically curved mouth
hummed,
it seemed like something polite;
but caustic
mockery
knew how to kill outright
Studies and first experiences in painting
Burliuk graduated from high school and art school. He wrote poetry and prose from childhood, making his published debut at 19. He also began painting seriously at that time: he painted the walls of Zaporizhian huts, created portraits of peasants, and painted steppe landscapes with rural mud huts.
He attempted to enroll in the Imperial Academy of Arts but failed the exam. He then went to study in Germany and France, where he became fascinated with Impressionism.
Outrageousness and the birth of "Gilea"
Returning to Russia in 1906, Burliuk, along with his brothers and sister, began organizing flamboyant exhibitions. He championed cutting-edge art, exploring fresh techniques and methods in painting, calling for "free drawing," rejecting academic rules, and embracing "barbaric traditions"—the art of Ancient Egypt. He was one of the first to use glued-on pieces of plywood and gears in his works.
Art critic Igor Grabar described the impressions of such exhibitions as follows:
When you enter the exhibition, you get the impression that there's no one here except the Burliuks. One writes in squares and numbers, another with commas, and a third with a mop.
Around the same time, Burliuk founded the literary group "Gileya," which included writers Vasily Kamensky, Velimir Khlebnikov, and Vladimir Mayakovsky. In their famous manifesto, "A Slap in the Face of Public Taste," they called for "throwing Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and so on, and so forth, off the Steamship of Modernity." The group toured Russian cities, shocking audiences with performances in bright costumes and painted faces.
I like a pregnant man
How good he is at the Pushkin monument
It was this group that became the backbone of the Futurist movement in the country. Burliuk himself formulated his aesthetics as follows:
A true work of art can be compared to a battery from which the energy of electrical suggestions emanates.
Revolution and emigration
Burliuk welcomed the October Revolution of 1917, seeing it as a logical continuation of the rebellion against the old world. However, just a year later, when the country faced famine and pogroms, he changed his mind. Initially, he toured cities in the Urals, Siberia, and the Far East, where the Whites were present. In 1920, Burliuk emigrated with his wife and children to Japan, under the pretext of showcasing Russian art abroad. There, he earned enough money to move to the United States, where he settled in 1922.
Life in america
At first, Burliuk lived a modest life: he worked for a pro-Soviet newspaper and gave lectures on life in the USSR. Later, he founded his own magazine, "Color and Rhyme."
Far from home and loved ones
Among strangers there is always one
I sip life from a boring bowl
Owner of a few hours
In his artistic work, Burliuk remained true to the traditions of Futurism. One of the most famous works from his period in exile is "Lenin and Tolstoy": both are depicted in a field, with Vladimir Lenin harnessed to a plow and Leo Tolstoy walking in front of a horse.
The future is Lenin, harnessed to the plow and, therefore, preparing the ground for the coming victories of Soviet Russia
Later years and recognition
Burliuk's financial situation improved only towards the end of the 1930s. He purchased a small estate on Long Island, where he built a studio and opened a gallery. He traveled throughout Europe with his wife, and after the war, he even visited the Soviet Union twice—though his works were never published there during his lifetime.
The writer Ilya Ehrenburg recalled one such visit:
American tourists, David Burliuk and his wife, arrived in Moscow. Burliuk paints in America, earns a decent living, and has become respectable and respectable. Futurism now seems much more ancient to me than Ancient Greece.
David Burliuk died in 1967 at the age of 84. His paintings are held in collections around the world.
I will slide into minds to disappear forever
