Victory over the Sun

Author(s): K. Tomashevsky
Source: The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Autumn, 1971), pp. 92-106
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1144702
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iqYI
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VictoryOver the Sun was a very importantperformance in the early history of the avant-garde. Produced in December, 1913, in St. Petersburg,Russia, it was primarilythe work of the three men pictured above: the composer Mikhail Matyushin (seated left), the designer Kazimir Malevich
(seated right) and the playwright Alexei (Alexander) Kruchenykh (lying
down). (Note the setting, which appears to consist of unmatched drop and
wings hung upside down. It is not known whether this arrangement was
actually used in Victory Over the Sun, but in the sixth scene of the opera,
there is the unusual stage direction:
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Thebackdropdesigned for Act 1, Scene 1, and Act 2,

Scenes 5 and 6.

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terial on RussianFuturism,Suprematismand their historicalbackground.)

VictoryOver the Sun was performed together with Mayakovsky'sVladimir Mayakovsky, a Tragedy. From the following description by K. Tomashevsky, who acted in both productions, it would appear that the opera and
the tragedy were presented on the same program; other sources indicate
that the two works were given on alternate evenings. Tomashevsky's
article, which bore the title "VladimirMayakovsky,"was published twentyfive years after the performances (Teatr, No. 4, 1938); as will be noticed, his
memory of particular lines does not always correspond to the published
text. Only those sections of the article that refer to Victory Over the Sun
and the conditions of its production are printed here: omissions are indicated
by line rules.

There appeared in an issue of the Constitutional Democrat's newspaper

Speech, a less respected and more popular newspaper than the Contemporary
Word, a small notice that VladimirMayakovskywas inviting all those who wished
to audition at the first reading of his tragedy, VladimirMayakovsky,to come to the
TroyitskyTheatre. This invitation was stuck in between familiar and unimportant
notices about students giving lessons in exchange for bed and board, and about
runawaydoberman pinschers and pugs. A statement at the end of the notice read:
"Actorsdo not bother to come, please."
We-a group of typical mustachioed St. Petersburg students of those timesfirst laughed at Mayakovsky's banishment of actors. Then, in a devil-may-care
attitude,we decided to go and apply for work with this newly emerged manager.
It was a sunny Sunday in October. We walked gaily along Nevsky Prospect.
None of us had seriously considered the possibility of being hired, but we all anticipated some amusing and unusual entertainment. We had before us the opportunity not only of seeing the Futurists,but of getting to know them, so to speak, in
their own creative environment.
We arrived at the TroyitskyTheatre. It has survived until now, a small building
in crude, modern style. We had sometimes come there as spectators (with student tickets for fifty kopecks), and now we walked in with an air of importance, as
the official doorman showed us how to get to the foyer where the reading was
to take place. There already was a crowd of students of both sexes, grinning in anticipation of the coming entertainment. The gathering, however, was not very
large. Everyone whispered to one another, exchanged knowing glances, and quite
openly chuckled. In short, they were not in a very serious mood. Only one tall,
handsome student stood apart from the whispering groups, trying to show that he
had not come to fool around. Thisyouth, who was unlike us, drew our attention.
Making our way through the clusters of skeptically laughing young men and
women, we looked for the host, the author of this tragedy about himself. He stood at
the other end of the foyer, among the producers of the Futuristproductions. We
recognized him at once. Dressed in a top hat, gloves, and an impeccable black coat,
he was tall, slender and dignified. Mayakovskyhandled himself like a real host, manager and authentic masterof the FuturistBohemiansgathered around him.
Mayakovsky looked provocative: he had the qualities of a provincial lead-

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ing actor but, at the same time, his pride

was likable and prepossessing. All the
other Futurists looked grey compared
to him. They kept in the background
and remained unnoticed.
Quite a number of Futuristswere
i
present. There was VladimirRappaport,
a bustling, little, rotund man-later the
author of a well-known operettaparody, Ivanov Pavil. He, for some reason, joined the Futurists and was extremely active in their productions as
an administratorand even as a director.
Kruchenykh,a sharp-faced man with a
little snout, pushed past from one end
of the foyer to the other, looking about
him distrustfully. The Futurist Matyushin, a slow and reliable composer,
leaned toward Rappaport,looking worried. The painter Filonov looked around
impassivelyand almost superciliously.
Eventually,a small table was placed
in the middle of the foyer. Mayakovsky,
The Attentive Worker.
clapping his hands, announced that the
reading would begin. He took the script
out of his coat pocket, sat at the table and, without taking off his top hat, began to
read.
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To our big surprise, the meeting was not over [after the reading of Vladimir
Mayakovsky]. It was announced that Kruchenykh's opera Victory Over the Sun
would be presented together with Mayakovsky'stragedy. Kruchenykh,at that time
an excessively restless and meddlesome young man, took Mayakovsky'splace at
the table. I had the immediate feeling that he was being meddlesome in an effort
to bring some color to his hopelessly grey appearance. He reminded one of a telegraph office clerk, or a salesman who secretly wrote love poems behind the
counter.
Victory Over the Sun turned out to be pure nonsense and abracadabra.As
Kruchenykh began to read, there were chuckles and laughter, but after a while,
everyone became very bored. Kruchenykh read very badly and the text itself, regardless of its abstruseness, was so grey and colorless that it was a good time to
yawn, not to laugh.
I immediately got two parts in the "opera": The Ill-Intentioned One and the
Elocutionist. Muzalevsky and Tikhonov were supposed to perform the two Futurecountrymen. All the other parts were filled (there were a lot of them). Kruchenykh turned out to be less demanding than Mayakovsky-he hired many of
those turned down by Mayakovskyfor his own opera.
The Futuristperformances were to take place in the Luna ParkTheatre. This
theatre on Officers' Street, now called Decembrists' Street, enjoyed deserved fame.
Itshistorywas richwith manydifferent theatricalevents.
At the end of the 1890's, a provincial second-rate actress, Nemetti, founded a

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unprofitable, and Nemetti gave up managing it. There was a large garden next to
the theatre where fairly good farce groups worked successfully on an outdoor stage
for a long time. They had a very questionable and commercial repertoire: To the
Strainsof Chopin, Radiumin Someone Else'sBed, and so on.
The championship art of French fighting* was also presented there, starringthe
well-known "Uncle Vanya." "Uncle Vanya," in a blue, unbuttoned poddyovka
[a man's long waisted coat] and a student's hat pushed to the back of his head, announced in an imitativemanner: "And now I have the honor of presenting ..."
The farces and French fighting were good box-office attractions, and soon, inspired by their success, the farce group moved into the indoor theatre.
In 1905, a popular review, Days of Freedom, was presented at the theatre. Cutting remarksabout the police regime were made from the stage.
In other countries they can
Controlpersons with a word
And save cartridges
Here... it is the opposite...
This verse roused a storm of applause, and the public flocked to the theatre.
The Days of Freedom did not lastfor long, however, and the review was taken off.
Vera F. Komissarzhevskayaand Vsevolod Meyerhold arrived in 1906. They
started their own theatre, known under the name of Komissarzhevskaya.Here Meyerhold displayed his "experiments." But neither Hedda Gabler, nor Maeterlinck's
Sister Beatrice, nor Andreyev's Life of Man were successful. Attendance was very
low. The only success at the KomissarzhevskayaTheatre was the play by Wedekind,
Spring'sAwakening, in which sex problems were discussed.
The Theatre of Vera F. Komissarzhevskayadid not have a long existence. Meyerhold soon left it. The theatre existed for awhile without Meyerhold, but financial
difficulties were growing and Komissarzhevskayahad to cease being manager. Her
place was taken by a provincial manager called Niezlobin. It was then that the garden next to the theatre was enlarged, and American attractions were introduced.
Thisand the indoor theatre received the Americanname, LunaPark.
Such was the history of the theatre in which the Futuristperformances were
produced.
Rehearsalsbegan.

The situation was much worse with Kruchenykh's"opera." Kruchenykhasked

us to pronounce all the words with pauses between each syllable. It sounded like:
"The cam-el-like

fac-to-ries al-read-y threat-en us ..."

As a matter of fact, he

was constantly inventing and finding something new, and getting on everyone's
nerves. He especially annoyed Rappaport,who was helping him direct the play.
Finally the "trick" was found to open the "opera." The "trick" consisted of
the following: Two Futurecountrymen came on stage. One of them said, "All
is well that begins well!" The other one asked, "What about the end?" The an*We believe that this refers to a Frenchstyle of boxing in which the fighters are allowed to use
their feet as well as their hands-Eds.

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this exchange, the "Futurecountryiiii::::j:::,-,:

e:-:c;:s~s~i'~~i~
~~lilii~iiiiiiiii
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lii::-:iis_-men" tore a paper curtain that was
painted completely in Cubist style, and
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the opera began.
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After accomplishing the "trick,"
"'??"'"'tii~,:::::-i
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Kruchenykh rested on his laurels and
calmed down.
i:::::;:iiiiii:
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During the rehearsalsof the Futur?i::?i::--i::_iic-::~ Eiii'ijiiiii-:,l-::
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li::i:i!)z!i:-:i!i
ist plays at Luna Park, the theatre became a sort of Futuristsalon. Here one
could meet all the Futurists,beginning
with the handsome Kublin,who was an
assistantprofessor at the Army Medical
Academy, and ending with the inexperienced puppies who persistently
followed Burliukand the other Futurist
masters around. Everyone came there:
Futuristpoets, critics,and painters.
Velimir (at that time, still called
Victor) Khlebnikov, in comparison to
the others, rarely showed up. He was
silent, reserved and kept to himself. He
would usuallysit somewhere in a corner
to watch the rehearsal. Silent, he
showed neither enthusiasm nor displeasure. But somehow, it always hapUnidentifiedplayer.
pened that he was approached, first by
one person, then by another, until at
the end he became the center of a Futuristgroup. At that point, he used to drop
some remark,to which everyone listened with great respect and, if it concerned the
performance,it was acted on immediately.
Among the permanent participants in the rehearsals were: the composer
Matyushin, who wrote the music for Kruchenykh'sopera, and the painters Malevich, Filonov and Shkolnik. Malevich did the scenery and costumes for the opera.
The painted scenery was cubist and non-objective: On the backdrops were
painted conical and spiral forms similar to those painted on the curtain (that the
Futurecountrymen tore apart.) The costumes were made of cardboard and resembled armorpainted in cubist style.

Matyushin's music for the opera was original and interesting. But, as a matter
of fact, there was more talking than singing in the opera. Music burst upon the
action only occasionally. If I remember correctly, there were only one or two truly
singing characters. The most important role of the Aviator was sung by the then
well-known tenor, Richter, who was an artist from the People's House [an inexpensive theatre in the St. Petersburg suburbs.] It was in this way that Kruchenykh
departed from Mayakovsky'sprinciple, "Actors, do not bother to come, please."

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And white legged

A fried cutlet
Dead cat
And the second one:
The lake sleeps
Plentyof dust
Plentyof shavings
And gun bodies...
The arias, as well as Matyushin's entire score, are like a parody of Verdi. At
first Richter felt uncomfortable when he had to intentionally sing off pitch. But
later he became used to it and honestly performed that Futuristnuance. He had
more difficulty remembering Kruchenykh's dogma about the neuter gender that,
supposedly, does not exist; hence, lake [masculine] instead of lake [neuter].
All the Futurists,especially Kruchenykh, were very enthusiastic about Matyushin's music. "Wonderful!" shouted Kruchenykh, pathetically waving his hands.
"Outstanding! That's certainly not Tchaikovsky!" Only Mayakovsky was indifferent to the music and the vocal experiments of the text by Matyushin and Kruchenykh. But Mayakovsky gentlemanly hid his indifference by kind and slightly
cunning smiles. Sometimes he would even tell Kruchenykh: "You know, it's nice.
Very nice. Very..." Speaking in barely discernible sarcastic tones, Mayakovsky
cheerfully hid behind a maskof friendly good-naturedness.

..... Posters were pasted up around town, and groups of animated citizens
gathered around them. Notices appeared in the newspapers. The most playful notices appeared in the "yellow" press: The St. Petersburg Gazette and the St.
Petersburg Page. The rag magazines, anticipating a scandal, carnivorously smacked
their lips and cheerfully sharpened their pens.
... Kolia Tomasovsky, nicknamed "Siskin" [a small European finch] because
of his rather small size and incredible liveliness, made us laugh when, with a deadpan expression, he pattered senseless sentences from Kruchenykh's opera very
quickly like drum beats. He had a "responsible" part in the opera, but in Mayakovsky'stragedy, he had only to say: "Figaro! Figaro! Gazette!" He would cry out:
"Is emptiness deep?" hitting his chest with his fist. Then suddenly he would patter:
"We built into the past, plenty of dust, plenty of shavings,"and similarnonsense.
Kruchenykh was very fond of Tomasovsky's way of speaking. He allowed him

to turn the words into a patteringmess ratherthan chopping them apart.

Poor Siskinwas killed in the Turkishwar about two years later.

A couple of incidents occurred during the dress rehearsal of the opera. First
the Futurecountrymen could not tear the curtain. Then, Siskin became so carried
away with his pattering that he could not stop for several minutes. Those watching
laughed so hard their stomachs ached. Rappaport reproved him, but Kruchenykh,
very pleased, shook his hand.

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The third incident involved The IIIIntentioned One, the role I was play1"
so
ing. At the moment when the Aviator,
sung by Richter, had reached the
. ....
place in his aria, "The Lake Sleeps,"
where he had to sing off key, I crawled
out on stage and was preparingto shoot
him with a gun. No one had told me
that I must shoot up in the air. I aimed
realistically at Richter and pulled the
trigger. Pow!-a report was heard;
Richter turned pale, clutched his
stomach and ran off stage. Apparently,
I was too zealous and had hit him with
wads in the pit of his stomach. Even
Z7F,_7
though the cardboard armor proT2r
tected him to some degree, Richter
was frightened. During the performance, he timidly glanced at me, fearful that I would forget to shoot up
again and would hit him in the eye
with a wad.
The first performance took place
the same evening. There was a "sold
out" sign over the box office. Numerous profiteers energetically bargained
on the street in front of the theatre
and in the foyer. Scandal lovers from
the St. Petersburg demimonde were
The Ill-IntentionedOne.
willing to pay enormous amounts of
to
into
theatre.
the
money get
The bright gas lamps went on, and the doors began to slam hurriedly.Streams
of spectators poured into the theatre.
Those who lived in St. Petersburg at that time will remember the picture of
spectators arrivingat the theatres. Sleds and private, elegant equipages with liverymen drew up to the theatre. Ladies muffled in fur wore pink and blue knitted
hoods (to protect their coiffures). Dashing officers jingled their spurs. Hemorrhoidal officials walked on the theatre's carpets with an air of importance. St.
Petersburg dandies arrived in dinner jackets and tailcoats. Students in doublebreasted jackets and girl students in modest blouses gathered upstairs. Middleclass theatre patronesses sat in the grand tier. Priest-criticsappeared with stony
faces: Yuri Believ of New Time, Kugel (Homo Novus) of Theatreand Art [the leading St. Petersburg theatrical periodical], Izmailov of Bourse News, Rossovsky of
the St. PetersburgPage, and others.
There were police-in excessive numbers-by the theatre entrance and in the
foyer. Even the assistantto the chief of city police, Galli, came. The students of St.
Petersburg were acquainted with him: It was he who, at the head of a group of
armed policemen, burst into a university building during several student gatherings. It was he who led the dispersal of student demonstrations on Nevsky Prospect. His presence in the theatre indicated that the police were seriously worried
about the Futuristperformances. One could be sure that if Galli was there, plenty
of police would be hiding in the neighborhood. Their worried imaginations had
'g

2ff

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AIV

members of the intelligentsia or students. There were no workers at all. In those

years, with few exceptions, workers did not attend the theatre. Even if they went,
they would attend suburban and inexpensive theatres like the People's House,
Vasileostrovskyand the Guideburov.
The first bell rang; then the second. The well-dressed public quickly filled
the orchestra. The "heavens" were dark and modest and seemed crowded with
spectators. There were the characteristic buzzing sounds, well-known to every
theatregoer, that mean the curtainwill be going up in a few minutes.
Some time ago, Belinskywrote: "Do you like the theatre? Is it possible to dislike the theatre?" Alas, that evening the majorityof persons came not out of love,
but out of unhealthy curiosity, out of a craving for scandal. Impudent expectation
of fun showed on their faces ratherthan a reverent love of theatre.

... Matyushin and Kruchenykh'sopera VictoryOver the Sun fully rewarded the
spectators after the strong and unpleasant feelings they had experienced during
the first half of the evening. Now they could throw aside all restraintand roar with
laughter over Kruchenykh'sabstruseness and Matyushin's cacophony. There were
Futurecountrymen, Ill-Intentioned Ones, Aviators, and completely harmless characterswho were saying and singing unmitigated nonsense and nothing else.
The opera was as easy to look at as it was interesting, and there were many intermissions. In other words, it was just this abstruse but interesting Futurismthat
the St. Petersburg public wanted, since they had a weakness for unusual sights.
Kruchenykhwas whistled and hissed at as much as, if not more than, Mayakovsky,
but the public was not angry; they shouted happy remarksat the actors, who swallowed them silently,without answering back.
The public became angry and howled with real spite only once. It was before
the third and fourth scenes when the Elocutionist,who I was playing, appeared in
front of the curtain. I was wearing something like a monk's robe and hood. The
hood covered almost my entire face. The public thought that I was Kruchenykh,because Mayakovsky had appeared in his own work. The audience became alert.
The first words did not make a big impression, but at the end of my speech I pronounced this sentence: "Only gnawed-at skulls run on just four legs-likely
(pointing at the audience) they are donkeys' skulls!"
I could not see what was happening in the auditorium very well because of my
hood. But hearing the howls and frenzied shouting that broke out in response to
my words, I could easily imagine that splendid sight. Spectators were jumping up from their seats, shaking their fists. "You're a donkey yourself!" they unanimously howled. Nearly the entire audience stood up then, except for a few people
on "our" side. I rushed to hide behind stage. I was just in time, for some heavy
fruit buzzed by my ear. In the wings, I almost ran into the incomparable author of
the opera. He enthusiasticallywatched the angry audience through a crack in the
curtains. "Do you hear that?" I asked him with a note of lively malice. Kruchenykh
threw up his hands theatrically and pathetically exclaimed: "What a success! What
a remarkable success!" However, that was the only incident to disturb the quiet
flow of the opera.
Kruchenykh received feeble hisses and sarcastic applause, and when this unmitigated abstruseness was over, everyone left satisfied and happy. They had had
the opportunityto witness Futuristnonsense.

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time,
Mayakovsky
applause
day
fore. However,there was no lack of whistling and malice.
Soon afterward, daily student demonstrations began. During the spring, I
was expelled from St. Petersburg for participatingin student disorders. War broke
out, and we were dispersed to many partsof the country.

Mikhail Matyushin,who composed the music for VictoryOver the Sun,

also described the origins and performance of the opera. His spirited defense of the Futuristwork, written about a month after the productions, aprusskixfuturistov, No. 1-2, Moscow 1914.
peared in Futuristy:pervyj
It was headed "Futurismin.urnal
St. Petersburg" and a sub-title read "Performances on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th of December, 1913." The complete
article follows:

There was recently an enormous success for Futurism,which gathered a large

number of people in St. Petersburgto attend more than forty lectures, discussions
and debates. There also were two striking and significant presentations: The
Tragedy of V. Mayakovsky, by Mayakovsky,and the opera, Victory Over the Sun.
The latter was written by A. Kruchenykh,with staging and costumes by K. Malevich, and music by M. V. Matyushin. They were both performed in the beginning
of December at the theatre formerly called Komissarzhevskaya.These two productions left the St. Petersburg press in a state of complete ignorance and perplexity
about the importanceof these events.
And above all, the leading masters
of the written word had shown their
utter, vulgar, dark ignorance. Is it possible that they are so tightly knit by
their herd instinct that it does not allow
iiiii::i:iii
them to have a close look, to learn and
to mediate about what is happening in
literature, music and the visual arts at
.............
i
the present time?
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;
In the visual arts: complete displace01W
ment of planes, displacements of visual
introduction
of
new
conrelationships,
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cepts of relief and weight, dynamics
of form and color.
In music: new ideas of harmony and
of melody, new pitch (quarter of a
tone), simultaneous movement of four
completely independent voices (Reger,
The House: Act 2, Scene 5.
Schoenberg).

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genius, Khlebnikov).
In this way were created:
In visualarts:the breakdown of old academic drawing, boring classicism.
In music: the breakdown of old sound, boring diatonic music.
In literature: the breakdown of old, worked over, cluttered words, boring
word-meaning.
Only those who are in darkness do not see the light-the deaf do not hear the
new sound.
Suddenly our deep Russiancreation rises-spit upon by the ignorant, backward
large newspapers. They did not anticipate how those people who were frightening
away their sleep would defend themselves-and is it fair to strike the undefended?
There was not one positive word said in their favor, since the press was given orders
to spit upon and criticize them.
But what happened? Was it an outrageous, pornographic, or illegal excitement
of minds? Let'sput it this way: As a result of the gradually rising changes in life and
also, consequently, in creative work, the transition from academicism to impressionism, and then to Cubism and Futurism,in short, a new dimension in all the arts,
our Russian youth, without any knowledge of the new theatre experiments
abroad, presented the first performance on a stage in St. Petersburg of the disintegrationof concepts and words, of old staging, and of musicalharmony.
They presented a new creation, free of old conventional experiences and complete in itself, using seemingly senseless words-picture-sound-new indications of
the future that lead into eternity and give a joyful feeling of strength to those who
reverentlywill lend an ear and look at it. They will light up with the joy of someone
who has found a treasure and will not become a savage who laughs heartily-or becomes senselessly angry and animalistically spiteful when, for the first time, he
hears or sees some complicated mechanism, invented after centuries of investigation, even something like the telegraph or liquid air.
The newspapers behave like New Zealand Papuans.This is apparent because of
their sandwich-like staleness and unwillingness to follow the present growth of
the creative soul. Instead, they are paying exceptional attention to the
emoderivative fictions of everyday petty reality and its generalization, without anycliche,
tional reaction ... And this is called reflection of public opinion!
The idea of a joint creative work by a poet, painter and musician arose last summer in Finland,and a number of propositions on new creativeness were drawn up
in a "Manifestoof Futurists"that was printed during the fall in many newspapers.*
Also during the summer, participantsin the conference decided to work on a
collective creation based on the new principles of word, drawing and music.
Half a year of enormous collective work went into creating Victory Over the
Sun. The artistic council of the Union of Youth finally decided to perform Victory
Over the Sun and the tragedy Vladimir Mayakovsky after many difficulties and dis-

cussions.

*In July, 1913, "a group of Futurists held a conference

in Usikirko, Finland, which was called

rather grandiloquently 'The All-National Congress of FuturistWriters.' Little is known about

the proceedingsof, and the participantsin, this 'Congress,'but soon a 'declaration'apMalevichandMatyupressbearingthe signaturesof Kruchenykh,
pearedin the St.Petersburg
shin, and announcingthe decisionof the Congressto organizea Futuristtheatreunderthe

name of 'Budetlyanin.'" Pp. 141-142, Russian Futurism:A History by VladimirMarkov, Univ-

Press,1968.
versityof California

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who did not have the slightest idea of the progressive work being done in art, which
resulted in all sorts of unpleasant situations and obstacles. They had to recruit students who were amateur performersfor the opera and the tragedy. Only two leading
parts in the opera were sung by experienced singers. There was a very bad chorus
of seven people, of whom only three could sing. The management, disregarding all
our requests and persistence, hired them two days before the performance. Considering the intricacyof the composition, it was impossible to prepare anythingwell.
A broken-down, out-of-tune piano, which took the place of an orchestra, was
delivered on the day of the performance.
And what was happening to Kazimir Malevich, who, for economic reasons,
was not allowed to paint with the colors and in the dimensions he had planned? The
costumes were not made according to his drawings and wishes. There was no possibility of making a sufficient number of duplicate costumes. Considering that this
great painter had to paint scenery while receiving the most vulgar mockery and idiotic laughter from all kinds of people from the operetta theatre, one is amazed at
his energy and the fact that he created twenty large pieces of decor in four days.
Here, I would like to mention with great gratitude those student-performers
who fulfilled their tasks in the opera very well and also, according to our decisions, spoke the words without music, pausing for long intervalsbetween each word.
In that way, a word, alienated from its meaning, gave the impression of great
strength.
Speaking of misfortunes, one must mention that there were only two rehearsals
of the opera, including one dress rehearsal. There was a complete lack of understanding and appreciation from the management, excluding, of course, the representative from the Union of Youth. They demonstrated this lack by whistling from
the boxes and making a great deal of noise. With such a horseshoe kick, or even
without it, it seemed as if all the possibilitiesfor success were eliminated.
But new creativity is so healthy and strong that even with the most mediocre
exposure it did not allow anyone to destroy it.
On the day of the performance, there was so much interest and sympathy
shown by half the audience and such a strong expression of revulsion from the other
half that never in my entire life in St. Petersburgdid I ever receive such a shock, or
experience such a Cyclopean scandal during a premiere as I did then. There was
boisterous shouting at the top of their lungs from half the spectators: "Out! Down
with the Futurists!"and from the other half: "Bravo! Don't disturb us! Down with
the brawlers!" But even this tumult and scandal could not destroy the strong impression made by the opera. There was such inner strength in each word, the
scenery and Future Man appeared so powerfully and threateningly in a way never
seen anywhere before, the music moved so gently and resiliently around the words,
the paintings and Future People and Strong Men conquered the cheap, pretentious sun and lit their own light inside themselves.
There was so much unexpected magic in it, that it is impossible to understand
the huge public scandal . . . One wanted to shout: "Listen! Rejoice, because the

long-awaited is already born, and it doesn't matter whether Hercules has already
crushed you in your cradle, rebel against him!"
The life of a new creation is strong. It is important to see and hear its appearance in time.
The Tragedyof VladimirMayakovsky represents an enormous exposure of impressionism in the symbolic use of words. But Mayakovsky never divorces a word
from its meaning, he does not recognize that the sound of a word is priceless in it-

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Even though I do not minimize the significance of his play, I still consider this
production to be much below his creative capacities.

In her book The Great Experiment,mentioned earlier, CamillaGraystates

that "in Victory Over the Sun the actors wore papier-mach heads half
again as tall as their bodies and performed on a narrow strip of stage using
marionette gestures..." Two notes included in the book give more information about the staging of the opera. The first, which follows, is an "extract
from unpublished memoirs of Kruchenykh, Nash Vuikbod (Our Exit), on
the play. . ."

. The scenery and stage effects were as I expected and wanted. A blinding
light from the projectors. The scenery by Malevich was made of big sheets-triangles, circles, bits of machinery. The actors' masks reminded one of modern gasmasks. The Likari [a neologism from Lik, meaning image or face-TDR] reminded
one of moving machines. Malevich's costumes were Cubist-like, made of cardboard and wire. They transformed the human anatomy, and the actors moved,
held and directed by the rhythm dictated by the artist and director. What particularly struck the audience in the play were the songs of the Coward (in vowels) and
of the Aviator (entirely in consonants). Professional actors sang. The public demanded an encore, but the actors were shy and did not come out. The choral song
of the Gravediggers, which was composed with unexpected intervals and dissonances, was performed to a completely furious public. (The point of the opera is
to destroy one of the greatest artistic conventions, the sun in the given instance.
In men's minds there exist certain means of human communication which have
been created by human thought. The Futuristswish to free themselves from this
ordering of the world, from these means of thought communication, they wish to
transform the world into chaos, to break the established values into pieces and
from these pieces to create anew.)

The second note in The Great Experiment is an "extract from an interview given by Malevich and Matyushin to the newspaper Den, on the performance of Victory Over the Sun in the Luna Park Theatre, St. Petersburg,
December 1913."

. . The curtain flew up, and the spectator found himself in front of a second

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sounded, and the second curtain parted in two, and an announcer and troubadour
appeared and an I-don't-know-what with bloody hands and a big cigarette. He
began to read the prologue. The prologue ended. Odd war-like cries sounded,
and the new curtain again divided in two. From above a piece of cardboard was
lowered, covered all over with war-like colors. On it two life-like warrior figures
of two knights were depicted. All this in a blood-red color. The drop-curtainswere
abandoned. Now the action began. The most diverse masks came forward and
walked off. The backcloths were changed, and the moods changed. Ear-splitting
noises sounded and gun-shots rangout ....

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One of the significantaspects of VictoryOver the Sun is its concern with

the nature of language: rules of grammar and syntax are worked against
rather than merely broken, new words are invented and passages
written in zaum, the Futurist transrational language of pure sound.* This
approach makes the opera difficult to translate with accuracy; at times translation is not possible. Indeed, the linguistic complexity of Khlebnikov's
prologue is so great that the version published here can only be considered
an approximation.
One of the most obvious problems of translationderives from the Russian use of neuter, masculine and feminine forms. In the prologue, Khlebnikov makes the same word alternately masculine and feminine and gender
can, somewhat awkwardly,be indicated to the reader-if not the listenerwith parentheses. Kruchenykh, too, changes gender, as in the Traveler's
song in the first scene, where the neuter word "lake" is given a masculine
form. Although this change is meaningful in the context of the opera, it has
no Englishequivalent.
Even the zaum or pure sound passages present problems of translation.
In the first scene, Nero and Caligula sings letters of the alphabet. (The singular has just been used, not in emulation of Kruchenykh's destruction
of grammar, but because two actors are joined, as Cocteau would do later
in his Romeo and Juliet, into one two-headed character.) Since the Russian
letters have no exact English equivalent, however, Ewa Bartos has chosen
to render the Russiansounds phonetically.
In several cases, Kruchenykh creates a noun from a verb, and these
changes cannot always be rendered clearly in English.The verb "to sell" can,
when converted into a noun indicating a place in the last line of the first
scene, become "sellery," but the transformation of "to threaten" into the
noun "threateners" in an earlier song by the Traveleris even less pointed
and effective. In like manner, the sounds of words are very important, yet
no translation can capture the dimensions of both sound and meaning.
Sometimes the use of sound is poetic, echoing endings or entire words: in
Russian, for example, the words translated as "sword" and "ball" in a
speech of the Ill-Intentioned One in the first scene sound almost identical.
On the other hand, it is possible to find Englishequivalents for many of
Kruchenykh's linguistic deformations. Extra consonants, a lack of agreement in number, unusual gramatical order, verbs created from nouns, neologisms and so forth can be rendered with some accuracy. Certainly, the
not always the specific-nature
general-if
work
is apparent in translation.
significant

and variety of his historically

*For an explanation of zaum as well as for information on the artistic movement of which Victory Over the Sun was one manifestation, see Vladimir Markov's important, scholarly and detailed book Russian Futurism: a History (University of California, 1968).

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